1. Don't put either dex or ego to a triple or quad gear unless it has both, or it will simply be useless. People generally try to get a mix of 3 to 5 stats and anybody who takes ego or dex will want both. SO any quad gear with dex or ego but not both is simply of no use to anybody, either the crit people or the non-crit people.
2. Dual gear has a 40 stat combination while quad has only 42, which is a rather bad compromise.
3. Most people build to max 2 superstats and 1-3 auxiliary stats, and the chance of any quad corresponding is low, ESPECIALLY if it has either dex or ego. However almost everybody will want a bit of endurance or con so those may be effective stats to include often.
Some popular quads as secondary gear may be:
CON/END combined with any of: INT/REC, INT/PRE, INT/STR, STR/REC, STR/PRE, STR/DEX, DEX/EGO
DEX/EGO combined with any of: INT/CON, INT/PRE, INT/STR, STR/CON, STR/PRE, STR/REC, CON/END
4. If the reason so many quads are dex or ego, mutually exclusive, is to follow the standard stats by slot, try switching some of it to triple gear.
5. The prices are fine if you want to buy the single stat secondary gear but the multistat gear may need to be less expensive.
6. As some said it may be very desirable to get dodge or resistance primary defenses. Perhaps they may be more expensive than the stat only versions.
7. The quad primaries are quite bad. Especially the primary offenses which universally include dex AND str making the number of builds to use them rather small. The only people who take a minor amount of STR are melee, because anybody who has enrage will NOT want only a few points of str from a primary. And anybody who is dex is trying to get tons of it. So the primaries with a minor bit of dex and str are again not appropriate to a lot of builds.
DEX/INT is an awesome stat combo, and hence, your first point is a bit off.
Your post is actually a great example of why the devs shouldn't bother trying to figure out quad combos. I can think of exceptions to everything you said about stats. Heck, I have toons that are exceptions to most of them. But I also can't deny that there are prolly quite a few people who do feel like you do. Pretty obvious it would be really hard for anyone to figure out what stat combos should be on gear unless you just give players all possible combos, and that's just not realistic given how many possible combos there are.
DEX/INT is an awesome stat combo, and hence, your first point is a bit off.
Your post is actually a great example of why the devs shouldn't bother trying to figure out quad combos. I can think of exceptions to everything you said about stats. Heck, I have toons that are exceptions to most of them. But I also can't deny that there are prolly quite a few people who do feel like you do. Pretty obvious it would be really hard for anyone to figure out what stat combos should be on gear unless you just give players all possible combos, and that's just not realistic given how many possible combos there are.
The character in my avatar is actually a Fire tank using STR/INT - CON/PRE/REC with just a bit of END (scaled blues FTW) and has tanked just about everything in the game that can be tanked while simultaneously serving as extra DPS. He also ruins the day of anyone I've dueled who's unable to escape or stupid enough to stand in his Conflag so I wouldn't be surprised if a few build changes yielded him a viable PvP build.
With the wide selection of powers and in turn the builds they form some bizarre stat combos can work surprisingly well, so almost no stat spread should really be written off as useless.
DEX/INT is an awesome stat combo, and hence, your first point is a bit off.
Your post is actually a great example of why the devs shouldn't bother trying to figure out quad combos. I can think of exceptions to everything you said about stats. Heck, I have toons that are exceptions to most of them. But I also can't deny that there are prolly quite a few people who do feel like you do. Pretty obvious it would be really hard for anyone to figure out what stat combos should be on gear unless you just give players all possible combos, and that's just not realistic given how many possible combos there are.
Agreed, that's the problem with 4 stat gear pieces: I'd like to use exclusive split stat pieces for the more total points, but I'd advise against the Devs spending time on split stat pieces because the odds of them offering the right combinations is low.
The difference between 5.3 PD/ED and 6.5 PD/ED is so small that it's just a distraction, not a useful thing to pay attention too. Even the invisible decimal point stat values are much more relevant than the PD/ED difference, and we ignore the invisible stat round offs in all these discussions.
Except me, so pretty much you're talking out your sample size of one orifice.
Right, but you're not making PvP builds. Your using powers like Regen and stats like Rec that serious PvPers pretty much ignore. I'm not trying to be offensive, we can put all the fault on the nature of the game and it's imbalances, but with the way the game is now on live today there are not a lot of 4 stat upgrades that can be used by optimized PvP builds: as I said the chance of the Devs offering the right combinations is too low.
The only folks who will earn enough acclaim to buy these purples are "hardcore" PvPers, this is the one set of rewards in the game that is meant to cater to that segment. Please evaluate the utility of the 4 stat upgrades from the perspective of optimized PvP builds.
Agreed, that's the problem with 4 stat gear pieces: I'd like to use exclusive split stat pieces for the more total points, but I'd advise against the Devs spending time on split stat pieces because the odds of them offering the right combinations is low.
I disagree. While there should be a wide offering of general purpose dual stat combos, it would be wise for them to offer some quad spreads of known popular stats. Primarily because these types of things already appear in PvE AP content in some form and if there is no PvP equivalent it's kinda unfair to the PvP crowd because if they happen to find any of that useful they've then gotta grind PvE for it.
At worst no one uses them because they're on the wrong pieces of gear, but I reckon the devs understand the way the system was designed and could probably easily produce stats on the right gear pieces for people to maximize stats on combos we all know are popular.
I disagree. While there should be a wide offering of general purpose dual stat combos, it would be wise for them to offer some quad spreads of known popular stats. Primarily because these types of things already appear in PvE AP content in some form and if there is no PvP equivalent it's kinda unfair to the PvP crowd because if they happen to find any of that useful they've then gotta grind PvE for it.
We're talking about PvP rewards. I kinda think maybe we should sorta possibly cater to the whims of PvP players here.
I am 100% sure that if you give me 1 stat and 2 stat gear, I can use it to make 3,4,5 stat characters. I'm not even 1% sure that you could have me 4 stat gear that I could use on 1/10 of my toons.
At worst no one uses them because they're on the wrong pieces of gear, but I reckon the devs understand the way the system was designed and could probably easily produce stats on the right gear pieces for people to maximize stats on combos we all know are popular.
The devs...*giggle*...understand...*snicker*...the way the system was designed...
*falls down laughing and dies*
Have you been on any of the PvP playtests recently? The devs are corn. They get farmed.
The problem is a 4-way split is too varied. For everyone it would be perfect for, it would stink for hundreds more. Now if the items had a split of just 2 stats, more people could fit them into their desired setup.
For example, you need STR/DEX/EGO/INT for your build, 4 very popular stats. Primary offense, Str/Dex, and primary Util, int/ego. Done. Now lets look at the people who need CON/DEX/EGO/INT, but there is only a str/dex/ego/int, which would be useless, a huge waste of time, and due to the ridiculous amounts of possible stat setups, having all combinations would be unlikely. Yes you can squeeze a few more stats points out of the 4-way splits, but even at best case scenario, assuming you genuinely need all the right stats to make the 4-ways optimal, decking yourself out in 1.2 million worth of acclaim, would only net you 24 more stat points then the scaled elite gear.......
I disagree. While there should be a wide offering of general purpose dual stat combos, it would be wise for them to offer some quad spreads of known popular stats. Primarily because these types of things already appear in PvE AP content in some form and if there is no PvP equivalent it's kinda unfair to the PvP crowd because if they happen to find any of that useful they've then gotta grind PvE for it.
I think the difficulty is in determining what the stat configurations should be. The adventure pack gear has a system of Prefixes + the difficulty slider bonuses that allow it to produce all the variety we care about. I think it would be great if the Devs had time to make purple versions of all those combos for the acclaim gear, but they apparently don't.
At worst no one uses them because they're on the wrong pieces of gear, but I reckon the devs understand the way the system was designed and could probably easily produce stats on the right gear pieces for people to maximize stats on combos we all know are popular.
I don't think it's so much a matter of understanding, but that the only way to accomodate the 4 stat configurations we all care about are to add a large amount of gear to mimic what can be done with the adventure pack stuff, and I don't see that happening.
Like I said, I appreciate the extra stats that come from using 4 stat gear pieces, but for it to work the stat configuration has to be perfect. I would rather see them fix the two stat purples to be as least as good as two stat blues, meaning the 50/50 purples should be as least as good as 55/55 blues.
...this is the one set of rewards in the game that is meant to cater to that segment. Please evaluate the utility of the 4 stat upgrades from the perspective of optimized PvP builds.
Quoted, bolded, italizied, underlined and in red to show the truth of this statement.
We're talking about PvP rewards. I kinda think maybe we should sorta possibly cater to the whims of PvP players here.
I am 100% sure that if you give me 1 stat and 2 stat gear, I can use it to make 3,4,5 stat characters. I'm not even 1% sure that you could have me 4 stat gear that I could use on 1/10 of my toons.
I don't even want to touch this with a ten foot pole because power gamers in every game ever bandwagon so hard it's not even funny, especially the PvP ones. Shoot, even first person shooters, it's been TWO YEARS since they started buffing the Pyro hardcore in TF2 and only now are some people starting to see he has uses outside of last point defense. Most of them revolving around afterburn, which has been in the game since launch, and the Airblast, which has been around since the second class update.
I think towards the end of last year I was STILL running into people in CO who were stacking the hell out of two stats on builds that didn't even benefit from it in the slightest, and that didn't stop until they F2P changes came along. They all used really asinine excuses for it too, one of them actually went as far to prove himself "right" by having a beatdown on one of my less min maxed characters in a duel, despite his power choices were the actual thing that won him the match. That might be an extreme case of stupid, but aside from the people running stuff like certain Fire builds most of them were pretty asinine.
Trust me, you do NOT want me to get started on this, I hate bandwagoners with a seething passion. I also hate the hipster and non conformist types, but that's just because in general people need to think for their bloody selves. Because of this, I'm going to let you just believe whatever you want here for the time being, but I'm sticking to my own stance for the time being due to personal interests.
The devs...*giggle*...understand...*snicker*...the way the system was designed...
*falls down laughing and dies*
Have you been on any of the PvP playtests recently? The devs are corn. They get farmed.
Yes, and the League of Legends devs are all highish ELO and know their game inside and out, yet they're COMPLETELY **** at balancing ANYTHING. You're assuming that because they're bad at PvP they don't know their own stat system. Remember: Most of the crappy gear issues all came when Anti-Proton was handling the gear.
I disagree. While there should be a wide offering of general purpose dual stat combos, it would be wise for them to offer some quad spreads of known popular stats. Primarily because these types of things already appear in PvE AP content in some form and if there is no PvP equivalent it's kinda unfair to the PvP crowd
Its not unfair because most of us dont want them. Quadstat gear sounds like something you would throw on a pve toon. For pvp, to play an optimal build you usually rely on 3 stats all of which can be optimized through duo statted gear.
Instead of them working on Gear that would potentially not get used, It would better if they gave us the gear that a hardcore pvp'er would use, because with the prices they are set at currently, those are the main people who would use them.
At worst no one uses them because they're on the wrong pieces of gear, but I reckon the devs understand the way the system was designed and could probably easily produce stats on the right gear pieces for people to maximize stats on combos we all know are popular.
This is why they should drop the quad stat gear entirely, the time it takes to figure that formula out, they could be working on duo stated gear and make some real progress with getting the patch out on time.
I think the difficulty is in determining what the stat configurations should be. The adventure pack gear has a system of Prefixes + the difficulty slider bonuses that allow it to produce all the variety we care about. I think it would be great if the Devs had time to make purple versions of all those combos for the acclaim gear, but they apparently don't.
It would be wise of them to take the time..
LIke alot of people have been saying. This gear should be optimal for the hardcore crowd.
Like I said, I appreciate the extra stats that come from using 4 stat gear pieces, but for it to work the stat configuration has to be perfect. I would rather see them fix the two stat purples to be as least as good as two stat blues, meaning the 50/50 purples should be as least as good as 55/55 blues.
DEX/INT is an awesome stat combo, and hence, your first point is a bit off.
Your post is actually a great example of why the devs shouldn't bother trying to figure out quad combos. I can think of exceptions to everything you said about stats. Heck, I have toons that are exceptions to most of them. But I also can't deny that there are prolly quite a few people who do feel like you do. Pretty obvious it would be really hard for anyone to figure out what stat combos should be on gear unless you just give players all possible combos, and that's just not realistic given how many possible combos there are.
