Devs, Super Reflexes in need of an update....

[Aracknight]

Taunt auras on Scrappers.

 

Hmm.  I like the idea; I've asked for it in the past.  I believe someone quoted one of the devs as giving it a hard "no," which no one wants to hear.  

 

In the meantime, I'm happy to shoot a runner in the back with an APP/PPP power.  They're free to die tired.

 

If it changes, I'll adapt.  I will say this:  when I broke out the Melee Hybrid Incarnate slot on an ITF, with its Taunt aura, I suddenly, for whatever reason, and no other changes to my build, starting taking a lot more damage than I did without it.  For SR and other defense sets that don't "rely on it for mitigation"...I wonder if this might be a case of "Be careful what you wish for."

 

The more heat you generate, the more opportunity for RNGesus to forsake you.

[Blackjoy]

45 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Question is ... can they?

Absolutely.   

 

1)  One of the HC devs posted a thread and said that they were looking at balance.  The ONLY way you can balance sets on an MMO is by running stats.  There's no other way you can do that once you're past the design phase.

 

2) They've "balanced" a number of sets, specifically Titan Weapon which they said was OP.  How would they know that?  They had to run stats.

 

3)  OG (as you call it) devs ran numbers all the time.  The one they talked about the most was XP / Hour.   According to them, the optimal XP/Hour resulted in some amount of debt because that meant you were fighting harder mobs and getting more X/H than you would fighting safe enemies.    X/H would be one valid metric over the 1-35 levels.

 

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What about badgers and their desire to faceplant often? How will that affect the data?

 

What you're asking is how do you normalize the data.   I'm not a data scientist, but one philosophy is that when you have a sufficiently large population of data subjects, the choices and permutations are even distributed.    So badgers should be present in equal numbers in all Scrapper secondaries and this their effect is already normalized.    However, it's possible that you get skewed data sets.  Tough and Weave, may be more prevalent on all scrappers and if one secondary benefits from those more than another it can skew the data.   It also may be that sets with QR abilities are more likely to have it.  I don't know.  This is something they'll need to check.

 

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I don't think they knew nor do I think any of the rest of us do.

They knew something.  They first nerfed Regen back into the fold.  Then they buffed SR with scaling RES.  So they both ran numbers and had an idea of what the metric was.   I do not know if the HC developers have that info or the same philosophy.  But I do know, by there own words, they are at least interested in "balance."   Whether their definition for Scrappers matches mine, I do not know.

 

I will point out that back on Live, I recall the devs running a bunch of simulations.  They did some stress testing  some ATs (it might have been scrappers) to see what they breaking point was.  I don't remember the details, but it proved that they had ways to test out ATs, Powers, builds, etc.   

 

 

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I absolutely get the desire for hard data but unless we narrow down specifically what we need and why, we're grasping at straws.

I think it's very simple.  How do the secondaries rank, naked?   They can run data analysis on Scrapper xp/hour of scrappers that don't have things like Tough or CJ.  Then, start adding in pool powers and see how they rank.  Haste,  Tough, Weave, CJ, Stealth, etc.   I would imagine Regen probably gets more from Hasten than any other secondary.   What ever test/simulation they used to determine balance will suffice.   You don't have to do exhaustive testing.   A few simulations will show you if there is a huge discrepancy at the various levels.  

 

The hard part is agreeing on where you look for balance.  Level 1?  Lvl 40?  Lvl 50 + Incarnates and 200m builds?

Edited June 6, 2022 by Blackjoy

[arcane]

35 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

But we're talking about SR on Scrappers!

 

As with every other armor, give it to a tank and its some crazy OP.

Sure, but not all Tanker primaries can completely afk in the middle of an aggro cap worth of debuff-heavy mobs. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Blackjoy said:

The ONLY way you can balance sets on an MMO is by running stats.  There's no other way you can do that once you're past the design phase.

