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

[golstat2003]

13 hours ago, Murcielago said:

How would you suggest the developers balance the game around IOs? Would content become more difficult or would IOs see some kind of diminishing return e.g. ED 2.0?

I wouldn't. The dev team we have is completely volunteer and not nearly the size of what we had on live, and such an endeavor would be an epic waste of time.

 

They have so many other requests from this community that focusing on this would be an epic mistake.

 

Balance one or two powers or sets (like they recently did with TW) with targeted nerfs or buffs.

 

And eventually make the harder incarnate content folks have been asking for.

[Arbegla]

So, this might be a dumb question, but doesn't PPM translate to Procs Per Minute? Doesn't it inherently cap procs to a certain number of 'activations' per minute, and if you were to exceed that rate, you don't actually get the proc?

 

I know the argument for procs is to put them in powers with a high base recharge, and then not slot much for recharge, as you'll reduce your chance to proc on the power each activation, but aren't you still limited by the PPM formula?

 

Basically, take a minute long attack again with a 8 second recharge power. You'll be able to use it ~7 times in that minute. If you're PPM is 3, then roughly half (3 out of the 7 attacks) of those attacks will proc.

 

But use that same 3PPM formula, with a 20 second power, and every single attack procs, but its still only 3 PPM.. and if you're waiting 20 seconds between attacking, is it really worthwhile?

 

Or am I missing something here?

[oedipus_tex]

8 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

So, this might be a dumb question, but doesn't PPM translate to Procs Per Minute? Doesn't it inherently cap procs to a certain number of 'activations' per minute, and if you were to exceed that rate, you don't actually get the proc?

 

I know the argument for procs is to put them in powers with a high base recharge, and then not slot much for recharge, as you'll reduce your chance to proc on the power each activation, but aren't you still limited by the PPM formula?

 

Basically, take a minute long attack again with a 8 second recharge power. You'll be able to use it ~7 times in that minute. If you're PPM is 3, then roughly half (3 out of the 7 attacks) of those attacks will proc.

 

But use that same 3PPM formula, with a 20 second power, and every single attack procs, but its still only 3 PPM.. and if you're waiting 20 seconds between attacking, is it really worthwhile?

 

Or am I missing something here?

 

 

The PPM formula is very gameable because it accounts for local Recharge in the power but not any global Recharge. So, what strategic players do is avoid getting the local Recharge of the power too low from enhancements, but then load up on global Recharge, which forces the proc to fire more than it "should."

 

Part of me sees that as an exploit and part of it as just a quirk of an interesting power system. However like I pointed out before, what this results in is powers in APPs, which have higher base Recharge supposedly as a penalty, become super effective because the Recharge penalty translates to reliable procs. This is why I think powers in the APP should be penalized when rolling procs. These powers are meant to be weaker than the base power they are mimicking. 

Edited February 8, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Coyote]

18 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

So, this might be a dumb question, but doesn't PPM translate to Procs Per Minute? Doesn't it inherently cap procs to a certain number of 'activations' per minute, and if you were to exceed that rate, you don't actually get the proc?

 

No, that's not what it does. What it does is that a PPM proc with a 3 PPM slotted in a power that can be cycled 6 times in a minute, will have a 50% chance to proc. So you'll AVERAGE 3 proc activations per minute, but there is no cap. And, the calculation only counts the Recharge slotted into the power to determine its cycle time (activation time plus recharge time). So if you have high Global Recharge, or get Recharge buffs, you can activate that power 8 or 10 or 12 times in a minute, actually averaging 4-6 proc activations in that minute, rather than the expected 3.

The activation chance is also capped at 90%, and there is a floor... I think 5%. But the main concept is that it's based only on percentage chance to activate, not with any kind of cap being tracked.

[Arbegla]

Just now, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

The PPM formula is very gameable because it accounts for local Recharge in the power but not any global Recharge. So, what strategic players do is avoid getting the local Recharge of the power too low from enhancements, but then load up on global Recharge, which forces the proc to fire more than it "should."

