Mastermind changes in beta

[TheMoncrief]

35 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

Eh. The comparison to BU/Aim was well-reasoned and introduced for good and logical arguments.

Because powers whose use should be timed and which cannot be made permanent by any means are totally comparable to powers that are permanently active without any form of enhancement and which are intended to be used once and then forgotten indefinitely?

 

Making Aim and Build Up auto would utterly change their nature, and dramatically increase their power unless other changes were made. Making MM pet upgrades auto would be a significant convenience with at most a trivial increase to their power. They aren't even really comparable to toggles, since at least some toggles can be forcibly disabled without actually having to kill anything - but that would still be a better comparison than Aim and Build Up.

 

MM pet upgrades are essentially part of summoning the pets and getting them ready for combat. You can argue that this is an intended and important balancing mechanic and making them auto would remove one of the intended balancing mechanic keeping Masterminds from being utterly OP. I don't personally agree, but at least it's a rational argument that can be made. You can argue that Masterminds are fine, possibly even before considering the upcoming changes to MM pet summoning powers, and it is therefore pointless to ask for more. You cannot - or at least have not so far - argue rationally that Aim and Build Up are even remotely comparable to MM pet upgrade powers. The differences in use case render the comparison about as valid as comparing Unyielding from Invulnerability to Elude from Super Reflexes.

 

I'm agnostic about the discussion of making MM pet upgrade powers auto powers. If it happens, sweet. I suspect there are mechanical reasons it's not happening beyond just "We don't want to do that," but still, it'd be sweet and allow my Masterminds to actually contribute useful damage to fast moving teams at least some of the time. If it doesn't happen, that's fine. I mostly play Masterminds solo anyway, or else in dedicated Mastermind-only groups, where everybody naturally understands the joy of herding cats. But I'd like the debate on the subject to be carried out on a basis that cannot just as reasonably be used to argue that Unyielding should be given a 10 minute cooldown because that works fine for Elude.

[PsychoThruster]

Personally I'm not a fan of equip upgrades as powers. Then being automatic doesn't remedy it either from my perspective that it's simply a boring "power". It's much rather have the upgrades come in inherently at level intervals and get powers that give orders to be applied tactically. For instance giving mercs a "suppression fire" power that commands the soldiers to perform a long animation full auto that does minor damage but slows and debuffs tohit to any enemy in the cones. Perhaps another one that enables the selective application of tear gas. However these kinds of changes are already against the grain considering that level of control would be balanced by the resummoning cool downs of the pets which have just been reduced. 

 

I enjoy my MM fine and don't have experience with high level content, but personally I'd rather see changes to the AT that give a bit more control and tactical consideration as opposed to buff and forget powers.

[TheSpiritFox]

9 hours ago, Turric said:

 

Thank you for telling me my opinion is flat out wrong. That is very gracious of you. I am sure that tactic wins many arguments.

 

From my own standpoint, it is my opinion that masterminds are not broken. They are simply annoying to me. As you stated in another post, yes, their play style does not match my own. I wish that it would. Clearly you wish it to remain the same. However, asserting your own opinion as simple fact does not make it so, as much as you provide evidence for your opinion or state the original intent of the developers. It becomes a moot point but wished to express my opinion, as useless as it seems to be.

 

But consider this (to channel Tommy Boy): if I took a dump and served it to you as a sandwich, then convinced you that is the way sandwiches are supposed to taste. And you, persuaded by my statement, rationalized it so that you enjoyed shit sandwiches. Further, in your ingenuity, you made other dishes that incorporated the shit sandwich and became really good at eating shit sandwiches, which is a testament to your perseverance and skill. But in the end, whether you like it or not, it does not change the fact that it is a shit sandwich. My desire is that we all did not need to eat shit.

 

I say that because you and a number of other people seem to want to reduce the complexity of the class and make it easier to play from a game balance perspective, and most of your arguments come down to "it's annoying to have limitations"

 

I cannot for the life of me understand why you would want to remove the (rather minor) depth that exists with keeping pets around and buffed. Like, masterminds are a class where there are often decisions, minor ones, but decisions to be made in battle. Much moreso than a brute or scrapper who just waltzes into a group and starts hitting things, we choose where our pets are, whats getting the next buff, to attack or support, and you want to remove some of those choices. You want to not have to think about it, to have less to do and streamline the way the actual class plays to remove some of the strategic depth masterminds have in encounters. 

