Does anyone have any real insight into these alleged changes? I'd like to see the game properly balanced but I just don't think the developers have the stones for it. I think they'll wave the change flag and then back out. That's been their past exhibited behavior.
The thing is, I really want to be wrong. I *really* want to be wrong.
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not referring to the nuke change or the snipe change. I'm referring to the alleged "book of patch notes" that implies that most sets are receiving a modification in some way, shape, or form to bring them into a balanced environment.
most of the changes I've read have been things so obvious that people have been suggesting them forever, and eventually just started assuming they were never coming
like oh hey, pistols' animations are obnoxiously long? No kidding guys, but thanks for fixing it I guess. Ditto crashing nukes, ditto aoe buffs, ditto snipes to a lesser extent.
honestly most of the balance changes they have made since freedom went live have been really good, so I'm excited to see them continuing to address stuff rather than just release new sets.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It is funny that at long last all the no-brainers are getting addressed. I wonder what the holdup actually was.
Was there a monkey in the lab telling the devs, "No!" or were they simply working on other things? Eh. Good times anyway.
I've always thought that said monkey was Positron, because he feared his game getting homogenized more than he feared it being imbalanced.
Not only Positron. Arbiter Hawk posted something in the beta gravity thread
[...]
One thing that’s important to remember is that we almost never want to change the fundamental “feel” of how a given powerset plays. There were many suggestions for potentially cool power changes posted in this thread, but totally changing both the functionality and the flavor of a power within an almost-8-year-old powerset is outside the scope of what we want to do............................
the fact that the devs keep so close in touch with the community and actually read the official forums has always been a double-edged sword for this game
on the one hand, devs actually pay attention!
on the other
the pay attention to people like the Defender forum
I get the fear that he has: folks will leave rather than play a modified set.
Thing is, that is a false fear and demonstrably so.
World of Warcraft makes a living off of changing sets and flow and feel every two years without fail. Literally every two years, regular as clockwork. That's assuming your class or spec doesn't undergo an overhaul during the patch cycle. What's more, they make things *more* complicated!
It used to be that my Ele shaman made a living off of putting down the right totems and throwing lightning bolts until I went OOM, and melee'ing until I could Lightning Bolt again. Now I only use totems when I need them situationally, I have a single-target rotation, an AOE rotation, dps cooldowns, movement buttons, healing synergy to keep in mind, I somehow make the raid have more spellpower and mastery just by showing up, and if I screw any of the above up, I'm boned and the raid might be boned - and yet the game continues to dominate the market, maybe not at 12 million players, but certainly more than the ~60,000 left playing CoH.
The WoW designers have no fear of changing classes (Paladins, anyone?) and rather than being afraid of it, the playerbase as a whole embraces it. Why? Because they know the designers care and will identify issues and fix them without going overboard. If you're a bad player and you can't make Arms work, it's your fault at this point. If you're a good player and you can't make Energy Blast competitive in CoH, it's because it's a relic of design that has gone unchanged for ten long years.
If the guys who work on WoW were as resistant to change as the guys that work on CoH, we'd still have these babies.
I mean, I have seen people ragequit over changes on their classes on WoW, even over, for example, the changes of Paladins and Death Knights on Cata (that were 100% justified). On the flip side, Blizzzard balances for lolPvP.
And on a CoX specific example, there has been a lot of rage thrown around because people feel that their superheroes should be overpowered, even if something you will have to do if you want balance is nerfing the outliers.
Critics derided ED for its universal reduction of the maximum possible effectiveness of all characters, making it a global nerf;[36] that many defensive powers had now been significantly weakened for two Issues in a row,[36] frustrating especially those who specialize in such powers and invalidated many of their existing tactics; that some powers cannot legally or usefully accept more than one type of Enhancement and thus cannot be "diversified";[36] that it was deceitful to enact such a severe change less than a month after officially announcing "we’ve finished making large changes to the power sets";[38][39] and that ED was too fundamental a change to implement so long after the original launch.
I mean, think about it. How many people would ragequit if they nerfed, let's say, Rage so it doesn't affect secondary powers?. Or if they nerfed Illusion/Rad controllers? Those are the kind of things that the devs will have to do for balance. And their community has proven that, well, they kind of don't like that.