I know, but had a dex/int in there. And even if you are dex/int, you probably want ego as a tertiary.
They should go with 3 stat gear so I agree with that, but what combinations do you use that I did not include? Note rec is not particularly well represented because anybody who is not maxing str or dex can get plenty.
We're still looking at the prices. We just wanted to make it aware that we thought the price should be dropped a lot, and an 80% price reduction should make that obvious. We haven't settled on the exact pricing yet, and feedback in this area is certainly appreciated.
2) From a saving yourself lots of unnecessary work standpoint, don't bother with 4 stats on any gear. The odds you'll hit 4 stats that a significant number of PvP players want are just too low.
This isn't really the intent of the 4 stat gear, and it exists specifically to reduce the amount of gear needed to provide every option with 3 stat gear. While you might want to get, say, a Secondary Offense item with 20 Int and 20 End on it, that is not the way the gear system is supposed to work - Int and End are not primary stats provided by Offense items. But, say you're Int/End SS, and no piece of amazing Int/End gear exists in the Offense slots. You have several options - you could gear entirely for other stats in the Offense slot, you could go after secondary stat gear (Perception, Dodge, etc.) for your Offense slot, or you could pick up gear which has some of your Super Stats on it, while also providing some amount of another stat. If that isn't what you want, you can just not go after this gear. But, it exists to fill stat gaps for specific Super Stat combos.
3) Also from a saving yourself work standpoint. Stick the elite scaled algo formula into an Excel spreadsheet and have it calculate all the blue gear for you.
Oh, how I was wish things were as easy in our world as they are in the one you think we have. I do have a large spreadsheet created for making this gear, but the actual creation of the gear is not nearly as easy as that, sadly. Suffice to say, if it were that simple, we'd have done this gear review a long time ago.
4) As has been mentioned by a few people, PvP'ers want dodge and perception gear.
I touched on this in the other thread as well, but we won't be providing secondary stats via the new PvP gear at this time. It's something we'd like to do in the future, with our larger gear revision.
I just read the entire purple catalog and did notice a surprising lack of INT/PRE.
Int falls on Utility gear, and Pre falls on Defense gear. While this may not be an ideal situation, it is the current situation that gear throughout the game largely follows. There are some exceptions, and we made some specific gear that allows for some of these non-standard combinations on gear with these items. Int/Pre is provided with the same maximum potential for your Super Sats as the other 27 stat pairings have via this gear - if you were to buy the Champion's Inspiring Cape, Watchful Bracers, and Thoughtful Boots Primaries; and Inspiring Shorts, Vigilant Leggings, and Thoughtful Mask Secondaries, you would end up with a total of +196 Int, and +187 Pre, right on par with all of the stat combo bonuses possible with this gear.
The quad primaries always include both STR and DEX, which again is not useful to a supporter or non-melee. Considering how strong melee is considered now, why not include primary offenses that are suitable for other builds?
I'm not sure what you mean here, as the only Quad Primaries made with this pass are Primary Defenses. 1 has Str and Dex, 2 have Str OR Dex, and the other 3 don't have either stat.
This isn't really the intent of the 4 stat gear, and it exists specifically to reduce the amount of gear needed to provide every option with 3 stat gear. While you might want to get, say, a Secondary Offense item with 20 Int and 20 End on it, that is not the way the gear system is supposed to work - Int and End are not primary stats provided by Offense items. But, say you're Int/End SS, and no piece of amazing Int/End gear exists in the Offense slots. You have several options - you could gear entirely for other stats in the Offense slot, you could go after secondary stat gear (Perception, Dodge, etc.) for your Offense slot, or you could pick up gear which has some of your Super Stats on it, while also providing some amount of another stat. If that isn't what you want, you can just not go after this gear. But, it exists to fill stat gaps for specific Super Stat combos.
What to the devs is an Optimal level of superstats?
While anything below 250 to me isnt that optimal, that may not be what you guys see it as.
So that may be a conflict as to why Quad stat gear even made it on the list for pvp gear.
Reason Im asking is this--
Lets take Dex/int
With a toon with the majority purple quad stat gear I got
168dex
110 int
73rec
47con
40ego
47pre
70end
Pieces were in no special order
champions nimble mind
champions dependable boots
Champions Bold Cape
Champions reliable shorts
champions watchful leggings
( all secondary pieces x2 like below)
While I have less stats that have points in them
My main stats Dex/Int will be optimized ( my definition).
This is, I think, where our difference in definition for optimal comes in.
What we can do with SL gear alone is better than what we could do with Quad stat pvp gear, and if thats the case. why use the pvp gear with quad stats at all?
Why do we not have some of the gear we can get in SL that would be way better instead of the quad gear we have currently on our list of pvp gear?
Oh, how I was wish things were as easy in our world as they are in the one you think we have.
How is it not that easy? Other than not knowing the exact values of some hidden fractional values, and uncertainty whether certain two-stat scaled bonuses actually exist, I could do it without even having access to the code, there's really only six values to plug in:
Major can be +59 or +34/+34; all valid combinations exist, though not on all crafting types.
Minor can be +20 or +11/+11; some combinations don't exist.
Scaled can be +15 or +8/+8; I don't know whether all combinations exist.
Fractional values appear to be roughly:
8.9
11.8
15.45
20.6
34.45
59.9
I cannot confirm a +96 item; it looks to be a tiny amount under +96 (a +15, +20, and +59 item gave me +1439 hp, or +95.93 con).
How is it not that easy? Other than not knowing the exact values of some hidden fractional values, and uncertainty whether certain two-stat scaled bonuses actually exist, I could do it without even having access to the code, there's really only six values to plug in:
Major can be +59 or +34/+34; all valid combinations exist, though not on all crafting types.
Minor can be +20 or +11/+11; some combinations don't exist.
Scaled can be +15 or +8/+8; I don't know whether all combinations exist.
All fractional values appear to be at least 0.5.
Looking at the UNITY and Nemesis gear that reflects only a fraction of the potentially permissable combinations. There is pretty clearly a "true value" underlaying each item which scales with level and color grade, and true value is then divided into piles of stat A, B, C, etc, and then that true value goes through a diminshing returns costing before it spits out the functional value we see from our side. That dimishing returns curve is not too dificult to plot from a good sized sampling of same level/same color grade gear (and therefore same true value total). The more an item is broken out into smaller value chuncks, the higher it's total points offered is compared to others with the same true value because of the less effort being expended overcomming diminishing returns.
What surprises me is that given how blatantly formulaic the process is, the idea they don't have it all plugged into a spread sheet is a bit baffling. One of my suggestions for crafting long ago was to be able to craft widgets that would take any existing gear item and either bump up it's level or bump up it's color grade and then recompute visible stats from the adjusted true value being applied in the same proportions as the base item. Instead the gear system seems to be cranked largely by hand and such automated processes are beyond them. They actually did that with the Vibora bay drops you can bump up to level 41 - again, seemingly by hand and with basically no regard for how much effort had to be invested vs. the gain it produced *sigh*. Another failed stub of a the gear system because the grind vastly oughtweighed the reward.
We're still looking at the prices. We just wanted to make it aware that we thought the price should be dropped a lot, and an 80% price reduction should make that obvious. We haven't settled on the exact pricing yet, and feedback in this area is certainly appreciated.
Good deal.
A question on this...is it your intention to get acclaim gear to the price point where a player can level up AND gear up entirely in PvP? If so, I'll be happy to go through all my toons and give ya estimates on what kind of acclaim I've gotten at various levels. If not, why not?
This isn't really the intent of the 4 stat gear, and it exists specifically to reduce the amount of gear needed to provide every option with 3 stat gear. While you might want to get, say, a Secondary Offense item with 20 Int and 20 End on it, that is not the way the gear system is supposed to work - Int and End are not primary stats provided by Offense items. But, say you're Int/End SS, and no piece of amazing Int/End gear exists in the Offense slots. You have several options - you could gear entirely for other stats in the Offense slot, you could go after secondary stat gear (Perception, Dodge, etc.) for your Offense slot, or you could pick up gear which has some of your Super Stats on it, while also providing some amount of another stat. If that isn't what you want, you can just not go after this gear. But, it exists to fill stat gaps for specific Super Stat combos.
Here's where y'all's intentions and PvP players are diverging. I can't speak for every single PvP player, but I can speak for a lot of them. We're not interested in diversifying our stats (I actually quit City of Heroes when that change went in and didn't come back until City of Villains). We're interested in maximizing our effectiveness in PvP, and that is accomplished in most cases by maxxing out just a couple stats after meeting the minimum necessary in the others for what we need. For example, Lady E is SS CON/END w/ INT and REC. I spent a ton of time figuring out what the minimum amount of INT for cost reduction and REC for equilibrium I'd need so that she could fire off her lolsigil combo from rest (during that combo she actually uses 11 of her 13 powers so it did take a bit of work to figure out). After she had that, I loaded her up with as much CON/END as I could because even with diminishing returns, there is no reason not to squeeze that last little bit of damage out. After all, she doesn't heal, so doesn't need PRE. She's definitely not going to use STR or EGO for anything. DEX would be somewhat useful for crits, but she has Imbue because I need her crits to be reliable.
Oh, how I was wish things were as easy in our world as they are in the one you think we have. I do have a large spreadsheet created for making this gear, but the actual creation of the gear is not nearly as easy as that, sadly. Suffice to say, if it were that simple, we'd have done this gear review a long time ago.
If it's not that easy, whoever designed loot originally needs to be slapped with a trout. You should have a table for loot named Loot that is just an unique LootID#, LootName, GearSlot, Description, and Level. Then a table named Effects with effects and stats (ie, STR, CON, Perception, Resistsance, etc) whose fields are unique EffectID#, EffectName. A table named GearSlots whose fields are unique GearID#, and SlotName. Then you have a linked table named LootEffects that is LootID#, EffectID#, EffectAmount (although possibly EffectAmount could always be a calculated value based on the effect...for example Monstrous could always provide level * 6 STR or something like that).
So what your data should look like is an entry in Loot that reads:
152, Monstrous Fulminating Gizmo of Awesomesauce, 1, This amazing invention of Ame's gives its user incredible strength and enough dexterity not to punch yourself in the face with your new supermuscles., 40.
Then there should be a series of entries in LootEffects:
152, 5, 80 (152 is the link between the two tables, 5 is linked back to Effects monstrous, and 80 is the amount)
152, 7, 16 (152 link, 7 fulmination, 16 which the game will be smart enough to add to both str and dex)
152, 19, 26 (phys deft)
152, 20, 26 (energy def)
And what the player sees when they look at it
Monstrous Fulmination Gizmo of Awesomesauce - Level 40 - This amazing invention of Ame's gives its user incredible strength and enough dexterity not to punch yourself in the face with your new supermuscles - Primary Offense - +96 STR - +16 DEX +26 Physical Defense - +26 Energy Defense.
Now, I'm missing stuff in my tables (like costs, bind status, etc), but that would be the basic gist (normally, I'd draw a picture and go from there, but if you want that much work out of me, you have to hire me first *smirk*). And you could create an Excel spreadsheet that would in fact be able to populate the database.
I touched on this in the other thread as well, but we won't be providing secondary stats via the new PvP gear at this time. It's something we'd like to do in the future, with our larger gear revision.
You could just add a level 40 secondary utility that was Perception +16 INT, +7.5 offense, and most of us would be okay with that
Int falls on Utility gear, and Pre falls on Defense gear. While this may not be an ideal situation, it is the current situation that gear throughout the game largely follows. There are some exceptions, and we made some specific gear that allows for some of these non-standard combinations on gear with these items. Int/Pre is provided with the same maximum potential for your Super Sats as the other 27 stat pairings have via this gear - if you were to buy the Champion's Inspiring Cape, Watchful Bracers, and Thoughtful Boots Primaries; and Inspiring Shorts, Vigilant Leggings, and Thoughtful Mask Secondaries, you would end up with a total of +196 Int, and +187 Pre, right on par with all of the stat combo bonuses possible with this gear.
Does this mean y'all are going to change the current slotting on gear? I'm pretty okay with that
Minor can be +20 or +11/+11; some combinations don't exist.
It can also be +8/+8/+8, but only a limited number of stat combinations are possible. I have yet to see a scaled blue secondary upgrade that featured three base stats in addition to the bonus stats. I want to believe that a +8/+8/+8/+8/+8 secondary upgrade could exist.
