I got on for some testing, aside from the issues I already complained about [sorry Kaz, et all it didn't change my mind to play it] one thing weirded me out..
I didn't happen to have mods in the pockets of the toon I had, so I went ahead and tested some of the Justice Gear without...
I was kind of startled how little difference it made in my stats.
I noticed sure, but the gap is far less that I would have thought, no primary stat mods in my gear and...
Meh..
Did diminishing returns get that severe?
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
Low power players won't be effected by these as much as overpowered players who use multiples of the same kind of mods on top of power boosts to stats.
Its simply clear that the dodge change was way too much and a number must have been fudged somewhere.
So I've been reading through this entire thread (15 full pages, that's ALOT of rage), and I keep seeing people just saying "Oh, dodge is OP because if you take all these skills, you can make it OP."
This isn't a valid example. That's like saying "Everyone should have these four powers as standard." Not everyone wants to always pick the same powers as everyone else. I've subscribed a couple of times for a couple of months, just so I could mess about with builds as a Gold member with freeform slots. I have two Silver Freeform Slots, that I've bought. I've invested alot of time, AND money, into getting my characters well set up, geared, etc etc.
I -do- agree dodge is an easy stat to max up and make a person strong, but this curve? Is frankly quite ridiculous. And even more ridiculous are the people talking about edge-case scenarios of perfectly set up powerbuilds with certain powers that are strong. Well, why not just nerf those powers, rather than kicking everyone in the balls for the fact a chosen few people found one way to break the game.
Also, I predict lockbox gear, which will make me VERY pissed off, and give this game the finger and walk off. I spent WAY too much time getting the money to buy Legion Gear, for my character, and that's on just ONE. No way am I going through all that again, just to be competitive and be able to run through the instances without trouble.
I like having bragging rights. I don't like having to rely on random people to get me through things, which have NO REWARD WHATSOEVER. Give the world-bosses some fancy loot, and I might consider this change being beneficial. But until the content actually gets rewarding to finish?
Quarry is an offensive passive that provides more defensive capability then most other defensive passives.
Cause that makes sense.
About time dodge got hammered. Obviously it's going to be tweaked, but the fact that dodge was a stupidly easy to get boost that would flat cut huge chunks of damage was silly broken. Don't even need to min-max, it had a nerf coming for the past few months, just didn't have the people to do it until now.
So why nerf Dodge, and not nerf Quarry, with that line of thinking? Not that I want to see Quarry nerfed mind you. But I always thought LR should beable to get the highest Dodge/Avoid possible...that's what the set is about and you can't even truely dodge, you still take damage.
To lordgar, at least read the opinions of secksegai and kenpojujitsu3 on page 9.
I trust secksegai to have an understanding of what it's like to be at the top of an AT's game, he's played them extensively and has a deep understanding of builds to do so. And like kenpo, I can (but not necessarily will) make min/max builds that belittle your content.
From my 3 years with CO, I've only seen time and time again how listening to power players, you devs continue to take dumps on my thematic hero concepts.
The one true reason I started playing this game is to play heros I've dreamt up, but have to suffer concessions and retcons every time you make your so called 'balancing'.
STOP limiting the customisation aspect of my hero building. I need a variety of concepts to be viable that won't be as fail when I try to take on villians, and not having to make concessions because of power players or pvp.
Did you know for close to 2 years, I couldn't envision a speedster hero until the night avenger AT's powers came about? Nothing you had even loosely fit a speedster except one hundred hands (bleh). My Masquerade was born after, a speedster with superspeed that can throw multiple projectiles quickly at multiple enemies. He was so much fun. Unfortunately, despite being made before everyone started exploiting his chosen powers, I returned from hiatus to find him a lot less heroic. I wish you had found a solution to fix the exploit instead of removing his tap on throwing blades.
Low power players won't be effected by these as much as overpowered players who use multiples of the same kind of mods on top of power boosts to stats.
Its simply clear that the dodge change was way too much and a number must have been fudged somewhere.
This is starting to sound an awful lot like the recent device change, don't you think?
Grind for the Grind God! Tokens for the Token Throne!
Cryptic - Remember the silver players who have to play ATs, the ones who don't get PTS access, who can't cherrypick powers, who don't have the level of insight into builds that those gold players who have been here a long time have.
Those that put in the hard work building, testing, tweaking & retesting will have OP toons. Those who put the time and thought in will always find their way to become OP whatever you change.
Every nerf, every buff, every change is an opportunity for someone with that level of knowledge.
There isn't a solution for that.
But those that don't or can't won't even tell you about it, they'll just walk away...
______________________________________________
In a former life I was known as Supercollide
I'm willing to admit that I try to wring every bit of utility I can out of every max level build, while not necessarily caring about having super-amazing gear. I use R4 or R5 if I have it, Heroic Gear for my 40s. Of ... maybe 10 ... 40s, I think two have one piece of Vigilante gear each. No Legion gear that is equipped as yet.
My wife, on the other hand - plays games like this to have her characters hit things repeatedly, since as she puts it, she can't at work.
Making it hard for the average gamer, particularly ones who may enjoy passives like LR... won't really help you all in terms of customer retention.
Because personally... I definitely know entirely rules-following ways to make my characters powerful, and if it is within the rules, I will make them as useful and powerful as I can. Because I enjoy doing that. Not everyone has the time, patience, or interest in doing so.
I'm going to chalk the dodge changes up at present as a first draft. An opening offer, as it were.
I think what people who have a high investment in dodge need to do is run some comparisons, live vs PTS. What missions / situations can you handle on live that make you faceplant on PTS, mind you, *without* using the Justice gear. Just flat out whatever you already had. Be specific.
"On live, I can handle X". "On PTS, I cannot handle X".
My current main Quarry character is generally as survivable on PTS 5-man hard as on live, but that's only due to crowd control and Sentinel Mastery.
Sometimes particular changes will force a reshuffling of tactics, sometimes particular changes are just too harsh as they are now.
I do think going from 38% dodge to 13% dodge is too harsh right now. That may just be a testament to how "overpowered" Silver Champion gear + current dodge mods are with the current setup on live... but it simply feels nearly useless to even use Dodge mods on PTS at present, single-stack, double-stack, or at all.
Defense mods are a WAY better deal at present. Is that *really* the intention?
Plus LR is ... well, sad. Quarry shouldn't have higher Dodge than LR. Period. However, Quarry coming in around 30%... meh. Too low. IMO.
I think I agree with those saying that Dodge isn't the problem - Avoidance is. almost all of my 40s have ~60% avoidance. So there's very little reason to *ever* use any other gear.
I do find it interesting that the Justice gear, with same-rank mods, provides more stats. I do find that more fun, and fully-kitted out with Justice gear, the characters I've redone have a LOT higher super stats, and damage.
But the dodge curve change is too extreme.
Do something about it? Sure, I guess. Dodge/Avoid with Heroic gear is very powerful at present.
This change? Wouldn't recommend it as-is for Dodge.
For Crit - I don't lose that much, severity stayed the same, and avoidance only shrank a bit. But Dodge is ... too low at present in my personal opinion.
Open up PTS to silver players, and you'll finally get more accurate reactions to your test builds from the vast majority of your playing community. Stop shutting out a significant portion of your player base.
Then you can stop making stupid changes, and waste time on the cycle of rectifying these said mistakes to make them work out, and finally focus on creating content for this game.
It should be opened to silvers, I agree. But regarding the new gear;
I don't think they will take the news that instead of providing more challenging content, or creating new difficulty settings, that PWE decided new gear should be implemented. If you were say a casual player with a decent knowledge of the way pts works, and the way lockboxes work, wouldn't you come to the conclusion that PWE is just going to introduce new gear every now and then in a scramble to make more money because they are done making new costumes and content?
Before these changes were proposed, who exactly was asking for changes to core mechanics that will affect gear? There have been plenty of suggestions, pleas, etc for new things to be added to the game, for new powers, for revisiting old powers, but please, someone, anyone find me one thread where someone asked for a post on alert gear revamp with any of the changes proposed here.
This has the potential for serious financial damage, bad press, more bad word of mouth, etc. This is folly.
We could also stop pretending this has anything to do with balance. This is an attempt to get us to purchase a new set of gear.
If people feel like they are trivializing the content, self limitation is a fix that could be applied by the players themselves.
