A note on Rune of Protection changes

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, America's Angel said:

What about implementing PVP mez suppression in PVE?

 

This is how it currently works in PVP:

 

Every time a character recovers from a Hold, Immobilize, Disorient, Sleep, or Fear status, that character 
becomes immune to all five of those effects from other players for 15 seconds. Every time a character suffers 
a Knockdown, Knockback, or Knockup effect, that character becomes immune to all three of those effects from 
other players for 10 seconds. These two timers are independent. It should be noted that Confuse effects, while 
technically mezzes, are on a separate 15-second timer than the other mezzes listed above.

 

I second this alternative and also recommend including cage (affecting self), repel, placate, and taunt status effects as well. 

Edited April 1, 2021 by Glacier Peak
Repel ball!

[America's Angel]

35 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

 

Any time there's any suggestion of bringing ANYTHING over from the pvp areas it's met with "Don't bring your pvp trash over to my safe space!"

 

I'd assume if they did something like that it would not only affect controls to player operated characters but also how ones controls would affect non players in the same way.  The mez system in any form coming from pvp would need to see controller archetypes and maybe some defenders solely be the only ones with access to actual controls.  This'll be a bigger can of worms than just implementing one aspect I would think.  

 

You'd assume wrong! 

 

On PVP maps it only applies to players. NPCs can still be infinitely chain-mezzed.

 

So it is technically possible, at least.

[Ankhammon]

2 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

And then Radiation Emission, while not giving you protection, gives you a decent amount of mez resistance which you can use IO enhancements to push up if you so desire.

So you get hit with a 3 second sleep. Guess what happens. You are slept for 1 second, Rad Infection, Enervating Field and Choking Cloud all go down.

Now you have recharges of 8 seconds on RI and EF, and a whopping 20 seconds on CC. Oh yeah, cast time on RI is currently 3.1 seconds, on EF it's 1.5 seconds and on CC it's 3.47 seconds which means...

 

Theory: It will take you approximately 10+ seconds to get back to the place you were in before you were mezzed... oh yeah, all the while everything you had under control is beating the ever lovin blue eyed thing outta you.

Expected Result: faceplant in under 5 seconds.

 

Reality: You are praying you haven't fired off your EM Pulse cuz it's gonna be your best chance to survive (300 second recharge)

Expected Result: You can still pull this out if you play your cards right and don't fumble on who you need to target in that sea of enemies... but only when that's available.

 

I know there is some talk about lowering the cast times on the toggle de-buffs but it's not in game yet.

[twozerofoxtrot]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

That sapper then proceeded to poke her with his sappy beam gun... for twenty minutes.

 

Twenty minutes.  20.  T W E N T Y.

 

It took that long for the miserable little twat nozzle to defeat her. 

 

That's some good badge credit right there.

[golstat2003]

On 3/30/2021 at 5:12 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

1) Thank you Captain Powerhouse and Jimmy for posting this.

 

2) I think we all know that the entire binary mez system is this game sucks, but that's something the original developers should have fixed 17 years ago, not something that the current Homecoming developers can really address and still call this game City of Heroes.

 

3) It amuses me that so many people are so against these changes while so many other people are blowing up the suggestions forum with "This game is too easy!! Please nerf us!!" threads. This goes to show just how difficult dealing with a large number of people, whom you can't just brig when they get out of line, really is.

 

The problem here is there are two very different visions of what COH is and should be. At one point or another the devs are going to have to take a stand on it as we move forward.

 

I'm not sure there is anyway they can get around this.

 

As for the binary mez system, yeah I . . . don't know what to say about that. Except the following:

 

Should mez matter in the game? Or shouldn't it? If the answer is it should, then some would argue it should matter for EVERYONE, equally. I'm not sure I agree with that argument, but changing it at this point would be a changing a fundamental design philosophy that makes the game what it is, as you say.

 

I guess the question I would have for the original COH devs if they were available is: (Though I agree that it may not be fair to expect the HC devs, or the devs of ANY other sever for that matter, to answer that.)

 

Why is it okay that some ATs have to worry about mez, and some pretty much don't?

[golstat2003]

3 hours ago, America's Angel said:

What about implementing PVP mez suppression in PVE?

