The great Vigilance idea thread!

[arcane]

9 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

The break free idea would be the ONLY thing I would give up the +damage on vigilance for. So let's just say I VEHEMENTLY disagree with this post.

At this point, I vehemently disagree with listening to the one allegedly-veteran player that clearly can’t play Defenders, so much so that they’ve considered it appropriate to evoke comparisons to real life discrimination and oppression on multiple occasions. Defenders are my favorite AT. I have about 16-18 of them. I couldn’t tell you if this poster’s attitude is ignorance or malice, but it’s not neither. Disagree with me all you like.

Edited April 14, 2022 by arcane

[Marbing]

9 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

That assumes everyone agree it's a problem. We don't.

Well not everyone is ever going to all agree. To each their own. The fact remains, many many many people do agree. Thus the discussion.

[Marbing]

10 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Resistance would work.  It might need to scale more at the low end of team size, as smaller teams would lean more heavily on a defender, but I wouldn't have any objection.  There wouldn't be any need for a lockout or a check interval if it were Status Resistance.

I was going to say this but they beat me to it. I actually like the idea of +status resistance and +special that scales up as your team gets larger. It fits with the idea of vigilance (by definition, though I know we don’t always go with that) and leans into the defenders strengths without being inherently too OP (given the appropriate levels of bonus are tested and balanced). It is a fairly simply solution, that fits better than the current iteration of Vigilance.

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Marbing

[Marbing]

@Luminara Would you say +status resistance and +special are enough? Would you keep the +endurance reduction for struggling teams? 

[golstat2003]

3 hours ago, arcane said:

At this point, I vehemently disagree with listening to the one allegedly-veteran player that clearly can’t play Defenders, so much so that they’ve considered it appropriate to evoke comparisons to real life discrimination and oppression on multiple occasions. Defenders are my favorite AT. I have about 16-18 of them. I couldn’t tell you if this poster’s attitude is ignorance or malice, but it’s not neither. Disagree with me all you like.

 

Agree to Disagree. 😛

[golstat2003]

44 minutes ago, Marbing said:

Well not everyone is ever going to all agree. To each their own. The fact remains, many many many people do agree. Thus the discussion.

 

Ehhhh, a discussion just means that: a discussion of ideas.

 

Doesn't mean there is a majority opinion.

 

On a side note, I don't honestly think anything is ever going to happen with Vigilence.  But nice to have theorycraft discussions 🙂 

[Luminara]

24 minutes ago, Marbing said:

@Luminara Would you say +status resistance and +special are enough? Would you keep the +endurance reduction for struggling teams? 

 

No, and if it were retained, I don't believe it should remain in its current form because it incentivizes bad play.  A reward for allowing teammates to be and/or remain injured isn't evocative of "defending", or the kind of behavior the game should be prompting.  We tried to explain that to Cryptic when they initially added it to the game, but they ignored us.  In their defense, they didn't have anything like +/-Special at that time, but anything would've been wiser than actively encouraging defenders to fuck their teammates over.  If defenders are uniquely impacted negatively by endurance costs (which i don't believe to be true), then there should be a balance pass on defender powers to bring the costs down to a manageable state, not a tacked-on effect which they can only benefit from if they're incapable of defending or deliberately withholding buffs/debuffs.

 

We're not trying to build a power set here, the inherent doesn't need to be extraordinarily dense with options.  Status Resistance and +/-Special interact with the primaries and secondaries well enough, interact with each other in a way which makes both worthwhile without taking the archetype into rare territory, and make the archetype better at what it does.  That's enough for an inherent.

[Marbing]

24 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

Ehhhh, a discussion just means that: a discussion of ideas.

 

Doesn't mean there is a majority opinion.

 

On a side note, I don't honestly think anything is ever going to happen with Vigilence.  But nice to have theorycraft discussions 🙂 

Yes theory crafting is fun, but there is always the hope a suggestion gets some traction and attention from the Dev team.

