Honestly, the values right now don't work well. As it is you're nerfing the entire player base to make existing content tougher for them. While a few select may enjoy this, the rest who will have to rebuild from scratch just to return to their previous efficiency to fight on old content will be discouraged. Personally, I have no desire to go through several series of retcons and testing just to be able to cover content I've previously beaten. What's the point there? There's nothing to strive for, no reason to want to get up after being smacked down by the nerf. Just hours of testing to be able to repeat content that no longer has any meaning or gains in it for the players other than bragging rights.
If you want to challenge us, I agree with Gradii: Make new content to punish us, don't just break our builds and leave it at that. But make that content rewarding, not just simple bragging rights or one or two ultra-rare costume parts like Therakial's sword when it did drop. As it is this will drive players away, not bring in new ones.
You do know they said this won't be put to live for awhile. So yes it will take time to get this to work right..maybe help them work it over insted of just suddenly asueming they are screwing everything I know its hard to do so..But rember...this aint ready yet...
This change will force some of us to have to rebuild our characters, mods and all. Looking back at the time invested in retcons and ranking mods to get where I am, this kind of makes it feel like it was all for nothing. No thanks.
I sort of chime in with some of the things in here, and some others don't. Here comes my personal feedback about this patch.
I am all up for offense being an actual useful stat. At the moment stacking offense is not that great unless you are doing the Vindicator/Warden synergy to buff up defense, overall its a really lame stat, so buffing it up its a step in the right direction, and if it involves lowering the prevalence of crit, I am more than okay with it, it encourages build diversity... for instance making a char that hits HARD but less dependant on crit for instance
That being said....
As it is right now on the PTS, seems that is quite not there yet. With 400 offense and full stacks of concentration I am hitting with Chest Beam on live for 5190, on the PTS I am hitting for 5484... a bit underwhelming there.
As of dodge... I admit this is a stat I've abused on live with ALL of my characters. Its just TOO good. As soon as I hit 40 with a char, I just get a blue piece of gear with Avoidance, then mod it with dodge... VOILA! my character suddenly becomes a beast (defensive wise) no other defensive mod does that.... lets say I want to stack defense... or hp on my defensive gear... usually I won't get effects as dramatic as dodge gives.
With that being said....
Yes I believe that the curve of dodge needs to be adjusted. But definitely it was way too harsh... maybe some point in between?? Or make defense scale better... so its as attractive as stating dodge/avoidance??
Dunno those are my 2 cents on this topic.
Long story short:
Yes I agree with a nerf to dodge
The nerf was waaay too harsh, I would love to see a middle point
Offense definitely needs to be more attractive, definitely the curve needs to scale better than it does right now
___________________
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the nerf to dodge needs to be implemented as a cap at around 80-95%. this prevents 100% dodge without MD and doesn't screw every player.
Nerfing avoidance makes more sense, considering they're buffing defense. Dodge should be left alone. There's nothing wrong with hitting 100% dodge. What makes dodging overpowered is the avoidance % being stacked with other defenses. Dodge is nothing but a random number generator which procs avoidance. By nerfing avoidance alone, players could choose between keeping a high dodge % with mediocre mitigation or sacrificing some dodge % for more avoidance or defense, whichever they fancy.
Gradii has it right; leave it alone. We don't jump into a hero to get creamed; especially after spending so much time getting to the sweet spot. Things like cybermind were a good start. Maybe a single new zone? That's got incredibly difficult stuff. Sky's the limit man, what's the hold up?
even so, if they do that the nerf to avoid should affect the highest end of the curve. 60% avoid SHOULD be reasonable and not too hard to get if you have quarry. 70% avoid and more with quarry may be too much however.
Any which way I think they're exhausting their efforts on negative changes when they could be using it on positive things like new content and more bug fixes. I'll be the first to admit On Alert made some builds too good, but it's been well over a year and the damage has been done. Players have invested heavily, whether it be time, resources or even real money to get where they're at. If it's an issue of the content being too easy, change the content, not the player.
WOW! This is a horrible change. Just plain insane.
LR becomes useless. Do you want people to quit? Do you really hate us that much cryptic!
Look at this board, look at the number of (Sane) people saying this is a bad bad idea.
I know it's just a test, but the numbers now in the pts are not good ones for folks who use a dodge build, (LR) are you saying screw that passive, use defiance or Inv if you want a defensive build that's worth anything".
Because what would be the benefit for taking LR be if i can't dodge or avoid anything?
None. You want to balance it? Fine. Balance it. But don't make it useless! The curve is too steep!
Work it out, so that people can live with the change. Don't leave it as is. Because, as of now it's a joke.
Don't do this. There is no reason to. People have spent so much time creating there toons to be the best they can be. Why would this even come up? With all the other things needed in this game, weakening the players is the LAST thing you should do. What for? So its harder to play the years old content of this game? The only reason to do this is if you want to lose more members. I will be the first to leave. This is silly! What could have brought this idea? If it's PVP, the game doesnt even support PVP, not really. What content does the game provide for it? What reason would anyone play the existing content? There are no relevent rewards. Is it becuase many players have optimized this system to make thier toons better? And those that haven't and do duels are getting beat up to easy? That doesn't even make sense.
