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10 Year Anniversary Wishlist

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  • ratchetman2ratchetman2 Posts: 27 Arc User
    Finally adding SG hideouts to the game would be really awesome! in any way shape or form!
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited July 2019
    - Remove all roles besides Hybrid
    - Remove Forms
    - Remove Energy Unlocks
    - Remove Resistance Debuffs
  • fermifermi Posts: 117 Arc User
    You forgot
    - Remove all powers
    - Remove all villains
    - Permanent party bomb
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,021 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    You know what... SCREW IT! let's go Balls to the walls insane and SHOOT FOR THE MOON with the never-gonna-happen wishlist, doesn't even matter anymore
    MY 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY WISHLIST HERE I GO
    78b.gif
    1. Avian Warrior bestial parts (NOT THE ARMOUR) becoming available for everyone via Z-stores LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN 👏
    2. FF Builds getting EXPANSION that allows them to have 3 different Alternative FF Builds with entire different set of powers, Specs, roles and gear (Build 1 Electric DPS BUILD 2: ICE Tnak build 3: Fire Support) making the Build-switch ACTUALLY USEFUL beyond changing clothes and gear! THAT'S RIGHT! FREEFORM SYSTEM #2
    3. 3 POWERFRAME REVAMPS! To fill the gap with all the wasted opportunities so far, expand synergies and interesting builds beyond homogenization
    4. Super Group Bases
    5. EXPAND Hideouts and have all your Alt characters in the Roster as NPCs being there doing Organization stuff. Heck you can even assign some of them as vendors
    6. BUG FIXES! A LOTSA BUG FIXES and QOLs
    7. Customizable Sidekicks and Expandable Nemesis system linked together
    8. Free FF slot for everyone and Free Exclusive Costume Tokens
    9. Making Vibora Bay, Unity and Until missions RELATED again and old abandoned contest in general
    10. Expanding the Emanation points system
    11. 👏 GIVE FOXBAT A MECHA ROBOT 👏
    12. Giving the game more personality (the voice acting in the new missions is VERY GOOD)
    13. A LOTSA LOT NEW COSTUME SETS
    14. CELESTIAL DPS UPDATE
    15. FIX THE Alert Queue system. Make Justice Gear farming less obnoxious with the Tokens' RNG Hell
    16. More stuff in the Game's vendors (SCR/GCR, Nemesis e.t.c)
    17. More Social Instances which also include mini games and special vendors
    18. UI UPDATE
    19. Chat available during cutscenes

    I'm not drunk, I'm depressed​​
    Post edited by avianos on
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • screwthisprocessscrewthisprocess Posts: 186 Arc User
    edited July 2019
    -The best announcement for CO since its' release was this year's April fools Noir joke.....Make it a thing.

    -Customizable sidekicks
    -More pet skins (Bear, wolf, raptors are getting old)

    These things are easy to do, and many players have been asking about it for years. I feel like far too often businesses focus on what they want, but fail to realize they are not the consumer here. It would make sense to cater to the many, the many with the money power. Unless they will make up the difference with their own wallet by buying up the Z-Store items....
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    None of these will probably ever happen because I'm pretty sure the powers that be and I have differing design opinions, so I'll just post this for fun:
    • Delete forms, then filter the missing damage (and/or healing) into passives and missing energy returns into energy unlocks.
    • Allow aura passives to buff allies based on superstats instead of forcing Presence stacking.
    • Combine "Ranged Damage" and "Melee Damage" into just "Damage" because keeping the two split is beyond retarded. Some of the passives can still encourage one over the other and that's fine, but that should be as far as the division goes.
    • Delete power ranks and have all powers function at and use the visuals of Rank 3 by default.
    • Flatten power tiers. Power damage still scales with the player's growth, so a current-T3 power on a level 6 is still going to do poop for damage.
    • Buff blasts to not be completely terrible, and actually worth using for reasons besides just being utility debuffers.
    • Change the respec system to allow for the removal of a specific, unwanted power along with all of its advantages instead of having to step through the annoying/unnecessary "undo stack" (since power tiers are no longer a thing, this is okay to do)
    • Make Challenge a core mechanic of the Tank role instead of an advantage...or any hybrid using the Bulwark spec I guess. I know the devs think tanks should have to invest in their role, but they already also have to invest in everything else a DPS needs on top of Challenge for extra threat. This means they effectively get less adv points to work with after taking the necessities.
    • Throw all dual stat mods into the dumpster, then launch that dumpster into the center of NGC 1277.
    • Combine all "increases the damage of [powerset here] by X%" mods into just one "Increases your damage by X%"
    • Render confront mods useless. Allow players to redeem them for another mod of their choice.
    • Boost tank threat by a decent amount to compensate for the above.
    • Combine the "boosts a specific resistance type" mods into "increases your damage resistance"
    • Change knock effects to not come with a built-in disable, allowing you to use instant or on-the-move effects while flying back.
    • Change the break-free F-mashing mechanic to auto-mash F to help prevent carpal tunnel in the playerbase.
    • Combine END and REC into a single stat.
    • Fix the damned Gravitar chest item to not auto-apply its own muscle mass setting.
    • Reduce the number of Elder Worm Arcana and Worm Gems required for the QWZ quests by half.
    • Some new high heel costume parts (boots, shoes, etc) because I can only use the same handful so many times. (pulp, formal, etc)
    • Change hybrid role to not suck. Instead of being superstat-based, give it fixed bonuses like the other roles, designed in such a way that it's only slightly inferior to the others: +20% all damage, +5% damage resistance, +15% healing
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • kjodellkjodell Posts: 83 Arc User
    One thing I would like to see is an Unbinding Station, somewhere you could go to get things like devices, auras, gear and such unbound for a modest fee
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    fermi wrote: »
    You forgot
    - Remove all powers
    - Remove all villains
    - Permanent party bomb

    Those are all terrible ideas, hence why I didn't suggest them o3o
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    I'd settle for proper and wide-spread advertising in gaming media to promote the anniversary.

    Daytime story arc in VB?
    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited July 2019
    aesica wrote: »
    • Delete forms, then filter the missing damage (and/or healing) into passives and missing energy returns into energy unlocks.

    In the past I was supportive of Forms, but since then I realized that if we got rid of Forms I could take another active power. Then I realized that if we got rid of Energy Unlocks, I could take 2 more active powers. So I say get rid of both of them, and have us get the damage bonus and energy from our Super Stats instead.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Allow aura passives to buff allies based on superstats instead of forcing Presence stacking.

    Their worry is probably that once support toons are unchained from Presence stacking, that Presence will become a junk stat that nobody takes ever again. I'm fine with that since Presence has kind of become a junk stat for me ever since I started turning all my healers into dpsers.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine "Ranged Damage" and "Melee Damage" into just "Damage" because keeping the two split is beyond retarded. Some of the passives can still encourage one over the other and that's fine, but that should be as far as the division goes.