Dodge too high? Don't rank up passives that use it. Is the content still super easy? Ok, strip out your secondary gear and run content. Is your damage output ruining your fun? Easy, take different powers or don't rank the powers you think are overpowered. Still not enough? Leave an active offense out of your build. We could go on all day with this.
I have a feeling the new gear is being made for the PvP Vendors. The PvP community has been asking for new additions to help get more people involved in PvP, this might just be the starting point to answering those requests. I'm interested to see where all this goes.
I hope this change doesn't happen. But, if it does... even with different numbers, better numbers, fine. But , for the love of god , make LR the highest dodge/Avoid passive!
Not that second rate bows and arrows passive! If a build is going to have the highest dodge stats it should be with LR, period! Isn't that what LR is all about??
I sure hope you people listen to feedback, because this thread is letting you know how much of a royal eff up you guys are headed for if you pass that nonsense being tested in the pts.
The curve is way too steep at the moment. I guess this is a test... One can only hope this NEVER goes live.
I have a feeling the new gear is being made for the PvP Vendors. The PvP community has been asking for new additions to help get more people involved in PvP, this might just be the starting point to answering those requests. I'm interested to see where all this goes.
PVP? LOL! Fine. But leave dodge alone.
If it is, they shouldn't screw up EVERYBODY else to implement this new gear.
When you proposed nerfing devices I said "nerf free forms, because being able to choose powers from different trees allows players to exploit them" - I was kidding...I was taking what you were doing to the extreme to make a point. I wasn't serious and I didn't expect you to actually do it, Yet somehow, this feels very close to that...
So I am going to make a few points...
1) exactly what is all of this balancing for? What content needs these changes to be functional? Is it the content that you built a super highway bypass around with the on-alert power leveling sessions? Did people stop playing the content because powers were imbalanced or because they just use alerts to get to 40? Or maybe it was because they had already done it a million times and craved new content. Not because dodge needs to be nerfed. A 100%dodge toon is fairly easy to kill and your fix is to increase damage and decrease dodge... Exactly how is that balance? How many dodge tanks you see running around any more? Not many, because players with less than 2 years experience have a hard time building one that cn survive anything serious.
2) the game is imbalanced. So what. Why is that a big deal? Have the imbalances made the game MORE or LESS enjoyable? The reason the game is imbalanced is the same reason champions is more fun than other similar games. The imbalance stems from the huge amount of customization and the fact the power choices are not locked or treed. That was the pen and paper games biggest attraction. It is also the online versions biggest attraction. Give people freedom and they will find ways to build uber toons. Not everyone will, but some will. Again, so what if they do??? They will get bored of that and start building theme toons, especially if they have content to play. 95% of the player base wont care and will go on having fun. Is all of this balancing for PVP?
3) the only way to truly balance the game is to make every character a cookie cutter copy of every other one. Which is what some other mmo's do. And it is totally boring.
I have lost a lot of faith in this game recently. It feels a lot like all of the nerfing that EQII did right before I walked away from a 3-4 year old account there and never went back.
I was about to come to the forums and say something along those lines and he beat me to it.
It is my opinion that a dev is like a min/maxer, forever wanting to tweak his baby. Too blind to open his eyes and see the bigger picture.
No one really cares if some forgettable player drops into an alert with an OP build. WHY?
You have nothing to do with your OP build than play a 2-5mins alert with random players who don't give a rat's **** what you do in the alert.
You can't possibly enjoy running your OP build soloing elite lairs over and over and not get sick of it the first couple of times. There's only alerts to play your OP build which is really just a bad joke on you.
And get this, most of these people experiment with min/maxing AFTER they are done with the content. Why does it matter what OP builds they come up with? They have nothing else to do already!
It's the players going through the content for the first time that's going to have a more difficult time.
PVP has no OP builds, you're fighting carbon copies of yourself. Balancing has no end in sight here.
Only (a minority) other forgettable min/maxers or pvpers come here and whine about how another forgettable player has more dps or survivable than him and demands a balance.
The only way these changes even makes sense is if there is a level cap, 2 new zones, 4 new adventure packs, 10 new ATs ( 5 free, 5 premium) and 15 new power sets.
Not while there's nothing new to do, and you're encouraging players right this moment to spend money on keys for anniversary lockboxes and promoting Legion equipment as the best while already planning to make them obsolete. WTF?
Well, I just want to make clear that I think changing the crit or dodge curves are ABSOLUTELY WRONG. It's been like this for 4 years and has been working fine. You just overdid the gear.
I really do suspect the tweak is tied to selling more gear in the form of lockboxes. Sorry Cryptic, you don't deserve any presumption of innocence.
You want to create new gear? Well, you're just gonna have to keep making it better not worse. Make gear with small but flat bonuses to Dodge or Crit, say 3%. Yeah, people will buy and our builds will still feel heroic.
I still think a tweak to half value on crit and dodge gear and Gambler's Luck will be helpful to make powers like Parry and Lightning Reflexes useful again, plus make Dodge and Crit rating specs have some utility.
Justice Gear. I was not prepared for this...but:
Against my better judgement I shall release everything I have thus far about this special type of gear.
First off, Let's start with some speed comparison!
389 cooldown reduction and 5 int gives you 42 second recharge on MD. This is two rank 9 cooldown cores in legion gear of speed.
455 cooldown reduction and 5 int gives you 39 second recharge on MD. This is two rank 9 cooldown cores in justice gear.
How can this be you ask? Well you see, Justice gear might have less bonus on the gear but the mods you put into it provide more of a bonus than you would get otherwise.
Judging by these numbers LR just got hit with the PFF stick..and just to give insult to injury having 831 superstats for a rank 3 LR gives you 499 dodge stat bonus so that means LR gives insignificantly more than 21.1% while rank 3 quarry gives 28% and this is before you factor in the 10~20% bonus from gear!
Once more, a person with 1101 in their stats has a LR of 661 dodge stat bonus which is 24.7% dodge chance!
Next, avoida-Wait..what do you mean no one cares about anything else? Well too bad I'll type it out anyway!
Live Avoidance:
Base Avoidance is 20%
102 Avoidance grants 52.5%
139 avoidance grants 58.7%
241 avoidance grants 69.5%
353 Avoidance grants 76.3%
374 Avoidance grants 77.2%
PTS Offense(I am not about to do all those numbers..):
376 Offense grants 13%
1445.5 Offense grants 33%
Edit: Oh, right...crit-strike and sev...yea..forgot about those silly stats...anyway!~
Live Critical Strike:
"Base" critical chance is 0 BUT because you MUST have 10 dex it turns into 0.13%
47 Critical Strike grants 3.9%
95 Critical Strike grants 11.2%
103 Critical Strike grants 12.7%
198 Critical Strike grants 27%
245 Critical Strike grants 32.2%
PTS Critical Strike:
"Base" critical chance is 0 BUT because you MUST have 10 dex it turns into 3.8%
47 Critical Strike grants 13.4%
95 Critical Strike grants 19%
103 Critical Strike grants 19.9%
198 Critical Strike grants 26.4%
302 Critical Strike grants 30.8%
Live Critical Severity:
Base Severity is 50%
4.6 Severity grants 61.3%
8.9 Severity grants 65.6%
I've got to say I'm a layman when it comes to this statting, but it seems counterintuitive to spend all that effort during On Alert buffing crit and dodge chance through specializations, only to come back and nerf it now...Particularly without a good replacement waiting in the wings.
I also find it deeply concerning that Lighting Reflexes will be nerfed to defensive levels below an offensive passive.
That said:
Having everything under the sun crit/dodge is by no means a balanced system. I think giving offense and defense a bigger role can't help but improve gameplay. I'm just not certain that nerfing another aspect of the game is the best way to make offense useful. To my view, it should be a choice between two archetypes. Hear me out
Spiderman is a dodge tank. He would have high dodge chance, be nigh untouchable, but have fairly lousy defenses (spandex is crappy body armor). High agility gives him better crit chance, but he's not going to do the same burst damage. Lower offense.
The Hulk is freakin invulnerable. Nothing gets through his skin, but he's not agile, not by any means. High defense, low dodge, good offense, bad critting.
I think that crit chance should be kept where it is, but that offense and defense should be made more valuable to the player, so that either of the above mentioned concepts is doable, or even a middle ground, ala Captain America.
I also echo the sentiments of some other players in this thread, who have pointed out that its a bad idea to reinvent the wheel, when we don't have any new places to drive.
