Can we please NOT force "Trinity Gaming" in CoX? (Dr Khan)

[ABlueThingy]

2 hours ago, Auracle said:

It was a trinity game. It had tanks, healers and DPS. Plus controllers. Well ok, trinity-point-five.

 

This...

 

2 hours ago, Auracle said:

Content could be completed with any group composition but as a general (i.e. not absolute) rule, 1 or 2 tanks, at least one healer and a bunch of DPS was the most effective.

 

and this.  Are contradictory.  A game with "The Trinity" means a game that requires a tank/healer/dps to complete the content.  Nothing but the Tank can survive the damage but they can't survive long without a Healer and neither of them can output much damage so they need a DPS.

 

That has never been true in COH from the Beta onward. In both mechanical reality and design intent by the devs.  I personally tanked multiple AVs with my Kat/Regen on a "DPS" class.  Before CoV launched I had acted as the tank for every AV in the game.  So pre IOs even.  I had even tanked Hami.  "Healers" are the weakest form of support in the game. Debuffs and Buffs beat them out.  I've personally seen Blasters tank the pretorian AVs in, again, SO era.  Before difficulty sliders.

This was always both a strength and weakness for the game.  I remember the purple patch.  I remember City of Blasters.  I remember the Tanker nerfs.  I remember City of Statues. I remember the time before the PTOD.

 

I remember the arguments about Blasters being worthless because Def could output more damage at range when accounting for buffs/debuffs and Scrappers could do about as much but never die.  I remember the scrappers complaining they were worthless because Blasters did more damage but they couldn't even tank.  I remember Tankers complaining they were useless because an FF and Dark Miasma on the team could turn anyone into a tank.  I remember Controllers complaining that Tankers could lock down mobs just like they could and Defenders had better support so THEY were useless.

 

You never needed a tank, but people thought you did.  You never needed a healer, but people thought you did.  You never even needed DPS.  But people thought you did.

 

Every issue it would cycle out and someone new would be the "Most useless AT" and every 3 issues there would be an upset and things go wild.  And the truth was always that literally any AT combo could work for any content up until CoV.  Not every powerset combo could, but every AT combo.  All Tanker, All Defender, All Controller.  7 Def/1 Scrap.  1 Blast/1Def/6 Tanks.  As long as the powesets were right it would work. 

You just needed enough HP, spread across the team, to survive the damage.  And enough damage to reduce the enemy HP before yours ran out.  You could use a Tanker or a Blaster and just have raw heavy numbers.  Or you could use a Scrapper and buff them into a tank.  Or a bunch of Controllers and debuff/lockdown the enemy until they couldn't hurt you.

 

AND NONE OF THAT IS EVEN TOUCHING THE INSPIRATIONS!  Lord!  That was the whole point of the Insp system, to specifically shatter the trinity into bits.  Anyone could pump themselves full of insps and take on any content.  A team of (the right kind of)Blasters could use Insps to power through anything

 

 

[Solarverse]

6 hours ago, macskull said:

Even if you increased NPC hit points across the board by a factor of, I dunno, ten, it still wouldn't make most mobs a competition. The mobs which are already difficult would still be difficult and the easy ones would not be any harder, it would just take longer to defeat them. It might make AV fights a bit more difficult because regen scales with HP, but really all it's doing is slowing down the game for no real gain.

Not really the issue I was trying to tackle though. I just wanted them to have a bit more staying power.

[Alchemystic]

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Defenders aren't healers.  They never were.

 

Not exactly true.

 

Defenders were originally the only archetype with decent healing output, and their inherent power (Vigilance) was directly tied to the team's health.

 

With access to powersets like Empathy, Radiation Emission and arguably Dark Miasma, Defenders were pigeonholed into being the dedicated healing archetype, and players who didn't choose from these powersets were often rejected by teams.

 

It wasn't for a long time until Defenders were really recognised as anything else, and even to this day they are still the best choice for optimising healing output.

[Luminara]

40 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Defenders were originally the only archetype with decent healing output,

 

Heal scalars (ranged and melee) for defenders and controllers were identical until Issue 3.

 

41 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

and their inherent power (Vigilance) was directly tied to the team's health.

 

Vigilance wasn't added until after Issue 5, and Cryptic's response to our objection to an endurance discount tied to team health, which we disliked because a) it did nothing for us when solo, unlike every other inherent, and b) it offered no tangible effect for primaries like Force Field and Trick Arrows, was "Blast more.", thus directly informing us that the inherent was not, in fact, intended to be a "healer bonus".

 

49 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

With access to powersets like Empathy, Radiation Emission and arguably Dark Miasma, Defenders were pigeonholed into being the dedicated healing archetype, and players who didn't choose from these powersets were often rejected by teams.

Never happened to me.  Never happened to anyone I played with.  Wasn't a common complaint on the old forums (i double-checked, just to be certain my memory wasn't failing me).  Can you support that assertion, that non-healing defenders were "often rejected by teams" with any evidence (independently conducted poll with a large sample size, or records of in-game metrics, or any unbiased collection of data indicating a trend)?

[Alchemystic]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Heal scalars (ranged and melee) for defenders and controllers were identical until Issue 3.

