Force of Will suggestion

[kelika2]

Merge Weaken Resolve and Project Will, make the debuffs not stackable for balance reasons

 

New Power:  Long Jump - i dont care about the name.  Toggle, +def to all, lots of jump speed and air control, but little to no height added.  Why?

 

I wanna min/max alts and the new TPs not having +def is screwing with my head. real bad.  or in some cases "wasted" power slots to get to a t4 or t5

[Spectre7878]

I think both Force of Will and Experimentation should be looked at. I feel sorcery is crazy good and would love for the other two to be just as powerful. 

[arcane]

Hard no to adding any additional defense buffs to any pool powers at this time.

[Sunsette]

I understand the appeal of adding more def to pool powers but while it's an effective bandaid, it's not a real solution.

[aethereal]

I don't think there's a super strong reason to avoid combat-jumping-level defense powers in the following pools:  Teleport, Force of Will, Presence, Healing, and *maybe* Sorcery.  It won't let people get any really higher defense levels overall (they'll sub out Leaping or Flying for one of those pools), and it could create some diversity in the meta.  Pursuant to Sunsette's point, is it the most elegant solution to the monomanic focus of the meta on Fighting/Speed/Leadership and then one of Leaping, Flight, or Stealth?  No.  But inelegant solutions are better than no solutions, and the current approach of, like, "Maybe pray that for some reason people stop wanting defense powers" isn't a solution.

[arcane]

6 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I don't think there's a super strong reason to avoid combat-jumping-level defense powers in the following pools:  Teleport, Force of Will, Presence, Healing, and *maybe* Sorcery.  It won't let people get any really higher defense levels overall (they'll sub out Leaping or Flying for one of those pools), and it could create some diversity in the meta.  Pursuant to Sunsette's point, is it the most elegant solution to the monomanic focus of the meta on Fighting/Speed/Leadership and then one of Leaping, Flight, or Stealth?  No.  But inelegant solutions are better than no solutions, and the current approach of, like, "Maybe pray that for some reason people stop wanting defense powers" isn't a solution.

If no more than Combat Jumping level defense, it might be fine, yes. I don’t have a super sound balance-specific reason for saying no more 1.75% defense powers or whatever.

 

I do however think that it would further enable a bad player subculture prominent at least on the forum. A lot of players speak as if the game is practically unplayable without a certain level of defense and a certain number of LotG’s.
 

I would rather see buffs like those done to Sorcery - buffs that make powers and pools better without coddling a limiting mindset.

IMO we don’t actually create any real build diversity by acting as if players can only be drawn in by the same tired maxed out defense buff/LotG setup. Is it really build diversity when players take different pools - if you had to make all the pools function the same to get there?

[aethereal]

9 minutes ago, arcane said:

If no more than Combat Jumping level defense, it might be fine, yes. I don’t have a super sound balance-specific reason for saying no more 1.75% defense powers or whatever.

 

We definitely, absolutely, positively should not add any power pools that give defense levels higher than Combat Jumping.

 

9 minutes ago, arcane said:

 

I do however think that it would further enable a bad player subculture prominent at least on the forum. A lot of players speak as if the game is practically unplayable without a certain level of defense and a certain number of LotG’s.
 

I would rather see buffs like those done to Sorcery - buffs that make powers and pools better without coddling a limiting mindset.

IMO we don’t actually create any real build diversity by acting as if players can only be drawn in by the same tired maxed out defense buff/LotG setup. Is it really build diversity when players take different pools - if you had to make all the pools function the same to get there?

 

This is the "pray that people change their minds" strategy.  How long does it have to fail before people recognize that it's always going to fail?

 

The reason that people get the defensive powers is that it's actually better. A character built to the meta can do more and higher-end content than one not built to the meta, ceteris paribus.  And people want that.  We can spend all year complaining that people shouldn't want that, but they do.  Yes, the game is already easy, no, you don't need to build to the meta if you want to do lower-difficulty content or only team, but so what.  People turn out to want to make their superheroes powerful!

 

On some level the right thing to do is to do a drastic rebalancing of defense, global recharge, and PPM.  But that then throws thousands of developed characters under the bus.  I think it's eminently possible to do those things in a way that leaves a resulting game that's much more diverse and interesting, but the player base doesn't feel their time honored, and that's a valid concern.  Nobody wants to have their character who they've invested time and attention into making the Ultimate Superhero suddenly become a weakling.