    I still think it's better to not do this, if only to keep player power level reigned in. If they're willing to do the work it would take to buff all NPCs to adapt to this change, then I'd be fine with it.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Delete power ranks and have all powers function at and use the visuals of Rank 3 by default.

    Same as above, all NPCs would need a fairly large buff.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Flatten power tiers. Power damage still scales with the player's growth, so a current-T3 power on a level 6 is still going to do poop for damage.

    Your reasoning doesn't really make sense here, but I do agree now that the power tier system is a limitation that could at the very least use an update. The whole "take X powers of tier Y to unlock powers of tier Z" thing could be replaced with something more like "powers of this tree get stronger the more you specialize", letting us have more freedom to take the powers we want while still rewarding concentrated power choices.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Buff blasts to not be completely terrible, and actually worth using for reasons besides just being utility debuffers.

    It is kinda lame that Blasts are literally just defense debuff appliers. Some aren't, and those ones are really fun ( Shotgun ). The ones that are on the other hand are basically dead power slots... a power that just applies a debuff isn't very exciting.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Change the respec system to allow for the removal of a specific, unwanted power along with all of its advantages instead of having to step through the annoying/unnecessary "undo stack" (since power tiers are no longer a thing, this is okay to do)

    Yeah, we wish :D
    aesica wrote: »
    • Make Challenge a core mechanic of the Tank role instead of an advantage...or any hybrid using the Bulwark spec I guess. I know the devs think tanks should have to invest in their role, but they already also have to invest in everything else a DPS needs on top of Challenge for extra threat. This means they effectively get less adv points to work with after taking the necessities.

    Why bother. Tanks have so many options to boost their threat now that most tanks are actually rocking about a thousand times more threat than they need. Challenge is just another option - you don't actually need to take it on your tank unless you're rocking a very low damage tank build. I've tanked Cosmics on a ranged tank without challenge or threat mods... we don't really need more built-in threat for tanks.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Throw all dual stat mods into the dumpster, then launch that dumpster into the center of NGC 1277.

    I mean, there are people who like those mods and use them.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine all "increases the damage of [powerset here] by X%" mods into just one "Increases your damage by X%"

    We already have those mods, they go into your Offense slots. If anything I say change the "Increase damage of powerset" to "lower the cost of powerset powers".
    aesica wrote: »
    • Render confront mods useless. Allow players to redeem them for another mod of their choice.
    • Boost tank threat by a decent amount to compensate for the above.

    I'm not sure why anyone thought we have to use Confront mods, considering we were tanking for years before they even existed.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine the "boosts a specific resistance type" mods into "increases your damage resistance"

    We already have Impact Prisms, why do we need a 2nd version of them that is exactly the same?
    aesica wrote: »
    • Change the break-free F-mashing mechanic to auto-mash F to help prevent carpal tunnel in the playerbase.

    Just remove this entirely.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine END and REC into a single stat.

    This is actually one of the few things that promotes actual differences in playstyles, so I'd rather they not get rid of it.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Reduce the number of Elder Worm Arcana and Worm Gems required for the QWZ quests by half.

    These are already the easiest quests to complete... why nerf them further?

    aesica wrote: »
    • Change hybrid role to not suck. Instead of being superstat-based, give it fixed bonuses like the other roles, designed in such a way that it's only slightly inferior to the others: +20% all damage, +5% damage resistance, +15% healing

    Hybrid role is already the most dominant role in the majority of combat tho... +20% all damage?!?
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    By the end of August I'll have about 100 R4s of each type of single stat mod, close to 300 of the R3 ape, dino and kiga mods, along with scores of other mods that drop less frequently. Based on past experience, I wager that a fusion event will be happening in the near future, perhaps even coinciding with part of the anniversary (which will probably run a month itself?). It's extremely dull and tedious spending 3+ hours fusing all these mods. So, my anniversary wish is for a way to drop all the mods of a single rank into a box, along with whatever catalysts I want to use (got a couple hundred each of 10% and 7% now), press a button and have everything fused in a few seconds. That way I can spend more time actually playing as a superhero! :) A QoL improvement that I'm sure almost everyone would appreciate!
    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Posts: 1,569 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    or just make it like gem fusion in diablo 3 - guaranteed success, but you have to pay a scaling modicum of resources for each fusion, plus a special item at higher ranks

    be a good way to bring those now-useless pre-'revamp' crafting materials back into usefulness​​
    #LegalizeAwoo
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Change the respec system to allow for the removal of a specific, unwanted power along with all of its advantages instead of having to step through the annoying/unnecessary "undo stack" (since power tiers are no longer a thing, this is okay to do)
    Yeah, we wish :D
    It'd be nice, but it'd need a new ui to restrict the choices so that you can't make your built invalid.
    aesica wrote: »
    • Change the break-free F-mashing mechanic to auto-mash F to help prevent carpal tunnel in the playerbase.
    Just remove this entirely.
    Fun fact: You know how your character does a looping struggle animation? Pressing F more than once per animation loop does nothing.
    ChampsWiki
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My characters
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    Mashing mechanics are cruddy out-dated garbage anyways u3u no game should ever have mashing in it ever again.
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    Whoa, you went full ham on this. Just picking a few...
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Allow aura passives to buff allies based on superstats instead of forcing Presence stacking.

    Their worry is probably that once support toons are unchained from Presence stacking, that Presence will become a junk stat that nobody takes ever again. I'm fine with that since Presence has kind of become a junk stat for me ever since I started turning all my healers into dpsers.
    I don't know, it actually has decent specializations, and since it doesn't DR healing all that much (if at all?) it's still a great stat for healers which is fine. It just wouldn't be as mandatory as it is currently.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine "Ranged Damage" and "Melee Damage" into just "Damage" because keeping the two split is beyond retarded. Some of the passives can still encourage one over the other and that's fine, but that should be as far as the division goes.

    I still think it's better to not do this, if only to keep player power level reigned in. If they're willing to do the work it would take to buff all NPCs to adapt to this change, then I'd be fine with it.
    I really don't think it'd upset player power levels all that much. You'd still be restricted somewhat by which powers your energy unlock, passive, etc worked with and that's fine/ideal.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Delete power ranks and have all powers function at and use the visuals of Rank 3 by default.

    Same as above, all NPCs would need a fairly large buff.
    Why? Do you not rank up your damage-dealing powers or something?
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Flatten power tiers. Power damage still scales with the player's growth, so a current-T3 power on a level 6 is still going to do poop for damage.

    Your reasoning doesn't really make sense here, but I do agree now that the power tier system is a limitation that could at the very least use an update. The whole "take X powers of tier Y to unlock powers of tier Z" thing could be replaced with something more like "powers of this tree get stronger the more you specialize", letting us have more freedom to take the powers we want while still rewarding concentrated power choices.
    I didn't actually give a reason, other than an implied "It'd be a lot less of a mess."
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine all "increases the damage of [powerset here] by X%" mods into just one "Increases your damage by X%"

    We already have those mods, they go into your Offense slots. If anything I say change the "Increase damage of powerset" to "lower the cost of powerset powers".
    Right, but I'm talking about the mods that go into support slots. Although rather than that, I'd like to see support slots reserved for actual support mods and not the offense slots 2.0 they are now. I think Kais made some flight speed mods which sound really cool, but I'm never going to use them despite that because throughput-increasing mod > auxiliary effect mod.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Render confront mods useless. Allow players to redeem them for another mod of their choice.
    • Boost tank threat by a decent amount to compensate for the above.