It can also be +8/+8/+8, but only a limited number of stat combinations are possible. I have yet to see a scaled blue secondary upgrade that featured three base stats in addition to the bonus stats. I want to believe that a +8/+8/+8/+8/+8 secondary upgrade could exist.
Unfortunately it seems that the adventure pack bosses do not have a full level 40 loot table, which means that the triple-stat prefixes which can only drop at higher levels never drop from the adventure pack bosses, so we never get scaled versions.
This also means that we never see secondary offense hold/root resist prefixes (adept's / genius's / overlord's) on scaled adventure pack gear either.
I'm not an avid PVP'er, but I do like the idea of more scaled gear that features 3 or more stat bonuses. And it seems the general consensus among the PVP crowd is that they don't want too many stats on any piece of gear. Hmmm...
I suppose having PVE-ish gear as PVP rewards might get more PVE'ers to PVP.
I'm not an avid PVP'er, but I do like the idea of more scaled gear that features 3 or more stat bonuses. And it seems the general consensus among the PVP crowd is that they don't want too many stats on any piece of gear. Hmmm...
I suppose having PVE-ish gear as PVP rewards might get more PVE'ers to PVP.
Perhaps for a bit. Then I suspect two things will happen:
1) The PvE'ers will get tired of getting stomped because they haven't figured out how to optimize gear for PvP builds.
2) Nemesis and Unity gear will get updated and the PvE'ers can go back to doing what provides them the most fun.
So...ya...not going to go with you on the idea of using PvP rewards to attract PvE players. PvE players generally don't like PvP, or they'd already be doing it. And if the best rewards are PvP, you're going to see a whole lot of posts complaining about how they are being "forced" to PvP.
Ya know, kinda like how most PvP'ers right now hate being forced to PvE to get our gear
I'm not an avid PVP'er, but I do like the idea of more scaled gear that features 3 or more stat bonuses..
Scaled gear that provides 3 stat bonuses that I want is perfectly fine. The problem is that, well, there are 56 possible 3-stat combos, and maybe two I want.
Ignoring issues of what stat is legal where:
There are 8 possible 1-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 1, 2-stat focus characters can use 2, 3-stat focus characters can use 3, 4-stat focus characters can use 4.
There are 28 possible 2-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 0, 2-stat focus characters can use 1, 3-stat focus characters can use 3, 4-stat focus characters can use 6.
There are 56 possible 3-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 0, 2-stat focus characters can use 0, 3-stat focus characters can use 1, 4-stat focus characters can use 4.
There are 70 possible 3-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 0, 2-stat focus characters can use 0, 3-stat focus characters can use 0, 4-stat focus characters can use 1.
Perhaps for a bit. Then I suspect two things will happen:
1) The PvE'ers will get tired of getting stomped because they haven't figured out how to optimize gear for PvP builds.
2) Nemesis and Unity gear will get updated and the PvE'ers can go back to doing what provides them the most fun.
So...ya...not going to go with you on the idea of using PvP rewards to attract PvE players. PvE players generally don't like PvP, or they'd already be doing it. And if the best rewards are PvP, you're going to see a whole lot of posts complaining about how they are being "forced" to PvP.
Ya know, kinda like how most PvP'ers right now hate being forced to PvE to get our gear
There is also the possibility that PvErs will enjoy PvP like Stronghold and ZA, given that there may be more PvEers in there and there are some actual rewards. I bet a lot of PvE players would enjoy Stronghold and ZA, once they got over the initial shock of being defeated.
There is also the possibility that PvErs will enjoy PvP like Stronghold and ZA, given that there may be more PvEers in there and there are some actual rewards. I bet a lot of PvE players would enjoy Stronghold and ZA, once they got over the initial shock of being defeated.
Thats a problem though..what if they never get over the shock of being defeated?
Also if they enjoy pvp'ing, why give them gear that wouldnt optimize them for pvp?
Perhaps for a bit. Then I suspect two things will happen:
1) The PvE'ers will get tired of getting stomped because they haven't figured out how to optimize gear for PvP builds.
2) Nemesis and Unity gear will get updated and the PvE'ers can go back to doing what provides them the most fun.
So...ya...not going to go with you on the idea of using PvP rewards to attract PvE players. PvE players generally don't like PvP, or they'd already be doing it. And if the best rewards are PvP, you're going to see a whole lot of posts complaining about how they are being "forced" to PvP.
Ya know, kinda like how most PvP'ers right now hate being forced to PvE to get our gear
This is pretty much inevitable. My hopes for the gear hierarchy, broken down into VERY general categores, are:
Top (15-30% better stats than SL blues):
* Best PvP gear
* Best Nemesis/IUNITY
It still takes a lot of work (or luck, in the case of PvE drops), and supports all play styles, ensuring that everyone can get a well-equipped characrer if they work for it.
Good:
* Lower difficulty level instanced PvE gear.
* Open Mission top rewards
A question on this...is it your intention to get acclaim gear to the price point where a player can level up AND gear up entirely in PvP? If so, I'll be happy to go through all my toons and give ya estimates on what kind of acclaim I've gotten at various levels. If not, why not?
This is a thing we want to do, along with providing more leveling gear options (similar to the new 40 gear) via Acclaim. However, it won't happen with this initial push, which is just addressing the level 40 gear.
Here's where y'all's intentions and PvP players are diverging. I can't speak for every single PvP player, but I can speak for a lot of them. We're not interested in diversifying our stats (I actually quit City of Heroes when that change went in and didn't come back until City of Villains). We're interested in maximizing our effectiveness in PvP, and that is accomplished in most cases by maxxing out just a couple stats after meeting the minimum necessary in the others for what we need.
We don't want to force people to make suboptimal choices, we want only focusing on your two Super Stats to be suboptimal. As I hinted at earlier, this isn't true right now, for a number of reasons, so I'm stating where we want the game to go, not what we think the game is now. These 4 stat gear options don't exist to force people to diversify, they exist to provide certain stat combos with options that are harder to come by. For example, the Brawler Defense pieces have more Str and Dex on them then either Con or Pres - and Str and Dex are not stats one finds in large amounts on Defense pieces, normally. This allows someone that is Str/Dex SS to pickup a piece of gear that provides them with stats, while also not "breaking" the current methodology of gear. If the 4 stat pieces of gear don't make sense for you SS choice, they probably aren't built for you.
I realize that some people think we shouldn't focus on making gear that doesn't make sense for the PvP game, but that's pretty subjective, and the PvP metagame has shifts, especially as we make changes to stats. It's a better decision for us to provide equal possibilities for all Super Stat choices now, then to have something missing when we make a change later.
If it's not that easy, whoever designed loot originally needs to be slapped with a trout.
I don't have a trout, or the people originally involved, so that would be difficult to do. Put simply, while I use spreadsheets to make the task of making items easier (largely for planning), our actual item system uses something akin to (proprietary) 3D spreadsheets, and does not have an import feature, and does not have inheritance. Each item is handmade.
What to the devs is an Optimal level of superstats?
While anything below 250 to me isnt that optimal, that may not be what you guys see it as.
Somewhere in the 225-250 range. The problem is that the falloff above that point isn't quite as large as it probably should be, in comparison to the relative value of other stats. Some builds need X amount of End, or Int, to be able to function properly even if those aren't there SS. Melee builds want 80 Str, even if they aren't SS Str. This means picking investing some amount into third/fourth stats is pretty common, but after a certain point that value diminishes greatly, and spending the points on your SS is naturally what you want to do. As stated earlier, we don't want to force suboptimal choices, we want to change what is optimal, and that is a long term goal.
So that may be a conflict as to why Quad stat gear even made it on the list for pvp gear.
Reason Im asking is this--
Lets take Dex/int
With a toon with the majority purple quad stat gear I got
It is certainly not intended that someone try to build a set of gear entirely out of the 4-stat gear. It is meant to fill gaps in specific SS combos builds. In your specific example of Dex/Int, I would expect someone to get something like:
Tenacious Cape - Nimble Bracers - Thoughtful Boots
Tenacious Shorts x2 - Nimble Leggins x2 - Thoughtful Mask x2
Which would provide:
49 Con
170 Dex
220 Int
50 Ego
49 Pre
This would allow you to break 250 Dex and 300 Int, meaning you could swap out some of your pieces for less Int and pick up other stats you might want, or just pump your Int like crazy.
Why do we not have some of the gear we can get in SL that would be way better instead of the quad gear we have currently on our list of pvp gear?
Because the SL gear allows for virtually any possible piece of gear to be made, due to the algorithmic nature of it. This gear is not algorithmic, and is designed to provide a solid base for anyone, not be the perfect min/max build for everyone. We'd need to provide hundreds of items to allow for that, which maybe someday we'll be able to do via something that isn't directly buying specific pieces of gear. For now, we feel this is a pretty massive improvement over the gear that is currently available via PvP.
We don't want to force people to make suboptimal choices, we want only focusing on your two Super Stats to be suboptimal. As I hinted at earlier, this isn't true right now, for a number of reasons, so I'm stating where we want the game to go, not what we think the game is now.
...
(Our expectation of optimal is) Somewhere in the 225-250 range. The problem is that the falloff above that point isn't quite as large as it probably should be, in comparison to the relative value of other stats.
VINDICATION!!!
I generally shoot for 210-240, in each super-stat and then scatter points almost at random to other stats. I'm ready for the new paradigm today . I always suspected the dimishing returns weren't hitting hard enough to do what you thought they'd do.
Somewhere in the 225-250 range. The problem is that the falloff above that point isn't quite as large as it probably should be, in comparison to the relative value of other stats.
Possibly because in many case there isn't any falloff? Superstat damage bonuses have diminishing returns, but a number of other aspects of stats do not. Also, in many cases low stat values simply aren't all that useful, so even if there is diminishing returns, there's really no point to having, say, 50 Dex.
Possibly because in many case there isn't any falloff? Superstat damage bonuses have diminishing returns, but a number of other aspects of stats do not. Also, in many cases low stat values simply aren't all that useful, so even if there is diminishing returns, there's really no point to having, say, 50 Dex.
Correct. The falloff for Super Stat damage exists, but it still provides enough of a benefit to be better than spending those points in other places in many cases.The lack of falloff for other parts of a stat can cause weird issues with a Stat becoming less valuable for some parts of your build at specific points, and at other points for different parts of that stat, making stat progression very complicated and pretty unapproachable for a lot of players. Improving that is part of the long term gearing fix we plan on doing, but doing so immediately wouldn't work out terribly well, for numerous reasons.
Correct. The falloff for Super Stat damage exists, but it still provides enough of a benefit to be better than spending those points in other places in many cases.The lack of falloff for other parts of a stat can cause weird issues with a Stat becoming less valuable for some parts of your build at specific points, and at other points for different parts of that stat, making stat progression very complicated and pretty unapproachable for a lot of players. Improving that is part of the long term gearing fix we plan on doing, but doing so immediately wouldn't work out terribly well, for numerous reasons.
SO.
The plan is to give us the gear now, so when you all change the stat values to be optimal at around 225-250 you wont have to make new gear to compensate..cause the formuals and stuff will already be their...
Or am i reading into it a little to much?
The plan is to give us the gear now, so when you all change the stat values to be optimal at around 225-250 you wont have to make new gear to compensate..cause the formuals and stuff will already be their...
Or am i reading into it a little to much?
I guess you could say you are reading too much into it, as the changes I'm referring to are still quite a ways out, and are more "how gear is made" changes then changes to stats.
The new gear makes it pretty easy to achieve near 300 or so in each of your Super Stats, if you choose. This is because, which the above stated goal is/was just that, a goal, it is not what happened. The reality is, getting up to 300 in your Super Stat is something that is generally a good thing, and so we have gear that allows for that. In some distant future, when this problem has been fixed, maybe the new norm for your Super Stats will be in the 350-400 range, but you'll also want to have some other stats up to the 150 range, instead of wanting 2 Super Stats at 500 and all other stats at 10. (These numbers have no bearing on our actual future, just an example)
As stated, the quad stat gear is not for people to spread out lots and lots of stats, currently. It is there too allow people to pick up "off stat" gear in a slot that does not normally provide it, like decent amounts of Strength on a Defensive slot item.
