Focused Feedback: Role Diversity Bonus

[Logansan]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but with all the issues people are raising (on the 1st page) wouldn't a simple solution be to just based it on the number of different ATs on the team? For example the bonus is applied if you have at least five different ATs? 

(I just picked "five" at random, it could be any number what ever feels right)

PS: Now that I had time to read more of the thread, I can see that I'm not the first to suggest this.

Edited January 29 by Logansan
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[Reiska]

7 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

I am just amazed people are this mad about this change and still asking for it to be scrapped, when it's this inconsequential.  I get it, most ATs are a mix of different roles and the mix is even more varied based on specific powersets... but like this is a minor change and small potatoes compared to fixing new powersets and other aspects that affect the game in the upcoming patch. 

 

From the beginning I've been in the "1 PA reward lul, I will mostly ignore this" crowd and it's not going to ever affect me as much as gutting my Stalker's performance will for example. 

 

I can't speak for others, but I'm not "mad" about it at all; I'm with you in that it's not going to change my behavior in joining or forming TFs if it goes live as is.

 

I'm just concerned that it's going to incentivize behavior I consider to be bad for the game.

 

Even if the number of people who decide to drop from a forming TF team before it starts because it won't earn the PA is small, I am extremely confident that it won't be zero, and it will make the process of getting a TF started just a little bit more annoying, especially for TFs that are already annoying to get people to want to run anyway (e.g. Shadow Shard TFs).  Having reflected on it more, I suspect this may actually be more of an issue long term than team leaders being picky about recruitment.

[Andreah]

23 minutes ago, kenlon said:

The sad part is, if this had been called something like "Archetype Diversity Bonus", it probably would have gone over fine. But people saw "role" as constraining what the archetypes could do, and started flipping out.  
 

I would have objected strenuously to that too. 

 

I do not see a problem this solves. If we need more prismatics, hand them out via dice rolls not team roles. If some archetypes aren't played enough due to their mechanics or UI's, fix those. If new players are confused about what the archetypes can do, explain them better. This system, and any others like it, do nothing but move us backward into arbitrary team composition goals. It is all bad, with no upside. Some variants of this might be less bad, but are still bad.

 

The existing motivation for players to seek diversity in their teams roles is complex, nuanced, and fault tolerant; and derives organically from the way powers and game systems interact at a low level, and it rewards organically as well via better team performance in content. There is no problem here to be solved with superficial role- or archetype-counting at the team level.

 

One of the chief distinguishing features of this game is it doesn't have so much of the class/archetype/role teaming prejudice other games have. We should be getting rid of what little we have, not adding more.

[Dispari]

7 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

I am just amazed people are this mad about this change and still asking for it to be scrapped, when it's this inconsequential.  I get it, most ATs are a mix of different roles and the mix is even more varied based on specific powersets... but like this is a minor change and small potatoes compared to fixing new powersets and other aspects that affect the game in the upcoming patch. 

 

From the beginning I've been in the "1 PA reward lul, I will mostly ignore this" crowd and it's not going to ever affect me as much as gutting my Stalker's performance will for example. 

 

Clearly it's not inconsequential since people have been arguing about it for 14 pages. If YOU don't care about the reward and don't care if you don't get it then that's good, but not everyone agrees. Most of us think if it has to exist it should at least be something that makes sense and isn't tricking new players wrong/confusing information.

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, kenlon said:

The sad part is, if this had been called something like "Archetype Diversity Bonus", it probably would have gone over fine. But people saw "role" as constraining what the archetypes could do, and started flipping out.  
 

 

Then all it takes is a name change?  

[Dispari]

Well no, because especially during the same patch we're trying to emphasize a "new player experience" to help new people adjust to the game, we're also rolling out something that teaches people wrong information about what ATs do and even conflicts with what the character creation screen says.

 

It makes just as much sense as if they listed Scrapper as a mez role and Brutes as ranged damage. Some of these options are just on here to fill out space, and has nothing to do with reality. Whether people care about or want the reward involved is not the issue; we could keep that part while replacing the base system with something that actually makes sense.