Justice Gear. I was not prepared for this...but:
Against my better judgement I shall release everything I have thus far about this special type of gear.
First off, Let's start with some speed comparison!
389 cooldown reduction and 5 int gives you 42 second recharge on MD. This is two rank 9 cooldown cores in legion gear of speed.
455 cooldown reduction and 5 int gives you 39 second recharge on MD. This is two rank 9 cooldown cores in justice gear.
How can this be you ask? Well you see, Justice gear might have less bonus on the gear but the mods you put into it provide more of a bonus than you would get otherwise.
Judging by these numbers LR just got hit with the PFF stick..and just to give insult to injury having 831 superstats for a rank 3 LR gives you 499 dodge stat bonus so that means LR gives insignificantly more than 21.1% while rank 3 quarry gives 28% and this is before you factor in the 10~20% bonus from gear!
Once more, a person with 1101 in their stats has a LR of 661 dodge stat bonus which is 24.7% dodge chance!
Next, avoida-Wait..what do you mean no one cares about anything else? Well too bad I'll type it out anyway!
Live Avoidance:
Base Avoidance is 20%
102 Avoidance grants 52.5%
139 avoidance grants 58.7%
241 avoidance grants 69.5%
353 Avoidance grants 76.3%
374 Avoidance grants 77.2%
PTS Offense(I am not about to do all those numbers..):
376 Offense grants 13%
1445.5 Offense grants 33%
Edit: Oh, right...crit-strike and sev...yea..forgot about those silly stats...anyway!~
Live Critical Strike:
"Base" critical chance is 0 BUT because you MUST have 10 dex it turns into 0.13%
47 Critical Strike grants 3.9%
95 Critical Strike grants 11.2%
103 Critical Strike grants 12.7%
198 Critical Strike grants 27%
245 Critical Strike grants 32.2%
PTS Critical Strike:
"Base" critical chance is 0 BUT because you MUST have 10 dex it turns into 3.8%
47 Critical Strike grants 13.4%
95 Critical Strike grants 19%
103 Critical Strike grants 19.9%
198 Critical Strike grants 26.4%
302 Critical Strike grants 30.8%
Live Critical Severity:
Base Severity is 50%
4.6 Severity grants 61.3%
8.9 Severity grants 65.6%
Can we please consider the title of this thread? PTS Preview Changes. Since this is not live, let's stop acting like the world is ending and provide feedback in a manner that maximizes our chances of being listened to.
Do you ever find that it's easier to understand what people are saying when they're not screaming at you?
I'm happy to bet anyone 3k G (or more?) that this version on the PTS right now is not going to go live without dialing back the degree of this nerf to dodge/avoid.
Can we please consider the title of this thread? PTS Preview Changes. Since this is not live, let's stop acting like the world is ending and provide feedback in a manner that maximizes our chances of being listened to.
Do you ever find that it's easier to understand what people are saying when they're not screaming at you?
I'm happy to bet anyone 3k G (or more?) that this version on the PTS right now is not going to go live without dialing back the degree of this nerf to dodge/avoid.
This is the discussion thread. The one you are looking for is one thread up.
This looks like an attempt to lessen the gap between high performance and concept builds. The gap always existed but was exacerbated by the On Alert patch. Widening the gap made balancing content for the full spectrum of builds even more difficult than it had always been. This was pointed out by testers at the time...and largely ignored by the developers involved.
In theory it makes some degree of sense to attempt to narrow the aforementioned gap. But, and this is a big but, it is critical that any tweaks to the DR model, particularly on defenses, not adversely affect characters at the low end of the spectrum.
If something of this sort is going to go live there will need to be a great deal of finesse employed in balancing the tweaks to the DR model and in addressing the concerns of players who spent real money to gain access to current gear specifically to push their numbers higher.
The key is to test diligently and provide feedback as free of agenda as possible and to remember that these are not final numbers. The devs are working on the game. Lets encourage that.
With offence being good on PTS now, the 'the best defence' spec is a little over the top.
And even more so the 'agressive stance'/'the best defence' combo.
I think those should be changed to be balanced against the other spec options.
The easiest way to change them would be to make them work with only the base offence and defence from items and nothing from others specs bonuses.
Another thing that needs to be looked over are the things that scale with one specific stat.
With that new gear the maximum stat points are getting inflated quite a bit, that works just a little too good with things like defiance, audacity and all the forms.
Defiance and audacity could be changed to work with all your superstats.
Forms could use a really big reduction in effectiveness, reducing forms by about 50% would do a lot of good.
That would reduce the supremacy of AOPM, stop tanks from doing more damage then dps builds, and specs that add damage strength would have a larger effect.
Can we please consider the title of this thread? PTS Preview Changes. Since this is not live, let's stop acting like the world is ending and provide feedback in a manner that maximizes our chances of being listened to.
Do you ever find that it's easier to understand what people are saying when they're not screaming at you?
I'm happy to bet anyone 3k G (or more?) that this version on the PTS right now is not going to go live without dialing back the degree of this nerf to dodge/avoid.
This is the discussion thread. The one you are looking for is one thread up.
Cant really add much more to this apart from a large chunk of us already know this isnt going live as the devs have already said in various channels they arnt finished with the new dodge maths yet . People saying the maths on PTS is screwing something up is actually FEEDBACK.
Might not be the feedback you personally like but its not aimed at you and is still feedback none the less and as Fury said this aint the feedback thread tis is the discussion thread. Please stay on topic
I have a feeling the new gear is being made for the PvP Vendors. The PvP community has been asking for new additions to help get more people involved in PvP, this might just be the starting point to answering those requests. I'm interested to see where all this goes.
One word : Lockbox.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I hope these changes mean you are trying to bridge the gap between minmax and casual builds and make content creation easier. If that's the case, please make future gear not something that just gives you your old numbers back, but rather something that lets characters branch out with more options.
Other than that, I like the idea behind these changes. I know people take issue over having to "get new gear all of a sudden", but I've been through re-gearing and re-speccing a few times now (including getting my last piece of gear after 8 months of farming, then having new gear introduced soon afterwards). It happens in any online or multiplayer game. We've seen it in CO a few dozen times before and people at worst take a break to cool off when these changes happen, but I've rarely seen people downright leave like some are promising here.
I still think a tweak to half value on crit and dodge gear and Gambler's Luck will be helpful to make powers like Parry and Lightning Reflexes useful again, plus make Dodge and Crit rating specs have some utility.
If they did any tweaking like that, I would hope they make the CON and DEX Primary Spec Tree Abilities that grant Dodge (and Avoid in the case of DEX) stack better.
Though, instead of halving the value, why not make it so only 1 type of Core Mod per piece of gear? No putting two Lucky Gems in your Breastplate and Gloves. Now you'll put 1.
Though, if they did any of this, I hope they give back my Vet Core of Might.
I hope these changes mean you are trying to bridge the gap between minmax and casual builds and make content creation easier. If that's the case, please make future gear not something that just gives you your old numbers back, but rather something that lets characters branch out with more options.
Other than that, I like the idea behind these changes. I know people take issue over having to "get new gear all of a sudden", but I've been through re-gearing and re-speccing a few times now (including getting my last piece of gear after 8 months of farming, then having new gear introduced soon afterwards). It happens in any online or multiplayer game. We've seen it in CO a few dozen times before and people at worst take a break to cool off when these changes happen, but I've rarely seen people downright leave like some are promising here.
Was the old gear that was replaced, replaced with better gear bought through lockboxes?
Regearing wouldn't be any problem in a healthy game.
But CO already was on this level of pathology where to gear ingame you had to spend real money. Or someone other had to spend it for you.
It is quite obvious that incoming changes have nothig to do with game balance, instead it's aimed at creating need for new tier of gear. Same goes with removing cores from quest rewards.
New gear will be for sure available only from lockboxes, as it was Legion gear.
They will have now guaranteed sales from everyone who wants to regain their previous level of effectiveness.
Or not.
Frankly, device nerf already made people less willing to spend cash, even if it was necessary. Devaluating Legion gear will do it as well.
Instead of profit, the whole idea may end for Cryptic with even less players and less income.
Wow..I go away for a weekend and Cryptic want to destroy another game mechanic...wasn't crowd control enough? That is dead, but granted it didn't affect everyone, only a few people left.
This however will decimate a large number of builds.
From what I have read (17 pages of responses) I am getting the feeling that this will finally push me to leave CO entirely.
