I've never seen a real Rampage (i.e., not LI or SC, which were re-purposed vehicle content) be steamrolled. Even in a well-made PQ, there's no such thing as "steamrolling".
A competent PQ, which means 3-4 core people and the rest able to avoid glaring errors, will run through F&I in 3-4 minutes with a good chance of no casualties and pretty much 100% chance of success. Gravitar has both higher and lower build requirements (it's not particularly demanding on tanking, but has a high probability of casualties among the non-tanks), but is similar speed and probability of success. That's steamrolling.
Just want to point out, a super tank can tank both bosses at once without a healer. Put 9 competent min maxed dps in the mix of that and good god you'll be looking at doing it in atleast under a minute... I'm pretty sure we did it in under a minute once when it first came out and we ran it like 60 or so times a bunch while on vent together.
Pretty sure some people don't understand how stupid champions online's power creep has become. If PvE was harder (as I've always said) you'd see a lot more of this min max stupidity that you tend to only see in PvP.
I've never seen a real Rampage (i.e., not LI or SC, which were re-purposed vehicle content) be steamrolled. Even in a well-made PQ, there's no such thing as "steamrolling".
A competent PQ, which means 3-4 core people and the rest able to avoid glaring errors, will run through F&I in 3-4 minutes with a good chance of no casualties and pretty much 100% chance of success. Gravitar has both higher and lower build requirements (it's not particularly demanding on tanking, but has a high probability of casualties among the non-tanks), but is similar speed and probability of success. That's steamrolling.
Those are not typical metrics for those two Rampages, unless things have changed a lot in the last year or so:
The results you're reporting are certainly reasonable with a pretty elite group, but I don't believe they are the norm. And as we know, this CDR change is not targeting the outliers; it's an indiscriminate nerf on all builds with cooldowns.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
I would point out that CO has had so little done to it over the years that our playerbase of 40's running these two rampages (which are technically the only "challenging" thing there is in the game) isn't always the most competent or well equip. I know that sounds elitist but it gets to a point that players that have played games for a while will leave for other games with more challenge as this has none. People who stick around will stick around due to the customization. New players often have never really played many other games before and can often be fairly young. Also with the added thing of AT's trying to get gear too.
Using the averages like that ends up making it look like the game is a lot harder than it really is.
Why do the devs only listen to the people who cry out for nerfs and ignore the 90000 other suggestions that other players make?
Maybe it is because they don't listen to us period, and some nerfs are simply necessary to keep the game healthy and balanced... especially on the eve of new content.
Or you can just go back to pointing fingers and blaming it on "tryhards" who no doubt conspire to make the game harder for everyone... because reasons.
It isn't earn your fun, it's just that being made to feel like a 1 year old and feel like your character doesn't even need a brain behind it simply is not fun. There is a feeling of "overpowered" that one would like to have in a super hero game however without any fear or problems that you may face then you feel like there's no real point, it's basically a kid smashing bugs with rocks instead of what it should be which is one man taking out an army. (which I suppose is what you'd like to happen)
Fact is that CO is an online game, to feel like that it should be through the skill of the user so that he doesn't feel like his 3 year old child could play the game just as well as he can.
G-Crush doesn't listen to either side, he wanted to make this change 2 years ago after he "fixed" unbreakable but was moved to Neverwinter. He's now back and clearly didn't forget that he wanted to make that change. The problem is every has got way way too used to their CDR now with the new gear that was added over powering us even more.
Personally, I'd like if the powerlevel was set back to On Alert's launch. Completing a Soul Siphon before the 4th victim gets turned just feels boring.
Or better. Back BEFORE On Alert. But pretty sure most people here might not agree with that.
AWWWW CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE! DON'T YOU DARE. BE SOUR. CLAP FOR YOUR NIGHTMARE AND FEEEEEEEEEEEL THE POWAAAAAAH!
Then the point is "stop nerfing things and quit listening to the tiny niche that is the tryhards, so the game keeps going and keeps providing a minor profit, enough to warrant its continued survival."
It still amazes me that you think this game has tryhards. All those people left long ago. Why would a tryhard stay in a game where all challenges are so easily invalidated?
You think any masochists play this game? Are you kidding me? That's like saying you think masochists hang out in a building that's made of pillows. A masochist would play this game for five minutes and then pass out from crippling boredom.
