Things you Love, Things you would change

[Skyhawke]

I think @Neiska's point is kinda like this: you can take the person with the most powerful punch in the world, set them in front of a punch measuring device and they're going to be the best. Now, put them in the ring with an opponent and they'll probably get their shit wrecked because all they care about is that one punch. All the other parts of a fight don't matter because "dps is king". Til you get your shit wrecked. Hard to have the best dps then. 

[Neiska]

3 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

I think @Neiska's point is kinda like this: you can take the person with the most powerful punch in the world, set them in front of a punch measuring device and they're going to be the best. Now, put them in the ring with an opponent and they'll probably get their shit wrecked because all they care about is that one punch. All the other parts of a fight don't matter because "dps is king". Til you get your shit wrecked. Hard to have the best dps then. 

 

That's one way to put it, certainly.

 

To my mind, a better more complete data crunch would involve -

Single target DPS

AoE target DPS

AV/GM DPS

All against targets that actually, you know, fight back. 

 

This kind of data-cherry picking is similar to testing a product in a lab, then producing it for sale without field testing it, and then seeing it do things that nobody expected or thought of.

[arcane]

I’m sure the changeling problem isn’t happening at all because our DPS test is flawed 🙄 my mistake. 
 

I’m sure the pylon test results are routinely reversed and 700 DPS players just can’t seem to stay off the ground long enough to complete a mission, and the slow and steady 200 DPS players are really the overperformers. Thanks guys

Edited July 8 by arcane

[Neiska]

Not everyone believes it's a problem, but okay. 

[arcane]

Just now, Neiska said:

Not everyone believes it's a problem, but okay. 

I know that not everyone cares about balance but okay

[Neiska]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

I know that not everyone cares about balance but okay

 

Certainly not balance that only exists in a single context but not in the rest of the 99.5% of the game, sure. Because balancing things only around one part of the game against standing still targets that don't fight back is such a clear, balanced, and fair metric after all.

 

Look arcane, I suspect you and I agree on more than we disagree on. But I think we both agree that we will never see eye to eye on this. And until a Dev steps in, anything you or I say are merely our respective opinions and just that. Not facts, not kiss-your-elbow infallible logic, or even perfect math. You may personally think pylons are a good enough metric to balance everything on. I do not. So lets agree to disagree here?

[Psyonico]

Whoa boy has this thread gone off the rails in the short time I stepped away…

 

@arcane I acknowledge your proof and have edited my previous comment to acknowledge that changelings improve DPS more significantly than I previously thought.

 

@Neiska it seems you’re making 2 different arguments and using both of them to back up the other one.  DPS as measured by pylon times *is* useful data.  It does not reflect what a player should expect in a mission, but it can give a very rough idea of “set X on Archetype A performs  some amount better than set Y on Archetype A when it comes to clear speed”.  It’s not definitive, and shouldn’t be used exclusively as a reason to nerf/buff a set, but it can provide a starting point.

 

As I said in a previous comment, some ATs (ie:blasters) get more artificial boost to DPS than other ATs (ie: tankers) but all ATs do in fact get a boost. 

 

I used to be a data analyst as well, and looked at and compared numbers a good part of the day.  There is still some benefit to saying I have 100,000 Psyonicoins while you have 1000 Psyonicoins, therefore I have 100x more than you.  I admit, it doesn’t tell you the whole picture (that the exchange rate for Psyonicoins to, say USD, is non-existent) but it can still be useful to make isolated comparisons.

 

When I did data analysis, a common thing was “person A takes twice as many calls as person b, tell person b to be faster”. However, what wasn’t shown was that person B resolved 3x as many calls as person A, who was just transferring anything difficult.