 

Never said there was a majority opinion on either stance. Just that not everyone is going to always agree. So trying to find some common, most agreeable solution, and hope that the Devs see it and consider it.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

No, and if it were retained, I don't believe it should remain in its current form because it incentivizes bad play.  A reward for allowing teammates to be and/or remain injured isn't evocative of "defending", or the kind of behavior the game should be prompting.  We tried to explain that to Cryptic when they initially added it to the game, but they ignored us.  In their defense, they didn't have anything like +/-Special at that time, but anything would've been wiser than actively encouraging defenders to fuck their teammates over.  If defenders are uniquely impacted negatively by endurance costs (which i don't believe to be true), then there should be a balance pass on defender powers to bring the costs down to a manageable state, not a tacked-on effect which they can only benefit from if they're incapable of defending or deliberately withholding buffs/debuffs.

 

We're not trying to build a power set here, the inherent doesn't need to be extraordinarily dense with options.  Status Resistance and +/-Special interact with the primaries and secondaries well enough, interact with each other in a way which makes both worthwhile without taking the archetype into rare territory, and make the archetype better at what it does.  That's enough for an inherent.

I agree, was just asking for clarification. I hate the current endurance mechanic on Vigilance, but wouldn’t mind a static end redux either, not that it is entirely necessary eaither.

[bigfashizzel]

I guess my main concern with almost all of the suggestions here is that they overlap with, and occasionally cannibalize, certain qualities of some of the support powersets.

 

I think that the Defender passive ability could increase their resistance to slow & maybe other debuffs like -acc, -speed, -def.  That might be eating up some special quality of a set I'm not thinking of, and definitely overlaps with some enhancements or pool powers, but it still feels good to me.

 

I think adding those resistances as an inherent wouldn't damage the specific characteristics of any of their power choices and might be interesting.  I'm sure that top tier builds might not notice the change very much, but it still feels responsible, characterful, and meaningful to newer players.

Edited April 14, 2022 by bigfashizzel

[Marbing]

On 4/14/2022 at 4:08 PM, bigfashizzel said:

I guess my main concern with almost all of the suggestions here is that they overlap with, and occasionally cannibalize, certain qualities of some of the support powersets.

 

I think that the Defender passive ability could increase their resistance to slow & maybe other debuffs like -acc, -speed, -def.  That might be eating up some special quality of a set I'm not thinking of, and definitely overlaps with some enhancements or pool powers, but it still feels good to me.

 

I think adding those resistances as an inherent wouldn't damage the specific characteristics of any of their power choices and might be interesting.  I'm sure that top tier builds might not notice the change very much, but it still feels responsible, characterful, and meaningful to newer players.

Kind of like…

 

Defenders. We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.

 

We are Defenders, bum ba dum bum bum bum bum

 

…approach?

[FDR's Think Tank]

So what if Endurance issues don't exist at Level 50? Doesn't that answer the issue right there?

 

The Defender needs a way they can raise or lower the endurance their powers consume... It would be similar to Bio-Armor, but an Archetype Power.

Stamina Efficient- Is the Standard that you have now, it's not actually using less Stamina since that was stated to not be an issue in the game. This might be considered on, if nothing is selected.

Support Boosted- This would increase the To Hit of Debuff Powers while increasing the Stamina Cost of those abilities.  For Buffs and Heals it may be harder to justify increase expenditure.

Damage Boosted- This would increase the To Hit and Damage of the Defenders offensive powers, while also increasing Stamina use for those powers.

 

This way, the Defender can burn the candle at both ends if they feel they need to, depending on the situation.

 

Of course, at this point, you're trying to solve an issue that arises for players informed about the traditionally orthodox way to build endgame characters. Is Vigilance even a concern at that point? Maybe it doesn't do the things other Archetypes inherent powers do, but that's because when Defenders are built up to the max, they are already doing what they should far better with the accumulation of their power picks. The other character classes have to focus on specific areas of battle... killing, not being killed, or controlling movement and placement of enemies.

 

Is the Defender Inherent mostly supposed to help the Defender get through the lower levels of the game, perhaps?

[golstat2003]

17 hours ago, FDR's Think Tank said:

So what if Endurance issues don't exist at Level 50? Doesn't that answer the issue right there?

 

The Defender needs a way they can raise or lower the endurance their powers consume... It would be similar to Bio-Armor, but an Archetype Power.