 

When you say that that's a good thing, yes, I say your opinion is objectively wrong, that you do not have an appreciation for the actual design of the class. Saying that you don't like having to rebuff in combat or that pets should be more disposable is exactly like saying a brute should just go to 100% fury as soon as it hits something. Saying that a pet class being forced to pay attention to it's pets to keep them alive and doing full damage is bad class design...

 

No, that's wrong. Objectively speaking, you want to change Masterminds from what they are to something more mindless, which would straight up be a negative for the class. You want to not have trade offs to make in order to attack with your powers, you want to have to babysit your pets less and not care as much if they die because you're a 2 second cast from being back at full power instead of 3 2 second casts and some pet location management along the way and like you're missing the point entirely that those limitations are a direct intent in order to force masterminds to play a certain way. 

 

The same way Brute fury or containment or whatever else works, being designed to force you to play certain ways which go along with the class design. 

 

Saying that rebuffing in combat is a shit sandwich? Sorry but that same bad logic works equally well on containment, scourge, fury, etc. Its not even logic, your entire argument, and everyone else's who shares your opinion, is "I don't really care about balance, it annoys me personally and it would be progress if the class was changed to not annoy me personally" and you walk past every balance consideration anyone brings up as if they do not matter. Walk past the purpose of the limitation imposed on the AT because you do not like that limitation. 

 

So yeah, I can say that you're just wrong. Because your opinion as you have expressed it centers entirely around your personal preferences in gaming and you and certain other people like you seem to just want to like walk over content spamming powers and watching things die without having to think too much about it. There are ATs for that, MMs have not and will never be one of them. Moreso than any other class this one has always required you to think on your feet for max effectiveness, and taking away some of the thinking on your feet in order to shave a few seconds off of when you hit max damage again is not in any way an actual improvement to the class, it's  just reducing the complexity and making it more mindless. 

 

Making masterminds have fewer limitations than we already do (we are one of the strongest ATs in the game at present) is something that is not needed. Changing fundamental class design because it annoys you and literally for no other in game reason is a bad reason to make real balance changes that affect more than just quality of life. Neither you nor anyone else making these suggestions is taking any of that into account, its just a whole bunch of people making bad arguments about how they are annoyed by it, how people who don't want it to change are living in teh past, every single one of you is calling "making something less annoying to me personally" the same thing as "progress" and like no that's a bad faith argument that enshrines your annoyance as the most fundamental aspect to game balance. Its ridiculous and not an argument. 

 

Having to rebuff in combat serves a very specific purpose to encourage a specific playstyle across the entire AT. "Keep your pets alive" is a GOOD goal to give a pet class from a design and gameplay perspective. It makes perfect logical sense, it meshes with the support function of our secondary. This all fits together in a vision of the class's purpose, role in groups, intended functioning and especially intended limitations which give you things to work around and pay attention to as a mastermind in order to perform effectively. 

 

Forcing you to pick between like supporting a team mate, or rebuffing a pet, or attacking is a good idea. It creates meaningful choices during fights which affect what you do and how the fight flows from that point forward. Masterminds more than most other ATs have these kinds of meaningful choices where we often can pick between supporting our team, supporting our pets, attacking something, debuffing or mezzing something, and any of those actions could be your next action, and you as the mastermind get to decide which is the best next action to take. 

 

That is GOOD game design. That is intended game design. It is strategic depth to a class in a game which is increasingly full of characters which cannot be challenged by much if any content. You don't have to like it, but it comes back to, go play another AT, don't change this one to homogenize it and make it more mindless cause you don't want to have to deal with depth. Don't advocate to ruin everyone else's game experience so you can have something closer to a crabbermind than a current gamestate MM. 

[Coyote]

46 minutes ago, PsychoThruster said:

Personally I'm not a fan of equip upgrades as powers. Then being automatic doesn't remedy it either from my perspective that it's simply a boring "power".

 

I agree completely. Upgrade powers are boring. I wish they'd added something to the class instead that has some tactical depth when using, more than "this eats up animation time and Endurance".

[TygerDarkstorm]

On 3/13/2021 at 3:17 PM, Number Six said:

There's a lot of text here, but I can save you all a lot of time and back and forth.

 

We considered making upgrade powers auto a while back (9-12 months) because it was a player suggestion that had come up a few times, but ultimately ruled it out. The reason was that there has to be some opportunity cost to give the player an incentive to try and keep their pets alive. If you want to get them back up to full strength, you have to spend extra time not using your secondary powers to do it.

 

So while the changes on beta are intended to make life a little less painful when they do die, the intent is not to make it trivial to have an infinite supply of full-strength pets out.