 

Arcane is not saying that the changeling thing is an exploit and that it should be nerfed exclusively by looking at DPS data.  They have also mentioned multiple times that HEATs are safer in real world environments than other ATs that reach similar DPS.  A PB with perma-Light Form, for example, did not sacrifice much in the ways of damage to also be at their resist cap (which is also higher than Scrapper/Blaster resist caps).  A Scrapper would have to sacrifice significantly more damage capabilities to be at their resist cap, and still, as I just said, they’d have less survivability than the PB with perma light form.  Blasters can’t even get to the resist cap for every damage type permanently by themselves.

[Neiska]

5 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

@Neiska it seems you’re making 2 different arguments and using both of them to back up the other one.  DPS as measured by pylon times *is* useful data.  It does not reflect what a player should expect in a mission, but it can give a very rough idea of “set X on Archetype A performs  some amount better than set Y on Archetype A when it comes to clear speed”.  It’s not definitive, and shouldn’t be used exclusively as a reason to nerf/buff a set, but it can provide a starting point.

 

As I said in a previous comment, some ATs (ie:blasters) get more artificial boost to DPS than other ATs (ie: tankers) but all ATs do in fact get a boost. 

 

I used to be a data analyst as well, and looked at and compared numbers a good part of the day.  There is still some benefit to saying I have 100,000 Psyonicoins while you have 1000 Psyonicoins, therefore I have 100x more than you.  I admit, it doesn’t tell you the whole picture (that the exchange rate for Psyonicoins to, say USD, is non-existent) but it can still be useful to make isolated comparisons.

 

When I did data analysis, a common thing was “person A takes twice as many calls as person b, tell person b to be faster”. However, what wasn’t shown was that person B resolved 3x as many calls as person A, who was just transferring anything difficult.

 

Arcane is not saying that the changeling thing is an exploit and that it should be nerfed exclusively by looking at DPS data.  They have also mentioned multiple times that HEATs are safer in real world environments than other ATs that reach similar DPS.  A PB with perma-Light Form, for example, did not sacrifice much in the ways of damage to also be at their resist cap (which is also higher than Scrapper/Blaster resist caps).  A Scrapper would have to sacrifice significantly more damage capabilities to be at their resist cap, and still, as I just said, they’d have less survivability than the PB with perma light form.  Blasters can’t even get to the resist cap for every damage type permanently by themselves.

 

 

While I agree with most of your points, there are some who argue that pylons are the end-all-be-all measurement. Which I hope we all can agree is not the case.

 

As I said, I consider it a "ballpark" estimate. But not a kiss-your-elbow evidence for changes as some like to present them. It's not so much the data itself I object to, it's the how it was obtained, and how that data is being presented to change something not related. And I go back to my original argument - that DPS is given way, way too much weight vs everything else. And it seems to be essentially the only thing they present as a basis to make changes on.

 

And I think the irony is that at the endgame, DPS isn't even king. I would argue that debuffs are king in the high end of this game. I also think the irony and even perhaps part of the balancing is that the kinds of builds that are most needed for the hardest content aren't necessarily the best solo, or even the fastest. And those that solo the best, or are fastest, are not necessarily the best for the highest difficulty. And comparisons such as that rarely even make it into balance conversations.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Where are the Praetorian signature characters? Are they alive, dead, in gaol, or a different dimension?

Most of them we know current status, though at the end of the Marchand & Mr G Arc we still have some needed continuation.

[arcane]

Another issue I have:

 

A lot of us have a part of the game we don’t like. Someone hates patrol xp. Some people hate inspirations, and everyone hates PvP by now. Neiska probably hates… whatever the polar opposite of triple boxing masterminds is..

 

One of my quirks that I forgot to mention in this thread is that I do not like custom keybinds and macros. I have finally gotten on board with two, for Teleport and Combat Teleport, but that’s it. I am so disinterested in using binds or macros in any other way that my Dominators are falling out of Domination with my Hasten unclicked, all the time. The macros are ugly at worst, out of place at best even after a custom macroimage, and they don’t recharge. The binds fuck with stuff under the hood and I still can’t figure out how to undo some bind I was given for a 4 star. 
 

