Community-Agreed Parameters

[golstat2003]

24 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

Crashless nukes existed on 3 powersets. One of which was Assault Rifle.

 

Regardless, damage stacks. Judgment deals damage on top of nukes.

 

Judgment isn't a power adjacent to another choice in another tree or powerset. It's not even really a choice. Every character gets this as a standard attack from normal advancement. The power hits up to 40 enemies and given its 90 second recharge will fire every 11.25 seconds on an 8 player team.

 

Judgement defines team combat on late game teams. You can argue you like it that way, but the numbers don't tell lies.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I think the impact of IOs is much higher. So there we are.

 

There are some assumptions you state which are just that  . . . assumptions.

Edited March 8, 2021 by golstat2003

[Infinitum]

14 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

The power hits up to 40 enemies and given its 90 second recharge will fire every 11.25 seconds on an 8 player team.

 

Judgement defines team combat on late game teams. You can argue you like it that way, but the numbers don't tell lies.

In actual gameplay it rarelynplays out that way though.

 

I play with regulars and I play with pugs - literally every night and a judgement isn't going off literally every 12 seconds.

 

Nor do they routinely wipe the whole spawn.

 

I agree that this likely does happen - but I would wager its likely more of an issue with elite teams that frequent speed runs - and if thats the case more power to them.

 

I tend to go the radial side anyway which is more control related - and more fun for me rather than damage.

 

I see what you are saying, but I feel like you feel burned by gameplay like that - and as a norm Its just not the case on a routine basis.

 

Having said that - if you want a true team play experience with good people that like to cut up and have fun - nightly I will extend a standing invite to join us. lol you can ask GB - some times we run fast but there are times.... Times.... Where we get in a lot of trouble.  lol. And I love it honestly. Damn Crimson Prototype the other night ate my lunch - got 6 debt badges in 30 min on an elite toon - it just went really sideways really fast.

 

Anyway look me up if you would like @Infinitum  is my global.

[golstat2003]

14 minutes ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Not to subvert further, but I think it's worth tackling the assumption of "most true for the most people" at some point.  In another thread, probably.

 

But operating within that parameter, I think that "X factor" is probably equally impactful, if not more than, the +X/xY Notoriety.  

The difficulty settings are fairly solid numbers, much easier to graph than the incredibly fluid nature of all the other variables.  Of course, that does mean we might be able to meaningfully predict the impact of Notoriety in test cases.  Factoring those in to some spreadsheets where we can drop the more variable aspects of the game for analyse could be fruitful.

Your proposed categories are something which I can't accurately comment on, @Galaxy Brain.  But subjectively . . . they look good?  Naturally +0/x1 at one end, and +4/x8 on the other make for good benchmarks.  Perhaps the Devs would be willing to share some datamining information on the next three or four most popular difficulty setting configurations for the other benchmarks?

Honestly are loft of these discussions are just fun to haves without more data mining info shared by the Devs (but like you say if they are willing)

[golstat2003]

39 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Judgements were added in i20 iirc, and the nuke changes were all slated in the i24 patch notes, so Judgements as a concept predate that by quite a bit. Also, looking at the issues I am shocked to see Bruising on Tanks was only introduced in i18???

 

Anyways, incarnates are part of the game and would definitely be a category to look at.

 

The highlight here I think is too ambiguous as it could mean anything from high lvl power gaming to making fun costumes and hanging in Pocket D, or anything in between. That said, I do feel the following definition to be the most true for the most people:

 

Playing CoH = Designing a highly customized character in order to use super powers and defeat hoards of enemies in specially instanced missions. 

 

Even at 0/1 difficulty, your average mission has dozens of enemies to where I'd call it a hoard! The main gameplay loop of CoH for the vast majority of it is going into instanced missions and kicking ass. How you go about that changes, but that is the core of it. You kick ass, get experience and get more opportunities for growth in your own way, and gain inf to further improve yourself. Yes, there are outside missions / events / etc, but tbh 90% of all missions are instanced beat-em-ups. There is stuff in between with travel, stories, side games, etc, but the core gameplay loop is Go Hunt Kill Skulls.

 

With that in mind, I would imagine test parameters around balance would have to do with a mission format. "How fast / safe can X help complete a mission?" would be the ultimate question asked per test IMO as that is what it all sort of boils down to in the end for everyone. In my point of view, the two variables to this question are X and Mission.