[Cyclone Jack]

25 minutes ago, Dispari said:

Well no, because especially during the same patch we're trying to emphasize a "new player experience" to help new people adjust to the game, we're also rolling out something that teaches people wrong information about what ATs do and even conflicts with what the character creation screen says.

100% This. 

 

If the Roles matched the Character Creation Playstyles, then I wouldn't have a problem with this.  I'd still think it was dumb, since it doesn't solve anything, but I wouldn't have a problem with it.  The issue is that it sends a conflicting message to new players, and even existing players, as it attempts to shoehorn every basic AT into precisely 1 role, while EATs fill precisely 3 roles. This is a completely arbitrary decision and does not reflect the game in any way, and in fact, goes against the design of many ATs, especially villain ATs that were designed to be multi-role ATs.

 

The irony is that its called Role Diversity while simultaneously removing the diversity of the ATs.

[Lockely]

25 minutes ago, Cyclone Jack said:

100% This. 

 

If the Roles matched the Character Creation Playstyles, then I wouldn't have a problem with this.  I'd still think it was dumb, since it doesn't solve anything, but I wouldn't have a problem with it.  The issue is that it sends a conflicting message to new players, and even existing players, as it attempts to shoehorn every basic AT into precisely 1 role, while EATs fill precisely 3 roles. This is a completely arbitrary decision and does not reflect the game in any way, and in fact, goes against the design of many ATs, especially villain ATs that were designed to be multi-role ATs.

 

The irony is that its called Role Diversity while simultaneously removing the diversity of the ATs.

 

This feels like the crux of the issue, right here. If it isn't matching the info provided to players on character creation, and it's in fact shoehorning ATs into roles arbitrarily, while unintentionally promoting EATs as a method to more easily fill the diversity bonuses, then maybe this system needs to go back to the drawing board.

I love it in concept. FFXIV has something similar that encourages an 8-man party to at least have a tank, a healer, a melee dps, a ranged phys dps, and a magic dps for a minor stat bonus during the mission and faster LB generation. Nothing make or break, but it *feels* better to have. This should be similar, while catering to the niches that CoH uniquely provides.

Edit: Maybe a better implementation is to instead be an "At least 5 unique archetypes of the following" i.e.
 

 

If your team brings unique Archetypes that fulfills at least five of the following roles, you will be granted the bonus.

Tank - Brute, Tanker, Peacebringer, Warshade
Melee - Brute, Scrapper, Stalker, Tanker, Soldier, Widow

Ranged - Blaster, Corruptor, Defender, Sentinel, Soldier, Widow, Peacebringer, Warshade

Crowd Control - Controller, Dominator

Support - Controller, Corrupter, Defender, Mastermind, Soldier, Widow

Pets - Controller, Dominator, Mastermind, Soldier

To prevent the prevalence of EATs eating everyone else's lunch, you could in theory pull them from that list above and add a new option in character creation for Advanced Classes that feature just Peacebringer, Warshade, Soldier, and Widow and have them count towards two of the options rather than three to ensure they're not destroying everyone else's chances to get into a team just to tick some boxes. 

Edited January 29 by Lockely

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Dispari said:

Well no, because especially during the same patch we're trying to emphasize a "new player experience" to help new people adjust to the game, we're also rolling out something that teaches people wrong information about what ATs do and even conflicts with what the character creation screen says.

 

It makes just as much sense as if they listed Scrapper as a mez role and Brutes as ranged damage. Some of these options are just on here to fill out space, and has nothing to do with reality. Whether people care about or want the reward involved is not the issue; we could keep that part while replacing the base system with something that actually makes sense.

 

Archetype Diversity Bonus

 

Group 1:

Tank - Brute - PB - WS

 

Group 2:

Scrapper - Stalker - PB - Soldier - Widow

 

Group 3:

Blaster - Sentinel - PB - WS - Soldier - Widow

 

Group 4:

Controller - Dominator - WS - Widow

 

Group 5:

Defender - Corruptor - Mastermind - Soldier

Have someone from each group and get small prize!