DONT DO THIS. DON'T DO ANYTHING REMOTLEY RELATED TO THIS. ANYONE WHO HAS SPENT TIME AND MONEY TO MAKE THEIR BUILDS WILL LEAVE YOUR GAME.
Nerfing avoidance makes more sense, considering they're buffing defense. Dodge should be left alone. There's nothing wrong with hitting 100% dodge. What makes dodging overpowered is the avoidance % being stacked with other defenses. Dodge is nothing but a random number generator which procs avoidance. By nerfing avoidance alone, players could choose between keeping a high dodge % with mediocre mitigation or sacrificing some dodge % for more avoidance or defense, whichever they fancy.
Edit: Misread OP. No defense buff.
So...take LR, dodge everything, but...still get hit for lots of damage?
Maybe what needs to be done, is make it so LR itself is the Dodge/Avoid Passive and can avoid a lot of the changes they want to do with Dodge/Avoid.
I admit to wanting some sort of change. I found the +DMG of Quarry to be worth switching to over LR (original passive) as I really didn't see that big of a difference play wise in the defense aspects (but noticed the damage difference).
I am not in favor of this change because Dodging attacks is a:
simple staple of heroic comic book characters!
When I first started playing CO I thought it was a great idea that you separated out dodge and avoidance mechanics just like having block mechanics.
This change basically destroys the concept of a hard to hit hero and huge swaths of themed characters.
You want to decrease the effect of dodge? I am all for it but do some real home work and make changes like this:
Holds make Dodge Chance go to zero.
Roots reduce Dodge Chance
AoE attacks reduce Avoidance values
Have a maximum Dodge chance of 95% that can only be exceeded by Masterful Dodge.
Or simply make the bulk of the nerf fall on avoidance and not dodge, that accomplishes the nerf better IMHO
There are so many better ways to fix dodge AND preserve the heroic concept better. This change you propose isn't about mechanics, its about heroic themes and concepts.
I like these suggestions for a way to reign in Dodge, especially if it applies to enemies too. That would play into some strategic gameplay by opening up new options for debuffing foes. Perhaps we could also have debuffs for Critical Chance / Severity as well? IMO, that would be a lot more satisfying than just redoing the Diminishing Returns curves.
The current PTS build ( FC.31.20130824.10 ) has the following preview changes.
The diminishing returns curves on Avoid, Dodge, Critical Chance, Severity, and Offense have all been adjusted. Additionally Offense now scales in a separate layer of damage bonus to make it more straight forward to understand. Avoid, Dodge, Critical Chance, and Severity will now rise significantly more slowly while at level cap. Offense will now scale with an entirely new curve, and should be much more valuable to players overall. This is an experimental potential future change that will not be part of the bug fix release. We are interested in how these adjustments feel at at all levels of gameplay.
The Debugger has an upcoming set of gear (Justice Gear) for your testing and feedback.
Please discuss them in this thread!
Lordgar, you seem like a nice person, so I'm just going to say this person to person and not as a customer.
Who asked for this? Any of this? I see a blurb in Gamasutra about Jack Emmert's upcoming speech on how to handle "pay to win" situations and frankly I don't think it's a coincidence. Push this through, and I will be speaking to my bank and getting a rather large chunk of the sizeable amount of money I've spent on this game back. I know this means I will no longer be able to play any of PWE's games ever again, but frankly, despite the wonderful friends I have made here, that in and of itself is simply not enough to make me turn a blind eye to what's happening here, and I'll pull the trigger and walk away.
Lordgar, you seem like a nice person, so I'm just going to say this person to person and not as a customer.
.... Push this through, and I will be speaking to my bank and getting a rather large chunk of the sizeable amount of money I've spent on this game back. ...
I thought you weren't speaking as a customer? Seriously. :rolleyes:
Apparently Lightning Reflexes and Way of the Warrior provide dodge RATING (which is what is now steeply diminished) while Quarry provides dodge CHANCE (which is not). Pretty sure Lightning Reflexes and Way of the Warrior (possibly other powers) will need to be exempted from this diminishing change, or modified to provide dodge chance instead of their current approach. Quarry remains quite robust.
I can't help but think this change completely misses its intended target. They're intending to make it so you can't get huge amounts of dodge while still running an offensive passive. But people don't do that by stacking lots of dodge rating, so changing dodge rating is ultimately pointless and only serves to irritate people at the lower end.
The ones who have the huge dodge plus offensive roles are doing it with powers that provide flat bonuses to dodge. Quarry, Evasive Maneuvers, Lead Tempest with advantage, etc. None of those are affected by diminishing returns at all.
So what needs to be done is not any change to dodge rating, but rather changing those flat bonuses to be properly affected by diminishing returns. The simplest way, as I see it, to do that would be to change them to grant dodge rating equivalent to their old flat bonus. So Quarry for example, instead of giving a flat 18% dodge chance bonus, would give however much dodge rating is equivalent to 18%. Which is to say, the amount that would take a character with no other source of dodge rating from the base of 10% to 28%.