Personally my entire roster is level 40 and Legion'd. I put real money into opening lockboxes and getting "the best" gear.
I do NOT want to have to re-gear an entire roster with new gear or re-build over a dozen toons because crit chance/severity, dodge and avoidance is being nuked.
I am really hoping you guys listen as the general feel I get from these responses is NO. DO NOT DO THIS EVER.
I am also going to say...Justice Gear? Really?
I am aware that dodge will likely be nerfed, but it should not be an overwhelmingly harsh nerf like this.
If I recall correctly it was gradii or someone who suggested capping dodge at 95% with MD being the only thing which can over-ride this value.
That I could deal with, none of my toons have over 90% dodge anyway.
Overall: Bad Idea, Justice Gear and Mechanics Nerf.
Instead of touching these mechanics..Can we just keep it at Legion, get some new content PvE and PvP, raise the level cap, include more CO's LORE?
EDIT: Yes, you would be right in thinking I have not tested yet, I literally (sort of) just got back home..
EDIT: Currently revising my post, as I am entering testing.
I hope these changes mean you are trying to bridge the gap between minmax and casual builds and make content creation easier. If that's the case, please make future gear not something that just gives you your old numbers back, but rather something that lets characters branch out with more options.
Other than that, I like the idea behind these changes. I know people take issue over having to "get new gear all of a sudden", but I've been through re-gearing and re-speccing a few times now (including getting my last piece of gear after 8 months of farming, then having new gear introduced soon afterwards). It happens in any online or multiplayer game. We've seen it in CO a few dozen times before and people at worst take a break to cool off when these changes happen, but I've rarely seen people downright leave like some are promising here.
Unless you paid a substantial amount of money to "get new gear all of a sudden" after paying a substantial amount of money to "get new gear all of a sudden" on many different characters, I find this sentiment to be highly suspect. Please point me to any other game anywhere that has effectively charged customers twice for gear.
I'll wait.
Also what Nepht and Raven said. Minimize this at your peril. This will have a terrible impact on population, and if it is pushed through there will be financial repercussions.
And no Ashen, the time to say no to this is now. The fact that any of this is even being entertained is so far beyond the pale it's downright disgusting.
Regearing wouldn't be any problem in a healthy game.
But CO already was on this level of pathology where to gear ingame you had to spend real money. Or someone other had to spend it for you.
It is quite obvious that incoming changes have nothig to do with game balance, instead it's aimed at creating need for new tier of gear. Same goes with removing cores from quest rewards.
New gear will be for sure available only from lockboxes, as it was Legion gear.
They will have now guaranteed sales from everyone who wants to regain their previous level of effectiveness.
Or not.
Frankly, device nerf already made people less willing to spend cash, even if it was necessary. Devaluating Legion gear will do it as well.
Instead of profit, the whole idea may end for Cryptic with even less players and less income.
The whole issues is Cryptic's/PW's fault. They gave us Legion's gear and caused the power creep because they wanted $$$. NOW they want to nerf dodge so they can shove a new gear tire down our throats? NO THANK YOU Cryptic, what do you take me for a moron?
There's nothing to fix with dodge. What they should do is simply not allow for ppl to add more dodge in the future. The current lvl's of dodge are obtainable only if you invest in the game so yeah IMO ppl have the right to be more powerful. Granted the devices were different (being invulnerable for a long period of time is game breaking).
So CRYPTIC North, how about you fix/balance powers instead of going for a core mechanic which will affect a large number of players? There are tons of things to fix and no need for this BS idea.
Going with this will cause you to spend even more time in fixing all the broken things YOU WILL BREAK for certain while implementing it. Don't fix what's not broken OK.
If you want to give better gear how about gear sets with bonuses or how about gear with innate abilities like (10% chance *insert effect*, you get the idea). The current gear boosts us directly. No wonder we have a power creep.
How about making a pool and let ppl vote on it on the forums. Let's see how people will react there when they hear of those changes.
I ask you Cryptic who will:
*pay for all the retcons needed to recreate the toons
*pay for all the new gear needed to get them back to where they were
*pay for all the time/$$$ invested to obtain the gear
*pay for all the concepts those changes destroy
*Facepalms* Wow...it's experemental right now..and the new gear is used to test this..Thats all its used for..Also its bugged as well..Give them time to work on it before you all start judgeing it so badly. Also they did fix roots and stuns..along with unbreakable. Also with this change I went to go fight a cosmic and i just had 15% dodge. Thats buged right now..But they fixed dodge to work like it was before on alert hit,
Now i would say give them time to work on this..Insted of just asumeing oh no its going to ruin everything oh no..*Facepalms again.* Test it find the bugs and find the math issues..and give them real help insted of oh no their ruining the game complain complain...
Thank you and so do testing insted of acting like this.
Just had a test on Mentella and oh wow, I know not much hits me in the first place as a CC'er but lol, I've lost a lot of dodge. I've gained a significant boost to crit chance (almost a x3 effect).
However, that being said, I have been told dodge calculations have been botched? So I await a better preview.
wow, you must be rolling in dough lol. the legion gear should never have been in lockboxes in the first place, saves everyone alot of money and you too xD
Nah, I got really lucky with Legion Gear and lockboxes, my entire roster's gear has come from around 57-80 boxes, with the exception of Psion who I opened 10 boxes for his gear.
yeah if they don't call this off the game is finished. they make money off CO now, but can't make money off a dead ame.
I reckon some people will stay, especially new comers who have not yet reached the Legion Game. But knowledge bringers, Vets, power builders and good players who have been around for a while and actively pay CO will likely get gone.
it should replace legion gear and be the same in terms of stats. and should not come in lockboxes.
If this is the intention, matching gear should be applied to Legion'd 40's in the form of this new gear. Either obtainable in high level lairs or free. Making money out of a population then ruining it in a blaze of changes is not the way to entice people to stay.
welcome back, I've been waiting for you to weigh in on this.
Thanks, well my current stance (until I see the true intention of these changes (since they are bugged)) is that I will be selling all the remaining mods, gear etc in my hideout's, saying goodbye to good friends and leaving the world of MMO's for good.
I can truly understand the desire to balance the game from On Alert, the Manip fix is an example, but ruining a mechanic that is the basis of most builds? Not fun.
I know people who have worked -considerably- harder than me to obtain Legion gear who are going to be fully put out by this change if it ever went LIVE.
Just how they held back on the idea a few months back on PTS to re-tool levelling and sidekicking and it has not since resurfaced, I am of the strong opinion these mechanical changes should not ever see the light of day. (based on the premise that the current iteration is the intention and not some horrible bug.)
As other posters have pointed out before hand, the ideal solution to make things in CO better would be to add to the content, change mob AI, something to do with NPC's and lore additions.
Ruining or adding gear which will likely be obtainable by lockboxes if "The Legion Gear Experience" is anything to go by is going to make many players turn their backs on this game.
((Yeah, maybe I am being a little dramatic, but it's my opinion, I do not relish the thought of having to run around for new gear when for a while now the "best" gear is within my grasp. A lot of builds will be affected. I honestly could not see myself even mulling over the idea of staying in CO if this was pushed forward))
As for my opinions on the rest of the patch?
Great! Bug fixes are always welcome. Gear and mechanic decimation is not.
*Facepalms* Wow...it's experemental right now..and the new gear is used to test this..Thats all its used for..Also its bugged as well..Give them time to work on it before you all start judgeing it so badly. Also they did fix roots and stuns..along with unbreakable. Also with this change I went to go fight a cosmic and i just had 15% dodge. Thats buged right now..But they fixed dodge to work like it was before on alert hit,
Now i would say give them time to work on this..Insted of just asumeing oh no its going to ruin everything oh no..*Facepalms again.* Test it find the bugs and find the math issues..and give them real help insted of oh no their ruining the game complain complain...
Thank you and so do testing insted of acting like this.
I am truly sorry if my opinion disturbs you or others, but it is just that. An opinion. Most of my builds personally have dodge from gear, they cannot raise it in combat without using Masterful Dodge Active Defensive.
This thread's intention was to discuss the changes, discussions can include opinions. Opinions help them to a small extent. Data helps them a lot more.
From what I can see on a single toon of mine with 4.4k HP, I am not liking these changes.
Then again, I have said that I was told these changes were a bit borked to say the least.
I reserve the right to express my opinion, and will edit it as new information and data comes to light.