    I'm not sure why anyone thought we have to use Confront mods, considering we were tanking for years before they even existed.
    Confront mods, challenge, etc should all just be baseline threat for the tank role, and I say that because no other role is basically required to scavenger-hunt together something that's basically required for their role to work properly. A low-damage dps can still do damage, a low-healing healer can still heal, but a low-threat tank can't tank because he can't hold aggro.

    WoW realized how stupid this was sometime during Vanilla or shortly after and made a major course correction. I wish CO would do the same, but it probably won't.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine the "boosts a specific resistance type" mods into "increases your damage resistance"

    We already have Impact Prisms, why do we need a 2nd version of them that is exactly the same?
    In all honesty, we don't need like 90% of the new mods we've been showered with, but it's not fair to those who actually spent stuff to make R9s of them to suddenly just...take them away.

    That said, the damage-specific mods are lame because only a crazy person is going to collect 1 piece of gear for every (major) damage type, so in most cases, socketing general damage resistance is going to be the wiser choice every time unless somebody out there knows something I don't about this. Which is possible.

    Those two things are why I said what I did. If we could just yank them away without screwing anyone, I'd be all for it.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Change the break-free F-mashing mechanic to auto-mash F to help prevent carpal tunnel in the playerbase.

    Just remove this entirely.
    Basically what I'm saying. I really don't care what approach is used, I just want it thrown into the sun.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Combine END and REC into a single stat.

    This is actually one of the few things that promotes actual differences in playstyles, so I'd rather they not get rid of it.
    Honest question--how so? I find my end and rec users play almost exactly the same. They hit stuff and their energy goes up and down, but ultimately is maintained throughout the fight.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Reduce the number of Elder Worm Arcana and Worm Gems required for the QWZ quests by half.

    These are already the easiest quests to complete... why nerf them further?
    Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but they're by far the most time-consuming quests in the QWZ. On worm gem day (which I now just skip) I find that these two quests together take almost twice as long as everything else that day--combined. The other worm crap (wormification, no one left behind, make them eat dirt) are all a lot more reasonable.

    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    • Change hybrid role to not suck. Instead of being superstat-based, give it fixed bonuses like the other roles, designed in such a way that it's only slightly inferior to the others: +20% all damage, +5% damage resistance, +15% healing

    Hybrid role is already the most dominant role in the majority of combat tho... +20% all damage?!?
    +20% all damage is still less than the more specialized roles' +25%. Not sure how it's the most dominant in its current form because hitting things harder (using the dps roles) makes them dead a lot sooner. That means less incoming damage. I used hybrid a lot as a noob, but now I only really use it on one character--an experimental healer/tank that uses AoRP for both roles. If I could use AoRP in the tank role, I wouldn't use hybrid at all.
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    aesica wrote: »
    I don't know, it actually has decent specializations, and since it doesn't DR healing all that much (if at all?) it's still a great stat for healers which is fine. It just wouldn't be as mandatory as it is currently.

    Presence has two good specializations. Selfless Ally, which is only really relevant because of Iniquity, and Vulnerability. Other than those two, someone stacking Presence can actually make a stronger build going Ego primary. That's the direction my healers have been going and it's fantastic.
    aesica wrote: »
    I really don't think it'd upset player power levels all that much. You'd still be restricted somewhat by which powers your energy unlock, passive, etc worked with and that's fine/ideal.

    Any increase to player damage is going to upset game balance when we're already in a state of "too much damage output". This just makes it so our toons with melee powers get to melee less because we'd be one-shotting more things from ranged. This also shifts the balance in regards to there being a reason to make specialized melee toons; if you get equal damage, why not just give all your toons ranged and melee powers so you can be the best in any given situation? There are a lot of side-effects to making it so everyone can be the best ranged dps and the best melee dps, and no Passives alone wouldn't be enough.

    What they could do is come out with Forms that give equal damage to both, but that give less to both than the specialized forms give to one, and lower enough that it's an actual decision, that I could get behind. That's where you really see just how much people care about making a mixed ranged/melee toon that has equal damage to both attacks.
    aesica wrote: »
    Why? Do you not rank up your damage-dealing powers or something?

    I rank some of my powers to Rank 3, but not all of them. Many of the powers in my kit are there for utility, and just happen to also do some damage. Your question would make sense if you were asking it to someone who makes one of those characters who only has one single target damage power, and one aoe, and then no other active powers. There's no reason that choice needs to go away, especially considering this is yet another increase to player damage output that we don't need, and have never needed.
    aesica wrote: »
    I didn't actually give a reason, other than an implied "It'd be a lot less of a mess."

    So you didn't give a reason, except for the reason you then mention in the same sentence where you claim you didn't give a reason? Except I didn't say "a reason", I said reasoning, and your reasoning that doing this would be okay is that "a tier 3 power will still do low damage on a level 6"...which doesn't make sense because people don't spend very long being low level, especially that low level.
    aesica wrote: »
    Right, but I'm talking about the mods that go into support slots. Although rather than that, I'd like to see support slots reserved for actual support mods and not the offense slots 2.0 they are now. I think Kais made some flight speed mods which sound really cool, but I'm never going to use them despite that because throughput-increasing mod > auxiliary effect mod.

    Yes, I'm also talking about the mods that go into support slots, and how they shouldn't just be a copy of the mods that go into the offense slots. The fact that they're already useful enough that you would completely ignore all other support mods doesn't really suggest that they should be made more useful. On the other hand I see you've switched to an entirely new suggestion now so I guess that conversation is over.
    aesica wrote: »
    Confront mods, challenge, etc should all just be baseline threat for the tank role, and I say that because no other role is basically required to scavenger-hunt together something that's basically required for their role to work properly. A low-damage dps can still do damage, a low-healing healer can still heal, but a low-threat tank can't tank because he can't hold aggro.

    WoW realized how stupid this was sometime during Vanilla or shortly after and made a major course correction. I wish CO would do the same, but it probably won't.

    Tank role isn't required to do this either. For some reason when Confront mods came out people just started using them like it was required. Your Tank will work perfectly fine without them... well unless you're one of those really low damage tank builds, in which case that's what Confront mods were actually made for and you already made the decision when building your tank that you don't care about doing high damage so you don't need damage mods in your offense slots. I've tanked for some of the highest DPS in the game in hybrid role wearing dps gear with no Confronts. What you're claiming is required isn't required, so if you don't wanna do it then don't do it. Tanks don't need more built in threat.