That way, they can prevent the ridiculous dodge + offensive passive combo without making dodge rating itself effectively useless and also without making Lightning Reflexes useless, as in keeping with the intention of it being the dodge passive it would be the only power to keep its current flat bonus. This would in turn cement LR's place as the best passive for dodging stuff.
so is this why the rewards for
Help a bigfoot in trouble, have changed from
dodge core or an avoid core and an armoring core,
to 2 rank 3 stats and 1 rank 4. (and thats on LIVE)
they are being removed so people can't get them.
are they doing this to the FEW missions which have dodge/acoid cores as rewards, replacing them with low rank rubbish mods.
so is this why the rewards for
Help a bigfoot in trouble, have changed from
dodge core or an avoid core and an armoring core,
to 2 rank 3 stats and 1 rank 4. (and thats on LIVE)
they are being removed so people can't get them.
are they doing this to the FEW missions which have dodge/acoid cores as rewards, replacing them with low rank rubbish mods.
Well they are leftovers from a mod system that isn't quite finished.
so is this why the rewards for
Help a bigfoot in trouble, have changed from
dodge core or an avoid core and an armoring core,
to 2 rank 3 stats and 1 rank 4. (and thats on LIVE)
they are being removed so people can't get them.
are they doing this to the FEW missions which have dodge/acoid cores as rewards, replacing them with low rank rubbish mods.
When people log in to find that legion gear has been nerfed, that a greater divide between heroic and legion gear will exist under the guise of "sweeping changes" to core mechanics, and that instead of tailoring changes to a few powers they will overhaul the system apparently on a whim and prepare us for new gear to buy so that we may adjust accordingly, the mods themselves will be the least of Cryptic's worries.
I see a lot of people talking before testing.
This is a massive change, there will be some errors and tweaks.
The idea looks to be a shift from "Dodge and crit all the time always" to having offense and defense gear choices actually look appealing.
Are we there yet? Well no, the few tests I did have my build a lot crazier in damage outputs and survivability than it is on live with a heavy offense/defense spec. Won't be done testing for a while for a writeup, there's a lot to go through.
How about some datamining, like real datamining. Not just looking at numbers with what you already want to say in mind.
I see a lot of people talking before testing.
This is a massive change, there will be some errors and tweaks.
The idea looks to be a shift from "Dodge and crit all the time always" to having offense and defense gear choices actually look appealing.
Are we there yet? Well no, the few tests I did have my build a lot crazier in damage outputs and survivability than it is on live with a heavy offense/defense spec. Won't be done testing for a while for a writeup, there's a lot to go through.
How about some datamining, like real datamining. Not just looking at numbers with what you already want to say in mind.
Sorry for the double post, hit wrong button.
But this.
Testing is important. PTS to LIVE should be allottted longer time schedules for testing. Give silvers a means of joining and helping. If we get enough people, we could do what K proposes.
I'm also hearing that Lightning Reflexes, R3, at level 40, is only providing 10% Dodge Chance. So it's utterly worthless IMHO as a Passive.
^this
Cryptic, are you willing, if this LR nerf will go life, return Zen to every player who ever bought the Specialist or the Master AT, just like you did with Hawkwing prototype jets?
And grant them retrain token, so they can use Zen for purchasing other AT and retrain to it?
Because you will have to. You will be selling non-functional, broken product to people. Archetypes with no working passive.
Maybe what needs to be done, is make it so LR itself is the Dodge/Avoid Passive and can avoid a lot of the changes they want to do with Dodge/Avoid.
I admit to wanting some sort of change. I found the +DMG of Quarry to be worth switching to over LR (original passive) as I really didn't see that big of a difference play wise in the defense aspects (but noticed the damage difference).
But killing LR is a terrible idea.
It's my personal opinion that, if anything, Lightning Reflexes should be the most important way for obtaining high dodge and avoidance. While everything else can be safely nerfed. It's a dodge dedicated passive which is, since On Alert, overshadowed by everything else, from gear to offensive passives. Players wanting extreme dodge and survivability should be looking at LR first, not for Quarry or WoTW. As it is now, dodge system makes little sense and I do agree that some changes must be done to dodge stacking.
It's just that killing LR will be counter-productive, while Quarry will remain largely unaffected.
I would think that the history of a previous MMO would be a lesson to any future MMOs as to what happens when drastically changing its combat sytem.
To summarize, a company well-known for its MMO background managed to alienate the majority of its customer base by drastically changing its combat system. Now mind you, this was a STARWARS license, with a major fanbase that went well beyond your typical MMO playerbase, but even said license wasn't enough to prevent a mass exodus.
Don't get me wrong, I can accept that dodge/avoid has been a problem since I've started, and I'm referring to pre-alert. However, pre-alert, the biggest "issue" was Bountiful Chi Resurgence not having an internal cooldown, which was fixed ages ago.
Post alert, it's become standard across the board regardless of setup. However, it's mostly been out of necessity. Alerts are typically five random players thrown together to defeat a group of enemies. However, there is absolutely no guarantee of a well balanced team short of forming one beforehand.
As someone who's lost count of the alerts I've completed, I can tell you to this day I'm more likely than not going to pull more than my own weight, whether it be to carry lower level players or more casual ones. While that's all fine and dandy when I'm running my tank, I prefer offensively focused roles. To this day my most played character is my very first, an AT. Post-alert gear has allowed that character to remain playable in a less than ideal environment, which would be effectively the entire alert system.