 

Part of me sees that as an exploit and part of it as just a quirk of an interesting power system. However like I pointed out before, what this results in is powers in APPs, that have higher base Recharge supposedly as a penalty become super effective because the Recharge penalty becomes the bonus ability to reliably proc. This is why I think powers in the APP should be penalized when rolling procs. These powers are meant to be weaker than the base power they are mimicking. 

I mean, mathematically, is it really that big of a deal?

Local and Global recharge affects the powers basically the same, and if you're preventing yourself from slotting up to ~95% recharge in a power just to proc more, does the math really make it proc more often, or is it just a trick on the human brain?

 

By 'a trick on the human brain' i mean, the power comes up slightly more often (due to the global recharge) and when it does come up, it seems to proc almost every time, but isn't there still a check on the number of procs you can have in a minute, and thus you 'waste' chances?

 

I mean, looking at my recharge heavy character builds, I'm seeing a power that have a base recharge of 8, and with all my bonuses its reduced down to 1.8. Animation time is 1.87, so the fastest I can cast just this one power in a minute is (60/(1.8 + 1.87) or about ~16 times in a minute. I have the Apocalypse: Chance for negative energy slotted in it, which has a PPM of 4.5. This gives me a 'proc chance' according to Mids of ~42%.

 

Using the ~16 attacks per minute, and the ~42% proc chance, I should get roughly ~6.8 procs within that minute. Is there a check that caps it at 4.5PPM, or do I really get the ~6.8 procs?

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 2/7/2021 at 9:51 AM, Frosticus said:

I think the fact that you are able to get the recharge of a 20 sec power down to ~5 sec without slotting the power is much more worrisome than being able to squeeze a couple hundred extra damage out of it with procs. 

 

You stay away from my Footstomp with that attitude!

[Grouchybeast]

4 hours ago, Arbegla said:

Using the ~16 attacks per minute, and the ~42% proc chance, I should get roughly ~6.8 procs within that minute. Is there a check that caps it at 4.5PPM, or do I really get the ~6.8 procs?

There is no hard cap.  You get all the procs.  This is exactly why global recharge breaks PPM procs.

[Haijinx]

14 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

Not that I advocate it, but solving PPM is fairly simple: make them mutually exclusive. Only 1 proc by type per power.

 

Immediately after that, nerf regen.

I don't like having a Regen Nerf contingent on an IO Nerf like this. 

[tidge]

What is the current breakdown of Defenders at level 50 versus Blasters at level 50?

[ForeverLaxx]

19 hours ago, Luminara said:

Are you implying that he changed the goal or decided to revise the system further?

I'm "implying" that we have zero idea if any adjustments would have been made had the system gone live as it was on Beta, and we have zero idea if it would have worked out "as originally planned" after seeing it unfold over many months to a year. Your tendency to speak with a perceived authority when you're guessing as much as the rest of us is irksome and tiring.

 

My point is that we have no idea if the original devs would have ended up satisfied with the system by the end of it all because they're not around anymore to have a say. What we do have, though, are new devs who have expressed an interest in revisiting procs and adjusting them.

 

Worrying about what "Synapse would have wanted" is a waste of time, especially since none of us know the man and he can't tell us what he'd do, if anything at all.

[Galaxy Brain]

8 hours ago, Arbegla said:

Using the ~16 attacks per minute, and the ~42% proc chance, I should get roughly ~6.8 procs within that minute. Is there a check that caps it at 4.5PPM, or do I really get the ~6.8 procs?

You would get all the procs.

 

The PPM system as described gives a % chance based on the "local" cycle time per minute, ignoring any global bonuses. This is why for example, my En/Time blaster with force feedbacks out the wazoo can maintain 300% global recharge at all times and get PPMs of like... 12 due to tripling the PPM in each power through "outside" recharge.

