What I wish Arsenal Control looked like

[JasperStone]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

It was moved out of Focused Feedback for being off-topic since the devs repeatedly stated they wouldn’t be changing the set’s power selection further.

It wasn't a complaint.

 

you made some great suggestions

[Cheli]

43 minutes ago, Maxzero said:

 

In your way you are right because Controller gain so much power from another broken system: procs.

 

Outside of procs Containment is literally consistent double damage for Controller attacks.

 

Can you make a viable Controller without using Containment? Sure if you rely the crutch of PA (which itself is problematic balance wise) otherwise you are going to a rather boring time.

I'd also be wary of reliance on proc-bomb gameplay, and specifically build without relying on it on most characters, because I strongly suspect it will be next on the dev chopping block. 

[Shin Magmus]

Just don't respond to Arcane, it's a waste of time that could be used on feedback.

 

I agree with Maxzero that it's "possible" to play a Controller without any reliable Containment, but it makes your character less effective and makes the game less fun.  You become even more dead weight on many teams because any strategy you try to use to deal damage (like an Epic AoE attack) hits for literally 50% of the damage it could hit for, if you had picked a different primary.  When a team doesn't need your defensive support, the only thing you provide is offensive support: typically via direct damage; Not having Containment active decreases your ability to help by too much. 

[arcane]

52 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

Just don't respond to Arcane, it's a waste of time that could be used on feedback.

 

I agree with Maxzero that it's "possible" to play a Controller without any reliable Containment, but it makes your character less effective and makes the game less fun.  You become even more dead weight on many teams because any strategy you try to use to deal damage (like an Epic AoE attack) hits for literally 50% of the damage it could hit for, if you had picked a different primary.  When a team doesn't need your defensive support, the only thing you provide is offensive support: typically via direct damage; Not having Containment active decreases your ability to help by too much. 

1) Not all forms of damage can benefit from Containment. Oil Slick Arrow. Water Spout. Lightning Storm, pets, damage procs, etc.

 

2) Not having an AoE immobilize does not guarantee to you miss out on Containment. Other controls in your primary trigger if too. You should be reliably holding or stunning most mobs every fight without issue.

 

When both points are properly taken into account, the benefit of an AoE immobilize on your damage is often negligible. Maybe you could argue you’re doing 90% of the damage you should be, but not 50%. I have skipped AoE immobilizes on Controllers on tight builds because they’re just not everything you say they are.

Edited February 3 by arcane

[Captain Fabulous]

What am I missing? The set provides an AoE sleep, disorient, immobilize, and hold, along with a single target sleep and hold, all of which establish Containment.

[Shin Magmus]

As long as one person says "I like the pet, it's good", then we won't see any meaningful changes to it.  We're sorta getting Arse'd here.

[WindDemon21]

2 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

As long as one person says "I like the pet, it's good", then we won't see any meaningful changes to it.  We're sorta getting Arse'd here.

Problem is there is always that "one person" which you can tell cause booper liked their status, but there are also people who just plain don't care how bad a set is cause it fits their theme, so that's also kinda moot. The pet is BAD though for this set how it is. It's a universal truth at this point without getting some more attacks/going into melee. This should not be looked over because "one person thinks it's 'ok.'"

[Shin Magmus]

Well I like the idea of TRI-GUN TRIPLE-BARREL TRIPLE-PET having 3 versions of a good attack that simulate Pyro, Cryo, and Chemical Rounds.  If it can rapid fire a barrage of 3 above average attacks then it will do good damage, and it will match Dual Pistols thematically.  This assortment of debuffs will also help it stack debuffs with Traps, which is a plus for me because... not to belabor a point... but Arsenal Control should be planned from the ground up around working well with Traps since that's what so many people want to do with it.

[Lockely]

I don't play controllers a lot but I find it's worth listening to the people who do. As a relative layman, it felt okay, but the more I read from those of you who actually know what you're talking about the more apparent it became that there were fundamental issues with it.