Correct. The falloff for Super Stat damage exists, but it still provides enough of a benefit to be better than spending those points in other places in many cases.The lack of falloff for other parts of a stat can cause weird issues with a Stat becoming less valuable for some parts of your build at specific points, and at other points for different parts of that stat, making stat progression very complicated and pretty unapproachable for a lot of players. Improving that is part of the long term gearing fix we plan on doing, but doing so immediately wouldn't work out terribly well, for numerous reasons.
I really hope your gear review will work out well when we get to it; because let me just say this up front:
CO's gear system really really confuses me. I've been playing since OB and I still usually fall back on my old "It makes the yellow numbers go up, so it's good" strategy.
Before I start rambling let me note that this is all strictly me-speeaking-for-me; that I'm terrible with numbers, and even in other MMOs I'm usually just muddling through up to a point. That said, CO's gear system is particularly... hard. Not hard as in "difficult to master" but hard as in "confusing enough I just stop caring when I try to figure it out."
The problem (for me, personally) is threefold:
1) Our gear naming conventions are... bad.
I'm sorry but they just are >< Cyber Hurricane is just a bizarre item name and not particularly useful. Yes, Cyber means Intelligence - that's easy enough to grasp, but unlike a more traditional MMO we get all kinds of whacked out stuff, hurricanes, spines (as in spikes) and spines (as in spinal columns), and... to me after awhile I just can't keep it straight because I can't make myself care about Colossal Mutated Phlegm.
I don't really know what to suggest but this aspect alone makes sorting gear a pain for me. This also goes to the very nonstandard gear tray we have - it's like taking a standard MMO paper doll, and then divesting it of all useful cues.
Instead of a helmet, chest piece, and leggings, I have a Primary defense slot, and two secondary defense slots. While this is not in-practice all that different, on a psychological level it just... muddles everything together and makes it all just kind of blur together.
2) Stats themselves are fairly easy to understand in terms of what they do, but not necessarily in understanding how much that actually helps you. And there are cases that are just... weird. (Numbers below are pulled out of thin air just to serve as rough examples)
Some things are obvious: X% bonus healing - that's easy to get. X% Bonus damage, easy. Constition = HP, gotcha.
But 300% knockback resistance means... what? I mean what's base-level knockback resistance? Is it a 300% increased chance of resisting a knockback attempt or a 300% decrease in how far you can be knocked, or a 300% increase in the magnitude of a knock required to send you flying?
or +35% Energy Strength. ... What does that even mean? I mean I know, since I've played the game so long, that it translated to an increase in how fast you generate energy, but even that still leaves me with little to go on since the way some stats work seems to be on some kind of curve, while others are direct translations. I mean does +35% in that context mean +35% faster recovery per energy builder attack? Or is there more to it?
+77% "Aggression Stealth" ... what? I mean I know what stealth means, and I know what aggro is, so I can kinda infer that it means some type of aggro reduction... but then I look at presence and see -21% threat reduction, so the initial assumption is out the window. Again, I know from playing a long time that that has to do with using stealth based powers... but "Aggression Stealth" tells me exactly zero.
3) Because of that relative level of confusion, I'm incredibly hesitant to use non-stat boosting items. Things like +Heal-on-Kill or +End-on-Kill, or +Offense... It usually leaves me not quite able to grasp what exactly I'm giving up for this gain. The gain is easy to understand, just not the tradeoff in stats.
The short version I guess is:
In most games, I'm able to figure gear out well enough to muddle along. In CO the only reason I get by is because I can follow the "Yellow numbers get bigger" model and do fine since the game is relatively easy. If this were a more difficult game though I think I'd be in hot water.
Now I realize I'm a little dense in this area anyway - as I said, I'm bad at math, and as I perhaps didn't mention, I'm not really a power gamer either, so my level of care for small percentage boosts in my abilities is fairly minimal... but still, it's kind of problematic if after two years of playing (X-Fire has me at well over a thousand hours of playtime... eesh) I'm still easily confused/easily annoyed when it comes to gear.
< . .> The point being: I'm really looking forward to a gear review... and honestly really hoping it will be very, very comprehensive so people like me who are very math-dumb can still grasp it beyond 'yellow number goes up'.
I also want to note that I don't mean that as an insult, it's just a longstanding irritation that for a lot of reasons I've never felt would be listened to if I brought it up. Now I'm feeling differently and well... there ya go >.< hope that's helpful/doesn't feel too harsh.
I really hope your gear review will work out well when we get to it; because let me just say this up front:
CO's gear system really really confuses me. I've been playing since OB and I still usually fall back on my old "It makes the yellow numbers go up, so it's good" strategy.
The problem (for me, personally) is threefold:
1) Our gear naming conventions are... bad.
2) Stats themselves are fairly easy to understand in terms of what they do, but not necessarily in understanding how much that actually helps you. And there are cases that are just... weird. (Numbers below are pulled out of thin air just to serve as rough examples)
3) Because of that relative level of confusion, I'm incredibly hesitant to use non-stat boosting items. Things like +Heal-on-Kill or +End-on-Kill, or +Offense... It usually leaves me not quite able to grasp what exactly I'm giving up for this gain. The gain is easy to understand, just not the tradeoff in stats.
As a fairly new player to CO, but NOT a new player to gaming. these points are right on the mark for me, I have no CLUE in some cases what they do, and have fallen back on the yellow went up, this is a good thing! style of play myself.
One thing I would suggest, possibly, is someone on the wiki side making a list of what = what as far as names go, I have no earthly idea most of the time and just read the tool tip.
Would it be possible to just click on the Crime Computer in an Instanced mission and have it bring up an exit button instead of (or in addition to I suppose)the standard stuff it shows now?
I don't have a trout, or the people originally involved, so that would be difficult to do. Put simply, while I use spreadsheets to make the task of making items easier (largely for planning), our actual item system uses something akin to (proprietary) 3D spreadsheets, and does not have an import feature, and does not have inheritance. Each item is handmade.
Ok, this is entirely unrelated to the current discussion...
But due to some new tasks I've had to take on at my job, I'm having to become a massive spreadsheet/data presentation geek. And continually trying to find new ways to present data to people who have an interest in knowing how it affects them, but no interest in understanding the principles behind it.
I know you said it's proprietary, but do you have like a screenshot or something of what a blank entry screen on that interface would look like? It sounds awesome.
Or barring that (since I'm pretty sure you can't actually give me a screenshot even if one exists), do you know of any non-proprietary things that are roughly equivalent? What I've learned and cobbled together so far is with the equivalent of duct tape and chicken wire, and I have no idea what this stuff is supposed to look like when given actual working tools to do the job.
Before I start rambling let me note that this is all strictly me-speeaking-for-me; that I'm terrible with numbers, and even in other MMOs I'm usually just muddling through up to a point. That said, CO's gear system is particularly... hard. Not hard as in "difficult to master" but hard as in "confusing enough I just stop caring when I try to figure it out."
This here pretty much sums up what gear in CO is like for me. I still have trouble remembering which stats are boosted where (defensive slot, offensive, or whatever). Its like they tried to go so conceptual, abstract and non-specific with the gear system I don't even know what any of it is even supposed to mean. Someone tried to explained it to me once (maybe more once, actually) but I just forgot. I usually just pick whatever boosts my super stats and go, without ever really thinking hard how to select my gear optimally for my stat combination, or anything like that.
1) Naming conventions are awful in this game. Who carries around "Reinforced Bile", or whatever, and how much are they getting paid for doing something as disgusting as that?
2) I have given up on attempting to understand what the numbers mean. Back in my PnP days I could understand game mechanics well enough to make my own house rules and homegrown systems--it was the central feature of my campaigns. But my PnP RPG system knowledge/understanding has never translated well into MMO's, and with CO in particular I just have no clue how anything applies. I just go with what the stats tell me they do, then try to get them as high as I can, and attribute any success to magic or some mystical forces beyond my comprehension, because I honestly don't know how I manage to make my characters effective sometimes. They just sort of come out like that. I just follow the...
3) I almost never take any items that don't give a signficant bonus to stats. I simply don't understand enough about how the numbers work to know what I might be missing if I drop any items that give me large stat modifiers, so I try to get them as high as I can so I don't miss anything. The only strategy I use when selecting gear is that I focus on whatever stats I need most for whatever I'm building--usually my superstats, plus maybe one or two other stats I may need to scale certain powers. If I'm running low on starting energy I may take some Rec; if I need more energy to charge a power I may take End, etc.
Regarding the reinforced bile, I suspect a dev miscommunication. 'Alien biology' is arms because it corresponds to the natural origin to use categories of power origins from COH. Somebody was told to make 'alien biology' gear and thus we got the most disgusting gear system in the history of MMOs.
I just had a thought - a purely hypothetical scenario that I think might make gear a bit less.. impenetrable. It also requires some modification to Crafting just to handle naming conventions, but I don't feel this is strictly a bad thing.
1) Combine the specialties in each crafting discipline. There are two reasons for this:
First - it paves the way for step 2 below.
Second - The subdisciplines are not particluarly distinct, and what distinctions they do have I do not feel would be imbalanced if a singular crafter within that overall discipline could simply handle all of it.
That is - Arms is Arms. Not Arms: Fighting/Alien Biology/Ordnance.
2) Collapse the naming conventions a bit. Keep the prefix system in place - that works well enough (though in a few cases you might try to be a little more obvious with what it does) - still, it's a reasonable enough system.
What isn't so reasonable is that everything from magic swords to goggles to razorblade toenails all wind up going into the exact same item slot.
My suggested revision would be this:
Primary Offense - All items are named after a primary weapon of some variety. Swords, axes, bows, guns, wands - anything that specifically sounds like "This would be someone's main weapon". For all intents and purposes consider it a non-representative version of the normal MMO "weapon slot".
Secondary Offense - Secondary weapons - knives, grenades, ammunition types, quivers - the kind of equipment that supports one's primary weapon.
Primary Defense - Body Armors of all types. Chest guards, fireproof suits, breastplates - you name it, if its a defensive item and you wear it on your torso, it's a Primary Defense.
Secondary Defense - Shields (both of the physical "shield bash you in the face" type, and the non-physical "deflector shield" variety), belts, pants, cloaks, gloves, helmets and wards (while it's reasonable that Mysticism may have some shields, the ward type names have to go somewhere.)
Primary Utility - goggles, communicators, blessings, boons, GPS systems etc - anything that could be considered a major asset that isn't strictly a piece of armor or weapon.
Secondary Utility - Batteries, cantrips, flashlights, medicine pouches - minor non-weapon non-armor assets basically.
This still gives you a fairly broad range of items to fit into each category, but when one sees say... a Shuriken, it becomes obvious it's a secondary Offense, without even needing to look at the item in question.
Likewise yes, I'm completely cutting out the Alien Biology type items. They're both disgusting AND confusing - not something I think is helpful in the least. (For the record I'm also suggesting the dropping of the Fighting category names, and the Exposure type names, as they're also confusing/difficult to make work in the new model.)
You might think "but then I have to equip stuff that's way out of theme..." - to which I'd response "... and you probably do that anyway; unless you're telling me you routinely swap out your entire spine for a divine boon from an ancient Egyptian god of learning."
Additionally, while not strictly a gear thing, it's related because it's related to stats - better and more in-depth tooltips for what given stats actually DO.
If I hover over Strength, I want to know *why* I care about that absurdly high knockback resist number* - if nothing else add a ? clicky next to each stat with a long-winded full explanation. Yes this means you have to get someone to spend hours writing tooltips. It's a crappy job but someone's gotta do it. The reliance on automatically generated tooltips that just pull numbers straight out of the engine without context is... unhelpful. (This goes to STO as well - and I'd beg you to make sure that's not the case in Neverwinter. >.<)
Finally, find a way to put in-game, an explanation of what stats can appear on what types of gear. Just flat out spell it out somewhere, because I've played for two years and I *still* don't know. Either that or, better yet, drop that system, allow stats to appear wherever, and instead use a heavier drop off at the upper level. Less confusing and it means there's no such thing as a weak superstat combination due to gear concerns.
*whew*
Just an idea. >.>
*This is especially important because it seems to me that even on my characters with Super Strength, I *still* get tossed like a ragdoll at times.
I guess you could say you are reading too much into it, as the changes I'm referring to are still quite a ways out, and are more "how gear is made" changes then changes to stats.