 

Even before healing scales changed, Defenders still had the significant advantage of accessing healing powers sooner than Controllers, which made them the preferred choice for healers.

 

The move to increase healing scales for Defenders during issue 3 further solidified their position as the primary healing archetype.

 

9 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Vigilance wasn't added until after Issue 5, and Cryptic's response to our objection to an endurance discount tied to team health, which we disliked because a) it did nothing for us when solo, unlike every other inherent, and b) it offered no tangible effect for primaries like Force Field and Trick Arrows, was "Blast more.", thus directly informing us that the inherent was not, in fact, intended to be a "healer bonus"

 

If as you say the inherent power had no tangible effect on primaries like Force Field or Trick Arrow, then we can assume that it does benefit primaries like Empathy and Radiation, which seems to support the concept "healer bonus"

 

32 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Can you support that assertion, that non-healing defenders were "often rejected by teams" with any evidence (independently conducted poll with a large sample size, or records of in-game metrics, or any unbiased collection of data indicating a trend)?

 

I'm offering an eyewitness account of events, I'm not beholden to provide anything else.

[Luminara]

43 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Even before healing scales changed, Defenders still had the significant advantage of accessing healing powers sooner than Controllers, which made them the preferred choice for healers.

 

T1 defender primaries are available at level 1 as controller secondaries.  Of the entire roster of defender primaries which both contain at least one healing power and which was available prior to I5, that only leaves Storm with a healing power unavailable to controllers at level 1.  Even if you were to constrain the argument to Empathy, Heal Other is available to controllers at level 2, Absorb Pain at level 4, representing an availability differential of 2 levels (Absorb Pain is available at level 2 for defenders) for controllers to function as "healers" at the exact same efficiency and strength as defenders when the game was released.  Not really a foundation for proclaiming a significant advantage, even in that era, when it was "harder" to level.

 

54 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

If as you say the inherent power had no tangible effect on primaries like Force Field or Trick Arrow, then we can assume that it does benefit primaries like Empathy and Radiation, which seems to support the concept "healer bonus"

 

Sure, if you blatantly ignore that the development team refuted that notion, that argument could be supported.

 

54 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

I'm offering an eyewitness account of events, I'm not beholden to provide anything else.

 

Ah.  Well, in that case, my hearsay and anecdote counters your hearsay and anecdote, and the information I've provided, and which can be verified both on the wiki and in the Wayback Machine, has certainly proven your disinformation to be what it is, so it doesn't appear you have any basis for your assertion.

 

Defenders aren't healers.  They never were.

[Alchemystic]

36 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

T1 defender primaries are available at level 1 as controller secondaries.  Of the entire roster of defender primaries which both contain at least one healing power and which was available prior to I5, that only leaves Storm with a healing power unavailable to controllers at level 1.  Even if you were to constrain the argument to Empathy, Heal Other is available to controllers at level 2, Absorb Pain at level 4, representing an availability differential of 2 levels (Absorb Pain is available at level 2 for defenders) for controllers to function as "healers" at the exact same efficiency and strength as defenders when the game was released.  Not really a foundation for proclaiming a significant advantage, even in that era, when it was "harder" to level.

 

If we're strictly sticking to the example of Empathy, then we should also consider Ressurect and Regeneration Aura, which definitely have a broader gap in levels between archetypes.

 

But that's if we're just looking at accessibility. You already made the point that Defenders have higher healing scales, which is enough of an argument to say they perform better than Controllers in that regard.

 

36 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Sure, if you blatantly ignore that the development team refuted that notion, that argument could be supported.

 

Refuted or not, the point remains that it offers more benefit to healing powersets than others, even if that wasn't the intended effect.

 

36 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Ah.  Well, in that case, my hearsay and anecdote counters your hearsay and anecdote

 

So long as we agree that it's your word against mine, sure.

 

A lack of empyrical evidence lends itself to neither side of the argument, so unless you can provide something tangible to refute me, then we're at an impasse.

 

Edited June 20, 2021 by Tyrannical

[arcane]

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

Never happened to me.  Never happened to anyone I played with.  Wasn't a common complaint on the old forums (i double-checked, just to be certain my memory wasn't failing me).  Can you support that assertion, that non-healing defenders were "often rejected by teams" with any evidence (independently conducted poll with a large sample size, or records of in-game metrics, or any unbiased collection of data indicating a trend)?

Considering I saw this all the time, heard about it from others all the time, etc... I gotta say this looks like textbook gaslighting here. Acting like no one ever had an unrealistic expectation of getting heals specifically out of general support is gaslighting, yes. 

 

This post reads about as if it's saying "Can you provide any evidence that Assault Rifle is considered a subpar set? Only peer-reviewed dissertations though - this is serious business."

 

Actually, a better example would be something that the entire culture has long acknowledged existed. Like demanding data sets to prove that taxi bots were a thing. Jesus christ are we really implying "r u a heal0r" was fake news?

 

(Sorry I keep editing this bad boy)

Edited June 20, 2021 by arcane

[arcane]

21 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

So long as we agree that it's your word against mine, sure.