By drastically reducing dodge/avoid, you would not only destroy a core mechanic, but also alienate a significant (if not large/majority) of your playerbase, myself included. While my departure from this game would be just shy of meaningless, I can guarantee you I would not be the only one. Players of all skill levels invest a combination of time, effort and money in order to enjoy their playing experience. Even this Destroid Invasion weekend, I'm still seeing folks taken aback by the recent changes to legacy devices, something that had significant advanced warning.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of us vets have learned to push the current combat system to the limit. But these changes would affect everyone, even the most casual of players. It should be no surprise that some of the playerbase can vastly outperform the majority, we've put in the time and effort to learn the system and adapted accordingly. But what about that brand new 40 that leveled strictly through smash alerts?
Also, as I'm sure has been mentioned, this change would single-handedly destroy any specialist AT, master AT, or any character built around lightning reflexes. While freeforms have the option of changing passives, those do not.
Ultimately I feel this is a poorly thought out solution from someone with little actual gameplay experience. I know from personal experience I've spent countless hours seeing the impact dodge has had on the gameplay experience across a number of characters both Archetype and Freeform. If there's an issue with damage mitigation, dodge/avoid may be a factor but its hardly the culprit.
The current PTS build ( FC.31.20130824.10 ) has the following preview changes.
The diminishing returns curves on Avoid, Dodge, Critical Chance, Severity, and Offense have all been adjusted. Additionally Offense now scales in a separate layer of damage bonus to make it more straight forward to understand. Avoid, Dodge, Critical Chance, and Severity will now rise significantly more slowly while at level cap. Offense will now scale with an entirely new curve, and should be much more valuable to players overall. This is an experimental potential future change that will not be part of the bug fix release. We are interested in how these adjustments feel at at all levels of gameplay.
The Debugger has an upcoming set of gear (Justice Gear) for your testing and feedback.
I've seen a few (very few) of my fellow players express what can be done with dodge when we min/max. That's a valid point, but in my opinion a marginally valid one and here's my opinion why. Note: This is my opinion.
The only people who are in support of this that I see are people who I know from years of playing with them, against them, and talking to them to be power gamers in this game. They (we) are the minority. Yes we can do some amazingly powerful stuff in the game but let's be honest most people who freeform aren't doing that kind of stuff and the ATs definitely are doing much of it either.
This is a delicate issue and I'm being nice by calling it an issue because I don't think dodge, avoid, crit etc. are the issue. I can count on one hand how many people I personally know who quit because the game is "too easy" and I'd need a few pages to write the names/handles of the ones I've said goodbye to over the last 4 years because they ran out of things to do...
I'll probably catch some flak for this but hopefully my friends respect me enough to respect me disagreeing with them on this one. Those of us on a certain channel who are pushing for this? Stop listening to them on this topic, seriously. They (we) have historically always found ways to break this game since launch that the vast majority of the playerbase either never know about or simply do not do. It's the game within the game. These dodge changes won't kill the game for me (or them). It'll kill some concepts but I'll build around them as I usually do or retire them like I did my main Sho Nuff about two years ago when a major change gutted his concept beyond repair at the time (although that change made me leave the game for months). However, when people like my casual friends, my wife, my cousin's wife, my frat brothers, or my 13 year old son play the game they already find it difficult and some of their characters are using dodge as it is now. I repeat they are using the current dodge and think the game is moderately hard. And let's not forget all the dodge characters I see falling in defeat in the PUG alerts.
In a nutshell, this looks like an attempt to make existing content "harder" but to be frank it won't make much of anything harder for the people pushing for this change and they (we) know it because we already know several other ways to get around this. It'll make a few isolated pieces of content slightly more challenging but the big effect is that it's going to make the game more difficult for the type of players that don't seem to need/want it to be more difficult. Don't do this, give the power gamers something new to do that will faceplant them until they figure it out.
To those speaking of LR: I've a sneaking suspicion it's bugged atm and is being looked at.
As to the changes:
I'm with Bob and Hinkypink. These were needed a very long time ago. Stacking dodge/avoid made making never-dying tanks too easy and trivialized content (my quarry single-blade guy could solo Cybermind. Yeah). Perhaps this way it won't be as easy to stack defense and healers will end up being a little more desired in Alert/team settings.
And before you people jump on me and say this is too much: player power is out of control and has been since On Alert hit. I suspect many of those complaining have gotten used to being this powerful or joined after On Alert hit. If it's this easy to create a free-form that can solo just about everything, there's something very wrong with the systems available and a good, hard look is needed.
There's also the fact that the devs may be seeing that players are stacking crit/dodge/avoid at the expense of all else. Having something be that desirable means its overpowered and requires adjusting.
This is only the initial adjustment. Some fine-tuning is expected, but I think this is the right direction. Hopefully, reigning in player power will allow the developers to create meaningfully challenging content.
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[thread=139701]My old, old guide for Ego Blades. Updated for On: Alert.[/thread]
[thread=154211]The Costume Contest Schedule. Stay up-to-date without having to log in![/thread]
They're just testing this change guys. This isn't going live tomorrow or anything. It makes sense to start the testing with more extreme values and then dial it in, rather than the other way around.
