Issue 27 Page 4 - The End of Procs

[aethereal]

43 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Problem is three of the four blast sets you chose aren't just average, but underperform in general.

 

I think they're broadly average, at least in the powers I chose.  Empty clips may be slightly low damage, but it captures a range.  If you feel like you're going to discover some game changing difference by putting in a beam rifle power, you can copy the sheet and then add another line to it.  All you have to do is copy on the recharge, animation time, damage, and if applicable radius and arc from CoD -- the formulas I put in will calculate the proc rate etc.  Let us know what you find (but I don't think you'll see anything wildly out of line with what's in there already).

Edited February 23, 2022 by aethereal

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Holding support archetypes down won't fix anything, unless the goal is to remove interest in playing them entirely.

 

When I say a big nail, Lumi, I mean it. Good game design would have lead to a game where every combo for every archetype would have some level of equitable "purchasing power," as you put it. So you'll have to forgive my scorched earth mentality for using bad game design against bad game design. Random fixes here and there aren't going to get that peacebringer anywhere near the purchasing power of that rad/fire brute.

 

Edit: But it's all moot. Defenders will never be granted the ability to use *all* of their own powers on themselves. Kheldians will remain a clunky mess. And some combos will still be able to hit three vet lvls an hour cruising around DA. All I can do is accept it and enjoy what I can when I can.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[macskull]

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

That's a valid and constructive point.  The PPM mechanic encourages a different slotting schema, one which is not intuitive, and is contrary to the design intent behind the game, slotting in general and IO sets.  Deliberately avoiding Recharge Reduction, breaking sets and losing set bonuses, relying entirely on set bonuses and additional proc slotting to compensate for poor slotting, none of these behaviors were intended.  Do they work?  To a degree, because the Invention system is robust and flexible enough to absorb the slotting differential and compensate, and the overall design of the game, with buffs from third-party sources, bolsters the design.  But they aren't necessary optimal, and, again, that counter-design approach that the PPM system encourages is... messy.  And when they do work, they're not profoundly better than ignoring PPM entirely and using the traditional approach to slotting.

I feel like the PPM system is only counter-intuitive because it isn't explained anywhere ingame and all players have to rely on without using a spreadsheet is some vague text in enhancement descriptions. This can be fixed in two ways: 1) add a section on procs in the ingame help menu, and 2) add tooltips that show actual chance to proc for a given proc in a given power.

8 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

When I say a big nail, Lumi, I mean it. Good game design would have lead to a game where every combo for every archetype would have some level of equitable "purchasing power," as you put it. So you'll have to forgive my scorched earth mentality for using bad game design against bad game design. Random fixes here and there aren't going to get that peacebringer anywhere near the purchasing power of that rad/fire brute.

In a game with thousands of possible powerset combinations it's damn near impossible to create an experience where every character can do everything equally. There's always going to be a powerset or build that's "best" for certain content and the effort should be focused on finding the sets that aren't good for much at all and look at them. I'm not sure if your Peacebringer/Brute statement is meant to be a metaphor or more literal, but... if I'm trying to, say, solo a +4x8 ITF I'm not going to bring an FF/AR Defender.

[ScarySai]

41 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Let us know what you find

 

I'm good, I'll leave the spreadsheets to people that care about that kind of thing. I personally rarely do, especially when the information isn't complete. Just letting you know Rad and DP (without incen) are pretty firmly on the bottom, if you're interested in presenting information honestly. Context is important.

Edited February 23, 2022 by ScarySai

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

If you want to fix power creep, bring the support archetypes to the same degree of creep as the rest of the archetypes, then address it by making content that everyone can enjoy, or improving existing content so it's more enjoyable despite the creep.

How do you want support archetypes to be brought up to the same level as the rest of the archetypes?

 

Do you want them to do Blaster levels of damage? Do you want them to have Scrapper levels of defense? What, specifically, would you like the Homecoming devs to do to improve support archetypes?