I'm hoping these changes will go away and never go live just like the sidekicking changes.
as for the justice gear, what I meant was, recognition store it, or better yet let us craft it somehow. it would be same as legion gear so those with legion wont need to regear.
[The Spirit of Justice!] - Collectable mod which can be fused with your existing and BOUND Legion/Heroic Gear to turn it into JUSTICE GEAR, complete with your current mods from the previous Gear.
no because you would need legion gear to make it work. which is lockbox only.
I considered this, however, if it applied to Heroic people who paid for Legion will not be seeing their money's worth if getting such a mod = instant Justice Gear 4 all.
However, if that -wasn't- an issue for Legion people, then by all means allow it to apply to Heroic Gear as well.
In games of this type, I think the "gear creep" is inevitable.
However, it should be attainable by just doing in-game activities. High-end gear should be rewards from high-end content: lairs, cosmics, and to a lesser degree, a Gravitar-type fight.
Additionally, they could be acquired through the use of high-end tokens: SCR, Q, Acclaim, etc.
There will still be plenty of things to spend REAL money on. Especially if anyone looks at this games' history. COSTUME SETS. Need I say more?
.
-=-=-=-=-=-(CO in-game handle: @WarCan )-=-=-=-=-=- "Okay, you're DEAD, what do you do NEXT?"
*Facepalms* Wow...it's experemental right now..and the new gear is used to test this..Thats all its used for..Also its bugged as well..Give them time to work on it before you all start judgeing it so badly. Also they did fix roots and stuns..along with unbreakable. Also with this change I went to go fight a cosmic and i just had 15% dodge. Thats buged right now..But they fixed dodge to work like it was before on alert hit,
Now i would say give them time to work on this..Insted of just asumeing oh no its going to ruin everything oh no..*Facepalms again.* Test it find the bugs and find the math issues..and give them real help insted of oh no their ruining the game complain complain...
Thank you and so do testing insted of acting like this.
No. Allowing Cryptic to charge twice for gear should be challenged at every step. Feel free to facepalm all you like, this is a financial decision and how many times your face impacts your palm has no bearing on anything. This is the discussion thread.
I can confirm that these changes will likely kill off my beloved Mentella and ForceGirl. Killing off any of my more well known (to myself and in RP) toons will make me pack up with regards to CO.
Mentella in the sense of her low HP and CC powers which don't affect anything past Super Villain, she can stand against regular stuff and Legendaries (and even tank if I really need her to) because of dodge and healing.
ForceGirl in the sense of well...PFF. Need I say more? Yes.
PFF has a flawed design, it is the worst defensive passive in game. Currently the ONLY thing saving it from being deleted as a passive is dodge/avoid mechanics. Which you are thinking of nerfing.
I think it is fair for me to say I have put up with PFF from 1-40 (pre alert) on Impulse AT and tried my very best to make it work in a similar fashion to other defensive passives, without using Compassion Form.
Then I went LTS and have built around keeping PFF safe from everything, and it is still hard to do at times. And that is me relying on dodge. Without dodge this will be impossible.
Just ran good old ForceGirl against Team Size 2 Purple Gang mobs.
Without IDF PFF doesn't drop below 20%. Ever. On LIVE. (for me) and that is with around 50% dodge.
First mob took a total of 5 seconds to remove 85% of my DEFENSIVE PASSIVE.
That alone should tell you no. Even though PFF is crappy without dodge, it still is labelled as a Defensive Passive.
I'm not even going to bother trying Mentella against mobs without using CC powers, I'd drop like a brick.
Until we hear words from Devs regarding numbers, I'm staying out of PTS, it is too disheartening to test and watch my characters suffer like this until a fix is put out.
Unless you paid a substantial amount of money to "get new gear all of a sudden" after paying a substantial amount of money to "get new gear all of a sudden" on many different characters, I find this sentiment to be highly suspect. Please point me to any other game anywhere that has effectively charged customers twice for gear.
I'll wait.
You don't need to spend a dime for Legion Gear. You can farm Questionite for ZEN, you can farm Global and buy the gear you need from the AH or other players. The amount of farming either would take is comparable to the time it took me to farm UNTIL gear, then farm broken Serpent Lantern secondaries, THEN farm even more broken Serpent Lantern Elite secondaries.
But people either can't figure out how to obtain Legion Gear without spending real money, or are too lazy to do so, so they want the gear right now by buying a crapton of Cosmic Keys. And then those people complain when their hastily spent cash is "invalidated" with a rebalance patch. I've been paying a sub for three and a half years now, and bought a bunch of Cryptic Points, Atari Tokens and ZEN on multiple occasion. I should have been crying bloody murder whenever they touched my characters' powers, because those characters are the reason I play.
But that would be silly, because if paying for something means that it is immune to rebalancing, then this isn't a game I want to play.
Comments
I didn't happen to have mods in the pockets of the toon I had, so I went ahead and tested some of the Justice Gear without...
I was kind of startled how little difference it made in my stats.
I noticed sure, but the gap is far less that I would have thought, no primary stat mods in my gear and...
Meh..
Did diminishing returns get that severe?
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
Its simply clear that the dodge change was way too much and a number must have been fudged somewhere.
This isn't a valid example. That's like saying "Everyone should have these four powers as standard." Not everyone wants to always pick the same powers as everyone else. I've subscribed a couple of times for a couple of months, just so I could mess about with builds as a Gold member with freeform slots. I have two Silver Freeform Slots, that I've bought. I've invested alot of time, AND money, into getting my characters well set up, geared, etc etc.
I -do- agree dodge is an easy stat to max up and make a person strong, but this curve? Is frankly quite ridiculous. And even more ridiculous are the people talking about edge-case scenarios of perfectly set up powerbuilds with certain powers that are strong. Well, why not just nerf those powers, rather than kicking everyone in the balls for the fact a chosen few people found one way to break the game.
Also, I predict lockbox gear, which will make me VERY pissed off, and give this game the finger and walk off. I spent WAY too much time getting the money to buy Legion Gear, for my character, and that's on just ONE. No way am I going through all that again, just to be competitive and be able to run through the instances without trouble.
I like having bragging rights. I don't like having to rely on random people to get me through things, which have NO REWARD WHATSOEVER. Give the world-bosses some fancy loot, and I might consider this change being beneficial. But until the content actually gets rewarding to finish?
TL;DR. No.
So why nerf Dodge, and not nerf Quarry, with that line of thinking? Not that I want to see Quarry nerfed mind you. But I always thought LR should beable to get the highest Dodge/Avoid possible...that's what the set is about and you can't even truely dodge, you still take damage.
I trust secksegai to have an understanding of what it's like to be at the top of an AT's game, he's played them extensively and has a deep understanding of builds to do so. And like kenpo, I can (but not necessarily will) make min/max builds that belittle your content.
From my 3 years with CO, I've only seen time and time again how listening to power players, you devs continue to take dumps on my thematic hero concepts.
The one true reason I started playing this game is to play heros I've dreamt up, but have to suffer concessions and retcons every time you make your so called 'balancing'.
STOP limiting the customisation aspect of my hero building. I need a variety of concepts to be viable that won't be as fail when I try to take on villians, and not having to make concessions because of power players or pvp.
Did you know for close to 2 years, I couldn't envision a speedster hero until the night avenger AT's powers came about? Nothing you had even loosely fit a speedster except one hundred hands (bleh). My Masquerade was born after, a speedster with superspeed that can throw multiple projectiles quickly at multiple enemies. He was so much fun. Unfortunately, despite being made before everyone started exploiting his chosen powers, I returned from hiatus to find him a lot less heroic. I wish you had found a solution to fix the exploit instead of removing his tap on throwing blades.
This is starting to sound an awful lot like the recent device change, don't you think?
Cryptic - Remember the silver players who have to play ATs, the ones who don't get PTS access, who can't cherrypick powers, who don't have the level of insight into builds that those gold players who have been here a long time have.
Those that put in the hard work building, testing, tweaking & retesting will have OP toons. Those who put the time and thought in will always find their way to become OP whatever you change.
Every nerf, every buff, every change is an opportunity for someone with that level of knowledge.
There isn't a solution for that.
But those that don't or can't won't even tell you about it, they'll just walk away...
In a former life I was known as Supercollide
I'm willing to admit that I try to wring every bit of utility I can out of every max level build, while not necessarily caring about having super-amazing gear. I use R4 or R5 if I have it, Heroic Gear for my 40s. Of ... maybe 10 ... 40s, I think two have one piece of Vigilante gear each. No Legion gear that is equipped as yet.