Stamina Efficient- Is the Standard that you have now, it's not actually using less Stamina since that was stated to not be an issue in the game. This might be considered on, if nothing is selected.

Support Boosted- This would increase the To Hit of Debuff Powers while increasing the Stamina Cost of those abilities.  For Buffs and Heals it may be harder to justify increase expenditure.

Damage Boosted- This would increase the To Hit and Damage of the Defenders offensive powers, while also increasing Stamina use for those powers.

 

This way, the Defender can burn the candle at both ends if they feel they need to, depending on the situation.

 

Of course, at this point, you're trying to solve an issue that arises for players informed about the traditionally orthodox way to build endgame characters. Is Vigilance even a concern at that point? Maybe it doesn't do the things other Archetypes inherent powers do, but that's because when Defenders are built up to the max, they are already doing what they should far better with the accumulation of their power picks. The other character classes have to focus on specific areas of battle... killing, not being killed, or controlling movement and placement of enemies.

 

Is the Defender Inherent mostly supposed to help the Defender get through the lower levels of the game, perhaps?

 

This is a good point. The Inherent needs to be good from levels 1 - 50, not just 50. There are still plenty of folks who don't spend the majority of their time playing 50s, even if they have more than one level 50 or multiples, because they hate the endgame.

[Marbing]

6 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

This is a good point. The Inherent needs to be good from levels 1 - 50, not just 50. There are still plenty of folks who don't spend the majority of their time playing 50s, even if they have more than one level 50 or multiples, because they hate the endgame.

Omg something we agree on 😂

 

Anyways, yes it needs to be good 1-50 but it also needs to be good at 50. The current iteration is good at helping a defender solo slightly faster from 1-50. That’s it. Once you get to 50 and start decking your toon out, it makes little difference and is still zero help on a team. 
 

I still like the status resistance idea, mixed with some +special. Helps 1-50 and beyond.

[golstat2003]

3 hours ago, Marbing said:

Omg something we agree on 😂

 

Anyways, yes it needs to be good 1-50 but it also needs to be good at 50. The current iteration is good at helping a defender solo slightly faster from 1-50. That’s it. Once you get to 50 and start decking your toon out, it makes little difference and is still zero help on a team. 
 

I still like the status resistance idea, mixed with some +special. Helps 1-50 and beyond.

 

Honestly, thinking on it more I don't think much help is needed at 50 from AT Inherents, with the current insane meta of IOs, Incarnate abilities, Proc Monster builds. I think that would just be icing on the cake at this point.

[PeregrineFalcon]

The more I think about this the more I believe that it should be a bit of both.

 

- Endurance Cost * each teammate

AND:

+Mez Resistance * each teammate

 

After some thought I disagree with the +Special because that would just make the Repeat Offenders (or any team with multiple Defenders) even more OP.

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

After some thought I disagree with the +Special because that would just make the Repeat Offenders (or any team with multiple Defenders) even more OP.

 

Multiple defenders benefiting from increased damage mitigation due stacking from different sources (MOAR DEFENDERERSES), thereby keeping their HP at or near full and denying themselves the benefit of +/-Special scaled by HP losses, would be "more overpowered"?

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

6 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Multiple defenders benefiting from increased damage mitigation due stacking from different sources (MOAR DEFENDERERSES), thereby keeping their HP at or near full and denying themselves the benefit of +/-Special scaled by HP losses, would be "more overpowered"?

Wait! Weren't you the one who said:

 

On 4/14/2022 at 5:42 AM, Luminara said:

A reward for allowing teammates to be and/or remain injured isn't evocative of "defending", or the kind of behavior the game should be prompting.

But now you're arguing in favor of an inherent that would do the same thing, just for powers instead of for endurance.

 

What am I missing here? Can you please explain that to me?

[Marbing]

On 4/18/2022 at 11:08 PM, golstat2003 said:

 

Honestly, thinking on it more I don't think much help is needed at 50 from AT Inherents, with the current insane meta of IOs, Incarnate abilities, Proc Monster builds. I think that would just be icing on the cake at this point.

True but I believe every inherent helps every toon 1-50 and beyond for each ATs primary powerset or primary function (Maybe less so for VEATs) except Defenders.