The new gear makes it pretty easy to achieve near 300 or so in each of your Super Stats, if you choose. This is because, which the above stated goal is/was just that, a goal, it is not what happened. The reality is, getting up to 300 in your Super Stat is something that is generally a good thing, and so we have gear that allows for that. In some distant future, when this problem has been fixed, maybe the new norm for your Super Stats will be in the 350-400 range, but you'll also want to have some other stats up to the 150 range, instead of wanting 2 Super Stats at 500 and all other stats at 10. (These numbers have no bearing on our actual future, just an example)
As stated, the quad stat gear is not for people to spread out lots and lots of stats, currently. It is there too allow people to pick up "off stat" gear in a slot that does not normally provide it, like decent amounts of Strength on a Defensive slot item.
These words fill me with fear. I have some good gear on some of my characters pushing their super stats up to around 250 each... Now this new gear makes it easy to achieve 300? Then you start tossing out numbers like 350, 400, and 500? Yes, I saw the disclaimer at the end of the paragraph, but this is the exact type of escalation of gear that I DON'T want to see in an MMO. Where does it end? And why does it have to end there when all the power gamers get their new high end gear and get bored with it and start pushing for bigger and better? I beg you to stop right now. Knock these numbers down into a more reasonable range and let it end. Yes, I understand that you are reworking how gear works and I hope you get it right this time, because it hasn't been right in this game from the beginning, but enough is enough. The numbers don't have to get bigger in order for the gear to be better. Just having the gear to where you can get any two stats to work together without hogging all the same gear slots would be enough. I'm gonna watch and see what happens but I really don't want to see this turn into just another carbon copy gear progression game.
#1 in particular is something I have seen suggested and have supported before. I really don't see a need for having specialties in this game's crafting trees. Some people have defended this (in a thread I saw on this issue a long time ago) on the basis that they think its thematically cool to have distinct specialties in our crafting trees, but that's the problem, we don't have distinct specialties in this game. We have three specialties per crafting three that are there for pure fluff reasons and all they're currently doing is bloating the crafting system with fluff items* that exist only for flavor--and often digusting and/or incredibly confusing flavor at that (at least in regards to the names of these items).
I agree that having distinct specialties could theoretically be a cool and good idea--in a game where crafting is relevant, important area of the game, and ALL specialties represented are significantly distinct from eachother. Neither of which is the case in this game, because 1) crafting in CO is only a tack on feature and very minor, secondary aspect of this game (CO is about characters with super powers, not about crafting), and 2) crafting specialties in CO are certainly NOT distinct.
One more thing that the crafting specialties currently do is indirectly penalize characters for thematic reasons, because two out of the three specialty trainers of each of the crafting trees is located in distinct locations around MC you have to waste time traveling to in order to learn blueprints from them. If I want my "Arms" character to specialize in "Fighting Styles" for example, I have to run almost to the farest point in MC West Side just to see my trainer. So most people that have been around in this game for a while simply take the one specialty that has a trainer in MC Ren Center just so they don't have to run around just to learn specialty blueprints.
* And by "fluff items" I refer to the name/description, not that they dont have mechanical values. But these items are mechanically identical to eachother, or at least very similar mechanically, and the only major difference is the fluff name/description.
These words fill me with fear. I have some good gear on some of my characters pushing their super stats up to around 250 each... Now this new gear makes it easy to achieve 300? Then you start tossing out numbers like 350, 400, and 500? Yes, I saw the disclaimer at the end of the paragraph, but this is the exact type of escalation of gear that I DON'T want to see in an MMO. Where does it end? And why does it have to end there when all the power gamers get their new high end gear and get bored with it and start pushing for bigger and better? I beg you to stop right now. Knock these numbers down into a more reasonable range and let it end. Yes, I understand that you are reworking how gear works and I hope you get it right this time, because it hasn't been right in this game from the beginning, but enough is enough. The numbers don't have to get bigger in order for the gear to be better. Just having the gear to where you can get any two stats to work together without hogging all the same gear slots would be enough. I'm gonna watch and see what happens but I really don't want to see this turn into just another carbon copy gear progression game.
I agree with all of this. I often wonder what is it about people in MMO's (not just Dev's, but often more specifically players) that makes them think that the solution to every system problem is to throw numbers at the game figures and hope that everything will get fix by having huge stats and such so that everyone will be happy with their uber toons. And how do you fix any inconsistencies that arrive from throwing numbers at the game figures? Simple, just throw more numbers on the other side till it all balances out, and when you want room for more progression, just throw more numbers again. Numbers are infinite, its not like you're going to run out. That's how games like WOW end up with 80+ levels.
This is a thing we want to do, along with providing more leveling gear options (similar to the new 40 gear) via Acclaim. However, it won't happen with this initial push, which is just addressing the level 40 gear.
Cool beans. I'm patient. I just like to know that my optimism will some day be rewarded
We don't want to force people to make suboptimal choices, we want only focusing on your two Super Stats to be suboptimal. As I hinted at earlier, this isn't true right now, for a number of reasons, so I'm stating where we want the game to go, not what we think the game is now. These 4 stat gear options don't exist to force people to diversify, they exist to provide certain stat combos with options that are harder to come by. For example, the Brawler Defense pieces have more Str and Dex on them then either Con or Pres - and Str and Dex are not stats one finds in large amounts on Defense pieces, normally. This allows someone that is Str/Dex SS to pickup a piece of gear that provides them with stats, while also not "breaking" the current methodology of gear. If the 4 stat pieces of gear don't make sense for you SS choice, they probably aren't built for you.
Thank you for the explanation.
Here's the thing. I think you're better off trying to make stats more useful stand alone than in adding even more diminishing returns to superstat damage if you're goal is to change player wants (and then get someone to write a really good guide for stats and gear for people like mistformsquirrel...y'all really should hire me *smirk*).
What I mean is that the current setup on diminishing returns for superstats already makes me look for places to stick points other than my superstats once they get around 300 or so. The challenge is that in most cases there is nothing that provides as much benefit, especially once you factor in stat-tied powers (ie. INT for Molecular Self Assembly, CON for defiance). So increasing the diminishing returns does nothing except nerfs my toons which is NotFun.
INT is prolly the one stat that does this really well. Every toon can benefit from lowered cooldowns and energy costs, and unless you superstat it, you won't hit the diminishing returns for those effects. Not surprisingly, this is why INT gear tends to unavailable or more expensive on the AH. Conversely, REC is all about taking as little as you can get away with (well...usually...I just did a build for someone that's actually SS REC...was a fun challenge) since it's energy return buff is nowhere near as useful as an energy passive which leaves only the equilibrium buff, and again, you set your equilibrium as low as you can get away with.
I realize that some people think we shouldn't focus on making gear that doesn't make sense for the PvP game, but that's pretty subjective, and the PvP metagame has shifts, especially as we make changes to stats. It's a better decision for us to provide equal possibilities for all Super Stat choices now, then to have something missing when we make a change later.
It's those shifts that are gravy for PvP players. There's already the challenge of having to fight someone who reacts better than brain-dead AI. Then you toss in the fact that players will adapt their builds either by copying or countering stuff that beat them, and you get awesome.
For example, right now everyone knows that defensive passives are better than offensive. So there are a lot more tanks showing up because it's easier to play tanks. You're also seeing more dragon's wrath and knockback toons as those are the obvious counters to tanks. If things go like they always do, I suspect anti-dragon's wrath anti-knockback toons will start showing up before too much longer.
I don't have a trout, or the people originally involved, so that would be difficult to do. Put simply, while I use spreadsheets to make the task of making items easier (largely for planning), our actual item system uses something akin to (proprietary) 3D spreadsheets, and does not have an import feature, and does not have inheritance. Each item is handmade.
Scratch the trout. They need beaten with a shark. How on earth did someone build something into an MMO that isn't just a database or data manipulation, and hence, should allow for import?
The plan for the gear rework is pretty big, and would change what stats were available where. It's not something you'll see in the next few months.
Can I suggest that part of the gear rework includes transforming gear from whatever mess y'all have into a nice neat relational database? This would make everything so much easier, including giving players the ability to custom craft gear rather than y'all having to manually design everything. And, it is prolly easier to write an export function to convert existing gear to the new data format than it is to keep working with whatever mess y'all currently have.
Somewhere in the 225-250 range. The problem is that the falloff above that point isn't quite as large as it probably should be, in comparison to the relative value of other stats. Some builds need X amount of End, or Int, to be able to function properly even if those aren't there SS. Melee builds want 80 Str, even if they aren't SS Str. This means picking investing some amount into third/fourth stats is pretty common, but after a certain point that value diminishes greatly, and spending the points on your SS is naturally what you want to do. As stated earlier, we don't want to force suboptimal choices, we want to change what is optimal, and that is a long term goal.
See above. Add more benefits to taking other stats, don't nerf superstats. Your own post points out examples of ways you can do that. 80 STR for melee builds; 80 EGO for TK builds, why not 80 REC for some other benefit like a 50% reduction on activation times for powers? Why not 80 DEX to buff all ranged builds? So many possibilities that aren't just NERF.
Add more benefits to taking other stats, don't nerf superstats.
I read the whole thing, but the only real comment I had was on this, and it's basically that I agree. I could see potentially tweaking the curve to be slightly worse once you pass a certain point, but short of making it fall off completely (like... "hitting 300 SS gives 36% damage bonus, and then you get no more", which would not be something I would want), we have to make stats that are not your Super Stat more interesting in order for the fix to work the way we want, which is part of our plan.
I read the whole thing, but the only real comment I had was on this, and it's basically that I agree. I could see potentially tweaking the curve to be slightly worse once you pass a certain point, but short of making it fall off completely (like... "hitting 300 SS gives 36% damage bonus, and then you get no more", which would not be something I would want), we have to make stats that are not your Super Stat more interesting in order for the fix to work the way we want, which is part of our plan.
Ooooooor Ame could prove me wrong. I'm OK with that too < . .>
Well, one thing I know I've requested and I'm sure others have is the ability to search by statistic in the Auction House. Once you have a piece of gear in your hand and you're looking at the stats, it's not bad. The names have their own conventions, like Reinforced/Bio/Exo (I think.. ) being the stuff that has CON in it.. but when its in your hand, you really don't care so much about the name. The super stats are in yellow, non-super stats are in white.
It's when you go to the Auction that it all goes to hell.
And that's where it becomes essential to be able to filter which stat you're looking for just as you can for level range and rarity.
Comments
DEX/INT is an awesome stat combo, and hence, your first point is a bit off.
Your post is actually a great example of why the devs shouldn't bother trying to figure out quad combos. I can think of exceptions to everything you said about stats. Heck, I have toons that are exceptions to most of them. But I also can't deny that there are prolly quite a few people who do feel like you do. Pretty obvious it would be really hard for anyone to figure out what stat combos should be on gear unless you just give players all possible combos, and that's just not realistic given how many possible combos there are.
The character in my avatar is actually a Fire tank using STR/INT - CON/PRE/REC with just a bit of END (scaled blues FTW) and has tanked just about everything in the game that can be tanked while simultaneously serving as extra DPS. He also ruins the day of anyone I've dueled who's unable to escape or stupid enough to stand in his Conflag so I wouldn't be surprised if a few build changes yielded him a viable PvP build.
With the wide selection of powers and in turn the builds they form some bizarre stat combos can work surprisingly well, so almost no stat spread should really be written off as useless.
Agreed, that's the problem with 4 stat gear pieces: I'd like to use exclusive split stat pieces for the more total points, but I'd advise against the Devs spending time on split stat pieces because the odds of them offering the right combinations is low.
The difference between 5.3 PD/ED and 6.5 PD/ED is so small that it's just a distraction, not a useful thing to pay attention too. Even the invisible decimal point stat values are much more relevant than the PD/ED difference, and we ignore the invisible stat round offs in all these discussions.
Right, but you're not making PvP builds. Your using powers like Regen and stats like Rec that serious PvPers pretty much ignore. I'm not trying to be offensive, we can put all the fault on the nature of the game and it's imbalances, but with the way the game is now on live today there are not a lot of 4 stat upgrades that can be used by optimized PvP builds: as I said the chance of the Devs offering the right combinations is too low.
The only folks who will earn enough acclaim to buy these purples are "hardcore" PvPers, this is the one set of rewards in the game that is meant to cater to that segment. Please evaluate the utility of the 4 stat upgrades from the perspective of optimized PvP builds.