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

In a game with thousands of possible powerset combinations it's damn near impossible to create an experience where every character can do everything equally. There's always going to be a powerset or build that's "best" for certain content and the effort should be focused on finding the sets that aren't good for much at all and look at them. I'm not sure if your Peacebringer/Brute statement is meant to be a metaphor or more literal, but... if I'm trying to, say, solo a +4x8 ITF I'm not going to bring an FF/AR Defender.

 

I may have misread Luminara's post but it seemed to equate purchasing power with leveling speed, solo. If so, that's obviously something that has never existed in this game, but it's a goal that makes sense if an equitable experience is desired. But as I edited into the last post, moot point. Won't ever happen.

[aethereal]

5 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

 

I'm good, I'll leave the spreadsheets to people that care about that kind of thing. Just letting you know Rad and DP (without incen) are pretty firmly on the bottom, if you're interested in presenting information honestly. Context is important.

 

I'm sensing a considerable amount of evasion here.  Okay, so since you won't take five minutes to enter data into four cells of a spreadsheet, tell you what.  I'll do it for you.  All you have to do is tell me what power, and also explain what you think the result is going to be. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by aethereal

[ScarySai]

If by evasion, you mean apathy, then sure. I don't see why your unfinished spreadsheet is suddenly my problem.

 

13 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

How do you want support archetypes to be brought up to the same level as the rest of the archetypes?

 

Personally, more content like the ASF, or having some of the harder mobs return at 50 that just kinda disappear in the late 40s. +4 thorns would make me sweat a bit on some of my glass cannon characters if the ghosts and succubi were still hanging around agony/force mages. Shapeshifting council wouldn't be hard, but would be more fun, especially if the archon bosses ever bothered to melee you.

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by ScarySai

[aethereal]

14 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

If by evasion, you mean apathy, then sure. I don't see why your unfinished spreadsheet is suddenly my problem.

 

So just to be clear, this was something that you felt strongly enough to post about four times, with dire warnings about how "three of four sets underperform," but now all of a sudden you're too shy to say the name of a power. Huh.  Could it be that you kinda know that in fact none of these objections you've been raising actually are important, and that if you do take half the time you've spent replying to this to get specific, you'll be proved wrong?

 

(The specific ways that Rad Blast and Dual Pistols underperform are not particularly important to the comparison that we're making here today.  We can use ice blast or whatever, we'll still find that for ST powers for blasters, a damage proc enhances damage by somewhere around 35% plus or minus a few percent, and for a non-nuke AoE power, a damage proc enhances the damage of the power by 50% plus or minus a few percent.  This is specifically because damage of a power mostly follows a formula in CoH, and what makes a set under or overperform are mostly animation times, which don't have a big effect on the comparison between the damage of the power and the proc-rate-times-proc-damage in that power.)

Edited February 23, 2022 by aethereal

[ScarySai]

I wouldn't say 'felt strongly' so much as 'oh, this guy doesn't understand how this data is potentially misleading, let me help him out a little.' 

 

That's what I get for being a nice guy, I suppose. 

 

Chill the hell out, your spreadsheet isn't special, and there's nothing you can tell me about the power data I don't already know. I'm not interesting in a pissing match.

Edited February 23, 2022 by ScarySai

[aethereal]

6 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

I wouldn't say 'felt strongly' so much as 'oh, this guy doesn't understand how this data is potentially misleading, let me help him out a little.' 

 

That's what I get for being a nice guy, I suppose. 

 

Chill the hell out, your spreadsheet isn't special, and there's nothing you can tell me about the power data I don't already know. I'm not interesting in a pissing match.

 

And to be clear, we've now moved on to, "Sai realizes that he's wrong, but doesn't want to admit it, and now is going to try to claim to have been right all along and simultaneously claim the moral high ground."

 

The data is not, in fact, misleading, and you seem to have largely accepted that.

 

And I can tell you things you don't know about the power data, because you started off trying to claim that it was misleading and are now abandoning that claim.  See how it works?

