General Feedback: Issue 27, Page 3

[Lazarillo]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

 I’m not sure if the intention is to make them More of an inf sink or simply to discourage their use. If people keep using them then it will have increased their use as an inf sink. If people stop using them then people stop using them. So maybe it’s a dual purpose change?

If the intent is to discourage their use period, then I'd say just remove them from the P2W vendors and be done with it (though again, that's not the rationale that seems to be given in the notes).  They aren't practical as an inf sink for reasons already noted: at the point you're generating that much Inf, they're unnecessary.

[Wavicle]

7 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

just remove them from the P2W vendors and be done with it

 

Sounds good to me.

[Riverdusk]

2 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

If the intent is to discourage their use period, then I'd say just remove them from the P2W vendors and be done with it (though again, that's not the rationale that seems to be given in the notes).  They aren't practical as an inf sink for reasons already noted: at the point you're generating that much Inf, they're unnecessary.

 

Yep, if they'd just said "we feel they are OP and unneeded and we're getting rid of them" I could at least understand that logic and I can understand the point of those advocating that position.    The change proposed here, I'm not understanding its logic.

[ForeverLaxx]

7 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

In my experience, it's the opposite.  I don't want to move too quickly through the early levels, as it's very easy to outlevel content that I want to do with my characters from the story side of things (content that either can't be flashed back to in most cases, or is diminished if done as a flashback).  But the fun factor ends up diminished because so many things are level-gated.

And how does having amplifiers slow you down? Isn't their purpose to speed things up?

 

Again, I solo my characters exclusively, barring TFs that I run for merits (to convert to influence via auction to afford generic IOs), up to level 22. At that point, I get generic IOs and a few useful global procs like Perf Shifter/Panacea and continue soloing. I spend 90% of my time doing contact missions, story arcs, and only turning off my exp to finish a contact so I don't miss potential badge missions that aren't part of an arc.

 

There are no amplifiers in anything that I do and I've never seen them as anything more than something to spend influence on at a higher level to creep your power just that much more than a full build allows. Rest recharges so fast these days that you can use it every 5-8 spawns and never "worry" about endurance while leveling. You can toggle things off that aren't terribly helpful in the moment, such as an armor power that doesn't guard against what you're fighting or a damage aura that isn't going to do much because you're only fighting 1 or 2 minions and not a boss.

 

While I'm not arguing that amplifiers aren't useful at low levels, I am arguing that they're far from this necessary addition that others seem to believe them to be and I suspect the point of argument is actually from people who just want to buy them early to save money while still getting time with them at the level cap. They're just hiding behind the "noobies are being left out" argument because it's more appealing of an argument than "I don't want my toys taken away."

 

For what it's worth, I never thought the amplifiers should have existed in the first place and would lose no sleep if they were removed.

[arcane]

24 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

 

It's no change at max level, where they're not really serving their purpose anyway because anyone who could afford them is built enough to render them completely meaningless.

Unless you build around them, which I try not to do very often at all, but.. knowing you can treat 40% defense as the new softcap if you commit to an amp build, can open up other opportunities in your build, to say nothing of the other 8 effects’ implications.. Planning around the +tohit could mean no/less accuracy required in your proc bombs, etc. All sorts of ways it makes you a little more OP.

Edited November 18, 2021 by arcane

[Lazarillo]

2 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

And how does having amplifiers slow you down? Isn't their purpose to speed things up?

It doesn't really do either?  That's the point.  I could gain effectively similar benefits by, say, joining a few DfB runs, but then I'd miss out on story content in Port Oakes (or not be able to do Praetoria at all), and if I need to slow down, of course, I can turn off XP.  But in doing so, I'm not able to fully apply myself to the content, and/or am deliberately limiting myself on team content.  Amplifiers are nice because they allow me to fill a gap that that is left by choosing not to level quickly.