 

Shin's set made a lot more sense with that context, but it's unfortunately clear the devs are too busy focusing on their specific, unnecessary timetable rather than ensuring that everything that's put out is good.

 

I understand the need not to sit around fiddling with things forever and eventually ship it, but locking things into place before people to whom it isn't their personal project have had a chance to test them seems counterproductive to me. 

 

I've seen larger dev teams who are actually getting paid and need to meet deadlines to make money on the project have less abrasive reactions than this (as well as pulling planned features back to cook a bit more taking the feedback into account), and moving this entire thread of discussion under a title that frankly feels belittling is borderline insulting.

 

I'm sure the features they have planned are outstanding, but at a baseline, the power sets are the things we interact with *most* in the game and they're what needs the most assurance that they're making sure each new one is as best as it's going to be. Even if that means holding it's release off for another issue.

[Captain Fabulous]

The problem with most of the attitudes here is assuming the devs are idiots and what they've made isn't exactly what they intended to make. Just because you want it to be something else doesn't means you're right and the devs are wrong. They made the set exactly as they want it to be. Will it be tweaked here and there in future? Of course. Will it be significantly changed? Absolutely not. But what these devs do isn't anything different than what professional ones do, and no different than what the live devs used to do.

We went thru all this with the Storm Blast beta, and apparently a lot of you didn't learn a damned thing from that shitshow. Once a set reaches open beta it's not going to change in any significant way; it's only going to get tweaks.

[Videra]

Genuinely, I say this with my full heart and in good faith, I think Arsenal Control needs to go back into the oven. In the state it's in, it's just ... bad. It is simply the worst control set - with the faintest semblance of an identity, but no mechanics that actually ground that identity. By comparative analysis, it does nothing better than its peers, and it also has active anti-synergy or poor synergy with its thematic matches in Traps, Arse Assault, and Trick Arrow.

[Lockely]

23 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

The problem with most of the attitudes here is assuming the devs are idiots and what they've made isn't exactly what they intended to make. Just because you want it to be something else doesn't means you're right and the devs are wrong. They made the set exactly as they want it to be. Will it be tweaked here and there in future? Of course. Will it be significantly changed? Absolutely not. But what these devs do isn't anything different than what professional ones do, and no different than what the live devs used to do.

We went thru all this with the Storm Blast beta, and apparently a lot of you didn't learn a damned thing from that shitshow. Once a set reaches open beta it's not going to change in any significant way; it's only going to get tweaks.

 

I will echo the exact same thing I said in the other thread to the person who said "Well you should have applied for Closed Beta if you wanted your feedback to matter." 

The NCSoft Announcement was almost exactly one month ago. For a great many of us, this is our very first opportunity to provide any kind of feedback on a new powerset being introduced. What is the point of having "Focused Feedback" threads when they're really "bug reporting and unintended interactions" threads? Focused Feedback gives the impression that the feedback we provide, especially if it's overwhelmingly on one specific issue, is going to be taken into account and adapted as needed towards the final goal. It does not give the impression that what's been moved to Brainstorm is set in stone and they're looking for simple tweaks.

No one is calling the devs idiots, and I would thank you not to put those words in our mouths. I, as well as many others, love the concept of these new sets, but they need baked a bit more. The non-power Focused Feedback threads have seen the devs in charge of those going back and making non-insignificant changes to their plans, or adding things on to alleviate the issued provided as well. We seem to only be having this issue with new set development.

[Shin Magmus]

1 hour ago, Lockely said:

I don't play controllers a lot but I find it's worth listening to the people who do. As a relative layman, it felt okay, but the more I read from those of you who actually know what you're talking about the more apparent it became that there were fundamental issues with it...

I just wanted a Natural Origin powerset that had the standard tools to function well in all scenarios, and simultaneously that worked well with Traps.  Stacking an assortment of debuffs to go with Traps' grab bag of debuffs would make a character who was a sort of budget "omni debuffer" even though though they didn't explicitly pick Rad Emission or Poison, and would give the character impact when the mezzes are resisted.  Good sets like Ice Control and Dark Control have debuffs strong enough to create this impact.  Ice Control's -speed and -recharge are legendary, and Dark Control's -tohit is right behind it.  I think about these other sets that I have played, and could be playing, when I look at what the devs are offering us with Arse Control.