 

3 pages later and this is still being ignored. Pet upgrades WILL NOT be getting made auto, so let's stop the pointless back and forth.

 

MM's are the only AT that gets to deal ~90% of its damage passively, devoting the majority of their time to their secondary and possibly managing your pets. 

 

The changes the devs have provided in regards to reduced cooldowns, animation times, and endurance costs for the summoning and upgrade powers is fantastic and I welcome them. I then hope that, in the future, time and effort may get devoted to fixing the actual issues the AT has, and not this silly debate over auto-upgrade powers.

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, TheMoncrief said:

You cannot - or at least have not so far - argue rationally that Aim and Build Up are even remotely comparable to MM pet upgrade powers.

 

Sure I can. And I have, though I didn't go into specific detail.

 

There just isn't much of a point in arguing when the listener's point is that my side cannot be argued rationally, is bizzare, and spurious, and should be treated as such. At this point, I said how they're comparable with a small amount of detail, and reiterated there there a rational reason for comparison. But while I'm happy to discuss game design detail because it's one of my interests, I learned years ago that sometimes there is nothing to be gained in some arguments other than heartburn.

 

Thus, my point is here, yours is there, and we'll have to live in peace on separate spurs of bizzare rationalizations.

[Tacheyon]

37 minutes ago, PsychoThruster said:

Personally I'm not a fan of equip upgrades as powers. Then being automatic doesn't remedy it either from my perspective that it's simply a boring "power". It's much rather have the upgrades come in inherently at level intervals and get powers that give orders to be applied tactically. For instance giving mercs a "suppression fire" power that commands the soldiers to perform a long animation full auto that does minor damage but slows and debuffs tohit to any enemy in the cones. Perhaps another one that enables the selective application of tear gas. However these kinds of changes are already against the grain considering that level of control would be balanced by the resummoning cool downs of the pets which have just been reduced. 

 

I enjoy my MM fine and don't have experience with high level content, but personally I'd rather see changes to the AT that give a bit more control and tactical consideration as opposed to buff and forget powers.

 

I think the Equip Powers are because of how CoH is programmed and the limitations of the tech.  MM's have come a LONG way since their first inception in CoV when I started playing them.  Where you had to summon your pets every time you changed a zone.  Then having to upgrade your EACH of your pets one at a time.  Heck, having your Bruiser think he is a Blaster and spamming only Throw Rock unless you command him into melee range (which you "fixed" by not giving him the 1st upgrade).  The MM's we have now are much more player friendly then before.

 

Call me old school but I don't like the idea of the Equip powers being automatic.  CoH already caters too much to a lot of people who want to SPEED through everything.  Blasters and Brutes that can nuke down trash mobs in 1/2 a second, bosses in 2.  The time where Tactics, Debuffs and strategies are pretty much over.  Yes it is annoying when your pets wipe and you have to re-summon.  That is the downside of the class.  You get "free" passive damage as long as you can manage your resources correctly.  If you mess up you have a small chance to get back in the game (now a bigger chance if these CD changes go through) to not only survive but win.  You have to make a tactical choice in those situations.  Do you upgrade your pets?  Or lay down your support power so they (and you) survive?  MM's (as well as Controllers) play chess.  Most other classes are playing Tic-Tac-Toe.

 

A good change to MM's all around is to make their Inherent Supremacy be able to slot IO's.  Or at least the Aura ones.  This will even out all the Primary powers that don't have a lv 18 power they can just dump them into, and also allow the pets a little more space to move around (60ft instead of the 40).  Or if not possible, remove one of the MM attacks and replace it with a Command Aura that you can use.  Heck it can even offer a bigger boost to DMG and ACC/To-Hit to help the minions over come the +7 difference in levels that most teams run at (-3 levels on the 1st tier minions and +4 to the level set when running teams).

 

Sorry for a bit of a rant.  But I love MM's and want to see them shine again.  #MakeMMGreatAgain

[TheSpiritFox]

47 minutes ago, Tacheyon said:

 

I think the Equip Powers are because of how CoH is programmed and the limitations of the tech.  MM's have come a LONG way since their first inception in CoV when I started playing them.  Where you had to summon your pets every time you changed a zone.  Then having to upgrade your EACH of your pets one at a time.  Heck, having your Bruiser think he is a Blaster and spamming only Throw Rock unless you command him into melee range (which you "fixed" by not giving him the 1st upgrade).  The MM's we have now are much more player friendly then before.