 

2) They've "balanced" a number of sets, specifically Titan Weapon which they said was OP.  How would they know that?  They had to run stats.

 

I find both of these to be assumptions until they actually come forth with the datamining they did. It was generally agreed that TW was OP but I don't recall any data being provided showing that the choices they made to bring it in line were based on anything but their own perceptions and game knowledge.

 

3 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

They did some stress testing  some ATs (it might have been scrappers) to see what they breaking point was.  I don't remember the details, but it proved that they had ways to test out ATs, Powers, builds, etc.  

 

I do vaguely remember this as well. And it's a solid way of going about it and we as players have created specific scenarios in AE for just that purpose. But if you balance a set at 25 or 35 you're going to get drastically different results than if you balance it at 50. And again if you do it with SOs vs IOs but that leads back into the "should the game be balanced around IOs" discussion that I'd really rather not get back into.

[Blackjoy]

5 minutes ago, arcane said:

Sure, but not all Tanker primaries can completely afk in the middle of an aggro cap worth of debuff-heavy mobs. 

You're failing to grasp that SR was never designed to work with Tanks.  The base numbers for +DEF had to be so high that when the global multiplier on Tanks was applied, it made SR too good. 

 

Another way you might process this info is that if SR had been originally balance for Tanks....it would have been dogmeat for scrappers.   What is true for Tanks has nothing to do with what is true for Scrappers.   Failing to grasp that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the game and how it is designed.  This is like people claiming 90% +RES fails 10% of the time.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Blackjoy

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Blackjoy said:

shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the game and how it is designed.

 

 

Sorry pal but after this thread you’re a long way off from me being able to receive such a critique with anything but an eyeroll.

[Blackjoy]

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

Sorry pal but after this thread you’re a long way off from me being able to receive such a critique with anything but an eyeroll.

By all means, keep talking about Tanks in a scrapper thread.

[Doomguide2005]

     But is the secondary ever truly naked?  Well no.  If you're Katana or Broadsword then you get a Parry type power which adds +def (Parry and Divine Avalanche).  Claws (and others) in the meantime get a to hit and damage buff (while inflicting damage) vs BU type powers.  Then there's the layers of other types of mitigation in Stuns and Knockdowns present in the Primaries.  I'm thinking anything sorting through that data is likely to also sort differences in pool (and Epic) choices.  But that's hardly my area of knowledge.

 

Edit:  And then, of course, currently there's a big difference in how much a runner(s) slows or alters things when the Primary has range attacks vs lacking range to deal with them.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Doomguide2005

[Rudra]

I still disagree on the naked set comparison. All ATs and builds are set up with the notion that the player is going to take pool powers. We have to. The primary and secondary sets can't fill the available power slots by themselves. Now we get into opinion. I am of the opinion that the sets were designed with the expectation that players would shore up their weaknesses, maybe build their strengths, and add some versatility. That is not say that the sets were designed expecting players would take the Holy Quad for all their builds. Just that some effort would be made to improve the character's ability to function/survive. Again, that is my opinion, not a statement of what the Live devs were doing.

 

So to some point, since we have to take some pool powers, they have to be factored into your balance. How? I don't really know.

[Blackjoy]

6 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I find both of these to be assumptions until they actually come forth with the datamining they did.

They usually do not post the data mining.  

 

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It was generally agreed that TW was OP but I don't recall any data being provided showing that the choices they made to bring it in line were based on anything but their own perceptions and game knowledge.

How would they have any clue how to tweak it?  Eyeball it?   They look at what Titan DPS was based on the stats and then figure out how to lower that by a specific amount.  Then, they test it.  Did we tweak it too much or not enough?  How thorough are they? I don't know.  But nobody, with any accountability,  is going to be changing numbers without running stats, which are readily available.

