Suggested QoL change - Pool Power Standardization

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, battlewraith said:

But there are other characters that are essentially unkillable while plowing through content aren't there? When you say this is unwarranted, by what standard? When you say it's bad--in what way that is detrimental to how people are playing the game?

 

1: Depends on the content and diff, doesn't it? If we're all running +0/x1 and aren't lacking a functional brain and opposable thumbs, we're all unkillable. Fighting level 54 AVs, tanks rapidly become the only unkillable entities.

2: Unwarranted by the standard of archetype balance within the game. If it only takes me a few minutes longer to wipe out a map/hard target and I have zero % chance of defeat, vs maybe taking out the map/target a few minutes faster with a vastly higher chance of defeat, seems like balance has been tossed out the window.

3: Again, bad in a balance way. We're playing City of Tanks now as someone else noted in another thread. It's not bad for those of us that say, fark it, I'm runnin tanks, but it is bad for anyone that thinks some level of balance should exist between and amongst archetypes and powersets within those archetypes.

[Blackfeather]

38 minutes ago, Akisan said:

There's enough in the Origin power pools that I feel that they probably should have been Epic pools, and tailored to each AT, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms. 

 

If it's anything, it does seem like the Origin power pools were made a bit special on purpose, hence why only one of them can be picked per character, I think.

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

If it's anything, it does seem like the Origin power pools were made a bit special on purpose, hence why only one of them can be picked per character, I think.

 

You're not wrong but that still doesn't excuse the ridiculously overpowered nature of what they provide.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

1: Depends on the content and diff, doesn't it? If we're all running +0/x1 and aren't lacking a functional brain and opposable thumbs, we're all unkillable. Fighting level 54 AVs, tanks rapidly become the only unkillable entities.

2: Unwarranted by the standard of archetype balance within the game. If it only takes me a few minutes longer to wipe out a map/hard target and I have zero % chance of defeat, vs maybe taking out the map/target a few minutes faster with a vastly higher chance of defeat, seems like balance has been tossed out the window.

3: Again, bad in a balance way. We're playing City of Tanks now as someone else noted in another thread. It's not bad for those of us that say, fark it, I'm runnin tanks, but it is bad for anyone that thinks some level of balance should exist between and amongst archetypes and powersets within those archetypes.

I'm not saying you're wrong that balance is off, but I find the complaint hard to really relate to. Like, I don't enjoy the other ATs because tanks are OP? 

It's bad for people who have that mindset?

 

If people are in love with a given AT and it becomes city of (insert fotm), doesn't that indicate a certain excitement and engagement? (I don't play tanks btw) Why should it matter to people playing other characters? They can obviously play solo or assemble their own teams can't they? I think part of the reason I can't relate to it, is that I've been on the receiving end of nerfs so often because of this mentality. Unless you're pvping, there's no real competition. Certain builds will do certain tasks better under certain circumstances. Sometimes the devs introduce something or make a change that rocks, and people like it. To those tanks I say--enjoy your day in the sun before it gets ruined. There's always going to be a meta, especially in this game with so many variables to balance.

 

 

 

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Blackfeather said:

 

If it's anything, it does seem like the Origin power pools were made a bit special on purpose, hence why only one of them can be picked per character, I think.

I think the plan was that people were supposed to purchase them. Hence them being better.

[Blackfeather]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

You're not wrong but that still doesn't excuse the ridiculously overpowered nature of what they provide.

 

I'll admit that the origin power pools never quite pinged me as especially overpowered, might you be able to elaborate further on that? I do like them for adding in some extra damage though. I do recall Sorcery getting a once over recently by the devs?

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

I'm not saying you're wrong that balance is off, but I find the complaint hard to really relate to. Like, I don't enjoy the other ATs because tanks are OP? 

It's bad for people who have that mindset?

 

Not at all. I have controllers than *can* solo at max diff *IF* I'm 100% on the ball and manage not to faceplant more than once or twice but they'll take VASTLY longer to get the job done than the tanks I have. We can have fun with every combo/AT we come up with. Some love masterminds. I hate them. Some love blappers. I fail completely at them. It's an irrelevant point. Fun has nothing to do with balance.

 

7 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

If people are in love with a given AT and it becomes city of (insert fotm), doesn't that indicate a certain excitement and engagement? (I don't play tanks btw) Why should it matter to people playing other characters? They can obviously play solo or assemble their own teams can't they? I think part of the reason I can't relate to it, is that I've been on the receiving end of nerfs so often because of this mentality. Unless you're pvping, there's no real competition. Certain builds will do certain tasks better under certain circumstances. Sometimes the devs introduce something or make a change that rocks, and people like it. To those tanks I say--enjoy your day in the sun before it gets ruined. There's always going to be a meta, especially in this game with so many variables to balance.