 

Call me old school but I don't like the idea of the Equip powers being automatic.  CoH already caters too much to a lot of people who want to SPEED through everything.  Blasters and Brutes that can nuke down trash mobs in 1/2 a second, bosses in 2.  The time where Tactics, Debuffs and strategies are pretty much over.  Yes it is annoying when your pets wipe and you have to re-summon.  That is the downside of the class.  You get "free" passive damage as long as you can manage your resources correctly.  If you mess up you have a small chance to get back in the game (now a bigger chance if these CD changes go through) to not only survive but win.  You have to make a tactical choice in those situations.  Do you upgrade your pets?  Or lay down your support power so they (and you) survive?  MM's (as well as Controllers) play chess.  Most other classes are playing Tic-Tac-Toe.

 

A good change to MM's all around is to make their Inherent Supremacy be able to slot IO's.  Or at least the Aura ones.  This will even out all the Primary powers that don't have a lv 18 power they can just dump them into, and also allow the pets a little more space to move around (60ft instead of the 40).  Or if not possible, remove one of the MM attacks and replace it with a Command Aura that you can use.  Heck it can even offer a bigger boost to DMG and ACC/To-Hit to help the minions over come the +7 difference in levels that most teams run at (-3 levels on the 1st tier minions and +4 to the level set when running teams).

 

Sorry for a bit of a rant.  But I love MM's and want to see them shine again.  #MakeMMGreatAgain

 

I want to see a hard mode introduced which leaves enemy damage where it is, but massively increases enemy resistance and increases HP a bit such that it is not possible to steamroll through the HP pools of your average +4x8 mob. Increase influence and experience drops to compensate so that infl/xp per hour is the same, but it takes 4x longer to kill mobs than it used to. 

 

Then introduce some like champion mobs with some like Diablo/torchlight/etc style random buffs so that like some bosses on up have special powers which change how fights work, and you've got the makings of a game returning to tactitcal engagements and thinking through fights again. 

[TheSpiritFox]

50 minutes ago, Tacheyon said:

 

I think the Equip Powers are because of how CoH is programmed and the limitations of the tech.  MM's have come a LONG way since their first inception in CoV when I started playing them.  Where you had to summon your pets every time you changed a zone.  Then having to upgrade your EACH of your pets one at a time.  Heck, having your Bruiser think he is a Blaster and spamming only Throw Rock unless you command him into melee range (which you "fixed" by not giving him the 1st upgrade).  The MM's we have now are much more player friendly then before.

 

Call me old school but I don't like the idea of the Equip powers being automatic.  CoH already caters too much to a lot of people who want to SPEED through everything.  Blasters and Brutes that can nuke down trash mobs in 1/2 a second, bosses in 2.  The time where Tactics, Debuffs and strategies are pretty much over.  Yes it is annoying when your pets wipe and you have to re-summon.  That is the downside of the class.  You get "free" passive damage as long as you can manage your resources correctly.  If you mess up you have a small chance to get back in the game (now a bigger chance if these CD changes go through) to not only survive but win.  You have to make a tactical choice in those situations.  Do you upgrade your pets?  Or lay down your support power so they (and you) survive?  MM's (as well as Controllers) play chess.  Most other classes are playing Tic-Tac-Toe.

 

A good change to MM's all around is to make their Inherent Supremacy be able to slot IO's.  Or at least the Aura ones.  This will even out all the Primary powers that don't have a lv 18 power they can just dump them into, and also allow the pets a little more space to move around (60ft instead of the 40).  Or if not possible, remove one of the MM attacks and replace it with a Command Aura that you can use.  Heck it can even offer a bigger boost to DMG and ACC/To-Hit to help the minions over come the +7 difference in levels that most teams run at (-3 levels on the 1st tier minions and +4 to the level set when running teams).

 

Sorry for a bit of a rant.  But I love MM's and want to see them shine again.  #MakeMMGreatAgain

 

On the one hand I almost love teh ability to slot IOs into supremacy, on the other hand if you use set bonuses from any of those IO sets slotting auras into supremacy could interfere with a build. I would much rather see the auras done away with, their buffs integrated into supremacy such that they start out at like 25% effectiveness and hit 100% effectiveness between 20 and 32 somewhere, and then you have all your pets with the aura buffs by default, change all the pet aura ios to different functions which add flavor to an MM rather than being necessary. 