[Luminara]

52 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Wait! Weren't you the one who said:

 

But now you're arguing in favor of an inherent that would do the same thing, just for powers instead of for endurance.

 

What am I missing here? Can you please explain that to me?

 

There's no encouragement to exploit it.  Trying to keep your teammates' HP bars in the orange or red while mitigating damage is self-defeating, they're going to improve and you're going to lose the +/-Special.  Trying to game it by under-enhancing your powers won't work because the +/-Special would apply to the enhanced totals and fail to compensate for the under-slotting.  And downed teammates wouldn't count toward it, so it'd be even less worthwhile to try to manipulate to any significant degree.  And we're not talking about a bonus large enough to permit players to remove one or two SOs from every damage mitigation power, it's a 10-15% improvement to the powers.  Not enough to replace SOs, or even DOs, and if they did try to use it as a replacement for a lowly DO, they'd be disappointed (refer back to sentence 3).

 

There would be ways to leverage it, because there are always ways to leverage things.  Everything can be leveraged in some way, by someone.  But the ways I can conceive wouldn't be very palatable to teams, or individuals, and wouldn't be very popular or encouraging.  For instance, I could talk one team member into taking a lot of damage and sitting out every fight, only stepping in to take more damage and ensure that his/her HP stays deep red, but I wouldn't be getting much out of one teammate's low HP and I'd be making another person very unhappy by treating him in such a poor manner, forcing him to stop playing so I can have my little 1-2.5% increase.  Or I could withhold my buffs/debuffs until my teammates were in trouble, in order to maximize the scale, but in doing so, I'm risking losing the scale entirely if my entire team is defeated, not to mention making myself unwelcome on that team because of my selfish behavior.  "Hey, great, thanks so much for using Flash Arrow just as my HP went to 1%, Lum.  Remind me to hold a fucking parade for you later.  Twat."

 

Essentially, it doesn't prompt players to do stupid things like this because it's too small when it's not heavily leveraged, and too risky when it is heavily leveraged, it's not enough to justify the risk solo and it isn't the kind of effect that miraculously saves a team.  It should (theoretically) function best in the mid range of team HP, where it's next to impossible to maintain a team if you're actively defending, evening out the large HP swings to smaller HP swings.

 

This wasn't designed for the min/maxing exploity exploiters, like me, who spend a week in Mids' rebuilding a character to squeeze out 3.75% more global +Recharge or 15% more +Slow Res without giving up anything.  This costs if you try to exploit it, and it doesn't give much back for doing so.  It's for average players, new players, players on low level defenders and defenders struggling to add something meaningful to a team in big bad hard mode content.  It's for defenders who need a little help, not defenders posting pylon and Trapdoor times.

 

Also of note, the +/-Special I proposed doesn't include -Res or +Dam (or -Dam, but that's a given with how that debuff functions), so it's not a combat efficiency effect, it's purely a mitigation effect.  RO isn't going to be flooring AV Resistances because they found a way to leverage the inherent, or hitting their damage caps with fewer AMs or Forts, it just doesn't do those things and can't be made to improve those abilities in that way.

 

Saying that we shouldn't do this because there might be more than one defender on hand is ludicrous.  Not one other archetype is penalized, in any way, for being present on a team in a number greater than one.  Scrappers don't lose a percentage of their crit rate when other scrappers team with them.  Brute Fury meters don't cap at a lower number than 100 when other brutes are on the team.  Dominators don't lose 1 mag for every other dominator on the team.  Why should the defender inherent specifically be designed without a useful tool like +/-Special simply because another defender might be present?  Jesus' little brown nipples, the more defenders there are, the less likely they are to even need, much less even gain a fraction of a percent from, the +/-Special!  The less it's needed, the less it does, and with multiple defenders, it's obviously less needed.  There's zero power creep or risk of further overpowering the archetype here.

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

And we're not talking about a bonus large enough to permit players to remove one or two SOs from every damage mitigation power, it's a 10-15% improvement to the powers.  Not enough to replace SOs, or even DOs, and if they did try to use it as a replacement for a lowly DO, they'd be disappointed (refer back to sentence 3).