    As far as the whole "We should do this because WoW did it" concept, gonna disagree on that wholesale. WoW has had a lot of bad ideas implemented in it throughout the years so I see no need to copy it.
    aesica wrote: »
    In all honesty, we don't need like 90% of the new mods we've been showered with, but it's not fair to those who actually spent stuff to make R9s of them to suddenly just...take them away.

    That said, the damage-specific mods are lame because only a crazy person is going to collect 1 piece of gear for every (major) damage type, so in most cases, socketing general damage resistance is going to be the wiser choice every time unless somebody out there knows something I don't about this. Which is possible.

    Those two things are why I said what I did. If we could just yank them away without screwing anyone, I'd be all for it.

    Well I know some "crazy people" who did just that. Those specific damage resistance mods can give you a good amount more damage resistance in some specific instances where you're taking a ton of damage. Just take notice of the damage types you're taking and you'll see what that means ( a lot of tanks tend to do that sort of thing, obsessed with damage resistance as they are ).
    aesica wrote: »
    Honest question--how so? I find my end and rec users play almost exactly the same. They hit stuff and their energy goes up and down, but ultimately is maintained throughout the fight.

    High endurance toons can do longer bursts and use some more energy hungry powers. Recovery toons can use their energy builder to fill their energy up in a second. You won't notice this during cosmics because of the auras.

    aesica wrote: »
    Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but they're by far the most time-consuming quests in the QWZ. On worm gem day (which I now just skip) I find that these two quests together take almost twice as long as everything else that day--combined. The other worm crap (wormification, no one left behind, make them eat dirt) are all a lot more reasonable.

    I did these quests in my QWZ daily speed run video remember? Both of them .-. You just gotta find a good line, hitting the spots with the most interactables.
    aesica wrote: »
    +20% all damage is still less than the more specialized roles' +25%. Not sure how it's the most dominant in its current form because hitting things harder (using the dps roles) makes them dead a lot sooner. That means less incoming damage. I used hybrid a lot as a noob, but now I only really use it on one character--an experimental healer/tank that uses AoRP for both roles. If I could use AoRP in the tank role, I wouldn't use hybrid at all.

    +20% is less than +25% yes, but not less enough - you might as well hang a sign up that says "DPS role is pointless now unless you really care about 5%". Also Hybrid role already has better healing than DPS roles and you want to give it more??? And then you go on to call it a noob role for noobs making the entire reason you want to buff it questionable .-.

    Hybrid role is dominant because it can do anything that's needed to make a given piece of content easy while still maintaining good damage output - the balance of healing, dps, and toughness lets you excel at anything that isn't a dps check ( and you can even help pass those ). Yes, DPS roles also have advantages, and we should totally have a weird backwards moment of you explaining to me why doing QWZ dailies in DPS role is better than Hybrid while thinking about the debates we had that motivated me to make all those videos :^).

    As for "I used hybrid as a noob", well someday when you become a super tank you'll start tanking in hybrid to make content go a bit faster. The circle of life!
  • mordray001mordray001 Posts: 218 Arc User
    So for my wish... I want beastial supernatural animations that don't use the open hand/claw sequences and bite sequences because I enjoy the mechanics of the set as a brute force bleeding build that we even have some sweet bracer claws (steel/night hawk items) that would be a lot cooler without the open hand slashing breaking immersion... not to mention the strange bite attacks that just look so wrong without one of a handful of beast heads. This change might also see an increase in the number of people willing to play the powerset as currently it's basically forcing theme and that's not really ok. Perhaps this could be implemented via a mechanic akin to that used by Ego Blades for switching between single and dual blade animations?


    Also Moonstruck needs to have it's pvp gating removed. I want nothing to do with that damned mess and yet the only way to get this power is via participation in a mess of bullshit.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    It's not hard to farm Moonstruck though. Just take turns beating on each other. Only requires one farming session really.
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  • mordray001mordray001 Posts: 218 Arc User
    It's not hard to farm Moonstruck though. Just take turns beating on each other. Only requires one farming session really.
    And yet that would require me to have something to do with it...
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Presence has two good specializations. Selfless Ally, which is only really relevant because of Iniquity, and Vulnerability. Other than those two, someone stacking Presence can actually make a stronger build going Ego primary. That's the direction my healers have been going and it's fantastic.
    That depends on what you're trying to make. Besides maybe Brilliance, most of its specializations are decent in some way. Ego may give you extra crit and damage output, but that's about all it's going to do for you as a healer.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Any increase to player damage is going to upset game balance when we're already in a state of "too much damage output". This just makes it so our toons with melee powers get to melee less because we'd be one-shotting more things from ranged. This also shifts the balance in regards to there being a reason to make specialized melee toons; if you get equal damage, why not just give all your toons ranged and melee powers so you can be the best in any given situation? There are a lot of side-effects to making it so everyone can be the best ranged dps and the best melee dps, and no Passives alone wouldn't be enough.
    1) If everyone could one-shot things from ranged, why does it seem like most people are melee now?

    2) You'll still be specializing in melee or ranged based on which T3 power you pick. If you want to pick multiple T3 powers to be "good" at both ranged and melee, that's a valid choice under a range/melee agnostic model since it requires more investment (extra power slot or slots if extra debuff powers are needed, extra adv points, etc.

    3) Do strictly-melee characters even need to exist? If there was no forced choice between melee or ranged via forms or roles, there's nothing from stopping someone from making a hand-to-hand karate guy. Lunges in this game are good enough that getting into melee quickly and staying there shouldn't be a problem for such a character.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    What they could do is come out with Forms that give equal damage to both, but that give less to both than the specialized forms give to one, and lower enough that it's an actual decision, that I could get behind. That's where you really see just how much people care about making a mixed ranged/melee toon that has equal damage to both attacks.
    But then you're still getting screwed by the ranged/melee roles to the point where you're just nerfing yourself by taking those weaker range/melee agnostic forms.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    I rank some of my powers to Rank 3, but not all of them. Many of the powers in my kit are there for utility, and just happen to also do some damage. Your question would make sense if you were asking it to someone who makes one of those characters who only has one single target damage power, and one aoe, and then no other active powers. There's no reason that choice needs to go away, especially considering this is yet another increase to player damage output that we don't need, and have never needed.
    I suspect just about everyone only ranks up their "killing" powers. Giving players R3 energy builders or Shadow Blast/etc by default would hardly change player damage in a meaningful way.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    So you didn't give a reason, except for the reason you then mention in the same sentence where you claim you didn't give a reason? Except I didn't say "a reason", I said reasoning, and your reasoning that doing this would be okay is that "a tier 3 power will still do low damage on a level 6"...which doesn't make sense because people don't spend very long being low level, especially that low level.
    The point I was making there is that skills in this game scale with level/stats/etc already, thus there's no real reason for tiered powers to exist.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    As far as the whole "We should do this because WoW did it" concept, gonna disagree on that wholesale. WoW has had a lot of bad ideas implemented in it throughout the years so I see no need to copy it.
    It's also had a lot of good ideas, and how tanking works there is definitely one of them.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    High endurance toons can do longer bursts and use some more energy hungry powers. Recovery toons can use their energy builder to fill their energy up in a second. You won't notice this during cosmics because of the auras.
    I don't notice this in normal gameplay either. The closest I can think of is that my rec characters can go full speed at the start of a fight while my end charcters might choke a little bit at first due to their shitty low equilibrium.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    I did these quests in my QWZ daily speed run video remember? Both of them .-. You just gotta find a good line, hitting the spots with the most interactables.
    Your video kind of proved my point, actually. Those two quests took up most of the time in that video:

    1:50 - 4:25

    If we're to count 4:25 as the end of the questing phase of that video, then that means you spent 2 minutes and 35 seconds out of the total 4:25 working on worm gems and arcanas, or 58.5% of your total quest time.