Funny part is, the mass outrage people are expressing at the fact that they might actually have to do something other than just slap on the exact same heroic primary with the exact same defense mod (and in a lot of cases the exact same passive) for every single character... just shows how badly this change is needed.
Remember when we used to complain that there were too many "obviously better" choices that restricted our ability to be creative? Good times.
Remember when we used to complain that the game was too easy? Now we're terrified that if our dodge gets lower we're all gonna get slaughtered.
I really don't care what the min max OP players do. I care that most of the players will LEAVE THIS GAME because they will DIE to easy mobs. repeatedly. superhero games are supposed to make you feel super. listen to kenpojitsu he knows what he's talking about.
Try actually playing a character without dodge primary and dodge mod installed, and a non-dodge passive. I've done it. You might be surprised. Did you know that there are things in this game to keep you from dying other than RNG?
They're just testing this change guys. This isn't going live tomorrow or anything. It makes sense to start the testing with more extreme values and then dial it in, rather than the other way around.
Funny part is, the mass outrage people are expressing at the fact that they might actually have to do something other than just slap on the exact same heroic primary with the exact same defense mod (and in a lot of cases the exact same passive) for every single character... just shows how badly this change is needed.
Remember when we used to complain that there were too many "obviously better" choices that restricted our ability to be creative? Good times.
Remember when we used to complain that the game was too easy? Now we're terrified that if our dodge gets lower we're all gonna get slaughtered.
I agree with that. Would be nice to see the other Heroic Primary with different defense mods used.
But killing the dodge build concepts isn't the way to do it. They need to figure out a way for the passives that are dodge/avoid themed to stay good at that and beable to build on it.
I really don't care what the min max OP players do. I care that most of the players will LEAVE THIS GAME because they will DIE to easy mobs. repeatedly. superhero games are supposed to make you feel super. listen to kenpojitsu he knows what he's talking about.
You should. They're often the ones who test this stuff.
It's currently possible to use an offensive passive and gain enough dodge to cover an off. passive's weakness: low defense. This removes the incentive to "kill before you are killed' and allows players to create offensive toons that can shrug off nasty hits. How do you construct content around a playerbase that creates toons that can solo just about everything? Or, for the matter, players using a defensive passive and stacking massive dodge on top of that? Invuln+dodge was a pretty popular combo and it's still potent nowadays, and don't get me started on Defiance+dodge.
I imagine this is intended to put dodge and crit back into their niche and make defense/offense stacking more attractive. Once LR gets looked at, I don't think this adjustment will look as bad as players are currently making it out to be. Until then, I'm reserving final judgment until LR's scaling is looked at.
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[thread=139701]My old, old guide for Ego Blades. Updated for On: Alert.[/thread]
[thread=154211]The Costume Contest Schedule. Stay up-to-date without having to log in![/thread]
I agree with that. Would be nice to see the other Heroic Primary with different defense mods used.
But killing the dodge build concepts isn't the way to do it. They need to figure out a way for the passives that are dodge/avoid themed to stay good at that and beable to build on it.
I have. problem is some people like having dodge be a viable alternative. this will kill it. there needs to be a dodge offensive passive that's viable. I tested quarry with full Justice gear on pts. it flat out was horrible. I died instantly to everything with over 200 defense stacked.
not to mention is makes BCR nearly useless for most builds.
I agree, those passives that have dodge as a core concept should still give useful amounts of dodge and avoidance; they were balanced like that at some point in the past after all, though just how much of it they should be able to keep will need to be seen.
Making BCR useless for most builds? Shouldn't that be the case? Should a power that essentially relies on a specific mechanic to make the best use of it be useful for every single build out there, or maybe just those builds that specifically focus on that mechanic?
See that's the problem here. This isn't killing dodge builds... this is actually creating dodge builds. Currently on live, every build is a dodge build... so effectively, that's just a default attribute of all builds. If this goes through in some form, the effect would be that making a dodge build actually means something.
And like I said... they're just testing these numbers. Developers will often start with extreme values and then dial them in, so what you're seeing now is unlikely to creep into live. Hell, people are reacting like this is going live next week... for all we know, this is just the start of a process that might take months.
Also Gradii... remember, there is more to this game than just face tanking everything. This might actually make people use some of those other gameplay mechanics this game has... you know, the ones other than "jump around spamming attacks while RNG keeps you safe" :P
no, because BCR fills the "not enough thematic self heals" void. its a neutral looking power that can be made to fit any theme. kill the dodge and now no one can effectively self heal without specific builds.
DON'T do this. players will LEAVE.
Yeah, cause threatening them with caps is the best thing to do to show that you haven't been emotionally compromised by self-interest.
Comments
If you want to challenge us, I agree with Gradii: Make new content to punish us, don't just break our builds and leave it at that. But make that content rewarding, not just simple bragging rights or one or two ultra-rare costume parts like Therakial's sword when it did drop. As it is this will drive players away, not bring in new ones.
I am all up for offense being an actual useful stat. At the moment stacking offense is not that great unless you are doing the Vindicator/Warden synergy to buff up defense, overall its a really lame stat, so buffing it up its a step in the right direction, and if it involves lowering the prevalence of crit, I am more than okay with it, it encourages build diversity... for instance making a char that hits HARD but less dependant on crit for instance
That being said....
