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

[Galaxy Brain]

52 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

And that would put the error on the player’s end IMO 🙂

Again, that points to a key point of the thread: what is *expected*?

[arcane]

3 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Again, that points to a key point of the thread: what is *expected*?

If you are vet level 100 without t4 incarnates, please put my vote down for that counts as a conscious decision to self gimp.

[Sovera]

2 hours ago, Linea said:

801 took a very long time to balance, and uses out of game tools (but doesn't have to, it's just easier). 

It's easy to slap together a simple group for solo only play, but the default simple AE methods tend to not scale well.

 

There is an exponential^3 potential difference in a small team of SO only non-incarnates, and a full team of 8 full Tier 4 IO Tier 4 Incarnate players.  A single T4^2 player can encapsulate the capabilities of a full team of 8 SO Heroes.  And that only gets worse when the synergistic Incarnates start bouncing off each other in teams.  That's probably a 64:1 power ratio difference, if not potentially worse.

I've seen vet teams crumple to 801.0, and at the same time I've seen rare teams stomp 801.5, and I have a few very rare teams asking for more.

My BEST tank crumpled to 801.9, and I expect THAT (very rare) team to come back and ask for MOAR! The IOed INCARNATE is out of the bag, and there's no putting it back.

 

I would fully support a two additional settings:

• No Bosses - We already have this
• Regular - We already have this
• Bosses to EBs:  Minions -> Lts,  Lts -> Bosses,  Bosses -> EBs
• Bosses to EBs Plus:  Minions -> Bosses, Lts -> EBs, Bosses -> EBs
• All EBs: ... all EBs

 

You could give AVs a similar synergistic treatment.  I'd probably never touch that outside of teams, but I can see some teams loving it.

• No AVs - We Already Have this
• Regular Avs - We Already Have this
• EBs to Avs - regular EBs to AVs
• All AVs - All AVs

 

I like the cut of your jibe. I like it a lot.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, Linea said:

801 took a very long time to balance, and uses out of game tools (but doesn't have to, it's just easier). 

It's easy to slap together a simple group for solo only play, but the default simple AE methods tend to not scale well.

 

There is an exponential^3 potential difference in a small team of SO only non-incarnates, and a full team of 8 full Tier 4 IO Tier 4 Incarnate players.  A single T4^2 player can encapsulate the capabilities of a full team of 8 SO Heroes.  And that only gets worse when the synergistic Incarnates start bouncing off each other in teams.  That's probably a 64:1 power ratio difference, if not potentially worse.

I've seen vet teams crumple to 801.0, and at the same time I've seen rare teams stomp 801.5, and I have a few very rare teams asking for more.

My BEST tank crumpled to 801.9, and I expect THAT (very rare) team to come back and ask for MOAR! The IOed INCARNATE is out of the bag, and there's no putting it back.

 

I would fully support a two additional settings:

• No Bosses - We already have this
• Regular - We already have this
• Bosses to EBs:  Minions -> Lts,  Lts -> Bosses,  Bosses -> EBs
• Bosses to EBs Plus:  Minions -> Bosses, Lts -> EBs, Bosses -> EBs
• All EBs: ... all EBs

 

You could give AVs a similar synergistic treatment.  I'd probably never touch that outside of teams, but I can see some teams loving it.

• No AVs - We Already Have this
• Regular Avs - We Already Have this
• EBs to Avs - regular EBs to AVs
• All AVs - All AVs

 

 

I like this a lot, and to be honest we see this in-game in a roundabout way. 

 

Ever notice how Council Robots are bosses in the 30's, but in the 40's they're LT's? Or low level Lost have the TV head dudes as LT's, and the Pariah's as Bosses, then they downgrade to Minions and LT's later? This kind of shows how your character is progressing in a neat way, but I feel it could be expanded for the enemy groups too. Why not have some groups ramp up to meet you more?

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

If you are vet level 100 without t4 incarnates, please put my vote down for that counts as a conscious decision to self gimp.

But there's the rub, I see a build without 5 LotG +recharges and 5 purple sets for another +50% recred and I think THAT is self-gimped.

 

But we don't get to make that call for other players.

[arcane]

53 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

But there's the rub, I see a build without 5 LotG +recharges and 5 purple sets for another +50% recred and I think THAT is self-gimped.