 

I look, and I see a series of increasingly worse sets that are rooted in a stubborn refusal to alter 3 powers in the set from being: Single Target damaging Sleep, AoE damaging Sleep, and Cloaking Device.  I see the stubbornness and total refusal to listen to overwhelming player feedback as the driving force behind why Arsenal Control basically cant, and won't, be fixed.  That's how I feel, that's how other people I talk to feel, and that's why I made my original comment that started this thread.  *I didn't make this thread.*  My comment was moved by an admin to become the start of this thread, partially because it was derailing the conversation about the feedback to the set... and partially because I was damn right about what Arsenal Control needed to become in order to make good Arse/Arse and Arse/Traps characters.

[Shin Magmus]

37 minutes ago, Lockely said:

 

I will echo the exact same thing I said in the other thread to the person who said "Well you should have applied for Closed Beta if you wanted your feedback to matter." 
 

They don't let dissenting opinions into the Closed Beta BTW, so that's not even real advice.  The idea that there's an Open Beta but even on the first day of the time period, our feedback is worthless because the devs have already decided against making any "big" changes is worthless.  That statement (both from at least one dev on the Arsenal Control Focused Feedback thread and another commenter here) translates to "your feedback here has no power so just keep your mouth shut and take what you get."

[Starhammer]

On 2/2/2024 at 1:37 PM, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Hello friends and neighbors!

 

I have moved some posts over to a new thread created just for you:  "What I wish Arsenal Control looked like."

 

There you can discuss to your hearts content how you would have made it.

 

Please keep the feedback threads to actual feedback on what is on the Beta test server.  For example, I like X because . . . or I hate X because . . . or even better, I did this test on X and found . . . 

 

Thanks! 

This response strikes me as especially petty, a way of saying you don't really want feedback that isn't congratulatory adoration, and that we should take it as you doing us a favor by dumping it in File 13. 😞

Of course, my feedback to this response is probably exactly more of the feedback you don't want to hear, and I will not be surprised to find myself somehow punished for giving it 😞

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

2 hours ago, Starhammer said:

This response strikes me as especially petty, a way of saying you don't really want feedback that isn't congratulatory adoration, and that we should take it as you doing us a favor by dumping it in File 13. 😞

Of course, my feedback to this response is probably exactly more of the feedback you don't want to hear, and I will not be surprised to find myself somehow punished for giving it 😞

 

I'm sorry you feel that way, but your supposition is wrong.  The devs are happy to hear criticism as well as praise.  But they don't want to see arguments back and forth between a few passionate people.  It becomes a lot of noise and makes it difficult the find the bugs and other problems.

 

Most of all, they want people to try the new stuff out under as many different scenarios as possible to see if it works or it doesn't.  If it doesn't work, they change it.

 

You don't get punished for being critical, although we'll both get our posts moved as being neither focused nor feedback on arsenal control.  Oops.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Starhammer said:

This response strikes me as especially petty, a way of saying you don't really want feedback that isn't congratulatory adoration, and that we should take it as you doing us a favor by dumping it in File 13. 😞

Of course, my feedback to this response is probably exactly more of the feedback you don't want to hear, and I will not be surprised to find myself somehow punished for giving it 😞

When on the beta forums, the devs are looking for feedback on what was done, not what others wished had been done instead. And the quote you cited that you say is 'a way of saying the devs don't want feedback that isn't congratulatory' completely ignores the quote for what it says, like "or I hate X because...".