[Naraka]

So if procs also added resistance to recharge buffs to the power it's slotted in, how much resistance would it need to ignore all +rech bonus (slotted and global) at 3 slotted procs?

[Troo]

6 hours ago, Luminara said:

The HC team has never made an unwarranted change to proc behavior

 

I could be misremembering but weren't changes made, beta'd and scraped?

[ScarySai]

I vaguely remember a few scrapped changes, but nothing pertaining directly to procs.

 

Not PPM, anyway. Some procs were fixed, like the kheld ATO that just did not work. Soulbound was wrongfully changed to not proc on the player.

Edited February 23, 2022 by ScarySai

[Troo]

Lots of great comments even where folks disagree.

 

Procs seem to increasingly get discussed and promoted. (procs, proc builds & proc monsters)

Folks invest time and resources building testing researching;

IF adjustments are on the road map, could players get a heads up. or even a hint at potential changes?

 

 

If things like turning non-damage/low-damage powers into major damage dealers or avoiding the Rage crash by using procs are working as intended, confirmation from the HC team would be helpful.

 

In-game descriptions can definitely be 'lacking'. This could be an easier area to address than implementing sweeping changes and probably should be done regardless.

[aethereal]

8 hours ago, Troo said:

 

I could be misremembering but weren't changes made, beta'd and scraped?

No fundamental changes.  There were beta changes to the "internal timer" of epic powers (that basically made them proc as though their recharges were half as long).  People have claimed that in the private beta they briefly fixed and rolled back burn.  But they've never made even beta changes that has sweeping effects to all procs.

[Marshal_General]

I consulted with a specialist on procs, and this proctologist told me that before procs can be balanced, they need to be decoupled from recharge so that you will not be penalized from putting recharge into your powers.

 

He could have been just talking out of my ass though.

[InvaderStych]

I keep typing replies to this thread and deleting them. I should probably delete this one too, but I'm in a mood, so f$%^ it.

 

There is no point in discussing a symptom without digging deeper to the cause.  PPM/Procs are a symptom, not a cause.

 

There is no point in discussing a solution to a "problem" when no one can agree upon a design intent in the first place.

 

@Luminara - we get it, you are incredibly eloquent and obviously quite intelligent.  But hidden in your loquacious missives is some seriously counter-productive bitterness and animosity ("lazy blasters" - your words).  How about dialing all of that back a bit and instead of offering to ridicule people who don't meet your data standards, offer up some ideas of your own as to how to achieve this allegorical "economic equality" in a game specifically designed so that there is no single path or single set of gear to achieve maximum effectiveness on a given combination of AT and power choices. For that matter, save the "how" and just tell us the "what" of your desires and goals. 

 

What is it that you want, specifically?

 

And lets be honest with ourselves here.  The only way I've seen to achieve true parity within a given class is to force that class into "must have" gear like every single other MMO I refused to play for that very reason. I tolerated it in SW:TOR because that game had beautiful artwork and interesting enough solo stories.  But I only played it once because forced gear can kiss my proverbial. Gear that determines appearance doesn't warrant even that privilege.  Katana and Energy Melee will never do the same damage so long as Katana must deal with lethal resistances in the game's targets.  Quills will never be as effective as Irradiated Ground, not only because of resistances, but because IG is broken AF. Scrapper Ground Zero will always lag behind the Brute (Fury increases the damage, GZ does not critical for scrappers) and Tank (bigger size, larger target cap) versions due to the way the game is designed. This holds true for all AoEs available to those ATs in their armor sets.

 

My Psi/SD scrapper is beyond useless on a BAF.  That "desirable content" is inaccessible to her. Should the BAF be changed so that particular toon is granted access to that content? Should Siege and Nightstar have their Psi resistance (70%!) stripped so that Psi based toons can access that "desirable content?"  Should the Prisoner phase be changed so that Controllers/Doms can use their CC powers upon them?