As it is right now on the PTS, seems that is quite not there yet. With 400 offense and full stacks of concentration I am hitting with Chest Beam on live for 5190, on the PTS I am hitting for 5484... a bit underwhelming there.
As of dodge... I admit this is a stat I've abused on live with ALL of my characters. Its just TOO good. As soon as I hit 40 with a char, I just get a blue piece of gear with Avoidance, then mod it with dodge... VOILA! my character suddenly becomes a beast (defensive wise) no other defensive mod does that.... lets say I want to stack defense... or hp on my defensive gear... usually I won't get effects as dramatic as dodge gives.
With that being said....
Yes I believe that the curve of dodge needs to be adjusted. But definitely it was way too harsh... maybe some point in between?? Or make defense scale better... so its as attractive as stating dodge/avoidance??
Dunno those are my 2 cents on this topic.
Long story short:
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Click up there if you want to find more about the costumes behind my heroines.
Nerfing avoidance makes more sense, considering they're buffing defense. Dodge should be left alone. There's nothing wrong with hitting 100% dodge. What makes dodging overpowered is the avoidance % being stacked with other defenses. Dodge is nothing but a random number generator which procs avoidance. By nerfing avoidance alone, players could choose between keeping a high dodge % with mediocre mitigation or sacrificing some dodge % for more avoidance or defense, whichever they fancy.
Edit: Misread OP. No defense buff.
XS
Any which way I think they're exhausting their efforts on negative changes when they could be using it on positive things like new content and more bug fixes. I'll be the first to admit On Alert made some builds too good, but it's been well over a year and the damage has been done. Players have invested heavily, whether it be time, resources or even real money to get where they're at. If it's an issue of the content being too easy, change the content, not the player.
This!
Xs
LR becomes useless. Do you want people to quit? Do you really hate us that much cryptic!
Look at this board, look at the number of (Sane) people saying this is a bad bad idea.
I know it's just a test, but the numbers now in the pts are not good ones for folks who use a dodge build, (LR) are you saying screw that passive, use defiance or Inv if you want a defensive build that's worth anything".
Because what would be the benefit for taking LR be if i can't dodge or avoid anything?
None. You want to balance it? Fine. Balance it. But don't make it useless! The curve is too steep!
Work it out, so that people can live with the change. Don't leave it as is. Because, as of now it's a joke.
DONT DO THIS. DON'T DO ANYTHING REMOTLEY RELATED TO THIS. ANYONE WHO HAS SPENT TIME AND MONEY TO MAKE THEIR BUILDS WILL LEAVE YOUR GAME.
Are we serious here?
So...take LR, dodge everything, but...still get hit for lots of damage?
Maybe what needs to be done, is make it so LR itself is the Dodge/Avoid Passive and can avoid a lot of the changes they want to do with Dodge/Avoid.
I admit to wanting some sort of change. I found the +DMG of Quarry to be worth switching to over LR (original passive) as I really didn't see that big of a difference play wise in the defense aspects (but noticed the damage difference).
But killing LR is a terrible idea.
I like these suggestions for a way to reign in Dodge, especially if it applies to enemies too. That would play into some strategic gameplay by opening up new options for debuffing foes. Perhaps we could also have debuffs for Critical Chance / Severity as well? IMO, that would be a lot more satisfying than just redoing the Diminishing Returns curves.
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Lordgar, you seem like a nice person, so I'm just going to say this person to person and not as a customer.
Who asked for this? Any of this? I see a blurb in Gamasutra about Jack Emmert's upcoming speech on how to handle "pay to win" situations and frankly I don't think it's a coincidence. Push this through, and I will be speaking to my bank and getting a rather large chunk of the sizeable amount of money I've spent on this game back. I know this means I will no longer be able to play any of PWE's games ever again, but frankly, despite the wonderful friends I have made here, that in and of itself is simply not enough to make me turn a blind eye to what's happening here, and I'll pull the trigger and walk away.
Simple as that.
I thought you weren't speaking as a customer? Seriously. :rolleyes:
The ones who have the huge dodge plus offensive roles are doing it with powers that provide flat bonuses to dodge. Quarry, Evasive Maneuvers, Lead Tempest with advantage, etc. None of those are affected by diminishing returns at all.
So what needs to be done is not any change to dodge rating, but rather changing those flat bonuses to be properly affected by diminishing returns. The simplest way, as I see it, to do that would be to change them to grant dodge rating equivalent to their old flat bonus. So Quarry for example, instead of giving a flat 18% dodge chance bonus, would give however much dodge rating is equivalent to 18%. Which is to say, the amount that would take a character with no other source of dodge rating from the base of 10% to 28%.
That way, they can prevent the ridiculous dodge + offensive passive combo without making dodge rating itself effectively useless and also without making Lightning Reflexes useless, as in keeping with the intention of it being the dodge passive it would be the only power to keep its current flat bonus. This would in turn cement LR's place as the best passive for dodging stuff.
Help a bigfoot in trouble, have changed from
dodge core or an avoid core and an armoring core,
to 2 rank 3 stats and 1 rank 4. (and thats on LIVE)
they are being removed so people can't get them.
are they doing this to the FEW missions which have dodge/acoid cores as rewards, replacing them with low rank rubbish mods.
