Power changes for Free to Play

[Archived Post]

Howdy all -

We have some information that will probably help your understanding of why certain passives or Super Stats were chosen for certain Archetypes, even though they currently would not be optimal on Live.

The short of it is - many things have changed. The powers patch note list for Free to Play is... really long. It broke 50,000 characters already, and will keep going up as we continue to work on things toward launch. I'll try to hit a couple of the really big changes here.

1) Almost all Passives now scale with Super Stats. We discussed the best way to address multiple issues with the way Passives currently worked, and one of the things we kept coming back to is that a lot of players don't like being forced into picking specific stats to use a Passive that they want to use, especially when those stats don't work with the way they envision their character. We also run into issues where some Passives are "better" just because of the stat choices that were required to use them. This now allows people to pick the stats that they like for the character they are building. While some people believe this is going to lead to a world of everyone using Dexterity and Ego for all of their characters, we're confident this will not be the case. Many builds rely on various stats, and many work best with more than just your Super Stats maxed out as much possible. Diversifying can actually be very beneficial once the soft-cap on damage from Super Stats kicks in. That being said - we're aware that a direct stat-to-stat comparison is not favorable for certain stats. While we haven't addressed this specific issue yet, it is something we are working toward. This is one of the steps as we move toward it.

2) Crowd Control powers (primarily the various forms of Hold powers) got a pretty large overhaul. This means not only the way holds get applied, but also the way Hold Resistance works. One of the main goals with these changes was to make it much easier to understand how an individual Hold works, and whether or not it was actually going to work on your target.

On Live, many of the holds have variable "Hold Strength" which is a value that is compared to your targets innate Hold Attribute to determine whether or not they are held. If the Hold Strength was larger than their innate Hold Attribute, they got held, for the full duration of the Hold. If the Hold Strength was lower than the Hold Attribute, they would not get held at all. (Things are slightly more complicated than this, especially when stacking Holds, but this is a fairly accurate simplification) It got confusing when Hold Resistance would be applied to a target, and you wouldn't know what Hold Strength was needed to hold the target, and whether or not it was possible to hold them at all. It also meant that if you could hold the target at all, regardless of Hold Resistance on them, it was always a full duration hold.

All Hold powers now apply a consistent Hold Strength to your target (we no longer even display the Hold Strength, as it is no longer a relevant value), making it much easier to know that yes, your Hold is going to work on this critter, because it works on all critters of this rank. Some exceptions may apply for specific bosses that are hold immune/resistant, of course.

Hold Resistance has changed as well. Instead of it providing a negative Hold Attribute, thus making it harder for a Hold to activate on the target, it now provides resistance in the form of reducing the duration of the Hold. For example, if you had a 12 second Hold and use it on a target, the first one would last 12 seconds (not counting reductions from breaking free). They would then get a stack of Hold Resistance. If you applied the same Hold to them again, it would last 6 seconds. A third time, 3 seconds. After 3 stacks of Hold Resistance, the target will be immune to Holds until the Resistance wears off.

There are 2 basic types of Hold in game now - Stuns and Paralyzes. Paralyzes are similar to what you are currently used to; they have a lengthy duration (around 12 seconds) and players can struggle to break free. Stuns are short term Holds (around 3.5 seconds) that you can't struggle out of.

We also made a similar pass on Root, Snare, and Confuse powers, and are still looking at other issues with Knock, Placate, and Disable.

3) A lot of stuff has changed. As I said, we have made many changes to specific powers, and some changes to the way a Framework works/synergizes. A lot of the powers that Archetypes are using have been "reviewed" in a similar way to how we've done previous reviews of Frameworks. Passives have been looked at a lot, and in some cases (Targeting Computer) are almost completely different powers. (For those wondering, MSA is getting a rework as well, but isn't there yet). The functionality of some things that never worked right (Cold Snap) now work. If you see something that seems totally crazy, it may be because the power has changed. It may also be that we're trying things out, which is why we're having a Beta. The Archetype power lists aren't locked into place, though they are the general idea of what we want them to be. As others have realized, we're really trying to make them feel thematically tied together, and to be viable builds for soloing or grouping, not min/maxed to the point that a well built free-form character can be.

I'm going to post up another thread here shortly, that details some of the new powers that are coming for those that are interested. This will include the powers that Archetypes have, as well as some of the others (though not all... some are still being thought out and tested, and may not make it to Live).

Hope this helps clear up some of the confusion all, sorry we didn't get this information out earlier.
-Ame

EDIT: The new powers thread is up: http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?p=1716661

[Archived Post]

Quick question:

One of the very difficult to see beforehand aspects of character creation is that each major attribute bonus only shows up in one primary slot. If you take a pair of SS that share a primary gear slot you will always be at a disadvantage in bringing both super-stats up to 'par' for your level. Will we see a loosening of that restiction?

Also, we see certain gear benefit types like power replacers and the "armors" (+50% to one mitigation type) linked to only one primary slot. At present you cannot effectively use a power replacer with STR, DEX, or REC as asuper stat, and you cannot use an 'armor' with CON, PRE, or END. That means offensive builds are hedged out of the offensive toys, and defensive builds are hedged out of armor use. That is a bit... counter intuitive.

"Loosening" gear by spreading them to 2 primary slots would allow you to gear for any super-stat pair or to use a replacer/armor with the builds most likely to synergize with those kinds of effects. Soft capping/diminshing returns seems to address most concerns about using two primary slots on the same attribute.

[Archived Post]

I don't really like the sound of this, but I hope you guys know what you're doing.

One of the very difficult to see beforehand aspects of character creation is that each attribute only shows up in one primary slot. If you take a pair of SS that share a primary gear slot you will always be at a disadvantage in bringing both super-stats up to 'par' for your level. Will we see a losening of that restiction?

I honestly hope not. There needs to be some limit on things.

[Archived Post]

Ok, Ame, I only have one question:

How many keys for the beta are you going to give me to recruit a squadron of people to update the powers pages on the wiki? Good lord man.

[Archived Post]

I'm scared. :(

[Archived Post]

I honestly hope not. There needs to be some limit on things.

"Some people need to be screwed because they made choices 20 levels ago that will box them into sub-optimal gearing at the end game. Stupid Newbs."

[Archived Post]

Good to hear about fixes, holds, cold snap, etc. Passives scaling with any stat can potentially be OK, but my fear is of the game being "dumbed down" in the sense of removing interesting choices and trade offs. I am all in favor of the game being accessible to learn, I just also want it to have some depth.

Chess would be easier for new players if the pieces could teleport around with fewer constraints, but then the game would lose a lot of its depth for experienced masters.

[Archived Post]

Good to hear about fixes, holds, cold snap, etc. Passives scaling with any stat can potentially be OK, but my fear is of the game being "dumbed down" in the sense of removing interesting choices and trade offs. I am all in favor of the game being accessible to learn, I just also want it to have some depth.

Chess would be easier for new players if the pieces could teleport around with fewer constraints, but then the game would lose a lot of its depth for experienced masters.
I'd say the analogy is more like chess would be easier for new players if the king could move like a queen :)

As far as I'm concerned I sort of do and don't support this, I'm always for big change ups since it stops things getting stale and this opens up lots of new build designs I could never hope to do before, but at the same time it feels like something is gonna go wrong somewhere and pvp will die from it :(

[Archived Post]

Nevermind.

[Archived Post]

My only concern right now is that there's going to be some pretty beastly-overpowered combos possible with this idea. But aside from that, I don't think that the game will lose a lot of depth really. It'll just allow more concepts to be viable. Hopefully the increase to various synergies within frameworks as they go through will more than make up for any loss of depth from passives scaling with superstats.

[Archived Post]

"Some people need to be screwed because they made choices 20 levels ago that will box them into sub-optimal gearing at the end game. Stupid Newbs."

Alright, here is the long version of my post.

Every player has access to the same gear, depending on effort and time spent, so technically, any attribute combination that is reachable in the game now is accessible to all. Making attributes independent from their equipment slots doesn't change this, BUT it messes up the scaling. In the current system, pushing "stat A" lowers your maximum threshold for "stat B" (not by much, but it does). With your suggestion, stat A and stat B's progress are completely unrelated to each other. You basically have 9 slots which can be anything you want.

I get it that people want their dream character, I get it that "Superman and Batman and Green Lantern don't work with CO's current system" (and those three are superheroes, so using them as examples for CO must be without flaw), but you need to put some limit and basic challenge in games, because otherwise you cheapen the experience. There's a reason most games feel "meh" after you've typed in a cheat for all weapons, infinite ammo and bonus health. I'm not saying CO should cater to the hardcore audience, it is clearly made to be accessible to a lot of folk. This isn't a "make it harder" argument. Pac-Man is a casual game and I'm sure some people would love to have 8 super pellets instead of only 4, but those same people would feel pretty bored soon after that.

Not to mention that all the gear in the game would need a complete revamp to accommodate to this change.

Combining gear for you character was never an issue in this game. Nemesis gear is easy to get and the Unity 2 primaries are only a few points stronger, which doesn't create a noticeable advantage except for the absolute min/maxing. The only "hard to get" gear are SL secondaries, but you can get what you want after some time, and you're still effective enough with the "old" secondaries. It's not brainbusting to sit down and think "Hmm... if I add this here, and this in here, I might get stat up to X without lowering my health/damage". The game hardly revolves around it, but it offers some minor entertainment value and you feel all great when you get the attribute combo that you want.

Will CO be RUINED FOREVER™ if attributes are independent from equipment slots? No. Neither will anyone say "I don't like this game because the gear and attributes aren't related". But it will cheapen the experience and whenever someone leaves the game because "he wasn't entertained" or "was bored", this wouldn't be the reason, but it would be a factor. Because _EVERY_ game gets boring fast if there's nothing to challenge you. Hardcore, casual, newbs, pros has NOTHING to do with it.

And since your quote was obviously a jab at me, I will let wholeheartedly let you know that I have never resorted to calling anyone in this game out for being a newb/scrub/PvPer/PvEr/thinking X is too hard, nor have I ever had that kind of attitude towards people (well, I did once, but I grew out of it long before CO). The worst I did was say what my experience with PvP was, but I never insulted anyone who plays PvP. So if you wanna be witty with your quotes and take a shot at someone, bring the right ammo.

[Archived Post]

My only concern right now is that there's going to be some pretty beastly-overpowered combos possible with this idea.
Good job we've all become hardened to this kinda thing by now eh?

[Archived Post]

AME:

Solution to the DEX/X and STR/X "Problem," would be to change all secondary power unlocks to scale off RECOVERY only.
Or just have it modified by Energy Strength, which is based on Rec (but has level-based modifiers and I think diminishing returns) and is adjusted by a number of other powers, such as movement powers.

[Archived Post]

im actually excited about these changes ^_^ Pff might work alot better now without ego scaling.

I really do hope TK the power gets looked at as well.. ^_^

the game with thesse changes might actually work better imo. hardcore pvp's (which most that have posted are) MIGHT havea challenging time now with people going with con/pre LR for example.

[Archived Post]

Every player has access to the same gear, depending on effort and time spent, so technically, any attribute combination that is reachable in the game now is accessible to all.

That statement, while true, does not acknowlege the problem I'm suggesting they review. If you look at it as there are attribues A through H, but your super-stat choices make A and B the important ones, no, you do not have the same choices as every other character. If you (quite unknowingly) choose an AB pair on the same slot you will never be able to gear as effectively as someone who avoided this extremely well hidden pitfall. And you run into the replacer/armor issue I clarified above. You don't find it odd that if you Super-stat Con you can't push hard on CON while wearing armor?

Making attributes independent from their equipment slots doesn't change this, BUT it messes up the scaling. In the current system, pushing "stat A" lowers your maximum threshold for "stat B" (not by much, but it does).

Unless A and B are on the same slot, in which case pushign one cripples the other.

With your suggestion, stat A and stat B's progress are completely unrelated to each other. You basically have 9 slots which can be anything you want.

Long answer - I better clarified why this is a problem in my initial post. As I mention there, even if you could load all three slots with the same stat it wouldn't matter because the soft and hard caps would cut you off from doing so effectively.

Not to mention that all the gear in the game would need a complete revamp to accommodate to this change.

By "complete rveamp" you mean add 4 adjectives to the random drop table for each primary slot :). Not actually that Herculean of a task. Ideally you'd also add some new entiries to the Nemesis and UNITY treasure vendors, but a year later they're getting a little stale anyway.

Combining gear for you character was never an issue in this game.

Unless you accidentally paired CON and PRE... oh, wait, thats why the celestial passive has always been gimped and people tried to tell the Devs that since it first appeared.

[Archived Post]

Usually, I hear nothing but good in posts like these, I really approve of F2P and tbh, I've often been accused of... well, saying you guys at Cryptic can do no wrong. But... I honestly and truthfully think making all defencive passives run off your SS is a huge mistake.

One of the greatest pleasures of this game for me is making a build that is effective despite apparent disadvantages. I really enjoy balencing the drawbacks of my SS choices: such as them not fitting with a passive defence, against their advantages, like really complimenting my offence, or chosen alternatives such as a support aura.

Whilst I agree that a passive defence is an essencial for a new player, and that the current choices are not effective for all reccomended builds, dumbing the passive defences down is most certainly not the answer. As you point out it will be open to exploit, but this isnt the main drawback, the 1000 carbon copys of people taking the "best" passive defence is.

Please, rethink this. Each passive defence should scale from one stat, this means we have a passive defence for:
Con - Defiance
Str - Invulnerability
Dex - Lightning Reflexes
End - Personal Force Field (see below)
Rec - Regen
Pre - Aura of Radiant Protection

Which just leaves Int and Ego.
And although it will be more work to make a passive defence for these, I deeply belive it would be worth it!
As a stop gap measure you could apply these stats to existing passive defences, for example, Ego to Defiance, and the Aura's to Int OR Pre, this may see them more frequently used.

People having concerns over the aesthetics of their chosen (or encouraged/pre-selected) passive defence is a reality which you are already facing: how many posts are there asking to be able to turn off passive defence appearances as they dont fit? I'd suggest a drop down similar to the one just implimented on pets to allow players to customise the appearance of their defencive passive. More work, yes, but would actually turning them off untill thats done be possible?

(PFF needs a major overhaul, and whilst I understand this will be a nightmare to reconcile with powers such as Mindful Reinforcement, which is widely considered very good but balenced, it really needs fixing. I advocate chocolate body paint's protective qualitys over PFF, simply :more: shield hp per point of End?)

I work in management, and I try not to be 'resistant to change' just for the sake of it, but I really belive we will be loosing an important dimension of the game. Please consider this as an alternative, or anything else. Simply making chosen super stats govern practically everything, is not the answer, its a bad shortcut to game balence.

Everything else, sounds pretty good :-)

[Archived Post]

Good to hear about fixes, holds, cold snap, etc. Passives scaling with any stat can potentially be OK, but my fear is of the game being "dumbed down" in the sense of removing interesting choices and trade offs. I am all in favor of the game being accessible to learn, I just also want it to have some depth.

this is roughly how i feel as well. it'll certainly be interesting to see exactly how & what powers are changing, getting tweaked, etc.

would love to see Archery finally get that long overdue secondary energy unlock (http://forums.champions-online.com/showpost.php?p=1558926&postcount=32)....

*dusts off old post & nudges towards Ame*

[Archived Post]

While I'm glad to hear about the overhaul on crowd control powers, I am very much against the making all SS work with every Defence/Offence ability. This sounds too much like simplifying things to the extreme and takes away one of the most interesting and challanging aspects of the game in choosing a defence and SS combo to fit your characters.

I'd rather see the defences worked on more to make them all on par with each other (See previous laments about PFF being less effective than armour made of wet tissue paper), which while taking longer is far better than a short term fix of making them all scale off of any SS.

[Archived Post]

That statement, while true, does not acknowlege the problem I'm suggesting they review. If you look at it as there are attribues A through H, but your super-stat choices make A and B the important ones, no, you do not have the same choices as every other character. If you (quite unknowingly) choose an AB pair on the same slot you will never be able to gear as effectively as someone who avoided this extremely well hidden pitfall. And you run into the replacer/armor issue I clarified above. You don't find it odd that if you Super-stat Con you can't push hard on CON while wearing armor?

There isn't really a replacer/armor issue because they are pretty much awful to use and need a revamp of their own. I do find it odd that you can't push CON while wearing armor, but not as odd as having an offensive fighting stance that increases my CON.

Unless A and B are on the same slot, in which case pushign one cripples the other.

And that's why each attribute has 2 of primary/defense/utilty slots.

Long answer - I better clarified why this is a problem in my initial post. As I mention there, even if you could load all three slots with the same stat it wouldn't matter because the soft and hard caps would cut you off from doing so effectively.

Raising Dex to 400 isn't the problem. You'd have around 650 points to spread around as you see fit. That's 3 attributes at 200, or SS at 200 and two other scores at 100. Or however you want. They might as well just give us that pool and an add/substract system. Like I said, it cheapens the experience (IMO).

By "complete rveamp" you mean add 4 adjectives to the random drop table for each primary slot :). Not actually that Herculean of a task. Ideally you'd also add some new entiries to the Nemesis and UNITY treasure vendors, but a year later they're getting a little stale anyway.

And how would you refund players for their current gear? When you change or add powers, you can add a retcon. (Of course, the simple answer is "you don't refund them")

Unless you accidentally paired CON and PRE... oh, wait, thats why the celestial passive has always been gimped and people tried to tell the Devs that since it first appeared.

Alright, the celestial passive is gimped. What else? If it's one passive that's gimped, changing the whole equipment system for it rather than the passive is insane. Especially since that passive is soon to scale with SS anyway.

[Archived Post]

You're really doing 1? Really? You guys will not be able to even remotely balance that. You think min maxers have a field day now? Just wait until they don't need to be pushed towards certain stats.