 

This is how it currently works in PVP:

 

Every time a character recovers from a Hold, Immobilize, Disorient, Sleep, or Fear status, that character 
becomes immune to all five of those effects from other players for 15 seconds. Every time a character suffers 
a Knockdown, Knockback, or Knockup effect, that character becomes immune to all three of those effects from 
other players for 10 seconds. These two timers are independent. It should be noted that Confuse effects, while 
technically mezzes, are on a separate 15-second timer than the other mezzes listed above.

 

 

I'd be fine with this honestly. 🙂 

[Mezmera]

2 hours ago, America's Angel said:

 

You'd assume wrong! 

 

On PVP maps it only applies to players. NPCs can still be infinitely chain-mezzed.

 

So it is technically possible, at least.

 

Yeah I've been to RV a tad.  I forsee problems tinkering with mez in pve but have at it.  Wasted resources though I'd say, mez currently is not the boogey-man some are making it out to be.  

[AerialAssault]

4 hours ago, America's Angel said:

What about implementing PVP mez suppression in PVE?

 

This is how it currently works in PVP:

 

Every time a character recovers from a Hold, Immobilize, Disorient, Sleep, or Fear status, that character 
becomes immune to all five of those effects from other players for 15 seconds. Every time a character suffers 
a Knockdown, Knockback, or Knockup effect, that character becomes immune to all three of those effects from 
other players for 10 seconds. These two timers are independent. It should be noted that Confuse effects, while 
technically mezzes, are on a separate 15-second timer than the other mezzes listed above.

 

 

I honestly believe this would be the best solution to the "Mez Problem".

 

Although, if I am completely honest, I don't believe there is a problem. If I get defeated, I generally don't blame the game for it.

 

But I would seriously suggest reducing the time of many NPC mez effects. Malta Sleep Dart is beyond a joke.

[CaptainLupis]

5 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Fantastic idea.  @Jimmy, do me a solid and disable all toggle/click status protections for a week, would you, dear?  Nothing would go further toward highlighting the problems with status effects than this.  Make everyone equal by making everyone a squishie.

 

 

I'd settle for them just doing it today as an April fool's prank and wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth to ensue...

[Peacemoon]

Some sort of pvp supppression in pve would be good.

 

I’d also encourage people to explore my idea of greater inherent mezz resistance.

 

My defender is Rad/ and accelerate metabolism gives massive +mezz resist. It doesn’t make you immune to mezz, but it does make mezzes wear off VERY quick so they are a lot less fatal. 
 

In my opinion there is no need for mobs to mezz players for the durations they do, which is a massive contribution factor to why mezz is so lethal.

If we reduced the durations of mob mezzes (through some sort of baseline mezz resist),

and give some protection from being chain-mezzed to death, I think that would be enough to soften the disparity without making everyone immune. 

 

The goal is to reduce the binary feel of mezz protection (immunity) vs no mezz protection. 

I’d love for offensive toggles to be treated like defensive toggles also. Suppressed when mezzed but not detoggled completely.

[CaptainLupis]

10 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Some sort of pvp supppression in pve would be good.

 

I’d also encourage people to explore my idea of greater inherent mezz resistance.

 

My defender is Rad/ and accelerate metabolism gives massive +mezz resist. It doesn’t make you immune to mezz, but it does make mezzes wear off VERY quick so they are a lot less fatal. 
 

In my opinion there is no need for mobs to mezz players for the durations they do, which is a massive contribution factor to why mezz is so lethal.

If we reduced the durations of mob mezzes (through some sort of baseline mezz resist),

and give some protection from being chain-mezzed to death, I think that would be enough to soften the disparity without making everyone immune. 

 

The goal is to reduce the binary feel of mezz protection (immunity) vs no mezz protection. 

I’d love for offensive toggles to be treated like defensive toggles also. Suppressed when mezzed but not detoggled completely.

I think many people would be happy enough with mez resists over protection, if all toggles, including ones which affect enemies, only suppressed instead of dropping completely.

[Peacemoon]

2 minutes ago, CaptainLupis said:

I think many people would be happy enough with mez resists over protection, if all toggles, including ones which affect enemies, only suppressed instead of dropping completely.

Yes!

My rad defender relies on his toggles to stay alive just like others rely on their defensive toggles. 
 

I think a lot of the blanket mezz protection stems from an era where it dropped all toggles and would be instant death for everyone, melee and squishy. I don’t think it’s as needed anymore (personally I’d only give tankers and brutes full immunity) but we are where we are. 

[Peacemoon]

A final radical thought I’ll throw out here, don’t even suppress toggles in PvE. Allow toggles to operate at full power even when mezzed.
 