[PsychoThruster]

2 hours ago, Tacheyon said:

 

I think the Equip Powers are because of how CoH is programmed and the limitations of the tech.  MM's have come a LONG way since their first inception in CoV when I started playing them.  Where you had to summon your pets every time you changed a zone.  Then having to upgrade your EACH of your pets one at a time.  Heck, having your Bruiser think he is a Blaster and spamming only Throw Rock unless you command him into melee range (which you "fixed" by not giving him the 1st upgrade).  The MM's we have now are much more player friendly then before.

 

Call me old school but I don't like the idea of the Equip powers being automatic.  CoH already caters too much to a lot of people who want to SPEED through everything.  Blasters and Brutes that can nuke down trash mobs in 1/2 a second, bosses in 2.  The time where Tactics, Debuffs and strategies are pretty much over.  Yes it is annoying when your pets wipe and you have to re-summon.  That is the downside of the class.  You get "free" passive damage as long as you can manage your resources correctly.  If you mess up you have a small chance to get back in the game (now a bigger chance if these CD changes go through) to not only survive but win.  You have to make a tactical choice in those situations.  Do you upgrade your pets?  Or lay down your support power so they (and you) survive?  MM's (as well as Controllers) play chess.  Most other classes are playing Tic-Tac-Toe.

 

A good change to MM's all around is to make their Inherent Supremacy be able to slot IO's.  Or at least the Aura ones.  This will even out all the Primary powers that don't have a lv 18 power they can just dump them into, and also allow the pets a little more space to move around (60ft instead of the 40).  Or if not possible, remove one of the MM attacks and replace it with a Command Aura that you can use.  Heck it can even offer a bigger boost to DMG and ACC/To-Hit to help the minions over come the +7 difference in levels that most teams run at (-3 levels on the 1st tier minions and +4 to the level set when running teams).

 

Sorry for a bit of a rant.  But I love MM's and want to see them shine again.  #MakeMMGreatAgain

 

 

I'm not really arguing to make them more player friendly, I just would like to see more interesting powers, or hell maybe breaking the always 3/2/1 pet scheme with two equipment powers a bit. Not all primaries have to necessarily be that way. 

 

 

[Arbegla]

I get that the equip powers aren't that interesting, slot an end reduct in it, and call it a day, but its the price of admission for playing a Mastermind. Like 'Swap Ammo' is for Dual Pistols, or the Stances for Staff fighting, or Bio Armor.

 

Pros and Cons really.

[tidge]

Oddball "upgrade" Power suggestion for spitballing:

 

The First Upgrade gives all of the new powers, to pets of each tier.

 

The Second Upgrade supercharges individual pets, but ends up destroying them after 90 seconds, forcing a resummon/upgrade of that pet.

[PsychoThruster]

22 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

I get that the equip powers aren't that interesting, slot an end reduct in it, and call it a day, but its the price of admission for playing a Mastermind. Like 'Swap Ammo' is for Dual Pistols, or the Stances for Staff fighting, or Bio Armor.

 

Pros and Cons really.

 

I don't see those as good comparisons because those powers offer greater situational utility and change how other powers in the set function. Upgrades on masterminds don't offer situational uses, they just have to be there. Now if upgrades were actually more like ammo swap and you got to choose how to equip the pets, I'd love it. Like using the first equip on a mercenary soldier offered a shotgun/assault rifle/ pistol and medkit option that you could selectively apply.  I would even prefer having to equip each individual pet instead of the current aoe if we got something like that. 

[TheSpiritFox]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

Oddball "upgrade" Power suggestion for spitballing:

 

The First Upgrade gives all of the new powers, to pets of each tier.

 

The Second Upgrade supercharges individual pets, but ends up destroying them after 90 seconds, forcing a resummon/upgrade of that pet.

 

I like this idea. Slap all the upgrades into the first upgrade, change the second upgrade to be something primary dependent. Rather than like just a buff that kills a pet, like actually giving something similar to swap ammo or stances which gives you more control over how your pets work or allows them to pick buffs/debuffs they use or otherwise changes pet behavior. 

 

TLDR: I want bots 32 upgrade to voltron the bots together into a super bot for 90 seconds then have them separate again. 

[RageusQuitus2]

11 hours ago, TheMoncrief said:

That people treat the comparison as even remotely valid is bizarre. Build Up and Aim are short duration buffs intended to allow a brief burst of higher damage and accuracy. The Mastermind pet upgrades are permanent buffs intended to increase the baseline effectiveness of the pets.

 

I'm not sure it's a good reason to just make the pet upgrades auto powers, but the comparison to Build Up and Aim is spurious and deserves to be called out as such.