[JasperStone]

11 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

I just wanted a Natural Origin powerset that had the standard tools to function well in all scenarios, and simultaneously that worked well with Traps.  Stacking an assortment of debuffs to go with Traps' grab bag of debuffs would make a character who was a sort of budget "omni debuffer" even though though they didn't explicitly pick Rad Emission or Poison, and would give the character impact when the mezzes are resisted.  Good sets like Ice Control and Dark Control have debuffs strong enough to create this impact.  Ice Control's -speed and -recharge are legendary, and Dark Control's -tohit is right behind it.  I think about these other sets that I have played, and could be playing, when I look at what the devs are offering us with Arse Control.

 

I look, and I see a series of increasingly worse sets that are rooted in a stubborn refusal to alter 3 powers in the set from being: Single Target damaging Sleep, AoE damaging Sleep, and Cloaking Device.  I see the stubbornness and total refusal to listen to overwhelming player feedback as the driving force behind why Arsenal Control basically cant, and won't, be fixed.  That's how I feel, that's how other people I talk to feel, and that's why I made my original comment that started this thread.  *I didn't make this thread.*  My comment was moved by an admin to become the start of this thread, partially because it was derailing the conversation about the feedback to the set... and partially because I was damn right about what Arsenal Control needed to become in order to make good Arse/Arse and Arse/Traps characters.

I did respond early on to this thread that you made good suggestions...

...now that I read this. 

I take it back.

 

IRL I work as a professor in the performing arts. Part of what I teach students is how to give and receive feedback or criticism.

Any feedback/criticism that starts with "If it was me, I would do it this", or in this case "I just wanted" doesn't have the validity the giver thinks it does.

I appreciate your focus on Natural Origin and pairing with Traps ... what about other origins and other pairings?

 

Accusing the developers of being narrowminded or stubborn is not as effective as you think.

I view it as them trying to show us how viable Sleeps are. I certainly have changed my stance on it. It instantly shuts off incoming damage. Haters will say "But they wake up again" ...sure hit them again with Sleep. That brief respite allows for time to regroup etc. There is a tendency for gameplay to evolve a min/max style with only certain powers being used as we steamroll through content. Yes, I enjoy speed runs, but I also runs that require a little tactical forethought. No, I don't want to go back Tansk herding to a spot the whole time.

 

Overwhelming feedback? 

...

Overwhelming?

I haven't heard it.

 

Your comment was moved (as I stated above) because it did not provide feedback on the existing set. Hence, this is the right place for it. 

 

This last statement.

...

No. 

I read things like this when Symphony and Storm Blast came out. These sets got bad reputations because a few loud, negative voices 💩'd all over them. I have two of each and find the sets to be solid. You just have to play the sets differently than how you are used to playing other sets. People don't play them because those few loud voices are still saying don't.

 

No, you are not right.

Being loud in your opinion doesn't lend any gravitas to it.

In large part because you are focusing on two pairings. TWO. 

I saw this with Storm Blast...

 

We have volunteer developers who are working for free to keep the doors open.

They don't have to give new content at all.

Just do maintenance and squash bugs.

 

I think they have volunteer openings ...

 

 

 

 

[Shin Magmus]

In response to that, simply answer one question for me. 

 

Why would you want to play the Arsenal Control that we are getting, over any other Control set?  Just give me reasons why you'd play this set over Ice Control or Plant Control or Elec Control or Mind Control.

[JasperStone]

5 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

In response to that, simply answer one question for me. 

 

Why would you want to play the Arsenal Control that we are getting, over any other Control set?  Just give me reasons why you'd play this set over Ice Control or Plant Control or Elec Control or Mind Control.

For the same reasons, I play any of my alts.

 

It fits the concept.

I have a clever name, with a play on words, and it fits.

I am curious about it:

• People say it is amazing ... are they right? 
• People say it sucks ... are they right?

In the first, usually, they are right. 

In the second, never are they right. 

 

 

Question for you:

Why should I or we be limited to your narrow version of the set?

 

 

[Shin Magmus]

1 minute ago, JasperStone said:

For the same reasons, I play any of my alts.

 

It fits the concept.

