"The Game is not Balanced around IO's"..... should it be?

[Seed22]

6 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Would 3 points of mez protection that kicks in at lvl 10 added to the inherents of all squishy ATs homogenize everything? They'd still get mezzed through that but it wouldn't be nearly the binary fun vs mezzed that the current situation creates. And it wouldn't involve respecs nor would it force a change in tactics.

 

You left off Stalkers and Sentinels, by the by. Not that I play stalkers but, yes, I don't enjoy having to hide or constantly back away from fights or analyze every spawn every mission because one mis-step means having to use a rez or a hospital trip or waiting around for someone else to pick me up off the floor.

 

I don't judge ATs by how easy they are. I judge them by how annoying they are to play at a level to which I've grown accustomed. Masterminds are the only AT I refuse to play due to considering them completely broken in a bad way. Stalkers I don't play just cuz I don't like Hide.

 

I guess in the end, I simply dislike having to buy mez protection to have fun with some ATs when the other half of the archetypes don't have to. I don't consider that a balanced situation.

I dunno, even on SOs, if you have to hide and wait on a Stalker in this environment, that seems...not right at all. As for the rest of the discussion, I’m on the side of keep it as is. Not because I use SOs(I send myself full builds and $$. Dont need SOs), but because I know others do. 

[Galaxy Brain]

5 hours ago, Seed22 said:

I dunno, even on SOs, if you have to hide and wait on a Stalker in this environment, that seems...not right at all. As for the rest of the discussion, I’m on the side of keep it as is. Not because I use SOs(I send myself full builds and $$. Dont need SOs), but because I know others do. 

I agree with this, but at the same time it's why I ask "how many people use IOs?" In the general sense. 

[kiramon]

I don’t want my character to be useable in full IOs and worthless when not, I already have expectations for my power level in full IOS- which is the only way I play anyways (plvl and fully io before doing any content at all on that character).

 

as a side note/ I didn’t read anything in this thread at all

[Coyotedancer]

In general, I think we're fine where we are...

 

That aside, the "hit and run" lifestyle hasn't really been A Thing for Stalkers in years, Bill. That was pretty much in dodo-territory even before the ATO procs and "fast assassination" changes came along and really rocked the stalking world. You really ought to come run with Kai and Blue some time so we can show off what a couple of well-built Stalkers are like these days. 

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Coyotedancer said:

In general, I think we're fine where we are...

 

That aside, the "hit and run" lifestyle hasn't really been A Thing for Stalkers in years, Bill. That was pretty much in dodo-territory even before the ATO procs and "fast assassination" changes came along and really rocked the stalking world. You really ought to come run with Kai and Blue some time so we can show off what a couple of well-built Stalkers are like these days. 

Indeed. I don’t play many Scrappers (2) because Stalkers are much more enjoyable and quite durable with an IO build.

[ForeverLaxx]

14 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Would 3 points of mez protection that kicks in at lvl 10 added to the inherents of all squishy ATs homogenize everything? They'd still get mezzed through that but it wouldn't be nearly the binary fun vs mezzed that the current situation creates

Yes, it would bring things closer to homogenization by definition, but "only 3 points" just changes what gets through and what doesn't. The entire Mez system is binary by design; it either works or it doesn't. Three points might stop minions from affecting you easily without enough around to stack the effect, but LTs and higher will likely override what meager defense that is and render it functionally useless. At worse, the existence of even that small amount of mez protection could pull on the "power budget" table and cause other things to be adjusted to compensate for the added "safety". I'd be more willing to accept a level of mez protection themed to individual sets, such as Stun protection if you use Energy Manipulation, but not every set has an easy mez to flag "immunity" to nor does every AT have the sort of powerset something like that could slot in.

 

As a primarily Generic IO player due how slowly I actually level (intentionally, mind you), I just don't see the overwhelming need to push everything into the category of "can easily tackle +4/x8 content solo". My personal opinion is that too many ATs can do this already and would prefer power be lowered rather than raised, but I'm aware that's an unpopular opinion. Highly specialized builds for soloing tough content should be the exception rather than the norm, and this comes from someone who actually does raids solo in other games. There's a level of knowledge, prep work, and personal skill and timing involved to pull that sort of thing off, and while CoH has the knowledge and prep angle down, that knowledge is so wide-spread and accessible and the skill required to pilot it is so functionally nonexistent that many players just seem to assume that "soloing raids" is the baseline for comparison between character capability.