 

X we kind of went over, but that is the wildcard. Powerset? Power? Inspirations? IO's? Incarnates? The list goes on, and we definitely need to come up with something there otherwise it'd be endless.

 

On the Mission side, we at least have more refined control in terms of the content. The map I feel is more of a player issue than a power issue most of the time, and with them being random per most missions can probably be excluded as a wild card unless we have a set task. So that leaves Difficulty and Enemy groups as the main factors.

 

Starting with difficulty, we have the ability to tweak the enemy's level from -1 to +4, the team size from 1-8, enable or disable bosses, as well as enable or disable AV's. off the bat, I feel that AV's should be disabled as honestly beating them down solo is more of a gimmick than an expected task. Likewise, I feel Bosses should be enabled as normal content seems to be built around boss-tier enemies being standard. The next step is a doozy with a possible 40 combinations... but I feel we can narrow it down to 6:

1. +0/x1 = The absolute standard, bare minimum default difficulty. This will determine the baseline of baselines in all scenarios as this is what the game itself sets you to.
2. +0/x3 = After some research, I found that in a mission with 10 encounters, a x1 difficulty averages out to about 25 enemies per mission. At x3, this averaged out to 61 enemies which is a little over double the amount which seems fitting for a next step up. Avg group size goes from 3 to 6 as well as more frequent boss encounters.
3. +0/x8 = The max team size, this puts AoE to the test with an avg of 131 enemies per mission in the 10-encounter tests, a little over double x3. Likewise, avg spawn size increased from 6 to 12~13. In my research, other difficulties between 3 and 8 did not provide avg spawn sizes greater than 10 which is where AoE coverage comes into play with a decent chunk of AT's capping at 10 targets. x8 will be able to showcase why target caps matter more than just raw AoE potential.
4. +3/x1 = Instead of jumping to +4, +3 offers a mix of +3 and +4 that is a little more palatable. In the 10 encounters, 40% of the mission had a higher lvl enemy every time so in this case it would be 60% +3 and 40% +4 (same at +0 but still).
5. +3/x3 = Like both above, this will test a group of harder enemies per fight. Odds are if you can breeze through this, the higher difficulties would be doable.
6. +3/x8 = Essentially the max difficulty with a decent portion being +4, also mirrors end game a bit due to the +1 level shift capping you at technically +3. 

 

This gives us 6 distinct challenge ratings that would likely cover a large swath of content options, without having to do 40 per test. Thinking about it more, we could probably even axe 3/1 if need be, and if we really want we could average it all out and have +2/x4 be a default test as a sort of "medium difficulty" option. x4 had 89 enemies on avg, 3.6x more than x1 and about 67% of x8, combine that with +2/+3 enemies and you can have a decent benchmark. 

 

I think this category has to weigh time as a factor to get the most data in the most effecient way possible. What do you all think?

This is a good idea and good setup. Though I'm sure others can see some tweaks.

 

With that said if there ever a large change that would require testing like this, you would need a whole lot more testers focused on this to test all those parameters. I can't see this being accomplished easily (when I say easy, I mean in time that shorter than the heat death of the sun) in a closed beta, since folks (both testers and our volunteer dev team) have actual lives and jobs. 😛 

 

In an Open beta . . .maybe.

 

As to my joke above, two months of testing like this for a said change that would cause it to be necessary is reasonable. 6 months to a year isn't.

 

This is part of my concern why I think large balance changes are not a good idea. Targeted changes (which HC has been focused on) are better.

Edited March 8, 2021 by golstat2003

[Galaxy Brain]

14 minutes ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Not to subvert further, but I think it's worth tackling the assumption of "most true for the most people" at some point.  In another thread, probably.

This matters on what you are looking at. If we take the BIGGEST step back, I believe my definition on the last post is pretty on point for the core gameplay experience of CoH. 