[Archived Post]

You're really doing 1? Really? You guys will not be able to even remotely balance that. You think min maxers have a field day now? Just wait until they don't need to be pushed towards certain stats.

Except everyone will be closer to their level because min/maxing will be easy.

It's a large systemic change that will probably result in some unforeseen consequences, but I don't think the rift will be widened.

[Archived Post]

Except everyone will be closer to their level because min/maxing will be easy.

It's a large systemic change that will probably result in some unforeseen consequences, but I don't think the rift will be widened.

Making a good build will be easy. True min/maxing is still going to be something only the, for lack of a better word, best people will be able to do.

The best will always make the best builds regardless of how easy the system gets.

[Archived Post]

Making a good build will be easy. True min/maxing is still going to be something only the, for lack of a better word, best people will be able to do.

The best will always make the best builds regardless of how easy the system gets.

Yes. And so most people will have a good build now. The gap will be narrower.

[Archived Post]

There isn't really a replacer/armor issue because they are pretty much awful to use and need a revamp of their own.

Can't say that I agree. I have 3 different purple primary armors I switch between depending on what I'm fighting and I can only do that because I'm Ego/Rec on a regen toon (neither of my superstats is tied to the primary defense slot). There's only a handful of attacks in the game I even bother to block for and all of them come from cosmics/legendaries. Supervillian shtick attacks? pfft! 'Course I also use all purples instead of those overbuffed blues because having my physical and energy defenses in the 140 range (then adding +50% to that) makes Regen absurd.

I do find it odd that you can't push CON while wearing armor, but not as odd as having an offensive fighting stance that increases my CON.

In the case of Regen (a single-stat passive) they basically just made 7 new powers. WOuld it sit better if those powers had seperate names like "Spiritual Wellspring (PRE)" and "Mental integration (INT)" while doing the same thing? To me they just made 7 times as many character concepts functional in game and that is a HUGE blessing.

And that's why each attribute has 2 of primary/defense/utilty slots.
Which in every case but one are again paired. If you pick any pair from STR/DEX/REC, you have 5 slots to work with - 1 primary and 4 secondaries and ALL of them overlap. If you pick an unlinked pair like Strength/Ego, you have a seperate primary for each and all six secondary slots to use, with ony 2 of them overlap.

This is dangerous and annoying now. With freeform passives it's going to become crucial, and nothing in the game gives you any warning that its going to happen.

And how would you refund players for their current gear? When you change or add powers, you can add a retcon. (Of course, the simple answer is "you don't refund them")

Generally new options means new tings to pursue.

Alright, the celestial passive is gimped. What else? If it's one passive that's gimped, changing the whole equipment system for it rather than the passive is insane. Especially since that passive is soon to scale with SS anyway.

Under the new system all the passives can end up stacked on badly linked super-stat pairs. That's why I think it's more of an issue in the new environment than it is on live, and why I'm bringing it up.

[Archived Post]

1) Almost all Passives now scale with Super Stats.
Oh god, please don't stop at ALMOST.

Name me any one passive, and I can probably write up at least three conceptual powers, which would be represented by that Passive, and would each use different Superstats as the "mostlogical choices".

Still, oveall: THANK. YOU. So very, very much. Superstats may finally live up to the promise they showed back in Open Beta ...! :)

While some people believe this is going to lead to a world of everyone using Dexterity and Ego for all of their characters, [...]
Pff. I like my End/Rec choices form my Munitions character. What this means is, I may be able to drop Regen (which works surprisingly well with high Recovery) in favor of Invulnerability (which fits the "armored super-soldier" concept better) ... without losing the joy that is a 2/3 or 3/4 full END bar at the start of every fight.

That being said - we're aware that a direct stat-to-stat comparison is not favorable for certain stats. While we haven't addressed this specific issue yet, it is something we are working toward. This is one of the steps as we move toward it.
I think the best solution there would be to magnify the per-point effects of the "weaker" attributes.

For example, if you had a 12 second Hold and use it on a target, the first one would last 12 seconds (not counting reductions from breaking free). They would then get a stack of Hold Resistance. If you applied the same Hold to them again, it would last 6 seconds. A third time, 3 seconds. After 3 stacks of Hold Resistance, the target will be immune to Holds until the Resistance wears off.
Query: does getting a new stack, refresh existing stacks?

3) A lot of stuff has changed. As I said, we have made many changes to specific powers, and some changes to the way a Framework works/synergizes.
... I smell MASS FREESPECS ...! :)

Not that it matters, I've got atleast one per character already, right now. I forsee using them to re-tweak everything to reflect the new Passives-and-superstats model, though.

[Archived Post]

Alright, the celestial passive is gimped. What else? If it's one passive that's gimped, changing the whole equipment system for it rather than the passive is insane. Especially since that passive is soon to scale with SS anyway.

I know it was Nike's claim and not yours, but I will say that Celestial is not gimped by this, because the scaling with both PRE and CON are good attributes*, as well as those stats synergizing with the rest of the framework extremely well.

Celestial is one of the most satisfyingly synergistic sets there is, and I think I will spend some time with Dex/Con Seraphim in the time we have left with the current version of CO.

*as opposed to e.g. electric form, which has a good attribute scaling with END and a much less relevant attribute scaling with REC. All energy passives e.g. ice form, fiery form, shadow form, ego form, etc are like this except for Seraphim.

[Archived Post]

Please, rethink this. Each passive defence should scale from one stat, this means we have a passive defence for:
Con - Defiance
Str - Invulnerability
Dex - Lightning Reflexes
End - Personal Force Field (see below)
Rec - Regen
Pre - Aura of Radiant Protection

Superboy (Kon-El (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superboy_%28Kon-El%29), I mean) would be best modelled as having Invulnerability. Yet, his resistance to injury derives not from his physical muscles, but, from mental abilities - his "tactilse telekinesis". It's essentially a willpower-driven ability. The closest CO has to a "will" stat is EGO. Thus, EGO is what Superboy should have SS'd.

In a similar vein ... Green Lantern. His ring works based on his willpwoer - and his protetive effect is more akin to "personal force-field". So he should have his PFF based on EGO,, as well.

Turning to Lightning Reflexes, there's actually a way for THAT to use a different attribute, too: Neo, from The Matrix. He's not superhumanly fast because his agility is so high, he's superhumanly fast because he BELIEVES he is, and convinces the Matrix that he's right. That's EGO or PRE.

Don't decide for the players how their powers work. Let THEM decide.

[Archived Post]

If that's the case I believe Constitution should grant 17 Health/Constitution or something or grants some damage reduction with Constitution.

[Archived Post]

If that's the case I believe Constitution should grant 12 Health/Constitution or something or grants some damage reduction with Constitution.

Right now it grants 15 hit points / constitution, are you asking for a nerf ? :eek:

[Archived Post]

Right now it grants 15 hit points / constitution, are you asking for a nerf ? :eek:
:>
















No. I meant.... 20......

[Archived Post]

Good to hear about fixes, holds, cold snap, etc. Passives scaling with any stat can potentially be OK, but my fear is of the game being "dumbed down" in the sense of removing interesting choices and trade offs. I am all in favor of the game being accessible to learn, I just also want it to have some depth.

Chess would be easier for new players if the pieces could teleport around with fewer constraints, but then the game would lose a lot of its depth for experienced masters.

I kind of disagree here.

What's 'interesting' about having to choose your super stat based on your passive? Because that's pretty much how it works right now - you very very rarely see anyone NOT just super-stat their passive, essentially 'doubling up' on offense and defense (or double double offense if they went offensive passive).

This essentially just says "Pick the passive that suits your character rather than what suits their stats".

What you're talking about is essentially the illusion of depth. It'd be different if there were some compelling reason to not super-stat your passive's stat... but there really isn't; and never has been; and I can't really even foresee a situation where you would want to outside of concept builds. (Which really just means you're penalizing concept, rather than actually giving any kind of depth to the game.)

I like the changes as listed, with of course the caveat that "but I want to try them first..." of course.

[Archived Post]

Query: does getting a new stack, refresh existing stacks?


Yes, getting a stack of Resistance refreshes the duration of Resistance as well.

[Archived Post]

*grabs side of boat and steadies it....* whoa. intense. and EXCITING!!!!

no matter what you guys say, do, or think: We are getting some lovin' before the F2P launch!!! new powers, balancing, alright, a lot of change at once but we are NOT being ignored!

maybe cryptic dyed its red-headed stepchild a different color ;)

the important thing here is F2P has clearly dug up some long awaited cash for more dev work....yay!!!
and more importantly if they are putting this kinda work in and not just shoving the existing system out the door it shows cryptic is committed to making the game a success...

[Archived Post]

Uhmmm.....Wow.

I honestly....just....wow.


You have literally changed the entire way this game is going to be played....and I have no CLUE what this is going to mean...


This is going to be awesome :)

Sidebar:

Please tell me Molecular Self Assembly is on your fix it list :)

[Archived Post]

1) Almost all Passives now scale with Super Stats.

NOOOOOOOOOO!

Picking powers to match stats, or vise versa, IS one of the best facets of the game!

If EVERYTHNG scaled on ANY Super Stat, then, well, ya kinda dont need to bother with SuperStats,,, just make everything scale to level...

[Archived Post]

Please tell me Molecular Self Assembly is on your fix it list :)

Buried in the part (3) of Ame's OP:

(For those wondering, MSA is getting a rework as well, but isn't there yet).

Yay for powers! :D

[Archived Post]

NOOOOOOOOOO!

Picking powers to match stats, or vise versa, IS one of the best facets of the game!

If EVERYTHNG scaled on ANY Super Stat, then, well, ya kinda dont need to bother with SuperStats,,, just make everything scale to level...

Concept.

Roleplaying.

Do these words really mean nothing to you?

Superman: STR/CON. Flight, Invulnerability, X-ray and Heat vision, juggles tanks.

Superboy (Kon-el): EGO/CON. Flight, Invulnerability, X-ray and Heat vision, juggles tanks.

The conceptual basis for Superboy's powers is different from that of Superman's powers, even though their effects are in many ways mechanically identical.

[Archived Post]

Buried in the part (3) of Ame's OP:



Yay for powers! :D

Eh herm.....

*Scoops Iso up in his arms and proceeds to hug him like a five year old with their first kitten*

ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouTh ankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThan kyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThanky ouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouTh ankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou

To Ame: You are the most awesome person ever.

[Archived Post]

What you're talking about is essentially the illusion of depth. It'd be different if there were some compelling reason to not super-stat your passive's stat... but there really isn't; and never has been; and I can't really even foresee a situation where you would want to outside of concept builds. (Which really just means you're penalizing concept, rather than actually giving any kind of depth to the game.)


I agree that the choice of passive and the choice of stat are almost always made at the same time, and I am saying that adds more constraints to choosing other powers and deciding how the build will play.

Some people prefer unconstrained creativity, like literature and poetry, some people prefer being creative within a set of constraints, like in mathematics. The former is more imaginative, and the latter more analytical.

[Archived Post]

Concept.

Roleplaying.

Do these words really mean nothing to you?

Superman: STR/CON. Flight, Invulnerability, X-ray and Heat vision, juggles tanks.

Superboy (Kon-el): EGO/CON. Flight, Invulnerability, X-ray and Heat vision, juggles tanks.

The conceptual basis for Superboy's powers is different from that of Superman's powers, even though their effects are in many ways mechanically identical.

Just because I can....

Both Superman and Superboy would be using PFF by the way the game mechanics work in this game. This is well illustrated by Superman's fight with Doomsday, wherein his force field was worn down until it no longer remained. Superman is more durable than a regular human...but the field comprises most of the durability. He'd be appropiate to a PFF user that scales off of Con. Superboy, at least in his original interpretation would be one that scales off of ego. Currently they're both Con users though. Superboy just wasn't fully mature when he first manifested the field.

...This is obviously going off of the modern interpretation of Superman's powers...Silver age superman is a pretty straight forward invulnerability build

*Hugs Pax....just cause*

I'm so happy right now!

[Archived Post]

I agree that the choice of passive and the choice of stat are almost always made at the same time, and I am saying that adds more constraints to choosing other powers and deciding how the build will play.

Some people prefer unconstrained creativity, like literature and poetry, some people prefer being creative within a set of constraints, like in mathematics. The former is more imaginative, and the latter more analytical.

I could understand this in a game like say... Magic the Gathering*, where choices you make have serious strategic impact. I mean there's a sizable difference between running a Blue/Black deck and a Blue/White deck, and a Blue/Green deck - each one gives up one set of things for another.

In CO it's nothing like that. There is no alternate interesting thing that happens when you choose to super-stat something other than the primary stat for a given passive. Absolutely nothing. It's not an interesting strategic decision that closes off some options and opens up others, it basically is just a way of saying "If you're going to take Passive X, you will be taking Super Stat Y - Period."

You can't even argue that this is true with your non-super-stats; because it just comes down to "I chose superstats X and Y, so A, B, and maybe C if I can swing it need gear and Talent boosts." That's... pretty much it. It's just not a complex game, and never has been. We're not playing Chess, or Risk, or Axis and Allies - we're playing Checkers, Candyland or maybe Shoots and Ladders. That's not a bad thing either, because it is fun.

My point is this: This change really only opens up options. It's a gain in variety with no real loss; and the loss you're suggesting exists is one that really has never genuinely existed because there was never a statistically relevant alternative. Creativity in a restricted environment usually involves laying out a goal and laying out a set of pieces, and then asking the player to take those pieces and get to that goal. In a typical restricted-choice game, that means you're going to have some twists and turns as you go build toward that goal. In CO, even under present rules... you basically just build a straight line.

*At least back when I played which was like over a decade ago, I have no idea what's come since then.

[Archived Post]

Ame: Will either of the new pet powers be tier 1? Or will one of the current pet powers be moved down to tier 1? Because as of now there are none.

Not that's not necessarily a bad thing, but for a pet build like me I'd love to start getting my pets ASAP.

[Archived Post]

...wall of green text...

IT'S DEFENSE!

Say it with me DEFENSSSSSSSSSSSSSE!

[Archived Post]

2) Crowd Control powers
...
All Hold powers now apply a consistent Hold Strength to your target (we no longer even display the Hold Strength, as it is no longer a relevant value), making it much easier to know that yes, your Hold is going to work on this critter, because it works on all critters of this rank. Some exceptions may apply for specific bosses that are hold immune/resistant, of course.

Hold Resistance has changed as well. Instead of it providing a negative Hold Attribute, thus making it harder for a Hold to activate on the target, it now provides resistance in the form of reducing the duration of the Hold. For example, if you had a 12 second Hold and use it on a target, the first one would last 12 seconds (not counting reductions from breaking free). They would then get a stack of Hold Resistance. If you applied the same Hold to them again, it would last 6 seconds. A third time, 3 seconds. After 3 stacks of Hold Resistance, the target will be immune to Holds until the Resistance wears off.

There are 2 basic types of Hold in game now - Stuns and Paralyzes. Paralyzes are similar to what you are currently used to; they have a lengthy duration (around 12 seconds) and players can struggle to break free. Stuns are short term Holds (around 3.5 seconds) that you can't struggle out of.
...


I can't really anticipate how this change is going to play out...Are players going to get the same kind of resistance to holds in PVP? On live right now, if I get held, break free, then held again, the second hold won't effect me because of the resistance. With this change, if I get held (12 secs), break free, then held again, I will be held for 6 secs? Sounds like a negative change to me...

Holds right now in PVP are bull$hit. Any mechanic that takes control away from the player for an extended period of time (more than a few seconds) is a bad mechanic. A mechanic that allows this to be repeated over and over every few seconds is an idiotic mechanic.

Imo, holds should be changed to act like the new "Nailed to the Ground" travel disables. The hold should only last a few seconds (3-5), and after it has expired, you should get 100% immunity to all holds for 20-30 seconds.

[Archived Post]

The CC and QoL fixes sound awesome, along with the new powers...but I am very leery for the passive scaling changes. It just seems to easy to me to make a monster of a build when you have such freedom over what scales what power. For example, a new ego blader may become even more dangerous then Dex/Ego with Dex/Con with a third focus on Ego, making them still be a DPS monster but with gobs of health(whereas now they are relatively fragile). Throw the dual blades focus on top and END wont be an issue with the crit based return system. Just a quick example off the top of my head.

Although it may make more of the "average" builds better, it will be a blank canvas for min/maxers to come up with some nasty stuff.

If it all goes through, I predict many hours spend on PTS re-doing optimizations and tweaks to a build I have used since closed Beta.

Also not looking forward to re-gearing for a different SS, farming Nemcon and SL wont be fun on a full second set of gear.

Can't really predict anything though, so here's to hoping I get a Beta Invite to start testing different builds out.

:D



Unless you accidentally paired CON and PRE... oh, wait, thats why the celestial passive has always been gimped and people tried to tell the Devs that since it first appeared.

Con/Pre is an amazing SS choice for a lot of builds.

[Archived Post]

Sooooooo basically superstats really only affect you as their descriptions state. As in melee damage, crits, agro management etc.

Is there anything else that these are going to work with now?

[Archived Post]

Removing the scaling of passives based on specific stats is only going to really accomplish making the disparity between stats even more glaringly obvious. Well, at least those of us that like build optimization don't have to worry about being boxed in to using suboptimal stats, but the lack of constraints do make character building a bit more boring.

Significantly more boring.

I guess I'll have to keep myself busy playing with the new powers and system tweaks. I wonder what Cold Snap will actually do now (as oposed to the current nothing).

[Archived Post]

1) Almost all Passives now scale with Super Stats.]

"You have mastered Moon Master!"

[Archived Post]

If Thermal Reverberation still scales with Presence, then THE INFERNO should still have SS Pre/Int.