 

The base idea of it is nice as beforehand the raw % chance favored powers with very fast cycle times to roll dice as much as possible, whereas  now it favors low cycle times which is actually refreshing given most all games have the best strat using fast powers. However, as Oedipus mentioned it is also easy to "game" that system by having a power that can reach 75~90% proc chance on a short timer due to global recharge. Whether this is good or bad is up in the air as it does have a fun niche build to chasing that, but the side effect is that global recharge tends to make everything better on top of the big proc powers.

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

However, as Oedipus mentioned it is also easy to "game" that system by having a power that can reach 75~90% proc chance on a short timer due to global recharge. Whether this is good or bad is up in the air as it does have a fun niche build to chasing that, but the side effect is that global recharge tends to make everything better on top of the big proc powers.

And low-damage ATs like Defenders and Controllers, who have the most to gain from proc monster builds, are often already chasing high global recharge so they can get their long-recharge buffs, debuffs and controls up as often as possible.  So the builds can come 'proc monster ready' as a side effect of existing build choices.  There isn't necessarily much sacrificing of other build goals happening in order to maximise the procs.

[Arbegla]

6 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

There is no hard cap.  You get all the procs.  This is exactly why global recharge breaks PPM procs.

This seems like an easy enough fix. Just put a hard cap on the PPM... doesn't matter how fast you're firing attacks, you'll never achieve higher then the PPM stated.

 

It'll make burst damage insane (mainly because fast attacks would get all the PPMs right away) but it would balance overall.

[Frosticus]

2 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

And low-damage ATs like Defenders and Controllers, who have the most to gain from proc monster builds, are often already chasing high global recharge so they can get their long-recharge buffs, debuffs and controls up as often as possible.  So the builds can come 'proc monster ready' as a side effect of existing build choices.  There isn't necessarily much sacrificing of other build goals happening in order to maximise the procs.

And yet it is the high damage AT's that have generally  more access to damage procs. Every melee attack has 3 and pbaoe's have 3, not including purples/special/-res procs.

Ranged sets have 1, target aoes have 3, not including purples/special/-res procs.

 

The melee AT's can easily build enough survivability to jam in all the procs they could ever want. Most people choose not to because their damage is already terrific, so they chase other bonuses like making themselves virtually unkillable.

[Frosticus]

I know I would find it helpful if I could understand what others find so upsetting about these supposed debuffing proc monsters?

I  see them very rarely in the game, but maybe I have a different definition of what they are.

 

Of the debuff sets most of them suck at procs other than poison, storm and maybe time?

Traps is junk for procs, some powers don't even trigger them (seekers) and the others roll them at such low chances it is a waste of time.

Cold has 1 power worth proc'ing and it is single target

TA is at best mediocre.

 

What am I missing?

 

Is it the blast sets that are being leverage by the debuffs that upset people? 

Ice takes some nice procs, but its aoes don't roll procs well

Fire has no procs really

 

Is it radiation and dual pistols that cause this pushback?

Because even with procs those two sets don't outpace fire blast.

 

I guess I could see a rad/storm doing a LOT of proc damage, but what does that build do for endurance, or when they get mezzed? It kind of needs ageless AND clarion to function well. And probably barrier too because it won't have much def bonuses with all those procs taking up every power. 

 

[Frosticus]

Or is it the control sets being proc'd out that is upsetting?

 

I mean I guess I could understand that my single target hold hits about as hard as your bonesmasher being cause for concern. I mean you still have total focus and energy transfer, but I get it.

Or that I can turn my pbaoe stun in dark control into a decent aoe attack that hits about as hard as BU+whirling sword...

 

But it is  your fault for building a softcapped blaster, or unkillable scrapper, that doesn't NEED, or even benefit from me controlling anything. So what else would I slot it for? I don't want to step on blasters/scrappers toes here 

 

🙂

Edited February 8, 2021 by Frosticus

[Galaxy Brain]

to a degree I think it is the principle of the matter + how certain sets don't get to join in.

 

"Oh, elec control can proc the hell out of jolting chain and do nutty stuff!"   vs   "Oh.... ice control is uh... cool"

 

"Man, I can proc the hell out of Infrigidate, and then my blast set can proc FF to keep the cycle on that + my debuffs strong"  vs  "Uhhhh, I can slot panacea in my empathy powers!"