The reason I support nerfs has nothing to do with masochism, or being a tryhard, which I can assure you I am neither. "Earn your fun"? Wtf kind of nonsense is that? I earned my fun by logging in. I support nerfs because a balanced game is more fun than an unbalanced one. I support nerfs because in a game about customizing your playstyle, the entire thing gets ruined when you have a small group of choices that are clearly, ultimately, and inarguably better than others. I support nerfs because a power fantasy doesn't have to equate to the player effectively knocking over a bunch of chess pieces and acting like they did something. The Devil May Cry games are power fantasies too, but they're balanced and created around that concept, rather than ignoring it entirely. Part of a power fantasy is dealing with things that only you, the powerful, can handle. It's not just being powerful and turning a bunch of wimps into dust; it's also about exerting your power upon something that requires it.
Think of it this way. If I have a baseball, and that's the only thing people can lift to show how strong they are, how will you ever fulfill your fantasy of experiencing how amazingly strong you are? There's no opportunity to experience your own power. Sure, you could lift a planet, but all we have is a baseball so you have no way to appreciate your own strength. Once I bring out a tank, and you lift that over your head, now you're living out a power fantasy, now you feel strong, now you're doing strong things. Power fantasies aren't just about being strong; they're also about being put into situations that only your strength can solve.
I support nerfs because a power fantasy doesn't have to equate to the player effectively knocking over a bunch of chess pieces and acting like they did something. The Devil May Cry games are power fantasies too, but they're balanced and created around that concept, rather than ignoring it entirely. Part of a power fantasy is dealing with things that only you, the powerful, can handle. It's not just being powerful and turning a bunch of wimps into dust; it's also about exerting your power upon something that requires it.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
I support nerfs because a power fantasy doesn't have to equate to the player effectively knocking over a bunch of chess pieces and acting like they did something. The Devil May Cry games are power fantasies too, but they're balanced and created around that concept, rather than ignoring it entirely. Part of a power fantasy is dealing with things that only you, the powerful, can handle. It's not just being powerful and turning a bunch of wimps into dust; it's also about exerting your power upon something that requires it.
AWWWW CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE! DON'T YOU DARE. BE SOUR. CLAP FOR YOUR NIGHTMARE AND FEEEEEEEEEEEL THE POWAAAAAAH!
The reason I support nerfs has nothing to do with masochism, or being a tryhard, which I can assure you I am neither. "Earn your fun"? Wtf kind of nonsense is that? I earned my fun by logging in. I support nerfs because a balanced game is more fun than an unbalanced one. I support nerfs because in a game about customizing your playstyle, the entire thing gets ruined when you have a small group of choices that are clearly, ultimately, and inarguably better than others. I support nerfs because a power fantasy doesn't have to equate to the player effectively knocking over a bunch of chess pieces and acting like they did something. The Devil May Cry games are power fantasies too, but they're balanced and created around that concept, rather than ignoring it entirely. Part of a power fantasy is dealing with things that only you, the powerful, can handle. It's not just being powerful and turning a bunch of wimps into dust; it's also about exerting your power upon something that requires it.
Really Spinny? Really? Balance?
Well you know what else makes a game Balanced? BUFFS
a GOOD game balance don't only Nerfs Overperforming Powers but also Buffs Underperforming Powers as well!
But NO! people in those forums are more Focused on NERFs rather than BUFFS!
Where are the Buffs Spinny?
There are MANY powers, Powerframe Mechanics, Specilitations, Specilitations Masteries, Ultimates that are either underperforming, broken or plain useless
Post edited by avianos on
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
So your suggestions to balance the game is to make it easier for everyone regardless of what power you choose, instead of creating some semblance of challenge by reigning in the upper limit outliers?
Here's why I think "BUFF EVERYTHING!" isn't going to work.
As you can see, the red line is where most of the game's difficulty is. The blue dots are the powers, and how good or bad they are based on how high they are. Looks like most of them are scaled to be around the game's current difficulty, and there's a bit of a spike where some powers are overperforming. Then there's the green dots, our characters. Most are way above the difficulty level, and can solo pretty much all solo content with no worries. Towards the bottom are the poorly-created freeforms that for some reason forgot to take passives and only have like 2 blast powers, and also some of the poorly-performing Archetypes.
This is what happens if we BUFF EVERYTHING and NERF NOTHING:
All powers have been brought up to the point where all the other over-performing powers are. The developers have spent a lot of time changing all powers and all ranks to make our characters now even MORE powerful! Hooray, beers are on me! Except, wait, what's that? It looks like we've made our friend Mr. Difficulty sad! Why? Because everything is so powerful now, that anyone anywhere can walk all over all of the content!