It was a joke good sir.  You have been trolled!  Was trying to lighten up the thread a bit.

 

If you want my real opinion, the changes look good.  Someone else mentioned it will help with mobility (move to new location and resummon).  That I actually kinda disagree with.  Mobility is a big problem with MMs, keeping up with teams moving around, especially an outdoor map or zone...  More than auto upgrades Id like to see movement assistance.  I can loose body guard even with just sprint and ninja run.

Edited March 16, 2021 by RageusQuitus2
added second paragraph

[TheSpiritFox]

19 minutes ago, RageusQuitus2 said:

It was a joke good sir.  You have been trolled!  Was trying to lighten up the thread a bit.

 

If you want my real opinion, the changes look good.  Someone else mentioned it will help with mobility (move to new location and resummon).  That I actually kinda disagree with.  Mobility is a big problem with MMs, keeping up with teams moving around, especially an outdoor map or zone...  More than auto upgrades Id like to see movement assistance.  I can loose body guard even with just sprint and ninja run.

 

I'd like to see MM pets given a new run speed setup where if they get more than 60 yards away from you or the point that you set for them to goto they move at about double the speed they currently do until they get to you or the point you set, and see a button on the pet window that instantly summons all your living pets to your side basically dismissing them and resummoning them buffed as they are every 30 seconds. Between those two things, pets keeping up with you would no longer be a problem. 

[Arbegla]

16 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

 

I'd like to see MM pets given a new run speed setup where if they get more than 60 yards away from you or the point that you set for them to goto they move at about double the speed they currently do until they get to you or the point you set, and see a button on the pet window that instantly summons all your living pets to your side basically dismissing them and resummoning them buffed as they are every 30 seconds. Between those two things, pets keeping up with you would no longer be a problem. 

But.. if you're already about 150 yards away (give or take, it might be 200?) the pets will auto teleport to you, in bodyguard mode range.

I hit that limit a lot with Super Speed already, I'll probably hit it even faster with the new changes.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 hours ago, Arbegla said:

But.. if you're already about 150 yards away (give or take, it might be 200?) the pets will auto teleport to you, in bodyguard mode range.

I hit that limit a lot with Super Speed already, I'll probably hit it even faster with the new changes.

Oh I agree I literally take SS on all my MMs to exploit the teleportation and force more frequent teleports to help keep pets up with groups. 

 

But it's a super clunky mechanic. Don't run far enough and they just run the whole distance to catch up to you and stuff. Its manipulating the AI, not working with good ai, and some changes to make abusing pet teleport due to distance not necessary would be really nice. 

[WindDemon21]

On 3/14/2021 at 10:04 PM, TheSpiritFox said:

Yeah it should be, and anyone who has any notion of what game balance is or how games should be designed disagrees with you. You would put your personal preference over like actual effective game design, challenge, and the literal intent and design of the class since Day 1 because it annoys you. Constantly summoning pets and upgrading them should absolutely be a "mastermind tax" because absent that we have almost no drawbacks that aren't actual things wrong with the class. 

Sorry was so much to read and then got off track lol, but there ABSOLUTELY are things wrong with the class, even granting the upgrades being auto. While it can be part of the advantage, it's also part of the drawback, which is the very FACT of dealing with uncontrollable AI. No matter how good you are, you can't control what order the pets perform their skills, tell them to hold off on certain powers until the start of a new mob, or tell them what enemies to attack in order (without constantly hitting the attack command). So while yes they will attack things without having to do so, it is by FAR from optimal. Not to mention that without being able to reduce their rech, you have skills that are WAYY too slow to rech, especially looking at the 4 minute LRM on mercs boss pet, and things like aoe controls that the pets have etc. These are things that any other class can improve on their powers, but a MM can not.

 

This also doesn't factor in the fact, that kb protection via IO's and even acrobatics is easy to achieve for a player, but outside of being forced to go /kin or /elec, there is no way that any other support set can give their pets kb protection, which results in a lot of time lost attacking, and not to mention constant repositioning of the pets to maximize their aoe and cones.

 

These are specifically parts of the drawbacks, that mean that having the auras on auto, would not anywhere near imbalance the class. It would just take away an annoyance that clearly people share, not saying EITHER of us are wrong, but we just have different opinions. These are not hard coded math problems, there is no 100% only correct answer, but i think you'll find while some forumites may for some odd reason want to click the upgrades, that  the more majority of players would prefer for them to be auto (or done away with altogether having the pets always have, or learn inherently by level their skills in lieu of better powers in their place).