Just make it enough that you lose control of your character without also making them EXTREMELY vulnerable and shutting everything down. 
 

Melee would notice zero difference.

squishies would not get instant killed when a mezz sneaks through. 
Losing control of your character and not being able to do anything would be enough (and would still leave you vulnerable), so protections would still be useful. 

 

It would be a really awesome change that I think the community would get excited about. I think it would be great.

Edited April 1, 2021 by Peacemoon

[CaptainLupis]

33 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Yes!

My rad defender relies on his toggles to stay alive just like others rely on their defensive toggles. 
 

I think a lot of the blanket mezz protection stems from an era where it dropped all toggles and would be instant death for everyone, melee and squishy. I don’t think it’s as needed anymore (personally I’d only give tankers and brutes full immunity) but we are where we are. 

It's not even the risk of death for me. It's just plain frustrating having to wait for the toggles to recharge, turn them back on only for them to immediately get dropped again. Over and over.

[CaptainLupis]

32 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

A final radical thought I’ll throw out here, don’t even suppress toggles in PvE. Allow toggles to operate at full power even when mezzed.
 

Just make it enough that you lose control of your character without also making them EXTREMELY vulnerable and shutting everything down. 
 

Melee would notice zero difference.

squishies would not get instant killed when a mezz sneaks through. 
Losing control of your character and not being able to do anything would be enough (and would still leave you vulnerable), so protections would still be useful. 

 

It would be a really awesome change that I think the community would get excited about. I think it would be great.

In theory I'd not be against that, but I'm too tired to think through the consequences that could have right now.

 

I've said previosuly (nothing to do with the RoP threads) I think mez should always have some sort of effect, even if you have protection. Things like, for example, you get hit with an immob, but its mag is less than your protection so right now nothing happens, wouldn't it make more sense for it to slow you down in some way instead? Either as a straight -movement, or maybe suppressing the use of travel powers. Holds stopping a single attack from being used for a few seconds if they don't outright hold you. Some sort of special effect that only triggers if the target isn't mezzed. Those type of things where it's not just a binary: the power affects you or it doesn't.

 

I'm not saying those are changes I want to see implemented by the way, I imagine it would be far too much work to be viable even if I did, it's just a way of illustrating that I don't like the on or off nature of mez we have now, that some are completely immune to while others have to suffer through it all, and that there are ways to make it more evenly balanced without giving mez protection to everyone, or directly nerfing it for those that do have it.

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:

Holds stopping a single attack from being used for a few seconds if they don't outright hold you. Some sort of special effect that only triggers if the target isn't mezzed. Those type of things where it's not just a binary: the power affects you or it doesn't.

 

Oh!  That could be interesting.  The higher the magnitude (single or stacked), the more attacks you get locked out of, going in reverse order as they are in your primary/secondary.  So at level 50 you would get locked out of your T9 attack first but you have your other powers, unless you have more mez hitting you and then you keep going up the list.  At level 1 you are left with brawl.  It might be too late for this game to implement that, but I like the sound of it.

 

[Jacke]

5 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:

I'd settle for them just doing it [ suppress all Mez protection ] today as an April fool's prank and wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth to ensue...

 

That would be awesome. 😄

 

 

7 hours ago, Ankhammon said:

[ Mez effects on a Radiation Emissions Defender / Controller / Mastermind ]

So you get hit with a 3 second sleep. Guess what happens. You are slept for 1 second, Rad Infection, Enervating Field and Choking Cloud all go down.

Now you have recharges of 8 seconds on RI and EF, and a whopping 20 seconds on CC. Oh yeah, cast time on RI is currently 3.1 seconds, on EF it's 1.5 seconds and on CC it's 3.47 seconds which means...

 

Theory: It will take you approximately 10+ seconds to get back to the place you were in before you were mezzed... oh yeah, all the while everything you had under control is beating the ever lovin blue eyed thing outta you.

Expected Result: faceplant in under 5 seconds.

 

Reality: You are praying you haven't fired off your EM Pulse cuz it's gonna be your best chance to survive (300 second recharge)

Expected Result: You can still pull this out if you play your cards right and don't fumble on who you need to target in that sea of enemies... but only when that's available.

 

I know there is some talk about lowering the cast times on the toggle de-buffs but it's not in game yet.

 

 

Back before Shutdown, I did a detailed analysis of Choking Cloud as it would work on Defenders and Controllers, figuring out the effect of the two component holds it had.  As it was then, it was actually not worth it on a Radiation Defender, only a Controller, just on the chance and duration of holds to overlap on Minions and Lieutenants.  And of course the Controller got double damage from Mez.