 

But we don't get to make that call for other players.

Yeah sure but I think those are apples and oranges. It costs nothing but the incarnate materials you will have gained by default to craft incarnates at vet level 100. Whereas IO’s have real opportunity costs. If I’ve ever fallen short of your 87.5% +recharge benchmark, I promise you I did it for teh procs.

[QuiJon]

10 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

This only really holds true for single slot, and somewhat for a second slot. ED pretty much nullifies any useful boost at the 3rd slot, effectively normalizing the SO and Generic IO values to which the powers are already balanced against. Shifting the "balance stick" to Generic IOs won't be moving it very far. Even if you get a player using Boosters in order to make 2 slots of Generic IOs pull the same weight as 3 SOs, ED once again shows up to severely limit any additional increases after that second slot, making the "Booster Player" only stronger in the sense that they have more floater slots that they can put in powers they otherwise couldn't afford to slot more than the base slot.

 

As much as Generic IOs are the "new" SO, their impact on player builds doesn't push them outside of expected parameters of the old SO-only builds. Not really sure how your suggestion would change anything.

I understand what you are saying, but limited in slotting the 3rd IO or not, people do it to get the max. And if they dont then they get  the benefit of other slotting from IOs that SO dont provide. After all if a standard SO slotting in a blaster attack was 2 acc, 3 dam and 1 of whatever (if you even put that extra slot on it) Being able to pass with 2 acc 2 dam and 1 recharge suddent increases your output in your damage cycle by quite a bit with quicker recycling powers. Or slotting a End red gives you the ability to attack longer before extinguishing your endurance. Or maybe just frees up slots to slot other powers that you might have run short on over all. 

 

The point is that over all balancing around IOs means that the game starts to recognize that there is end game content to build for. Albeit slight at this point. And i also like the idea that a totally decked out level 50 with sets might have to make choices between their percentage buffs from a set w/bonuses vs. perhaps that power being stronger if they left it as just IOs. But more over if we want to the game skew up so that those of us that do build IO min max builds feel we are even slightly being challenged, then frankly the game needs to decide a level of acceptable challenge and then allow standard game play and missions and TFs to accomplish reaching that level. Which right now though you can buy and craft IOs the game is really still skewed to SOs and at 50, even if you played with cash turned on the whole time, you would not earn enough influence to buy a full set of level 50 IOs by level 50. 

 

So IMO giving players the ability to get common IO through game play drops solves this issue. If we stick with the idea that a common casual player doesnt want to bother with AH, crafting, salvage, recipies etc. But we skew the game up for IO level enhancement then we should definately atleast allow for those players to reach the basement of that play level through doing their own thing their way like they can now. 

[Frosticus]

5 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

Sure you can make a bad build, but even an unslotted petless MM at vet level 100 would be contributing substantially by means of t4 ageless and judgement alone.

Unless you took one of those pesky judgement's with a 2+ second cast and someone hits them with pyronic judgement first ha!

I think if I was just contributing ageless every 2 min I'd personally feel pretty useless to the team, but to each their own.

 

I don't personally team much in late game, but I have certainly felt my presence was next to nothing on many teams and I have some objectively strong builds in my stable. Nukes and judgement tend to do that in teams though.

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

22 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

Yeah sure but I think those are apples and oranges. It costs nothing but the incarnate materials you will have gained by default to craft incarnates at vet level 100. Whereas IO’s have real opportunity costs. If I’ve ever fallen short of your 87.5% +recharge benchmark, I promise you I did it for teh procs.

I fail to see the difference between earned inf and earned incarnate stuff. Both take time to gain by killing enemies.

[QuiJon]

5 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

I flat out reject the possibility that a Vet level 100 *anything* is turning out obsolete without the error being on the individual player’s end. That’s absurd.

Any character can become obsolete now the way this game is played. I can run a +4 ITF with 8 blasters, we kill so quick we dont need a tank or support. I can run the same thing with 8 dominators, everything is locked down, we dont need to kill fast we are taking no damage. And i could say the same thing for defs, MM any class in the game really almost. Now imagine you are a single tanker or brute on that team of now 7 blasters. You likely never even get a mob around you before they all fall. The dominators likely have locked them all in place and you cant herd them. 