[Archived Post]

So, does this mean that there isn't going to be a great weapon set?:confused:

Hmm I should try to get into beta or something.

[Archived Post]

So, does this mean that there isn't going to be a great weapon set?:confused:

What makes you think that?

as far as I was aware they have plans for 4 new power frameworks but if they do them it will be later on probably after the next AP at the very least.

[Archived Post]

So, does this mean that there isn't going to be a great weapon set?

New powers for existing sets. No new sets as part fo the F2P changeover.

[Archived Post]

Yes, getting a stack of Resistance refreshes the duration of Resistance as well.

I'm not sure the whole CC system changes as described are really an improvement, since controls still trail off into uselessness and can stay useless. I honestly suggest looking back to CoH and re-orienting powers and devices (are there even any breakfree devices?) from only breaking existing CC to applying some sort of duration and magnitude-based CC resistance and have innate granted resistance be less complete. This gives players tactical choices other than simply eating the first one at full strength.

Concept.

Roleplaying.

Do these words really mean nothing to you?

Superman: STR/CON. Flight, Invulnerability, X-ray and Heat vision, juggles tanks.

Superboy (Kon-el): EGO/CON. Flight, Invulnerability, X-ray and Heat vision, juggles tanks.

The conceptual basis for Superboy's powers is different from that of Superman's powers, even though their effects are in many ways mechanically identical.

While I'm ambivalent leaning toward in favor of universal passive scaling, I don't think that's the proper way to look at attributes. Attributes are game-mechanical terms, not in-universe terms. If I understand the example given, Superboy's powers are mentally derived, but the actual effects produced are consistent with the Str attribute instead of the Ego attribute. I would say they're both Str/Con with different justificaitons for the manifestation of their powers.

[Archived Post]

1) Almost all Passives now scale with Super Stats.
And now there is half a reason to retcon back to PFF on my Force char. :D
(other half would be making it a sphere)

[Archived Post]

Well, I've found Seraphim to be amazing in PvE healing. Granted, if I skip a beat, someone dies, but still...I'd prefer to not see the healing component nerfed too much. It's one of the few things that actually makes my character somewhat useful in groups!

OK, but to be fair, +115% Health Points Effects is a bit broken. And it DOES happen to heal some of the stupid from people not blocking (or, I dunno, running into Shadow Destroyer's PBAoE, but usually that one shots them).

[Archived Post]

Cna someone answer my question?

Now that passive scale with SS, won't almost everybody's passive be a lot stronger?

My AoRP was currently only scaling with my 300 PRE, but now if it's scaling with my PRE AND my CON, then it'll have another 150 points to scale off of, making it a lot stronger.

Am I right?

[Archived Post]

Cna someone answer my question?

Now that passive scale with SS, won't almost everybody's passive be a lot stronger?

My AoRP was currently only scaling with my 300 PRE, but now if it's scaling with my PRE AND my CON, then it'll have another 150 points to scale off of, making it a lot stronger.

Am I right?

It depends upon how they rebalance the scaling. Some passives might get stronger, some might get weaker. There's no way to know until we see the final product.

[Archived Post]

Cna someone answer my question?

Now that passive scale with SS, won't almost everybody's passive be a lot stronger?

My AoRP was currently only scaling with my 300 PRE, but now if it's scaling with my PRE AND my CON, then it'll have another 150 points to scale off of, making it a lot stronger.

Am I right?

Or, more likely, since your average PRE/CON stat is 225, your AoRP will get weaker. Note that this is how WoTEW works currently: It takes, for example, 200 points of STR and 200 points of DEX to get the same % boost as other passives with just 200 points of a single stat.

[Archived Post]

Cna someone answer my question?

Now that passive scale with SS, won't almost everybody's passive be a lot stronger?

My AoRP was currently only scaling with my 300 PRE, but now if it's scaling with my PRE AND my CON, then it'll have another 150 points to scale off of, making it a lot stronger.

Am I right?

I highly doubt they will keep the same scaling using the sum of your 2 super stats. More likely, they will:

Use the higher of your 2 stats.
Use the average of your 2 stats.
Use the sum of your 2 stats, but make the optimal target much higher (so if 250 is the current stat target for optimal AoRP scaling, and it drops after that, then 500 would be the new value).

[Archived Post]

I, for one, do not like the change to passives, making them scale off any stat.

Definitely dumbing down the game.

That's all.

[Archived Post]

I, for one, do not like the change to passives, making them scale off any stat.

Definitely dumbing down the game.

That's all.

Big surprise.

[Archived Post]

Big surprise.

Well you can't say I'm wrong.

No matter how well this will work...it will dumb the game down for that aspect.

I'm just saying that I wouldn't do it...but honestly it doesn't matter to me as it does not effect my character.


Why do you say "Big surprise"?

[Archived Post]

Well you can't say I'm wrong.

No matter how well this will work...it will dumb the game down for that aspect.

I'm just saying that I wouldn't do it...but honestly it doesn't matter to me as it does not effect my character.


Why do you say "Big surprise"?

I can and did say you were wrong. I think removing the stat restrictions is a good thing. It doesn't dumb down anything. It allows people to take the stats they want, that best fits their character and/or concept, without being restricted by some arbitrary limitation of their passive. Seriously, it's not like you needed to be a brain surgeon to figure out statting for your passive. There is no rocket science here. Removing that requirement doesn't suddenly make statting n00bish or even necessarily easier. If anything one could say it's just the opposite cause right now on live picking your superstats is easy; you go with whatever your passive requires. Remove that restriction and you'll actually have to *think* about which stats are going to be best for you (provided you don't just take whatever the game tells you your superstats should be).

And the reason I said "big surprise" is because all you do is complain about how everything the devs do is a bad idea. So it was no shocker that you'd think the same of this change too.

[Archived Post]

I can and did say you were wrong. I think removing the stat restrictions is a good thing. It doesn't dumb down anything. It allows people to take the stats they want, that best fits their character and/or concept, without being restricted by some arbitrary limitation of their passive. Seriously, it's not like you needed to be a brain surgeon to figure out statting for your passive. There is no rocket science here. Removing that requirement doesn't suddenly make statting n00bish or even necessarily easier. If anything one could say it's just the opposite cause right now on live picking your superstats is easy; you go with whatever your passive requires. Remove that restriction and you'll actually have to *think* about which stats are going to be best for you (provided you don't just take whatever the game tells you your superstats should be).

And the reason I said "big surprise" is because all you do is complain about how everything the devs do is a bad idea. So it was no shocker that you'd think the same of this change too.

Please point me to all the threads of me complaining about how everything the devs do is a bad idea...please.

[Archived Post]

:eek:... It has been done.
o.O
O.o
O.O

:D
Ok, I see pros and cons. To be honest, mostly pros. And I'll explain why.

What is the fear?
The biggest fear about this are the OP min/max builds that will be ripping apart everyone else in their path. Very likely a DEX/EGO defiance/laser knight tank that never runs out of energy, can benefit from the best defense as well as a form toggle for damage based off crits, and can easily acquire dodge synergy for even more defense and heals from BCR. Just as an example.

However, I would quickly bring to your attention: while some beastly min/max combo's will inevitably appear, this is a PvP issue for the most part. You can be a decent tank in most situations with most any defensive passive in PvE.

So I will remind you, PvP is going to be Archetype based once F2P hits live. Poz already told us there are not any planned incentives to get anyone into the open power PvP, and so ques will obviously mostly be filled in the Archetype arenas. That said, the beastly combo's min/maxers can make will never see the light of day in PvP. Maybe once in a blue moon when an open power arena actually pops, but sometimes that takes hours even now on live - and I can only assume the wait will be even longer once Archetype PvP comes into play. Fairly similar to the controlled PvP in guild wars I think, basically.

So, why are the changes a good thing?
For a number of very important reasons imo.

For one, scaling. Scaling has been a problem since launch for some passives, as the stats they rely on are less helpful than other stats. The benefits of maxing out Ego rather than End for instance. Or Rec rather than Int. Some passives basically required the player to take stats that gimped them due to lack of synergy. (Force Field comes to mind)

So this change eliminates 'scaling' for the most part, as everyone will now scale the same regardless of stat, and can take the stats they want.

Stats and Gear. Limitations on gear stats have made some combinations much harder than others. End/Ego for instance. Dex/Str. Pre/Con. They fight for gear slots, and place a annoying and much uneeded barrier for a player that is restricted to those stat combos. This change will eliminate that as well.

Toggles and damage buffs. There will still be some stat synergy if one wants to max out their potential. Enrage will still scale of STR, and so a Dex/Ego build will still be unable to stack Enrage as potently as a STR/CON defiance build. Focus Forms will still be based off DEX for martial artists. Heals will still be based off PRE. So in essence, a player will be able to use just one stat based on what damage type they want to use, and not be locked down to choices based on their passive.

Customization. The main feature of this game (at least for gold membership) will always be about customization. With the free stat choice, that only adds to that feature in every way. Concept characters will be able to pick exactly what stats their toon of choice SHOULD have based on their origin, rather that what they HAVE TO have based on their passive.

That is a big selling point for me.

On the other side of that, min/maxers will be able to pick what stats they feel are best, rather than what their passives scale with. Players in general will be able to pick their favorite combo of stats that they just like for whatever the benefits, without the feeling of being gimped due to their passives.

Honestly, the 'dumbing the game down' argument can be used on both sides. Making passives scale off specific stats could be looked at as 'dumbing the game down' if you think about it. Its kind of a subjective vs. objective view. While neither are really wrong.

All in all, mostly looks like a win/win to me. Hopefully it works out that way ;)

[Archived Post]

Good post Shaolinwind.

And for what it's worth, I am on the forums a lot, and CDXX10 hasn't come acroos as a whiner to me - I think there's some mistaken identity there.

Anyhoo . . . the archetypes will probably get me into the PvP arenas more often. I don't PvP much now, because I build by concept, period. Some concepts are powerful enough to hold their own, but usually when faced with a player whose primary goal is to make a viable PvP toon I just get wiped. It really is apples and oranges from a build standpoint.

However, when playing an AT, the toon is planned out and my input is minimal; I see that as a much more level playing field, and a situation that will be very conducive to forming arena teams.

For PvE, which I enjoy thoroughly . . . I do like how this will allow some more fine tuning to my concepts, I just hope that there will be some content in the game that will offer adequate challenge.

[Archived Post]

Two quick answers:

Ame: Will either of the new pet powers be tier 1? Or will one of the current pet powers be moved down to tier 1? Because as of now there are none.


We have no plans for any controllable pet powers as Tier 1 powers.

Now that passive scale with SS, won't almost everybody's passive be a lot stronger?

My AoRP was currently only scaling with my 300 PRE, but now if it's scaling with my PRE AND my CON, then it'll have another 150 points to scale off of, making it a lot stronger.

Am I right?

We use the sum of your super stats, divided by 2. This means if you previously had 250 Pres and 250 Con (assuming these are your Super Stats) your new AoRP values would be identical. If you had 275 Pres and 225 Con, your new values will be slightly lower. If you had 275 Con and 225 Pres, your new values will be slightly higher.

This means people will probably see some slight number adjustments from their passives, unless they were intentionally keeping their Super Stats equal. Obviously, for people that were only Super Stat'ing1 (or 0) of the 2 Stats their Passive wanted, this will be an overall buff for the effectiveness of their Passive. For Passives that only wanted 1 Stat, this will now mean they are driven by 2 stats, effectively; your 2 chosen Super Stats.

[Archived Post]

We use the sum of your super stats, divided by 2. This means if you previously had 250 Pres and 250 Con (assuming these are your Super Stats) your new values would be identical. If you had 275 Pres and 225 Con, your new values will be slightly lower. If you had 275 Con and 225 Pres, your new values will be slightly higher.

This means people will probably see some slight number adjustments from their passives, unless they were intentionally keeping their Super Stats equal. Obviously, for people that were only Super Stat'ing1 (or 0) of the 2 Stats their Passive wanted, this will be an overall buff for the effectiveness of their Passive. For Passives that only wanted 1 Stat, this will now mean they are driven by 2 stats, effectively; your 2 chosen Super Stats.
What about energy forms or passives with double features such as pff. Do both parts of the power get affected by the same scaling?

[Archived Post]

Obviously, for people that were only Super Stat'ing1 (or 0) of the 2 Stats their Passive wanted, this will be an overall buff for the effectiveness of their Passive. For Passives that only wanted 1 Stat, this will now mean they are driven by 2 stats, effectively; your 2 chosen Super Stats. Awesome info right there. Thx Ame.

So basically, if the passive was scaling of 2 stats, it would now scale off anything you used as a SS.

Maybe this would be a good time to even out the field, and just make all passives scale off one stat - or just scale of both superstats equally. If that makes sense...

[Archived Post]

Hmmm. My muni and gadget toons with quarry are going to see a nice improvement, methinks.

[Archived Post]

Ah, that kinda sucks. I have 300 pre and 100 con, so I am going to see a significant decrease.

Infact, it's such a decrease that the only way I can fix it would be to get 300 of both stats.

That's going to seriously destroy my build

[Archived Post]

What about energy forms or passives with double features such as pff. Do both parts of the power get affected by the same scaling?

Each part scales with your Super Stats.

Hmmm. My muni and gadget toons with quarry are going to see a nice improvement, methinks.

Well, as I stated, the change with Super Stats affects "most" Passives. Passives that previously did not scale with any stat (like Quarry) didn't have stat scaling adding to them, in general. Obviously, for Passives that were changed (Targeting Computer) we went with what made sense, which was it scaling with Super Stats. This isn't to say Quarry will just be left as is, no matter what. We need to get it through some testing to see how well it does, and see if we need to rethink it in regards to these new changes.

We also didn't make the Enrage or Defiant buffs scale with Super Stats (or anything that wasn't directly a Passive, for that matter). These Buffs are provided in ways outside of just the Defiance and Enrage powers, and we didn't like the way that making them scale with Super Stats would effect certain builds/powers. This means that Defiance, the Passive, which doesn't have any inherent stat scaling of its own, still wants Con as a stat, because the buff that it provides scales with Con. We think a handful of exceptions like these to the standard rule are fine, as long as nothing with them gets out of whack. We'll be monitoring them and if changes are needed to make Defiance, Quarry, or any other Passive viable, we'll make the necessary changes.

Aura powers are still (currently) scaling with Presence. We're still working through our plans for changing them.

[Archived Post]

We use the sum of your super stats, divided by 2. This means if you previously had 250 Pres and 250 Con (assuming these are your Super Stats) your new AoRP values would be identical. If you had 275 Pres and 225 Con, your new values will be slightly lower. If you had 275 Con and 225 Pres, your new values will be slightly higher.

This means people will probably see some slight number adjustments from their passives, unless they were intentionally keeping their Super Stats equal. Obviously, for people that were only Super Stat'ing1 (or 0) of the 2 Stats their Passive wanted, this will be an overall buff for the effectiveness of their Passive. For Passives that only wanted 1 Stat, this will now mean they are driven by 2 stats, effectively; your 2 chosen Super Stats.

Hmm. As others have mentioned, this would remove some of the choice aspects from passives that have 2 different stat-linked magnitudes.

For those, would it be possible to implement separate scaling of the two aspects? Like, one possible system would involve taking the power, then having to choose one of two zero-point advantages to choose which aspect of the power links to the higher superstat and which to the lower? Or possibly having the default be purely evened out, and then an advantage pick (possibly costing a point) to emphasize one aspect over the other?

[Archived Post]

Ame: By doing this most passives are going to actually be decreased in effectiveness. I was putting as much into Pre as possible and ended up getting to the minimal returns. I finally was able to get it up to an okay amount which was 60% me and 57% my pets.

After this it'll go down a BUNCH and there's really no possible way I'm going to realistically get 300 pre and 300 con. So I'm basically much weaker than before, and it'll be permanent.

[Archived Post]

This means that Defiance, the Passive, which doesn't have any inherent stat scaling of its own, still wants Con as a stat, because the buff that it provides scales with Con...

Aura powers are still (currently) scaling with Presence. We're still working through our plans for changing them.This is HUGE!!

Thx for clarifying. Looks like Defiant tanks don't get the Dex/Ego horror!

Invuln, LR and FF on the other hand...just might be winners here. Great news really.

[Archived Post]

Each part scales with your Super Stats.



Well, as I stated, the change with Super Stats affects "most" Passives. Passives that previously did not scale with any stat (like Quarry) didn't have stat scaling adding to them, in general. Obviously, for Passives that were changed (Targeting Computer) we went with what made sense, which was it scaling with Super Stats. This isn't to say Quarry will just be left as is, no matter what. We need to get it through some testing to see how well it does, and see if we need to rethink it in regards to these new changes.

We also didn't make the Enrage or Defiant buffs scale with Super Stats (or anything that wasn't directly a Passive, for that matter). These Buffs are provided in ways outside of just the Defiance and Enrage powers, and we didn't like the way that making them scale with Super Stats would effect certain builds/powers. This means that Defiance, the Passive, which doesn't have any inherent stat scaling of its own, still wants Con as a stat, because the buff that it provides scales with Con. We think a handful of exceptions like these to the standard rule are fine, as long as nothing with them gets out of whack. We'll be monitoring them and if changes are needed to make Defiance, Quarry, or any other Passive viable, we'll make the necessary changes.

Aura powers are still (currently) scaling with Presence. We're still working through our plans for changing them.

Hmmm... very interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.

[Archived Post]

This means that Defiance, the Passive, which doesn't have any inherent stat scaling of its own, still wants Con as a stat, because the buff that it provides scales with Con. We think a handful of exceptions like these to the standard rule are fine, as long as nothing with them gets out of whack.

I concur with this assessment.