 

Hint: No, not it should not. I chose that combo, I chose that AT, I must accept that PM will gimp me against certain enemies and that the lack of AoE will do the same for certain missions/situations.  I could have gone Tank for bigger AoEs and the ability to at least taunt AVs I couldn't hurt, but I chose Scrapper for my own reasons.  Should Scrappers be able to Taunt like Tanks so that I feel more useful? Nope. My choice, my consequences.  I love that toon and she stomps all over most of the game - but BAF will forever be inaccessible to her and most other Scrappers will dish out sustained damage more reliably in general.  She's about the burst and I accept that.

 

I know those examples are slightly fatuous, but that long missive really gave me the "Luminara wants everyone to get a puppy and a participation trophy" feels, and I am reasonably certain that is not your intent.  Please clarify what it is you actually want.

 

@Bill Z Bubba - you have also often spoken upon "numerical parity." So I'd love to hear your actual thoughts on how that could be achieved with figuratively millions of variables and combinations in play. Without forcing every build into a specific top-end set of enhancements and without obviating any ATs in a team environment.

 

----

 

Further, what is the goal here?  What is the expectation?  That all ATs can contribute to a team's efforts at the most difficult content?  We're - with a few weird exceptions - basically mostly there.  DASF, as an example of things to come, arguably values support above "just bring damage" as the effectiveness of Corrs in that SF has clearly demonstrated.  Given that it has been repeatedly demonstrated that Scrappers fall behind in damage until they are rocking the SCS +50% piece I can see a future where if one wants to bring melee to challenge content then only Tanks need apply.  Hell, I could make an argument that this is basically "City of Tanks" and we're all just living it it, but that's not fit for this thread and I forgot my flamesuit today. 😛

 

So, for you both, state your goals "before you say another word" to borrow a phrase. 😉

 

For The Record:

 

Procs/PPM are not the problem.  That they require counter-intuitive slotting is not the problem (I would rather that they did, personally I like the trade-off).  What they are is a rather fun and interesting system that highlights other problems in the game's overall design.

 

Post-Script:

 

Where is all of this "Support ATs aren't valued" stuff coming from anyway?  Every time one joins a team I am on, a number of players greater than 2 (ie me and usually at least one other person) celebrate their arrival with some sort of thankful comment.  "Awesome, love me some Thermal!" or "Hooray! A Kin!"  Hell, last night one of my SG mates was so stoked to see a pair of Kin's on our team that one of them threatened to "take away her coffee."

 

I'd play them more, but I absolutely suck monkey butt at remembering to drop buffs/shields and targeting teammates.  No one wants me to try to fill that role. 😛

 

I have yet to see, in near as makes no difference to 2 years of HC, anyone in game make derisive comments about support ATs or refuse to include them on a team.  That seems to be limited to here on the forums - which rarely reflects the actual state of opinion in the game.

 

All of that is not to deny any of the mechanical/design issues caused by inconsistency and overlap in AT designs, exaggerated by everything that has come after, but just to say that the perception on the forums and the one in game are likely very different.

 

[Lazarillo]

On 2/21/2022 at 4:19 PM, SaintD said:

Limited to a single proc per power.

I love it. Maybe along with increasing/guaranteeing chances to fire, IMO, since I don't really like running the effect lotto, but even without that, one-per-power seems like an effective solution.

[aethereal]

Just now, Lazarillo said:

I love it. Maybe along with increasing/guaranteeing chances to fire, IMO, since I don't really like running the effect lotto, but even without that, one-per-power seems like an effective solution.

This would both be incredibly disruptive to existing builds (and what would we even do?  Force respecs?) and also actually really easy to make overpowered.  We don't need Neutrino Bolt more-than-doubling its DPA because it's guaranteed to fire a 100 damage purple proc with every invocation (25 times per minute).

[ScarySai]

2 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

I have yet to see, in near as makes no difference to 2 years of HC, anyone in game make derisive comments about support ATs or refuse to include them on a team.  That seems to be limited to here on the forums - which rarely reflects the actual state of opinion in the game.