And this whole AT’s current premise is you take your base offensive performance and then you get to triple it if you’re a heavy bind/macro user? Fuck off with that nonsense. I have Kheldians but they just aren’t getting played right now because I refuse to type in the codes, and people expect you to type in the codes.

 

So yeah add that to my grievance list.

[Neiska]

Me? I don't really dislike anything specific in the game right now, aside from them wildly changing some powersets. Tweaks are one thing, complete overhauls are another. That and the mentality that we often see that is "I enjoy playing the game MY way, anyone who does not play MY way is wrong."

 

My entire wish for CoH is effectively - more options for everyone. That way people can play in the way they like. You can't please everyone, sure. But the more things change the more they seem to push certain activities, namely teaming. I consider teaming a side activity, not my main one. And for all the things they add, they don't really add much specifically for people who mainly solo (if anything they seem to almost discourage it), and while not a pvper myself, I do feel bad for the avid PVP folks who have not gotten so much as a ray of sunshine as far as I am aware. I could be wrong though! I am not really involved with pvp things, but do think them and solo-play could use some polish.

[ivanhedgehog]

3 hours ago, Neiska said:

Warning - possible unpopular opinion.

 

You want to know a reason why Pylons don't matter? I can give you a few!

 

1. It doesn't resemble actual combat. It is literally a target dummy. Actual enemies move, fight back, buff, debuff, heal, and all kinds of other things. All you are presenting is a race, and a very narrow visioned one at that. DPS is but a small slice of the COH combat pie.

 

2. It doesn't compare ST to AOE. I don't think I really need to elaborate further on this, do I?

 

3. It doesn't take things like Brute fury-build up into account, and so on.

 

4. A person can say to heck with things like defense, resist, debuff protection, etc etc and build full out for DPS and DPS only, and perform awesome on a Pylon. When such a build might very likely fall flat elsewhere, especially on harder difficulties when things fight back, and especially solo.

 

5. I don't recall who, but someone once set a record with of all things... ...wait for it.. ..a Crabbermind. This was awhile ago mind you, 2-3 years I am thinking. But I recall at the time people were very surprised by how good of a time it was. It wasn't FIRST, but it was certainly up there. More than most expected. But I doubt anyone here would argue that Crabbers need DPS nerf, especially when they enjoy the infamous reputation for being "meh" dps to begin with. Not to mention that on anything harder than +3/8, its hard to keep all your pets alive for any duration longer than your barrier wearing off.

 

6. Lastly, the "but meh DPS!" mentality is a trap. And frankly it irks me that its the only measuring stick that people seem to care about. What do I mean by "its a trap?" It reminds me of the days of yore, back during raids when some people would just stare at the DPS meters and go "IM WINNING!" when they are standing in the fire, or messing up the raid mechanics, and wipe the raid. But are utterly convinced that since they were "top of the charts" they could do no wrong and it was everyone elses fault. How DARE people expect them to move, swap targets, click the thingy, and so on. That would drop them to number 3 at least, possibly even number 4! THE NERVE!

 

Now I hasten to add that I make no accusations that anyone here is of that same mentality, only that some remind me of such. When in any content that actually matters, frankly, DPS is at best, a 3rd or 4th concern. At most. 

 

On any hard content, the questions usually asked are - "do we have the right debuffs?" "do we have the right debuff protection" "we good for the purple patches" etc. I am hard pressed to think of a single solitary time was the question asked "do we have enough DPS" on any hard content. 

 

So I take any claims of Pylons or DPS with a very large grain of salt. Which is to say, I utterly disregard a lot of it unless it's from a voice that I respect, of which there are many.

 

But the funny thing? For all the outcries of "X NEEDS DPS NERF!" Or "look what I can do! LOOK AT MEH NUMBAS!" I can take a build that does half that and solo things that your shiny glass cannon can only dream of. Soloing AVs, GMs, entire TFs, etc. Anyone built only for DPS and DPS only isn't soloing any of those. 

 

Which makes me wonder why DPS seems to be the only measurement that people seem to go on crusades for.