 

If we don't do a drastic rebalancing of defense, global recharge, and PPM, then we have to try to encourage diversity within the context of "people are going to build to softcap and perma-hasten."  That's a pretty awful constraint, but it does seem possible to do.  We just have to sacrifice one power in those pools to be a CJ-equivalent defensive power and then we have the other four to build diverse interesting powers with.

[arcane]

1 minute ago, aethereal said:

Yes, the game is already easy, no, you don't need to build to the meta if you want to do lower-difficulty content or only team, but so what.  People turn out to want to make their superheroes powerful!

False implications. You can solo +4x8 with ~15% defense and just a couple of LotG’s. You just can’t do it playing like you’re in a coma. 

[aethereal]

5 minutes ago, arcane said:

False implications. You can solo +4x8 with ~15% defense and just a couple of LotG’s. You just can’t do it playing like you’re in a coma. 

 

Let me know how your project of changing the meta by convincing people goes.  How long have people been building softcap (and global recharge) through set bonuses?  Since about 2008?  How much traction have you got since then?

Edited June 16, 2021 by aethereal

[arcane]

8 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

Let me know how your project of changing the meta by convincing people goes.  How long have people been building softcap through set bonuses?  Since about 2008?  How much traction have you got since then?

Plenty of people don’t build for the soft cap meta already. It’s not just me. I’m just against catering to and enabling the vocal subpopulation that does. I don’t have a problem with them insisting on soft-capping every character. I think they’re free to do their Speed/Leaping/Fighting/Leadership routine over and over. I just don’t think the rest of the sets/pools need to redesigned just because their boring mindset leaves their builds looking samey and stale. I’m not trying to change the meta at all in other words. I’m just protesting normalizing the whole game around it.

Edited June 16, 2021 by arcane

[Koopak]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

Plenty of people don’t build for the soft cap meta already. It’s not just me. I’m just against catering to and enabling the vocal subpopulation that does. I don’t have a problem with them insisting on soft-capping every character. I think they’re free to do their Speed/Leaping/Fighting/Leadership routine over and over. I just don’t think the rest of the sets/pools need to redesigned just because their boring mindset leaves their builds looking samey and stale. I’m not trying to change the meta at all in other words. I’m just protesting normalizing the whole game around it.

This, all of this, minus the slightly aggressive tone going back and forth here.

The forums make people who seek "The Meta" seems more significant than they really are. That shouldn't be surprising, people looking to get the absolute maximum out of a character build are more likely to seek feedback and information on the topic, run numbers, and discuss. Meanwhile the average player base is generally more interested in making a character that fits their concept, or play style.

I routinely put together builds for a largish SG, and while that's still a small pool, its worth note that 90% of the builds i get asked to help on are "I want this, this, and this, and i know its not meta but how can i make it work and be strong on my budget?" So I think claiming that we have to design around the defense focus of the meta is false. Sure if you look at the data Leadership, Fighting, and Speed are the most common, but that's just as often because "Eh nothing else fits my character and the raw stats help" or "I wanna cast X as much as possible regardless of validity" or even just "Yeah my character has leadership skills and basic hand to hand training."

If some people wanna always take the best bang for their buck defense powers, that's a decision they are allowed to make, but you cant put to much effort into developing around 'the meta' because at the end of the day the meta chasers will always find and do the optimal thing, and its not possible to make disparate systems 100% equal, its fools errand. Instead the goal is to get most builds within a certain percentage of the meta, while maximizing variety in ways of accomplishing that. I have several builds that can handle +4x8, even easily, without defense cap. Granted I think the gap between some builds is still to wide, but id much rather than have more ways to close that gap than slapping defense on everything.

[arcane]

Yes, the meta you observe from the forums is dramatically skewed disproportionately towards this habit, perhaps because caring enough to post on a forum is a characteristic more likely to be observed in a powergamer type. The much broader population of players you actually play with is already diverse in their choices. 

[Koopak]

I will add, Project Will needs love. Wall of Force has value as a big chonky knockback wall, and Weaken Resolve is a great debuff, but Project Force has a long animation time, low damage, and inconsistent and low knockback. I'd love to see something done to make Project Will a more useful power, either boosting the knockback, adding some minor status, or just upping the damage. Arcane Bolt got a great improvement, hoping for something similar down the line but im sure it on the to-do list already.