 

Yes, people can use their experience and intuition to tell them something is off.   But on a game like this, you're going to back that up before you go tweaking stuff and affecting lots of people's experience.  Backing up changes with stats is MMO Game Management 101.   Now, maybe they don't do that, but I would think they'd have screwed all kinds of things up already if they weren't verifying things with stats.

 

 

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But if you balance a set at 25 or 35 you're going to get drastically different results than if you balance it at 50. And again if you do it with SOs vs IOs but that leads back into the "should the game be balanced around IOs" discussion that I'd really rather not get back into.

Absolutely.  This is the part I cannot answer and for which there is no right  answer....other than the change which keeps the most people playing.    It's possible that where they choose to look for balance, they find it and ignore all other evidence of imbalance.

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

But nobody, with any accountability,  is going to be changing numbers without running stats, which are readily available.

*cough* Jack *cough* *cough* no purple patch used for calculating regen nerf *cough* *cough*

 

Sorry. Think I'm coming down with something. Anyway, yes, I agree that changes should be grounded in proven data. (I disagree with the data you want to use, but we can at least agree that data needs to be used.)

[Bill Z Bubba]

On the topic of powerset proliferation:

Invulnerability has always existed for scrappers and tanks. The values have always been identical and adjusted by the AT modifiers. So balanced for one AT or the other never has and never SHOULD matter. The base values SHOULD always be identical and modified by the AT modifiers. Of course, changes made recently have thrown that concept into the trash with how Nrg Melee for scrappers is a nerfed version of what tanks got and stone armor is different for scrap/stalk vs tank/brute.

 

On the topic of pool powers:

The caps matter. A resist based armor will benefit more on the SL front from tough than a defense based armor and the reverse is true for Weave. As pool powers ARE an integral part of our builds, they MUST be taken into consideration when balance is the question of the day. Judging a set "naked" is fine as long as all of them are truly naked, but since we are *forced* to take pool powers, testing naked is only a single data point and should be taken as such.

[Blackjoy]

7 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     But is the secondary ever truly naked?  Well no.  If you're Katana or Broadsword then you get a Parry type power which adds +def (Parry and Divine Avalanche).  Claws (and others) in the meantime get a to hit and damage buff (while inflicting damage) vs BU type powers.  Then there's the layers of other types of mitigation in Stuns and Knockdowns present in the Primaries.  I'm thinking anything sorting through that data is likely to also sort differences in pool (and Epic) choices.  But that's hardly my area of knowledge.

By naked, I mean run the sets without mitigation from pools.  Obviously you have to pick a Primary.  If you run population stats, those choices are arguably normalized, unless your find that 90% of the Regens are taking Claws or Shields are all taking Broadsword.

 

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I still disagree on the naked set comparison. All ATs and builds are set up with the notion that the player is going to take pool powers.

You do that as a BASELINE.   Then you add in pool powers to see if individual pool powers are having a biased benefit. The sets should be balanced against themselves.   That's basic game design.  Nobody designed the sets based on having Tough.   Do you think the devs designed Shield based on everyone taking Tough?  No.  They balanced based on what the other sets were doing and most likely how they could get people to pay money to play it.   And if power pools are dramatically altering that balance, then you address it.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

8 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

But on a game like this, you're going to back that up before you go tweaking stuff and affecting lots of people's experience.  Backing up changes with stats is MMO Game Management 101.   Now, maybe they don't do that, but I would think they'd have screwed all kinds of things up already if they weren't verifying things with stats.

 

Again, that's a mighty assumption. When Castle and BAB initially put the Claws changes on beta, they thought they had it right based on whatever tools/testing they had in place. Arcanaville knew they had it wrong and I was lucky enough to be a case proof that she was right when I tore through a pylon with Castle watching, unknown to me at the time, with a time that shocked everyone... except Arcana.

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

You do that as a BASELINE.   Then you add in pool powers

Okay, yeah, I can agree with that. As long as the consideration for adjustments is not just naked, considered in a vacuum, power set.