 

 

[Frosticus]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

to a degree I think it is the principle of the matter + how certain sets don't get to join in.

 

"Oh, elec control can proc the hell out of jolting chain and do nutty stuff!"   vs   "Oh.... ice control is uh... cool"

 

"Man, I can proc the hell out of Infrigidate, and then my blast set can proc FF to keep the cycle on that + my debuffs strong"  vs  "Uhhhh, I can slot panacea in my empathy powers!"

 

 

I am 100% on board for any IO's that increase slotting options and expand cool build avenues.  Elec just had several sets dedicated to them, maybe they aren't the best, but they certainly offer some options. Slotting out 5 elec powers with synapse certainly goes a long way to helping a player live out a synapse type of play. I'd enjoy more of that. 

 

Poor ice control and similar, 4 sets dedicated to slows and they are all junk. 

 

I still don't see the issue with infrigidate. Yes procs take it from "wish I could skip" to "good power", but it isn't even a top 3 "attack" on either my cold/fire or my illusion/cold. I'd be remise if it went back to being a waste of a power pick.  

 

I could also be mistaken, but I don't think most empathy (or similar) players give a hoot about what the debuff sets are doing with procs. I think they just wish someone would need their buffs and heals in the late game. Same as most controllers. They just wish their controls still had good value to teams. At least that is the sentiment I get from many threads talking about the value those sets/AT's bring in late game.

 

I really think this whole damage proc issue is largely about certain AT's/builds not "staying in their lane". It has even been said in this very thread about how defenders invalidate corrs and how they encroach on blaster damage. It doesn't matter that neither of those are true in the least. My response is that Blasters and Scrappers left their lane first. Go die every time you jump in to a spawn first to nuke them without waiting for someone to control/aggro before you. When that starts happening again then I'll be happy to give up some of my own personal damage to help out the team. But right now the teams don't need help, so I may as well pile on more damage. 

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

Still reading responses. Lots of good, if not necessarily totally in agreement responses from skilled players.

 

One thing I hope we can all agree on is that there's a difference between "gear is important" and "the full library of gear is widely available to every player." The latter seems to be more what we are dealing with currently.

 

I don't farm very often or chase cash, but still my "main" toon would have few troubles purchasing any given piece of gear he wants. I have IOs I never touched on live because they were too far out of reach. For example, I never dreamed of owning a Gladiator +3% Def until Homecoming or built a Mids build that included it. Now every build has one. Ditto with ATOs.

 

I don't know if I miss or don't miss how it used to be. The economy is different. Some pieces that used to be incredibly rare are now staples, and that's forced a reconciliation on combat. Definitely I didn't assume in 2009 that the baseline end game Ranged Defense of a Controller with a Confuse was +16 just from purples, ATOs, and the 2 +defense IOs. It was more like 8.

Edited February 9, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[golstat2003]

37 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Still reading responses. Lots of good, if not necessarily totally in agreement responses from skilled players.

 

One thing I hope we can all agree on is that there's a difference between "gear is important" and "the full library of gear is widely available to every player." The latter seems to be more what we are dealing with currently.

 

I don't farm very often or chase cash, but still my "main" toon would have few troubles purchasing any given piece of gear he wants. I have IOs I never touched on live because they were too far out of reach. For example, I never dreamed of owning a Gladiator +3% Def until Homecoming or built a Mids build that included it. Now every build has one. Ditto with ATOs.

 

I don't know if I miss or don't miss how it used to be. The economy is different. Some pieces that used to be incredibly rare are now staples, and that's forced a reconciliation on combat. Definitely I didn't assume in 2009 that the baseline end game Ranged Defense of a Controller with a Confuse was +16 just from purples, ATOs, and the 2 +defense IOs. It was more like 8.

On the other hand I can say with 100% assurance that I DO F&^$king NOT miss how it was on live. The AH and economy on live were terribad.

 

I'm sorry but 2bil (or more) for a pvp IO was just silly.

