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

[hastened]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

Not to totally dismiss @Brutal Justice could there be something in what they are saying?

 

I don't remember if it was Bopper or Galaxy Brain who showed some graphs on the effectiveness of defense over the cap vs defense debuffs.

 

Maybe dropping self defense cap to 40 with  a team defense cap that goes to 45 has some merit or maybe there is an idea in there that is worth a closer look.

Yes.  The sort of reasonable point in there is that a soft cap of 40% on non-tanks would help balance Def vs. Res sets.  A hard cap just causes huge amounts of problems with to hit debuffs/hit buffs and defense focused sets like forcefields while being worse at the desired goal of balancing damage mitigation types than a soft cap.  A 40% hard cap is just a really, really bad idea even if the underlying premise it is trying to fix is accepted as needing fixing.  That part is more debatable, but even if you agree with the underlying point you defintiely should not try to fix it with a hard cap.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Troo said:

Not to totally dismiss @Brutal Justice could there be something in what they are saying?

 

No, because the premise, reasoning and conclusion are all flawed.

 

IO sets aren't a/the problem.  They never have been, they never will be.  The problem is that this game is old.  Face it, boys and girls, we've had nearly 20 years to find ways to beat the game, and we've gotten ridiculously good at it.  We were so good at it that we had to live through drastic nerfs like GDN and ED when we were just starting to settle into the game, and even those didn't do more than sort of, kind of slow us down slightly.  And that little hiatus that we had to spend without the game didn't really slow us down either, it just gave us more time to imagine new ways to break shit.

 

Nerfing Defense isn't a/the solution.  Defense has already been so heavily and thoroughly nerfed that the last development team had to partially reverse the nerfing just to bring it into a good position as damage mitigation.  Reducing either the hard or soft cap isn't going to fix anything.  The workarounds for that are way too easy to pick up, and they don't actually force the player to make any hard choices about slotting or power selection.  It accomplishes nothing, other than irritating people and wasting development resources.

 

Furthermore, attacking Defense without addressing all of the other forms of damage mitigation is biased and unbalanced.  It utterly ignores every other kind of mitigation, including the inverse of +Def, -ToHit, and adversely affects players using power sets which are entirely reliant on Defense while doing nothing to any other form of mitigation.  Doubling a Defense-based character's chance to be hit equates to doubling the damage that character is going to take, yet there's no corresponding suggestion for doubling the incoming damage for characters using other forms of mitigation.  If survivability is a problem, it's a problem across the board, not just a problem for a single type of mitigation, but this approach singles out one form of mitigation and gives everything else a pass.  It's narrow-minded, poorly thought out and never should've been proposed in the first place.

 

So dismiss away.

[Haijinx]

Coh with a billion inf build feels like playing with console cheat commands.

[golstat2003]

4 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Coh with a billion inf build feels like playing with console cheat commands.

I'm fine with this. If it didn't feel like that I would say they wasted their time gathering that inf.

 

/shrug.

[Infinitum]

15 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Coh with a billion inf build feels like playing with console cheat commands.

There is content to stretch builds like that out, more of that content is all we need to put the pedal to the metal on those builds.

[Troo]

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

The workarounds for that are way too easy to pick up, and they don't actually force the player to make any hard choices about slotting or power selection.

I may have missed your suggestions? If you don't mind restating them or point to them, I'll read em.

[Troo]

5 hours ago, Infinitum said:

There is content to stretch builds like that out, more of that content is all we need to put the pedal to the metal on those builds.

100% agree with more content and challenges. (not to be confused with difficulty)

 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Troo

[Tater Todd]

As long as said content gives us better rewards and even then it can be difficult to get people to do said content.  I like to run Dark Astoria, Night Ward and First Ward content and often times trying to get a team of 8 is like pulling teeth and man do teams dissolve at the slightest inconvenience.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Tater Todd

[golstat2003]

14 minutes ago, Tater Todd said:

As long as do said content gives us better rewards and even then it can be difficult to get people to do said content still.  I like to run Dark Astoria, Night Ward and First Ward content and often times trying to get a team of 8 is like pulling teeth and man do teams dissolve at the slightest inconvenience.

This . . . doesn't surprise me. Those are the three places I'm least likely to want to go if I'm playing COH most nights. Very rarely do I want to deal with some of the nonsense in missions in those zones. (With the DA missions that give components being the exception).

 

Let's face reality, that a majority of COH players aren't here looking for challenging gameplay.

 

There are other (more modern) games (and in some senses better rpgs) on the market for that.

[oedipus_tex]

My opinion is more rooted in "City of Heroes Writ Large" than "City of Heroes with the Homecoming ruleset."