 

It's this stupid idea that how speedruns are handled is how everyone should handle content. The actual speedrunners don't even think like this, just people blindly following something without understanding it.

 

I've also yet to actually see it actually reflected ingame, but with how much it comes up on these boards, someone's surely taking this idiotic approach.

Edited February 23, 2022 by ScarySai

[Luminara]

53 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

@Luminara - we get it, you are incredibly eloquent and obviously quite intelligent.  But hidden in your loquacious missives is some seriously counter-productive bitterness and animosity ("lazy blasters" - your words).

 

"Lazy" was intended to convey a lack of slotting, not a lack of effort.  Blaster T1s deal nearly twice the damage of defender T1s, as an example, and Defiance buffs them further.  They don't have to put in the same effort (expending slots, using enhancements, creating and refining the build).

 

And I'm not bitter, I'm irritated.  There are deep-seated problems with how support archetypes are supposedly balanced, which have never made sense, but which have also been rigorously enforced.  Bitter implies that I've given up.  I'm not a quitter.

 

56 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

How about dialing all of that back a bit and instead of offering to ridicule people who don't meet your data standards, offer up some ideas of your own as to how to achieve this allegorical "economic equality" in a game specifically designed so that there is no single path or single set of gear to achieve maximum effectiveness on a given combination of AT and power choices. For that matter, save the "how" and just tell us the "what" of your desires and goals. 

 

What is it that you want, specifically?

 

Real balance.

 

If I play a Trick Arrow character, I can use Flash Arrow and Poison Gas Arrow to debuff entire spawns, and I gain the benefit of that action.

 

Someone playing a Force Field or Sonic Resonance character, on the other hand, has ally-only click buffs, which do not benefit that character.

 

There is no "If target = Trick Arrow debuffer, ignore debuff" flag.  There is no hole in debuffing.

 

There is an "Ally Only" flag.  There is a hole in buffing.  That hole was deliberately left in place throughout the entirety of the game's original life, and is still there today.

 

That's not balanced.  If it's perfectly acceptable for a support character to mitigate incoming damage one way, there's no logical or rational reason they shouldn't be permitted to do so the other way.

 

Damage mitigation toggles on non-support characters suppress, and have a functionally unlimited number of targets because they're self-affecting.

 

Toggles on support characters do not suppress, they shut off.  And they have maximum target caps.

 

That's not balanced.  That the characters with the highest HP pools and status protection can be permitted to use suppressible damage mitigation toggles with no target cap, but support characters, who have half to a third the HP pool, are required to turn toggles back on, thus forcing them to wait out the recharge time and the animation time, and have target caps which guarantee failure beyond a certain amount of aggro, is not logical or rational.

 

Zero status protection for most support characters.  Target caps on toggles which drop frequently, have long recharge and animation times.  Low HP pools.  Disparity between buffing and debuffing support characters.  These are absolutely not balanced within the archetypes in question, nor in comparison to the non-support archetypes.  Balance points are not measured by how much shit a player will endure before giving up, they're measured by how well things perform in comparison to similar things, and we have obvious discrepancies in performance between comparable things here, which, to date, have been ignored.

 

I don't care if the solution is doing a pass on everything in the game to reduce the overabundance of mez; or restoring toggle mutual exclusivity in concert with non-stacking buffs; or adding a "Lumi's playing, ignore those debuffs" flag; or removing the ally-only flag from buffs in concert with permitting damage mitigation toggles (-ToHit, -Damage, -Recharge/Speed/Fly) to suppress; or just giving support characters better access to status protection so they're not scrambling every time a minion with a mag 2 mez glances at them.  I care that it's done, and that's all.

 

I want real balance.  I want parity between click buffs and debuffs.  I want parity between toggles.  I want different support sets to they work on an equal basis so they actually can be balanced.  Many of us spend hours arguing about balance, turn small threads into monstrous arguments, and we aren't even talking about a game that's truly balanced, we're ignoring gross imbalances like these and hissing and spitting at each other over damage output and soft capped Defense and telling ourselves that we're protecting an existing balance... that does not, in truth, exist.

