Please revert the Rage change.

[DSorrow]

How about just giving Rage the same treatment as Practiced Brawler on Sentinels? One version that comes with -20% Def and another that comes with -40% Res. Enable the player to pick a poison rather than force them to one that disproportionately hits Defense sets. 

[Kimuji]

Maybe it was intentional for thematic reasons. If you're big and super strong you're more likely to endure damage than dodge it. I'll admit that it is pure speculation on my part here.

Now I don't think it is technically possible, unless you make 2 separate Super Strength sets.

[Galaxy Brain]

27 minutes ago, Kimuji said:

What are insipirations for then if the game is so easy that you don't need them? Consumables are meant to be used, having to eat an inspiration doesn't mean that you failed somewhere and you're a bad player. AE farmers eat damage inspirations by the dozens, does it mean that their builds or powers are broken?

Consumables are meant to be consumed, but *requiring them to function* is something that no set should need.

 

The farming example is done for efficiency, as most builds can farm without those inspirations but just at a slower pace. The reds are not fixing an issue, but boosting a strength.

 

In the case of rage, saying that you should just patch it up with RNG / pre bought consumables is not cool. At that point, why not replace rage with trays of reds?

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, Kimuji said:

Maybe it was intentional for thematic reasons. If you're big and super strong you're more likely to endure damage than dodge it. I'll admit that it is pure speculation on my part here.

Now I don't think it is technically possible, unless you make 2 separate Super Strength sets.

Itd be neat if Rage gave some +Res or something while up. It seems strength always came with being tougher 

[ShardWarrior]

30 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Itd be neat if Rage gave some +Res or something while up. It seems strength always came with being tougher  

I don't think it needs a +RES - the DMG and ToHit buff are more than enough IMO.  Personally, I would not mind if Rage were made an un-stackable, non-click ability, based off the enemy NPCs in range - sort of like Invincibility or Against All Odds.  Something that builds up over time and then auto-fires when full.

[ShardWarrior]

43 minutes ago, Kimuji said:

Maybe it was intentional for thematic reasons. If you're big and super strong you're more likely to endure damage than dodge it. I'll admit that it is pure speculation on my part here.

I think that is a fair speculation as it would make sense.

[DSorrow]

1 hour ago, Kimuji said:

Maybe it was intentional for thematic reasons. If you're big and super strong you're more likely to endure damage than dodge it. I'll admit that it is pure speculation on my part here.

Whatever the original reasons for it were, I don't find -Res is any less fitting than -Def when it comes to being exhausted. While I'm not a boxer, I'd guess hitting an exhausted opponent in their defensive stance probably does more than the same hit against a fresh opponent.

 

1 hour ago, Kimuji said:

Now I don't think it is technically possible, unless you make 2 separate Super Strength sets.

We know it's technically possible for a powerset to have mutually exclusive powers at the same tier because such powersets already exist on Homecoming. I'd be extremely surprised if existing powersets couldn't have mutually exclusive powers added to them.

Edited August 7, 2019 by DSorrow

[Hyperstrike]

4 hours ago, DeformedBrit said:

Well yeah it pretty much is guaranteed to hit because follow up gives you a tohit bonus as well. Even then, in the unlikely event you do miss, the recharge is so low it doesn't matter. So what's the explanation then? Surely this is OP as it has no drawbacks? Please enlighten me as to why this is fine and Rage has 3 debuffs. 

Also you still haven't answered as to why the no damage for 10 seconds and endurance crash isn't enough of a penalty.

You misunderstand.
Follow Up doesn't come with a built-in +ToHit.
If it lands, it provides 10% +ToHit and 30% +Damage
It's essentially an attack that grants built-in Build Up effect.

Recharge Time: 12s (+Hasten + Slotting down to around 5 seconds).  Including activation times, the second attack will land some time AFTER 10 seconds.
In which case, why are you not using Rage again, since the downtime is a mere 10 seconds?
Do something auto-hit (like Taunt).
Use something not affected by the Rage crash.
WHATEVER.

Oh wait.  Again, you don't WANT TO.

And the reason why I haven't answered why reduced damage (NOT "no damage") and an End crash isn't "enough" is because my answer is irrelevant.
Dev intent was reduced damage, an End crash and a Defense crash.
End of story.

Me saying anything beyond that is as arbitrary as your reasons for NOT wanting it.