But wait! There's a solution! See here:
Let's make Mr. Difficulty happy, and adjust ALL of the content in the game to be more difficult to be on par with our characters! Now Mr. Difficulty is happy, but deep down, he knows that this would take way more man-hours than Cryptic can handle for this game at this point in time. I mean, making changes to ALL the powers, andadjusting ALL the content so that all the buffs don't make the game ridiculously easy? That's insane! But he's happy, and so are the players, but even though the developers want to, this kind of thing would eat up a ton of time, so we get no updates during all this time, and it would require a lot of funding, which we don't have.
Is there any other way? Won't someone think of the children?!
Let's see:
In this scenario, The difficulty has stayed the same, some powers have been nerfed, and those ultra-powerful characters at the peaks of the chart are now down a bit lower, but still above the difficulty mark! So they can still complete the content as it was made to be completed! Nerf the stuff that is over-performing, buff the stuff that is under-performing! Takes less time and less funding! Our friend Mr Difficulty is happy because the game is just a bit more difficult, not impossible to play, mind you, and players are still powerful, but most importantly, it didn't take as much developer time and the whole thing is in the scope of reality!
all in the name of 'fighting powercreep' (which is subjective) or 'adding challenge (which is as well)'?
Power creep is not subjective at all. A good example is the Specializations system. That was added, and the only thing that happened was our characters got more powerful. It's just buffs all around. Meanwhile, they did nothing to adjust the difficulty, so what happens when you buff one thing and don't balance it out by buffing another thing (in this case, buffing game difficulty)? Power creep.
"The nerf will drive away people and that means less profits."
"The nerf will irritate people, breed dissension in the community."
"Devs are listening to tryhards who are to blame for them making nerfs."
"The cost was too high."
Constantly using slippery slope fallacies, tinfoil-hatting and hyperbole don't exactly make for better arguments, so I'd refrain from belittling others as having "sad little arguments", especially when using zone chat and thinking that it actually represents the majority opinion.
Sure, previous nerfs have caused huge heated debates on the forums and in zone chat, because people are naturally opinionated. Is that an indication of dissension? I don't really agree.
There will always be people who want to "stick it to the man" and threaten to leave. There has even been an extreme case of account self-immolation. Is this proof of huge player exoduses happening when a heavy-handed nerf happens? There's no real way to prove it without looking into Cryptic's official spreadsheets and those come off as isolated incidents. Also, players stop playing for a myriad of reasons not specific to nerfs, be it general burnout from repetition or a hot newly released game too hard to ignore just to name two.
Well you know what else makes a game Balanced? BUFFS
Well, it depends on the context doesn't it? In certain contexts yes, buffs do make a game more fun, if they're pushing the balance of the game up from a point where players are way too weak. For example Ret Pallys in World of Werkraft... they weren't much fun until one patch they got buffed and suddenly they were a big ol' hoot. On the other hand, if players can already be way too strong, and you throw in more buffs, then you're just pushing the game further into unbalance.
This was simply a case of a huge glaring problem. Sure, the house didn't have nice carpets or drapes... but it was also on fire. Cooldown reduction was the fire, and Cryptic needed to put that fire out before they could worry about carpets and drapes, which are individual powers. Have they put out all the fires? Mmmmmmmaybe.
So where are the buffs? Well obviously not in the patch we got today, because you can't just do everything at once. They have to smack down the big issues first, the rot that has been eating away at the framework of the game. Once the basic underlying framework is healthy again, then they can look at things on a case-by-case basis.. which is how buffs will have to work. The powers are currently a mess of highs and lows due to the rather chaotic way that they have been modified and added to over the years. Quite simply, they did the big nerfs first because the big nerfs were easy and quick. The buffs are going to take some time; one of the reasons is that they don't want to overbuff things, because then there's only going to be more pain when they have to nerf them pack down again.
Of course, there are still nerfs to be made even once they start looking at things on a case by case basis, so don't hold your breath for a "It's only buffs from here!" era. Just as we can say that some powers are obviously underperforming no matter what you do with them, it's also true that some powers are very easily overperforming with no drawbacks. Both of these have to be pulled to the middle.
Munitions - can't get its higher-tier powers for around 3-6 levels later than any others because it lacks a Passive and for some fool reason Concentration isn't tagged.
But... 2GM outperforms the highest tier munitions powers... and I can get it right away!