I disagree. While there should be a wide offering of general purpose dual stat combos, it would be wise for them to offer some quad spreads of known popular stats. Primarily because these types of things already appear in PvE AP content in some form and if there is no PvP equivalent it's kinda unfair to the PvP crowd because if they happen to find any of that useful they've then gotta grind PvE for it.
At worst no one uses them because they're on the wrong pieces of gear, but I reckon the devs understand the way the system was designed and could probably easily produce stats on the right gear pieces for people to maximize stats on combos we all know are popular.
We're talking about PvP rewards. I kinda think maybe we should sorta possibly cater to the whims of PvP players here.
I am 100% sure that if you give me 1 stat and 2 stat gear, I can use it to make 3,4,5 stat characters. I'm not even 1% sure that you could have me 4 stat gear that I could use on 1/10 of my toons.
The devs...*giggle*...understand...*snicker*...the way the system was designed...
*falls down laughing and dies*
Have you been on any of the PvP playtests recently? The devs are corn. They get farmed.
For example, you need STR/DEX/EGO/INT for your build, 4 very popular stats. Primary offense, Str/Dex, and primary Util, int/ego. Done. Now lets look at the people who need CON/DEX/EGO/INT, but there is only a str/dex/ego/int, which would be useless, a huge waste of time, and due to the ridiculous amounts of possible stat setups, having all combinations would be unlikely. Yes you can squeeze a few more stats points out of the 4-way splits, but even at best case scenario, assuming you genuinely need all the right stats to make the 4-ways optimal, decking yourself out in 1.2 million worth of acclaim, would only net you 24 more stat points then the scaled elite gear.......
I think the difficulty is in determining what the stat configurations should be. The adventure pack gear has a system of Prefixes + the difficulty slider bonuses that allow it to produce all the variety we care about. I think it would be great if the Devs had time to make purple versions of all those combos for the acclaim gear, but they apparently don't.
I don't think it's so much a matter of understanding, but that the only way to accomodate the 4 stat configurations we all care about are to add a large amount of gear to mimic what can be done with the adventure pack stuff, and I don't see that happening.
Like I said, I appreciate the extra stats that come from using 4 stat gear pieces, but for it to work the stat configuration has to be perfect. I would rather see them fix the two stat purples to be as least as good as two stat blues, meaning the 50/50 purples should be as least as good as 55/55 blues.
Quoted, bolded, italizied, underlined and in red to show the truth of this statement.
In their defense, being a dev in any sort of open test is pretty much a certainty people will farm them.
That said kudos to Drannic and Jow who held there own just fine.
I don't even want to touch this with a ten foot pole because power gamers in every game ever bandwagon so hard it's not even funny, especially the PvP ones. Shoot, even first person shooters, it's been TWO YEARS since they started buffing the Pyro hardcore in TF2 and only now are some people starting to see he has uses outside of last point defense. Most of them revolving around afterburn, which has been in the game since launch, and the Airblast, which has been around since the second class update.
I think towards the end of last year I was STILL running into people in CO who were stacking the hell out of two stats on builds that didn't even benefit from it in the slightest, and that didn't stop until they F2P changes came along. They all used really asinine excuses for it too, one of them actually went as far to prove himself "right" by having a beatdown on one of my less min maxed characters in a duel, despite his power choices were the actual thing that won him the match. That might be an extreme case of stupid, but aside from the people running stuff like certain Fire builds most of them were pretty asinine.
Trust me, you do NOT want me to get started on this, I hate bandwagoners with a seething passion. I also hate the hipster and non conformist types, but that's just because in general people need to think for their bloody selves. Because of this, I'm going to let you just believe whatever you want here for the time being, but I'm sticking to my own stance for the time being due to personal interests.
Yes, and the League of Legends devs are all highish ELO and know their game inside and out, yet they're COMPLETELY **** at balancing ANYTHING. You're assuming that because they're bad at PvP they don't know their own stat system. Remember: Most of the crappy gear issues all came when Anti-Proton was handling the gear.
Its not unfair because most of us dont want them. Quadstat gear sounds like something you would throw on a pve toon. For pvp, to play an optimal build you usually rely on 3 stats all of which can be optimized through duo statted gear.
Instead of them working on Gear that would potentially not get used, It would better if they gave us the gear that a hardcore pvp'er would use, because with the prices they are set at currently, those are the main people who would use them.
This is why they should drop the quad stat gear entirely, the time it takes to figure that formula out, they could be working on duo stated gear and make some real progress with getting the patch out on time.
It would be wise of them to take the time..
LIke alot of people have been saying. This gear should be optimal for the hardcore crowd.
:cool:
I know, but had a dex/int in there. And even if you are dex/int, you probably want ego as a tertiary.
They should go with 3 stat gear so I agree with that, but what combinations do you use that I did not include? Note rec is not particularly well represented because anybody who is not maxing str or dex can get plenty.
We're still looking at the prices. We just wanted to make it aware that we thought the price should be dropped a lot, and an 80% price reduction should make that obvious. We haven't settled on the exact pricing yet, and feedback in this area is certainly appreciated.
This isn't really the intent of the 4 stat gear, and it exists specifically to reduce the amount of gear needed to provide every option with 3 stat gear. While you might want to get, say, a Secondary Offense item with 20 Int and 20 End on it, that is not the way the gear system is supposed to work - Int and End are not primary stats provided by Offense items. But, say you're Int/End SS, and no piece of amazing Int/End gear exists in the Offense slots. You have several options - you could gear entirely for other stats in the Offense slot, you could go after secondary stat gear (Perception, Dodge, etc.) for your Offense slot, or you could pick up gear which has some of your Super Stats on it, while also providing some amount of another stat. If that isn't what you want, you can just not go after this gear. But, it exists to fill stat gaps for specific Super Stat combos.
Oh, how I was wish things were as easy in our world as they are in the one you think we have. I do have a large spreadsheet created for making this gear, but the actual creation of the gear is not nearly as easy as that, sadly. Suffice to say, if it were that simple, we'd have done this gear review a long time ago.
I touched on this in the other thread as well, but we won't be providing secondary stats via the new PvP gear at this time. It's something we'd like to do in the future, with our larger gear revision.
Int falls on Utility gear, and Pre falls on Defense gear. While this may not be an ideal situation, it is the current situation that gear throughout the game largely follows. There are some exceptions, and we made some specific gear that allows for some of these non-standard combinations on gear with these items. Int/Pre is provided with the same maximum potential for your Super Sats as the other 27 stat pairings have via this gear - if you were to buy the Champion's Inspiring Cape, Watchful Bracers, and Thoughtful Boots Primaries; and Inspiring Shorts, Vigilant Leggings, and Thoughtful Mask Secondaries, you would end up with a total of +196 Int, and +187 Pre, right on par with all of the stat combo bonuses possible with this gear.
I'm not sure what you mean here, as the only Quad Primaries made with this pass are Primary Defenses. 1 has Str and Dex, 2 have Str OR Dex, and the other 3 don't have either stat.
What to the devs is an Optimal level of superstats?
While anything below 250 to me isnt that optimal, that may not be what you guys see it as.
So that may be a conflict as to why Quad stat gear even made it on the list for pvp gear.
Reason Im asking is this--
Lets take Dex/int
With a toon with the majority purple quad stat gear I got
168dex
110 int
73rec
47con
40ego
47pre
70end
Pieces were in no special order
champions nimble mind
champions dependable boots
Champions Bold Cape
Champions reliable shorts
champions watchful leggings
( all secondary pieces x2 like below)
With Fully optimal SL elite gear I would have
194dex
128int
0rec
118con
0ego
0pre
74end
( gear stats from blues include)
20dex/15con Secondary offense x2
+95dex Primary offense
20int/15dex secondary defense x2
68con/29dex primary defense
20end/20int secondary utility x2
20con/34end/48int primary utility
While I have less stats that have points in them
My main stats Dex/Int will be optimized ( my definition).
This is, I think, where our difference in definition for optimal comes in.
What we can do with SL gear alone is better than what we could do with Quad stat pvp gear, and if thats the case. why use the pvp gear with quad stats at all?
Why do we not have some of the gear we can get in SL that would be way better instead of the quad gear we have currently on our list of pvp gear?
Major can be +59 or +34/+34; all valid combinations exist, though not on all crafting types.
Minor can be +20 or +11/+11; some combinations don't exist.
Scaled can be +15 or +8/+8; I don't know whether all combinations exist.
Fractional values appear to be roughly:
8.9
11.8
15.45
20.6
34.45
59.9
I cannot confirm a +96 item; it looks to be a tiny amount under +96 (a +15, +20, and +59 item gave me +1439 hp, or +95.93 con).
Looking at the UNITY and Nemesis gear that reflects only a fraction of the potentially permissable combinations. There is pretty clearly a "true value" underlaying each item which scales with level and color grade, and true value is then divided into piles of stat A, B, C, etc, and then that true value goes through a diminshing returns costing before it spits out the functional value we see from our side. That dimishing returns curve is not too dificult to plot from a good sized sampling of same level/same color grade gear (and therefore same true value total). The more an item is broken out into smaller value chuncks, the higher it's total points offered is compared to others with the same true value because of the less effort being expended overcomming diminishing returns.
What surprises me is that given how blatantly formulaic the process is, the idea they don't have it all plugged into a spread sheet is a bit baffling. One of my suggestions for crafting long ago was to be able to craft widgets that would take any existing gear item and either bump up it's level or bump up it's color grade and then recompute visible stats from the adjusted true value being applied in the same proportions as the base item. Instead the gear system seems to be cranked largely by hand and such automated processes are beyond them. They actually did that with the Vibora bay drops you can bump up to level 41 - again, seemingly by hand and with basically no regard for how much effort had to be invested vs. the gain it produced *sigh*. Another failed stub of a the gear system because the grind vastly oughtweighed the reward.
*wipes away a tear*
praise the bountiful dev gods! YAY!
Good deal.
A question on this...is it your intention to get acclaim gear to the price point where a player can level up AND gear up entirely in PvP? If so, I'll be happy to go through all my toons and give ya estimates on what kind of acclaim I've gotten at various levels. If not, why not?
Here's where y'all's intentions and PvP players are diverging. I can't speak for every single PvP player, but I can speak for a lot of them. We're not interested in diversifying our stats (I actually quit City of Heroes when that change went in and didn't come back until City of Villains). We're interested in maximizing our effectiveness in PvP, and that is accomplished in most cases by maxxing out just a couple stats after meeting the minimum necessary in the others for what we need. For example, Lady E is SS CON/END w/ INT and REC. I spent a ton of time figuring out what the minimum amount of INT for cost reduction and REC for equilibrium I'd need so that she could fire off her lolsigil combo from rest (during that combo she actually uses 11 of her 13 powers so it did take a bit of work to figure out). After she had that, I loaded her up with as much CON/END as I could because even with diminishing returns, there is no reason not to squeeze that last little bit of damage out. After all, she doesn't heal, so doesn't need PRE. She's definitely not going to use STR or EGO for anything. DEX would be somewhat useful for crits, but she has Imbue because I need her crits to be reliable.
If it's not that easy, whoever designed loot originally needs to be slapped with a trout. You should have a table for loot named Loot that is just an unique LootID#, LootName, GearSlot, Description, and Level. Then a table named Effects with effects and stats (ie, STR, CON, Perception, Resistsance, etc) whose fields are unique EffectID#, EffectName. A table named GearSlots whose fields are unique GearID#, and SlotName. Then you have a linked table named LootEffects that is LootID#, EffectID#, EffectAmount (although possibly EffectAmount could always be a calculated value based on the effect...for example Monstrous could always provide level * 6 STR or something like that).
So what your data should look like is an entry in Loot that reads:
152, Monstrous Fulminating Gizmo of Awesomesauce, 1, This amazing invention of Ame's gives its user incredible strength and enough dexterity not to punch yourself in the face with your new supermuscles., 40.
Then there should be a series of entries in LootEffects:
152, 5, 80 (152 is the link between the two tables, 5 is linked back to Effects monstrous, and 80 is the amount)
152, 7, 16 (152 link, 7 fulmination, 16 which the game will be smart enough to add to both str and dex)
152, 19, 26 (phys deft)
152, 20, 26 (energy def)
And what the player sees when they look at it
Monstrous Fulmination Gizmo of Awesomesauce - Level 40 - This amazing invention of Ame's gives its user incredible strength and enough dexterity not to punch yourself in the face with your new supermuscles - Primary Offense - +96 STR - +16 DEX +26 Physical Defense - +26 Energy Defense.