There, same thing without the wording that seems to upset people.  

[BrandX]

26 minutes ago, Lockely said:

 

This feels like the crux of the issue, right here. If it isn't matching the info provided to players on character creation, and it's in fact shoehorning ATs into roles arbitrarily, while unintentionally promoting EATs as a method to more easily fill the diversity bonuses, then maybe this system needs to go back to the drawing board.

I love it in concept. FFXIV has something similar that encourages an 8-man party to at least have a tank, a healer, a melee dps, a ranged phys dps, and a magic dps for a minor stat bonus during the mission and faster LB generation. Nothing make or break, but it *feels* better to have. This should be similar, while catering to the niches that CoH uniquely provides.

 

Tanks:

Tank - Brute - PB - WS

 

Melee:

Scrapper - Stalker - PB - Soldier - Widow

 

Range:

Blaster - Sentinel - PB - WS - Soldier - Widow

 

Control:

Controller - Dominator - WS - Widow

 

Support:

Defender - Corruptor - Mastermind - Soldier

Let's go with this list for now...

All four listed in Support are ATs listed as support in the Support Selection (which no one had a problem with all this time)

Control only listed at creation, but they said they were moving VEATS/HEATS to 3 positions for this bonus.

Every AT is listed in Range Damage EXCEPT the actual Melee (Tanker, Brute, Scrapper, Stalker)

As we can see, Defenders/Corruptors regardless of their Dark/Dark Power Selection status was not put in Crowd Control selection process.

 

Tank has higher rating on Crowd Control than Defender/Corruptor if we go by their numbered screen.

[Lockely]

3 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

Tanks:

Tank - Brute - PB - WS

 

Melee:

Scrapper - Stalker - PB - Soldier - Widow

 

Range:

Blaster - Sentinel - PB - WS - Soldier - Widow

 

Control:

Controller - Dominator - WS - Widow

 

Support:

Defender - Corruptor - Mastermind - Soldier

Let's go with this list for now...

All four listed in Support are ATs listed as support in the Support Selection (which no one had a problem with all this time)

Control only listed at creation, but they said they were moving VEATS/HEATS to 3 positions for this bonus.

Every AT is listed in Range Damage EXCEPT the actual Melee (Tanker, Brute, Scrapper, Stalker)

As we can see, Defenders/Corruptors regardless of their Dark/Dark Power Selection status was not put in Crowd Control selection process.

 

Tank has higher rating on Crowd Control than Defender/Corruptor if we go by their numbered screen.

 

I am not opposed to this, but was simply copying down what was actually listed on the selection screen so we didn't have an incongruent mismatch from it to a later implementation in-game. Trying to make the best of both worlds work together.

[Wispur]

23 minutes ago, BrandX said:

There, same thing without the wording that seems to upset people.  

 

The issue isn't the name, it never was.
The two issues that people are concerned with are - 

1. These "Groups" don't line up with the Playstyles shown at Character Creation.
For example, If we tell New Players that Brutes are Melee Damage, but then don't count them as being Melee Damage when it comes to teaming up in the game, that's misleading, and a bad new player experience.
And that goes for all the AT's that are listed under multiple playstyles at Character Creation.
At the very least, the Playstyles at character creation and Roles in this bonus need to line up.

2. There are concerns that this will teach new players that you *have* to have specific roles at all levels of gameplay.
This is a significant enough award for new players/characters, that it *will* be used by them, even if it's not how the game works.
...and if you make the award so insignificant that it doesn't matter and nobody cares, you've created a system that doesn't need to exist.
It's basically a lose/lose.

(Personally, I'm more concerned with the first issue, and less so the second)
(Plus as I've said before, I mostly play Kheldians, so the planned implementation benefits me greatly)

Edited January 29 by Wispur

[Cyclone Jack]

As has been stated numerous times throughout the thread, just give a bonus for having a variety of ATs in the group.  Making arbitrary roles will not inform players about the diversity of the archetypes as much as just teaming with them.  If a new player gets a different combination of ATs for Posi 1, Posi 2, and Synapse, they will quickly learn that the ATs are much more diverse than your typical MMO, and that ATs can fill more than one role.