 

So yes i have run things like an ITF on my dominator and been on a team of like 5 melee toons and 2 debuffers and felt like it really didnt matter if i was there or not. I have also taken that same dominator and soloed the first 2 missions of an ITF on +4. SO no it is not really that the dominator build is so much bad, it is that on a particular team build i dont feel particularly super playing it compared to at other times on other teams. 

[arcane]

7 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I fail to see the difference between earned inf and earned incarnate stuff. Both take time to gain by killing enemies.

Right, I was just saying there is no alternative/opportunity cost to incarnates if you have the materials, whereas there are reasonable alternatives to +recharge (procs, defense, etc)...

[Myrmidon]

9 hours ago, QuiJon said:

Now imagine you are a single tanker or brute on that team of now 7 blasters. You likely never even get a mob around you before they all fall. The dominators likely have locked them all in place and you cant herd them. 

Fold Space is our friend. Our ally. It will gather up the mess  immobilize spam creates and, I have to say that it’s hilarious pulling a mob that just falls over from the nukes as it reappears.

 

 

[Haijinx]

13 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

But there's the rub, I see a build without 5 LotG +recharges and 5 purple sets for another +50% recred and I think THAT is self-gimped.

 

But we don't get to make that call for other players.

It depends on the powersets though sometimes. 

 

For example maybe choosing 5 defensive powers to slot lotgs would gimp them in other ways.    

 

Id lean more to someone who skips all the no brainer uniques as a starting point for self gimpiness . 

[Haijinx]

17 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

ERROR?!?!? Don't you concept-shame me!

 

/see? Absurdity has no level cap.

People like that should add to their concept to remain low level. 

[Hew]

4 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Fold Space is our friend. Our ally. It will gather up the mess  immobilize spam creates and, I have to say that it’s hilarious pulling a mob that just falls over from the nukes as it reappears.

 

 

Troof!

[Hew]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

It depends on the powersets though sometimes. 

 

For example maybe choosing 5 defensive powers to slot lotgs would gimp them in other ways.    

 

Id lean more to someone who skips all the no brainer uniques as a starting point for self gimpiness . 

You mean, CASUAL players? Who really just want to _play_? And maybe, not market, or craft, just mash buttons?

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Hew said:

You mean, CASUAL players? Who really just want to _play_? And maybe, not market, or craft, just mash buttons?

So, here I gotta throw a flag on the play.

 

Sure, there may be a super Casual McNoobington out there who doesn't slot anything and just presses buttons, but even they have to go to a trainer and level up, and thus get slots. Slots then have enhancements which require them clicking the Enh Tray, which is right next to the Salvage/Recipes which will eventually glow red as they get ignored. Being curious, I bet McNoobington would click on  them and get some ideas / questions.

 

But this goes back into the expectations + what the playerbase on the whole is doing.

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by Galaxy Brain

[Haijinx]

2 hours ago, Hew said:

You mean, CASUAL players? Who really just want to _play_? And maybe, not market, or craft, just mash buttons?

 

 

All Homecoming players are casual players

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

All Homecoming players are casual players

You’ve made a similar cryptic statement before. Can you please define your terms like casual players vs powergamers so we understand this position?

[Hew]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

So, here I gotta throw a flag on the play.

 

Sure, there may be a super Casual McNoobington out there who doesn't slot anything and just presses buttons, but even they have to go to a trainer and level up, and thus get slots. Slots then have enhancements which require them clicking the Enh Tray, which is right next to the Salvage/Recipes which will eventually glow red as they get ignored. Being curious, I bet McNoobington would click on  them and get some ideas / questions.

 

But this goes back into the expectations + what the playerbase on the whole is doing.

 

Yep.

 

But to target a little closer, there are people who never look at Mids/MRB. There are people who do, but casually slot, and if they never complete there build, MEH it works and smashes things and they are happy. And then there are people who dont market, have some sort of farmer that may or may not afk, but really just dont care that much beyond some inf here and there.

 

For me, thats casuals. People that build out every build, twinked to max efficiency, definitely not a casual. Casuals (usually?) just dont care about 8/4. Feeling super matters more, and +1 or +2 to them with some random things they can smash around is good enough.

 

 

The comment that all HC players are casuals, I don't see that. There are definitely some NOT casuals that do some strange things, like limit player participation in groups because it doesnt maximize x y or z thing they are looking for.