Let's make Mr. Difficulty happy, and adjust ALL of the content in the game to be more difficult to be on par with our characters! Now Mr. Difficulty is happy, but deep down, he knows that this would take way more man-hours than Cryptic can handle for this game at this point in time. I mean, making changes to ALL the powers, andadjusting ALL the content so that all the buffs don't make the game ridiculously easy? That's insane! But he's happy, and so are the players, but even though the developers want to, this kind of thing would eat up a ton of time, so we get no updates during all this time, and it would require a lot of funding, which we don't have.
This is why I think sometimes, nerfs are good.
Hey Smackwell, you're on the right track here. I like your visualizations and this is a good approach to how to think about this problem. This is all pretty much just an academic discussion at this point, but I have a couple of responses:
1.) If the developers have to individually adjust each mob in the game in order to adjust the overall difficulty level, then they're doing it wrong. This should not be that time-consuming of a process. There should be a global difficulty_factor variable that applies a function to all of the NPC's hit points and damage. In fact, I would be surprised if that is not the case here; I seem to remember (way back), that overall NPC difficulty has been adjusted in the past. Of course, select boss encounters may still need some individual tuning from time to time, but this should not be a deal-breaker.
2.) So, we agree that you need to pick some desired power level on your chart and tune the outliers via both nerfs and buffs. Assume for the sake of argument that list item 1 above is true, and adjusting the overall game difficulty is not a huge task. Where do you pick your median power level that you want to tune towards? In the middle of the range you're looking at nerfs + buffs, towards the bottom of the range and you're looking at mostly nerfs, and towards the top of the range you're looking at mostly buffs.
Nerfs have a cost in terms of player goodwill. Buffs have a more positive player sentiment associated with them. It's just human nature. So I would draw my target line towards the upper 2/3 or so of the current range and have a bias towards buffs rather than nerfs.
3.) For me, the problem with this particular nerf is not: NO NERFS EVAR! It's that IMHO this is a not a well thought out change that dramatically improves balance. It does not target the over-performing outliers, and I think it creates a lot of new imbalances in terms of underperforming powers etc. becoming even more under-performing. Imagine your scatterplot of powers and randomly pick a bunch of points to shift downwards. For your scatterplot of characters, move all of them downwards, even the ones that were already at the bottom (e.g. the AT's). That's what this nerf did.
Some folks think that this is just the first step, and it will be followed up shortly with another pass that buffs the underperforming powers.. I guess we'll see.
And to throw down such a big nerf that so dramatically affects builds and not even toss in a retcon? Geeeez.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
1. I think a game-wide difficulty adjustment would be problematic because usually in cases like this, "Make everything more difficult with a flip of a switch" usually ends up with some particular things going too difficult, some going just enough, and some not so much. I can't say for certain that practically this wouldn't be a good solution, but all the time I've spent around games, balancing, and software in general, whenever something seems like it's an easy way out, there's going to be some fringe cases where things just get broke to all crap. So regardless, it'll likely take a lot of testing time, of all content, and if everything is kosher, then great! If just a few things aren't, then cool. But it begs the question, why change overall difficulty if there's already a tried-and-tested difficulty meter out there? I liked the difficulty level of the game at launch. And I'm no power builder. I'm as casual as they come. I say bring it back to there! But even that would require re-engineering a ton of powers and the specializations so that's never gonna happen. There's pros and cons both ways, I'm sure, but to me it seems most prudent to adjust to our current difficulty standard.
2. I think I covered most of this in 1, but I definitely agree that we do need some buffs. Some powers obviously underperform. Powers in the same tier of the same type should all be as effective as all the others. No one should be gimped by picking a power by their character's theme.
A good example for this whole thing is Two-Gun Mojo. I love this power, I loved it on launch when it wasn't great, I super-loved it when I first heard it was being buffed, it was basically a guilty pleasure when I saw how far it got buffed. All powers of this tier do not need to be buffed to Two-Gun Mojo levels. At all. It needs to be brought down to a baseline, and underperforming similar powers need buffs.
To answer directly, though, if we're assuming that balancing of content is really easy, as in "just make everything 'Hard' level instead of 'Normal' Level, if it's as easy as flipping a switch on content difficulty, then you're still talking about re-tuning most powers to fit the new norm. My approach is that the less work that is done to maintain a semblance of balance (I know, balance in this game, right?), the better. But then at this point, I have to ask myself, why am I making (and I'm making numbers up here) 30 powers more powerful to meet the new difficulty standard instead of making 6 powers less powerful to meet the already-established difficulty standard (which is "not difficult" by most accounts)? It's extra work for almost no reason.