 

I had a Fire Control / Radiation Emission Controller from one of @TopDoc's SuperTeams.  Overlapping Choking Cloud and Hot Feet was great, mobs held and damage doubled from Containment.  Until the toon got Mezzed and all that was gone.

 

 

7 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Why is it okay that some ATs have to worry about mez, and some pretty much don't?

 

Exactly.  The concern is as binary as the effects.

 

I think thoughts should turn to not just fiddling with Mez but actually doing a rebuild on it.  Unlikely, as it would require tweaking so many player powers and NPC mobs and their powers.  Would need new coding to handle the effects.  And of course stronger feedback than Pages 1 and 2 combined.

 

I think it was @Linea that thought of this variant, where Mez is never binary, always a scale of effects.  Holds and Immobilizes as we know now would be replaced with -Recharge and Slows that ramp up to where the target can't use powers and can't move.  Maybe have some powers have both effects.  I've thought of other ways to extend this: Fears as a combination of -ToHit, -Damage, and Knockback.  Confuse as a combination of -ToHit and -Damage with targetting on team members.  Make the degree of the mez effects variable, as the recent changes have done to many powers.  And give all players and mobs a variable resistance to these effects.

 

Take that idea, design it out, then develop it down to the simplest system that with the right settings can make things understandable, challenging, and never completely certain for any toon what's going to happen when they hit or are hit.

 

13 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Oh!  That could be interesting.  The higher the magnitude (single or stacked), the more attacks you get locked out of, going in reverse order as they are in your primary/secondary.  So at level 50 you would get locked out of your T9 attack first but you have your other powers, unless you have more mez hitting you and then you keep going up the list.  At level 1 you are left with brawl.  It might be too late for this game to implement that, but I like the sound of it.

 

That's a great example of thinking outside of the MMO Box.

 

Problem is even for the smoothest rebuild, it would be a lot of work, need a lot of testing and tuning, and in an established game like City of Heroes would get a lot of irritated and griefing response.

 

But I think at least Mez needs that level of rethink and rebuild.

 

[CaptainLupis]

25 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

That would be awesome. 😄

 

 

 

 

Back before Shutdown, I did a detailed analysis of Choking Cloud as it would work on Defenders and Controllers, figuring out the effect of the two component holds it had.  As it was then, it was actually not worth it on a Radiation Defender, only a Controller, just on the chance and duration of holds to overlap on Minions and Lieutenants.  And of course the Controller got double damage from Mez.

 

I had a Fire Control / Radiation Emission Controller from one of @TopDoc's SuperTeams.  Overlapping Choking Cloud and Hot Feet was great, mobs held and damage doubled from Containment.  Until the toon got Mezzed and all that was gone.

 

 

 

Exactly.  The concern is as binary as the effects.

 

I think thoughts should turn to not just fiddling with Mez but actually doing a rebuild on it.  Unlikely, as it would require tweaking so many player powers and NPC mobs and their powers.  Would need new coding to handle the effects.  And of course stronger feedback than Pages 1 and 2 combined.

 

I think it was @Linea that thought of this variant, where Mez is never binary, always a scale of effects.  Holds and Immobilizes as we know now would be replaced with -Recharge and Slows that ramp up to where the target can't use powers and can't move.  Maybe have some powers have both effects.  I've thought of other ways to extend this: Fears as a combination of -ToHit, -Damage, and Knockback.  Confuse as a combination of -ToHit and -Damage with targetting on team members.  Make the degree of the mez effects variable, as the recent changes have done to many powers.  And give all players and mobs a variable resistance to these effects.

 

Take that idea, design it out, then develop it down to the simplest system that with the right settings can make things understandable, challenging, and never completely certain for any toon what's going to happen when they hit or are hit.

 

 

That's a great example of thinking outside of the MMO Box.

 

Problem is even for the smoothest rebuild, it would be a lot of work, need a lot of testing and tuning, and in an established game like City of Heroes would get a lot of irritated and griefing response.

 

But I think at least Mez needs that level of rethink and rebuild.

 

I think that was @Luminara that suggested a scaling for things like -rech becoming holds with enough mag. Which is similar to what I was mentioning with immobs that don't have enough mag to immob you doing slows, but looking at it from the opposite side.