[BrandX]

25 minutes ago, Wispur said:

 

The issue isn't the name, it never was.
The two issues that people are concerned with are - 

1. These "Groups" don't line up with the Playstyles shown at Character Creation.
For example, If we tell New Players that Brutes are Melee Damage, but then don't count them as being Melee Damage when it comes to teaming up in the game, that's misleading, and a bad new player experience.
And that goes for all the AT's that are listed under multiple playstyles at Character Creation.
At the very least, the Playstyles at character creation and Roles in this bonus need to line up.

2. There are concerns that this will teach new players that you *have* to have specific roles at all levels of gameplay.
This is a significant enough award for new players/characters, that it *will* be used by them, even if it's not how the game works.
...and if you make the award so insignificant that it doesn't matter and nobody cares, you've created a system that doesn't need to exist.
It's basically a lose/lose.

(Personally, I'm more concerned with the first issue, and less so the second)
(Plus as I've said before, I mostly play Kheldians, so the planned implementation benefits me greatly)

 

On 1, I just disagree.  I don't feel it's misleading. I feel it's the need to limit for this specific bonus, so characters were put in groups.

 

On 2, still going to have to disagree.  That hasn't been taught yet with people coming in from other games and the masses saying, just go to town.  Though, on the reward aspect, they created rewards in accolade powers that don't need to exist.  Crey Pistol...I don't see people using that in game play.  Get rid of it tho and I imagine everyone will come out of the wood work and talk about how they use it on every character and how it's part of their regular attacks and such.

So, do we get rid of that system, as it didn't need to exist?  Somethings can just be "Oooo...a tiny little bonus"

[Wispur]

25 minutes ago, Cyclone Jack said:

As has been stated numerous times throughout the thread, just give a bonus for having a variety of ATs in the group.  Making arbitrary roles will not inform players about the diversity of the archetypes as much as just teaming with them.  If a new player gets a different combination of ATs for Posi 1, Posi 2, and Synapse, they will quickly learn that the ATs are much more diverse than your typical MMO, and that ATs can fill more than one role.

If this diversity bonus is going to make it to live, I still like this solution the most.

5 different AT's in the group?  You get the Bonus.
And then the remaining 3 slots can be duplicates.

Like you said, this will likely do a much better job teaching new players about the diversity of AT's and their versatility.

(Plus, this *still* benefits me as a Kheldian since it's one of the least played AT's, Bwahahahahaha!)

[Paradox Fate]

2 minutes ago, Wispur said:

If this diversity bonus is going to make it to live, I still like this solution the most.

5 different AT's in the group?  You get the Bonus.
And then the remaining 3 slots can be duplicates.

Like you said, this will likely do a much better job teaching new players about the diversity of AT's and their versatility.

(Plus, this *still* benefits me as a Kheldian since it's one of the least played AT's, Bwahahahahaha!)

 

Just raising a concern here, since you mention it: One shouldn't get additional rewards just because they play underdog AT's.

Granted, Khelds and VEATS have unique playstyles and have their limitations, but they shouldn't be made attractive this way. It's much better tweaking the AT's themselves, which still have quite some room for improvements.

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Lockely said:

This feels like the crux of the issue, right here. If it isn't matching the info provided to players on character creation, and it's in fact shoehorning ATs into roles arbitrarily, while unintentionally promoting EATs as a method to more easily fill the diversity bonuses, then maybe this system needs to go back to the drawing board.

No, to me it isn't the crux at all. This might make it less bad, but it's still bad. We should not be trying to nudge team composition any way at all. Let players play what they like and team with whom they like, guided only by the fundamental mechanics and synergies inherent in the game.