[Archived Post]

We also didn't make the Enrage or Defiant buffs scale with Super Stats (or anything that wasn't directly a Passive, for that matter).

Oh that's very interesting / good news, there are plenty of powers like this and keeping them stat specific will preserve most of the interesting choices and trade offs that I was concerned about.

Obviously, for people that were only Super Stat'ing1 (or 0) of the 2 Stats their Passive wanted, this will be an overall buff for the effectiveness of their Passive. For Passives that only wanted 1 Stat, this will now mean they are driven by 2 stats, effectively; your 2 chosen Super Stats.

The problems I see with scaling with the average of the two stats are: it probably reduces the viability of builds that go 300/150 on the two superstats, and the other thing is that it is nerf for most optimized energy form builds that super-duper-stat the one stat that scales their passive.

It's not too bad of a nerf, and doesn't kill any of my characters, but some folks might feel like it does for them. I think the best thing would be to have the order that the superstats is chosen decide which part of the passive that SS scales.

Edit:

My point is this: This change really only opens up options. It's a gain in variety with no real loss; and the loss you're suggesting exists is one that really has never genuinely existed because there was never a statistically relevant alternative.

I didn't want to derail the thread with a big argument, but also didn't want to seemingly ignore your well thought out reply. We are mostly having a difference in perspective I think. I am not choosing a passive and finding myself locked in a stat, I am saying when I scan over the possible builds, I like how choosing a pair of things together, {passive, stat}, as the foundation of my built comes with structure and tradeoffs when choosing the other synergies.

I never meant to say that stating INT/END with fiery form is an option in the game as is, only that choosing a combo like {pre, fiery form} gives a lot of structure and tradeoffs that just choosing {whatever I want, fiery form}.

[Archived Post]

I, for one, do not like the change to passives, making them scale off any stat.

Definitely dumbing down the game.


Exactly my though

[Archived Post]

Oh that's very interesting / good news, there are plenty of powers like this and keeping them stat specific will preserve most of the interesting choices and trade offs that I was concerned about.

The problems I see with scaling with the average of the two stats are: it probably reduces the viability of builds that go 300/150 on the two superstats, and the other thing is that it is nerf for most optimized energy form builds that super-duper-stat the one stat that scales their passive.

It's not too bad of a nerf, and doesn't kill any of my characters, but some folks might feel like it does for them. I think the best thing would be to have the order that the superstats is chosen decide which part of the passive that SS scales.

This. My build which utilizes huge amounts of Pre but not much con is going to get destroyed. My passive will go from like 50% protection to 40%.

I am currently getting the 300 bonus from pre. I also have 100 con.

After the change if you add them and divide by 2 I get a 200 bonus... which is 2/3 of what I originally had. The only way to get back to what I had is to get 200 more con WHILE retaining my 300 con. Is that even possible? I'd need super duper purples to get even think about not. That's also ignoring the fact that I need at least 80 recovery through items to allow me to use all of my powers nicely.

[Archived Post]

2) Crowd Control powers (primarily the various forms of Hold powers) got a pretty large overhaul. This means not only the way holds get applied, but also the way Hold Resistance works. One of the main goals with these changes was to make it much easier to understand how an individual Hold works, and whether or not it was actually going to work on your target.

On Live, many of the holds have variable "Hold Strength" which is a value that is compared to your targets innate Hold Attribute to determine whether or not they are held. If the Hold Strength was larger than their innate Hold Attribute, they got held, for the full duration of the Hold. If the Hold Strength was lower than the Hold Attribute, they would not get held at all. (Things are slightly more complicated than this, especially when stacking Holds, but this is a fairly accurate simplification) It got confusing when Hold Resistance would be applied to a target, and you wouldn't know what Hold Strength was needed to hold the target, and whether or not it was possible to hold them at all. It also meant that if you could hold the target at all, regardless of Hold Resistance on them, it was always a full duration hold.

All Hold powers now apply a consistent Hold Strength to your target (we no longer even display the Hold Strength, as it is no longer a relevant value), making it much easier to know that yes, your Hold is going to work on this critter, because it works on all critters of this rank. Some exceptions may apply for specific bosses that are hold immune/resistant, of course.

Hold Resistance has changed as well. Instead of it providing a negative Hold Attribute, thus making it harder for a Hold to activate on the target, it now provides resistance in the form of reducing the duration of the Hold. For example, if you had a 12 second Hold and use it on a target, the first one would last 12 seconds (not counting reductions from breaking free). They would then get a stack of Hold Resistance. If you applied the same Hold to them again, it would last 6 seconds. A third time, 3 seconds. After 3 stacks of Hold Resistance, the target will be immune to Holds until the Resistance wears off.

There are 2 basic types of Hold in game now - Stuns and Paralyzes. Paralyzes are similar to what you are currently used to; they have a lengthy duration (around 12 seconds) and players can struggle to break free. Stuns are short term Holds (around 3.5 seconds) that you can't struggle out of.

We also made a similar pass on Root, Snare, and Confuse powers, and are still looking at other issues with Knock, Placate, and Disable.

Please tell me Holds will work differently in PvP. This will be nightmarish otherwise.

[Archived Post]

Please tell me Holds will work differently in PvP. This will be nightmarish otherwise.

Yeah this looks terrible.

Stun=3.5 second hold that you can do nothing about.

People die in 1 fully charged dragon wrath which is .87 second charge.

PvP will turn into the stun game.

[Archived Post]

Please tell me Holds will work differently in PvP. This will be nightmarish otherwise.
Hm. 12s is the same as the duration of a current strong hold, so presumably that won't be changed. The second and third holds, however, look stronger than under current rules, where the subsequent holds don't really do anything.

PCs should really have resistance (say, +100%, or half effect) to all crowd control effects.
Yeah this looks terrible.

Stun=3.5 second hold that you can do nothing about.
Well, that you can't struggle against. It may still be subject to damage (hold breakers, damage from incoming attacks).

[Archived Post]

There are a few things I am looking forward to, but scaling passives with SS is not one of them, along with changing holds. You can almost already perma-hold someone, atleast now sometimes it doesn't work.

Imagine this. Electric form scaling with SS. So you Pump in MASSIVE amounts of DEX/EGO, throw in a slight amount of strength, and BAM. Your hitting Laser sword for some pretty sick ticks.

I dont know about you guys, but I am going to min/max like crazy when F2P comes out, because I know its going to be easier. And when I start making the free players quit because they can do nothing about my rampage because they have less powers, I will smile.

One thing I think they still need to address though is devices. You can cause some serious havoc with devices which, in my opinion, makes for some seriously un-balanced PvP.

[Archived Post]

We use the sum of your super stats, divided by 2. This means if you previously had 250 Pres and 250 Con (assuming these are your Super Stats) your new AoRP values would be identical. If you had 275 Pres and 225 Con, your new values will be slightly lower. If you had 275 Con and 225 Pres, your new values will be slightly higher.

This means people will probably see some slight number adjustments from their passives, unless they were intentionally keeping their Super Stats equal. Obviously, for people that were only Super Stat'ing1 (or 0) of the 2 Stats their Passive wanted, this will be an overall buff for the effectiveness of their Passive. For Passives that only wanted 1 Stat, this will now mean they are driven by 2 stats, effectively; your 2 chosen Super Stats.

I am absolutely crushed by this decision. This will be a massive nerf to most min/maxed builds - not just some slight number adjustments :(.

I do not have the need nor desire to focus on two stats from my build. If I could, I would only have ONE SS and choose it twice.

Might as well use the higher of the two or let you choose which stat a passive scales off of - forcing a single stat passive to now scale equally among two stats is not fair at all.

Not everyone wants or needs a balanced statted build. Using this system there is no way at all my build can maintain anywhere near its current DPS without becoming very squishy and replacing CON with DEX...and then deciding between losing 2K HP by not having CON, or 20% damage by not running in avenger. Either way my build will be castrated.

Ah, that kinda sucks. I have 300 pre and 100 con, so I am going to see a significant decrease.

Infact, it's such a decrease that the only way I can fix it would be to get 300 of both stats.

That's going to seriously destroy my build
I feel your pain - it is a lot more dramatic in my case :(.

[Archived Post]

There are a few things I am looking forward to, but scaling passives with SS is not one of them, along with changing holds. You can almost already perma-hold someone, atleast now sometimes it doesn't work.

Imagine this. Electric form scaling with SS. So you Pump in MASSIVE amounts of DEX/EGO, throw in a slight amount of strength, and BAM. Your hitting Laser sword for some pretty sick ticks.

I dont know about you guys, but I am going to min/max like crazy when F2P comes out, because I know its going to be easier. And when I start making the free players quit because they can do nothing about my rampage because they have less powers, I will smile.

One thing I think they still need to address though is devices. You can cause some serious havoc with devices which, in my opinion, makes for some seriously un-balanced PvP.

Sorry to cast a shadow on your glee about making other players miserable, but you won't be able to PvP with the free players unless you roll up an AT, which you won't be able to "min/max like crazy" yo.

[Archived Post]

I am absolutely crushed by this decision. This will be a massive nerf to most min/maxed builds - not just some slight number adjustments :(.

I do not have the need nor desire to focus on two stats from my build. If I could, I would only have ONE SS and choose it twice.

Might as well use the higher of the two or let you choose which stat a passive scales off of - forcing a single stat passive to now scale equally among two stats is not fair at all.

Not everyone wants or needs a balanced statted build. Using this system there is no way at all my build can maintain anywhere near its current DPS without becoming very squishy and replacing CON with DEX...and then deciding between losing 2K HP by not having CON, or 20% damage by not running in avenger. Either way my build will be castrated.


I feel your pain - it is a lot more dramatic in my case :(.
Same here, I'm nearing 270 - 280 Pre and 210ish Dex. May not sound that bad but its gonna absolutely crush my toons hybrid playstyle :(

I actually like the idea of choosing the same stat twice however :)

[Archived Post]

I am absolutely crushed by this decision. This will be a massive nerf to most min/maxed builds - not just some slight number adjustments :(.

I do not have the need nor desire to focus on two stats from my build. If I could, I would only have ONE SS and choose it twice.

Might as well use the higher of the two or let you choose which stat a passive scales off of - forcing a single stat passive to now scale equally among two stats is not fair at all.

Not everyone wants or needs a balanced statted build. Using this system there is no way at all my build can maintain anywhere near its current DPS without becoming very squishy and replacing CON with DEX...and then deciding between losing 2K HP by not having CON, or 20% damage by not running in avenger. Either way my build will be castrated.


I feel your pain - it is a lot more dramatic in my case :(.

Dare I say it, but I think that's kinda the point.

[Archived Post]

Even if we could choose a super stat twice it wouldn't help at all. Would it still be the total divided by 2? Right now I have 300 pre. If I superstated pre again I'd have 380. Divide that by 2 and I get 190, worse than the con/pre reduction I was complaining about.

[Archived Post]

Dare I say it, but I think that's kinda the point.

You can keep your watered down carebear balanced builds.

I have just as much a right to build my Hero as an Ultra-Specialized well optimized machine as you have to make your's a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None".

[Archived Post]

Even if we could choose a super stat twice it wouldn't help at all. Would it still be the total divided by 2? Right now I have 300 pre. If I superstated pre again I'd have 380. Divide that by 2 and I get 190, worse than the con/pre reduction I was complaining about.

You completely missed the point - I was not suggesting that as an option, but just mentioning the fact that I single-stat all of my builds. My actual suggestion was to keep single stat passives SINGLE STAT, and let us choose which one they scale with instead of turning them into dual statted passives :).

[Archived Post]

You can keep your watered down carebear balanced builds.

I have just as much a right to build my Hero as an Ultra-Specialized well optimized machine as you have to make your's a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None".

It has nothing to do with that. I has to do with trying to maintain some kind of realistic space between min and max. Here comes that B word again... BALANCE. It's extraordinarily difficult to create content for a game when there is such a huge disparity between the min and max of what's possible. And now with the ATs coming it's even more important to reel in the top end a bit.

And no one is stopping you from building your character exactly the way you want. It's funny, cause when they announced that passives were going to not be locked into particular stats all the maxers and PvPers cried that it "dumbed down the process" and took the thrill and excitement over what was essentially being told by the game that you had to take certain superstats based on your passive.

Now that you're being told said passive will be based on an average of both stats, you continue to whine and moan. So it was ok to be required to take certain stats, but not ok to require you to slot up both equally??? Sorry, I don't get it.

Well I do... cause it's all about you, not what's good for the game. And that's ok. You have a right to be selfish and protect your own interests. But don't try and shroud it in that it's somehow going to destroy the game if you go from +100% scaling to +80% scaling, or some other barely perceptible difference.

[Archived Post]

While I'm ambivalent leaning toward in favor of universal passive scaling, I don't think that's the proper way to look at attributes. Attributes are game-mechanical terms, not in-universe terms. If I understand the example given, Superboy's powers are mentally derived, but the actual effects produced are consistent with the Str attribute instead of the Ego attribute. I would say they're both Str/Con with different justificaitons for the manifestation of their powers.
Not necessarily.

Put them both in a field that nulifies powers, and only powers.

Now look at them both. When Kon-el fist appeared on the scene, he was a fifteen year old boy, with a pretty average build. Superman, OTOH? When not slouching around to disguise himself as Clark, he's a pretty well-muscled guy.

Who do you think would win an arm-wrestling contest?

Which of them do you think YOU could beat, in an arm-wrestling contest?

...

In CO, if both are STR/CON ...? Neither of them, because Attributes are not the same as powers.



Also: I don't know Champions, but I do know Mutants and Masterminds. Modelling heightened resistance to injury is pretty straight forward; regardless of the how or why, both characters would have Protection (probably with the Extra: Impervious).

But the pick-up-cars schtick?

Superman would have Enhanced Strength, with no extras, flaws, or feats (and costing 1pp/rank).

Kon-el, however, would have:

Telekinesis (Mental; Krypton)
Extra: Damaging (+1)
Flaw: Range, Touch (-1)
Cost: 2pp/rank (2 +1 -1)

It costs more, but when you think about it, it also works differently. :) Kon-el can cause the screws/bolts holding something together, to un-screw themselves ... without touching the screws directly. (that might take the Feat: Precise, but a Hero Point could buy it for one action, in a pinch).

Superman? Not so much.

Kon-el also can ignore problems like leverage. Objects he lifts convey no weight/force through him, to whatever he is sitting or standing upon.

Superman? Not so much. (If he wants to lift a car and walk across a wooden stage, he has to use his Flight power to offset the added weight of the car .... or fall through the stage!)

...

Now, I know, CO doesn't do all that. Nonetheless, CONCEPTUALLY ... Kon-el just isn't a musclebound super-strongman. Strength should not be one of his Superstats. Prior to now, it HAD to be (to make Invulnerability work). After the change, the only reason to go with SS:Strength, will be to lift up trucks and such. If you don't care to do that ... you can go with EGO instead of strength.

(And I actually do have a Kon-el like "flying brick" character - young kid, same basic power concept of "tactile telekinesis", and I did end up going with STR/CON after all. I still might stick with that, for the "lifting trucks" thing. But, it would have been nice to be presented with a choice between Strength, and "whatever else sounds right".

[Archived Post]

It has nothing to do with that. I has to do with trying to maintain some kind of realistic space between min and max. Here comes that B word again... BALANCE. It's extraordinarily difficult to create content for a game when there is such a huge disparity between the min and max of what's possible. And now with the ATs coming it's even more important to reel in the top end a bit.

And no one is stopping you from building your character exactly the way you want. It's funny, cause when they announced that passives were going to not be locked into particular stats all the maxers and PvPers cried that it "dumbed down the process" and took the thrill and excitement over what was essentially being told by the game that you had to take certain superstats based on your passive.

Now that you're being told said passive will be based on an average of both stats, you continue to whine and moan. So it was ok to be required to take certain stats, but not ok to require you to slot up both equally??? Sorry, I don't get it.

Well I do... cause it's all about you, not what's good for the game. And that's ok. You have a right to be selfish and protect your own interests. But don't try and shroud it in that it's somehow going to destroy the game if you go from +100% scaling to +80% scaling, or some other barely perceptible difference.
The problem is not with passive scaling - you need to read what is actually written instead of trying to read between the lines and find reasoning that is not there.

I have no problem with passives scaling off superstats - in fact I supported it. I think its GREAT to let you choose which stat your passive scales with...be the Hero you want to be and all that jazz.

What I do have an issue with is taking a single stat passive and suddenly making it dual stat, forcing you to rank a second stat that you have no need or desire to rank.

Like I said, if you want to make Joe Balanced then go ahead, but I prefer in making specialized builds who do one thing and do it exceptionally well. It is not a balance issue - single statting a build has some serious trade-offs.

As for my build not noticing a difference - you have no clue what my build, stats, or expectations are. If you think choosing between losing either 50% damage scaling or losing 30% scaling and 30% hp is no big deal, then maybe you are just content with mediocrity. To me, that reads either "a ton less damage" or "a lot less damage and a lot less health".

[Archived Post]

The problem is not with passive scaling - you need to read what is actually written instead of trying to read between the lines and find reasoning that is not there.

I have no problem with passives scaling off superstats - in fact I supported it. I think its GREAT to let you choose which stat your passive scales with...be the Hero you want to be and all that jazz.

What I do have an issue with is taking a single stat passive and suddenly making it dual stat, forcing you to rank a second stat that you have no need or desire to rank.

Like I said, if you want to make Joe Balanced then go ahead, but I prefer in making specialized builds who do one thing and do it exceptionally well. It is not a balance issue - single statting a build has some serious trade-offs.

As for my build not noticing a difference - you have no clue what my build, stats, or expectations are. If you think choosing between losing either 50% damage scaling or losing 30% scaling and 30% hp is no big deal, then maybe you are just content with mediocrity. To me, that reads either "a ton less damage" or "a lot less damage and a lot less health".