Few of those "ragequit" folks stay away forever, and they're forum nuts anyway so no real harm. They often take long breaks, absolutely, but they get themselves back together after awhile once the emotional shock wears off and they realize that the game is still out there and, hey, they were playing it for a reason before.
I'd nerf Rage and nerf it hard. Doublestacking it is unacceptable, and so is its raw magnitude. It'd be 30s up / 120s down, 10% ToHit, 50% damage, and no crash. I wouldn't fix it in a vacuum, though - Jab and Punch would both see some kind of damage and recharge shuffle, and I'd gently nerf Foot Stomp. Finally, I'd make sure that it didn't affect psuedopets, eg, Burn or Ice Storm.
True. Arbiter Hawk said that Fire Blast is good because it has the highest DPA of all Blast sets. Other blast sets could use some of that.
I have troubles with nerfing Foot Stomp because is the only AoE that Super Strength gets.
Agree 1000%, because without modifying the rest of the set and assuming you also nerf Rage, it would leave Super Strength as a laughably bad powerset. Bad single-target, bad AOE, Hand Clap what does that even do? So that's why you can't properly modify a set in one change, which is my big fear for this patch series - that they won't be willing to put in the work to bring the whole of the set into a balanced place.
the point I was trying to make is, what's the point of bending over backward to 'balance' every set? For what the game is, it doesn't particularly matter if every set has the same DPA as fire or how big rage's buff is, it just matters that every set is useful enough to kill things. There are a few sets and powers that are obviously lackluster, but those can be fixed via power changes/buffs (lots of the time the changes are needed for QoL reasons anyway, like pistols' animations.)
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
the point I was trying to make is, what's the point of bending over backward to 'balance' every set? For what the game is, it doesn't particularly matter if every set has the same DPA as fire or how big rage's buff is, it just matters that every set is useful enough to kill things. There are a few sets and powers that are obviously lackluster, but those can be fixed via power changes/buffs (lots of the time the changes are needed for QoL reasons anyway, like pistols' animations.)
Because you want people who don't know dick about the metagame to have the same amount of potential with whatever they pick. Right now, some dude who's like omgvegeta and takes Energy Blast is, through no fault of their own, at a significant disadvantage compared to the guy who said, erhmagerd super strength.
You see this dichotomy's effects pronounced in the team game, where the rest of the team is neat and all but that SS/Fire brute really doesn't need them around and if he watches them all die, hey, he can still clear the level anyway, so no worries folks. That's just bad design.
EDIT: You know what, fuck it. Enjoy abusing your badly designed game.
Rikidou Hyuuga on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Jesus Christ defeat alls in a Council base map are a fucking war crime
Basically, lots of crits, the ATO proc, and Assassin's Strike being uninterruptible when not hidden (and also the guaranteed crit with three stacks of Focus thing, that's also nice).
DS Friend code: 3840-6605-3406
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
You can use Assassin's Strike outside of hide now with no interrupt wait. Also, your attacks build "Assassin's Focus", which the more you have the more likely you are to crit when using Assassin's Strike outside of hide. 3 levels of Assassin's Focus gives you an Autocrit (you'll know you have 3 levels when a little orange circle pops up around your AStrike button).
Basically Stalkers are no longer bound by Hide in order to deliver all their damage. And autocriting on your most damaging attack is awesome.
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
Then how does that compare to Scrappers then? Are stalkers still less durable then them? Cause a 100% crit verses an across the board crit % buff is looking pretty good...
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Scrappers get more HP (and higher resist cap maybe?)
Stalkers have a higher average crit rate than Scrappers, even with no teammates.
Scrappers have higher base HP, higher max possible HP, and, I -think-, slightly higher defenses, along with not needing to have stuff reshuffled for Hide.
the point I was trying to make is, what's the point of bending over backward to 'balance' every set? For what the game is, it doesn't particularly matter if every set has the same DPA as fire or how big rage's buff is, it just matters that every set is useful enough to kill things. There are a few sets and powers that are obviously lackluster, but those can be fixed via power changes/buffs (lots of the time the changes are needed for QoL reasons anyway, like pistols' animations.)
Because you want people who don't know dick about the metagame to have the same amount of potential with whatever they pick. Right now, some dude who's like omgvegeta and takes Energy Blast is, through no fault of their own, at a significant disadvantage compared to the guy who said, erhmagerd super strength.