 

Frankly, I feel like much of this debate is centered around some idea that every AT needs to appeal to one particular way to play and I don't really ascribe to that notion.

 

14 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

You left off Stalkers and Sentinels, by the by

This is a bit of an aside, but I left those two out because I'm fairly certain you didn't play Stalkers due to the nature of the Hide mechanic "ruining flow" and Sentinels need work to find an identity.

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

That aside, the "hit and run" lifestyle hasn't really been A Thing for Stalkers in years, Bill.

Oh, it's not that, I just like seeing my costumes properly. It's also why I don't use Nrg Aura. 🙂

 

1 hour ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Yes, it would bring things closer to homogenization by definition, but "only 3 points" just changes what gets through and what doesn't. The entire Mez system is binary by design; it either works or it doesn't.

Even though I've stated the same, it's really not true. While there is the binary portion (mezzed or not mezzed) there's also the bit where getting hit with multiple mezzes stacks. Something you can watch while playing. Mez hits, you lose mez protection, as it drops off, your prot value goes back up.

 

This is why tanks get 13 to scrappers 10 pts. Giving squishies 3 would be nothing more than a buffer against the stray mez and not something I see a problem with.

 

1 hour ago, ForeverLaxx said:

and Sentinels need work to find an identity.

I like my fire/bio sent's identity: Burn it all to the ground while laughing.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Razia]

I currently see a lot of players that are incarnated but do not have any set boni on them. There are still a lot of casual players out there (you hardly find them here on the forums though) so I assume not all players do use IOs. Heck I had teams where someone mentioned that they do not have anything slotted at all and that wasn't a low level team. So I vote to leave it as it is.

[Razia]

On 1/22/2021 at 4:36 PM, CrudeVileTerror said:

I think you and I had a miscommunication somewhere, @Hyperstrike.

I am not in favour of getting slaughtered either.  Jack's vision was that 4 minions should be enough to defeat a player-character.

Hm, Blaster or Tanker? Or both? Because I can hardly beliefe it was intended that way. What would be the point of having a tank then?

[SwitchFade]

3 hours ago, Razia said:

Hm, Blaster or Tanker? Or both? Because I can hardly beliefe it was intended that way. What would be the point of having a tank then?

Jack emmert had a vision which included the stance that a player character was roughly equivilant to 3 even con MOBs. This was at base, and would scale with level and enhancing.

 

So, back in issue 1-5.5, yes, this was generally accurate. He did acknowledge that certain ATs could arrest more, survive more, control more, and would have to sacrifice accordingly; I.e. a tank may survive more than 3, but arresting was slow.. so, basic design scope was balanced around tuning everything to a 3:1 ratio in the 1-45 range...

 

Glad he was "promoted" 🤪

[Grouchybeast]

 

19 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Absolutely. It's why so many lean on Rune of Protection or hover blast with as much ranged defense as they can get. I'd place good money that the vast majority of us make all sorts of concessions in our builds, concessions not needed at all by those with built in mez protection, that given even a modicum of baked in protection would allow for a great many other things to improve our builds and lessen the aforementioned performance disparity.

See, I find Tankers and Brutes really boring to play, but I don't think that means there's anything inherently wrong with them, it just means that I don't enjoy playing them.  I want them to be left as they are so that the people who like playing Brutes and Tankers can play the game the way they like to play, and I can play the game the way I like to play with the ATs I enjoy.  If ATs were all adjusted so that I enjoyed every AT equally, there would be a lot of very disappointed players out there wondering why everything suddenly plays like a Blaster or a Defender.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

See, I find Tankers and Brutes really boring to play, but I don't think that means there's anything inherently wrong with them, it just means that I don't enjoy playing them.  I want them to be left as they are so that the people who like playing Brutes and Tankers can play the game the way they like to play, and I can play the game the way I like to play with the ATs I enjoy.  If ATs were all adjusted so that I enjoyed every AT equally, there would be a lot of very disappointed players out there wondering why everything suddenly plays like a Blaster or a Defender.

Yea, I can grok that.

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

See, I find Tankers and Brutes really boring to play, but I don't think that means there's anything inherently wrong with them, it just means that I don't enjoy playing them.  I want them to be left as they are so that the people who like playing Brutes and Tankers can play the game the way they like to play, and I can play the game the way I like to play with the ATs I enjoy.  If ATs were all adjusted so that I enjoyed every AT equally, there would be a lot of very disappointed players out there wondering why everything suddenly plays like a Blaster or a Defender.