This seems to me like you're saying "There's no reason not to do it because the bonus won't be large enough to matter." If I'm reading that right then my response to that is "If the bonus isn't large enough to matter then why have it? If it's not big enough to help then why take the time to code it?"

 

Look, I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm really not. I never understood the point behind having an endurance bonus that doesn't help you if you're doing your job correctly, and this is just a different kind of bonus that doesn't help you if you're doing your job correctly. You agreed with that in the past, but now you're advocating for it and your defense of it boils down to "it won't be a large enough bonus to matter." I honestly can't understand how this would be an improvement over the current inherent that also doesn't help you if you're doing your job correctly.

 

My favorite Defender is Force Field/Beam Rifle. Is the +Special going to add Defense or DDR to my bubbles? Is it going keep my Aid Other from being interrupted? No? Then it doesn't help my Defender at all. You know what would help my Defender? A +Mez resistance, or endurance cost discount, that scales up per teammate regardless of their HP.

[arcane]

Purely out of apathy at this point, I will reluctantly put my signature on mez *resistance*, without +special, under the condition that the buff values are no more than 1/2 of those proposed thus far by the guy that is bound to inflate numbers because he can't play Defenders.

 

Sounds kind of worthless still, but if you want to unnecessarily bring mez mitigation into the discussion with Defenders, it'd have to be watered down af. Shrug. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by arcane

[Marbing]

17 minutes ago, arcane said:

Purely out of apathy at this point, I will reluctantly put my signature on mez *resistance*, without +special, under the condition that the buff values are no more than 1/2 of those proposed thus far by the guy that is bound to inflate numbers because he can't play Defenders.

 

Sounds kind of worthless still, but if you want to unnecessarily bring mez mitigation into the discussion with Defenders, it'd have to be watered down af. Shrug. 

I actually can see the argument for mez resistance on a defender. It doesn’t stop debuff toggles from dropping but allows them to come out of mez faster so they can keep the team up and running. It also makes the even safer solo than they already are. I agree the +special COULD be too heavy a buff but I do believe it can be adjusted for balance.

The more I think on it though, I do believe -end of some kind should remain (not the current iteration). It could make them MUCH more efficient at doing their primary task than say a Corruptor, and allows for more build flexibility all the way up to 50 and beyond. But, all these numbers we are floating around would need some heavy testing and balance passes, regardless.

 

 

EDIT: I know it seems like I am talking in circles a bit, just like all the ideas being floated around and haven’t settled on a single solution. I can see the arguments for and against each.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Marbing

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

Sounds kind of worthless still, but if you want to unnecessarily bring mez mitigation into the discussion with Defenders, it'd have to be watered down af. Shrug. 

And once again I ask, what's the point of even having the power if it's watered down to the point of being worthless? If it's not going to be powerful enough to matter then why have it at all?

 

2 hours ago, Marbing said:

The more I think on it though, I do believe -end of some kind should remain (not the current iteration).

I think that either a -end cost or +special could work, as long as neither of them are dependent on the HP of teammates, or watered down to the point of being a waste of time.

[arcane]

23 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

And once again I ask, what's the point of even having the power if it's watered down to the point of being worthless? If it's not going to be powerful enough to matter then why have it at all?

 

I’d certainly rather have something potent in general, but, yeah, *if* mez mitigation is the way y’all wanna go, I couldn’t see something potent being a good idea.

[Rudra]

Basically, Vigilance does 2 things wrong. First and most egregious, is it relies on teammates being almost dead to have any real impact. Second and of minor consequence, it focuses on -END as its trick, and that only applies to the defender. It does one thing right, it gives +DAM when solo so the defender isn't progressing through missions at a snail's pace, in Antarctica, while covered in syrup.

 

I still say keep the END modifier, it may not be that useful at 50, but you want an inherent that is helpful at all levels. Add the +special. I won't say how much because I don't know how much would be ineffective, effective, or overly effective. Sure, it can scale up based on team size, but I still prefer it be a flat bonus. Regardless of what effects Vigilance gives, the link to team health needs to go the way of the dodo. You have the benefit. Making it only really usable when you're in a desperate situation was <expletive implied but not typed> stupid beyond all reason in my opinion.