[arcane]

6 hours ago, AerialAssault said:

If I get defeated, I generally don't blame the game for it.

There’s something important and perhaps even profound here. I have strong suspicions it even correlates to worldview outside of CoH. I see just about every defeat in this game as a tactical error with varying (nonzero) levels of avoidability. Others seem to see themselves as relatively powerless subjects of a systemic force. I have a feeling these philosophical differences between us are deep rooted and unlikely to change.

[arcane]

I would support offensive toggles suppressing when mezzed. I think my Rad defender is my only character with Clarion due to this issue. I don’t really struggle with mez on any other characters, but I do tend to just completely forget to turn other offensive toggles back on, like Time’s Juncture. Which is slightly annoying from time to time.

[arthurh35353]

I find it funny that people bring up some very weird changes for 'anything' to fix mezz protection, even things that could end up making it harder for everyone. 😕

 

Debuffs transitioning to mezzes sounds nice, except that the people getting mezzed would just get debuffed harder before getting mezzed on top of things. Let's punish squishies more and I'm sure I could hear the screams of protected ATs if they started to get random debuffs instead of being 100% protected like they are now.

[Blackbird71]

11 hours ago, Mezmera said:

Any time there's any suggestion of bringing ANYTHING over from the pvp areas it's met with "Don't bring your pvp trash over to my safe space!"

 

As a rule, I don't PvP, in CoH or any other MMO.  I despise when games are changed around PvP mechanics, as pursuit of PvP "balance" invariably homogenizes the rest of the game and makes it less interesting and fun.  In nearly every MMO I've played in 20 years of online gaming, using PvP as a guide/justification for PvE changes has killed my interest in the game.

Having said all of that, this is one aspect of PvP I could definitely support porting over to PvE.  There is nothing more frustrating than getting chain mezzed long enough that you can only sit and watch as your character is defeated without the ability to react or do anything at all to prevent it.  Gameplay is interaction.  Mez removes the possibility for interaction, and therefore removes gameplay.   There have been whole essays on this by experienced and celebrated game designers explaining why this sort of mechanic is bad for the game experience.  Maybe we can't remove it from CoH now, or modify it into something less egregious, but if we can at least put a stop to the chain mez issues, that would go a long way towards reducing player frustrations and making the mez conundrum more tolerable.

[CaptainLupis]

13 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

I find it funny that people bring up some very weird changes for 'anything' to fix mezz protection, even things that could end up making it harder for everyone. 😕

 

Debuffs transitioning to mezzes sounds nice, except that the people getting mezzed would just get debuffed harder before getting mezzed on top of things. Let's punish squishies more and I'm sure I could hear the screams of protected ATs if they started to get random debuffs instead of being 100% protected like they are now.

What I suggested doesn't punish squishies more, as it would only trigger if there were no mez protection, so they are no worse off than they are currently.

 

The vast majority of my alts are melee and are 100% protected, and yet I suggested something should change to redress the balance somewhat.

 

However it's not likely to happen so it's probably somewhat off topic for here.

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, Jacke said:

I think it was @Linea that thought of this variant, where Mez is never binary, always a scale of effects.  Holds and Immobilizes as we know now would be replaced with -Recharge and Slows that ramp up to where the target can't use powers and can't move.  Maybe have some powers have both effects.

 

That was my idea also. Use Immobs and Holds as -Def/-Res since you can't dodge, etc. Sleeps give a -Dam for a while after being Slept or if you're not completely Slept, etc. I've always thought it solved a problem pretty well, but needs a lot more discussion and planning than as an aside in another type of thread. But, it was always popular enough with a lot of knowledgeable posters that I wondered why it kept getting mentioned by multiple people in discussions about mezzing, others liked it, then... it just faded away.

[Coyote]

24 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

Debuffs transitioning to mezzes sounds nice, except that the people getting mezzed would just get debuffed harder before getting mezzed on top of things. Let's punish squishies more and I'm sure I could hear the screams of protected ATs if they started to get random debuffs instead of being 100% protected like they are now.

 

That's kind of the point, I think... make mezzing something that affects all ATs, even if not as greatly, and then use that as a base to diminish the general prevalence of mezzing in the game (like adding +Resist(mez) to more powers). Right now there are a lot of ATs who just ignore the amount of incoming mezzing, and so it gets swept under the rug. I mean, do players who only play melee characters even know how long Malta Stun Grenades last for? I generally measure their duration in sandwiches (as in, how many can I make while the character is still Stunned).