    That is why I hate them and think they should be dialed back a bit.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Hybrid role is dominant because it can do anything that's needed to make a given piece of content easy while still maintaining good damage output - the balance of healing, dps, and toughness lets you excel at anything that isn't a dps check ( and you can even help pass those ). Yes, DPS roles also have advantages, and we should totally have a weird backwards moment of you explaining to me why doing QWZ dailies in DPS role is better than Hybrid while thinking about the debates we had that motivated me to make all those videos :^).

    As for "I used hybrid as a noob", well someday when you become a super tank you'll start tanking in hybrid to make content go a bit faster. The circle of life!
    Actually when I tank lazier content these days, I just do it in dps role unless it's big team content like cosmics or some event nonsense. Then I just go dps and threat wipe because I'd rather just let someone else do the tanking. Maybe we really have come full circle.
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    mordray001 wrote: »
    It's not hard to farm Moonstruck though. Just take turns beating on each other. Only requires one farming session really.
    And yet that would require me to have something to do with it...
    You know it's not real PvP right? more like Onslaught villains?
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    mordray001 wrote: »
    It's not hard to farm Moonstruck though. Just take turns beating on each other. Only requires one farming session really.
    And yet that would require me to have something to do with it...

    The first year Moonstruck was a thing a bunch of us just said "Hey lot's go do that dumb pvp thing". So we showed up and did it and we just ran up to each other, spammed the powers, and did it. Then towards the end we would ask who still needed X number of kills for credit and we would run up and let them beat us up. Most people stayed until everyone had gotten what they needed. It was a nice friendly little event. It was literally the complete opposite of Hero Games PvP.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    aesica wrote: »
    That depends on what you're trying to make. Besides maybe Brilliance, most of its specializations are decent in some way. Ego may give you extra crit and damage output, but that's about all it's going to do for you as a healer.

    Yeah, shows how little healers actually need any extra healing from Specs. The only really useful specs for healers are the the CC-based resistance debuff ones.
    aesica wrote: »
    1) If everyone could one-shot things from ranged, why does it seem like most people are melee now?

    2) You'll still be specializing in melee or ranged based on which T3 power you pick. If you want to pick multiple T3 powers to be "good" at both ranged and melee, that's a valid choice under a range/melee agnostic model since it requires more investment (extra power slot or slots if extra debuff powers are needed, extra adv points, etc.

    3) Do strictly-melee characters even need to exist? If there was no forced choice between melee or ranged via forms or roles, there's nothing from stopping someone from making a hand-to-hand karate guy. Lunges in this game are good enough that getting into melee quickly and staying there shouldn't be a problem for such a character.

    1 - Because melee gives biggest score at Cosmics.

    2 - Interesting comment.. first you say "you'll still be specializing in melee or ranged" and then you give an example of where people won't be doing that. So in the end, it'll be just like now, with people sometimes doing that, and sometimes not. What changed other than the second group doing the same amount of damage without specializing?

    3 - They do exist, both in the source material and in-game; are they required to exist? Nothing is required to exist. There really is no forced choice either, as taking Melee dps role doesn't restrict you to only melee powers; saying it's a forced choice is inaccurate hyperbole. Lunges are great, but very limited in what they can do and for the most part are made irrelevant by travel powers. I only take lunges on toons that have Brawler Mastery myself - I'd much rather run up to a group while charging an aoe since that leads to much better results. Basically, the same thing that would make having a ranged attack so useful is the same thing that makes lunges less useful.
    aesica wrote: »
    But then you're still getting screwed by the ranged/melee roles to the point where you're just nerfing yourself by taking those weaker range/melee agnostic forms.

    My question is, why do you need both your ranged and melee attacks to have tippy-top scoreboard-busting dps performance? The answer is you don't, but I want to know why you think you do. This is one thing nobody has ever actually explained, almost like the assumption is that it is definitely needed, even though everyone has been doing just fine without it.

    aesica wrote: »
    I suspect just about everyone only ranks up their "killing" powers. Giving players R3 energy builders or Shadow Blast/etc by default would hardly change player damage in a meaningful way.

    Ah well then I see the problem. You're one of those people that only takes an energy builder, a debuff applier, and then a single target and an aoe "killing" power. That's why you don't see the scope of the change. Also, interesting that you say making your proposed change would not have a meaningful effect... leaves one to wonder why you think it needs to be made. Thing is, on my toons, all my powers are killing powers *guitar riff, puts on shades, dabs*
    aesica wrote: »
    The point I was making there is that skills in this game scale with level/stats/etc already, thus there's no real reason for tiered powers to exist.

    That's still not good reasoning because at any level higher tier powers still out-perform lower tier powers. That's also something that would have to be done away with if the tiers were removed. My preference would be if that performance then comes back via framework specialization, i.e. powers receive buffs the more powers from that framework you have.
    aesica wrote: »
    It's also had a lot of good ideas, and how tanking works there is definitely one of them.

    Tanking works the same in nearly all MMOs. Run in, hit the things, keep hitting them, sprinkle in some defensive actions ( more or less depending on the game. I think our tanking is closer to Tera than it is WoW ). What you have to stick into whatever slot is fairly arbitrary and our version of it speaks to the fact that in our game tanks can achieve better damage output than WoW's more specialized versions. I was a Prot Warrior for five years! :D But either way, who cares about WoW, ideas should stand on their own merit, not "because WoW did it!".
    aesica wrote: »
    I don't notice this in normal gameplay either. The closest I can think of is that my rec characters can go full speed at the start of a fight while my end charcters might choke a little bit at first due to their shitty low equilibrium.

    "I notice no difference" ... "Let me give an example of a difference I notice"
    aesica wrote: »
    Your video kind of proved my point, actually. Those two quests took up most of the time in that video:

    1:50 - 4:25

    If we're to count 4:25 as the end of the questing phase of that video, then that means you spent 2 minutes and 35 seconds out of the total 4:25 working on worm gems and arcanas, or 58.5% of your total quest time.

    That is why I hate them and think they should be dialed back a bit.