 

The only reason I would play this blighted set is also because it fits the concept: we are in agreement.  But my concepts would be Natural characters using:

> Arse/Arse or Arse/Martial Doms

> Arse/Traps or Arse/Trick Arrow Controllers

 

I don't believe any of those 4 builds are inherently very good at all, and I strongly feel that TA and Traps extra slow powers and sole sources of an Immob, even a single target one, would be *carrying* Arse Control.

 

I don't have a concept for a "Smelly Wet Arse" Arse/Storm Controller to shoot a cloudburst grenade into the atmosphere, out of their gun?  I genuinely do not want to play the Immob-less set we are getting, and I also genuinely *believe* that Arse Control will languish in relatively underplayed obscurity a mere 2 months after the set is released, as the 3rd dud in a row following Symphony Control and Seismic Blast.

[JasperStone]

8 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

The only reason I would play this blighted set

Opinion

 

20 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

I don't believe any of those 4 builds are inherently very good at all, and I strongly feel that TA and Traps extra slow powers and sole sources of an Immob, even a single target one, would be *carrying* Arse Control.

Opinion.

I don't see it that way.

You are obsessed with being of Natural Origin.

A narrow-minded view that limits what you could do.

 

 

12 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

I don't have a concept for a "Smelly Wet Arse" Arse/Storm Controller

using toxic words doesn't help you in your postings.

...

an Arsenal/Storm Troller sounds intriguing

*ponders briefly*

I do have a great name and concept for this combo. Thanks!!!!

 

14 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

I also genuinely *believe* that Arse Control will languish in relatively underplayed obscurity a mere 2 months after the set is released, as the 3rd dud in a row following Symphony Control and Seismic Blast

*OPINION*

Mine sit only because I am working my way through all my alts, spending a month each to truly get a feel of the set.

I have plans for them once I finish my alts, on 50 more to go. May have to tweak my plans.

 

[Psi-bolt]

14 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

I don't believe any of those 4 builds are inherently very good at all, and I strongly feel that TA and Traps extra slow powers and sole sources of an Immob, even a single target one, would be *carrying* Arse Control.

 

I don't have a concept for a "Smelly Wet Arse" Arse/Storm Controller to shoot a cloudburst grenade into the atmosphere, out of their gun?  I genuinely do not want to play the Immob-less set we are getting, and I also genuinely *believe* that Arse Control will languish in relatively underplayed obscurity a mere 2 months after the set is released, as the 3rd dud in a row following Symphony Control and Seismic Blast.

 

You know, I both absolutely agree with you but I think you're missing the point.  You're right, Arsenal Control will be problematic in the form its in if it goes live.  BUT, I think the game is in a state where you have two options if you're a developer:

 

1. Make the same set over and over again with different visual and audio effects;
2. Make something different that either winds up better or worse than the majority of sets.

 

You appear to be arguing that control sets need certain tools or they are likely not going to work as well as what we have now.  I agree with that honestly.  I think the developers probably agree with that to a certain extent.  I think when they are trying to build a new set though they would just prefer to do something different rather than rehash the same set.   

 

I have played sets including Seismic Blast and wound up disappointed but ultimately still got them to 50 because I like the concept.  It just doesn't wind up being my "main" Blaster.  

 

Ultimately, the developers goals are different than yours.  I think you're right about where Arsenal Control will wind up, but I'm not sure that's not baked into the developers goals for creating the set.  That's frustrating to be sure.   

[Shin Magmus]

Well yeah I can't change their goals.  If their goal really is to specifically add mediocre sets in order to prevent power creep, and intentionally make new sets so weak that there's no desire for players to "upgrade" their existing characters to the new sets: then obviously they are nailing that.  No argument here.

[JasperStone]

16 minutes ago, ShinMagmus said:

Well yeah I can't change their goals.  If their goal really is to specifically add mediocre sets in order to prevent power creep, and intentionally make new sets so weak that there's no desire for players to "upgrade" their existing characters to the new sets: then obviously they are nailing that.  No argument here.

Opinion.