And I say almost because I totally agree with you that buffs bring in player goodwill. But leaning towards buffs when trying to fix most problems will just likely result in more problems. We already have a baseline. We're already way far above this baseline in almost every case. Using myself as an example, I'm a very casual player (six years casual WHAAAAT) and I can survive any solo content (okay I still die here and there but that's to be expected in any game) and I can find my way through rampages too. And this is with absolute minimal thought put into my characters, no more than "how can I punch harder?"
The developers are always walking a tightrope, wondering if they're going to fall to the left or the right, but one thing's for certain, they're going to fall. Most people are going to be like "nerfs bad!" and some people are going to be like "nerf good!" and the people who come after will have no opinion on the matter, and like a month later, most of the "nerf bad" and "nerf good" players are going to adjust to the new norm and go on like nothing ever happened.
Man, I am on a serious ramble.
3. I agree that this wasn't the way to handle the always-on Actives. Limiting CDR on Actives and leaving everything else out of it? That's what I think would be cool. But, I can't say that I'm a powers guru; once again, I'm a layman. I know you know more about powers than I do, but yeah. Not the way I would have gone about it. I don't like waiting for my vehicles longer after I die!
Yes, this nerf did nerf underperformers a lot more, and something that came up tonight also, it probably hit Archetypes a lot worse than it did freeforms (I just heard this stuff marginally, but it's something to consider if it's true). I do trust that our new developers will take new feedback into consideration.
I'm settling on the same thing you are. "We'll see." I do hope the craps get buffed up to the goods. The craps deserve nothing less.
As far as the retcon goes, they did mention during the livestream (so I hear) that they said it would happen. Maybe it just didn't make the cut on this patch for some reason. I don't think they'd say something like that and not deliver, so I wouldn't dismiss it just yet.
Now, I apologize for this short novel I wrote. I call it "Biff Was Always Dumb, But He Had Opinions and That Made Him Okay." Biff is the protagonist.
1.) If the developers have to individually adjust each mob in the game in order to adjust the overall difficulty level, then they're doing it wrong. This should not be that time-consuming of a process. There should be a global difficulty_factor variable that applies a function to all of the NPC's hit points and damage. In fact, I would be surprised if that is not the case here; I seem to remember (way back), that overall NPC difficulty has been adjusted in the past. Of course, select boss encounters may still need some individual tuning from time to time, but this should not be a deal-breaker.
Sure, if all you want to do is increase/decrease hit points, defense, and damage output. I don't think that's all that's really needed to put this game into a good place. Just as we have massive disparity in player power levels, there are also massive disparities when it comes to NPCs. These disparities have less to do with hit points and damage output, and more to do with the fact that some NPCs belong to organizations that aren't as good at making builds as certain other ones... for example Viper has clearly paid some devious PvPer to make builds for their NPCs. The purple gang on the other hand were clearly a bit too concerned with following the "1920s gangster" theme and nobody was around to give them any pointers on effectiveness. That's why they would have to go and perform adjustments to mobs individually - has nothing to do with "theyre doin it rang"... in fact, doing that would be an indication that they're willing to do it rite.
On the other hand, just doubling all non-boss NPC's health would be a good overall start.
On the other hand, just doubling all non-boss NPC's health would be a good overall start.
I would actually give a scaling buff to both health and damage that varies with level. I mean, when you're level 10 those npcs don't really need a buff.
On one hand I can finally superstat something other than Int without feeling like I gimped myself. It was stupid before, when comparing the price of Int (and Con) mods vs other stats.
On the other there's the collateral damage. The only active heal for PFF had its cooldown doubled, which is a big ouch when PFF was kinda weak in the first place.
As a whole this was kind of needed. However, while Cryptic traditionally paints with a big and heavy brush, I'd like to see some attempt at penciling the small details too, going forward.
On the other there's the collateral damage. The only active heal for PFF had its cooldown doubled, which is a big ouch when PFF was kinda weak in the first place.
i.e. PFF still needs fixing. along with Throwing Blades... and other stuff. It's not like now all of a sudden PFF is in bad shape. It was in bad shape before, you could just prop it up with a bunch of stuff to make it look not as bad.
Comments
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Pretty sure some people don't understand how stupid champions online's power creep has become. If PvE was harder (as I've always said) you'd see a lot more of this min max stupidity that you tend to only see in PvP.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
The results you're reporting are certainly reasonable with a pretty elite group, but I don't believe they are the norm. And as we know, this CDR change is not targeting the outliers; it's an indiscriminate nerf on all builds with cooldowns.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Using the averages like that ends up making it look like the game is a lot harder than it really is.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
and a mixed bunch of PUG?