[Riverdusk]

1 minute ago, ForeverLaxx said:

While I'm not arguing that amplifiers aren't useful at low levels, I am arguing that they're far from this necessary addition that others seem to believe them to be and I suspect the point of argument is actually from people who just want to buy them early to save money while still getting time with them at the level cap. They're just hiding behind the "noobies are being left out" argument because it's more appealing of an argument than "I don't want my toys taken away."

 

 

 

Considering it takes me on average about 50 hours of playtime to get a character from 1 to 50 the way I play the game, and the amps only last 8 max, I can say for a fact you are completely wrong about that, in my case at least.   And yes, I've tracked that across many characters by talking to an NPC who's name starts with an M (who'll tell you your playttime) once I hit 50.

 

And an easy way to address that particular issue would be to just limit the number of hours you can buy at a time.  Heck, could make it max 1 hour even instead of 8.

[scottocamp]

The grumpy old men talking about power creep and how amplifiers unbalance the game all seems kind of silly to me.  For 2.5 million I can buy 60 large purple inspirations and 60 large orange inspirations that both last 60 seconds each (total of one hour) and have 33% extra defense and 20% extra resistance to everything any time I need it.  In addition to all the inspirations normally raining down on me.  Which kind of dwarfs the 5% defense and 7% resistance I would get from one hour of a defense amplifier.  The amplifiers are not that big of a deal.

[Lazarillo]

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

Unless you build around them, which I try not to do very often at all, but.. knowing you can treat 40% defense as the new softcap if you commit to an amp build, can open up other opportunities in your build, to say nothing of the other 8 effects’ implications.. Planning around the +tohit could mean no/less accuracy required in your proc bombs, etc. All sorts of ways it makes you a little more OP.

That's all well and good when you assume no cost.  But the point is that the builds that can make use of amplifiers at max level are already pulling 7.5 million influence per hour (or greater).  And no build that's that highly specialized is going to be effective because it's using buffs that at that point are so small relative to set bonuses and the like.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, scottocamp said:

The grumpy old men talking about power creep and how amplifiers unbalance the game all seems kind of silly to me.  For 2.5 million I can buy 60 large purple inspirations and 60 large orange inspirations that both last 60 seconds each (total of one hour) and have 33% extra defense and 20% extra resistance to everything any time I need it.  In addition to all the inspirations normally raining down on me.  Which kind of dwarfs the 5% defense and 7% resistance I would get from one hour of a defense amplifier.  The amplifiers are not that big of a deal.

 

This is a ridiculous argument. You can't hold 120 inspirations, and if you tell me you can in your email then I'm going to tell you that's an exploit that should probably be fixed.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

just limit the number of hours you can buy at a time.  Heck, could make it max 1 hour even instead of 8.

 

I'm all for it.

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

That's all well and good when you assume no cost.  But the point is that the builds that can make use of amplifiers at max level are already pulling 7.5 million influence per hour (or greater).  And no build that's that highly specialized is going to be effective because it's using buffs that at that point are so small relative to set bonuses and the like.

 

The amplifiers are not small relative to set bonuses. They are as powerful as the some of the best set bonuses. Adding them to an already powerful build unquestionably makes it even more powerful.

[scottocamp]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

 

This is a ridiculous argument. You can't hold 120 inspirations, and if you tell me you can in your email then I'm going to tell you that's an exploit that should probably be fixed.

 

 

 

 

I'm all for it.

 Not ridiculous at all.  I can hold more than enough inspirations to get through any mission and then can easily buy more inspirations between missions.  And achieve better defense and resistance than an amplifier for considerably less money.  Don't need to use mail in any way. 

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

 Not ridiculous at all.  I can hold more than enough inspirations to get through any mission and then can easily buy more inspirations between missions.  And achieve better defense and resistance than an amplifier for considerably less money.  Don't need to use mail in any way. 

ok, and therefore you should Also be able to have amplifiers at little cost? Like I said, a ridiculous argument.

[Wavicle]

What if the stats that are in the amplifiers were all or mostly added to the Beginner's Luck buff?