 

However, I do want to add that I don't entirely disregard Pylon data. Only that I don't think its a good metric at all to compare different ATs. What it IS good for is rough ballpark estimates, as well as comparing different powersets on the SAME AT. NOT different AT metrics or balance arguments.

 

As far as the Changeling thing specifically? I'll throw that into my "who cares" bin. What they do doesn't affect me. If they found a way to make an underperforming AT at least mediocre, then I say the onus is on the admins to fix it so such things aren't necessary or even an option. I only played one once, years ago, a Warshade and got to level 30ish. I remember it being so painful I regarded it in the same category as petless MMs. Granted I know much more about the game now than I did way back when, but I am skeptical that they have really changed all that much except with the change specifically cited.

 

And I scoff at any claims of "but the DEVS want..." or "the DEVS said...!" without specific direct quotes. I can claim they think Santa Clause is a IRS agent who vacations in the tropics, but that doesn't make it true. So, until I see an actual Dev post that directly addresses an issue, I will take what people claim what they said with a very large pile of salt. As in entirely disregarded altogether.

 

Just my two cents

 

PS - if people wanted to compare actual combat data in a more realistic situation, they would be using a specific map on the AE where other combat features are also a concern. Not just how much damage you can do against a non-moving standing target with no powers or abilities.

you said what many are thinking. I really dont care what the optimum builds are and why such and such needs to be nerfed. I play what is fun and the day that changes is the day I quit the game.

[ivanhedgehog]

3 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I wouldn't change too much - I would not remove, retcon or otherwise bugger about with what has gone before for a myriad reasons, not least that people have played and enjoyed a lot of this already and to change something is ultimately going to piss a few people off to no good end.

 

I would move the story forward in significant ways:

 

• FINISH the fucking Praetorian arc. It's been dangling going nowhere for over a decade and it was so close to being done then Matt Positron Miller got bored and decided to move on to the next shiny without finishing what he'd started.
• Bring some of the less well known signature characters into the spotlight. There's a habit of creating new important NPCs characters when we have perfectly viable existing characters who could do that job and it would flesh their stories out significantly.
• Hero1's story needs finishing properly. Poor zombie bastard's been in hellish limbo for a very long time and deserves either fixing or putting out of his misery at last.
• Who is Lady Grey really and what's her deal with Nemesis? Interesting plot points abound.
• Bring Back Statesman and Sister Psyche. No don't just bring them back as if they'd never been gone but update their stories, give them new, exciting and different roles in light of past arcs. Nobody in comics is dead forever, why should they be different?
• Scirocco and Frostfire also deserve some story love. Where are they going? They seem to be seeking redemption (a mistake in my opinion) but they're also stuck in limbo.

There are so many loose ends that need tying up. I know we've got limited dev time for new stories and arcs but some of this stuff is important.

 

Also:

 

Where are the Praetorian signature characters? Are they alive, dead, in gaol, or a different dimension? Similarly, Reichsman. What is Praetorian Hami doing? With Praetoria in disarray why hasn't he decided to destroy it after Cole broke his word? Who can stop him?

 

 

as long as the frostfire mission in the hollows isnt touched. That is what got my wife and I to go all in on the game many  years ago.

[tidge]

I definitely agree with the @Neiska sentiment that there appears to be a peculiarity amongst some 'measurers' by which nerfs get called for... and both Pylon and Trapdoor metrics contribute to it, specifically with their 'DPS/defeat times'. I was super impressed by Ston's attempt to compare three melee classes... and when each of them solo, across (almost) all of their primary/secondary choices finish certain specific content within percentage points of one another, it was declared to be the end-of-game-balance. To this day, I don't see why three different melee classes achieving parity of completion times (by leveraging all possible tricks at their disposal) is seen as anything except a success for balance.

[SeraphimKensai]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

and everyone hates PvP by now.