Just think how much more of a challenge Elite level will be for you. You like challenge, don't you?

[Archived Post]

You can keep your watered down carebear balanced builds.

I have just as much a right to build my Hero as an Ultra-Specialized well optimized machine as you have to make your's a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None".

Apparently, the Devs - the people who designed this game with certain assumptions about the degree of difference between certain possible builds - disagree.

I'd go so far as to say that stopping this sort of thing was one of the driving factors in making this change.

So if you want it reversed, pointing out how much it reduces your DPS - the same DPS that was trivialising end bosses on elite mode - is probably the worst possible thing you could do, because restoring some balance between builds is probably what they want. Instead you should be arguing the case as to why a single-stat build is not unbalanced.

[Archived Post]

I guess extreme min-maxers can quit being all elitist now. Limiting the opportunity for min-maxing is usually a pretty good thing for the overall health of a game, despite the cries of protest that it raises.

(And yeah, I run an LR/ES/LK build with over 300 DEX, so I'm gonna be as affected by this as y'all. )

But in all seriousness, this is probably a -good- thing for the game. Levels the playing field, introduces more balance, and makes the Devs' jobs at providing adequately challenging encounters for all players somewhat easier.

I still fully expect to be able to do most anything I want in this game. Okay. Maybe I won't be able to solo Andrith anymore, but I was never really supposed to do that in the first place..

[Archived Post]

Good call on balancing passives to SuperStats. Does this mean that the stats are only the two stats we choose as superstats OR just the two highest stats? I use alot of equip on characters to fill stats that aren't necessarily the same as my superstats (gimp).

Looking forward to see how new hold structure works, esp in PvP. Maybe this will be better for real crowd controllers. Stun vs Hold will be an interesting mechanic.

[Archived Post]

You can keep your watered down carebear balanced builds.

I have just as much a right to build my Hero as an Ultra-Specialized well optimized machine as you have to make your's a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None".

yep. totally. and i am sure you sill figure out how to do that. if it drops a bit then so will everyone. you can still find a way to build the most powerful build in the game. proportionately you will still win.

[Archived Post]

Like I said, if you want to make Joe Balanced then go ahead, but I prefer in making specialized builds who do one thing and do it exceptionally well. It is not a balance issue - single statting a build has some serious trade-offs.
Not really. Most passives have a 'good effect' and a 'gimp effect', so you just focus on the strong effect and ignore the other one.

[Archived Post]

Not necessarily.

<stuff in other game mechanics>

Sure. That's in a different system though, where the rules actually create a meaningful difference between the two.

Also, it's not clear that under enough Kryptonite/red sun exposure Superman wouldn't be innately as flabby as, well, me, though that's not entirely relevant.

[Archived Post]

WOOHOOO! YesyesyesyesyesYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYES! I've been waiting for this since launch!

The odd thing is I'm comfortable with most of my builds as they are, I'm really not sure how much better or worse they'd function if I swapped out for more theme or performance matching stats. It will make a few of my scrapped concepts possible now, though.

We also didn't make the Enrage or Defiant buffs scale with Super Stats (or anything that wasn't directly a Passive, for that matter). These Buffs are provided in ways outside of just the Defiance and Enrage powers, and we didn't like the way that making them scale with Super Stats would effect certain builds/powers. This means that Defiance, the Passive, which doesn't have any inherent stat scaling of its own, still wants Con as a stat, because the buff that it provides scales with Con. We think a handful of exceptions like these to the standard rule are fine, as long as nothing with them gets out of whack. We'll be monitoring them and if changes are needed to make Defiance, Quarry, or any other Passive viable, we'll make the necessary changes.

Just wanted to ask about something here:

Is it possible you could make it so that the Defiance passive grants a different type of Defiant stacks that do scale to your super stats? I would think you'd have to make it so that the Defiance passive expires the other type of stacks built from other powers so they don't end up stacking with it, but have those powers refresh both types of Defiant, so things still function mostly the same as they do now. I'm not sure how hard that would be.

Defiance happens to be one of my favorite passives for much of the same reason Willpower was one of my favorite defensive sets in CoX, it's very balanced with no really strong or weak points and comes with some built in energy management. However, one of my characters happens to use it with a CON minor (roughly 100 points) and they get hit double hard in the survivability department because of this. They still function pretty well, but characters using some of the other defensives with a CON minor tend to function much better as a tank or damage soak because of this.

[Archived Post]

This. My build which utilizes huge amounts of Pre but not much con is going to get destroyed. My passive will go from like 50% protection to 40%.

I am currently getting the 300 bonus from pre. I also have 100 con.

After the change if you add them and divide by 2 I get a 200 bonus... which is 2/3 of what I originally had. The only way to get back to what I had is to get 200 more con WHILE retaining my 300 con. Is that even possible? I'd need super duper purples to get even think about not. That's also ignoring the fact that I need at least 80 recovery through items to allow me to use all of my powers nicely.

Considering how cake the game is even on a non-optimal build, I'd dare say this nerf is downright necessary.

[Archived Post]

News Flash: Single statting gimps your build in many facets to excel in ONE.

I love how people assume I am some magical uber min/maxed build that trivializes everything since I am single statted. Don't make it out like I am some spoiled exploited who just wants to be able to solo legendaries - I have never solo'd a cosmic ever in CO. Why do people assume that I trivialize content because I am min/maxed single statted? I am a glass cannon, most high level end game content destroys me because I DON'T spread out my stats and only focus on one thing. My build would be better if I evened out that stats a bit, but I don't want to HAVE to.

Don't make it out like I somehow mow through the whole game and trivialize it when it is simply not true. I play a pure fire build that gets smeared across the ground by cosmics and legendaries, cannot solo (tough) mobs in TT, and if I can't burn something down quick enough I will have to run away to heal. Yea, thats so OP :rolleyes:. Sure, I can mow through garbage henchmen and drop a decent hurting in PvP, but single statting does NOT make a build a monster.

yep. totally. and i am sure you sill figure out how to do that. if it drops a bit then so will everyone. you can still find a way to build the most powerful build in the game. proportionately you will still win.

Not a single one of my builds are FoTM builds that trivialize anything in the game and none are the most powerful available. In fact, if you look at my builds they can all be considered theme builds and are almost all purely one framework for damage. Off the top of my head, these are the ones who have been made:

- My main of course, who is fire(PRE/CON, uses all fire skills for damage, only outside click defense is MD, no heals, no shield). Pure Concept build, been using him in one form or another since ~1997.
- A defiance/munitions tank noob that works out much better on paper then in the real world(CON/PRE, shotgun/AR for damage, turtle master). Another Concept, this one from 1998 and was my first suit in the PS1 game "Armored Core".
- Force w/Regen(REC/STR, FC fueld by end builder advantage and FE) Admittedly a DBZ clone, he is basically Kid Buu and uses all force powers w/ Regen as a passive.
- EBB w/ ego form(DEX/EGO, EBF and EBB)...Mr. Mime. 'Nuff said.
- Archer w/LR(DEX/EGO, only archery attacks)...Concept archer to show they are not quite as bad as most think. Very fun to play, even though he is only like lvl 13.
- MA/Might(STR/DEX). Sagat knockoff. My might monkey to show how easy T2 is with a melee build. Only got this one to 15 - very potent but very boring.

As you can see, I do not have any crazy optimized Super Builds that mow through content. No Defile spammer, no Pestilence tagger, no defiance/enrage might tank, not a SINGLE Laser Knight, Dragons Wrath, Dragons Claw, or Smoke nade on any of my builds, I single stat by choice since it is more fun for me, if I wanted a crazy OP build I would make a stacked dodge tank and go solo some cosmics - content that I could never even DREAM of completing on my main.

Think before you guys make accusations and complaints - if I wanted a build that could trivialize everything it would not be anything like my main, and would not be single statted.

[Archived Post]

Any news on what powers will be changing?

How confuse and placate will work in PvP?

What are tangible vs intangible hold strength?

[Archived Post]

News Flash: Single statting gimps your build in many facets to excel in ONE.
You seem to have missed the letter N.

[Archived Post]

We also didn't make the Enrage or Defiant buffs scale with Super Stats (or anything that wasn't directly a Passive, for that matter). These Buffs are provided in ways outside of just the Defiance and Enrage powers, and we didn't like the way that making them scale with Super Stats would effect certain builds/powers. This means that Defiance, the Passive, which doesn't have any inherent stat scaling of its own, still wants Con as a stat, because the buff that it provides scales with Con. We think a handful of exceptions like these to the standard rule are fine, as long as nothing with them gets out of whack. We'll be monitoring them and if changes are needed to make Defiance, Quarry, or any other Passive viable, we'll make the necessary changes.


well that should pretty much kill the fears any one had about DEX/EGO defiance using death machines.

[Archived Post]

This. My build which utilizes huge amounts of Pre but not much con is going to get destroyed. My passive will go from like 50% protection to 40%.

I am currently getting the 300 bonus from pre. I also have 100 con.

After the change if you add them and divide by 2 I get a 200 bonus... which is 2/3 of what I originally had. The only way to get back to what I had is to get 200 more con WHILE retaining my 300 con. Is that even possible? I'd need super duper purples to get even think about not. That's also ignoring the fact that I need at least 80 recovery through items to allow me to use all of my powers nicely.

Jobrry I assume your using Aura of arcane protection as you mentioned protection for you and your pets if you read Ame's post you'll see that he says

Aura powers are still (currently) scaling with Presence. We're still working through our plans for changing them.

Which would mean that all aura powers are still working as they do on live so if it went live as is you would not be effected by the switch to superstat scaling as aura powers would still be scaling with PRE only.


If it did change you probably couldn't get another 200 CON all that easily to bring you up to 300 of PRE and CON as these both share the Primary Defence slott which is where the largest chunk of your stat will come from what you could do is switch super stats though. say from PRE/CON to PRE/INT and then just take con as a secondary. As PRe and INT only clash as Secondary Utility items you could probably get your 300 of both or very close to it. INT would also reduce power cost and decrease recharge time (which if you use sigiles could be handy)

[Archived Post]

We use the sum of your super stats, divided by 2. This means if you previously had 250 Pres and 250 Con (assuming these are your Super Stats) your new AoRP values would be identical. If you had 275 Pres and 225 Con, your new values will be slightly lower. If you had 275 Con and 225 Pres, your new values will be slightly higher.



Aura powers are still (currently) scaling with Presence. We're still working through our plans for changing them.


So which one is it?

In a more general sense, this makes me overall happy. I don't have any single-stat builds to speak of, and almost all my builds balance the 2 SS equally (usually around 250 a piece at lvl 40). So as far as the averaging of SS for scaling...to me it is meh.

But what I am quite happy with is now PFF and Invuln will scale with the stat of my choice. Freeing Invuln from STR should now help better with energy management while using it, and for PFF...no more EGO/END, nuff said.

For everyone concerned with the new scaling crippling their single stat build...well, I think over the course of CO's history, it has been pretty evident that the devs want players to diversify their characters. With the various diminishing returns, and the discontinuation of grandfathered gear, this goes along with their previous plan. And imo, it is a change for the better.

[Archived Post]

I just thought of something for single stat characters...

DON'T TAKE THE SECOND SUPER-STAT

if it's not set, the game won't try to average it in.

I'tll cost you 80 stat pointsover all, but it'll let you set any passive to a base value of 300+ depending on exact gearing.

Now there's an interesting trade-off...

[Archived Post]

I just thought of something for single stat characters...

DON'T TAKE THE SECOND SUPER-STAT

if it's not set, the game won't try to average it in.

I'tll cost you 80 stat pointsover all, but it'll let you set any passive to a base value of 300+ depending on exact gearing.

Now there's an interesting trade-off...

It will also cost you the SS damage bonus from your second stat.

[Archived Post]

I just thought of something for single stat characters...

DON'T TAKE THE SECOND SUPER-STAT

if it's not set, the game won't try to average it in.

I'tll cost you 80 stat pointsover all, but it'll let you set any passive to a base value of 300+ depending on exact gearing.

Now there's an interesting trade-off...

Not necessarily. It could just calculate that missing stat as 0 and then divide by 2 anyway.

[Archived Post]

It will also cost you the SS damage bonus from your second stat.

Not necessarily. It could just calculate that missing stat as 0 and then divide by 2 anyway.

Aww, people already said the stuff I was gonna.

Basically, it comes down to "Do they want to squish the upper and lower bounds of passive effectiveness together?" If they do, which is not a terribly unreasonable goal, then applying the average of both SS's works fine. If that's not their aim (and I think the communication we've gotten leans this way, but not conclusively), then they need to rethink things.

Then again, at least one passive (Defiance) is going to be left largely as-is because of its interactions with the rest of the system, and the support-aura passives might not be changed either. Maybe there will be a proliferation of niche passives beyond just the general ones eventually.

[Archived Post]

Not necessarily. It could just calculate that missing stat as 0 and then divide by 2 anyway.

If so, then the period between when you get your first super-stat and your second is gonna suck ;)

Losing the second super-stat damage bonus is a cost, but if you were only geting 100-odd points in it, how big was that bonus anyway?

[Archived Post]

If so, then the period between when you get your first super-stat and your second is gonna suck
No more than it already does, to be honest.

[Archived Post]

No more than it already does, to be honest.

--Touche!--

[Archived Post]

With upcoming new powers and some passives scaling with super stats I assume our accounts will get a free respec token?

[Archived Post]

you just know that everyone is going to go Dex & Ego with defiance or invulnerability, part of the point, or at least so i thought, was that part of the challenge of making a good build was to work around the restrictions put in place IE the SS's on passives, so... what about someone with Dex/ego with the aura of raidiant protection, that's going to kill PvP and make lairs too easy.

We're being put in the ******ned kiddy pool :(

[Archived Post]

you just know that everyone is going to go Dex & Ego with defiance or invulnerability

No, I just know that Dex and Ego are gonna get the tar smacked out of them so that they are not the no-brainer choice for Super-stat pairs on any build that ever considered doing damage as a primary objective.

For goodness sakes people, is it not obvious that re-tuning a stat is less work that changing all the passives? If they're willing to put in the effort to open up the passives to new combinations, they're equally willing to do the work leveling the playing field between stats.

[Archived Post]

Meh, I think it's about time for me to make a FOTM build.

Though this new SS is actually going to hurt a lot of min/maxers.

People who get one of their SS to like 400 and the other is at 200 are going to be quite a bit weaker. (like me)

[Archived Post]

With upcoming new powers and some passives scaling with super stats I assume our accounts will get a free respec token?

They've allready said we're all getting retcon tokens.

[Archived Post]

Meh, I think it's about time for me to make a FOTM build.

Though this new SS is actually going to hurt a lot of min/maxers.

People who get one of their SS to like 400 and the other is at 200 are going to be quite a bit weaker. (like me)

No, you'll just have to respec to counter it. That is why I think scaling to SS's is good, but forcing dual stat passives is bad. It won't do anything to adjust the curve on the top end, and just make it easier for people to throw random stuff together and still be feasible. It takes the thinking out of specing a build.

In my case, I have over 400 PRE and only 145 CON. On the surface you may think this change would totally wreck my build since averaging them will kill my stat bonus....but it only took 2 minutes to think of how to not only make up for the changes, but to far exceed my builds current cababilities. All I have to do is switch CON to DEX, balance both of them around 300, then run in guardian instead of avenger to more then counter the loss of SS CON. Then swap imbue(since no more SS CON) for BCR+RR on my build, which already has MD.

My DPS will IMPROVE, HP will stay around the same, and my survivability will skyrocket. GG.

Personally that is not what I want to do though - my build fits my concept perfectly and I have always single stat min/maxed even if it does gimp my build in other area. If I wanted to trvialize content and fully optimized Puck I would have done that a loooonnnggg time ago.

By nature a min/maxer or power gamer will always find a way to far exceed an "average" build no matter what ruleset is given to them. While this may mix a few things around at first, once things settle down this will not change that

[Archived Post]

I also run Pre and Con but both of those stats I really need and no other stats really benefits me at all.

The only thing I could think of is maybe going Con/Rec.

But I'm still loosing all that threat reduction which is good for a pet build in PVE.

It's just going to take a lot of effort to get back to where I was, and passing where I previously was will be a very tough challenge.

[Archived Post]

I also run Pre and Con but both of those stats I really need and no other stats really benefits me at all.

The only thing I could think of is maybe going Con/Rec.

But I'm still loosing all that threat reduction which is good for a pet build in PVE.

It's just going to take a lot of effort to get back to where I was, and passing where I previously was will be a very tough challenge.

Sorc auras and healing will still scale with PRE.

[Archived Post]

No, I just know that Dex and Ego are gonna get the tar smacked out of them so that they are not the no-brainer choice for Super-stat pairs on any build that ever considered doing damage as a primary objective.

For goodness sakes people, is it not obvious that re-tuning a stat is less work that changing all the passives? If they're willing to put in the effort to open up the passives to new combinations, they're equally willing to do the work leveling the playing field between stats.

I highly doubt that DEX/EGO will get the tar smacked out of them. Even if you Super Stat DEX and EGO, in reality it's only scoring you an average damage increase of roughly 20-35% depending on how hard you dump them. Mind you, this damage is up front and in burst, but it's not dependable. At the target stats that the game is balanced around you're expected to have roughly 25% chance to crit and 80% severity assuming you supered both, with min maxing and high quality gear you might be able to reach something closer to 35% Crit chance and 100% severity. But even at those levels, it's still highly overrated most of the time.

What is more likely to happen with people who build for crits is that they will minor EGO, super DEX, super an energy stat or CON and pick up minors in CON and/or other energy stats depending on what they supered. How supered or how minored some of these stats are depends heavily on preference and build, but the end result is the same, you get more mileage from being spread between crits, durability and energy management then you do just stacking "moar l33t deeps."