 

Again, fun has nothing to do with balance. I give two shits about what I or anyone else has fun doing. More power to ya and me. It's a different topic entirely.

[Blackfeather]

4 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

I think the plan was that people were supposed to purchase them. Hence them being better.

 

I think I might have heard something along those lines - I want to say that Time Manipulation was also the same way? It was even mentioned in their old design notes that it was designed to allow almost all its powers to work even while playing alone.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

I'll admit that the origin power pools never quite pinged me as especially overpowered, might you be able to elaborate further on that? I do like them for adding in some extra damage though. I do recall Sorcery getting a once over recently by the devs?

 

Rune of Protection is a ridiculous amount of resistance and mez protection up 1/3 of the time. Adrenal Booster and Unleash Potential can both be brought down near the same uptime. They're as over the top compared to other pool T5s as Shadow Meld, Hibernate and arguably Darkest Night are in comparison to their equal level APP/EPP picks. And I won't ignore Hasten. It should have been made a +20% passive back in issue 2.

[Bill Z Bubba]

16 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

I think the plan was that people were supposed to purchase them. Hence them being better.

 

Exactly. And we aren't playing the pay to win game anymore. That garbage should be corrected along with all the P2W shit the SSPS added. Nuke it all from orbit and let the dark gods below sort it out.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Again, fun has nothing to do with balance. I give two shits about what I or anyone else has fun doing. More power to ya and me. It's a different topic entirely.

My dude, it's a game. If the point of the game is not to have fun, then what is it? If the pursuit of balance leads to it being less fun for the playerbase, then what is the value of pursuing balance? This strikes me as a fundamental question, not a separate topic.

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Exactly. And we aren't playing the pay to win game anymore. That garbage should be corrected along with all the P2W shit the SSPS added. Nuke it all from orbit and let the dark gods below sort it out.

Eh, I disagree with you on the P2W. P2W lets players buy back the prestige powers they had on Live and lost due to shutdown.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, battlewraith said:

My dude, it's a game. If the point of the game is not to have fun, then what is it? If the pursuit of balance leads to it being less fun for the playerbase, then what is the value of pursuing balance? This strikes me as a fundamental question, not a separate topic.

 

It is a game and we should all be able to have fun playing it regardless of the AT or powersets we choose. It becomes very specifically NOT fun when it's fully observable that playing X is not nearly as fun as Y because playing Y means I level faster, kill faster, survive more and thus have more fun playing than X.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Rudra said:

Eh, I disagree with you on the P2W. P2W lets players buy back the prestige powers they had on Live and lost due to shutdown.

 

Amplifiers didn't exist on live that I recall.

[Rudra]

I keep forgetting those exist. Yeah, those can follow the dodo. It's the things from Live that P2W has that I would like to keep.

[battlewraith]

59 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

It is a game and we should all be able to have fun playing it regardless of the AT or powersets we choose. It becomes very specifically NOT fun when it's fully observable that playing X is not nearly as fun as Y because playing Y means I level faster, kill faster, survive more and thus have more fun playing than X.

Then you play Y.  You play what is fun for you. It's always been that way. There has always been disparities between classes and builds. Back in the early days on live my dm/inv scrapper kicked ass. My friend's blaster was truly a glass cannon and constantly was drowning in debt. He had fun though, so he stuck with it and when we teamed he had even more fun.

We should not all be able to have the same amount of fun playing regardless of AT or powersets unless we are all clones of the same person. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, battlewraith said:

We should not all be able to have the same amount of fun playing regardless of AT or powersets unless we are all clones of the same person. 

 

Sounds like elitist snobbery to me.

 

Also, not relevant. Every AT and every combo should be able to achieve similar XP/time ratios. Anything less than that is horseshit.

[SwitchFade]

No thank you.

 

But, I will yes vote for pie.

 

🥧

 

🥧

[Blackfeather]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Rune of Protection is a ridiculous amount of resistance and mez protection up 1/3 of the time. Adrenal Booster and Unleash Potential can both be brought down near the same uptime. They're as over the top compared to other pool T5s as Shadow Meld, Hibernate and arguably Darkest Night are in comparison to their equal level APP/EPP picks. And I won't ignore Hasten. It should have been made a +20% passive back in issue 2.