If my goal was to simply kill ARREST! stuff as fast as possible, I could see not liking Brutes/Tanks.

Me, I just get off on shaking hands with enemy faces and smiling through every baseball bat to the face I get.

[Hyperstrike]

8 hours ago, Razia said:

Hm, Blaster or Tanker? Or both? Because I can hardly beliefe it was intended that way. What would be the point of having a tank then?

Part of it is a kill speed thing.

Squishies are softer targets (generally) so they have to be able to kill fast or lock enemies down.

Tanks are harder targets, but not TRULY unkillable.  Stack enough enemies on for long enough and you're going down.  PERIOD.
So it's a race to kill them before they kill you.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Hyperstrike said:

Tanks are harder targets, but not TRULY unkillable.  Stack enough enemies on for long enough and you're going down.  PERIOD.

Depends on the enemy and build. It is not a fact. I can go afk against several enemy factions at max diff with quite a few of my builds simply because my mitigation is greater than their incoming damage. Even my claws/sr brute is immortal against an aggro cap worth of +4 Cimerorans...

Edited January 25, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Galaxy Brain]

4 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Depends on the enemy and build. It is not a fact. I can go afk against several enemy factions at max diff with quite a few of my builds simply because my mitigation is greater than their incoming damage. Even my claws/sr brute is immortal against an aggro cap worth of +4 Cimerorans...

Pretty much this. Like sure, nobody is *by strict definition* unkillable, but vs 90% of the game you are immortal as long as you're actively playing on a ton of builds.

[gamingglen]

I'm content with playing at +0 or +1. If I'm running through the tip missions as fast as possible for reward merits I'll set it to -1 and stealth where I can. When I mentioned the former (0 or +1) in a chat someone thought I couldn't handle higher difficulty and my build was bad.  He was wrong; I guess he couldn't fathom not playing at the highest difficulty.  I use IOs and IO sets, I just play to bash heads. It's not like the AI gets smarter at higher difficulties, the mobs just have higher numbers.  How droll. 😉 

 

How about this, since we the players get to cheat with inspirations, let's let the mobs have some, too (one time only). We already have the Freaks effectively use a green one.

At +1 some use one small inspiration (more likely yellow.. let's offset that defense cap goofiness 😛).

At +2 some use a medium inspiration. 

At +3 some use a large inspiration.

At +4 all use a large. Isn't there something even bigger? 

 

Vary the inspiration based on the mob type, or let them eat a dual (yellow/red?  random between offense and defense?), Another option is to let LTs use a team oriented dual. Bosses use two.  With an AV, color party for everyone! 😄 

I would also have the mobs set up traps at certain points.  Sky Raider engineers already have their generator out as the warning has been sounded (random chance based on difficulty). Some have set land mines not visible to the PCs.  If it's their base why aren't there more automated defenses (i.e., pop-up turrets; trap doors that drop you to another level, or into a tank with laser-equipped sea bass)? 

 

[ivanhedgehog]

On 1/22/2021 at 12:23 PM, Infinitum said:

Easiest solution to me would be to add an option to add difficult spawns if you wanted them.  Or if you didn't to not use them.

 

I wouldnt be in favor of the game arbitrarily becoming more difficult across the board because sometimes you just want to have an easy roll.  Sometimes you want a challenge.

 

Dark Astoria - praetorian content from Maria - high level stuff from Unai.

 

It can get dicey at times even with maxed out builds - I think the main problem or non problem is a lot of people don't run the hard stuff that actually does exist.

 

If You run the task force of the week on +4/8 most of those will be a fair challenge from my experience - but a lot of times I set it to -1 because the team I'm with may not be up to that level or not want to slog through.

 

Thats why any changes should be options - not hauling off half the population to a different server as has been suggested here.

 

Options would solve the issue and appease everyone.

 

How to implement those options can be varied - difficulty setting that adds exotic spawns and dmg types is and has always been my solution.

Right now we have options. Schedule a tf at +4/8 with all incarnates unslotted. that should be plenty hard.