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Maybe it is because they don't listen to us period, and some nerfs are simply necessary to keep the game healthy and balanced... especially on the eve of new content.
Or you can just go back to pointing fingers and blaming it on "tryhards" who no doubt conspire to make the game harder for everyone... because reasons.
Fact is that CO is an online game, to feel like that it should be through the skill of the user so that he doesn't feel like his 3 year old child could play the game just as well as he can.
G-Crush doesn't listen to either side, he wanted to make this change 2 years ago after he "fixed" unbreakable but was moved to Neverwinter. He's now back and clearly didn't forget that he wanted to make that change. The problem is every has got way way too used to their CDR now with the new gear that was added over powering us even more.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Or better. Back BEFORE On Alert. But pretty sure most people here might not agree with that.
You think any masochists play this game? Are you kidding me? That's like saying you think masochists hang out in a building that's made of pillows. A masochist would play this game for five minutes and then pass out from crippling boredom.
The reason I support nerfs has nothing to do with masochism, or being a tryhard, which I can assure you I am neither. "Earn your fun"? Wtf kind of nonsense is that? I earned my fun by logging in. I support nerfs because a balanced game is more fun than an unbalanced one. I support nerfs because in a game about customizing your playstyle, the entire thing gets ruined when you have a small group of choices that are clearly, ultimately, and inarguably better than others. I support nerfs because a power fantasy doesn't have to equate to the player effectively knocking over a bunch of chess pieces and acting like they did something. The Devil May Cry games are power fantasies too, but they're balanced and created around that concept, rather than ignoring it entirely. Part of a power fantasy is dealing with things that only you, the powerful, can handle. It's not just being powerful and turning a bunch of wimps into dust; it's also about exerting your power upon something that requires it.
Think of it this way. If I have a baseball, and that's the only thing people can lift to show how strong they are, how will you ever fulfill your fantasy of experiencing how amazingly strong you are? There's no opportunity to experience your own power. Sure, you could lift a planet, but all we have is a baseball so you have no way to appreciate your own strength. Once I bring out a tank, and you lift that over your head, now you're living out a power fantasy, now you feel strong, now you're doing strong things. Power fantasies aren't just about being strong; they're also about being put into situations that only your strength can solve.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Really Spinny? Really? Balance?
Well you know what else makes a game Balanced? BUFFS
a GOOD game balance don't only Nerfs Overperforming Powers but also Buffs Underperforming Powers as well!
But NO! people in those forums are more Focused on NERFs rather than BUFFS!
Where are the Buffs Spinny?
There are MANY powers, Powerframe Mechanics, Specilitations, Specilitations Masteries, Ultimates that are either underperforming, broken or plain useless
No thanks.
As you can see, the red line is where most of the game's difficulty is. The blue dots are the powers, and how good or bad they are based on how high they are. Looks like most of them are scaled to be around the game's current difficulty, and there's a bit of a spike where some powers are overperforming. Then there's the green dots, our characters. Most are way above the difficulty level, and can solo pretty much all solo content with no worries. Towards the bottom are the poorly-created freeforms that for some reason forgot to take passives and only have like 2 blast powers, and also some of the poorly-performing Archetypes.
This is what happens if we BUFF EVERYTHING and NERF NOTHING:
All powers have been brought up to the point where all the other over-performing powers are. The developers have spent a lot of time changing all powers and all ranks to make our characters now even MORE powerful! Hooray, beers are on me! Except, wait, what's that? It looks like we've made our friend Mr. Difficulty sad! Why? Because everything is so powerful now, that anyone anywhere can walk all over all of the content!
But wait! There's a solution! See here:
Let's make Mr. Difficulty happy, and adjust ALL of the content in the game to be more difficult to be on par with our characters! Now Mr. Difficulty is happy, but deep down, he knows that this would take way more man-hours than Cryptic can handle for this game at this point in time. I mean, making changes to ALL the powers, andadjusting ALL the content so that all the buffs don't make the game ridiculously easy? That's insane! But he's happy, and so are the players, but even though the developers want to, this kind of thing would eat up a ton of time, so we get no updates during all this time, and it would require a lot of funding, which we don't have.
Is there any other way? Won't someone think of the children?!