You see this dichotomy's effects pronounced in the team game, where the rest of the team is neat and all but that SS/Fire brute really doesn't need them around and if he watches them all die, hey, he can still clear the level anyway, so no worries folks. That's just bad design.
EDIT: You know what, fuck it. Enjoy abusing your badly designed game.
right but like, so what? It doesn't impact any of the things that actually make the game fun to play. If the power classes kill stuff marginally faster or even a lot faster it doesn't really matter because there's no glittering prize for killing the most things or doing the most DPS. And none of the content in the game is hard enough that anyone cares whether corruptor #2 on the team is fire or AR or whether the brute is SS/fire or energy/energy or whatever the underpowered combo of the month is.
it just... doesn't matter. It doesn't look like it ever will matter.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Hey, I was just saying why "balance" is not a goal that people want on this game.
A much more reasonable goal is "making some power sets/ATs not a pain in the ass while solo".
I would get rid of the "this power doesn't work on yourself" restriction next. Seems that it only exist for being annoying, I mean, "encourage grouping".
Concealment: Misdirection added as a fifth power, an AoE Placate and resistance debuff
Leadership: Fifth power is Victory Rush, it targets a defeated enemy and gives a Recovery and Endurance Reduction buff to you and your team.
Medicine
Stimulant is changed to Injection and can be used on both allies and foes. When used on an ally this has it's normal effect. When used on a foe it debuffs their Recharge, Damage and To Hit.
Field Medic added as Fifth Power, a click power that improves the effectiveness of your heals and decreases your resistance to healing (so that heals done to you are more effective). In addition if you own Field Medic Aid Other is uninterruptible and Aid Self gives an Endurance Over Time effect as well as a heal.
I know it could be broken, but they should let MMs Veng their minions, but maybe have the effect only help their own pets, or something. That pool is super for them, but that one skill is a bit of an albatross.
Posts
dammit
The thing is, I really want to be wrong. I *really* want to be wrong.
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not referring to the nuke change or the snipe change. I'm referring to the alleged "book of patch notes" that implies that most sets are receiving a modification in some way, shape, or form to bring them into a balanced environment.
like oh hey, pistols' animations are obnoxiously long? No kidding guys, but thanks for fixing it I guess. Ditto crashing nukes, ditto aoe buffs, ditto snipes to a lesser extent.
honestly most of the balance changes they have made since freedom went live have been really good, so I'm excited to see them continuing to address stuff rather than just release new sets.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Was there a monkey in the lab telling the devs, "No!" or were they simply working on other things? Eh. Good times anyway.
I've always thought that said monkey was Positron, because he feared his game getting homogenized more than he feared it being imbalanced.
Not only Positron. Arbiter Hawk posted something in the beta gravity thread
To be honest, with some of the vocal forum members running amok even if you do minimal changes it doesn't surprise me if the ignore old sets. Just read http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=292871 O_o
on the one hand, devs actually pay attention!
on the other
the pay attention to people like the Defender forum
I get the fear that he has: folks will leave rather than play a modified set.
Thing is, that is a false fear and demonstrably so.
World of Warcraft makes a living off of changing sets and flow and feel every two years without fail. Literally every two years, regular as clockwork. That's assuming your class or spec doesn't undergo an overhaul during the patch cycle. What's more, they make things *more* complicated!
It used to be that my Ele shaman made a living off of putting down the right totems and throwing lightning bolts until I went OOM, and melee'ing until I could Lightning Bolt again. Now I only use totems when I need them situationally, I have a single-target rotation, an AOE rotation, dps cooldowns, movement buttons, healing synergy to keep in mind, I somehow make the raid have more spellpower and mastery just by showing up, and if I screw any of the above up, I'm boned and the raid might be boned - and yet the game continues to dominate the market, maybe not at 12 million players, but certainly more than the ~60,000 left playing CoH.
The WoW designers have no fear of changing classes (Paladins, anyone?) and rather than being afraid of it, the playerbase as a whole embraces it. Why? Because they know the designers care and will identify issues and fix them without going overboard. If you're a bad player and you can't make Arms work, it's your fault at this point. If you're a good player and you can't make Energy Blast competitive in CoH, it's because it's a relic of design that has gone unchanged for ten long years.