 

IMO there is definitely room for a server that rethinks the balance equation for IOs. CoX right now is sort of like MUDs and MOOs were in the late 90s and early 2000s, you have all these models flying around with different development visions, all based on a vaguely D&D second edition game, but each with its own focus. I'm actually surprised a hardcore PVP server that focuses purely on PVP at the expense of PVE hasn't emerged yet; I imagine given time such a server will appear. I also imagine in time a server that clamps down on farming and adds other challenges will appear that implements some of the suggestions that some players feel will "wreck the game." IMO there really is no wrecking the game with where CoX is currently, just these assorted different flavors.

 

The real question for me is "Is Homecoming the right server for some of these drastic changes?" To be honest I'm not sure. I adore the Homecoming team and what they've done with their content. I think Powerhouse is an incredibly gifted powers designer and am always checking in on his latest work. I also find Homecoming to be the most balanced of the servers. 

 

It's also a fact that Homecoming has probably strayed further from the "original" CoX than most other servers, at least power for power. Most of the Blaster and Dominator secondaries have been redone with DPA balances that don't exist on other servers to my knowledge. They do seem at least somewhat willing to adjust player power downward to encourage balance. So I guess it's question of developer intent. 

But no I don't think anything could happen that could "wreck the game" because "the game" is available for anyone who wants to spend the time to download and edit it.

Edited February 1, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[golstat2003]

3 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

My opinion is more rooted in "City of Heroes Writ Large" than "City of Heroes with the Homecoming ruleset."

 

IMO there is definitely room for a server that rethinks the balance equation for IOs. CoX right now is sort of like MUDs and MOOs were in the late 90s and early 2000s, you have all these models flying around with different development visions, all based on a vaguely D&D second edition game, but each with its own focus. I'm actually surprised a hardcore PVP server that focuses purely on PVP at the expense of PVE hasn't emerged yet; I imagine given time such a server will appear. I also imagine in time a server that clamps down on farming and adds other challenges will appear that implements some of the suggestions that some players feel will "wreck the game." IMO there really is no wrecking the game with where CoX is currently, just these assorted different flavors.

 

The real question for me is "Is Homecoming the right server for some of these drastic changes?" To be honest I'm not sure. I adore the Homecoming team and what they've done with their content. I think Powerhouse is an incredibly gifted powers designer and am always checking in on his latest work. I also find Homecoming to be the most balanced of the servers. 

 

It's also a fact that Homecoming has probably strayed further from the "original" CoX than most other servers, at least power for power. Most of the Blaster and Dominator secondaries have been redone with DPA balances that don't exist on other servers to my knowledge. 

The answer to the bolded for me most of the time will be no. If I wanted more of the drastic changes some other servers are doing I'd be playing on them. In fact I'd argue some of the changes the other servers have made are more divergent form CoX than things here. Everyone's Milage May Vary (EMMY)

Edited February 1, 2021 by golstat2003

[Apparition]

57 minutes ago, Tater Todd said:

As long as do said content gives us better rewards and even then it can be difficult to get people to do said content still.  I like to run Dark Astoria, Night Ward and First Ward content and often times trying to get a team of 8 is like pulling teeth and man do teams dissolve at the slightest inconvenience.

 

*Runs Council radio farm in PI.*  "This game is too easy!  We need to nerf everyone!"

 

"You could try playing gold or red side, the enemies are more difficult there.  Some of them much more so."

 

"Eww.  Gold side and red side icky."  *Goes back to farming Council radio missions in PI.*

[Myrmidon]

On 1/30/2021 at 3:50 PM, Brutal Justice said:

It's a good thing tanks have some other increased numbers to help or they'd pretty much just be fat scrappers.

Tankers have far more than numbers to differentiate them from Scrappers. More importantly, there is no fat Scrapper that can fit into my armor.😉

[Myrmidon]

Patience, grasshoppers. Future content is the key to this discussion. I’m certain that there will be plenty that takes our Incarnate Divinity into account.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Myrmidon

[Galaxy Brain]

What if we just buffed council. 

 

Semi joke, semi serious.

[DSorrow]

On 1/30/2021 at 11:50 PM, Brutal Justice said:

Your numbers look pretty good but I do feel you left out some fairly important ones.  I'll list a whole bunch so it doesn't seem like I'm cherry picking numbers just to support my case.

 

Oh dear. I'm not trying to support my case, I'm undermining yours, not by cherry picking numbers, but by following a standard practice of showing a proposition ["hard capping defense at 40% is a minor nerf"] false: counter examples.

 

Besides being wrong twice in one sentence, the attempt at a gotcha is especially amusing when you avoid addressing any of the individual points presented and go into a long winded number rush to change the topic into "Def Scrappers vs Res Scrappers". To a diligent reader it might even seem you're using a lot of rhetoric masked as an argument supporting to your case, when you've actually changed your argument.

 

Quote

This nerf would have zero effect on people not currently running at soft cap, and very little on people not running at max difficulty.  It slows down the top tier and leaves the lower tiers untouched.  Are we here for balance or are we here to defend our brokenness?  