I miss pre i13 PvP. Honestly if I didn't end up on the dedicated PvP team I was on back when i4 dropped I probably would have just left for wow, but CoH PvP was super fast pace and had that twitch. Also being on a dedicated PvP team we had practices, scrimmages, and tournaments all the time it was awesome.

 

Now I'm pretty much just here out of nostalgia's sake.

[SeraphimKensai]

52 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

as long as the frostfire mission in the hollows isnt touched. That is what got my wife and I to go all in on the game many  years ago.

Back when the game launched I occasionally played with Frostfire the player on Guardian. When the Hollows dropped he was the first one I knew to get name nerfed and he quit the game after logging into his lvl 40 blaster and seeing he was now generic hero 00001 or whatever number they gave him.

[Psyonico]

How sad!

[Captain Citadel]

Love how the game lets us all feel "super" in a way no other MMO does. I can put out crazy damage and burst healing and survivability on my Retribution-spec paladin in WoW, but I can't make him literally unkillable like my Tanker main in this game. Similarly, the crowd control we're given access to in this game is practically unheard of in any other MMO. Usually you can stun one or two things at a time, CoH lets you freeze a whole bunch of enemies in blocks of ice and keep them there, utterly helpless. I'll never forget the first few times I was in a full party in this game, with multiple Defenders and Controllers.

What I hate is the Rage crash, because I really don't feel super when I have to stop punching things for 10 whole seconds, and maybe also run out of endurance if I'm not careful. Sometimes I contemplate respeccing and dropping it, but then my Super Strength wouldn't feel like it hits very hard anymore. I would love it if we could have the option of replacing that power with an alternate version that gives a smaller buff that somehow numerically evens out to where it can just be a toggle without a crash. Or, an alternate power that adds a debuff to all SS attacks, like -Res or something.

[Scarlet Shocker]

9 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

as long as the frostfire mission in the hollows isnt touched. That is what got my wife and I to go all in on the game many  years ago.

 

As I said above I wouldn't change any of the old content but I am a big fan of the entire Hollows arc.

 

The only criticism I have of it is that there were few alternatives on live until later on so it became a bit repetitive. Taken in the round the entire zone has some outstanding content

[twozerofoxtrot]

10 hours ago, arcane said:

I still can’t figure out how to undo some bind I was given for a 4 star. 

 

If you know the keys that are bound type:

 

/bind [boundkeys] nop

 

Hit enter. That will clear the bind.

 

Spelling is correct.  N-O-P.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Love:

Everlasting RP community. I may not be in your Discords, and I may not be around for your events, but I still love you all. 

 

Hate:

Certain windows that can't have their internal frames resized, like the email window. You can't even scroll down if the message is too long, lol.

[Laucianna]

22 hours ago, arcane said:

I'll see what I can find. 

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rSgjI4tZ19_jLQi3kOjq0phnOC9LlQ-eOjO6O6qm68M/edit?gid=0#gid=0 

Division 4 bans temps and signature summons, so I primarily looked at those. Not a fan of including Geas in pylon runs so maybe round those DPS numbers down a smidge. But I see America's Angel and Laucianna both doing obscene numbers in Division 4. 

 

Lauci has commented on her DPS on page 1. 

 

Clam was close here. He would've needed to record the alleged 62 second run he mentions to pass 700 DPS though.

 

I could've sworn Koopak did some Kheld runs himself but I'm not finding the data anywhere.

 

That's what I got for now I'm going back to work.

 

I recall it being cited that a couple of people outdid changelings with scrappers so changelings must not be that good. IIRC one of the testers mentioned in that post was Ratch. I see Ratch's *Titan Weapons/Bio Armor* scrapper (not exactly the median we were talking about) did not quite beat Lauci in Division 4. 