[Bill Z Bubba]

13 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

How would they have any clue how to tweak it?  Eyeball it?

 

Also, yes. A TON of eyeballing, throw shit at the wall, make changes and hope for the best have gone into making this game what it is today. That's WHY it's a mess.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Blackjoy said:

Do you think the devs designed Shield based on everyone taking Tough?

Not precisely, but effectively yes. The sets are not balanced with the ASSUMPTION that everyone is going to take Tough, but the POSSIBILITY that everyone is going to take Tough is definitely included. The availability of pool powers is absolutely part of the balance among sets.

[Doomguide2005]

5 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

By naked, I mean run the sets without mitigation from pools.  Obviously you have to pick a Primary.  If you run population stats, those choices are arguably normalized, unless your find that 90% of the Regens are taking Claws or Shields are all taking Broadsword.

     My point is those pools you have to take are also going to get normalized or whatever a data analysis calls it just like the primary abilities.

 

[Blackjoy]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Again, that's a mighty assumption. When Castle and BAB initially put the Claws changes on beta, they thought they had it right based on whatever tools/testing they had in place.

That's right.  They started with a design philosophy, a formula on how to balance the sets.  It was all math.  Except they weren't able to account for how sets play across all the variables and that's why the ran stats.   How things work on paper is often different (and sometimes dramatically) than how it works out in real game play.

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Arcanaville knew they had it wrong and I was lucky enough to be a case proof that she was right when I tore through a pylon with Castle watching, unknown to me at the time, with a time that shocked everyone... except Arcana.

Yeah...I am going to tell you Arcana was largely full of herself.   She figured out that the DPS numbers they were using did not include caste times.  That was her huge insight and something she spun into all kinds of clout.    So the devs had to redo some of their numbers. on some primaries, BFD.  Everything she did was based on her finding numbers and knowing numbers.   She had like zero understanding of game design.  I suspect she was also getting inside information from someone on the dev team, so she liked to broadcast all her secret knowledge.    

 

Arcana tried to argue that SR needed more +DEF and was adamantly against adding anything else.  I told the devs that +RES can absolutely simulate dodging: You avoid an attack and it does less damage than if it hit you straight on.  In fact, "super reflexes" would have been better modeled by a balance of +DEF and +RES.   Some things you avoid entirely and somethings only manage to graze you.  This is why Toxic and PSI positional attacks should also be resisted by SR.   If they are positional, then treat them as physical attacks, and let the +RES simulate you dodging some of the acid/psi beam.   But I suspect they can't code +RES based on it being positional. 

 

[Blackjoy]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Also, yes. A TON of eyeballing, throw shit at the wall, make changes and hope for the best have gone into making this game what it is today. That's WHY it's a mess.

t's a mess from our perspective, because we probably have a different idea of where it should be balanced.   I'll bet dollars to donuts, the devs on Live didn't care what happened at level 50.   For the players, tt level 50, the metric for scrappers dramatically changes.  It goes from XP/Hour to ability to solo AVs and run +4s.   The OG devs weren't going to balance that even though they publicly said no one should be able to solo an AV.   I would be surprised if the HC devs care about balance at 50.   The fact that the /Rad Scrapper I ran into can out Tank 90% of the Tanks on the server may not be a concern.  I pretty sure they didn't give a rat's ass on Live and I kind of don't blame them.  

 

It's just impossible to set a ceiling on what can be done, what should be doable at level 50.   I don't think any of the devs have the chops to balance at 50.   It's like Cray Super Computer difficult.   I mean, at 50 you can build SR to be as good as anything else....because at that point, it's not about SR, it's about pool powers, epic powers, patron powers, Incarnates, Set IOs, Procs, etc.

 

And no, they didn't eyeball it, they used their formula.  That's why it was so messed up, because the formula couldn't account for any of the variables.  If they had used their intuition with SR, they would have noticed that SR sucks a pipe wrench on the way up. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Blackjoy]

5 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     My point is those pools you have to take are also going to get normalized or whatever a data analysis calls it just like the primary abilities.