 

And that's why I'm irritated.  I've said all of this several times in the last 18 months.  I said it to Castle several times on the original forums.  We have some of the brightest gamers alive playing here, now, but when I point out problems like these, everyone shrugs.  "Eh, whatcha gonna do?"  We should be screaming in the HC team's ears, but we're bitching at each other about power creep and damage procs, and it gives me the impression that we don't care about balance, we care about keeping the game from changing.  Well, imbalances lead to poor design decisions, such as over-buffing and nerfing.  Over-buffing and nerfing lead to imbalances.  We ran around in this endless circle for years on the original servers, and as soon as we come here, we jump right into the circle and start sprinting again.

 

Yes, fixing real balance problems would mean some sets, like Rad, which has hybrid mitigation/combat efficiency toggles, might overperform.  That can be addressed.  But it couldn't be addressed as long as some support sets are sadly lacking due to arbitrary, nonsensical rules, while other sets are comparatively overpowered due to not sharing the same rules.  I would happily give up all of the TA recent improvements to see one FF or Sonic player self-buffing with his/her ally-only bubbles, or one Dark Miasma player with suppressible Darkest Night, because that would be equable parity between support sets.  That would be balanced.

[iBot]

Balance is what players call for but rarely what they actually want because 10 out of 10 times players have no idea what balance means other than "that player can do something I cannot so therefore something should be changed to make us equal."  And there in lies the alligator in this swamp.  There is no way to balance a game system that is designed to allow a wide range of solutions so that both sides come out equal.  Forgive me for being a bit simplistic here but go with this logic exercise and see how this shakes out.  Some are arguing for balance in terms of damage.  OK fine.  Answer this: should a tank do equal damage as a defender?  Defenders do more damage.  That is not balanced.  Some answer: yeah but they have different roles.  Really?  You sure?  Both help to keep teammates alive during each encounter.  The method is different but the outcome is the same.

 

The design goal that turns the balance argument into a swamp is that each powerset is meant to have a different path to success.  Any discussion about balance has to take that into account.  It is certainly acceptable to argue that the rules of the game should be applied equally but again that is a tough pill to take.  Answer this: why do some ATs not have mez protection?  Is it fair that a scrapper (high damage) can prevent a hold but a blaster (high damage) cannot?  The entire point is that the powersets and ATs are meant to have pros and cons.  You cannot load up on one without taking into account the other.  And I don't care which you choose.  Most players focus only on the pros because they typically argue for the changes that benefit their preferred style over all else.  But there are a lot of others that would say that isn't balanced.

 

So which is it?  City of "everyone the same" or City of "multiple solutions"?  Can't do both.  I concede that there are broken powers and power/slotting interactions that are probably unintended consequences and those should certainly be addressed.  But that should be done only to pull those powers more in line with everything else.  Course that requires determining what the base line value for that power is and that is another whole discussion.

[KaizenSoze]

I like that the live dev messed up balance. Balance in other games is the iron triangle of tank/support/damage.

 

Otherwise, I would not have enjoyed this game coming from Everquest.

 

 

[Brutal Justice]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

I want real balance.  I want parity between click buffs and debuffs.  I want parity between toggles.  I want different support sets to they work on an equal basis so they actually can be balanced.  Many of us spend hours arguing about balance, turn small threads into monstrous arguments, and we aren't even talking about a game that's truly balanced, we're ignoring gross imbalances like these and hissing and spitting at each other over damage output and soft capped Defense and telling ourselves that we're protecting an existing balance... that does not, in truth, exist.

The game isn’t balanced around your desire for all archetypes and powersets to play the same.    Some perform better on teams and some perform better solo.  

 

Stick that in your spreadsheet and figure it out...  oh wait... I was supposed to do that with the disparity between resistance and defense.  😂

 

What a joke.