 

Thanks for the elaboration! So to clarify, the Origin power pools generally have stronger abilities than the Ancillary power pools?

[kelika2]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

When we're all ridiculously OP already compared to the PvE environment? I'm gonna go with yes.

issue 9 was inventions, right?

already happened like 15 years ago

 

so, proper to this conversation is power crept

and we are still playing

[Wobegone]

For what it's worth, curbing power creep is a compelling argument for me.

 

21 hours ago, Rudra said:

Using the Fighting pool as a reference:

As a fighter, you learn to fight first. How to punch and kick. Those are the prerequisite powers.

After you learn to fight, you start fighting and build up endurance and resilience. Enter Tough.

After taking lots of hits, you develop a knack for reading your opponent and avoiding being hit. Enter Weave.

 

Theme: Fighting. Progression established.

 

This is not a compelling argument for me.  Seems pedantic to me.  My Mutant is naturally tougher, no boxing or kick needed.  My Technology character's armor makes her tougher, no boxing or kick needed.  

 

In this instance, I don't mind 'wasting' a power in order to make my Mutant or Tech character tougher and harder to hit.  I could see your argument being more relevant if I'm also taking Cross Punch.  Yes, I do run into situations where I have to make difficult power choices, but that's fine.  

[Rudra]

Your mutant is naturally tougher because of his/her AT abilities would be my guess. Same with your technology character's armor. The Fighting pool is not mutation. The Fighting pool is not worn armor, regardless of hi tech, primitive, or otherwise. It is Fighting. It is also a pool power set. Not cued for Tankers, Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers, Corruptors, Blasters, Masterminds, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators, Soldiers of Arachnos, Widows of Arachnos, Peacebringers, Warshades, or Sentinels. It is blind to all the ATs. (Also not cued for Natural, Mutation, Science, Technology, or Magic except for the 2 origin pool sets we currently have.) So it doesn't matter if your character already knows how to throw a punch, kick, feint, or anything else. It is run off the assumption that a character that does not have an armor set and may be lacking a melee set may be taking it.

 

Because all the pool powers until you get to the ancillary pool powers are blind to the ATs (edit; and have to assume that the character taking it may not already have powers in line with the pool's theme), they have to follow a set progression. (Edit: And even ancillary pools follow a progression of power, they just do so with the AT factored in.) They have to have basic abilities available that are used to unlock higher tier abilities. Regardless of whether you are talking about the Fighting pool, Medicine pool, Leadership pool, or anything else. Asking to skip the basic powers of a pool because your AT may already have access to those types of powers or because you imagine your character to inherently be something from the pool powers does not preclude progression of powers as a prerequisite for power acquisition. It is why no AT starts with an AoE attack or their T9 nuke. Because every power set in the game is built upon progression of power.

 

Edit again: And if you want the pools to factor in the ATs? Then you will probably see Tough and Weave disappear as options for Scrappers, Stalkers, Tankers, and Brutes because they already have their armor sets. (Edit redux: And Sentinels. Can't forget Sentinels. They have their armor set too.)

Edited July 9, 2022 by Rudra

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

This is not a compelling argument for me.  Seems pedantic to me.  My Mutant is naturally tougher, no boxing or kick needed.  My Technology character's armor makes her tougher, no boxing or kick needed.  

If their mutation or armor is what makes them tougher, and is such an integral part of their abilities, then perhaps another AT is a better fit.  That, or just take boxing or kick, but don't slot it up, to reflect that while said character can use said hardened exterior to hit things, they haven't honed that ability, hence why said abilities are only rudimentary...

Edited July 9, 2022 by biostem

[Major_Decoy]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:05 PM, Zepp said:

Is 526 really a lot?

No, by the the Frivolous theorem of arithmetic, any number you can name is a small number.

[Wobegone]

47 minutes ago, biostem said:

If their mutation or armor is what makes them tougher, and is such an integral part of their abilities, then perhaps another AT is a better fit.  That, or just take boxing or kick, but don't slot it up, to reflect that while said character can use said hardened exterior to hit things, they haven't honed that ability, hence why said abilities are only rudimentary...

Right.  Which is what I do.  To be clear, I'm not advocating a change...merely disagreeing with the idea that a character need take a punch or kick in order to be tougher and harder to hit, even if it's from a pool power called 'Fighting'.  It's entirely possible I'm just a strange cat with strange ideas...but I like to imagine being a bit tougher and harder to hit, beyond primary and secondary powers, that's reflected in a mutation or an improvement on armor.