[oedipus_tex]

2 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

On the other hand I can say with 100% assurance that I DO F&^$king NOT miss how it was on live. The AH and economy on live were terribad.

 

I'm sorry but 2bil (or more) for a pvp IO was just silly.

 

 

I'm personally not sure if it's more balanced or less balanced that the absolute best gear in the game is easily available. On the one hand, it means more people can get their hands on it. On the other, there really isn't any gear in Homecoming that represents epic, top end, coveted equipment like you would find in many other RPGs. The result is that the IO system is balanced around the best of the best gear, versus before were it was balanced around what was more easily obtained. 

Edited February 9, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Galaxy Brain]

Indeed, which is a huge factor in why I wanted to bring up the thread too starting with the market. Like... what is the most expensive Enh atm....

 

 

Some of the most common are only between 3-5mill

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best IO's range between ~10 and ~20mill a pop, with the tippity top ones seemingly all at around 20m. 

 

Running a random PI radio mission on my lvl 50 at merely 0/5, I gained:

 

+445,526 raw Inf

7 rando salvage I sold for 1 each, making a profit of 2,285

attained 1 SO that I sold at a store for 15,600

attained 5 generic recipes that I sold at a store for 516,650

 

Adding it all up, a rather casual (even at x5) level 50 mission garnered $980,061. I would wager even just cranking it up to x8 would net double that per mission on average even at +0. 

 

Actually, having wiped that let me see what a random 8 man mission gets me...

 

+1,156,237 raw inf, but I only got 1 drop (rando yellow IO) with I sold on the AH for a profit of 23,117, totaling $1,179,354. Running another with the team of about the same size mission netted $1,067,377.  I got rather unlucky with drops, but that first one showed that even a handful of dropped loot can easily net another half a mill casually!

 

...Actually, lets try solo again but at 0/8:

 

Inf: 785,505

Enh: 0
Gen Recipes: 892,675 (seriously, just sell these at stores.... they add up mad fast)

Salvage: 955

Set Recipes: 19,812

Total: $1,698,947

 

Lets say you are just randomly running a few radios a night, say 5. If each one nets you around 1.5 mil each including just selling rando stuff you get, that is 7.5m a night if that's all you do. If you play 3 nights, that is 22.5 mil, which is enough to bid on the most expensive IO's on the market. That is *nutso* compared to live!!!

 

With this kind of "casual" income, you could reliably buy up basically any IO you want just by playing around at high level. I didn't even bother to do a whole TF or anything to see what that'd be like.... but this is something to chew on in terms of availability.

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by Galaxy Brain

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

With this kind of "casual" income, you could reliably buy up basically any IO you want just by playing around at high level.

That's my experience running DA repeatables at 50+3. All the rewards of running +4/x8 with the effort of +1/x8.

[Coyote]

18 hours ago, Frosticus said:

But it is  your fault for building a softcapped blaster, or unkillable scrapper, that doesn't NEED, or even benefit from me controlling anything. So what else would I slot it for?

 

LOL. QFST (quoted for sad truth). Leave the poor low-damage ATs their damage procs unless you're willing to first nerf the Defense set bonuses in order to create a need for control, buff, and debuff.

[golstat2003]

10 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

I'm personally not sure if it's more balanced or less balanced that the absolute best gear in the game is easily available. On the one hand, it means more people can get their hands on it. On the other, there really isn't any gear in Homecoming that represents epic, top end, coveted equipment like you would find in many other RPGs. The result is that the IO system is balanced around the best of the best gear, versus before were it was balanced around what was more easily obtained. 

Define "easily obtained". Even an LOTG recharge was 100 million or more on live. I don't think being able to slot even ONE of those is all too overpowering (granted now folks can slot multiple more easily).

 

Purples going from 100 mil Or more to 20-25 mil isn't a bad thing. It means if you slot them it may make some content, like incarnate content a bit easier when you start on that path. Unlike Live, where it was more likely that most players would not have that option. (Especially since for MOST of the life of when the game was live Enhancement Converters didn't exist).