Of course it wouldn't have any effect on people who are not at the soft cap because you're altering the cap. The issue is, you're still nerfing the solo ability of all maxed non-tankers in normal content by four whole difficulty levels which is not in the same universe as a minor change. In incarnate content the change would be so "minor" you'd have to nerf the base hit chance of all Incarnate mobs to counteract the majority of it.

 

Your idea to achieve balance this way is, simply put, bad. It's a huge change that affects gameplay for a lot of people (difficulty changes thanks to reduced survivability), requires who knows how many build re-dos (new IO setups thanks to new Def hard caps) and moves the game closer to the holy trinity (Tankers basically required for difficult content). I can't even begin to imagine the player reactions.

 

Quote

Maybe I did sort of think that through a little bit.

 

Seems pretty evident to me that an overhaul of this impact still needs a lot more work than "maybe thinking it through a little bit". 

 

On 1/27/2021 at 8:40 PM, Brutal Justice said:

Minor is good.  

 

[snip]

 

I am in the camp of its minor.  Others are in the camp of hugely.  If it was hugely and hugely then that would be an issue.  If it was minor and minor then it would be a waste of time.  Since it’s both hugely and minor then it leads me to believe it’s in the right direction.  

Then again, maybe I should've taken this at face value on the first go. You think minor is good and you think your idea is minor, so it has to be a good idea regardless of whatever anyone else thinks. Beyond the entertainment value, there doesn't seem to be anything to gain by addressing your bad idea in detail if you keep on moving the goal posts and even changing the game every time someone's stuff and things gets inconveniently in your way.

Edited February 1, 2021 by DSorrow

[DSorrow]

11 hours ago, hastened said:

Yes.  The sort of reasonable point in there is that a soft cap of 40% on non-tanks would help balance Def vs. Res sets.  A hard cap just causes huge amounts of problems with to hit debuffs/hit buffs and defense focused sets like forcefields while being worse at the desired goal of balancing damage mitigation types than a soft cap.  A 40% hard cap is just a really, really bad idea even if the underlying premise it is trying to fix is accepted as needing fixing.  That part is more debatable, but even if you agree with the underlying point you defintiely should not try to fix it with a hard cap.

Completely agree. If it were up to me, I'd give all melee ATs the 90% Res cap (Stalkers, Scrappers, Brutes, Tankers), let EATs have their special 85% and keep the squishies at 75%. Why?

 

The squishies have essentially zero access to DDR, so their Defense is easily taken away from them while Res comes with built-in stops against that. For these classes, it's a question of taking the more risky Defense with higher maximum mitigation (inherent volatility due to the binary nature of hit/not hit combined with low HP, as well as the likelihood of losing all of it) or the constant Resistance with lesser maximum mitigation, but much more predictable performance.

 

For the melee ATs, the lack of DDR doesn't hold for any powersets with appreciable amounts of +Def to stack with power pools and bonuses, so to me it would make sense that capped Res and Def should have equal maximum mitigation. Tankers would still have a large advantage at getting to the cap outside of buffs thanks to their better modifiers for +Res/+Def powers, and the ATO proc for Res specifically.

 

EATs are pretty special here, and I don't have any well thought out reasoning for changes to their Res caps, so I'd keep them as they are.

[Haijinx]

8 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

*Runs Council radio farm in PI.*  "This game is too easy!  We need to nerf everyone!"

 

"You could try playing gold or red side, the enemies are more difficult there.  Some of them much more so."

 

"Eww.  Gold side and red side icky."  *Goes back to farming Council radio missions in PI.*

Council missions are too easy even for teams of people with only SOs

 

the Council needs some buffing 

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What if we just buffed council. 

 

Semi joke, semi serious.

Or what Galaxy Brain said. 

 

They are too weak at the end game 

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Council missions are too easy even for teams of people with only SOs

 

the Council needs some buffing 

Nah. Leave the easy missions for the majority of players who like to play COH for 15-30 minutes, then dip out.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Or what Galaxy Brain said. 

 

They are too weak at the end game 

They're fine for what they are. If a team wants to hop on a quick mission and rush through trash that's fine. That's pretty much COH tradition. Those who want to run harder mobs and missions can.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, golstat2003 said:

Nah. Leave the easy missions for the majority of players who like to play COH for 15-30 minutes, then dip out.

that's what the +0x1 settings should be for

 

But really even buffed a council mission isn't going to take 30 min

[golstat2003]

Just now, Haijinx said:

that's what the +0x1 settings should be for

 

But really even buffed a council mission isn't going to take 30 min

/shrug. Still not seeing an issue here. I'm fine with one class of mob being the training wheel mob. There's more important things to worry about.

Edited February 1, 2021 by golstat2003

[Apparition]

7 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What if we just buffed council. 

 

Semi joke, semi serious.

 

I would be fine with that.  Just don't be surprised should doing so raise a holy ruckus from the "game is too easy, need to nerf everyone" crowd.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

/shrug. Still not seeing an issue here. I'm fine with one class of mob being the training wheel mob. There's more important things to worry about.

at end game level there should be no more training wheel mobs