[Turric]

10 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

 

I say that because you and a number of other people seem to want to reduce the complexity of the class and make it easier to play from a game balance perspective, and most of your arguments come down to "it's annoying to have limitations"

 

I cannot for the life of me understand why you would want to remove the (rather minor) depth that exists with keeping pets around and buffed. Like, masterminds are a class where there are often decisions, minor ones, but decisions to be made in battle. Much moreso than a brute or scrapper who just waltzes into a group and starts hitting things, we choose where our pets are, whats getting the next buff, to attack or support, and you want to remove some of those choices. You want to not have to think about it, to have less to do and streamline the way the actual class plays to remove some of the strategic depth masterminds have in encounters. 

 

When you say that that's a good thing, yes, I say your opinion is objectively wrong, that you do not have an appreciation for the actual design of the class. Saying that you don't like having to rebuff in combat or that pets should be more disposable is exactly like saying a brute should just go to 100% fury as soon as it hits something. Saying that a pet class being forced to pay attention to it's pets to keep them alive and doing full damage is bad class design...

 

No, that's wrong. Objectively speaking, you want to change Masterminds from what they are to something more mindless, which would straight up be a negative for the class. You want to not have trade offs to make in order to attack with your powers, you want to have to babysit your pets less and not care as much if they die because you're a 2 second cast from being back at full power instead of 3 2 second casts and some pet location management along the way and like you're missing the point entirely that those limitations are a direct intent in order to force masterminds to play a certain way. 

 

The same way Brute fury or containment or whatever else works, being designed to force you to play certain ways which go along with the class design. 

 

Saying that rebuffing in combat is a shit sandwich? Sorry but that same bad logic works equally well on containment, scourge, fury, etc. Its not even logic, your entire argument, and everyone else's who shares your opinion, is "I don't really care about balance, it annoys me personally and it would be progress if the class was changed to not annoy me personally" and you walk past every balance consideration anyone brings up as if they do not matter. Walk past the purpose of the limitation imposed on the AT because you do not like that limitation. 

 

So yeah, I can say that you're just wrong. Because your opinion as you have expressed it centers entirely around your personal preferences in gaming and you and certain other people like you seem to just want to like walk over content spamming powers and watching things die without having to think too much about it. There are ATs for that, MMs have not and will never be one of them. Moreso than any other class this one has always required you to think on your feet for max effectiveness, and taking away some of the thinking on your feet in order to shave a few seconds off of when you hit max damage again is not in any way an actual improvement to the class, it's  just reducing the complexity and making it more mindless. 

 

Making masterminds have fewer limitations than we already do (we are one of the strongest ATs in the game at present) is something that is not needed. Changing fundamental class design because it annoys you and literally for no other in game reason is a bad reason to make real balance changes that affect more than just quality of life. Neither you nor anyone else making these suggestions is taking any of that into account, its just a whole bunch of people making bad arguments about how they are annoyed by it, how people who don't want it to change are living in teh past, every single one of you is calling "making something less annoying to me personally" the same thing as "progress" and like no that's a bad faith argument that enshrines your annoyance as the most fundamental aspect to game balance. Its ridiculous and not an argument. 

 

Having to rebuff in combat serves a very specific purpose to encourage a specific playstyle across the entire AT. "Keep your pets alive" is a GOOD goal to give a pet class from a design and gameplay perspective. It makes perfect logical sense, it meshes with the support function of our secondary. This all fits together in a vision of the class's purpose, role in groups, intended functioning and especially intended limitations which give you things to work around and pay attention to as a mastermind in order to perform effectively. 

 

Forcing you to pick between like supporting a team mate, or rebuffing a pet, or attacking is a good idea. It creates meaningful choices during fights which affect what you do and how the fight flows from that point forward. Masterminds more than most other ATs have these kinds of meaningful choices where we often can pick between supporting our team, supporting our pets, attacking something, debuffing or mezzing something, and any of those actions could be your next action, and you as the mastermind get to decide which is the best next action to take. 

 

That is GOOD game design. That is intended game design. It is strategic depth to a class in a game which is increasingly full of characters which cannot be challenged by much if any content. You don't have to like it, but it comes back to, go play another AT, don't change this one to homogenize it and make it more mindless cause you don't want to have to deal with depth. Don't advocate to ruin everyone else's game experience so you can have something closer to a crabbermind than a current gamestate MM. 