Heya, just wanting to say I also want to get rid of changelings, as it's not how Kheldians are meant to be played both originally and from what I have gathered from the Homecoming team (Also in my own personal opinion) However I have done plenty of testing when it comes to them 😄 Even Koop did some tests with bots a while back to try and work out the peak DPS which although faltered in a lot of ways, encouraged me to actually do some differences so I will also post them here to help clear things up on how "op" changeling is:

(This is using the current best PB time and the scrapper, on average a PB is half this time)

 

Scrapper:
28 seconds, 19 attacks in total, 0.679 attacks per second, 78.807 DPS per attack

Peacebringer:
35 seconds, 81 attacks in total (Not including the Inner Light half way), 2.314 attacks per second, 15.10 DPS per attack.

So if we are judging it by percentage a Peacebringer does 81.707% the DPS of a Scrapper whilst performing at 340.796% of the speed.

Not to mention this is on a stationary target that does not move, as soon as something can move (99.9% of things in game) the Peacebringer then suffers a ton more

[arcane]

26 minutes ago, Laucianna said:

Heya, just wanting to say I also want to get rid of changelings, as it's not how Kheldians are meant to be played both originally and from what I have gathered from the Homecoming team (Also in my own personal opinion) However I have done plenty of testing when it comes to them 😄 Even Koop did some tests with bots a while back to try and work out the peak DPS which although faltered in a lot of ways, encouraged me to actually do some differences so I will also post them here to help clear things up on how "op" changeling is:

(This is using the current best PB time and the scrapper, on average a PB is half this time)

 

Scrapper:
28 seconds, 19 attacks in total, 0.679 attacks per second, 78.807 DPS per attack

Peacebringer:
35 seconds, 81 attacks in total (Not including the Inner Light half way), 2.314 attacks per second, 15.10 DPS per attack.

So if we are judging it by percentage a Peacebringer does 81.707% the DPS of a Scrapper whilst performing at 340.796% of the speed.

Not to mention this is on a stationary target that does not move, as soon as something can move (99.9% of things in game) the Peacebringer then suffers a ton more

So much bad faith in one place! Maybe I’ll respond when I’m not on the road, maybe it’s not necessary.
 

Basic points though:

 

(1) I can’t currently study the videos well enough on my phone to tell what Ratch did, but you are out of your fucking mind if you think America’s Angel should be able to do what he did, regardless.

 

(2) No, you don’t want changeling gone. You want it gone if and only if the devs give you all the Kheld buffs you ask for before they fix the exploit. The function of this position is to keep changeling around as long as possible.

 

Final thoughts: saying anything with a 35 second pylon time is comparable to a low end scrapper is something we call a lie. 

Edited July 9 by arcane

[battlewraith]

Love:

Changelings, even though I've never played one or even remember being teamed with one. 

They are a triumph of human will and creativity. 

Changelings show us how to rise above. to do more. To be more. 

When haters point the finger and tell you how you how things should be--the changeling stands there at the pylon. Smiling. Making weird noises. Probably doing less damage than a scrapper.

 

Would change:

 

Pylons. The game should run on vibes.

Get rid of the suggestions forum. It's where hope goes to die. 

[Jacke]

9 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

If you know the keys that are bound type:

 

/bind [boundkeys] nop

 

Hit enter. That will clear the bind.

 

Spelling is correct.  N-O-P.

 

@arcane, that will just force all those mentioned Keys to be NOP, do nothing.  That's not necessarily their default.

 

If you want them to do what their default is, use unbind:

 

/unbind [boundkeys]

 

There's another fiddly thing about Keybinds, a setting that changes those defaults.  It's in the Options window.  Find by this:

 

Menu > Options > Options window > Keymapping tab > at the very top KEYBIND PROFILE > Classic

 

That has a dropdown to switch between these 4 options:  Modern, Joystick, Classic, Launch (Issue 0)

 

@arcane, I highly suspect you're used to Classic keybinds.

 

@arcane, you likely don't need to worry about the next bits.

 

That Keybind Profile is also reset in bind files by the top line having a line like this to change that:

 

KeyProfile <1 of the 4 options>

 

To really force a reset by loading a bind file, there's often this second line:

 

UnbindAll

 

Yes, the config is fiddly with big sharp nasty teeths!  😺