The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
[COX] - City of Heroes Freedom is Live, TITAN WEAPONS are live also new iTrials
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.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
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?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
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.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
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.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
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.