My wife, on the other hand - plays games like this to have her characters hit things repeatedly, since as she puts it, she can't at work.
Making it hard for the average gamer, particularly ones who may enjoy passives like LR... won't really help you all in terms of customer retention.
Because personally... I definitely know entirely rules-following ways to make my characters powerful, and if it is within the rules, I will make them as useful and powerful as I can. Because I enjoy doing that. Not everyone has the time, patience, or interest in doing so.
I'm going to chalk the dodge changes up at present as a first draft. An opening offer, as it were.
I think what people who have a high investment in dodge need to do is run some comparisons, live vs PTS. What missions / situations can you handle on live that make you faceplant on PTS, mind you, *without* using the Justice gear. Just flat out whatever you already had. Be specific.
"On live, I can handle X". "On PTS, I cannot handle X".
My current main Quarry character is generally as survivable on PTS 5-man hard as on live, but that's only due to crowd control and Sentinel Mastery.
Sometimes particular changes will force a reshuffling of tactics, sometimes particular changes are just too harsh as they are now.
I do think going from 38% dodge to 13% dodge is too harsh right now. That may just be a testament to how "overpowered" Silver Champion gear + current dodge mods are with the current setup on live... but it simply feels nearly useless to even use Dodge mods on PTS at present, single-stack, double-stack, or at all.
Defense mods are a WAY better deal at present. Is that *really* the intention?
Plus LR is ... well, sad. Quarry shouldn't have higher Dodge than LR. Period. However, Quarry coming in around 30%... meh. Too low. IMO.
I think I agree with those saying that Dodge isn't the problem - Avoidance is. almost all of my 40s have ~60% avoidance. So there's very little reason to *ever* use any other gear.
I do find it interesting that the Justice gear, with same-rank mods, provides more stats. I do find that more fun, and fully-kitted out with Justice gear, the characters I've redone have a LOT higher super stats, and damage.
But the dodge curve change is too extreme.
Do something about it? Sure, I guess. Dodge/Avoid with Heroic gear is very powerful at present.
This change? Wouldn't recommend it as-is for Dodge.
For Crit - I don't lose that much, severity stayed the same, and avoidance only shrank a bit. But Dodge is ... too low at present in my personal opinion.
Then you can stop making stupid changes, and waste time on the cycle of rectifying these said mistakes to make them work out, and finally focus on creating content for this game.
I don't think they will take the news that instead of providing more challenging content, or creating new difficulty settings, that PWE decided new gear should be implemented. If you were say a casual player with a decent knowledge of the way pts works, and the way lockboxes work, wouldn't you come to the conclusion that PWE is just going to introduce new gear every now and then in a scramble to make more money because they are done making new costumes and content?
Before these changes were proposed, who exactly was asking for changes to core mechanics that will affect gear? There have been plenty of suggestions, pleas, etc for new things to be added to the game, for new powers, for revisiting old powers, but please, someone, anyone find me one thread where someone asked for a post on alert gear revamp with any of the changes proposed here.
This has the potential for serious financial damage, bad press, more bad word of mouth, etc. This is folly.
Haha! I like it. :biggrin:
Not that second rate bows and arrows passive! If a build is going to have the highest dodge stats it should be with LR, period! Isn't that what LR is all about??
I sure hope you people listen to feedback, because this thread is letting you know how much of a royal eff up you guys are headed for if you pass that nonsense being tested in the pts.
The curve is way too steep at the moment. I guess this is a test... One can only hope this NEVER goes live.
If it is, they shouldn't screw up EVERYBODY else to implement this new gear.
So I am going to make a few points...
1) exactly what is all of this balancing for? What content needs these changes to be functional? Is it the content that you built a super highway bypass around with the on-alert power leveling sessions? Did people stop playing the content because powers were imbalanced or because they just use alerts to get to 40? Or maybe it was because they had already done it a million times and craved new content. Not because dodge needs to be nerfed. A 100%dodge toon is fairly easy to kill and your fix is to increase damage and decrease dodge... Exactly how is that balance? How many dodge tanks you see running around any more? Not many, because players with less than 2 years experience have a hard time building one that cn survive anything serious.
2) the game is imbalanced. So what. Why is that a big deal? Have the imbalances made the game MORE or LESS enjoyable? The reason the game is imbalanced is the same reason champions is more fun than other similar games. The imbalance stems from the huge amount of customization and the fact the power choices are not locked or treed. That was the pen and paper games biggest attraction. It is also the online versions biggest attraction. Give people freedom and they will find ways to build uber toons. Not everyone will, but some will. Again, so what if they do??? They will get bored of that and start building theme toons, especially if they have content to play. 95% of the player base wont care and will go on having fun. Is all of this balancing for PVP?
3) the only way to truly balance the game is to make every character a cookie cutter copy of every other one. Which is what some other mmo's do. And it is totally boring.
I have lost a lot of faith in this game recently. It feels a lot like all of the nerfing that EQII did right before I walked away from a 3-4 year old account there and never went back.
I was about to come to the forums and say something along those lines and he beat me to it.
It is my opinion that a dev is like a min/maxer, forever wanting to tweak his baby. Too blind to open his eyes and see the bigger picture.
No one really cares if some forgettable player drops into an alert with an OP build. WHY?
You have nothing to do with your OP build than play a 2-5mins alert with random players who don't give a rat's **** what you do in the alert.
You can't possibly enjoy running your OP build soloing elite lairs over and over and not get sick of it the first couple of times. There's only alerts to play your OP build which is really just a bad joke on you.
And get this, most of these people experiment with min/maxing AFTER they are done with the content. Why does it matter what OP builds they come up with? They have nothing else to do already!
It's the players going through the content for the first time that's going to have a more difficult time.
PVP has no OP builds, you're fighting carbon copies of yourself. Balancing has no end in sight here.
Only (a minority) other forgettable min/maxers or pvpers come here and whine about how another forgettable player has more dps or survivable than him and demands a balance.
The only way these changes even makes sense is if there is a level cap, 2 new zones, 4 new adventure packs, 10 new ATs ( 5 free, 5 premium) and 15 new power sets.
Not while there's nothing new to do, and you're encouraging players right this moment to spend money on keys for anniversary lockboxes and promoting Legion equipment as the best while already planning to make them obsolete. WTF?
I really do suspect the tweak is tied to selling more gear in the form of lockboxes. Sorry Cryptic, you don't deserve any presumption of innocence.
You want to create new gear? Well, you're just gonna have to keep making it better not worse. Make gear with small but flat bonuses to Dodge or Crit, say 3%. Yeah, people will buy and our builds will still feel heroic.
I still think a tweak to half value on crit and dodge gear and Gambler's Luck will be helpful to make powers like Parry and Lightning Reflexes useful again, plus make Dodge and Crit rating specs have some utility.
Justice Gear. I was not prepared for this...but:
Against my better judgement I shall release everything I have thus far about this special type of gear.
First off, Let's start with some speed comparison!
389 cooldown reduction and 5 int gives you 42 second recharge on MD. This is two rank 9 cooldown cores in legion gear of speed.
455 cooldown reduction and 5 int gives you 39 second recharge on MD. This is two rank 9 cooldown cores in justice gear.
How can this be you ask? Well you see, Justice gear might have less bonus on the gear but the mods you put into it provide more of a bonus than you would get otherwise.
How much more (insert whatever you call me here)?
Glad you asked. This is the level 40 version if people really want a level 30 and 20 version then I may make them later but as it stands this is all you need to worry about.
Oh and just like legion gear:
99+99 = 199
__________________
New Stat Scaling!
Right, first off dodge chance(Since it is the most controversial >insert eyeroll here<).
Live Dodge:
Base Dodge is 10%
153 dodge grants 42.5%
292 dodge grants 54.5%
306 Dodge grants 55.3%
445 Dodge grants 61.7%
PTS Dodge:
Base Dodge is 10%
76 dodge grants 12.4%
139 dodge grants 14.2%
153 dodge grants 14.6%
292 dodge grants 18%
306 Dodge grants 18.3%
445 Dodge grants 21.1%
Judging by these numbers LR just got hit with the PFF stick..and just to give insult to injury having 831 superstats for a rank 3 LR gives you 499 dodge stat bonus so that means LR gives insignificantly more than 21.1% while rank 3 quarry gives 28% and this is before you factor in the 10~20% bonus from gear!
