This is a Question... Just a question. Really, Just a question!

[Etched]

As I work on my wonderful SR/SJ tank I realized something fairly disturbin to myself. I mean someone else may not find it as disturbin or they might.

Idk, I'm not you,

 

The question is as follows which may lead to different directions dependin on how many "/powercreeps" I get.

Why is there only one resist set within the power pools?

I mean it seems like Def is in 82.999999% of them but Fightin is the only one that offers a resist power (good ole Tough).

Don't get me wrong, I like Def buuuuuut, I also like a little resist with that def.

 

So to be clear, I am not suggestin anything, I'm just a little curious as to WHY the pool powers don't offer it more.

It's not even a hard question for the diehard numbers players. Which I am not. Only numbers I like are the number of toons I have that are 50/t4 and the amount of inf i have stuffed into emails.

 

@Etched

 

Fingers crossed it's not "/powercreep" which is what I'm expectin to be the answer from all 9 of y'all that may or may not answer this Question, really it's just a question and not a suggestion.

 

OK, I lied... I suggest a vender that sells all lvl of insps...

Damn't, I forgot that is one of the "/Infsinks" 😞

[FupDup]

It might be in part due to the live devs considering resistance more powerful than defense (despite players believing the opposite, or at least about equal at worst). This can also be seen in IO set bonuses (reaching def caps is way easier than res caps using bonuses). And how only a few AT's have greater than 75% res cap. Orange inspirations give a smaller value than purple ones despite res caps being far higher than def caps. Etc. 

 

PS: There is also a second resist power available in pools (Rune of Protection) but that's a low uptime clicky that needs 2 prereq power choices. I wish there were more. 🥺

Edited September 25, 2023 by FupDup

[Rudra]

The reason why there is only one resist power pool set, based on my understanding of the game and what was said by the Live devs around the game's initial launch, is because the power pools are meant to provide powers that fill holes in a character design from the ATs. That's why there were 4 travel pools initially, though that number has increased to 6 with the two origin-based pools. All ATs had a hole in their set up for advanced or thematic travel. So players had to dip into the power pools to fill that hole. By the same token, the ATs that were expected to be in the middle of all the fighting, the Scrappers and Tankers only at that time, then expanded to the Stalkers and Brutes, already have resist and/or defense built into their ATs. However, since Blasters, Defenders, and Controllers, and then later Corrupters, Dominators, and Masterminds, were not expected to be in the middle of the fight (Blappers not withstanding since the Blaster's melee abilities were considered supplemental to give the Blaster breathing room when enemies got close), their ATs lacked any built in resists or defenses. So players could fill that hole as well if needed, the Fighting pool was available.

 

So basically, the reason why only the Fighting pool has resists is because it is/was intended that non-melee ATs would not need any or much additional damage resistance. Especially since some added defense worked better for keeping those ATs alive in the end. (Edit again: And also because the Live devs didn't want melee ATs able to dip into too much added resistance from the power pools.)

 

(Edit: Also, what @FupDup said....)

Edited September 25, 2023 by Rudra

[biostem]

Most of the pools, AFAIK, were implemented before IOs, so the notion of stacking so much defense was probably not on the devs' minds at that time.  I also imagine, at least from a conceptual basis, being a little better at avoiding getting hit is probably easier to attain than being better able to take a hit, especially once we get into the more exotic damage types.  I also believe that the majority of armor powers among PPPs/APPs are resistance based, instead of providing defense.

[Rudra]

9 minutes ago, biostem said:

Most of the pools, AFAIK, were implemented before IOs, so the notion of stacking so much defense was probably not on the devs' minds at that time.  I also imagine, at least from a conceptual basis, being a little better at avoiding getting hit is probably easier to attain than being better able to take a hit, especially once we get into the more exotic damage types.  I also believe that the majority of armor powers among PPPs/APPs are resistance based, instead of providing defense.

While you make a good point, I would like to point out for the purpose of the author's question as far as non-Ancillary/Patron pools go, the resist and defense powers available to ATs through their Ancillary or Patron Power Pools are not available to melee ATs at all. Even the Sentinel AT does not get access to resist or defense powers from their Ancillary or Patron pools. Because the Live devs at least, not sure about current devs, did not want any ATs with armor powers getting access to the ability to quickly or easily max out their resists, thus the Fighting pool being the only (edit: non-APP/PPP) pool with a resist power that isn't limited to use once every 3 minutes.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Rudra

[Etched]

Well,  that explains it.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

@Etched

[biostem]

17 minutes ago, Rudra said:

the Fighting pool being the only (edit: non-APP/PPP) pool with a resist power

Granted, but even then, it's only versus the 2 most common & mundane damage types...