[ivanhedgehog]

On 1/22/2021 at 2:05 PM, CrudeVileTerror said:

So, different approach here, @Galaxy Brain . . . if I understood your last post correctly.  What if instead of trying to balance the game because many players use lynch pin IOs/Sets, what if we try to diminish the impact of those lynch pins by adding more features to existing Sets and give players reasons to diversify and explore more directions with their builds?

I like that. there are a bunch of sets that are plain garbage.

[ivanhedgehog]

On 1/24/2021 at 7:02 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Would 3 points of mez protection that kicks in at lvl 10 added to the inherents of all squishy ATs homogenize everything? They'd still get mezzed through that but it wouldn't be nearly the binary fun vs mezzed that the current situation creates. And it wouldn't involve respecs nor would it force a change in tactics.

 

You left off Stalkers and Sentinels, by the by. Not that I play stalkers but, yes, I don't enjoy having to hide or constantly back away from fights or analyze every spawn every mission because one mis-step means having to use a rez or a hospital trip or waiting around for someone else to pick me up off the floor.

 

I don't judge ATs by how easy they are. I judge them by how annoying they are to play at a level to which I've grown accustomed. Masterminds are the only AT I refuse to play due to considering them completely broken in a bad way. Stalkers I don't play just cuz I don't like Hide.

 

I guess in the end, I simply dislike having to buy mez protection to have fun with some ATs when the other half of the archetypes don't have to. I don't consider that a balanced situation.

I agree. even if they added a power pool with some mez protection I would at least have an option.

[Razia]

4 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

Part of it is a kill speed thing.

Squishies are softer targets (generally) so they have to be able to kill fast or lock enemies down.

Tanks are harder targets, but not TRULY unkillable.  Stack enough enemies on for long enough and you're going down.  PERIOD.
So it's a race to kill them before they kill you.

Still need to find a mob, that is killing my SD Tank with all the resists she got stacked on top of the defenses.

[Hyperstrike]

33 minutes ago, Razia said:

Still need to find a mob, that is killing my SD Tank with all the resists she got stacked on top of the defenses.

I'm not talking about a "Billion Dollar Baby" (end build).

I'm talking about, generally, through the game.  Anything from brand new, through SOs.

[Doomguide2005]

On 1/24/2021 at 8:02 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Would 3 points of mez protection that kicks in at lvl 10 added to the inherents of all squishy ATs homogenize everything? They'd still get mezzed through that but it wouldn't be nearly the binary fun vs mezzed ... 

 

I guess in the end, I simply dislike having to buy mez protection to have fun with some ATs when the other half of the archetypes don't have to. I don't consider that a balanced situation.

A bit of a tangent. 

A few random thoughts about adding inherent mez protection to 'squishies'.

 

     Meant to cover all/most mez vs a few common types?  Are you thinking just sleep, stun and hold or 'everything'?

     I'd be more open to (testing) an inherent that scaled with team size. And even more so only kicked in when solo (and/or perhaps kicked in when they are the only one with positive health, i.e.not defeated)

      I think starting at 10th might be a bit early.  I'd want to avoid anything that made it competitive with receiving buffs from teammates particularly buffs from primary power sets.  Most defender primaries get their mez protection power between 8th and 12th so 12th is about as early as I think might be test worthy.  Even this is going to compete with Corruptors and others with the buffs in the secondary (albeit presumably lower protection values and/or mez types covered by the inherent).  

     Perhaps resistance rather than protection.  Or solo gets protection and thereafter scales up with team size with resistance.

 

 

    

[DrBasics]

I think a couple of good ideas to balance (or bridge the gap) of bare-bones and top-end builds. Both would effect only radio/newspaper missions.

 

• Allow level of enemies to be increased to +6.
• Allow players the option to make the "named enemy" an Elite Boss or Arch Villain

The fact that this would only work in radio/newspaper missions wouldn't screw with any Task/Strike force missions, and I tend to think the reason that radio missions have consistently been popular is because of how easy it is to jump in and jump out, for those of us with busy lives that require is to leave the keyboard for extended periods of time (read: spouse and kids!).

 

This way both sides of the coin would get what they want. Granted, I didn't give much thought into what it takes to implement these changes and/or the negative effects this may (or may not) have.

[Razia]

9 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

I'm not talking about a "Billion Dollar Baby" (end build).

I'm talking about, generally, through the game.  Anything from brand new, through SOs.

It's not, not a single purple besides the ATOs which I did not buy as purples, but did convert them when I hit 50.