Once more, a person with 1101 in their stats has a LR of 661 dodge stat bonus which is 24.7% dodge chance!
Next, avoida-Wait..what do you mean no one cares about anything else? Well too bad I'll type it out anyway!
Live Avoidance:
Base Avoidance is 20%
102 Avoidance grants 52.5%
139 avoidance grants 58.7%
241 avoidance grants 69.5%
353 Avoidance grants 76.3%
374 Avoidance grants 77.2%
PTS Avoidance:
Base Avoidance is 20%
76 Avoidance grants 43.8%
102 Avoidance grants 49.1%
139 avoidance grants 55%
214 avoidance grants 63.6%
241 avoidance grants 66%
353 Avoidance grants 73.1%
374 Avoidance grants 74.1%
Defense HAS NOT BEEN TOUCHED SO NO POINT IN SHOWING IT
Offense. I haven't tested to see the impact of it yet but:
Live Offense:
Base Offense(0) grants 0%
67.6 Offense grants 15%
120 Offense grants 22%
135.2 Offense grants 24%
209.1 Offense grants 31%
263.9 Offense grants 34%
340.5 Offense grants 38%
433.4 Offense grants 41%
472 Offense grants 42%
563.8 Offense grants 44%
702.7 Offense grants 47%
739.7 Offense grants 47%
829.5 Offense grants 48%
851.2 Offense grants 49%
881.1 Offense grants 49%
1040.7 Offense grants 50%
1066.7 Offense grants 51%
1188.6 Offense grants 51%
1288.6 Offense grants 52%
PTS Offense(I am not about to do all those numbers..):
376 Offense grants 13%
1445.5 Offense grants 33%
Edit: Oh, right...crit-strike and sev...yea..forgot about those silly stats...anyway!~
Live Critical Strike:
"Base" critical chance is 0 BUT because you MUST have 10 dex it turns into 0.13%
47 Critical Strike grants 3.9%
95 Critical Strike grants 11.2%
103 Critical Strike grants 12.7%
198 Critical Strike grants 27%
245 Critical Strike grants 32.2%
PTS Critical Strike:
"Base" critical chance is 0 BUT because you MUST have 10 dex it turns into 3.8%
47 Critical Strike grants 13.4%
95 Critical Strike grants 19%
103 Critical Strike grants 19.9%
198 Critical Strike grants 26.4%
302 Critical Strike grants 30.8%
Live Critical Severity:
Base Severity is 50%
4.6 Severity grants 61.3%
8.9 Severity grants 65.6%
PTS Critical Severity:
Base Severity is 50%
2.5 Severity grants 61.7%
4.6 Severity grants 63.7%
8.9 Severity grants 66.1%
15 Severity grants 68.4%
There you have it. What are you going to do with this usefully useless information now?
I also find it deeply concerning that Lighting Reflexes will be nerfed to defensive levels below an offensive passive.
That said:
Having everything under the sun crit/dodge is by no means a balanced system. I think giving offense and defense a bigger role can't help but improve gameplay. I'm just not certain that nerfing another aspect of the game is the best way to make offense useful. To my view, it should be a choice between two archetypes. Hear me out
Spiderman is a dodge tank. He would have high dodge chance, be nigh untouchable, but have fairly lousy defenses (spandex is crappy body armor). High agility gives him better crit chance, but he's not going to do the same burst damage. Lower offense.
The Hulk is freakin invulnerable. Nothing gets through his skin, but he's not agile, not by any means. High defense, low dodge, good offense, bad critting.
I think that crit chance should be kept where it is, but that offense and defense should be made more valuable to the player, so that either of the above mentioned concepts is doable, or even a middle ground, ala Captain America.
I also echo the sentiments of some other players in this thread, who have pointed out that its a bad idea to reinvent the wheel, when we don't have any new places to drive.
Point out that my mods and money are invested in other lockbox gear I paid for.
Next.
Do you ever find that it's easier to understand what people are saying when they're not screaming at you?
I'm happy to bet anyone 3k G (or more?) that this version on the PTS right now is not going to go live without dialing back the degree of this nerf to dodge/avoid.
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This is the discussion thread. The one you are looking for is one thread up.
In theory it makes some degree of sense to attempt to narrow the aforementioned gap. But, and this is a big but, it is critical that any tweaks to the DR model, particularly on defenses, not adversely affect characters at the low end of the spectrum.
If something of this sort is going to go live there will need to be a great deal of finesse employed in balancing the tweaks to the DR model and in addressing the concerns of players who spent real money to gain access to current gear specifically to push their numbers higher.
The key is to test diligently and provide feedback as free of agenda as possible and to remember that these are not final numbers. The devs are working on the game. Lets encourage that.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
And even more so the 'agressive stance'/'the best defence' combo.
I think those should be changed to be balanced against the other spec options.
The easiest way to change them would be to make them work with only the base offence and defence from items and nothing from others specs bonuses.
Another thing that needs to be looked over are the things that scale with one specific stat.
With that new gear the maximum stat points are getting inflated quite a bit, that works just a little too good with things like defiance, audacity and all the forms.
Defiance and audacity could be changed to work with all your superstats.
Forms could use a really big reduction in effectiveness, reducing forms by about 50% would do a lot of good.
That would reduce the supremacy of AOPM, stop tanks from doing more damage then dps builds, and specs that add damage strength would have a larger effect.
Cant really add much more to this apart from a large chunk of us already know this isnt going live as the devs have already said in various channels they arnt finished with the new dodge maths yet . People saying the maths on PTS is screwing something up is actually FEEDBACK.
Might not be the feedback you personally like but its not aimed at you and is still feedback none the less and as Fury said this aint the feedback thread tis is the discussion thread. Please stay on topic
One word : Lockbox.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Other than that, I like the idea behind these changes. I know people take issue over having to "get new gear all of a sudden", but I've been through re-gearing and re-speccing a few times now (including getting my last piece of gear after 8 months of farming, then having new gear introduced soon afterwards). It happens in any online or multiplayer game. We've seen it in CO a few dozen times before and people at worst take a break to cool off when these changes happen, but I've rarely seen people downright leave like some are promising here.
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If they did any tweaking like that, I would hope they make the CON and DEX Primary Spec Tree Abilities that grant Dodge (and Avoid in the case of DEX) stack better.
Though, instead of halving the value, why not make it so only 1 type of Core Mod per piece of gear? No putting two Lucky Gems in your Breastplate and Gloves. Now you'll put 1.
Though, if they did any of this, I hope they give back my Vet Core of Might.
Was the old gear that was replaced, replaced with better gear bought through lockboxes?
But CO already was on this level of pathology where to gear ingame you had to spend real money. Or someone other had to spend it for you.
It is quite obvious that incoming changes have nothig to do with game balance, instead it's aimed at creating need for new tier of gear. Same goes with removing cores from quest rewards.
New gear will be for sure available only from lockboxes, as it was Legion gear.
They will have now guaranteed sales from everyone who wants to regain their previous level of effectiveness.
Or not.
Frankly, device nerf already made people less willing to spend cash, even if it was necessary. Devaluating Legion gear will do it as well.
Instead of profit, the whole idea may end for Cryptic with even less players and less income.
This however will decimate a large number of builds.
From what I have read (17 pages of responses) I am getting the feeling that this will finally push me to leave CO entirely.
Personally my entire roster is level 40 and Legion'd. I put real money into opening lockboxes and getting "the best" gear.
I do NOT want to have to re-gear an entire roster with new gear or re-build over a dozen toons because crit chance/severity, dodge and avoidance is being nuked.
I am really hoping you guys listen as the general feel I get from these responses is NO. DO NOT DO THIS EVER.
I am also going to say...Justice Gear? Really?
I am aware that dodge will likely be nerfed, but it should not be an overwhelmingly harsh nerf like this.
If I recall correctly it was gradii or someone who suggested capping dodge at 95% with MD being the only thing which can over-ride this value.
That I could deal with, none of my toons have over 90% dodge anyway.
Overall: Bad Idea, Justice Gear and Mechanics Nerf.
Instead of touching these mechanics..Can we just keep it at Legion, get some new content PvE and PvP, raise the level cap, include more CO's LORE?
EDIT: Yes, you would be right in thinking I have not tested yet, I literally (sort of) just got back home..
EDIT: Currently revising my post, as I am entering testing.
