Homecoming Provided Shard and AT Breakdowns to Massively OP

[Sunsette]

3 hours ago, Latex said:

4,400 concurrent players is actually an insane number

This is Guild Wars 2; https://steamcharts.com/app/1284210
And SWTOR; https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830

It's Steam only so take it with a grain of salt seems both these MMO's have launchers off-Steam, it's insane to even come close to that number of concurrent players.

 

Not just launchers off steam, but only migrated to steam later -- legacy diehards are often going to avoid integration.

 

I agree with your evaluation though, that's a lot of players.

 

  

17 hours ago, ZamuelNow said:

Generally curious, what makes Brutes more new player friendly than Scrappers?

 

At casual play (no ATOs) it outputs more and more predictable damage. Ramping momentum is an easy way of keeping enjoyment. 

 

I kinda consider Scrapper to be one of the worst designed ATs, not in terms of ability to fulfill its mission but in terms of not having a fun gameplay loop. Its central feature is a very low amount of RNG.

Edited March 8 by Sunsette

[Greycat]

As far as the scrapper/brute thing? I don't know about new player friendly, but they do definitely have a different feel. I've got some sets duplicated as scrapper and brute and seem to have far more fun with the brutes.  I'm not sure if it's the fury vs crit mechanic, that I can taunt more than one enemy at a time or what, they're just more fun to me.

 

41 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

I'm not surprised the Khelds have such low numbers. I might be wrong in this but when you make one WS and one PB, why would you make more?

 

Because for some, alts = characters, not just some mids build and/or spreadsheet.  I've got several of each and they're vastly different "people," which reflects not just in the bio but in power choices.

 

For folks like me, the question above is like going "you've *got* the dictionary, it has all the words in it, why do you need more books?" 🙂

Edited March 8 by Greycat

[ZamuelNow]

1 hour ago, Sunsette said:

At casual play (no ATOs) it outputs more and more predictable damage. Ramping momentum is an easy way of keeping enjoyment. 

 

I kinda consider Scrapper to be one of the worst designed ATs, not in terms of ability to fulfill its mission but in terms of not having a fun gameplay loop. Its central feature is a very low amount of RNG.

 

Interesting.  I guess there's the thought process of a rampable mechanic compared to one you can mostly ignore to focus on the rest of the game.  Did Fury's numbers get changed after the game was originally sunset?  I could never wrap my head around it (which is weird since I love Dominators and Domination is effectively Fury for control).

[FupDup]

Basically, a Scrapper without their ATOs slotted properly is just a weaker Brute.

 

There are other strong ATOs out there like the Stalker ones, but even then the ATs can at least function without them. Scrappers need their ATOs. 

[GM Crumpet]

On 3/8/2024 at 9:00 PM, BurtHutt said:

I'm not surprised the Khelds have such low numbers. I might be wrong in this but when you make one WS and one PB, why would you make more? You can use alternate build options on the same toon. You don't get a wide variety with Khelds. I enjoy playing mine but I don't see the point in making more than one of each.

You might be right. I have a PB and WS on Excel, and apart from toying with the idea of a pure human build (which I can do on the existing toons by swapping builds) the only other WS I made was so I could play on Reunion without having to worry about running out of shard transfers. Once you have your kheld built to your playstyle and budget there aren't a lot of alternatives to choose from. I'm sure we all have half a dozen of a particular AT with different power sets but you don't get that with khelds.

 

[BurtHutt]

37 minutes ago, GM Crumpet said:

You might be right. I have a PB and WS on Excel, and apart from toying with the idea of a pure human build (which I can do on the existing toons by swapping builds) the only other WS I made was so I could play on Reunion without having to worry about running out of shard transfers. Once you have your kheld built to your playstyle and budget there aren't a lot of alternatives to choose from. I'm sure we all have half a dozen of a particular AT with different power sets but you don't get that with khelds.

 

Exactly. I think the AT is a nice change of pace and can be versatile. It's a fun AT for sure. But I have the 1 WS and the 1 PB. The WS has an alternate build and both are tri-form.

 

I've been hoping for a new AT that uses the Kheld form system as a base; the transforming and changing up your primary style is fun. Lots of possibilities here!

[GM Tock]

Quote

Even more intriguingly, the game apparently now boasts 300,089 total accounts since 2019 – 36,724 of those new since the top of the year when the license agreement was announced. Gamers have rolled 227,593 new toons since the announcement too. And they’re not even all mine!

 

Never change, Bree. 😄 

[ZacKing]

On 3/8/2024 at 1:05 PM, Latex said:

4,400 concurrent players is actually an insane number

 

How many of these are people multi-boxing though?  It is a solid number though.

[tidge]

On 3/8/2024 at 12:28 PM, skoryy said:

Between the ability to delete bosses, the crit chance bbnuses you get for sticking around the team, and that even at low levels you still get crits and assassination, stalkers are possibly the most all-purpose non-EAT in the game: Solo, team, hard mode, or exemp!

 

I agree that Stalkers can be surprisingly x8 team-friendly. My experience has been that a Stalker leveraging just a couple of AoE attacks in addition to their single-target damage speeds up standard, grindy content.

 

On 3/8/2024 at 4:00 PM, BurtHutt said:

I'm not surprised the Khelds have such low numbers. I might be wrong in this but when you make one WS and one PB, why would you make more? You can use alternate build options on the same toon. You don't get a wide variety with Khelds. I enjoy playing mine but I don't see the point in making more than one of each.

 

I definitely feel that because of the power options (so many primary/secondary powers, no epics, earlier power picks on HC so fewer reasons to use pools(*1)) limits the design space of those characters. Three different builds on a single character allows for plenty of room to explore different N-form builds... my guess is that most players settle on a play style with whatever N-form they like, so there isn't much incentive to try different combos.

 

(*1) I'm work-shopping a Kheldian right now and I don't see a reason to pick a power pool before level 32. At first glance, thinking about a "level 50" build I would have only one available "non-Kheldian pick" before then on a tri-form... if I go 1-form I guess I could have two more.

[jprewitt73]

17 hours ago, ZacKing said:

 

How many of these are people multi-boxing though?  It is a solid number though.

 

2200 at most, but probably less.