Truth is, our stat system only really suffers when you look at the stats solo. Certain stats are more or less useful as a super stat depending on what else you've supered, some are only useful with certain power picks, many of which will remain when the new system goes live, some stats absolutely require a minor in something else to be supered, etc. But when you pair them up and consider the effect they have on certain powers most of them become useful in the right build. INT/REC with an END Minor is still the king of high energy alpha strikes, DEX isn't very good without EGO and EGO isn't very good without DEX, however DEX will likely still scale Forms and together they give extra burst damage by chance. STR will still scale Enrage, as confirmed by Ame already. PRE and INT both have strong features of their own, make the perfect healer, and likely still will after this change.

If anything was done to the stat system, it should be them giving stat to stat synergy to stats that lack it and buffing the stats that don't give something substantial on their own in a way that doesn't snowball with other picks. Likely they'd have to introduce a few new mechanics or add scaling of existing ones, but it would be the best way to go with bringing better balance to the stats.

[Archived Post]

Lots of good stuff...

Yeah, I'm not sure why everybody insists that Dex/Ego will be the FotM. I have a munitions toon who was Dex/Ego since launch that I recently converted to Str/Con so that I could use Defiance and Enrage. Before that I was pushing Dex/Ego as hard as I could for about a 37% average dps increase. Just casually getting both Str/Con above the DR (258/238), Enrage boosts damage by 60%. That's a pretty big difference! And I use plenty of item slots for end/rec/int. (62/60/140)

Plus there's the energy return from Defiance, the bookoos of health from SS Con, handy kb bonus from Str, and questionable kb resist.

Now I can definitely see an offensive passive toon wanting to go Dex/? geared ego I suppose. If energy constraints were looked at a little more, that would probably help (As Pants has been saying). I don't think the devs meant for every optimized build to have near limitless energy.

[Archived Post]

Sorc auras and healing will still scale with PRE.

This may actually change. It's being reviewed.

[Archived Post]

Ame please reconsider making all passives scale on any superstats. Even though you say that every character being Dex/Ego is not likely to happen and you have it covered, there's a more pressing issue there.

The way the passives have been set up is you take a passive that goes with what you want a character to do, then choose superstats to go with that passive. If any superstats scale any passive, it would just create a game world where purposefully taking any stats not matching the superstats (Only powers) is good, and everybody will be the same.

If a Defiance tank starts to work just as well on Ego as it does on the current Con model, why take Con except for more health to tank better with? If Lightning Reflexes starts to work just as well on Con as it currently works on Dex, why take Dex anymore except just to have more criticals?

It becomes confusing because if anybody can take any passive with any superstats, why take this passive over that one? We're all the same except for costume, right?

Please, please reconsider this. :(This may actually change. It's being reviewed.Dude you're kidding right? Why would they do that? Where's the diversity? Where?

[Archived Post]

Ame please reconsider making all passives scale on any superstats. Even though you say that every character being Dex/Ego is not likely to happen and you have it covered, there's a more pressing issue there.

The way the passives have been set up is you take a passive that goes with what you want a character to do, then choose superstats to go with that passive. If any superstats scale any passive, it would just create a game world where purposefully taking any stats not matching the superstats (Only powers) is good, and everybody will be the same.

If a Defiance tank starts to work just as well on Ego as it does on the current Con model, why take Con except for more health to tank better with? If Lightning Reflexes starts to work just as well on Con as it currently works on Dex, why take Dex anymore except just to have more criticals?

It becomes confusing because if anybody can take any passive with any superstats, why take this passive over that one? We're all the same except for costume, right?

Please, please reconsider this. :(Dude you're kidding right? Why would they do that? Where's the diversity? Where?

Defiance the passive doesn't scale with anything. Defiance the buff, not being a passive, will continue to scale only with CON. So those going with DEX/EGO are going to get doubly hit, both with less HP and again with a less-effective Defiance.

As to why they are reviewing the Auras? I dunno, probably cause they are passives, and most of them need looking at anyway.

[Archived Post]

Definace the passive doesn't really exist though. The ability to be hit and gain energy is in the passive, which provides stacks that scale on Con. I'm talking about the stacks, dude. Maybe that was a poor example, but if all passives scale on anything, where's the diversity if anybody can take any passive and fill any role? Sure it's a free power system, but come on, if we can all be tank mages, why be anything else if we no longer need specific stats for passives? That's what I was getting at.

I don't dissagree that auras need a buff, but also making them scale on anything still creates a situation where everybody can take any passive and be good.

It stifles diversity in another way, because people don't need reading comprehension anymore. Don't know your Ice Form scales on End, don't superstat it, and don't gear it? You can't get by. After the changes? Wow I can take any passive and I'm suddenly amazing.

[Archived Post]

Definace the passive doesn't really exist though. The ability to be hit and gain energy is in the passive, which provides stacks that scale on Con. I'm talking about the stacks, dude. Maybe that was a poor example, but if all passives scale on anything, where's the diversity if anybody can take any passive and fill any role? Sure it's a free power system, but come on, if we can all be tank mages, why be anything else if we no longer need specific stats for passives? That's what I was getting at.

I don't dissagree that auras need a buff, but also making them scale on anything still creates a situation where everybody can take any passive and be good.

It stifles diversity in another way, because people don't need reading comprehension anymore. Don't know your Ice Form scales on End, don't superstat it, and don't gear it? You can't get by. After the changes? Wow I can take any passive and I'm suddenly amazing.

There will still be many powers that will scale off of certain stats. Healing, for example, will still scale off of PRE. Defiance and Enrage (the buffs, not the powers) will still be CON and STR respectively. All this change does is remove an arbitrary limitation that prevented people from picking stats that were the most appropriate for their builds, but conflicted with their passive. DEX/EGO will never be suitable for all builds, and as many have pointed out will most likely not be all that great to begin with once the dust settles. Sure, now you can take any stats you want irregardless of passive, but that doesn't mean your choices don't have consequences. Certain frameworks are still designed around certain stats, and not honoring that will certainly gimp you in one way or another.

[Archived Post]

Dude read my post in Falchoin's thread. Any passive and I'm awesome stifles diversity.

Also, I saw you conceded in that thread? How would you like tanks running offensive passives and doing insane mega DPS while still being their tanky self? LR tanks with Con will dominate everything. It turns anybody into an Enrage/Agressor character now, because defensive characters can even do offensive passives and not fail.

Personal example: If I can go Dex/Ego, gear Pre for heals, gear Con for survival, and crit up the wazoo on both damage and heals, why do anything else? Might as well throw in Defiance passive and run Elite Lairs solo because when these changes go through, even squishies wont be as squishy anymore if they stat enough Con on top of their other stats.

For me again, if I don't respec to Dex/Ego my Seraphim healer will be outdone by everybody else just because they can crit and I can't.

[Archived Post]

I highly doubt that DEX/EGO will get the tar smacked out of them.
Problem isn't really Dex/Ego overperforming; Con, Pre, and Int are still quite competitive. Problem is Rec/End underperforming (due to overpowered secondary energy unlocks) and Str underperforming outside of enrage builds (because the knock code is kinda broken).

[Archived Post]

Dude read my post in Falchoin's thread. Any passive and I'm awesome stifles diversity.

Also, I saw you conceded in that thread? How would you like tanks running offensive passives and doing insane mega DPS while still being their tanky self? LR tanks with Con will dominate everything. It turns anybody into an Enrage/Agressor character now, because defensive characters can even do offensive passives and not fail.

Personal example: If I can go Dex/Ego, gear Pre for heals, gear Con for survival, and crit up the wazoo on both damage and heals, why do anything else? Might as well throw in Defiance passive and run Elite Lairs solo because when these changes go through, even squishies wont be as squishy anymore if they stat enough Con on top of their other stats.

For me again, if I don't respec to Dex/Ego my Seraphim healer will be outdone by everybody else just because they can crit and I can't.

I really don't think it's going to pan out the way you think it will. I dunno what else to tell you. I don't know to what you say I conceded to, but I don't think this stifles diversity. I think completely the opposite.

The only thing I agreed to in that thread is that those that *didn't* stat to their passives would see a boost in efficiency. On the flip side, those that heavily favor one stat over the other will see a drop in performance.

[Archived Post]

Then we agree, although not fully. LR no longer requiring specific stats makes for extremely tanky Con gearing characters that superstat Dex/Ego.

And would you quit quoting me when I'm directly above you? Seriously it's bothersime to have to scroll through my own post when I just wrote it. Not this time, but in general, man. You do it all the time. The post is right above you, and yet you quote it anyway. Plus, I often edit my posts right after I make them, so unless you enjoy having old version of my posts and just annoying me (Please don't do this) stop quoting me unless there's at least one post after mine.

Anyway I think I'll hold off full judgment until I get into the beta, if I get in, because this just seems like it's likely to make the game all about min/maxing or accepting that you under-perform. This is what I get for not reading the forums for 4 days, big changes that sound so crazy they make me think doom and gloom.

[Archived Post]

Problem isn't really Dex/Ego overperforming; Con, Pre, and Int are still quite competitive. Problem is Rec/End underperforming (due to overpowered secondary energy unlocks) and Str underperforming outside of enrage builds (because the knock code is kinda broken).

I've got a character that is statted DEX/INT - REC/END on his way to 40 now, who uses mostly Electrical powers, with Laser Sword and defensive stuff from the MA tree as out of set picks. I'm also planning to raise some third stat at 40, since it's easily possible to hike a total of 3 minors with the right gearing without sacrificing much, even before you count in VH gear. This character has Ionic Reverb and Focus of the Unleashed Tempest and he STILL manages to run out of energy on bosses and hard targets when there's nothing to arc to. Especially if the random number generator decides to forsake me and I don't crit much.

Honestly, if you want City of Lethargic Heroes, you can go there. But I don't want CO turning into that. Even my heroes in CoX were built to have virtually limitless energy whenever possible, because being out of energy is anti-fun and serves to do little more than slow down the action.

Then we agree, although not fully. LR no longer requiring specific stats makes for extremely tanky Con gearing characters that superstat Dex/Ego.

Once again, Dex/Ego is extremely overrated. Super EGO is only 20% better than Minor EGO, and what you describe here is already more than possible. You can stat DEX/CON/EGO/ and still have 1-2 minors to decide on. I think I'm a little confused as to what you're getting at here?

Also, it does not stifle diversity. It actually encourages it. Someone who wants to be ZOMG SUPAR BURST DPS GLASS CANNON can now dump EVERYTHING into whatever stats they need to do so up to the point where DR kicks in. Someone who wants to be a tank mage and balance their character right down the middle can do so the same way. Someone who wants to be the worlds most unkillable tank can do so just as easily. But now all of the above have their choice of passive regardless of stats, meaning you will see DEX/EGO Fire characters and CON/PRE electrical tanks running LR.

[Archived Post]

Confused? LR no longer needing Dex means that it can be taken on a Con/Something character, and make them just as dodgy as any other. Make sense?

Doesn't stifle creativity? Really? Let's take your example the way it looks to me.

A "ZOMG SUPAR BURST DPS GLASS CANNON" would be Dex/Ego with Con once DR starts working. Just like now, but they can also be Con/Something and gearing Dex/Ego with SL gear which is that good. Instant tank mage for every character once LR stops requiring Dex.

Everybody will need to be either a tank mage or not play, because everybody else is doing it. CO will become a soloer's world (I mean more so than it is already) where everybody puts out crazy DPS, never dies, and runs Elite everything. Right now it's only possible with severely min/maxed builds that are hard to keep to a specific concept, so most of us don't really do it, but soon it will imbalance the game and require everybody to stat "competitively" like PVP because everybody else is doing it.

Stop me if this is too much doom and gloom. Maybe I should seriously stop worrying, wait it out, and go level up some more in the current atmosphere, or play the Featured Episodes on STO which are all up now so they can be played one after the other without having to wait? Because I feel like I'm just scaring myself needlessly here.

[Archived Post]

Think claiming that the change is going to stifle diversity or that every one will move to DEX/EGO id foolish when we have no idea how far the changes go yes fine raise concerns but out right rally aghenst it seems stupid when we have no idea what and how things are changing.

[Archived Post]

Bron, riddle me this:

The way the passives have been set up is you take a passive that goes with what you want a character to do, then choose superstats to go with that passive. If any superstats scale any passive, it would just create a game world where purposefully taking any stats not matching the superstats (Only powers) is good, and everybody will be the same.

How is that so different from what we have now?

Instead of everyone being the same because they're taking the best stats that synergize with their passive, they're the same because their passive forces them to take certain stats.

I'd say the new situation is better. Right now if you want a different set of stats, either for theme or purpose, than your passive suggests, you're boned. You have to take the stats that go with that passive. However, passives with no stat requirements means you can select your stats and passive without compromising theme or purpose. The end result is that there will likely be more diversity, not less, because not everyone is going to want to build the same thing. People will find other routes of min/maxing besides Tank Mage, despite the fact that in reality many Super Heroes are just that, and theme driven people will just pick whatever fits their vision.

A "ZOMG SUPAR BURST DPS GLASS CANNON" would be Dex/Ego witth Con once DR starts working. Just like now, but they can also be Con/Something and gearing Dex/Ego with SL gear which is that good. Instant tank mage for every character once LR stops requiring Dex.

Or they could stat for REC for better alpha strikes and energy recovery. They could stat for END to supply a bigger payload. You're forgetting the built in requirements of powers, good luck making a DEX/EGO character that can fire off a PA barrage without energy management. They could also pick up PRE to make themselves a less appealing target (well, assuming they actually bother to ever make PRE effect agro better) and even heal a little!

Everybody will need to be either a tank mage or not play, because everybody else is doing it. CO will become a soloer's world (I mean more so than it is already) where everybody puts out crazy DPS, never dies, and runs Elite everything. Right now it's only posisble with severely min/maxed builds that are hard to keep to a specific concept, so most of us don't really do it, but soon it will imbalance the game and require everybody to stat "competitively" like PVP because everybody else is doing it.

I already build tank mages because quite frankly I don't like being squishy. Even my healer has a small bit of CON and runs the resistance aura. However, you're forgetting that there ARE people out there that are going to make a character that stacks every possible damage boosting ability and runs a glass cannon that kills everything in 3 square miles, because people already do it within the current confines of the system. I once ran a team of 4 DPS in Nemcon on my healer and between the bunch of them only one was rocking LK, the rest were ranged damage dealers. I basically could turn any of them into a tank with heals, buffs and debuffs (Empath Controller style, yo) while they brutally murdered everything.

[Archived Post]

Honestly, if you want City of Lethargic Heroes, you can go there. But I don't want CO turning into that. Even my heroes in CoX were built to have virtually limitless energy whenever possible, because being out of energy is anti-fun and serves to do little more than slow down the action.
I have nothing against it being possible to have a near-unlimited energy build. I just think that it should require you to invest in the energy management stats (Rec, End).

[Archived Post]

I have nothing against it being possible to have a near-unlimited energy build. I just think that it should require you to invest in the energy management stats (Rec, End).

I wouldn't mind if they made it so that all the passive energy unlocks scaled to REC/END, since I get at least a minor in one if not both on nearly every character, but as it stands secondary energy unlocks aren't enough to really fuel a damage dealer unless you're going for a low burst sustained damage build with a set like Munitions. Or running in Sentinel.

Honestly, I just don't see the problem.

[Archived Post]

Bron, riddle me this:



How is that so different from what we have now?

Instead of everyone being the same because they're taking the best stats that synergize with their passive, they're the same because their passive forces them to take certain stats.

I'd say the new situation is better. Right now if you want a different set of stats, either for theme or purpose, than your passive suggests, you're boned. You have to take the stats that go with that passive. However, passives with no stat requirements means you can select your stats and passive without compromising theme or purpose. The end result is that there will likely be more diversity, not less, because not everyone is going to want to build the same thing. People will find other routes of min/maxing besides Tank Mage, despite the fact that in reality many Super Heroes are just that, and theme driven people will just pick whatever fits their vision.



Or they could stat for REC for better alpha strikes and energy recovery. They could stat for END to supply a bigger payload. You're forgetting the built in requirements of powers, good luck making a DEX/EGO character that can fire off a PA barrage without energy management. They could also pick up PRE to make themselves a less appealing target (well, assuming they actually bother to ever make PRE effect agro better) and even heal a little!



I already build tank mages because quite frankly I don't like being squishy. Even my healer has a small bit of CON and runs the resistance aura. However, you're forgetting that there ARE people out there that are going to make a character that stacks every possible damage boosting ability and runs a glass cannon that kills everything in 3 square miles, because people already do it within the current confines of the system. I once ran a team of 4 DPS in Nemcon on my healer and between the bunch of them only one was rocking LK, the rest were ranged damage dealers. I basically could turn any of them into a tank with heals, buffs and debuffs (Empath Controller style, yo) while they brutally murdered everything.Clever use of quotes and breaking it up. I don't have time for it so I will just reply to each of your parts in order.

How is it different? In case you missed what I meant, I'll just say it in other terms: The new setup will further cement the minmaxing to succeed, and if you're not one you don't get to play because people refuse to party. Everybody will go tank mage, and tank mage will become more so the norm than it is now. It will further separate the casuals from the min/maxers. Its quite likely that even a non-concept build like my main, which is currently designed to just be a great healer, would need to conform to a tank mage setup JUST to get anything done. Roles are likely to become more obsolete than they are now. To me, it's no fun to solo. It just isn't. If anybody can be a tank mage without breaking concept, and tank maging becomes the norm, then partying will go with it because everybody becomes self sufficient while staying in concept and absolutely nobody will want to party anymore.