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Well they are leftovers from a mod system that isn't quite finished.
Deliciously nutritious!
When people log in to find that legion gear has been nerfed, that a greater divide between heroic and legion gear will exist under the guise of "sweeping changes" to core mechanics, and that instead of tailoring changes to a few powers they will overhaul the system apparently on a whim and prepare us for new gear to buy so that we may adjust accordingly, the mods themselves will be the least of Cryptic's worries.
This is a massive change, there will be some errors and tweaks.
The idea looks to be a shift from "Dodge and crit all the time always" to having offense and defense gear choices actually look appealing.
Are we there yet? Well no, the few tests I did have my build a lot crazier in damage outputs and survivability than it is on live with a heavy offense/defense spec. Won't be done testing for a while for a writeup, there's a lot to go through.
How about some datamining, like real datamining. Not just looking at numbers with what you already want to say in mind.
The PTS server does not have enough players participating at the moment.
Don't.
Touch.
My.
Gear.
Unless we agree that inborn tenacity items are causing imbalance, and should be removed.
Sorry for the double post, hit wrong button.
But this.
Testing is important. PTS to LIVE should be allottted longer time schedules for testing. Give silvers a means of joining and helping. If we get enough people, we could do what K proposes.
Cryptic, are you willing, if this LR nerf will go life, return Zen to every player who ever bought the Specialist or the Master AT, just like you did with Hawkwing prototype jets?
And grant them retrain token, so they can use Zen for purchasing other AT and retrain to it?
Because you will have to. You will be selling non-functional, broken product to people. Archetypes with no working passive.
It's my personal opinion that, if anything, Lightning Reflexes should be the most important way for obtaining high dodge and avoidance. While everything else can be safely nerfed. It's a dodge dedicated passive which is, since On Alert, overshadowed by everything else, from gear to offensive passives. Players wanting extreme dodge and survivability should be looking at LR first, not for Quarry or WoTW. As it is now, dodge system makes little sense and I do agree that some changes must be done to dodge stacking.
It's just that killing LR will be counter-productive, while Quarry will remain largely unaffected.
I would think that the history of a previous MMO would be a lesson to any future MMOs as to what happens when drastically changing its combat sytem.
To summarize, a company well-known for its MMO background managed to alienate the majority of its customer base by drastically changing its combat system. Now mind you, this was a STARWARS license, with a major fanbase that went well beyond your typical MMO playerbase, but even said license wasn't enough to prevent a mass exodus.
Don't get me wrong, I can accept that dodge/avoid has been a problem since I've started, and I'm referring to pre-alert. However, pre-alert, the biggest "issue" was Bountiful Chi Resurgence not having an internal cooldown, which was fixed ages ago.
Post alert, it's become standard across the board regardless of setup. However, it's mostly been out of necessity. Alerts are typically five random players thrown together to defeat a group of enemies. However, there is absolutely no guarantee of a well balanced team short of forming one beforehand.
As someone who's lost count of the alerts I've completed, I can tell you to this day I'm more likely than not going to pull more than my own weight, whether it be to carry lower level players or more casual ones. While that's all fine and dandy when I'm running my tank, I prefer offensively focused roles. To this day my most played character is my very first, an AT. Post-alert gear has allowed that character to remain playable in a less than ideal environment, which would be effectively the entire alert system.
By drastically reducing dodge/avoid, you would not only destroy a core mechanic, but also alienate a significant (if not large/majority) of your playerbase, myself included. While my departure from this game would be just shy of meaningless, I can guarantee you I would not be the only one. Players of all skill levels invest a combination of time, effort and money in order to enjoy their playing experience. Even this Destroid Invasion weekend, I'm still seeing folks taken aback by the recent changes to legacy devices, something that had significant advanced warning.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of us vets have learned to push the current combat system to the limit. But these changes would affect everyone, even the most casual of players. It should be no surprise that some of the playerbase can vastly outperform the majority, we've put in the time and effort to learn the system and adapted accordingly. But what about that brand new 40 that leveled strictly through smash alerts?
Also, as I'm sure has been mentioned, this change would single-handedly destroy any specialist AT, master AT, or any character built around lightning reflexes. While freeforms have the option of changing passives, those do not.
Ultimately I feel this is a poorly thought out solution from someone with little actual gameplay experience. I know from personal experience I've spent countless hours seeing the impact dodge has had on the gameplay experience across a number of characters both Archetype and Freeform. If there's an issue with damage mitigation, dodge/avoid may be a factor but its hardly the culprit.
Pretty much this. ^
I've seen a few (very few) of my fellow players express what can be done with dodge when we min/max. That's a valid point, but in my opinion a marginally valid one and here's my opinion why. Note: This is my opinion.
The only people who are in support of this that I see are people who I know from years of playing with them, against them, and talking to them to be power gamers in this game. They (we) are the minority. Yes we can do some amazingly powerful stuff in the game but let's be honest most people who freeform aren't doing that kind of stuff and the ATs definitely are doing much of it either.