 

Edited January 29 by Andreah

[Lockely]

Just now, Andreah said:

No, to me it isn't the crux at all. This might make it less bad, but it's still bad. We should not be trying to nudge team composition any way at all. Let players play what they like and team with whom they like, guided only by the fundamental mechanics and synergies inherent in the game.

 

 

Encouraging team diversity and the playing of various other ATs is not a bad thing in the slightest. Using a carrot that's fundamentally not impactful to gameplay is a good way to do that.

What might be a good solution is to give a 20% chance *per* unique AT in a team, versus all this role nonsense. That way, you still have to have 5 unique ATs to qualify for the 100% bonus, but at the same time, no one is faffing about with various roles.

[Wispur]

38 minutes ago, Paradox Fate said:

Just raising a concern here, since you mention it: One shouldn't get additional rewards just because they play underdog AT's.

Granted, Khelds and VEATS have unique playstyles and have their limitations, but they shouldn't be made attractive this way. It's much better tweaking the AT's themselves, which still have quite some room for improvements.

Well, to be fair, the underplayed thing was just my added commentary, not the reason they did it - 

Kheldians were made more attractive for this bonus because-
A. We need to be on a team for our Inherent to work.  (This was the reason the Dev gave earlier in the thread)
B. We were specifically designed to fill multiple team roles as needed using one build, ie, their intended design is versatility

As far as the VEATs... I dunno... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But if you wanna talk improvements to Kheldians! I'm right there with ya! 😄
But that's a topic for the next patch I think, lol.

[PoptartsNinja]

One of the purposes of this seems to be to separate out Defenders and Corruptors, to encourage people to play Defenders more in high level content. So the question is: what about high level content is hostile to Defenders (and Masterminds, and Kheldians)?

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Wispur said:

A. We need to be on a team for our Inherent to work.  (This was the reason the Dev gave earlier in the thread)

Join a team or form a team -- problem solved! I have never seen someone not invited to a team because they're a Kheldian.

[Andreah]

38 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

One of the purposes of this seems to be to separate out Defenders and Corruptors, to encourage people to play Defenders more in high level content. So the question is: what about high level content is hostile to Defenders (and Masterminds, and Kheldians)?

This is a good question. If the devs have actual data analytics that show these are problems, I'd like to see them. We had numbers for which archetypes were played from years ago, but no more recent data has been made public and that old data did not speak to teaming at all.

 

I'll cut to the chase. I do not believe this change is founded on data; I believe it was a developer's idea, it sounded superficially good to a few of them who okayed it, and then got carried along in the mass of changes folded into page 7, and it wasn't challenged deeply until now.

Edited January 29 by Andreah

[Wavicle]

46 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

One of the purposes of this seems to be to separate out Defenders and Corruptors, to encourage people to play Defenders more in high level content. So the question is: what about high level content is hostile to Defenders (and Masterminds, and Kheldians)?

I think that’s an assumption that may be logical but not necessarily correct. It doesn’t reflect any of the dev statements in this thread. They seem to have separated those ATs so that the original Villain ATs would include one of each role.

[skoryy]

44 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

One of the purposes of this seems to be to separate out Defenders and Corruptors, to encourage people to play Defenders more in high level content. So the question is: what about high level content is hostile to Defenders (and Masterminds, and Kheldians)?

 

It was an issue, at least some time back, that incarnates and IOs made control and support powers not really useful at high level content.  No real need for buffs when you can bring your own, and no real need for controls when you have taunts and spawn-obliterating nukes.

 

Mind you, I'm also a controller enthusiast who enjoys running out ahead to see how much chaos I can bring before the team catches up, but I also proc mine out to the gills so...

[Wispur]

24 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Join a team or form a team -- problem solved! I have never seen someone not invited to a team because they're a Kheldian.

...that's kinda the point of this whole 14 page discussion. 😅

There's a fear that people will start being excluded from teams because of their AT's not being the correct role.

(Besides, I wasn't complaining or anything, I was just explaining to Paradox why the devs did what they did regarding Kheldians)

 

Edited January 29 by Wispur