 

A lack of empyrical evidence lends itself to neither side of the argument, so unless you can provide something tangible to refute me, then we're at an impasse.

 

Back when I was a teenager, I somehow lacked the foresight to document every instance of looking for a healer, asking if someone was a healer, being asked if I was a healer, being on a team that was looking for a healer, etc. I don't know how I could've been so stupid to have missed the opportunity to have conducted a rigorous statistical analysis. Kids do stupid stuff. I guess we'll never know if the healer buzz was real or just a dream. 

 

 

[Night]

Actually reading this mess. Back in the day as a defender, unless you were an empath, you were simply kicked from teams. Sending a tell to a team leader asking to join? A reply comes by of "empath?" and after a while you'd just stop answering since that's all people cared for. Sometimes you'd get invited to teams and hope nobody checks your powersets, because if they did, you had a 50% chance of getting kicked with or without an explanation. Only way to level was to hold onto the few people who ran teams and didn't mind non-empaths, get on Kraken-farming teams in the Abandoned Sewer Trial, and then serve as a sidekick-bridge for a farmer's friend on a Dreck farm once you crawled your way to high enough.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Night

[Luminara]

10 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

You already made the point that Defenders have higher healing scales, which is enough of an argument to say they perform better than Controllers in that regard.

 

That wasn't the point that I made.  You're deliberately obfuscating the facts.  Again.  If you can't support your argument otherwise, you can't support your argument at all.

 

Defenders aren't healers.  They never were.

 

16 minutes ago, arcane said:

Considering I saw this all the time, heard about it from others all the time, etc...

 

I don't take comments like that on face value.  It reeks of hyperbole.  And given that I didn't encounter this kind of behavior, and I was playing some very strange defender builds, teaming frequently in those days and spending time on seven different servers, that alone provides evidence that it was not, in fact, the norm, nor even somewhat common.

 

17 minutes ago, arcane said:

Acting like no one ever had an unrealistic expectation of getting heals specifically out of general support is gaslighting, yes. 

 

Being mentally ill myself, I'm the last person on the planet who would deliberately attempt to fuck with someone else's mental state or make them question reality.  Asking for proof isn't gaslighting.  Refuting anecdote with anecdote isn't gaslighting.  Insisting that there was a deliberate campaign to force every defender into a healer role, providing not a single iota of proof of said campaign and saying, "You'll just have to take my word for it" when asked for evidence, that's gaslighting.  Pot, kettle, black.

[arcane]

17 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Being mentally ill myself, I'm the last person on the planet who would deliberately attempt to fuck with someone else's mental state or make them question reality.  Asking for proof isn't gaslighting.  Refuting anecdote with anecdote isn't gaslighting.  Insisting that there was a deliberate campaign to force every defender into a healer role, providing not a single iota of proof of said campaign and saying, "You'll just have to take my word for it" when asked for evidence, that's gaslighting.  Pot, kettle, black.

Well it seemed like the word of the entire community until now, but I guess you’re right that we could’ve hallucinated it.

 

You’re free to start a poll if you need the proof. I can check your poll questions for validity if you like as there were a number of scenarios you’d need to capture to do it right. I don’t care to do it myself because I already remember not only encountering it almost daily but also finding that others were broadly aware of the phenomenon as well.

Edited June 20, 2021 by arcane

[Alchemystic]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

That wasn't the point that I made.  You're deliberately obfuscating the facts.  Again.  If you can't support your argument otherwise, you can't support your argument at all.

 

Defenders aren't healers.  They never were.

 

You yourself cited that Defenders and Controllers had the same healing scales until issue 3, what you neglected to mention was that Defenders were the ones who received the increase.

 

Youre the one obfuscating the facts here, stop trying to gaslight people.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2021 by Tyrannical

[arcane]

I just want to say for the warm fuzzies that, whenever I was looking for an Empathy to keep my petty scrapper herding Dreck as well as a tanker, I didn’t discriminate between controllers and defenders. Unfortunately this can’t be much help to Lum as the story involves someone looking for an Empathy.

[Night]

50 minutes ago, Luminara said:

I don't take comments like that on face value.  It reeks of hyperbole.  And given that I didn't encounter this kind of behavior, and I was playing some very strange defender builds, teaming frequently in those days and spending time on seven different servers, that alone provides evidence that it was not, in fact, the norm, nor even somewhat common.

This sounds of the basic internet argument of "[thing] works fine for me, so there's no problem with [thing]". There were 16 servers on live, I can tell you how terrible it was to be a non-empath defender on Union around the time of issue 3. Unless you played on all the servers at the same time, you gotta accept people's accounts of their experiences.

[arcane]

11 minutes ago, Night said:

This sounds of the basic internet argument of "[thing] works fine for me, so there's no problem with [thing]".

Hey I like using that one a lot tho.

 

I do like tho how the quoted post literally says his anecdote counts as good evidence. Double standard?

 

I’d rather drop it from here. Lum and I are going to disagree on reality (still recalling the thread war about support class discrimination and oppression). No need to prod each other over and over at a certain point. Apparently it’s not just me that’s a bit fucked in the brain.

Edited June 20, 2021 by arcane