 

 

In Internet debates, brevity is often a virtue. Judging upon your multiple uses of the word, "logic", I am beginning to question whether you understand the concept. Never have I argued from the point of logic. It is opinion. Yes, the class feature of continually buffing pets is annoying to me personally and I would wish it changed. I do not have to have a reason for my opinion, therefore it cannot be wrong (morals can be and the information that leads one to an opinion might be; semantics, I know). I have no reasons for liking applesauce and yet I still do. Arguing whether someone's opinion is "wrong" is an exercise in futility. You may try to change it if you wish by illustrating how great your opinion is, or by attacking the information which leads one to express that opinion (in this case, my annoyance) but I think there might be better uses of your time. You have done so ad nauseam and yet I remain annoyed by the mechanic in question. Clearly my opinion is only shared by the minority but had I the ability, I surely would advocate to advance my own playing experience over "everyone" else. This is, by far, my favorite game of all time, and yet there are many things I would change about it.

[Turric]

11 hours ago, PsychoThruster said:

Personally I'm not a fan of equip upgrades as powers. Then being automatic doesn't remedy it either from my perspective that it's simply a boring "power". It's much rather have the upgrades come in inherently at level intervals and get powers that give orders to be applied tactically. For instance giving mercs a "suppression fire" power that commands the soldiers to perform a long animation full auto that does minor damage but slows and debuffs tohit to any enemy in the cones. Perhaps another one that enables the selective application of tear gas. However these kinds of changes are already against the grain considering that level of control would be balanced by the resummoning cool downs of the pets which have just been reduced. 

 

I enjoy my MM fine and don't have experience with high level content, but personally I'd rather see changes to the AT that give a bit more control and tactical consideration as opposed to buff and forget powers.

 

Best argument so far.

[DreadShinobi]

12 minutes ago, Turric said:

 

 

In Internet debates, brevity is often a virtue. Judging upon your multiple uses of the word, "logic", I am beginning to question whether you understand the concept. Never have I argued from the point of logic. It is opinion. Yes, the class feature of continually buffing pets is annoying to me personally and I would wish it changed. I do not have to have a reason for my opinion, therefore it cannot be wrong (morals can be and the information that leads one to an opinion might be; semantics, I know). I have no reasons for liking applesauce and yet I still do. Arguing whether someone's opinion is "wrong" is an exercise in futility. You may try to change it if you wish by illustrating how great your opinion is, or by attacking the information which leads one to express that opinion (in this case, my annoyance) but I think there might be better uses of your time. You have done so ad nauseam and yet I remain annoyed by the mechanic in question. Clearly my opinion is only shared by the minority but had I the ability, I surely would advocate to advance my own playing experience over "everyone" else. This is, by far, my favorite game of all time, and yet there are many things I would change about it.

Best Post

[WindDemon21]

1 hour ago, Turric said:

Clearly my opinion is only shared by the minority

This is actually very untrue in my experience. I would say like 5% of people I've actually discussed this with in game agree on having the upgrades be automatic, which is why it's so weird to see people defending how they currently are on here at all. There is definitely a difference of people who play the game versus those who spend most of their time on the forums (or way more than others at least) regarding these things. But deciding this on pure vote alone from everyone actually playing in game and not just the forums (not saying spirit fox or others don't for clarity), then there would be no contest that the majority would swing towards making them automatic from what I've seen/heard.

[Maxzero]

 

To me clicking upgrades adds nothing tactically to MMs. Did ST upgrades, long recharge summon times, shorter range pet auras, pets not persisting through zones, group fly having limited range for pets add extra complexity to MMs? Yet those charges were/are all cheered on.

 

What arbritary line does auto upgrade powers cross? Are people trying to say wether or not to click the upgrade equipment button is some great tactical decision? I would argue that long resummoning timers were something I did have think about and plan for especially in high damage situations. Yet here we are.

[Tacheyon]

37 minutes ago, Maxzero said:

 

To me clicking upgrades adds nothing tactically to MMs. Did ST upgrades, long recharge summon times, shorter range pet auras, pets not persisting through zones, group fly having limited range for pets add extra complexity to MMs? Yet those charges were/are all cheered on.

 

What arbritary line does auto upgrade powers cross? Are people trying to say wether or not to click the upgrade equipment button is some great tactical decision? I would argue that long resummoning timers were something I did have think about and plan for especially in high damage situations. Yet here we are.

 

Yes something like that would be nice.  But that would be a fundamental change to the entire class and skill system in general.  And I don't see how the Dev team could do that with their resources and the limitations of the code and tech.

 

While it is nice to shoot for the stars in what we want out of the class, we also have to keep our expectations reasonable.