 

So everyone basically has the Amplifiers on at level 1 and then they gradually fade away until they're completely gone about 20 or so.

[GraspingVileTerror]

I did propose something like that as one of my alternative solutions, yes.

[ForeverLaxx]

17 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

It doesn't really do either?  That's the point.  I could gain effectively similar benefits by, say, joining a few DfB runs, but then I'd miss out on story content in Port Oakes (or not be able to do Praetoria at all), and if I need to slow down, of course, I can turn off XP.  But in doing so, I'm not able to fully apply myself to the content, and/or am deliberately limiting myself on team content.  Amplifiers are nice because they allow me to fill a gap that that is left by choosing not to level quickly.

Yeah, that doesn't make any sense to me and really sounds like a personal problem considering I have zero issues playing without amplifiers or DFB passives. Turning off exp to avoid over-leveling for mission content isn't really an issue either so I don't see why you think that's a negative on a TF where you have lots of other people around to "compensate" for your lack of 1 or 2 level-ups.

[Riverdusk]

Well, he makes a good point to me about how powerful inspirations are and how cheap. 

 

I've actually said in the past I think purple inspirations are out of whack and their values should be cut in half. 😀   But, I know that'll never happen.

 

 

 

 

[scottocamp]

6 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

ok, and therefore you should Also be able to have amplifiers at little cost? Like I said, a ridiculous argument.

 

I'm just adding some context.  If you can point out how this context is "ridiculous" - have at it.  Compared to inspirations amplifiers are not that impactful dollar for dollar.  I'm not arguing for amplifiers to be reduced in cost.  I'm not actually making any argument - ridiculous or otherwise.

[Aurora_Girl]

Also like...if you've "wasted millions of inf" RPing or in the costume creator or dicking around then that's on you. No need to change the thing. 

[Wavicle]

6 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

 

I'm just adding some context.  If you can point out how this context is "ridiculous" - have at it.  Compared to inspirations amplifiers are not that impactful dollar for dollar.  I'm not arguing for amplifiers to be reduced in cost.  I'm not actually making any argument - ridiculous or otherwise.

 

You're confusing the issue with your non-argument.

 

New characters do not have the inspiration slots of a 50. Amplifiers are absolutely more impactful to a new character than inspirations, dollar for dollar.

[GraspingVileTerror]

Between Market and in-game email, everyone does actually have at least 100 Inspiration Slots starting at level 1, if they choose to use those storage slots in such a way.

And that's before we take Super Packs and Character Items in to account here.

 

But that's a separate issue to be addressed or not addressed at the whims of the Devs.

[arcane]

Comparing something you have to monitor every 30-60 seconds to something you have to re-up every 8 hours is kiiinda sorta apples and oranges, lol.

[Wavicle]

Apples and durians.

[WindDemon21]

Chiming in though, at low levels and high levels I never really use them at either rate. The only time I have is low levels like with dark armor for the help on endurance, never really the other ones. But that goes back to wishing they would also just fix the values for regen/recovery from .42/sec and 1.67/sec to .5/sec and 2.00/sec base and health to 50% instead of 40% to help ease up builds not needing the health/stamina uniques etc and make level progression nicer as well being much nicer round numbers.

[Glacier Peak]

The only time I've ever used P2W amplifiers I was running through the Villain Patron Arcs through Ouroboros. I wanted to get through the repetitive arcs as quickly as possible, so I set the difficulty to -1x1, no bosses, no AVs and bought amplifiers, created base temps, snagged a bunch of Ultimates and T4 inspirations, and finally got around to using the dozens of temps that I've collected on my main over the past two years that have otherwise sat in my trays unused.

 

I'm happy to use whatever capabilities that exist in the game to play the game how I would like. Cost is irrelevant in this game given enough time. It's not a learning curve, it's a controlled market. If anyone disagrees with that, I'd like to know if they thought the legacy market was balanced. That's my anecdotal experience with amplifiers.