    The point of pointing out I did those quests in a speed run is that they don't take very long at all. I'm not sure why all the quests need to take the exact same amount of time? But hey if you want, we can make them all take as long as it takes to do Multifarian Reinforcements in a group of five so they'll all be even.
    aesica wrote: »
    Actually when I tank lazier content these days, I just do it in dps role unless it's big team content like cosmics or some event nonsense. Then I just go dps and threat wipe because I'd rather just let someone else do the tanking. Maybe we really have come full circle.

    I dunno about us but you definitely came full circle in that response... all the way from "I tank in dps role" to "I don't tank at all because I don't want to" o_O
  • zamuelpwezamuelpwe Posts: 668 Arc User
    I have requests three:
    -Master Villain Default from the enemy group that comes with Deadman Walkin' and Nighthawk to gain attacks. It's slightly embarrassing for that common of an enemy to be like that for so long.
    -Green Dragon gets redubbed with the proper voice. The special alert version is wrong, he already does have a voice in the game (in Nemesis missions), and a prior dev even noted that it was a error/mistake that his voice sounds like that.
    -Make a third Burst. I personally don't mind Pyramid of Power (and think people complaining about the outside are focusing on the wrong thing when it comes to slowdown) but the fact of the matter is that it's simply boring to only have two Bursts in rotation. I do understand that we're too close for this to be a possibility before the Anniversary unless they slapped together something super rushed. Pyramid of Radiation?
    "Interesting builds are born from limitations not by letting players put everything into one build."

    -Sterga
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Yeah, shows how little healers actually need any extra healing from Specs. The only really useful specs for healers are the the CC-based resistance debuff ones.
    And the defensive ones. And in a sense, even the ones that improve healing output, but more as a QoL improvement to make them that much better at their job. If my Arcane Vit ticks twice as hard as yours because I went full healer while you made a healer/dps hybrid, we can both heal groups up after a big attack, but I'm going to heal them up twice as quickly. That speed difference could mean the difference between something like whether or not the giant monkey hurls his flaming dookie of death at them.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    1 - Because melee gives biggest score at Cosmics.
    I don't think people care about the score so much as getting past dps checks and generally getting it done as quickly as possible. From my own perspective, I like melee because it's generally more mobile and because things get in your face anyway, whether you're melee or ranged.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    2 - Interesting comment.. first you say "you'll still be specializing in melee or ranged" and then you give an example of where people won't be doing that. So in the end, it'll be just like now, with people sometimes doing that, and sometimes not. What changed other than the second group doing the same amount of damage without specializing?
    No, what clearly meant was that you'd be primarily a melee or ranged character based on whether you took a melee or ranged killing power. With the change, you'd get the option (with additional investment in powers/adv points, not for free) to be good at both if you wanted. What's the point in forcing a choice between melee or range anyway? Why can't a superhero kick **** with both guns and their fists equally?
    spinnytop wrote: »
    3 - They do exist, both in the source material and in-game; are they required to exist? Nothing is required to exist. There really is no forced choice either, as taking Melee dps role doesn't restrict you to only melee powers; saying it's a forced choice is inaccurate hyperbole. Lunges are great, but very limited in what they can do and for the most part are made irrelevant by travel powers. I only take lunges on toons that have Brawler Mastery myself - I'd much rather run up to a group while charging an aoe since that leads to much better results. Basically, the same thing that would make having a ranged attack so useful is the same thing that makes lunges less useful.
    Right, you can take any power you want, but currently, your form, your role, and possibly even your passive are why your melee aoe is hitting for over twice as much as your ranged aoe. Or flip the switch to swap roles, possibly passives, and then switch on your ranged form and suddenly your ranged aoe is hitting for twice as much as your melee aoe. That's pretty dumb and doesn't really exist in any other game.

    Also, lunges are not irrelevant when you're in situations where travel powers get switched off. They'll also get you back into the fight more quickly (due to in-combat travel power speed reduction) than toddling back in manually.
    aesica wrote: »
    But then you're still getting screwed by the ranged/melee roles to the point where you're just nerfing yourself by taking those weaker range/melee agnostic forms.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    My question is, why do you need both your ranged and melee attacks to have tippy-top scoreboard-busting dps performance? The answer is you don't, but I want to know why you think you do.
    I already pretty much stated it, but I'll do it again just so it's clear to you. The faster something dies, the less of a threat it is. Hit them weakly enough and elder worm followers will outheal the damage you do to them, making it much more difficult to kill a lowly henchman-ranked foe. If my melee attack can one-shot them, but my ranged one can't because my role and form are getting in the way, then why did I take my ranged attack again? Oh right, character theme...even though it's useless to that character. Which again, is dumb.

    It's not about scoreboards. I don't care about those and I suspect very few people actually do. It's about having powers that function at a useful level. Certainly better than "my theme for this character is that he can breath fire and fight with his fists. Since fire breath is so weak for him due to all the MA stuff he needed, maybe I'll just...cut that out of his theme to save power/adv points. So now he's just a guy who fights with is fists like every other fister.

    Theme defeated, long live the cookie cutter.
    aesica wrote: »
    Ah well then I see the problem. You're one of those people that only takes an energy builder, a debuff applier, and then a single target and an aoe "killing" power. That's why you don't see the scope of the change.
    Actually, why I take minimal powers like that is a direct result of the current state of things. If I take a good aoe and a good single target power, why do I want a secondary of either? Especially since the ranged-or-melee barrier makes anything that would actually feel different perform at near-useless levels of effectiveness? It goes back to the fire breathing monk example above. Breathing fire on everything would take far longer to do anything than just lunging in decimate everything in the sword cyclone blender for a few seconds (thanks imaginary weapons!). So again, why have fire breath on this character at all?
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Also, interesting that you say making your proposed change would not have a meaningful effect... leaves one to wonder why you think it needs to be made. Thing is, on my toons, all my powers are killing powers *guitar riff, puts on shades, dabs*
    What I mean there is it wouldn't suddenly make everyone hit cosmics harder since it wouldn't suddenly make existing powers hit harder.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    That's still not good reasoning because at any level higher tier powers still out-perform lower tier powers. That's also something that would have to be done away with if the tiers were removed. My preference would be if that performance then comes back via framework specialization, i.e. powers receive buffs the more powers from that framework you have.
    Right, so our fire breathing monk still has no reason to breathe fire.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Tanking works the same in nearly all MMOs. Run in, hit the things, keep hitting them, sprinkle in some defensive actions ( more or less depending on the game. I think our tanking is closer to Tera than it is WoW ). What you have to stick into whatever slot is fairly arbitrary and our version of it speaks to the fact that in our game tanks can achieve better damage output than WoW's more specialized versions. I was a Prot Warrior for five years! :D But either way, who cares about WoW, ideas should stand on their own merit, not "because WoW did it!".
    You can still learn from wow's successes and apply them going forward instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. Also, I'm guessing you haven't played very many of the vintage, early MMOs. Before wow supposedly set standards that are commonplace in mmos today, we had some pretty horrible things, like full loot drops on death, no loot rarity color coding, exploitable pvp systems that were mostly just open world gankfests, absolutely no account-bound anything, among other things.