 

As for datamining, while I am sure it can bring up "X amount of people play on 4/8" I think it is more reasonable to show how certain things perform on different settings as there are a lot of factors that could skew that data. All you need is 1 person on the team to set the mission, so it could only capture 1/8th the amount of actual data, etc.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

7 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

With that said if there ever a large change that would require testing like this, you would need a whole lot more testers focused on this to test all those parameters. I can't see this being accomplished easily (when I say easy, I mean in time that shorter than the heat death of the sun) in a closed beta, since folks (both testers and our volunteer dev team) have actual lives and jobs. 😛 

Which is why I want to try and get some community benchmarks and whittle them down as far as possible. If we can agree on like "run these X missions with Y slotting options" then we can get a good idea when a new set pops out, and currently live sets could be run once and used as a benchmark.

[TemporalVileTerror]

Therein lies another assumption with the "full team" metric, @Galaxy Brain.  I only have the narrow window of Everlasting to really draw from, but I can tell you that full teams are -not- the modus operandi there.  They happen, and they happen plenty, but I'm fairly certain that they're not a categorically significant datapoint for analysis, and solo and small teams represent a significant percentage of players under your definition of core gameplay loop.

But what I was suggesting with the datamining from the Devs would be, hopefully, indicative of not the player who set the Notoriety parameters, but rather the number of player-hours collectively at the various Notoriety settings.

 

Tangentially:  I had a sudden idea . . . 

A way to potentially address a bit of that X factor from earlier may be to pull together some community volunteers and datamine the Builds in the various Archetype Boards here on the forums.

Plot that data in to some spreadsheets, get some potential numbers to experiment with for what sorts of IO bonuses are theoretically at play.  True datamining from the game itself would obviously be much more accurate and much more informative, but in the absence of that, we might be able to extrapolate some exemplary samples to work with.

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Therein lies another assumption with the "full team" metric, @Galaxy Brain.  I only have the narrow window of Everlasting to really draw from, but I can tell you that full teams are -not- the modus operandi there.  They happen, and they happen plenty, but I'm fairly certain that they're not a categorically significant datapoint for analysis, and solo and small teams represent a significant percentage of players under your definition of core gameplay loop.

But what I was suggesting with the datamining from the Devs would be, hopefully, indicative of not the player who set the Notoriety parameters, but rather the number of player-hours collectively at the various Notoriety settings.

 

Tangentially:  I had a sudden idea . . . 

A way to potentially address a bit of that X factor from earlier may be to pull together some community volunteers and datamine the Builds in the various Archetype Boards here on the forums.

Plot that data in to some spreadsheets, get some potential numbers to experiment with for what sorts of IO bonuses are theoretically at play.  True datamining from the game itself would obviously be much more accurate and much more informative, but in the absence of that, we might be able to extrapolate some exemplary samples to work with.

You mean you should do this on TEST right?

 

Cause other than asking folks to pool their resources or farm, that's the only way you could get folks to get the exact builds you need if you're looking for exact set bonuses.

[TemporalVileTerror]

I believe there may be a communication breakdown here.

I admit that I don't use Mids much myself.  Been several months since I booted it up, in fact.  But as I understand it, that program shows a list of values for the IO Set Bonuses.  Could the community not effectively analyze those Builds to collect the specific information I'm speaking of?  Or is Mids -that- far off from the actual in-game values for Set Bonuses?

 

I mainly brought up this idea as it intersects with Galaxy Brain's last thread about IOs and Balance, and this one.

[Galaxy Brain]

Mids can show the bonuses, but how they actually play out and the relative impact is much different. Part of why I do what I do on SO's is to then circle back and compare that SO baseline to "Ok, same thing but now I have all the def/res uniques" or "now I have Achilles Heel" etc, to show the comparative power in an actual scenario. 

 

Part of what I need help with is coming up with an accepted standard we can all point to and say "Ok, if we run this (set/power/combo) through the agreed upon standardized tests, we have a basis to talk about how it would perform as we have existing things that went through the tests too".

 

The point about IOs vs Incarnates would be a perfect one to measure! Decked out IO build with no Incarnates, vs an SO build with full T4 incarnates tackle the same scenario, which is more impactful for that character? etc

Edited March 8, 2021 by Galaxy Brain

[oedipus_tex]

Incarnate powers are in a way very easy to measure. They don't vary. Most people pick from the same two or three ones. There isn't a significant cost to use them. For a lot of my characters powers like Judgment outdamage any other power available to me so it's not exactly a strategic decision process. All 20 or so of my characters that have gone that far have the same Judgment powers. I can't give an exact number because it's not even something I think about during the build.