[TheZag]

The reason was to prevent super reflexes characters from being able to slot all the good resistance uniques.

 

[Etched]

8 minutes ago, TheZag said:

The reason was to prevent super reflexes characters from being able to slot all the good resistance uniques.

 

Hammer on the nail!

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. The original Devs HATE ME!

 

I'll get them and their little dog, tooo!

 

@Etched

 

[Luminara]

Defense allows critters a chance, however miniscule, to win.

 

Resistance doesn't.

[Spaghetti Betty]

stares at Rune of Protection

 

Edit: I was 3 posts too late!

Edited September 26, 2023 by Spaghetti Betty

[Doomguide2005]

There's also going not too far back large difference in how readily (especially pre IO now thinking on it) our foes can strip defense from characters.  Only SR possessed a significant ability to not get debuffed (i.e. DDR) by the multitude of commonly encountered defense debuffs available to our foes.  Cascade defense failure is thing even now.  But resistance always resists further lower by it's original value.  A Tanker sitting at 90% resists to start will be 90% resistant to every incoming resistance debuff to matter how many or how often those debuffs come.  Making a cascade failure of resistance essentially impossible.  Resistance debuffing foes were until recently also far less common (and probably still are).

[A.I.D.A.]

14 hours ago, TheZag said:

The reason was to prevent super reflexes characters from being able to slot all the good resistance uniques.

 

 

But you can slot all of them, you just put them in Tough! XD

[Psi-bolt]

There are a few reasons I think including:  1) Smashing, Lethal damage was far and away the most common damage type at launch; 2) Power Pools weren't really intended to be used by characters who already had those powers in their primary/secondary; 3) the game was intended (but not designed) to be much slower and harder than it actually was; and 4) the developers thought about building characters like developers and not players.

 

A little bit more on that last point.  What I mean by that is that especially early on in MMORPGs, many, many developers failed to even consider min-maxing as a thing and the CoH devs had this blind spot worse than most.  I guarantee that Statesman at the time would never even have considered the idea that players might want to stack additional resistance with a set like Super Reflexes because it was "good enough" for how they thought the game would be played.   I swear, developers seem to have this weird idea that players will ever consider a character "good enough".   Sure some people will, but most MMORPG players would build their characters all the way to the power level we see in the Mender Ramiel arc if they were allowed to.  

 

So the fighting pool was intended to be used by characters who didn't have many attacks and little defenses like Controllers.  The devs said as much.   They probably didn't see why anyone would want even more resistance powers in the pools.  "Who would take them?"; I can see them saying.  Until they saw it with their own eyes they never considered that melee players would want to stack as much resistance/defense possible on their characters.   

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Psi-bolt said:

I guarantee that Statesman at the time would never even have considered the idea that players might want to stack additional resistance with a set like Super Reflexes because it was "good enough" for how they thought the game would be played. 

Statesman was the one that insisted a character with an armor set only ever needed 1 resist power available at a time. (Despite the presence of say... the Tsoo... and their faction having every damage type plus mezzes starting at level 20. Or the fact that situation kept getting worse as you leveled up.) So it's not that Statesman never thought about it, it's more that he was actively against anyone being able to have layered resists. (It was the other devs, to the best of my knowledge, that were in favor of layered protection, but they didn't want to make it possible for armor ATs to be able to max those out.)

[Psi-bolt]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

Statesman was the one that insisted a character with an armor set only ever needed 1 resist power available at a time. (Despite the presence of say... the Tsoo... and their faction having every damage type plus mezzes starting at level 20. Or the fact that situation kept getting worse as you leveled up.) So it's not that Statesman never thought about it, it's more that he was actively against anyone being able to have layered resists. (It was the other devs, to the best of my knowledge, that were in favor of layered protection, but they didn't want to make it possible for armor ATs to be able to max those out.)

 

This is right.  We even see this in the structure of sets like Stone Armor and in the very early iterations of the mez protection toggles in Invulnerability and Stone.

[SwitchFade]

The answer is 42.

[Rudra]

Just now, SwitchFade said:

The answer is 42.

But what is the question?

[BrandX]

On 9/25/2023 at 7:11 PM, Spaghetti Betty said:

stares at Rune of Protection

 

Edit: I was 3 posts too late!

 

I was going to say.  Why was this being forgotten?  😛

[SwitchFade]

19 hours ago, Rudra said:

But what is the question?

I know how we can find out...

 

Pack light!

 

And.... do you like fish?

[Rudra]

4 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

I know how we can find out...

 

Pack light!

 

And.... do you like fish?

The dolphins took them all when the intergalactic highway was announced.