    Wow's far from perfect and has plenty of faults, but again, learning from past successes (and failure) is good
    spinnytop wrote: »
    aesica wrote: »
    I don't notice this in normal gameplay either. The closest I can think of is that my rec characters can go full speed at the start of a fight while my end charcters might choke a little bit at first due to their shitty low equilibrium.

    "I notice no difference" ... "Let me give an example of a difference I notice"
    You missed the point. Beyond that tiny bit at the start of a fight, both generate/spend their energy just fine, and whether they use end or rec ceases to be noticeable beyond that point.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    The point of pointing out I did those quests in a speed run is that they don't take very long at all. I'm not sure why all the quests need to take the exact same amount of time? But hey if you want, we can make them all take as long as it takes to do Multifarian Reinforcements in a group of five so they'll all be even.
    Right, and my point was that, no matter how "speedy" your run might be, you're going to spend most of your quest time slogging through worm territory to find an excessively high number of gem boxes or worm arcanas.

    That said, I'd like to think the MF quest sucking for teams is an oversight since the whole zone was originally intended to be team content. Kais pls fix.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    I dunno about us but you definitely came full circle in that response... all the way from "I tank in dps role" to "I don't tank at all because I don't want to" o_O
    Aaand I guess we're done since you're apparently just trolling as usual. Sometimes you're okay, and sometimes you suck. Stop sucking please.

    Aes is built for add tanking and breezing through tough mob slogs like QWZ and StE, not cosmic tanking. I don't want to put people through having an invuln tank with only about 12k hp and no confronts.

    "BuT YoU DoN't NeEd CoNfRoNtS."

    Yeah, when tanking means spending a lot of time blocking, and when really big-hitting dps show up, you really could use all the help you can get.

    That said, yeah I guess we're done here. :)
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    So, not really PVP but mass collusion. More akin to the OSV system.
    spinnytop wrote: »
    mordray001 wrote: »
    It's not hard to farm Moonstruck though. Just take turns beating on each other. Only requires one farming session really.
    And yet that would require me to have something to do with it...

    The first year Moonstruck was a thing a bunch of us just said "Hey lot's go do that dumb pvp thing". So we showed up and did it and we just ran up to each other, spammed the powers, and did it. Then towards the end we would ask who still needed X number of kills for credit and we would run up and let them beat us up. Most people stayed until everyone had gotten what they needed. It was a nice friendly little event. It was literally the complete opposite of Hero Games PvP.

    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    jaazaniah1 wrote: »
    So, not really PVP but mass collusion. More akin to the OSV system.
    NO COLLUSION! AND NO OBSTRUCTION!

    But yeah, also I suspect a lot of people got it done and never want to look back, so getting it done now will be a lot harder. It's an example of content participation that doesn't age well unless the devs find new (horrible) ways to get people back into it, year after year.

    And as unpleasant as vehicle/become pvp is, I really hope they don't.
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • fermifermi Posts: 117 Arc User
    On the subject of ranged versus melee...

    Point first:

    All other things equal, when a melee power and a ranged power have the same damage, since the melee power requires a non-zero amount of time to close to an opponent, the melee power does LESS damage over time. It is far easier to kite and avoid melee powers. Anyone capable of doing the same damage at range that he does in melee is purposefully weakening himself by choosing melee.

    Example 1: Melee Morty requires two seconds to close to a mook and two seconds to defeat him. Ranged Rick does the same damage but doesn't need to move, so he defeats the mook in two seconds and Melee Morty is running around pointlessly like an idiot.

    This is true in EVERY game.

    Point second:

    Games use a variety of means to counteract the inherent comparative suckiness of melee powers. One immediately obvious way is simply to make melee powers stronger. Others include longer activation times for ranged powers (lowering their overall damage covertly), rooting ranged users in place so they can't kite, making users of ranged powers more vulnerable to damage, and designing the environment in such a way that ranged folk can't use their range.

    Example 2a: Ranged Rick's powers now do half the damage of Melee Morty's. They defeat their mook at exactly the same time.

    Example 2b: Ranged Rick's powers how have an activation time which makes them take twice as long to use. They defeat their mook at exactly the same time.

    Example 2c: All mooks now jump out from underground. Morty no longer has to close. They defeat their mook at exactly the same time.

    Point third:

    Because of Point Two, a universal buff to damage is going to throw the newly achieved balance of powers utterly out of whack. This might perhaps be most easily seen through our conveniently provided examples:

    Example 3a: Ranged Rick's powers still do half damage, but now they both get a 100% damage buff. It now only takes Melee Morty one second to defeat a mook and Ranged Rick two seconds, but since Melee Morty spends those two seconds closing to the mook, he is again running around like an idiot.

    Example 3b: Ranged Rick still spends half his time activating his powers, but now they both get a 100% damage buff. It takes Melee Morty one second to defeat the mook and two seconds to close and Ranged Rick a maximum of three seconds to defeat it (if all his activation time was at the beginning) or a minimum of 1.5 seconds to defeat it (if his activation time is perfectly evenly distributed). At best they're even, but at worst Morty is running around and accomplishing nothing.

    Example 3c: Mooks still jump out from underground, but now they both get a 100% damage buff. They still manage to defeat their mook at exactly the same time.

    We can really only come close to retaining balance in most of these situations by giving a differential buff, boosting melee damage more than we boost ranged damage. It is worth noting that at NO point in these examples so far does the advantage tip over to Melee Morty... the best he gets by all this is to keep up with Ranged Rick. If ALL the countermeasures are used AND there is a differential buff, it creates a situation where ranged is sometimes better and melee is sometimes better, which is another kind of balance.

    TLDR:

    Unless the developers want to purposely push everyone toward ranged powers and their obvious advantages, there cannot be universally identical damage or buffs.
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    fermi wrote: »
    TLDR:Unless the developers want to purposely push everyone toward ranged powers and their obvious advantages, there cannot be universally identical damage or buffs.
    I enjoyed your analysis, but I do need to poke a few holes in it due to other aspect of how CO's mechanics seem to balance the two in other ways:
    1. Gap closing in this game is highly trivial. Between travel powers and lunges with almost no cooldown time, Morty can be upon a pack of mooks and pummeling away almost as quickly as Rick.
    2. Some mooks prefer range and others prefer melee and they're often spread too far apart to all be hit with most AoEs (Cones can do this, but they're weaker for this very reason I suspect) Morty can lunge toward a ranged target and start pummeling everything (aside from maybe the other 1-2 ranged mooks that are just too far away) while Rick, depending on his ranged attack of choice (cone, sphere, etc) is suddenly going to be up against a mixture of ranged foes that stay back and melee foes that lunge at his face. I've personally found that, even on my ranged characters, I want to gap close on packs before I unleash my aoe for that very reason.
    3. Melee overall is more mobile and less costly energy-wise than ranged, and really I think that's fine. I don't see why it needs to do less damage on top of all that. All it really means is that, right now, most people flock to melee due to the current imbalance, as melee is currently the winner between the two.
    4. The mooks that prefer range are going to hit both Morty and Rick equally. The mooks that prefer melee are going to gap close Rick pretty quickly although they'll already be in Morty's face since he's in theirs. So is there really much of an advantage for either of them here?