 

In practice, Destiny for example turns out to vary a lot in strength because of context. Incarnate trials feature "patches of death" that make clumping strategies difficult to pull off. I think it's well designed for that content and serves an important function in making things survivable without requiring a league full of Buff set characters.

 

Outside of iContent I have less generous things to say about it and the other iPowers. 

IOs on the other hand at least there is some engagement. I can spend weeks fine tuning a builds' IOs. Ionic Judgment on the other hand is the same  power on every character. I take Void Judgment just to be different but what does it matter. It's an afterthought to an afterthought... or it would be if it didn't command so much of the battle.

Edited March 8, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[TemporalVileTerror]

Which is why I was proposing the mining of Builds from the forums here.  Testing every single permutation of Set Bonuses would be so mathematically huge as to be effectively impossible.  So let's cheat a little and see which combinations are already floating around.

This isn't meant as the whole solution to the problem.  Just one way to potentially extrapolate an abstraction for a more rapid test cycle.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Which is why I was proposing the mining of Builds from the forums here.  Testing every single permutation of Set Bonuses would be so mathematically huge as to be effectively impossible.  So let's cheat a little and see which combinations are already floating around.

This isn't meant as the whole solution to the problem.  Just one way to potentially extrapolate an abstraction for a more rapid test cycle.

Oh, god yeah testing all bonuses would be goofy! What would be way, way, way easier and more likely would be to test out certain brackets that people shoot for:

 

add in 35% / 70% / 140% global rech

add in 10/20/30(?) defense

 

etc

[Replacement]

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

In actual gameplay it rarely plays out that way though.

 

I play with regulars and I play with pugs - literally every night and a judgement isn't going off literally every 12 seconds.

 

[etc]

Keeping in mind that @oedipus_tex started this tangent with "I don't want to argue with anyone about Incarnates" and not really wanting to derail on it either, I do want to mention you're running into this entirely out of self-imposed limits. 

 

If you aren't seeing Judgements going off every 12s, it means those players are choosing to prioritize playing the character they built, instead of the same-y mass nuke everyone got handed, which really tells you Tex is right about their bland, game-normalizing nature. 

 

I play almost exclusively in groups of 1-4, which means we tend to not hold back much of anything.  Guess what: it sucks to be a Blaster in a trio whose schtick is being taken by the Tanker.  Back in the day I'd say "sure a Scrapper might have more DPS than me, but can they do this?"  Yes. Yes they can.

 

Not saying "remove Incarnates" or anything like that, but Tex' original point about losing our distinction in the sea of normalized and massive power grants via Incarnatation is pretty spot-on.

[cranebump]

I’m assuming folks can pass on all the Incarnate stuff? I know I pretty much hang it up for most of characters at endgame. Starts to get pretty fiddly and it does feel like everything is getting melted, outside certain TFs. Not sure of the appeal of melting everything otherwise, but c’est la vie. People can play however they want. I know that if I want the base game to be challenging, all I have to do is stay away from attuned IO’s, or IOs altogether. Game changes in a heartbeat then.

Edited March 9, 2021 by cranebump

[Bill Z Bubba]

Apropos of nothin, asked the SG I run with to do a max diff (but otherwise normal) ITF with all of our incarnate powers *unslotted.* Really didn't have anymore faceplants than usual and got it done in a casual 33 mins. Now, granted, it was a pretty well balanced team and we're all old-timers, but still...

 

I found it interesting.

[Infinitum]

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

Keeping in mind that @oedipus_tex started this tangent with "I don't want to argue with anyone about Incarnates" and not really wanting to derail on it either, I do want to mention you're running into this entirely out of self-imposed limits. 

 

If you aren't seeing Judgements going off every 12s, it means those players are choosing to prioritize playing the character they built, instead of the same-y mass nuke everyone got handed, which really tells you Tex is right about their bland, game-normalizing nature. 

 

I play almost exclusively in groups of 1-4, which means we tend to not hold back much of anything.  Guess what: it sucks to be a Blaster in a trio whose schtick is being taken by the Tanker.  Back in the day I'd say "sure a Scrapper might have more DPS than me, but can they do this?"  Yes. Yes they can.