If the guys who work on WoW were as resistant to change as the guys that work on CoH, we'd still have these babies.
I mean, I have seen people ragequit over changes on their classes on WoW, even over, for example, the changes of Paladins and Death Knights on Cata (that were 100% justified). On the flip side, Blizzzard balances for lolPvP.
And on a CoX specific example, there has been a lot of rage thrown around because people feel that their superheroes should be overpowered, even if something you will have to do if you want balance is nerfing the outliers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Heroes#Enhancement_Diversity
I mean, think about it. How many people would ragequit if they nerfed, let's say, Rage so it doesn't affect secondary powers?. Or if they nerfed Illusion/Rad controllers? Those are the kind of things that the devs will have to do for balance. And their community has proven that, well, they kind of don't like that.
I'd nerf Rage and nerf it hard. Doublestacking it is unacceptable, and so is its raw magnitude. It'd be 30s up / 120s down, 10% ToHit, 50% damage, and no crash. I wouldn't fix it in a vacuum, though - Jab and Punch would both see some kind of damage and recharge shuffle, and I'd gently nerf Foot Stomp. Finally, I'd make sure that it didn't affect psuedopets, eg, Burn or Ice Storm.
they "should" nerf fire blast too, but what would be the point?
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Most of the other Blast sets need to come to Fire, not vice versa.
I have troubles with nerfing Foot Stomp because is the only AoE that Super Strength gets.
Agree 1000%, because without modifying the rest of the set and assuming you also nerf Rage, it would leave Super Strength as a laughably bad powerset. Bad single-target, bad AOE, Hand Clap what does that even do? So that's why you can't properly modify a set in one change, which is my big fear for this patch series - that they won't be willing to put in the work to bring the whole of the set into a balanced place.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Because you want people who don't know dick about the metagame to have the same amount of potential with whatever they pick. Right now, some dude who's like omgvegeta and takes Energy Blast is, through no fault of their own, at a significant disadvantage compared to the guy who said, erhmagerd super strength.
You see this dichotomy's effects pronounced in the team game, where the rest of the team is neat and all but that SS/Fire brute really doesn't need them around and if he watches them all die, hey, he can still clear the level anyway, so no worries folks. That's just bad design.
EDIT: You know what, fuck it. Enjoy abusing your badly designed game.
Let me guess, the multi level room with the water? That thing is second to the god damn layer cake cave for being hard to find things.
Also, dudes, they made some change to make Stalkers suck less recently right? Is there now any reason to play one instead of a Brute or scrapper?
Rolled up a Staff/Ninjitsu stalker to play around with but I can't tell what's different yet.
DS Friend code: 3840-6605-3406
Basically Stalkers are no longer bound by Hide in order to deliver all their damage. And autocriting on your most damaging attack is awesome.
Scrappers have higher base HP, higher max possible HP, and, I -think-, slightly higher defenses, along with not needing to have stuff reshuffled for Hide.
DS Friend code: 3840-6605-3406
On the other hand, I have so much fun being a squid and just squidding all over everything, so maybe that's just doing it right.
right but like, so what? It doesn't impact any of the things that actually make the game fun to play. If the power classes kill stuff marginally faster or even a lot faster it doesn't really matter because there's no glittering prize for killing the most things or doing the most DPS. And none of the content in the game is hard enough that anyone cares whether corruptor #2 on the team is fire or AR or whether the brute is SS/fire or energy/energy or whatever the underpowered combo of the month is.
it just... doesn't matter. It doesn't look like it ever will matter.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
A much more reasonable goal is "making some power sets/ATs not a pain in the ass while solo".
I would get rid of the "this power doesn't work on yourself" restriction next. Seems that it only exist for being annoying, I mean, "encourage grouping".
he MIGHT be my favorite character now, I don't know
BEHOLD, SIXGILL
@Jacobkosh
KRAKOOM, KRAKOOM! :whistle:
Sixgill is adorable and reminds me that I need to make Crash Method less muscular. He's too meaty!
including epic and patron pools
and minimal fx versions of hasten n shit
Let me slot Kinetic Combats in all of these pools powers and we'll talk.
presence and so on
and apparently an entirely new pool!
Basically, and the strength of the effect depends on the level and rank of the enemy, so its better to use on bosses or lieutenants.