This is a delicate issue and I'm being nice by calling it an issue because I don't think dodge, avoid, crit etc. are the issue. I can count on one hand how many people I personally know who quit because the game is "too easy" and I'd need a few pages to write the names/handles of the ones I've said goodbye to over the last 4 years because they ran out of things to do...
I'll probably catch some flak for this but hopefully my friends respect me enough to respect me disagreeing with them on this one. Those of us on a certain channel who are pushing for this? Stop listening to them on this topic, seriously. They (we) have historically always found ways to break this game since launch that the vast majority of the playerbase either never know about or simply do not do. It's the game within the game. These dodge changes won't kill the game for me (or them). It'll kill some concepts but I'll build around them as I usually do or retire them like I did my main Sho Nuff about two years ago when a major change gutted his concept beyond repair at the time (although that change made me leave the game for months). However, when people like my casual friends, my wife, my cousin's wife, my frat brothers, or my 13 year old son play the game they already find it difficult and some of their characters are using dodge as it is now. I repeat they are using the current dodge and think the game is moderately hard. And let's not forget all the dodge characters I see falling in defeat in the PUG alerts.
In a nutshell, this looks like an attempt to make existing content "harder" but to be frank it won't make much of anything harder for the people pushing for this change and they (we) know it because we already know several other ways to get around this. It'll make a few isolated pieces of content slightly more challenging but the big effect is that it's going to make the game more difficult for the type of players that don't seem to need/want it to be more difficult. Don't do this, give the power gamers something new to do that will faceplant them until they figure it out.
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As to the changes:
I'm with Bob and Hinkypink. These were needed a very long time ago. Stacking dodge/avoid made making never-dying tanks too easy and trivialized content (my quarry single-blade guy could solo Cybermind. Yeah). Perhaps this way it won't be as easy to stack defense and healers will end up being a little more desired in Alert/team settings.
And before you people jump on me and say this is too much: player power is out of control and has been since On Alert hit. I suspect many of those complaining have gotten used to being this powerful or joined after On Alert hit. If it's this easy to create a free-form that can solo just about everything, there's something very wrong with the systems available and a good, hard look is needed.
There's also the fact that the devs may be seeing that players are stacking crit/dodge/avoid at the expense of all else. Having something be that desirable means its overpowered and requires adjusting.
This is only the initial adjustment. Some fine-tuning is expected, but I think this is the right direction. Hopefully, reigning in player power will allow the developers to create meaningfully challenging content.
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Funny part is, the mass outrage people are expressing at the fact that they might actually have to do something other than just slap on the exact same heroic primary with the exact same defense mod (and in a lot of cases the exact same passive) for every single character... just shows how badly this change is needed.
Remember when we used to complain that there were too many "obviously better" choices that restricted our ability to be creative? Good times.
Remember when we used to complain that the game was too easy? Now we're terrified that if our dodge gets lower we're all gonna get slaughtered.
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If it turns out to be a scam to sell more lockboxes I will be very unhappy with this game.
A few pages back someone mentioned that that new gear is just for testing, and will not go live.
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Try actually playing a character without dodge primary and dodge mod installed, and a non-dodge passive. I've done it. You might be surprised. Did you know that there are things in this game to keep you from dying other than RNG?
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I agree with that. Would be nice to see the other Heroic Primary with different defense mods used.
But killing the dodge build concepts isn't the way to do it. They need to figure out a way for the passives that are dodge/avoid themed to stay good at that and beable to build on it.
You should. They're often the ones who test this stuff.
It's currently possible to use an offensive passive and gain enough dodge to cover an off. passive's weakness: low defense. This removes the incentive to "kill before you are killed' and allows players to create offensive toons that can shrug off nasty hits. How do you construct content around a playerbase that creates toons that can solo just about everything? Or, for the matter, players using a defensive passive and stacking massive dodge on top of that? Invuln+dodge was a pretty popular combo and it's still potent nowadays, and don't get me started on Defiance+dodge.
I imagine this is intended to put dodge and crit back into their niche and make defense/offense stacking more attractive. Once LR gets looked at, I don't think this adjustment will look as bad as players are currently making it out to be. Until then, I'm reserving final judgment until LR's scaling is looked at.
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I agree, those passives that have dodge as a core concept should still give useful amounts of dodge and avoidance; they were balanced like that at some point in the past after all, though just how much of it they should be able to keep will need to be seen.
Making BCR useless for most builds? Shouldn't that be the case? Should a power that essentially relies on a specific mechanic to make the best use of it be useful for every single build out there, or maybe just those builds that specifically focus on that mechanic?
See that's the problem here. This isn't killing dodge builds... this is actually creating dodge builds. Currently on live, every build is a dodge build... so effectively, that's just a default attribute of all builds. If this goes through in some form, the effect would be that making a dodge build actually means something.
And like I said... they're just testing these numbers. Developers will often start with extreme values and then dial them in, so what you're seeing now is unlikely to creep into live. Hell, people are reacting like this is going live next week... for all we know, this is just the start of a process that might take months.
Also Gradii... remember, there is more to this game than just face tanking everything. This might actually make people use some of those other gameplay mechanics this game has... you know, the ones other than "jump around spamming attacks while RNG keeps you safe" :P
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Yeah, cause threatening them with caps is the best thing to do to show that you haven't been emotionally compromised by self-interest.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I think I'm done....
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