Let's see:
In this scenario, The difficulty has stayed the same, some powers have been nerfed, and those ultra-powerful characters at the peaks of the chart are now down a bit lower, but still above the difficulty mark! So they can still complete the content as it was made to be completed! Nerf the stuff that is over-performing, buff the stuff that is under-performing! Takes less time and less funding! Our friend Mr Difficulty is happy because the game is just a bit more difficult, not impossible to play, mind you, and players are still powerful, but most importantly, it didn't take as much developer time and the whole thing is in the scope of reality!
This is why I think sometimes, nerfs are good.
"The nerf will irritate people, breed dissension in the community."
"Devs are listening to tryhards who are to blame for them making nerfs."
"The cost was too high."
Constantly using slippery slope fallacies, tinfoil-hatting and hyperbole don't exactly make for better arguments, so I'd refrain from belittling others as having "sad little arguments", especially when using zone chat and thinking that it actually represents the majority opinion.
Sure, previous nerfs have caused huge heated debates on the forums and in zone chat, because people are naturally opinionated. Is that an indication of dissension? I don't really agree.
There will always be people who want to "stick it to the man" and threaten to leave. There has even been an extreme case of account self-immolation. Is this proof of huge player exoduses happening when a heavy-handed nerf happens? There's no real way to prove it without looking into Cryptic's official spreadsheets and those come off as isolated incidents. Also, players stop playing for a myriad of reasons not specific to nerfs, be it general burnout from repetition or a hot newly released game too hard to ignore just to name two.
This was simply a case of a huge glaring problem. Sure, the house didn't have nice carpets or drapes... but it was also on fire. Cooldown reduction was the fire, and Cryptic needed to put that fire out before they could worry about carpets and drapes, which are individual powers. Have they put out all the fires? Mmmmmmmaybe.
So where are the buffs? Well obviously not in the patch we got today, because you can't just do everything at once. They have to smack down the big issues first, the rot that has been eating away at the framework of the game. Once the basic underlying framework is healthy again, then they can look at things on a case-by-case basis.. which is how buffs will have to work. The powers are currently a mess of highs and lows due to the rather chaotic way that they have been modified and added to over the years. Quite simply, they did the big nerfs first because the big nerfs were easy and quick. The buffs are going to take some time; one of the reasons is that they don't want to overbuff things, because then there's only going to be more pain when they have to nerf them pack down again.
Of course, there are still nerfs to be made even once they start looking at things on a case by case basis, so don't hold your breath for a "It's only buffs from here!" era. Just as we can say that some powers are obviously underperforming no matter what you do with them, it's also true that some powers are very easily overperforming with no drawbacks. Both of these have to be pulled to the middle.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
1.) If the developers have to individually adjust each mob in the game in order to adjust the overall difficulty level, then they're doing it wrong. This should not be that time-consuming of a process. There should be a global difficulty_factor variable that applies a function to all of the NPC's hit points and damage. In fact, I would be surprised if that is not the case here; I seem to remember (way back), that overall NPC difficulty has been adjusted in the past. Of course, select boss encounters may still need some individual tuning from time to time, but this should not be a deal-breaker.
2.) So, we agree that you need to pick some desired power level on your chart and tune the outliers via both nerfs and buffs. Assume for the sake of argument that list item 1 above is true, and adjusting the overall game difficulty is not a huge task. Where do you pick your median power level that you want to tune towards? In the middle of the range you're looking at nerfs + buffs, towards the bottom of the range and you're looking at mostly nerfs, and towards the top of the range you're looking at mostly buffs.
Nerfs have a cost in terms of player goodwill. Buffs have a more positive player sentiment associated with them. It's just human nature. So I would draw my target line towards the upper 2/3 or so of the current range and have a bias towards buffs rather than nerfs.
3.) For me, the problem with this particular nerf is not: NO NERFS EVAR! It's that IMHO this is a not a well thought out change that dramatically improves balance. It does not target the over-performing outliers, and I think it creates a lot of new imbalances in terms of underperforming powers etc. becoming even more under-performing. Imagine your scatterplot of powers and randomly pick a bunch of points to shift downwards. For your scatterplot of characters, move all of them downwards, even the ones that were already at the bottom (e.g. the AT's). That's what this nerf did.
Some folks think that this is just the first step, and it will be followed up shortly with another pass that buffs the underperforming powers.. I guess we'll see.