 

Not saying "remove Incarnates" or anything like that, but Tex' original point about losing our distinction in the sea of normalized and massive power grants via Incarnatation is pretty spot-on.

Well the main thing I'm saying is if you are in the moment you really arent thinking ok its my turn to judgement - gameplay normally isnt refined to the point its as clockwork as every 12 seconds.  I literally never see that - and I play every night with a variety of people I believe is a fair representation of whats out there.

 

Again - not saying such planning doesn't take place - but I believe it's the exception not the rule.

 

Offer still stands also.  :-)

[Apparition]

50 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Apropos of nothin, asked the SG I run with to do a max diff (but otherwise normal) ITF with all of our incarnate powers *unslotted.* Really didn't have anymore faceplants than usual and got it done in a casual 33 mins. Now, granted, it was a pretty well balanced team and we're all old-timers, but still...

 

I found it interesting.

 

Incarnates do not make nearly as much of a difference as people keep claiming it does.  It's IO enhancements, and that horse left the barn long, long, long, long ago and is on the moon, establishing the moonbase.

[DreadShinobi]

The game is balanced around SOs. Nothing requires anything more. Incarnate powers are still 100% extra. The game's difficulty hasnt been updated to reflect exponential power creep. The problem imo is not IOs or incarnates, it is that critter difficulty and how critters can interact with your character is largely stagnant. Difficulty settings being based around team size and mob levels is outdated. Ouroboros made an attempt at addressing this with players debuffed/enemies buffed/no insp settings etc, but offered little as a tangible reward for pursuing those challenges. Some incarnate content has added mechanics that you actually have to think about, but for the most part enemy factions have little to offer to meet the par on all the tools we have available to grow our characters. 

[Myrmidon]

11 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Having said that - if you want a true team play experience with good people that like to cut up and have fun - nightly I will extend a standing invite to join us. lol you can ask GB - some times we run fast but there are times.... Times.... Where we get in a lot of trouble.  lol. And I love it honestly. Damn Crimson Prototype the other night ate my lunch - got 6 debt badges in 30 min on an elite toon - it just went really sideways really fast.

 

Anyway look me up if you would like @Infinitum  is my global.

As a frequent “PuG” with the Paragon Defense Force, I highly suggest that anyone interested give @Infinituma yell if you’re ever looking for a team.

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Myrmidon

[Galaxy Brain]

@Apparition, @DreadShinobi, this is the chance to actually measure their impact as opposed to just speculation!

[Infinitum]

7 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

As a frequent “PuG” with the Paragon Defense Force, I highly suggest that anyone interested give @Infinituma yell if you’re ever looking for a team.

 

Instead of my yelling NOOORM.  we yell.  MYYYRM.   

 

Let's see how many are too young to remember that.  lol

[Replacement]

@Galaxy Brain about your difficulty settings - I like the idea of losing +3/x1 for a more "normalized" medium difficulty.  +3/x1 seems to me like a niche difficulty for people running perfect Stealth and more interested in completion rewards.

 

Maybe I'm off-base and I need to change the way I play, but I tend to view each +party member as about +half a level, as well as +extra targets, which means it's less likely to strain my accuracy.

 

Hmm.  Add this to the "Tentpole" list:

 

"Correct" level of play

The content levels that "count" in your mind.

• Nothing is worth discussing unless it's level 50(+)
• All levels are important.  I expect my controller to be balanced at level 4.
• There are sweet spots that should be used for benchmarking

Since my take is "classes and builds should have a sense of parity by around 22, from then all the way until 50.  I don't actually care about 51+ unless it's affecting my level 48 play," this is one that runs me afoul of people who don't even start playing their characters until they're 50.

[UltraAlt]

On 3/7/2021 at 3:19 PM, Galaxy Brain said:

Community Parameters

The game sets the Parameters.

The Community is always within those Parameters.

The Community doesn't set the parameters; the DEVs do through game changes.

 

If parts of the Community want to limit themselves or create little boxes for themselves, then that is their version of game play and their own personally imposed parameters.

I am opposed to anyone that is trying to set parameters on others that are not set by the game itself or Code of Conduct.

[cranebump]

I think community-agreed anything is going to be a sisyphean task, outside the agreement to let everyone play the way they want.