 

And if one set feels unplayable unless you take a specific pool power, then you think it's balanced to expect everyone who plays that set to  take that pool power?  No.  All the sets need to be within the same performance range without off-AT mitigation.  If they are not, then they need to be rebalanced BEFORE you start considering power pools.   You only bring in the pools to make sure it doesn't totally screw up the balance.

[Stormwalker]

1 hour ago, Blackjoy said:

And if one set feels unplayable unless you take a specific pool power, then you think it's balanced to expect everyone who plays that set to  take that pool power?  No.  All the sets need to be within the same performance range without off-AT mitigation.  If they are not, then they need to be rebalanced BEFORE you start considering power pools.   You only bring in the pools to make sure it doesn't totally screw up the balance.

 

None of the sets are "unplayable" out of the box.  Or anything close to it.  Even Regen (actually, at +0x1, Regen might be close to unkillable).  Remember, the default settings of this game have missions run at 0x1, no bosses solo, no AV's.  By that standard, every powerset is horribly OP.  The original intent of the game's balance went out the window a long time ago, because...

 

...somewhere along the way, the devs realized we like being horribly OP and decided to cater to it.  And so now we have ways to become even MORE horribly OP, and things that ought to be completely insane become possible.  But running at +4/x8  was never the expectation, and the sets out of the box are not intended to be able to do that.  That's in the realm of optimization.

 

And this is why we say that SR is a very strong set, and that Regen, for example, is a weak one.  Because SR responds very well to build optimization... and Regen does not.

 

(edited to correct a typo)

 

Actually, just wanted to add.  I feel like you're chasing an unattainable ideal.  The sets will never be evenly balanced both with and without pool powers.  It's impossible.  Because pool powers affect all the sets in different ways.  The closest thing that can be done is to balance the sets so that they have similar potential.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Stormwalker

[Infinitum]

8 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

2) They've "balanced" a number of sets, specifically Titan Weapon which they said was OP.  How would they know that?  They had to run stats

It might have had something to do with a TW soloing the magisterium incarnate trial.

[Stormwalker]

35 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

It might have had something to do with a TW soloing the magisterium incarnate trial.

 

Yeah, in my experience with MMO's, this is the sort of thing that tends to lead to nerfs.

 

If you're OP, best not to advertise it too loud if you want to stay that way very long. 

[Doomguide2005]

10 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

And if one set feels unplayable unless you take a specific pool power, then you think it's balanced to expect everyone who plays that set to  take that pool power?  No.  All the sets need to be within the same performance range without off-AT mitigation.  If they are not, then they need to be rebalanced BEFORE you start considering power pools.   You only bring in the pools to make sure it doesn't totally screw up the balance.

No, not what I think.  But the primaries are going to similarly effect performance.  Dark Melee with its presence of Siphon Life is already attractive to sets, like SR, with no heal or Katana with a resistance set providing a boost to defense through Divine Avalanche.  And those choices just like deciding to take Aid Self or Weave should get "normalized".  That and the data collected by whomever is going to inevitably include pool choices, I don't see how it's possible to do otherwise.   Devs make a change, internal testing says okay nothing wacky.  Release to beta and now a whole lot more beta testers have at it etc., etc..  Eventually it hits Live and many many more tests (i.e. builds) are conducted some of which will finally indicate something really should be updated.   And that right now is where SR sits, on HC Live generating more data points on a near 24-7 basis.

 

Edit:  If you attempt to take a secondary truly naked you aren't really getting a baseline of in-game function.  The data you're looking at is more an evaluation of the how to decide how the AT mods work for that set.  It strikes me as the work necessary to create a new power set, very early alpha type data that forms the basis for the next step of heading to beta testing to see how it functions within the game environment. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Doomguide2005
Clarity