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Consumables are meant to be consumed, but *requiring them to function* is something that no set should need.

 

The farming example is done for efficiency, as most builds can farm without those inspirations but just at a slower pace. The reds are not fixing an issue, but boosting a strength.

 

In the case of rage, saying that you should just patch it up with RNG / pre bought consumables is not cool. At that point, why not replace rage with trays of reds?

Please elucidate how Rage "requires them to function".

They're simply ONE avenue for dealing with the Rage crash.
There are several to choose from.

You're simply arguing that you shouldn't HAVE to deal with the crash because "you don't want to".
 

[ShardWarrior]

"What the Devs intended" is not a valid argument from the standpoint that the Devs intended to do a lot of things which they subsequently changed their mind on as the game progressed.

[justicebeliever]

25 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

"What the Devs intended" is not a valid argument from the standpoint that the Devs intended to do a lot of things which they subsequently changed their mind on as the game progressed.

I will say this is a very hollow argument...(I'm agreeing with you Shardwarrior)

 

The Dev's are gone, so we'll never what they "intended" to do with this game 7 years after it sunset.  To be fair, the Live Dev's themselves don't know what they would have done if the game would have been live for 7 more years...

 

Additionally, the Dev's were not MMORPG god's that were incapable of error, so again, appealing to the Live Dev's as the only authority is ridiculous.  There were a collective of people who changed over the years, and new ideas were brought in and old ideas left.  

 

The game model is different now as well...Homecoming CoX is very different than NCSoft CoX from a business model.  NCSoft, and Paragon Studios needed the Dev's to develop things that would increase subscribers, increase their playtime, and most importantly, generate revenue.  With that last need gone now, it's silly to think that all the same "rules" still apply

 

I'm with arguments about power creep, game balancing, and game mechanics, but to not do something because of the "live" dev's is absolutely ridiculous...

[ShardWarrior]

For clarity, I totally agree it was the Dev intent for Rage to have the -DEF crash. 

 

What I object to is "what the Devs intended" being incorrectly passed off as the set-in-stone unchangeable rule.  We will never know whether the original Dev intent would have changed or not if the game were still running "live".  For all any of us know, the Devs would have found that the change was fine and left it at is.  They also could have found it didn't work the way they wanted and tried something completely different.  Nobody knows what they would have done. 

 

It should not be used as an excuse to dismiss and not explore potential ideas here and now.

Edited August 7, 2019 by ShardWarrior

[SlimPickens]

I find it hard to believe so many apologists are arguing for the current rage situation as if its a good game mechanic and nothings worth fixing.

 

Its not good, it wasnt good on live TBH, sitting doing nothing for 10 secs at a time is not good gameplay mechanics, so it was poorly thought out in the first place, and now its very bad because on top of the doing nothing, you are getting crapped on with -def. Intended? maybe, but well thought out and fun...NO.

 

a guassian procced build up every 20 seconds is far superior to what double stacked rage gives on a highly resisted damage type set anyways, so the old justification for it being such a good buff no longer holds water. Its a decent buff, but its a horrible mechanic, and is simply not fun.

 

I dont expect the devs to spend their free time fixing things like this, so I just enjoy not playing my SS characters nowdays and playing sets i think are much more fun, which is unfortunate since SS was such an iconic powerset and has some really cool animations and feel to it. But what im confused about is how many bad choice apologists are defending the set as being "fine", look you dont play it, you dont care, or you dont want it to be fun, I get it, but why come in here and defend something thats simply not fun for the great majority of people is beyond me.

Edited August 7, 2019 by SlimPickens
spelling

[Vindicator]

Just in case this was missed earlier -

 

Maybe it's time to make Rage a toggle.  Then remove the damage and defense debuff since you won't be able to stack Rage anymore.

 

Making Rage a toggle would also allow you to put Hasten or another power on auto instead of Rage.

 

And just to reiterate, the damage debuff should NEVER exist.  At no point in time should anyone with "Super Strength" be hitting for SINGLE DIGIT NUMBERS outside of a starting zone.  The damage debuff is a liability to yourself, your teammates, and a disgrace to the powerset name.

[JCMcBoo]

I haven't read the entire thread so I am unsure if this has been suggested but why not reduce the duration of the -Def to the point where any incoming damage during that time can be mitigated by the KB/KD in a Hand Clap-Foot Stomp combo?