    In your examples, you neglected to include any that would indeed give Morty an advantage, but he does indeed have several: Let's say the two are fighting a boss:
    1. AoE circles spawn on the ground. Morty can probably keep dishing it out as he moves away while Rick has to stop his cast to move in most cases.
    2. Healers are often more attentive to the melee pile than the ranged stragglers. Both take damage periodically, but Morty's a lot safer up close because all the healer splash undoes any damage he takes almost instantly. Meanwhile, Rick's sweating because he's reaching half HP and hasn't been healed for almost half a minute.
    3. Since Morty's melee skills generally have shorter cast times, if any at all compared to Rick's, he's less likely to lose his cast when the inevitable stun or knocking happens.
    4. Rick's big hitter costs a lot of energy compared to Morty's, meaning Rick probably has to invest a bit more into energy management. This actually widens the power gap between the two even further, although this particular example is a lot more paletteable than a straight-up nerf to ranged damage "just because it's ranged."

    So overall, I get that this game does want to make melee feel useful and has taken steps to ensure it isn't left in the dust, and that's good. I just think it's gone a bit too far in doing so, that's all.

    CO's certainly not the first (or worst) example of lifting up melee by excessively nerfing ranged capability, but it's an example nevertheless.
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    aesica wrote: »
    jaazaniah1 wrote: »
    So, not really PVP but mass collusion. More akin to the OSV system.
    NO COLLUSION! AND NO OBSTRUCTION!

    But yeah, also I suspect a lot of people got it done and never want to look back, so getting it done now will be a lot harder. It's an example of content participation that doesn't age well unless the devs find new (horrible) ways to get people back into it, year after year.

    And as unpleasant as vehicle/become pvp is, I really hope they don't.
    I wonder what new stuff there will be for Halloween this year? :D
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  • fermifermi Posts: 117 Arc User
    aesica wrote: »
    I enjoyed your analysis, but I do need to poke a few holes in it due to other aspect of how CO's mechanics seem to balance the two in other ways:

    I'm glad you took it in the spirit in which it was intended. And yes, it was filled with oversimplifications because once we get into the very hairy reality there are so many variations it's not really possible to consider them all.
    aesica wrote: »
    Melee overall is more mobile and less costly energy-wise than ranged, and really I think that's fine. I don't see why it needs to do less damage on top of all that. All it really means is that, right now, most people flock to melee due to the current imbalance, as melee is currently the winner between the two.

    I agree. Ranged certainly doesn't have to do less damage, per se, so long as there are enough other balancing mechanisms thrown in.

    I will disagree that melee is necessarily more mobile or less costly. My power armour character is constantly sweeping the whole field with his beams to try and aggro everyone and my electric AT can even walk around with his cones (though my force AT cannot for some reason). In fact, given that mobility, my PA character is almost always hitting at least two villains if there are two anywhere around... no melee person can arrange circumstances so conveniently except by maintaining total aggro dominance. My electric AT always has his energy capped out, but my savage AT constantly has to build up. I'm told most freeforms manage energy about the same and it's a nonissue (I certainly wouldn't know).

    Hairy.
    aesica wrote: »
    The mooks that prefer range are going to hit both Morty and Rick equally. The mooks that prefer melee are going to gap close Rick pretty quickly although they'll already be in Morty's face since he's in theirs. So is there really much of an advantage for either of them here?

    Actually, this proves my point. When the melee mobs are trying to figure out who is a threat, they almost always lock on to Rick and completely ignore Morty. Why is this? It's because Morty isn't hurting them and Rick is. This proves that gap closing is NOT completely trivial. The lunge power I use can only be used every six seconds... sometimes it is not up when I need it. Nor am I ever instantly there; some folk just use travel powers instead.

    As soon as Morty does get close enough that he can start whacking away, he already has a threat disadvantage to Rick. If they do the exact same damage, the mob will NEVER stop targeting Rick because there's simply no way for Morty to catch up. For alerts where I play a melee character, I either have to run way ahead so the ranged guy isn't anywhere near, stay near the ranged guy where they'll end up anyway, lunge halfway and run-and-attack back, or knock them down right away so they can't go anywhere. For Rick this is literally a nonissue, unless someone knocks a mob back 50 feet - and that, too, is a MUCH BIGGER problem for Morty.
    aesica wrote: »
    So overall, I get that this game does want to make melee feel useful and has taken steps to ensure it isn't left in the dust, and that's good. I just think it's gone a bit too far in doing so, that's all.

    CO's certainly not the first (or worst) example of lifting up melee by excessively nerfing ranged capability, but it's an example nevertheless.

    I gather that you tend to prefer range to melee; I can tell you that I feel the same. Where we seem to differ is in whether everyone else feels otherwise.

    I know that while playing melee I've sometimes had to fight for room around a cosmic... but then ranged folk seldom need to fight for room at all (yet another advantage for them!). My melee guys tend to 'score' better, but I'm told score doesn't count for anything and it's often based on strange stuff anyway. I've never been turned away from a team because I'm ranged or melee, so most folk don't seem to see much of a difference, in my opinion.

    Do you have any evidence that most people think melee is 'better' than ranged?

    Either way, this does leave your original criticism that single characters who mix melee and ranged generally have to favour one or the other because almost all the form and passive powers unequally benefit the two. I think this is a fair criticism, though I agree with Spinny that even if you did have both kinds of powers, you probably only have one 'most powerful power' and so have chosen a side in any case. It could also be pointed out that 'melee' and 'ranged' are themselves oversimplifications: some melee powers only reach 5' even if most reach 10', and a range of 30' is QUITE different from a range of 100'. Hopefully most of these fine differences are worked out in the powers themselves.

    But there are exceptions. Seraphim and Electric Form gives +25% to a single type of damage straight across. Compassion or Aspect of the Machine both provide a typeless damage bonus. It demonstrates that the devs are (or were) not completely averse to the idea of a flat buff existing... but there will usually be other limitations involved. There aren't enough of these to follow any possible character idea. Just a few niche ones.

    It would be hard to have a 'generic' form to fill in the gaps since each form has different ways of powering up. But we could have a more generic passive that boosts everything the same amount. In order to make it not obsolete every other passive, it might have to be slightly weaker than all the others, though you wouldn't have a weakness in ranged or melee. It would effectively be like the 'hybrid' of passives. Is that what you would want?
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    jaazaniah1 wrote: »
    So, not really PVP but mass collusion. More akin to the OSV system.

    Not really. OSV is people just standing there spamming powers. When we did the event we actually fought each other, so it was actual pvp. What made it different from Hero Games was that there's no win condition, so everyone just had fun attacking each other. The collusion didn't really kick in until the end when things were winding down.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    so, um, we my or may not get a Might update with the Anniv….
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