Now, I'm missing stuff in my tables (like costs, bind status, etc), but that would be the basic gist (normally, I'd draw a picture and go from there, but if you want that much work out of me, you have to hire me first *smirk*). And you could create an Excel spreadsheet that would in fact be able to populate the database.
You could just add a level 40 secondary utility that was Perception +16 INT, +7.5 offense, and most of us would be okay with that
Does this mean y'all are going to change the current slotting on gear? I'm pretty okay with that
It can also be +8/+8/+8, but only a limited number of stat combinations are possible. I have yet to see a scaled blue secondary upgrade that featured three base stats in addition to the bonus stats. I want to believe that a +8/+8/+8/+8/+8 secondary upgrade could exist.
Unfortunately it seems that the adventure pack bosses do not have a full level 40 loot table, which means that the triple-stat prefixes which can only drop at higher levels never drop from the adventure pack bosses, so we never get scaled versions.
This also means that we never see secondary offense hold/root resist prefixes (adept's / genius's / overlord's) on scaled adventure pack gear either.
I'm not an avid PVP'er, but I do like the idea of more scaled gear that features 3 or more stat bonuses. And it seems the general consensus among the PVP crowd is that they don't want too many stats on any piece of gear. Hmmm...
I suppose having PVE-ish gear as PVP rewards might get more PVE'ers to PVP.
Perhaps for a bit. Then I suspect two things will happen:
1) The PvE'ers will get tired of getting stomped because they haven't figured out how to optimize gear for PvP builds.
2) Nemesis and Unity gear will get updated and the PvE'ers can go back to doing what provides them the most fun.
So...ya...not going to go with you on the idea of using PvP rewards to attract PvE players. PvE players generally don't like PvP, or they'd already be doing it. And if the best rewards are PvP, you're going to see a whole lot of posts complaining about how they are being "forced" to PvP.
Ya know, kinda like how most PvP'ers right now hate being forced to PvE to get our gear
Ignoring issues of what stat is legal where:
There are 8 possible 1-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 1, 2-stat focus characters can use 2, 3-stat focus characters can use 3, 4-stat focus characters can use 4.
There are 28 possible 2-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 0, 2-stat focus characters can use 1, 3-stat focus characters can use 3, 4-stat focus characters can use 6.
There are 56 possible 3-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 0, 2-stat focus characters can use 0, 3-stat focus characters can use 1, 4-stat focus characters can use 4.
There are 70 possible 3-stat comboes. 1-stat focus characters can use 0, 2-stat focus characters can use 0, 3-stat focus characters can use 0, 4-stat focus characters can use 1.
There is also the possibility that PvErs will enjoy PvP like Stronghold and ZA, given that there may be more PvEers in there and there are some actual rewards. I bet a lot of PvE players would enjoy Stronghold and ZA, once they got over the initial shock of being defeated.
Thats a problem though..what if they never get over the shock of being defeated?
Also if they enjoy pvp'ing, why give them gear that wouldnt optimize them for pvp?
This is pretty much inevitable. My hopes for the gear hierarchy, broken down into VERY general categores, are:
Top (15-30% better stats than SL blues):
* Best PvP gear
* Best Nemesis/IUNITY
These are the ones you really have to work for.
Exceptional (same level as SL blues):
* Elite instanced PvE gear
* Premium Crafted Gear
* 2nd tier PvP gear
* 2nd tier Nemesis/UNITY gear
* Holiday event Open Mission top rewards
It still takes a lot of work (or luck, in the case of PvE drops), and supports all play styles, ensuring that everyone can get a well-equipped characrer if they work for it.
Good:
* Lower difficulty level instanced PvE gear.
* Open Mission top rewards
Okay:
* Non-instanced PvE gear
I can report with complete confidence - No, they did not.
This is a thing we want to do, along with providing more leveling gear options (similar to the new 40 gear) via Acclaim. However, it won't happen with this initial push, which is just addressing the level 40 gear.
We don't want to force people to make suboptimal choices, we want only focusing on your two Super Stats to be suboptimal. As I hinted at earlier, this isn't true right now, for a number of reasons, so I'm stating where we want the game to go, not what we think the game is now. These 4 stat gear options don't exist to force people to diversify, they exist to provide certain stat combos with options that are harder to come by. For example, the Brawler Defense pieces have more Str and Dex on them then either Con or Pres - and Str and Dex are not stats one finds in large amounts on Defense pieces, normally. This allows someone that is Str/Dex SS to pickup a piece of gear that provides them with stats, while also not "breaking" the current methodology of gear. If the 4 stat pieces of gear don't make sense for you SS choice, they probably aren't built for you.
I realize that some people think we shouldn't focus on making gear that doesn't make sense for the PvP game, but that's pretty subjective, and the PvP metagame has shifts, especially as we make changes to stats. It's a better decision for us to provide equal possibilities for all Super Stat choices now, then to have something missing when we make a change later.
I don't have a trout, or the people originally involved, so that would be difficult to do.
The plan for the gear rework is pretty big, and would change what stats were available where. It's not something you'll see in the next few months.
Somewhere in the 225-250 range. The problem is that the falloff above that point isn't quite as large as it probably should be, in comparison to the relative value of other stats. Some builds need X amount of End, or Int, to be able to function properly even if those aren't there SS. Melee builds want 80 Str, even if they aren't SS Str. This means picking investing some amount into third/fourth stats is pretty common, but after a certain point that value diminishes greatly, and spending the points on your SS is naturally what you want to do. As stated earlier, we don't want to force suboptimal choices, we want to change what is optimal, and that is a long term goal.
It is certainly not intended that someone try to build a set of gear entirely out of the 4-stat gear. It is meant to fill gaps in specific SS combos builds. In your specific example of Dex/Int, I would expect someone to get something like:
Tenacious Cape - Nimble Bracers - Thoughtful Boots
Tenacious Shorts x2 - Nimble Leggins x2 - Thoughtful Mask x2
Which would provide:
49 Con
170 Dex
220 Int
50 Ego
49 Pre
This would allow you to break 250 Dex and 300 Int, meaning you could swap out some of your pieces for less Int and pick up other stats you might want, or just pump your Int like crazy.
Because the SL gear allows for virtually any possible piece of gear to be made, due to the algorithmic nature of it. This gear is not algorithmic, and is designed to provide a solid base for anyone, not be the perfect min/max build for everyone. We'd need to provide hundreds of items to allow for that, which maybe someday we'll be able to do via something that isn't directly buying specific pieces of gear. For now, we feel this is a pretty massive improvement over the gear that is currently available via PvP.
VINDICATION!!!
I generally shoot for 210-240, in each super-stat and then scatter points almost at random to other stats. I'm ready for the new paradigm today
Correct. The falloff for Super Stat damage exists, but it still provides enough of a benefit to be better than spending those points in other places in many cases.The lack of falloff for other parts of a stat can cause weird issues with a Stat becoming less valuable for some parts of your build at specific points, and at other points for different parts of that stat, making stat progression very complicated and pretty unapproachable for a lot of players. Improving that is part of the long term gearing fix we plan on doing, but doing so immediately wouldn't work out terribly well, for numerous reasons.
SO.
The plan is to give us the gear now, so when you all change the stat values to be optimal at around 225-250 you wont have to make new gear to compensate..cause the formuals and stuff will already be their...
Or am i reading into it a little to much?
I guess you could say you are reading too much into it, as the changes I'm referring to are still quite a ways out, and are more "how gear is made" changes then changes to stats.
The new gear makes it pretty easy to achieve near 300 or so in each of your Super Stats, if you choose. This is because, which the above stated goal is/was just that, a goal, it is not what happened. The reality is, getting up to 300 in your Super Stat is something that is generally a good thing, and so we have gear that allows for that. In some distant future, when this problem has been fixed, maybe the new norm for your Super Stats will be in the 350-400 range, but you'll also want to have some other stats up to the 150 range, instead of wanting 2 Super Stats at 500 and all other stats at 10. (These numbers have no bearing on our actual future, just an example)
As stated, the quad stat gear is not for people to spread out lots and lots of stats, currently. It is there too allow people to pick up "off stat" gear in a slot that does not normally provide it, like decent amounts of Strength on a Defensive slot item.
I really hope your gear review will work out well when we get to it; because let me just say this up front:
CO's gear system really really confuses me. I've been playing since OB and I still usually fall back on my old "It makes the yellow numbers go up, so it's good" strategy.
Before I start rambling let me note that this is all strictly me-speeaking-for-me; that I'm terrible with numbers, and even in other MMOs I'm usually just muddling through up to a point. That said, CO's gear system is particularly... hard. Not hard as in "difficult to master" but hard as in "confusing enough I just stop caring when I try to figure it out."
The problem (for me, personally) is threefold:
1) Our gear naming conventions are... bad.
I'm sorry but they just are >< Cyber Hurricane is just a bizarre item name and not particularly useful. Yes, Cyber means Intelligence - that's easy enough to grasp, but unlike a more traditional MMO we get all kinds of whacked out stuff, hurricanes, spines (as in spikes) and spines (as in spinal columns), and... to me after awhile I just can't keep it straight because I can't make myself care about Colossal Mutated Phlegm.
I don't really know what to suggest but this aspect alone makes sorting gear a pain for me. This also goes to the very nonstandard gear tray we have - it's like taking a standard MMO paper doll, and then divesting it of all useful cues.
Instead of a helmet, chest piece, and leggings, I have a Primary defense slot, and two secondary defense slots. While this is not in-practice all that different, on a psychological level it just... muddles everything together and makes it all just kind of blur together.
2) Stats themselves are fairly easy to understand in terms of what they do, but not necessarily in understanding how much that actually helps you. And there are cases that are just... weird. (Numbers below are pulled out of thin air just to serve as rough examples)
Some things are obvious: X% bonus healing - that's easy to get. X% Bonus damage, easy. Constition = HP, gotcha.
But 300% knockback resistance means... what? I mean what's base-level knockback resistance? Is it a 300% increased chance of resisting a knockback attempt or a 300% decrease in how far you can be knocked, or a 300% increase in the magnitude of a knock required to send you flying?
or +35% Energy Strength. ... What does that even mean? I mean I know, since I've played the game so long, that it translated to an increase in how fast you generate energy, but even that still leaves me with little to go on since the way some stats work seems to be on some kind of curve, while others are direct translations. I mean does +35% in that context mean +35% faster recovery per energy builder attack? Or is there more to it?
+77% "Aggression Stealth" ... what? I mean I know what stealth means, and I know what aggro is, so I can kinda infer that it means some type of aggro reduction... but then I look at presence and see -21% threat reduction, so the initial assumption is out the window. Again, I know from playing a long time that that has to do with using stealth based powers... but "Aggression Stealth" tells me exactly zero.
3) Because of that relative level of confusion, I'm incredibly hesitant to use non-stat boosting items. Things like +Heal-on-Kill or +End-on-Kill, or +Offense... It usually leaves me not quite able to grasp what exactly I'm giving up for this gain. The gain is easy to understand, just not the tradeoff in stats.
The short version I guess is:
In most games, I'm able to figure gear out well enough to muddle along. In CO the only reason I get by is because I can follow the "Yellow numbers get bigger" model and do fine since the game is relatively easy. If this were a more difficult game though I think I'd be in hot water.
Now I realize I'm a little dense in this area anyway - as I said, I'm bad at math, and as I perhaps didn't mention, I'm not really a power gamer either, so my level of care for small percentage boosts in my abilities is fairly minimal... but still, it's kind of problematic if after two years of playing (X-Fire has me at well over a thousand hours of playtime... eesh) I'm still easily confused/easily annoyed when it comes to gear.
< . .> The point being: I'm really looking forward to a gear review... and honestly really hoping it will be very, very comprehensive so people like me who are very math-dumb can still grasp it beyond 'yellow number goes up'.
I also want to note that I don't mean that as an insult, it's just a longstanding irritation that for a lot of reasons I've never felt would be listened to if I brought it up. Now I'm feeling differently and well... there ya go >.< hope that's helpful/doesn't feel too harsh.
As a fairly new player to CO, but NOT a new player to gaming. these points are right on the mark for me, I have no CLUE in some cases what they do, and have fallen back on the yellow went up, this is a good thing! style of play myself.