And to throw down such a big nerf that so dramatically affects builds and not even toss in a retcon? Geeeez.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
1. I think a game-wide difficulty adjustment would be problematic because usually in cases like this, "Make everything more difficult with a flip of a switch" usually ends up with some particular things going too difficult, some going just enough, and some not so much. I can't say for certain that practically this wouldn't be a good solution, but all the time I've spent around games, balancing, and software in general, whenever something seems like it's an easy way out, there's going to be some fringe cases where things just get broke to all crap. So regardless, it'll likely take a lot of testing time, of all content, and if everything is kosher, then great! If just a few things aren't, then cool. But it begs the question, why change overall difficulty if there's already a tried-and-tested difficulty meter out there? I liked the difficulty level of the game at launch. And I'm no power builder. I'm as casual as they come. I say bring it back to there! But even that would require re-engineering a ton of powers and the specializations so that's never gonna happen. There's pros and cons both ways, I'm sure, but to me it seems most prudent to adjust to our current difficulty standard.
2. I think I covered most of this in 1, but I definitely agree that we do need some buffs. Some powers obviously underperform. Powers in the same tier of the same type should all be as effective as all the others. No one should be gimped by picking a power by their character's theme.
A good example for this whole thing is Two-Gun Mojo. I love this power, I loved it on launch when it wasn't great, I super-loved it when I first heard it was being buffed, it was basically a guilty pleasure when I saw how far it got buffed. All powers of this tier do not need to be buffed to Two-Gun Mojo levels. At all. It needs to be brought down to a baseline, and underperforming similar powers need buffs.
To answer directly, though, if we're assuming that balancing of content is really easy, as in "just make everything 'Hard' level instead of 'Normal' Level, if it's as easy as flipping a switch on content difficulty, then you're still talking about re-tuning most powers to fit the new norm. My approach is that the less work that is done to maintain a semblance of balance (I know, balance in this game, right?), the better. But then at this point, I have to ask myself, why am I making (and I'm making numbers up here) 30 powers more powerful to meet the new difficulty standard instead of making 6 powers less powerful to meet the already-established difficulty standard (which is "not difficult" by most accounts)? It's extra work for almost no reason.
And I say almost because I totally agree with you that buffs bring in player goodwill. But leaning towards buffs when trying to fix most problems will just likely result in more problems. We already have a baseline. We're already way far above this baseline in almost every case. Using myself as an example, I'm a very casual player (six years casual WHAAAAT) and I can survive any solo content (okay I still die here and there but that's to be expected in any game) and I can find my way through rampages too. And this is with absolute minimal thought put into my characters, no more than "how can I punch harder?"
The developers are always walking a tightrope, wondering if they're going to fall to the left or the right, but one thing's for certain, they're going to fall. Most people are going to be like "nerfs bad!" and some people are going to be like "nerf good!" and the people who come after will have no opinion on the matter, and like a month later, most of the "nerf bad" and "nerf good" players are going to adjust to the new norm and go on like nothing ever happened.
Man, I am on a serious ramble.
3. I agree that this wasn't the way to handle the always-on Actives. Limiting CDR on Actives and leaving everything else out of it? That's what I think would be cool. But, I can't say that I'm a powers guru; once again, I'm a layman. I know you know more about powers than I do, but yeah. Not the way I would have gone about it. I don't like waiting for my vehicles longer after I die!
Yes, this nerf did nerf underperformers a lot more, and something that came up tonight also, it probably hit Archetypes a lot worse than it did freeforms (I just heard this stuff marginally, but it's something to consider if it's true). I do trust that our new developers will take new feedback into consideration.
I'm settling on the same thing you are. "We'll see." I do hope the craps get buffed up to the goods. The craps deserve nothing less.
As far as the retcon goes, they did mention during the livestream (so I hear) that they said it would happen. Maybe it just didn't make the cut on this patch for some reason. I don't think they'd say something like that and not deliver, so I wouldn't dismiss it just yet.
Now, I apologize for this short novel I wrote. I call it "Biff Was Always Dumb, But He Had Opinions and That Made Him Okay." Biff is the protagonist.
They're reviewing it on The View tomorrow.
On the other hand, just doubling all non-boss NPC's health would be a good overall start.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
On one hand I can finally superstat something other than Int without feeling like I gimped myself. It was stupid before, when comparing the price of Int (and Con) mods vs other stats.
On the other there's the collateral damage. The only active heal for PFF had its cooldown doubled, which is a big ouch when PFF was kinda weak in the first place.
As a whole this was kind of needed. However, while Cryptic traditionally paints with a big and heavy brush, I'd like to see some attempt at penciling the small details too, going forward.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.