A crazy suggestion.

[Krimson]

7 minutes ago, Indystruck said:

Triumphant Insult, a two times per minute proc that stuns. Someone might mistakenly think this has a place in their build with in game information!

 

Of course outside of game, if you look it up on City of Data or the HC wiki list of procs,  it's Triumphant Insult, a two times per minute proc that stuns for mag 1 for 3 seconds, which is actually worthless.

 

What in game tells you that this is so bad? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You don't slot Triumphant Insult for the proc, you slot it for the Defense set bonuses.

[Indystruck]

That doesn't have anything to do with what the topic at hand was. It was about information being obfuscated, specifically pertaining to procs. What you got from slotting enhancement sets is at least cleanly labeled in game. Yeah, 3x Triumphant Insult's the best source of easy smash/lethal def bonus outside of 2x rectified reticle but, that doesn't have anything to do with anything right now.

[Videra]

Well, actually, you just don't slot Triumphant Insult because there are much better slotting options than chasing def bonuses on a taunt power, but Indy is of course correct as always.

Edited June 8 by Videra

[Ukase]

A few years ago, there were whispers in dark corners of very dark alleys that I was afraid to go into that mentioned procs were going to get a major overhaul. No idea if that was fear-mongering by someone, or if there ever was something to it. 

The craziest part of the proc game is the rules that apply (per Bopper's PPM spreadsheet) for Ranged AoE, Cones, and PBAoE are crazy. I say that because, particularly with most cones and Ranged AoE, the sets will have a chance to fire proc in them - and when you plug the numbers in, you get something like an 11% chance to fire, if you slot the rest of the set. If you limit the recharge to one or two pieces of the set, then maybe your odds lift to 30% or so. Why even have the proc in the set if using the set renders the proc practically inert? 

Granted, that example isn't for every cone, ranged AoE or PBAoE. Some of them have such lengthy base recharges, it doesn't matter, the proc will fire. But many of them don't. I think the suggestion is a great idea. What new player wants to make a character, and gets really immersed into that character - then suddenly has to tab out and dive deep into the proc rabbit hole to see if the darn thing will actually do their character any good? None of them. Or at least, very few of them. I know I don't enjoy plugging numbers into Bopper's spreadsheet to find out. Half the time, I just figure a Damage IO is guaranteed to do damage, even if it will be diminished, it's still a little extra damage. 

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

It's not a crazy suggestion, @BinaryDust, at all.  Procs are one of the more obscure aspects of the game that have also become one of the most important parts of making a strong DPS build.

 

I think the crux of the problem was hit by @srmalloy:  How do you show the "value" of the proc in a particular power with particular slotting?  The only way I can think of doing that is either with outside resources like @macskull's spreadsheet, or as a hover over a specific power with the proc in the enhancement screen.  I don't see a way how you can look at a proc in the Auction House and determine it's "value" in a specific power with specific slotting.   

 

They could change them back to being a percentage, but that lead players to slot their procs on the fastest recharging powers for best results.  They specifically changed from percentage to PPM because they were trying to change that meta.  But I am a mere GM with very limited coding and math skills.  What do I know?

[skoryy]

2 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

They could change them back to being a percentage, but that lead players to slot their procs on the fastest recharging powers for best results.  They specifically changed from percentage to PPM because they were trying to change that meta.  But I am a mere GM with very limited coding and math skills.  What do I know?

 

So, instead they made it so the new meta was to put the procs in the slowest recharging powers. I'm still scratching my head at that decision.

 

The potentially easiest fix would be to have both global and enhancement recharge count, so that PPM actually does mean procs per minute. As for how easy that actually would be to implement and the reaction from the players, that I can't answer.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

37 minutes ago, skoryy said:

The potentially easiest fix would be to have both global and enhancement recharge count, so that PPM actually does mean procs per minute. As for how easy that actually would be to implement and the reaction from the players, that I can't answer.

 

If I recall correctly, that was the initial implementation.  But people complained that then an ally granting them Accelerated Metabolism or Speed Boost was reducing their proc chances without anyway of controlling whether their teammates gave them those boosts.

 

The design concept with PPM (Procs Per Minute) was not to change the meta from slotting them in quick recharging attacks to slow recharging attacks, but rather to have both be viable.  So that you can slot a 3 PPM proc in a power that recharges in one second or one minute and that both, over an extended playtime, would proc about the same number of times.  But the design was not perfect, as things rarely are, and gamers are gonna game.  So you ended up where we are now.

[skoryy]

13 minutes ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

If I recall correctly, that was the initial implementation.  But people complained that then an ally granting them Accelerated Metabolism or Speed Boost was reducing their proc chances without anyway of controlling whether their teammates gave them those boosts.

 

I'm trying to wrap my head around that. Yeah, if you're getting an outside recharge boost, you're proccing less but your net DPA boost from the proc should remain the same since its still at the same rate per unit of time.  I'm probably missing something.

[Psyonico]

2 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I'm probably missing something.

It's probably just another case of people in the internet complaining about everything.

[Championess]

3 hours ago, skoryy said:

 

I'm trying to wrap my head around that. Yeah, if you're getting an outside recharge boost, you're proccing less but your net DPA boost from the proc should remain the same since its still at the same rate per unit of time.  I'm probably missing something.

 

You're not machinegunning that one or two powers out.  Typically a ST attack chain fills out with your 4 best attacks that you have built in good global recharge of your own on so that they recharge in an ideal sequence so then your procs maintaining their higher surefire rate is reliable. 

 

Too much +recharge from outside buffs is overkill for these powers to recharge when you don't need them recharging any faster just to go ruining the proc build.

Edited Thursday at 07:04 PM by Championess

[tidge]

[Forager]

10 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

They could change them back to being a percentage, but that lead players to slot their procs on the fastest recharging powers for best results.  They specifically changed from percentage to PPM because they were trying to change that meta.

 

Are you saying they changed the way they functioned, or the information that was displayed to players?

 

My understanding was that it is a percentage, just not displayed as such.

[Psyonico]

51 minutes ago, Forager said:

 

Are you saying they changed the way they functioned, or the information that was displayed to players?

 

My understanding was that it is a percentage, just not displayed as such.

Are we back to this?

 

Originally procs had a set percent chance of going off (ie: 30%) regardless of what power it was slotted in.  This made proccing out powers with low base recharges way more powerful than proccing out powers with high base recharge.  Basically, if you've got a 30% chance to fire a 1 second recharge is way more beneficial than a 20 second recharge.

 

That was changed to the current PPM calculation.  PPM sets a proc's chance to fire based on how often you can use the power.  So a 3.5 PPM proc in a 1 second recharge power will proc about as often as a the same proc in a power with a 20 second recharge, assuming that both powers are activated every time they recharge.

 

PPM does use a % chance to proc, but that % chance is variable depending on characteristics of the power it is slotted in.  Before it was just a flat % regardless.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

2 hours ago, Forager said:

Are you saying they changed the way they functioned, or the information that was displayed to players?

 

Both.  They were originally flat percentage and displayed as such, without regard to any recharge, animation, or area factors. 

[golstat2003]

13 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

Both.  They were originally flat percentage and displayed as such, without regard to any recharge, animation, or area factors. 

 

Interestingly here is a link also to the original thread discussion on this, from the COH forums archive. (Thanks to @Michiyo for keeping that archive alive) Both and interesting discussion and sad (soon after this this discussion started on the upcoming proc changes explained by Synapse, the announcement of the sunset came).

 

https://forumarchive.cityofheroes.dev/topic/288581