Taking other stats for DPS? On what planet? Sure there's built in requirements for powers, but by the design of criticals, it just out damages and out heals everybody. Explain to me how switching to Dex/Ego using Seraphim with no passive requirements while gearing Pre/Int/Dex/Ego with some End, Con, and Rec will not be better than my current Pre/Int Seraphim healer gearing Pre/Int/Con with some End and Rec, because I can't think of a situation where my character would be desirable to a party over the other one. That is if people even want to party at all with everybody going tank mage because they can. Oh and of course my character having any sort of damage potential with how I have it set up would be nothing compared to somebody with the same exact skills but with Dex/Ego superstats. I can't see a situation that doesn't quickly make my build obsolete because somebody can out heal and out damage me, using the same exact power build but different superstats.

The last part pretty much proves my point. People already do that. They'll soon be able to do it without breaking concept or build, just by changing their superstats and gearing a bit differently. More and more people will be like you and build characters that "brutally murder" everything, never die because they can survive everything or heal it off, and can also heal in the unlikely event that somebody decides to make a party for an instance instead of just doing it solo.

This quite simply seems to spell the end of casual people who do not min/max in PVE. Either you have to do it just to play anything, do it to be accepted in parties, or not play. At least that's how it looks to me, and I am crying inside because of it. :( I need to lie down.

[Archived Post]

Clever use of quotes and breaking it up. I don't have time for it so I will just reply to each of your parts in order.

How is it different? In case you missed what I meant, I'll just say it in other terms: The new setup will further cement the minmaxing to succeed, and if you're not one you don't get to play because people refuse to party. Everybody will go tank mage, and tank mage will become more so the norm than it is now. It will further separate the casuals from the min/maxers. Its quite likely that even a non-concept build like my main, which is currently designed to just be a great healer, would need to conform to a tank mage setup JUST to get anything done. Roles are likely to become more obsolete than they are now. To me, it's no fun to solo. It just isn't. If anybody can be a tank mage without breaking concept, and tank maging becomes the norm, then partying will go with it because everybody becomes self sufficient while staying in concept and absolutely nobody will want to party anymore.

There are two reasons why people party: Either because they want to, or because a solo player can't survive the content. In the first case, the problem that exists here is that while people want to team, it's usually too much work to actually orchestrate a group. This needs to be fixed because as CoX proved, just because everything in the game is soloable doesn't mean people will solo if the system is highly supportive to teaming. People didn't team because they had to, they teamed because they wanted to.

In the second case, most of the people that go out of the way to mix and match regardless of theme in order to solo 5 man lairs are going to be the same people doing it under the new system. Remember, that's 3-5 people's worth of difficulty one person has to account for, you need good gear and a very focused build to be able to pull that off. The gap in difficulty is large enough that the builds that can't do that now likely wont be able to do so under the new system, but the high end of it is low enough that a below maximum efficiency build doesn't suffer too bad.

Taking other stats for DPS? On what planet? Sure there's built in requirements for powers, but by the design of criticals, it just out damages and out heals everybody. Explain to me how switching to Dex/Ego using Seraphim with no passive requirements while gearing Pre/Int/Dex/Ego with some End, Con, and Rec will not be better than my current Pre/Int Seraphim healer gearing Pre/Int/Con with some End and Rec, because I can't think of a situation where my character would be desirable to a party over the other one. That is if people even want to party at all with everybody going tank mage because they can. Oh and of course my character having any sort of damage potential with how I have it set up would be nothing compared to somebody with the same exact skills but with Dex/Ego superstats. I can't see a situation that doesn't quickly make my build obsolete because somebody can out heal and out damage me, using the same exact power build but different superstats.

DEX/EGO is actually quite inefficient for damage compared to a DEX/INT build or something similar. Super EGO only gets 20% crit severity over minored EGO, which isn't even close to worth supering it over another stat. Some people who absolutely have to see those huge numbers might do it, but it's really just not worth it.

As for healing specifically, my healer wouldn't be able to function under a DEX/EGO supered build simply because of how expensive the build is, even in Sentinel. I can literally chain non-stop Mindful Reenforcements on anyone who's taking damage just by tapping Psi Heal between every few shields. This is assuming someone is taking enough damage to warrant that, otherwise I'm maintaining Sigils of Ebon Weakness and spamming my controls and attacks between shields and heals. Crits aren't going to make up for the fact that you've given up INT (yes I say given up because an INT minor is actually quite weak) and have lower base healing. If you're running a PRE scaling aura (assuming they don't change), or a power like Mindful, you're also going to loose power there.

The last part pretty much proves my point. People already do that. They'll soon be able to do it without breaking concept or build, just by changing their superstats and gearing a bit differently. More and more people will be like you and build characters that "brutally murder" everything, never die because they can survive everything or heal it off, and can also heal in the unlikely event that somebody decides to make a party for an instance instead of just doing it solo.

This quite simply seems to spell the end of casual people who do not min/max in PVE. Either you have to do it just to play anything, do it to be accepted in parties, or not play. At least that's how it looks to me, and I am crying inside because of it. :( I need to lie down.

No, it doesn't. It does the opposite. We already do, the main difference is we're forced to sacrifice our theme for efficiency. Which we do. In fact, I've actually deleted a couple of characters past the 20s because I couldn't get their builds to be viable enough to satisfy me. I'm not even sure if some of my characters are going to change their stats, my lightning character actually makes more sense as REC/END if you know his back story, but he'll probably remain DEX/INT Supered because the build, which was made on theme, synergizes with those stats better. I should probably also point out that I team on pretty much all my characters when I can find people willing to, or doing content that requires it.

That party I was talking about earlier had damage dealers in it that could easily surpass any measure of damage one of my tank mages could do, even under the new system. But they were so squishy if I hadn't been there to protect them, many of them would have likely died repeatedly if not outright 1 shot by Shadow Destroyer.

Also, looking at your character in Champedia, assuming that's correct not only have you no higher character than level 30, your build wouldn't even come close to the one I have now in terms of versatility. I bring to any group I'm in a resistance buff, damage and movespeed debuffs, a powerful heal, a damage nullifying shield, holds, roots and even a bit of damage. So if people aren't telling you that you can't play with them now, they wont be when this change happens.

[Archived Post]

Good info there dude. Then what exactly do you think this will do? The game will not change as drastically as I seem think? Dex/Ego will really not dominate as much and my character will still be asked to parties?

As for why my chars are so low, you have to ask? I forum and theorycraft way more than I play. I overthink everything. I put a ton of thought and discussion, both on forum and ingame, into every character I make. I might even delete Mecha and remake as another character, even though she's using the Art Deco costume peices and used to get complemented before the Lifetime went up again, simply because I'm not feeling any of the builds I made for her. I'm semi-casual in the sense that when I DO log on, I play for 6 to 8 hours per session.

Also you gotta realize my character is only level 30, and I play mostly one at a time. She doesn't have the full build I want. Really the only difference from what you described with your character is I use and will continue to use Seraphim and not the Aura, but that's it. You can check my guide for my full planned ou/recommendedt builds, which may change with time and the F2P update. I'm not only recommending the stuff in the guide, but also playing it. Slowly.

[Archived Post]

In order:

1.) Allow greater diversity in character builds; bring down the top end of performance.
2.) No.
3.) No and Yes.

[Archived Post]

In order:

1.) Allow greater diversity in character builds; bring down the top end of performance.
2.) No.
3.) No and Yes.

This will not bring down the top end of performance, it will just bring UP the lower end. In fact, it will increase both damage output and survivability for those who already optimized their builds with the old stat setup.

The only way this will negatively effect anyone is if they single statted (like myself) and decide keep their build exactly the same.

Diversifying builds is also debatable - how much diversity will we have when everyone is practically forced to go Dex/xxx just to stay competitive with everyone else? Basically pick any passive you want, pick Dex and an energy management stat (or CON for tanks), snatch a click defense or two(preferably BCR+RR/MD) and you are instant tank-mage.

[Archived Post]

Good info there dude. Then what exactly do you think this will do? The game will not change as drastically as I seem think? Dex/Ego will really not dominate as much and my character will still be asked to parties?



You'll be fine. Healers still get asked to parties even in groups of "tankmages", at least for the higher-end stuff. People <3 healers.

There's some stuff from the Closed F2P Beta that I'm really looking forward to and can't elaborate on at the moment. But rest assured, there's some good stuff coming. Despite my recent spate of negativity, I like this game, and the upcoming new powers are looking great.

With that said...

Dex/Ego as a stat combo kinda sucks, as it is extremely limiting. You're basically stuck doing damage with low-End-required powers, unless you've built a LR tank. Or you're in melee. And said LR tank is going to be far, far better off with Dex/Con or Dex/Int.

The "blaster" type doing ranged damage (a la Munitions or Archery) would likely be better off with Dex/Int as well, as it leads to more sustainable damage. Even with this change, Dex/Ego still won't be as durable as someone that superstats Con (and Defiance is still going to mostly run off Con, IIRC). And it won't be able to make use of the clicky buffs/defenses as well as a Dex/Int, in addition to having less sustained damage unless you go with Quarry (which pigeonholes you into "fragile-damage-dealer" even more).

My main was, for the longest time, Dex/Pre. Switching to Pre/Int has made a world of difference in how well I can heal. For pretty much the same reasons Xao mentioned. Dex crit burst heals are nice, but a combination of Mindful Reinforcement and Psionic Healing tends to work better. A sustainable (meaning I don't have to worry about energy when using them) 5k charged Psionic Healing fueled by SS Pre, Con minor, Sentinel Role and Seraphim is better than a 8k one every once in a while with a more limited use of MR.

If I had to guess, the most popular "stat swaps" are going to be bringing in Invuln for extra survivability if you have a free power pick, a possible resurgence of Regen for "leveling" builds, or wider use of the Sorcery Auras. Oh, and maybe more Ego Bladers. Dex/Con Ego Blades could be pretty nasty, but it won't be much more than melee now.

If you're using Dex right now, you probably want some damage. That means you'll probably still use it afterwards. If you forego Dex now, you're either going with energy-management stats (Rec/End/Int), Str (for Unstoppable) or Energy-Form-boosting stats (End/Pre).

Melee Might builds using Dex to fuel Unstoppable (I don't know why you'd do such a thing, but I'm sure someone'll try it...) will get higher burst, but they aren't going to get much additional survivability out of it. Dex on an Energy Form build still means you need energy, so that puts you into Pre/Thermal Reverb, or End. Both of which happen now.

Can anyone else think of any horribly broken build opportunities this opens up? My main'll likely stay Pre/Int, and my most-used alt will probably still be Con/End.



Diversifying builds is also debatable - how much diversity will we have when everyone is practically forced to go Dex/xxx just to stay competitive with everyone else? Basically pick any passive you want, pick Dex and an energy management stat (or CON for tanks), snatch a click defense or two(preferably BCR+RR/MD) and you are instant tank-mage.

And what stops people from doing that now?

Pre/Dex for Fire Form or Seraphim. You'll still want Pre for healing and to fuel Thermal Reverb.

End/Dex for Ice Form, Elec Form or Shadow Form. You'll still want to be able to afford those wtfhax Defiles. An occasional crit Gigabolt isn't that scary, considering how often it's buffed now. Power Armor will be reaaalllly scary for the three seconds it could fire without Energy stats. I can see Dex/Int with Rec/End from gear becoming more popular, but that just means active defenses get used more often.

Enrage still scales off Strength (and gives more of a boost than Dex/Ego does!). Defiance's buff stacks are still tied to Con. So no change for the Defiance builds, as swapping in Dex would actively make them worse. Unless you don't like Enrage. In which case, you're already making yourself worse.

Unstoppable could use Dex/Con now. But again, Str/Con Enrage is going to be more overall damage.

Way of the Enlightened Warrior could be pretty dangerous with Str/Con, Aggressor and Enrage...but melee already puts out enough burst to kill most people without too much trouble. So it's more "the theoretical max limit just went up" not "omg they can kill people before they fight back now, and have never been able to do that before, ever!"

Is there something I'm missing here?

[Archived Post]

This will not bring down the top end of performance, it will just bring UP the lower end. In fact, it will increase both damage output and survivability for those who already optimized their builds with the old stat setup.

The only way this will negatively effect anyone is if they single statted (like myself) and decide keep their build exactly the same.

Diversifying builds is also debatable - how much diversity will we have when everyone is practically forced to go Dex/xxx just to stay competitive with everyone else? Basically pick any passive you want, pick Dex and an energy management stat (or CON for tanks), snatch a click defense or two(preferably BCR+RR/MD) and you are instant tank-mage.

Well you go with that and we'll see how far you get. I can almost guarantee you it's not going to work out nearly as well as you think it will.

[Archived Post]

Well I'm reassured, thanks Cap and Sage. And yea I think I will probably stay Pre/Int/Con with some End and Rec on the side. Really if Con wasn't needed for Seraphim's heal, it's still good to have. I guess for us using Pre/Int Seraphim we would see a boost to healing power of Seraphim since it won't need Con for that anymore, but that's it.

As for WOTEW post change, probably would still work nicely with Dex/Int. I don't think I will need to change that character that isn't using Ag and Enrage since I use Focus for less stacks to maintain, since I am working toward the crit based Form.

But I am still a bit worried about what Puck's last paragraph says, though. :(

And Sage, how big is the patch up for the Beta, dude? Kinda dreading to ask this. :( Also does it work like PTS where it copies usable files from Live or you need to redownload?

[Archived Post]

Well I'm reassured, thanks Cap and Sage. And yea I think I will probably stay Pre/Int/Con with some End and Rec on the side. Really if Con wasn't needed for Seraphim's heal, it's still good to have. I guess for us using Pre/Int Seraphim we would see a boost to healing power of Seraphim since it won't need Con for that anymore, but that's it.

As for WOTEW post change, probably would still work nicely with Dex/Int. I don't think I will need to change that character that isn't using Ag and Enrage since I use Focus for less stacks to maintain, since I am working toward the crit based Form.

But I am worried about what Puck's last paragraph says, though. :(

Con's still useful for preventing being one-shotted, so yeah. I may retcon my main into a more "healing" based setup and level a new character for all the stuff I really want to use and don't have room for.

I edited my post to respond to Puck's, above.

Throwing in Dex is going to be counter-productive to most builds that don't already have it, unless you're going with something like Str/Con on WotEW. And even then, that's not much worse than Unstoppable.

You'll likely see Con and Int used more, but those are sustainability/survivability stats. They'll make the difference between that healer being one-shotted, or being able to use an active defense more often, but it's not going to be the huge, world-ending change people think it is.

[Archived Post]

I know, and I edited to compensate. :)

I don't think you need to respec per se. It's not like Seraphim is changing much, though. It's just losing it's stat requirements to scale things, but it's still a Support passive and boosts Paranormal and heals, so why respec?

Actually that one is looking to end up Dex/Int/Ego with some Con and Str using Massacre with Form and WOTEW in the current system. I don't think changing it up would really work or even be needed, would it?

[Archived Post]

You guys are putting too much emphasis on people wanting survivability stats like CON or people statting DEX/EGO. None of the experienced users are going to go DEX/EGO - there is no reason to SS EGO unless you are running ego form. Much smarter to build like my last post and go Dex/Energy management or Dex/Con(which is ALSO energy management if you are a defiance tank)

The moral of the story is:
With all the click defenses available, most builds now can just swap their passive scaling stat for Dex, minor in Ego, and be better off then before.

Unless they already have SS CON their hp will be similar, survivability against everything but massive spike damage won't change, and their damage will increase. Seems like an easy choice to make.

I have a PTS xfer of my main using PRE/DEX instead of single statted PRE/some CON(like he is on live), and he actually does almost everything better then my live build. He has a little less hp, but more then makes up for that with click defenses. In fact, he can not only 5-man Hard the battle room in avenger with fiery form and only 200 dex, but absolutely embarrasses it - something my real build has trouble doing since he sacrificed some damage for energy management and HP. Once the changes go live, he will be even stronger since I could push DEX higher without loosing as much base damage on my Fiery Form from lower PRE...and he will have an easy 100 more Dex then he does now. With reverb fueled MRs, MD, and BCR+RR survivability is not an issue - he has turned into a tank. The END management was a bit difficult since dropping my PRE by ~150 cost me quite a bit of TR returns, but that was easily remedied by picking up the Dual Blade focus. Even though the stacks don't boost my damage, they give me 30 END on crits every 4 seconds while TR will probably give around 55 END every 3. My total energy return actually INCREASED from when I was getting massive PRE fuels TR returns :).

See where I am going here? It literally took me 10 minutes to prep my build for SS scaled passives, and in the process made him higher DPS and more survivable at the same time. I didn't even spend any time tweaking talents, and my dex gear consisted of only 3 of the crappy 250pt Nem Vender secondary items for Dex.

While many are hoping this will reign in the top tier of builds, in fact it will do the opposite and allow the build gurus to come up with some truly broken combinations.

[Archived Post]

You guys are putting too much emphasis on people wanting survivability stats like CON or people statting DEX/EGO. None of the experienced users are going to go DEX/EGO - there is no reason to SS EGO unless you are running ego form. Much smarter to build like my last post and go Dex/Energy management or Dex/Con(which is ALSO energy management if you are a defiance tank)

The moral of the story is:
With all the click defenses available, most builds now can just swap their passive scaling stat for Dex, minor in Ego, and be better off then before.

Unless they already have SS CON their hp will be similar, survivability against everything but massive spike damage won't change, and their damage will increase. Seems like an easy choice to make.