 

It seems to me that managing the crash shouldn't be all that difficult in a set so heavily loaded down with KD. Hand Clap to put the whole mob on the kiesters and have them stumbling around for a bit and then concentrate on the heavy hitters in the group with Punch, Haymaker and KO Blow to keep them off their feet.

Edited August 8, 2019 by JCMcBoo

[Burnt Toast]

On 8/7/2019 at 11:58 AM, ShardWarrior said:

For clarity, I totally agree it was the Dev intent for Rage to have the -DEF crash. 

 

What I object to is "what the Devs intended" being incorrectly passed off as the set-in-stone unchangeable rule.  We will never know whether the original Dev intent would have changed or not if the game were still running "live".  For all any of us know, the Devs would have found that the change was fine and left it at is.  They also could have found it didn't work the way they wanted and tried something completely different.  Nobody knows what they would have done. 

 

It should not be used as an excuse to dismiss and not explore potential ideas here and now.

Except it wasn't their intent. It was planned... everything was set for it to be live...and then it wasn't. The power text was never changed to reflect this. For MANY issues we (Beta testers) and the Devs discussed this - as late as Issue 24 beta where it was decided (again) that the -Def would not be a smart/logical/acceptable mechanic of Rage. So no it wasn't their intent. It was decided by the man himself that it would not go Live. It had already been discussed to change the power text to reflect that the -Def was not part of the power. When these changes went live due to the bug fix... there should have been something to offset the -Def aspect before; or shortly thereafter, to put Rage back to the state it was when Issue 24 was going live. 

For the record... I actually don't care - I don't have a SS character and never plan on making one - even if the -Def was reverted. BUT I hate seeing where people spread misinformation.... this change was not supported by the original Devs - hence why it was never implemented on Live. 

[Galaxy Brain]

On 8/7/2019 at 12:21 PM, Hyperstrike said:

Please elucidate how Rage "requires them to function".

They're simply ONE avenue for dealing with the Rage crash.
There are several to choose from.

You're simply arguing that you shouldn't HAVE to deal with the crash because "you don't want to".
 

Rage comes with an otherwise unavoidable defense crash that puts a bug strain on secondary (or primary as a tanker) powers that rely on +Def to function properly, and even on resist sets you are going to be taking more damage as enemy tohit goes from 50% to 70%. Using inspirations to patch that, or using incarnate powers, or other means to subvert the crash is something no other set *has* to deal with to keep playing. 

 

Super Strength even with stacked rage is not the best melee set. Smashing damage is commonly mitigated in the game, and in an IO / Incarnate world (since we are bringing that up for patching the crash) it is outcompeted by other sets that do not have to stop and have better synergies. 

 

Even in an SO environment there are sets that likely outperform it on Brutes at the least, but the now un-bugged def crash hurts tankers a bit more in their role. Many people here, on discord, reddit, and facebook all are avoiding Super Strength since the crash just is not fun given other options and the def crash is just pushing that further. 

 

So you're right Hyperstrike. I, with many others, do not want to deal with the rage crash. We do not have to, as if we are going for theme we have StJ, Titan Weapon or even MA to mimic "brutal physical fighter" for concept, and even performance with some of those sets over SS. Why should we put up with something that punishes is us + doesnt make a set go from mediocre > consistently the best in the game, in a way that makes you need to stop what you're normally doing? Few if any powers do that besides T9 crashes (which are also usually avoided) or the odd power that makes you only affect self which usually is something you directly control. 

 

Tell me, why should we put up with it? In love the dev's left the def crash out even tho they could have fixed it. It's been 7 years since then and they have moved on, you think that their ontent would be to have the def crash implemented after 15 years?

 

 

 

 

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Tell me, why should we put up with it? In love the dev's left the def crash out even tho they could have fixed it. It's been 7 years since then and they have moved on, you think that their ontent would be to have the def crash implemented after 15 years?

Put up with it?

I think you've VASTLY overinvested emotionally on this.

The devs didn't "leave the Defense crash out".  That's revisionist history (aka LYING).
The Defense crash ALWAYS WAS THERE.  So if you ran Rage only single stacked, you got the Defense crash.
There was simply a BUG that allowed for someone running double-stacked Rage to avoid the Defense crash.
The game closed before they got around to fixing it.

And yes, it's been 7 years.  And you have NO idea how long that particular bug has been fixed on the SCORE server.