One thing I would suggest, possibly, is someone on the wiki side making a list of what = what as far as names go, I have no earthly idea most of the time and just read the tool tip.
Ok, this is entirely unrelated to the current discussion...
But due to some new tasks I've had to take on at my job, I'm having to become a massive spreadsheet/data presentation geek. And continually trying to find new ways to present data to people who have an interest in knowing how it affects them, but no interest in understanding the principles behind it.
I know you said it's proprietary, but do you have like a screenshot or something of what a blank entry screen on that interface would look like? It sounds awesome.
Or barring that (since I'm pretty sure you can't actually give me a screenshot even if one exists), do you know of any non-proprietary things that are roughly equivalent? What I've learned and cobbled together so far is with the equivalent of duct tape and chicken wire, and I have no idea what this stuff is supposed to look like when given actual working tools to do the job.
Anyway.
This here pretty much sums up what gear in CO is like for me. I still have trouble remembering which stats are boosted where (defensive slot, offensive, or whatever). Its like they tried to go so conceptual, abstract and non-specific with the gear system I don't even know what any of it is even supposed to mean. Someone tried to explained it to me once (maybe more once, actually) but I just forgot. I usually just pick whatever boosts my super stats and go, without ever really thinking hard how to select my gear optimally for my stat combination, or anything like that.
I also agree with everything else on @mistformsquirrel's post:
1) Naming conventions are awful in this game. Who carries around "Reinforced Bile", or whatever, and how much are they getting paid for doing something as disgusting as that?
2) I have given up on attempting to understand what the numbers mean. Back in my PnP days I could understand game mechanics well enough to make my own house rules and homegrown systems--it was the central feature of my campaigns. But my PnP RPG system knowledge/understanding has never translated well into MMO's, and with CO in particular I just have no clue how anything applies. I just go with what the stats tell me they do, then try to get them as high as I can, and attribute any success to magic or some mystical forces beyond my comprehension, because I honestly don't know how I manage to make my characters effective sometimes. They just sort of come out like that. I just follow the...
...that mistform mentions and hope for the best.
3) I almost never take any items that don't give a signficant bonus to stats. I simply don't understand enough about how the numbers work to know what I might be missing if I drop any items that give me large stat modifiers, so I try to get them as high as I can so I don't miss anything. The only strategy I use when selecting gear is that I focus on whatever stats I need most for whatever I'm building--usually my superstats, plus maybe one or two other stats I may need to scale certain powers. If I'm running low on starting energy I may take some Rec; if I need more energy to charge a power I may take End, etc.
1) Combine the specialties in each crafting discipline. There are two reasons for this:
First - it paves the way for step 2 below.
Second - The subdisciplines are not particluarly distinct, and what distinctions they do have I do not feel would be imbalanced if a singular crafter within that overall discipline could simply handle all of it.
That is - Arms is Arms. Not Arms: Fighting/Alien Biology/Ordnance.
2) Collapse the naming conventions a bit. Keep the prefix system in place - that works well enough (though in a few cases you might try to be a little more obvious with what it does) - still, it's a reasonable enough system.
What isn't so reasonable is that everything from magic swords to goggles to razorblade toenails all wind up going into the exact same item slot.
My suggested revision would be this:
Primary Offense - All items are named after a primary weapon of some variety. Swords, axes, bows, guns, wands - anything that specifically sounds like "This would be someone's main weapon". For all intents and purposes consider it a non-representative version of the normal MMO "weapon slot".
Secondary Offense - Secondary weapons - knives, grenades, ammunition types, quivers - the kind of equipment that supports one's primary weapon.
Primary Defense - Body Armors of all types. Chest guards, fireproof suits, breastplates - you name it, if its a defensive item and you wear it on your torso, it's a Primary Defense.
Secondary Defense - Shields (both of the physical "shield bash you in the face" type, and the non-physical "deflector shield" variety), belts, pants, cloaks, gloves, helmets and wards (while it's reasonable that Mysticism may have some shields, the ward type names have to go somewhere.)
Primary Utility - goggles, communicators, blessings, boons, GPS systems etc - anything that could be considered a major asset that isn't strictly a piece of armor or weapon.
Secondary Utility - Batteries, cantrips, flashlights, medicine pouches - minor non-weapon non-armor assets basically.
This still gives you a fairly broad range of items to fit into each category, but when one sees say... a Shuriken, it becomes obvious it's a secondary Offense, without even needing to look at the item in question.
Likewise yes, I'm completely cutting out the Alien Biology type items. They're both disgusting AND confusing - not something I think is helpful in the least. (For the record I'm also suggesting the dropping of the Fighting category names, and the Exposure type names, as they're also confusing/difficult to make work in the new model.)
You might think "but then I have to equip stuff that's way out of theme..." - to which I'd response "... and you probably do that anyway; unless you're telling me you routinely swap out your entire spine for a divine boon from an ancient Egyptian god of learning."
Additionally, while not strictly a gear thing, it's related because it's related to stats - better and more in-depth tooltips for what given stats actually DO.
If I hover over Strength, I want to know *why* I care about that absurdly high knockback resist number* - if nothing else add a ? clicky next to each stat with a long-winded full explanation. Yes this means you have to get someone to spend hours writing tooltips. It's a crappy job but someone's gotta do it. The reliance on automatically generated tooltips that just pull numbers straight out of the engine without context is... unhelpful. (This goes to STO as well - and I'd beg you to make sure that's not the case in Neverwinter. >.<)
Finally, find a way to put in-game, an explanation of what stats can appear on what types of gear. Just flat out spell it out somewhere, because I've played for two years and I *still* don't know. Either that or, better yet, drop that system, allow stats to appear wherever, and instead use a heavier drop off at the upper level. Less confusing and it means there's no such thing as a weak superstat combination due to gear concerns.
*whew*
Just an idea. >.>
*This is especially important because it seems to me that even on my characters with Super Strength, I *still* get tossed like a ragdoll at times.
These words fill me with fear. I have some good gear on some of my characters pushing their super stats up to around 250 each... Now this new gear makes it easy to achieve 300? Then you start tossing out numbers like 350, 400, and 500? Yes, I saw the disclaimer at the end of the paragraph, but this is the exact type of escalation of gear that I DON'T want to see in an MMO. Where does it end? And why does it have to end there when all the power gamers get their new high end gear and get bored with it and start pushing for bigger and better? I beg you to stop right now. Knock these numbers down into a more reasonable range and let it end. Yes, I understand that you are reworking how gear works and I hope you get it right this time, because it hasn't been right in this game from the beginning, but enough is enough. The numbers don't have to get bigger in order for the gear to be better. Just having the gear to where you can get any two stats to work together without hogging all the same gear slots would be enough. I'm gonna watch and see what happens but I really don't want to see this turn into just another carbon copy gear progression game.
These seem like reasonable suggestions.
#1 in particular is something I have seen suggested and have supported before. I really don't see a need for having specialties in this game's crafting trees. Some people have defended this (in a thread I saw on this issue a long time ago) on the basis that they think its thematically cool to have distinct specialties in our crafting trees, but that's the problem, we don't have distinct specialties in this game. We have three specialties per crafting three that are there for pure fluff reasons and all they're currently doing is bloating the crafting system with fluff items* that exist only for flavor--and often digusting and/or incredibly confusing flavor at that (at least in regards to the names of these items).
I agree that having distinct specialties could theoretically be a cool and good idea--in a game where crafting is relevant, important area of the game, and ALL specialties represented are significantly distinct from eachother. Neither of which is the case in this game, because 1) crafting in CO is only a tack on feature and very minor, secondary aspect of this game (CO is about characters with super powers, not about crafting), and 2) crafting specialties in CO are certainly NOT distinct.
One more thing that the crafting specialties currently do is indirectly penalize characters for thematic reasons, because two out of the three specialty trainers of each of the crafting trees is located in distinct locations around MC you have to waste time traveling to in order to learn blueprints from them. If I want my "Arms" character to specialize in "Fighting Styles" for example, I have to run almost to the farest point in MC West Side just to see my trainer. So most people that have been around in this game for a while simply take the one specialty that has a trainer in MC Ren Center just so they don't have to run around just to learn specialty blueprints.
* And by "fluff items" I refer to the name/description, not that they dont have mechanical values. But these items are mechanically identical to eachother, or at least very similar mechanically, and the only major difference is the fluff name/description.
I agree with all of this. I often wonder what is it about people in MMO's (not just Dev's, but often more specifically players) that makes them think that the solution to every system problem is to throw numbers at the game figures and hope that everything will get fix by having huge stats and such so that everyone will be happy with their uber toons. And how do you fix any inconsistencies that arrive from throwing numbers at the game figures? Simple, just throw more numbers on the other side till it all balances out, and when you want room for more progression, just throw more numbers again. Numbers are infinite, its not like you're going to run out. That's how games like WOW end up with 80+ levels.
Cool beans. I'm patient. I just like to know that my optimism will some day be rewarded
Thank you for the explanation.
Here's the thing. I think you're better off trying to make stats more useful stand alone than in adding even more diminishing returns to superstat damage if you're goal is to change player wants (and then get someone to write a really good guide for stats and gear for people like mistformsquirrel...y'all really should hire me *smirk*).
What I mean is that the current setup on diminishing returns for superstats already makes me look for places to stick points other than my superstats once they get around 300 or so. The challenge is that in most cases there is nothing that provides as much benefit, especially once you factor in stat-tied powers (ie. INT for Molecular Self Assembly, CON for defiance). So increasing the diminishing returns does nothing except nerfs my toons which is NotFun.
INT is prolly the one stat that does this really well. Every toon can benefit from lowered cooldowns and energy costs, and unless you superstat it, you won't hit the diminishing returns for those effects. Not surprisingly, this is why INT gear tends to unavailable or more expensive on the AH. Conversely, REC is all about taking as little as you can get away with (well...usually...I just did a build for someone that's actually SS REC...was a fun challenge) since it's energy return buff is nowhere near as useful as an energy passive which leaves only the equilibrium buff, and again, you set your equilibrium as low as you can get away with.
It's those shifts that are gravy for PvP players. There's already the challenge of having to fight someone who reacts better than brain-dead AI. Then you toss in the fact that players will adapt their builds either by copying or countering stuff that beat them, and you get awesome.
For example, right now everyone knows that defensive passives are better than offensive. So there are a lot more tanks showing up because it's easier to play tanks. You're also seeing more dragon's wrath and knockback toons as those are the obvious counters to tanks. If things go like they always do, I suspect anti-dragon's wrath anti-knockback toons will start showing up before too much longer.
Scratch the trout. They need beaten with a shark. How on earth did someone build something into an MMO that isn't just a database or data manipulation, and hence, should allow for import?
Can I suggest that part of the gear rework includes transforming gear from whatever mess y'all have into a nice neat relational database? This would make everything so much easier, including giving players the ability to custom craft gear rather than y'all having to manually design everything. And, it is prolly easier to write an export function to convert existing gear to the new data format than it is to keep working with whatever mess y'all currently have.
See above. Add more benefits to taking other stats, don't nerf superstats. Your own post points out examples of ways you can do that. 80 STR for melee builds; 80 EGO for TK builds, why not 80 REC for some other benefit like a 50% reduction on activation times for powers? Why not 80 DEX to buff all ranged builds? So many possibilities that aren't just NERF.
I read the whole thing, but the only real comment I had was on this, and it's basically that I agree. I could see potentially tweaking the curve to be slightly worse once you pass a certain point, but short of making it fall off completely (like... "hitting 300 SS gives 36% damage bonus, and then you get no more", which would not be something I would want), we have to make stats that are not your Super Stat more interesting in order for the fix to work the way we want, which is part of our plan.
Ooooooor Ame could prove me wrong. I'm OK with that too < . .>
Well, one thing I know I've requested and I'm sure others have is the ability to search by statistic in the Auction House. Once you have a piece of gear in your hand and you're looking at the stats, it's not bad. The names have their own conventions, like Reinforced/Bio/Exo (I think.. ) being the stuff that has CON in it.. but when its in your hand, you really don't care so much about the name. The super stats are in yellow, non-super stats are in white.
It's when you go to the Auction that it all goes to hell.
And that's where it becomes essential to be able to filter which stat you're looking for just as you can for level range and rarity.