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Unless you paid a substantial amount of money to "get new gear all of a sudden" after paying a substantial amount of money to "get new gear all of a sudden" on many different characters, I find this sentiment to be highly suspect. Please point me to any other game anywhere that has effectively charged customers twice for gear.
I'll wait.
Also what Nepht and Raven said. Minimize this at your peril. This will have a terrible impact on population, and if it is pushed through there will be financial repercussions.
And no Ashen, the time to say no to this is now. The fact that any of this is even being entertained is so far beyond the pale it's downright disgusting.
The whole issues is Cryptic's/PW's fault. They gave us Legion's gear and caused the power creep because they wanted $$$. NOW they want to nerf dodge so they can shove a new gear tire down our throats? NO THANK YOU Cryptic, what do you take me for a moron?
There's nothing to fix with dodge. What they should do is simply not allow for ppl to add more dodge in the future. The current lvl's of dodge are obtainable only if you invest in the game so yeah IMO ppl have the right to be more powerful. Granted the devices were different (being invulnerable for a long period of time is game breaking).
So CRYPTIC North, how about you fix/balance powers instead of going for a core mechanic which will affect a large number of players? There are tons of things to fix and no need for this BS idea.
Going with this will cause you to spend even more time in fixing all the broken things YOU WILL BREAK for certain while implementing it. Don't fix what's not broken OK.
If you want to give better gear how about gear sets with bonuses or how about gear with innate abilities like (10% chance *insert effect*, you get the idea). The current gear boosts us directly. No wonder we have a power creep.
How about making a pool and let ppl vote on it on the forums. Let's see how people will react there when they hear of those changes.
I ask you Cryptic who will:
*pay for all the retcons needed to recreate the toons
*pay for all the new gear needed to get them back to where they were
*pay for all the time/$$$ invested to obtain the gear
*pay for all the concepts those changes destroy
Let me guess.....nobody but us the players.
Now i would say give them time to work on this..Insted of just asumeing oh no its going to ruin everything oh no..*Facepalms again.* Test it find the bugs and find the math issues..and give them real help insted of oh no their ruining the game complain complain...
Thank you and so do testing insted of acting like this.
Just had a test on Mentella and oh wow, I know not much hits me in the first place as a CC'er but lol, I've lost a lot of dodge. I've gained a significant boost to crit chance (almost a x3 effect).
However, that being said, I have been told dodge calculations have been botched? So I await a better preview.
Nah, I got really lucky with Legion Gear and lockboxes, my entire roster's gear has come from around 57-80 boxes, with the exception of Psion who I opened 10 boxes for his gear.
I reckon some people will stay, especially new comers who have not yet reached the Legion Game. But knowledge bringers, Vets, power builders and good players who have been around for a while and actively pay CO will likely get gone.
If this is the intention, matching gear should be applied to Legion'd 40's in the form of this new gear. Either obtainable in high level lairs or free. Making money out of a population then ruining it in a blaze of changes is not the way to entice people to stay.
Thanks, well my current stance (until I see the true intention of these changes (since they are bugged)) is that I will be selling all the remaining mods, gear etc in my hideout's, saying goodbye to good friends and leaving the world of MMO's for good.
I can truly understand the desire to balance the game from On Alert, the Manip fix is an example, but ruining a mechanic that is the basis of most builds? Not fun.
I know people who have worked -considerably- harder than me to obtain Legion gear who are going to be fully put out by this change if it ever went LIVE.
Just how they held back on the idea a few months back on PTS to re-tool levelling and sidekicking and it has not since resurfaced, I am of the strong opinion these mechanical changes should not ever see the light of day. (based on the premise that the current iteration is the intention and not some horrible bug.)
As other posters have pointed out before hand, the ideal solution to make things in CO better would be to add to the content, change mob AI, something to do with NPC's and lore additions.
Ruining or adding gear which will likely be obtainable by lockboxes if "The Legion Gear Experience" is anything to go by is going to make many players turn their backs on this game.
((Yeah, maybe I am being a little dramatic, but it's my opinion, I do not relish the thought of having to run around for new gear when for a while now the "best" gear is within my grasp. A lot of builds will be affected. I honestly could not see myself even mulling over the idea of staying in CO if this was pushed forward))
As for my opinions on the rest of the patch?
Great! Bug fixes are always welcome. Gear and mechanic decimation is not.
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Slash and burn.
"All that Legion gear we've been shilling? We're nerfing it into the ground. But that's okay because...
COMING $OON: New gear! Get back what you've lost! Available inside new lockboxes!"
Such transparent crap. You're going to alienate and destroy what tiny fanbase you have left with this cash grab.
I am truly sorry if my opinion disturbs you or others, but it is just that. An opinion. Most of my builds personally have dodge from gear, they cannot raise it in combat without using Masterful Dodge Active Defensive.
This thread's intention was to discuss the changes, discussions can include opinions. Opinions help them to a small extent. Data helps them a lot more.
From what I can see on a single toon of mine with 4.4k HP, I am not liking these changes.
Then again, I have said that I was told these changes were a bit borked to say the least.
I reserve the right to express my opinion, and will edit it as new information and data comes to light.
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[The Spirit of Justice!] - Collectable mod which can be fused with your existing and BOUND Legion/Heroic Gear to turn it into JUSTICE GEAR, complete with your current mods from the previous Gear.
Drops from:
Cosmics, Legendaries and Lairs.
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I considered this, however, if it applied to Heroic people who paid for Legion will not be seeing their money's worth if getting such a mod = instant Justice Gear 4 all.
However, if that -wasn't- an issue for Legion people, then by all means allow it to apply to Heroic Gear as well.
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However, it should be attainable by just doing in-game activities. High-end gear should be rewards from high-end content: lairs, cosmics, and to a lesser degree, a Gravitar-type fight.
Additionally, they could be acquired through the use of high-end tokens: SCR, Q, Acclaim, etc.
There will still be plenty of things to spend REAL money on. Especially if anyone looks at this games' history. COSTUME SETS. Need I say more?
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No. Allowing Cryptic to charge twice for gear should be challenged at every step. Feel free to facepalm all you like, this is a financial decision and how many times your face impacts your palm has no bearing on anything. This is the discussion thread.
Mentella in the sense of her low HP and CC powers which don't affect anything past Super Villain, she can stand against regular stuff and Legendaries (and even tank if I really need her to) because of dodge and healing.
ForceGirl in the sense of well...PFF. Need I say more? Yes.
PFF has a flawed design, it is the worst defensive passive in game. Currently the ONLY thing saving it from being deleted as a passive is dodge/avoid mechanics. Which you are thinking of nerfing.
I think it is fair for me to say I have put up with PFF from 1-40 (pre alert) on Impulse AT and tried my very best to make it work in a similar fashion to other defensive passives, without using Compassion Form.
Then I went LTS and have built around keeping PFF safe from everything, and it is still hard to do at times. And that is me relying on dodge. Without dodge this will be impossible.
Just ran good old ForceGirl against Team Size 2 Purple Gang mobs.
Without IDF PFF doesn't drop below 20%. Ever. On LIVE. (for me) and that is with around 50% dodge.
First mob took a total of 5 seconds to remove 85% of my DEFENSIVE PASSIVE.
That alone should tell you no. Even though PFF is crappy without dodge, it still is labelled as a Defensive Passive.
I'm not even going to bother trying Mentella against mobs without using CC powers, I'd drop like a brick.
Until we hear words from Devs regarding numbers, I'm staying out of PTS, it is too disheartening to test and watch my characters suffer like this until a fix is put out.
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You don't need to spend a dime for Legion Gear. You can farm Questionite for ZEN, you can farm Global and buy the gear you need from the AH or other players. The amount of farming either would take is comparable to the time it took me to farm UNTIL gear, then farm broken Serpent Lantern secondaries, THEN farm even more broken Serpent Lantern Elite secondaries.
But people either can't figure out how to obtain Legion Gear without spending real money, or are too lazy to do so, so they want the gear right now by buying a crapton of Cosmic Keys. And then those people complain when their hastily spent cash is "invalidated" with a rebalance patch. I've been paying a sub for three and a half years now, and bought a bunch of Cryptic Points, Atari Tokens and ZEN on multiple occasion. I should have been crying bloody murder whenever they touched my characters' powers, because those characters are the reason I play.
But that would be silly, because if paying for something means that it is immune to rebalancing, then this isn't a game I want to play.
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