[Galaxy Brain]

I could say the same with how vehemently you are defending it. For all intents, it was *not* in the base game as it was trivial to stack rage for many years, even for just 10 seconds to avoid the crash.

 

The dev's knew it, but they never made a move to fix it. For years. That is "essentially" leaving it out as they knew it could be avoided but they let it be avoidable.

[DSorrow]

I think what the original devs intended or not is a completely secondary argument, the primary discussion should be whether or not the current crash is a good/fun mechanic. Most people (me included) seem to think it's not because:

• Spending ~10% or more of your time not being able to contribute at all isn't really that fun
• The -Def affects different sets very disproportionately: pure resist sets like Elec have incoming damage increased by ~40%, Def sets like SR have incoming damage increased by up to 400%*
• It's unresistable unlike most debuffs in the game which makes Defensive sets extra susceptible to it as they rely on their high DDR in normal gameplay

I don't think anybody is disagreeing that there needs to be some kind of downside to Rage, but it's current implementation leaves a lot to be desired, which is at least somewhat evidenced by the fact that the original devs let it slide for years. I'm still of the mind that a simple solution would be two mutually exclusive Rage powers in the SS, one with a -Res crash and another with -Def so you can at least choose the one that less gimps your defensive set.

 

*This is obviously simplifying the situation, but I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption to have the pure resist set at ~0% Def and the high defense set at the soft cap. Of course, going far beyond the soft cap mitigates the Rage crash, but that's a pretty unreasonable assumption considering the game is supposedly balanced around SO level performance. At the same time, the high resist character with no DDR is at 5% dodge rate against most enemy groups so Rage crashing actually doesn't increase incoming damage at all.

[Bunmaster]

Ppl need to stop saying that it was the Live Devs intention for it to keep the -Def. Yes, it was a bug and yes it was fixed by HC. But the fix had been on beta servers before the sunset and tested thoroughly. It was decided that it was NOT a good fix. And thus the bug was allowed to live.

 

After playing my SS/SD brute extensively, my opinion is that the Rage crash is more annoying than deadly. Even when i am the main tank. To me the annoying part isn't even the -Def, it's the -DMG. Sure when tanking i need to pay extra attention to the crash but it's survivable. 

 

Can it be better? And more FUN? Hells yeah! Personally, i think it Needs to lose the -DMG. For those who wants Rage nerfed because it's a perma BU, Rage cannot be looked at in vacuum. It's part of SS and that whole set is balanced around Rage.  

[Haijinx]

On 8/6/2019 at 6:53 PM, ShardWarrior said:

You didn't have Shield Defense, SR etc. for Tanks back then, so the avoidable -DEF crash was moot.

An SR tank can be built to ignore the crash.   Getting 65% defense is not very difficult on SR.

 

So for tankers this is mainly an issue for Shield, Ice and Stone (outside granite)  

 

Two of those go back to Issue 1. 

 

On an SR/SS the question is more .. how much uptime can I get on double stacked rage

 

 

[prhuber]

I vote to have rage have a "calm down" mechanic that works similar to ageless where the buffs start strong but get weaker over time. Remove the crash effects all together or at least the defense debuff. If you pop it again it doesn't stack and just restarts the buff. 

[Marine X]

Strangely I hardly ever even notice the Crash. Marine is Invulnerable / Super Strength and the amount of Set bonuses and Resists that he has makes it difficult to detect. Invul is almost all Resists with a Little Defense thrown in. A lot of the talk here makes it sound like the "Unstoppable" Crash, ( I hide that particular power where it never gets clicked by mistake, right beside Walk ( also known as the Suicide Button) ), I just have not felt it to be that Impactful. Shoring up the Psionic Hole in Invulnerability has been a much bigger concern. I still run PermaRage and IF I look at Power Attributes I can see the Crash but like I said, for me, it hasn't effected Gameplay. I understand that it may be a LOT worse with other Tanker/Brute sets that are heavy on Defense.

[Midnight Rose]

I think it is worth keeping in mind that there are 2 crashes:  -damage & -def

 

They impact game balance and fun differently.  I still find the -damage the bigger issue around decreasing fun.

I would hope for the simpler/minimal change that gets rid of that.

 

I hope the Homecoming Devs would weigh in soon on their thinking on this.  Last post in this thread was July 4.