 

 

[arcane]

18 hours ago, QuiJon said:

So yes i have run things like an ITF on my dominator and been on a team of like 5 melee toons and 2 debuffers and felt like it really didnt matter if i was there or not. 

Ah, well that’s not how I was thinking of obsolescence. The vast majority of teams don’t *need* any one player in particular because they are competent players in an easy game. However, that is not the same as not contributing at all, which is what I thought you were saying was happening.

 

In other words, not being needed and not being able to contribute are not the same thing. The former is not only forgivable but imminently reasonable. The latter you have zero excuse beyond self-gimping at vet level 100.

Edited February 26, 2021 by arcaneholocaust

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, arcaneholocaust said:

You’ve made a similar cryptic statement before. Can you please define your terms like casual players vs powergamers so we understand this position?

No one that plays Homecoming could a candle to what it takes to be a power gamer in live MMOs past and present.

 

We are all casual.

[arcane]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

No one that plays Homecoming could a candle to what it takes to be a power gamer in live MMOs past and present.

 

We are all casual.

That doesn’t tell me why you think such a thing. How are you defining power gamer vs casual?

[QuiJon]

2 hours ago, arcaneholocaust said:

Ah, well that’s not how I was thinking of obsolescence. The vast majority of teams don’t *need* any one player in particular because they are competent players in an easy game. However, that is not the same as not contributing at all, which is what I thought you were saying was happening.

 

In other words, not being needed and not being able to contribute are not the same thing. The former is not only forgivable but imminently reasonable. The latter you have zero excuse beyond self-gimping at vet level 100.

No that is not what i said. In my example that dominator is maybe vet level 70ish. He is perma dom'd and capable of farming +4/8. He is not a gimped character. What i am saying is that i hit Seed of Confusion and 2 seconds later that mob is dead. I dont hit seeds of confusion and 2 seconds later that mob is still dead. The make up of the rest of the team doesnt require me to really even be there. 

 

Everyone wants to feel like they have a role to play. Like there is a reason they are present on the team. Not feeling that way doesnt mean you created a gimp character, it means that the game is at a point when 3-4 players can now do what used to be difficult for a team of 8 fully developed character. Hell think how important a rad defender used to be. I play with one now that says he barely ever gets a chance to get toggles up to even effect the mobs with them now. 

 

And if that is just the new reality then i guess whatever. But then maybe we need to look at the way some powers work. It is not fun spending all day just toggling on the same powers to have a mob be dead before the animation finishes. So maybe if we are not going to find a way to up the challenge we at least need to look at things like animation times or such so everyone feels there is a point to them being there. 

[arcane]

38 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

No that is not what i said. In my example that dominator is maybe vet level 70ish. He is perma dom'd and capable of farming +4/8. He is not a gimped character. What i am saying is that i hit Seed of Confusion and 2 seconds later that mob is dead. I dont hit seeds of confusion and 2 seconds later that mob is still dead. The make up of the rest of the team doesnt require me to really even be there. 

 

Everyone wants to feel like they have a role to play. Like there is a reason they are present on the team. Not feeling that way doesnt mean you created a gimp character, it means that the game is at a point when 3-4 players can now do what used to be difficult for a team of 8 fully developed character. Hell think how important a rad defender used to be. I play with one now that says he barely ever gets a chance to get toggles up to even effect the mobs with them now. 

 

And if that is just the new reality then i guess whatever. But then maybe we need to look at the way some powers work. It is not fun spending all day just toggling on the same powers to have a mob be dead before the animation finishes. So maybe if we are not going to find a way to up the challenge we at least need to look at things like animation times or such so everyone feels there is a point to them being there. 

Ok so you’re focused on not being needed. Considering 99.99% (leaving some exceptions on the table like maybe a hami tanker) of players are not specifically needed and have not been for at least 10 years now, this is something I have simply come to accept. Considering the mobs are dying at a pleasing pace, I’m not sure there’s a lot to complain about.

 

One thing’s for sure though, I certainly wouldn’t consider your character obsolete since defining obsolete as not being absolutely essential to the team’s success would render all characters in the game obsolete, kind of defeating the point of talking about obsolescence in the first place.

Edited February 26, 2021 by arcaneholocaust