I have a PTS xfer of my main using PRE/DEX instead of single statted PRE/some CON(like he is on live), and he actually does almost everything better then my live build. He has a little less hp, but more then makes up for that with click defenses. In fact, he can not only 5-man Hard the battle room in avenger with fiery form and only 200 dex, but absolutely embarrasses it - something my real build has trouble doing since he sacrificed some damage for energy management and HP. Once the changes go live, he will be even stronger since I could push DEX higher without loosing as much base damage on my Fiery Form from lower PRE...and he will have an easy 100 more Dex then he does now. With reverb fueled MRs, MD, and BCR+RR survivability is not an issue - he has turned into a tank. The END management was a bit difficult since dropping my PRE by ~150 cost me quite a bit of TR returns, but that was easily remedied by picking up the Dual Blade focus. Even though the stacks don't boost my damage, they give me 30 END on crits every 4 seconds while TR will probably give around 55 END every 3. My total energy return actually INCREASED from when I was getting massive PRE fuels TR returns :).

See where I am going here? It literally took me 10 minutes to prep my build for SS scaled passives, and in the process made him higher DPS and more survivable at the same time. I didn't even spend any time tweaking talents, and my dex gear consisted of only 3 of the crappy 250pt Nem Vender secondary items for Dex.

While many are hoping this will reign in the top tier of builds, in fact it will do the opposite and allow the build gurus to come up with some truly broken combinations.

Unless of course the devs change the way scaling works while they're rebalancing things. I guess that part eluded you.

But by all means don't let the half dozen of us dissuade you from continuing to show the devs which builds will need to be nerfed before F2P goes live.

Carry on.

[Archived Post]

You guys are putting too much emphasis on people wanting survivability stats like CON or people statting DEX/EGO. None of the experienced users are going to go DEX/EGO - there is no reason to SS EGO unless you are running ego form. Much smarter to build like my last post and go Dex/Energy management or Dex/Con(which is ALSO energy management if you are a defiance tank)

The moral of the story is:
With all the click defenses available, most builds now can just swap their passive scaling stat for Dex, minor in Ego, and be better off then before.

Unless they already have SS CON their hp will be similar, survivability against everything but massive spike damage won't change, and their damage will increase. Seems like an easy choice to make.

I have a PTS xfer of my main using PRE/DEX instead of single statted PRE/some CON(like he is on live), and he actually does almost everything better then my live build. He has a little less hp, but more then makes up for that with click defenses. In fact, he can not only 5-man Hard the battle room in avenger with fiery form and only 200 dex, but absolutely embarrasses it - something my real build has trouble doing since he sacrificed some damage for energy management and HP. Once the changes go live, he will be even stronger since I could push DEX higher without loosing as much base damage on my Fiery Form from lower PRE...and he will have an easy 100 more Dex then he does now. With reverb fueled MRs, MD, and BCR+RR survivability is not an issue - he has turned into a tank. The END management was a bit difficult since dropping my PRE by ~150 cost me quite a bit of TR returns, but that was easily remedied by picking up the Dual Blade focus. Even though the stacks don't boost my damage, they give me 30 END on crits every 4 seconds while TR will probably give around 55 END every 3. My total energy return actually INCREASED from when I was getting massive PRE fuels TR returns :).

See where I am going here? It literally took me 10 minutes to prep my build for SS scaled passives, and in the process made him higher DPS and more survivable at the same time. I didn't even spend any time tweaking talents, and my dex gear consisted of only 3 of the crappy 250pt Nem Vender secondary items for Dex.

While many are hoping this will reign in the top tier of builds, in fact it will do the opposite and allow the build gurus to come up with some truly broken combinations.

But you could do all of that now, if you weren't going with the "I'm going to single-stat" thing. That's what's puzzling me.

I don't see how unhinging Fiery Form from sole-Pre reliance is going to increase your efficiency by an order of magnitude above what's already possible.

It just means that you, with your concept build, have now caught up with some of the lower-tier min/maxers.

How's that a bad thing?

[Archived Post]

Give it a rest guys. You are working on incomplete info.

[Archived Post]

Unless of course the devs change the way scaling works while they're rebalancing things. I guess that part eluded you.

But by all means don't let the half dozen of us dissuade you from continuing to show the devs which builds will need to be nerfed before F2P goes live.

Carry on.
I am going by the facts that the Devs have stated - if you can somehow read their minds and know of any future scaling changing being initiated at the same time, then I am not privy to that information and of course my ideas will not be accurate. Going byt the information we were given though, I can assure you that you havent even begun to see a broken build until this change goes live.

This is not about Fire somehow needing a nerf either(lol?)- Fire is nowhere near as obscene as many other combinations(How many threads are there on Fire being OP?). I can go on and on about broken combos on multiple builds that trivialize any aspect of the game, but that has nothing to do with this thread. This is about the whole SYSTEM being flawed. Nerf everyone? :eek:

You also say Nerf like its a bad thing - I WANT balance for all classes. I was one of the first to report stacking UA, UA scaling with PRE to obscene levels of debuffs, stacking EF, pyre being MUCH too OP, etc. I had a hand in multiple nerfs to my own build. I still don't use fire snake on live because I think its buff stacking is a rediculous and unintended behavior. Not a single one of my builds use Laser Knight either for the same reason. I report bugs and OP combinations and powers as I find them. This is why my Live builds may all be min/maxed, but are still legit builds, while I have a whole page of broken PTS builds that put my live Heros to shame...just Puck has multiple versions of himself that all rock - a Pet Master, a Defile build, a healer, and a crit fire. (PS: You don't want "Defile Puck" to go live :eek:).

To me, building and statting my characters are just as much fun to me as playing them, and I love sqeezing performance out of different sets. It's not like they only effect me, they are global nerfs - give me a template or rule set and I will make a build that will succeed, which is exactly what I plan to do with this patch...without resorting to clearly broken powers or exploits.

[Archived Post]

I am going by the facts that the Devs have stated - if you can somehow read their minds and know of any future scaling changing being initiated at the same time, then I am not privy to that information and of course my ideas will not be accurate. Going byt the information we were given though, I can assure you that you havent even begun to see a broken build until this change goes live.

This is not about Fire somehow needing a nerf either(lol?)- Fire is nowhere near as obscene as many other combinations(How many threads are there on Fire being OP?). I can go on and on about broken combos on multiple builds that trivialize any aspect of the game, but that has nothing to do with this thread. This is about the whole SYSTEM being flawed. Nerf everyone? :eek:

You also say Nerf like its a bad thing - I WANT balance for all classes. I was one of the first to report stacking UA, UA scaling with PRE to obscene levels of debuffs, stacking EF, pyre being MUCH too OP, etc. I had a hand in multiple nerfs to my own build. I still don't use fire snake on live because I think its buff stacking is a rediculous and unintended behavior. Not a single one of my builds use Laser Knight either for the same reason. I report bugs and OP combinations and powers as I find them. This is why my Live builds may all be min/maxed, but are still legit builds, while I have a whole page of broken PTS builds that put my live Heros to shame...just Puck has multiple versions of himself that all rock - a Pet Master, a Defile build, a healer, and a crit fire. (PS: You don't want "Defile Puck" to go live :eek:).

To me, building and statting my characters are just as much fun to me as playing them, and I love sqeezing performance out of different sets. It's not like they only effect me, they are global nerfs - give me a template or rule set and I will make a build that will succeed, which is exactly what I plan to do with this patch...without resorting to clearly broken powers or exploits.

You are working on assumptions that are not correct. We've been telling you this for many many pages. But it's like talking to a brick wall. Some of us do indeed have information that you don't. I'm not exactly sure what else to tell you since you're just ignoring us anyway.

[Archived Post]

But you could do all of that now, if you weren't going with the "I'm going to single-stat" thing. That's what's puzzling me.

I don't see how unhinging Fiery Form from sole-Pre reliance is going to increase your efficiency by an order of magnitude above what's already possible.

It just means that you, with your concept build, have now caught up with some of the lower-tier min/maxers.

How's that a bad thing?
If you attempt to build a balanced Dex fire now, you sacrifice a lot of base damage. Using this system, you will have similar base damage PLUS crits on top of that. That is a whole different ballgame from what we currently have to stat around.

My build already WAS min/maxed. Puck has over 400 PRE and cannot tell the difference between normal and VH. On a PvP spec, 99% of PvE content dies in the first two ticks of conflag, and the T4 PvP crowd can attest to his capabilities. This is with a single statted, well planned build that has been tweaked and optimized since well before release. He is not even built for PvE, but has all the tools to be successful. Do you think giving more freedom of stat choice is going to somehow balance him with the normal builds?? These changes, as explained so far, are going to do the complete opposite of what they are attempting.

If you think allowing all passives to scale from all stats will somehow reel in the top tier, you are sadly mistaken.

[Archived Post]

You are working on assumptions that are not correct. We've been telling you this for many many pages. But it's like talking to a brick wall. Some of us do indeed have information that you don't. I'm not exactly sure what else to tell you since you're just ignoring us anyway.

I don't see anything that Puck has said that's incorrect, and most of what he is saying is general anyway, it is the general disproof of why it is premature for the anti-optimizing crowd to celebrate these changes.

[Archived Post]

If you think allowing all passives to scale from all stats will somehow reel in the top tier, you are sadly mistaken.

For me, at least, I'm looking at it the other way around.

Right off the bat, decoupling passives from specified stats opens up two things I've wanted to make:

An "armored soldier" type using Invuln with Munitions (AR and SMG since you can make them look the same) and Dex/Int. Now, a Dex/Int Munitions character with either Quarry or LR would be "better" here. For either survivability or damage. But shiny, set-damage-reduction (Invuln) is far more appropriate looks-wise than an amorphous glow coupled with another amorphous glow (LR with the BCR it needs to make it useful). And I have dislike for Quarry, despite how good it is.

A clawed melee character with Str/Con, Enrage and Regen. Now it'll work without having to be all awkward and couple Rec with it. "Tankmage"? Probably. But not nearly as bad as Str/Con Defiance with perma-enrage, Imbue, Aggressor and a ton of self-heals.

The "average" performance is going to go up. The "peak" performance is definitely going to change on paper, but I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference in actual use. Especially since most people will probably be doing Archetype PvP anyway (which honestly, I'm looking forward to).

Even with the example you're giving, you've gained a bit of base damage and a bit of survivability, on a build that was already optimized for damage.

Now, if my main, a "healer", could get up to the damage potential of your current build without using Skarn's/Ego Blades? That'd be "broken". But I doubt that's going to happen even if all stat dependencies were removed.

[Archived Post]

Welll then I guess I still have grounds to be worried, but it's probably not gonna matter seeing as how mom just announced she's taking down my internet in the next couple of days so I won't get to test or play for a god long while. :(

I will fight to the death of course. Sorry, I meant end. :rolleyes:

[Archived Post]

Unstoppable should continue to scale only by Strength. Otherwise Strength would only become useful for Enrage. The power should not be influenced by something like Dexterity.

[Archived Post]

Unstoppable should continue to scale only by Strength. Otherwise Strength would only become useful for Enrage. The power should not be influenced by something like Dexterity.

What? Way of the Enlightened Warrior already scales to both DEX and STR, and it's basically the same power, just swap a bit of damage absorb for a bit of dodge. The only real issue I see here is that Unstoppable also gives Knock Resistance to which WotEW has no real parity, but that could be fixed.

[Archived Post]

What? Way of the Enlightened Warrior already scales to both DEX and STR, and it's basically the same power, just swap a bit of damage absorb for a bit of dodge. The only real issue I see here is that Unstoppable also gives Knock Resistance to which WotEW has no real parity, but that could be fixed.
The dodge bonus from WotEW is way more useful than the damage resistance from unstoppable.

[Archived Post]

The dodge bonus from WotEW is way more useful than the damage resistance from unstoppable.

Most definately.

[Archived Post]

Unstoppable is more fun PvE for me. Little peons can't really touch you and you blast them to high heavens. Now if only it had the ability to negate all travel power reduction so i could use it at full superspeed with the "Impact" bonus..

[Archived Post]

Holds are awful and horrible in man-to-man PvP.

I'm occasionally setting up PvP tournaments inside my guild and I try to enroll as many diverse people as possible. Most of them refuse PvP by principle because they did a few BASH tries and have been disgusted by instant deaths. There is a lot to say about it, but holds and hold spam are one of the most common rants I've heard so far.

I'm glad to read that hold spamming will be progressively less efficient, though it could be simply solved by a longer cooldown. 6 seconds (?) cooldown is incredibly short, considering out-of-hold powers need like 1,5 mins!

So far, unless you are SS'ing EGO yourself, there is nothing to counter the annoying ego holds (though others are annoying too). Gear don't really help, and counter-powers have too long cooldowns. That's a problem I'd like to see solved. Even with conventional attacks, letting an opponent spamming holds then putting a few free attacks breaks the balance.

Holds would not be *so* annoying if there were no powers like Dragon Wrath or Claws that just can bypass all your defenses (how convenient, why not going naked then?). Those powers are usually necessary in a duel, but I think the combination with hold should simply be forbidden or strongly discouraged (for instance, setting a hold increases your DW or DC cooldown and conversely). Giving the held person some decent resistance could be considered also: this seems just fair.

So far, DEX/EGO seems the dream archetype, and I fear this won't change. Very hard to hit with dodge, hitting very hard through crits, holding with ego, given nukes like DW or DC, and short cooldowns for the whole lot... The only reason why PvP scene is no longer crowded by those player seems to be that hitting a "WIN" button bored most of them. Of course, I know there are many oddities and OP powers in every build, but most of them can -should- be turned reasonably dangerous once you've found the proper answer.

[Archived Post]

Alright, here is the long version of my post.

Every player has access to the same gear, depending on effort and time spent, so technically, any attribute combination that is reachable in the game now is accessible to all. Making attributes independent from their equipment slots doesn't change this, BUT it messes up the scaling. In the current system, pushing "stat A" lowers your maximum threshold for "stat B" (not by much, but it does). With your suggestion, stat A and stat B's progress are completely unrelated to each other. You basically have 9 slots which can be anything you want.

What? That's totally ridiculous.

I can add tons of dex and ego to my munitions build right now, without ever sacrificing one for the other, ever, because dex can go with offense and defense only, and ego can go with utility only.

And guess what? That is one of the most potent stat combos, so the equip stat restrictions make dex ego even better than the many other stat combos that DO have to mix their stats in the same equips.

What you said is like the opposite of the current situation. Just like the restriction of super stats for passives, such a restriction does nothing for balance, only annoys people, and creates overpowered niches like dex ego while making creative builds impractical.

The only builds I have managed to get to any decent level are dex/ego and str/con, because any other combos I want to try are restricted like mad with their passive choices and sometimes basic powers too, and it becomes hard to have any fun in building when everything I try reinforces that the game is set up for str/con/end and dex/ego/con/end builds. It still will be until they improve other stats, but at least now more powers work with them and can be properly balanced instead of hiding behind a contrived stat barrier.

In fact I am now back to this game entirely because somebody told me about this post in another game's channel (discussion that compared CoH/CO/DCUO due to latters' NDA lift).

The F2P update is fixing 2 of my biggest beefs with the way CO mechanics work (holds ARE confusing) and the reworked summon update was a total win. It's not any exaggeration to say I'm excited about CO now after having pretty much written it off.

[Archived Post]

... not liking passives scaling with SS's...

[Archived Post]

... not liking passives scaling with SS's...

Why not.. as an RPer I love that I can now have my super dodge skills come from my intillect or from my superior ego.

There are still alot of reasons to choose specific stats.

[Archived Post]

Good to hear about fixes, holds, cold snap, etc. Passives scaling with any stat can potentially be OK, but my fear is of the game being "dumbed down" in the sense of removing interesting choices and trade offs. I am all in favor of the game being accessible to learn, I just also want it to have some depth.

Chess would be easier for new players if the pieces could teleport around with fewer constraints, but then the game would lose a lot of its depth for experienced masters.

I may be misunderstanding your post but I honestly believe some of the "interesting choices and trade offs" you were refering to, were Horribly Broken to begin with. There's a severe lack of high lvl ego based characters in the current game because of the current system. Do you figure the game may lose depth by removing the current restrictions on how 'Passives' scale? Because I feel this is simply changing to the way it should have been to begin with. This game will always have a tremendous amount of interesting choices and trade off's regardless. If anything, a game based on 'unlimited' customization can only gain depth by this proposed change. Or perhaps you're refering to the Archetype & Silver membership constraints as the cause for possible loss of depth. I may concer with you on that, if that's the case. Just Imagine if the passives had always been based upon 'chosen Super Stat' scaling, and they were now changing to the current / old system... that would be a Huge Disaster, wouldn't it?!? ;)

SlyDragon
"jus a lil more fun hostility"

[Archived Post]

nonono, this sounds horrible...

especially the hold resistance thing...
holds practically only worked once, and then you had to wait for the resist to wear off...
now (especially with pet builds) you can just spam holds to stop people blocking, you dont even need cirppling challenge... i dont know anything specific, but this strikes me as easily abusable...

the changes to passives are ridiculous aswell... because now, every tank can have CON/PRE... every DPS can hjave DEX/EGO... i mean, you could even use a pure force character with INT/END and use force cascade whenever you want...
this just makes the game easier... and this game is already FAR TOO EASY.

(gigabolt build with CON/INT, Health-on-Kill items + END-on-kill items.)
(regen with CON/PRE, combined with other heals, unkillable.)
(invul for everyone!)
(thats the most i can think of off the top of my head... this also seems easily abusable)

[Archived Post]

Howdy all -

We have some information that will probably help your understanding of why certain passives or Super Stats were chosen for certain Archetypes, even though they currently would not be optimal on Live.

The short of it is - many things have changed. The powers patch note list for Free to Play is... really long. It broke 50,000 characters already, and will keep going up as we continue to work on things toward launch. I'll try to hit a couple of the really big changes here.

1) Almost all Passives now scale with Super Stats. We discussed the best way to address multiple issues with the way Passives currently worked, and one of the things we kept coming back to is that a lot of players don't like being forced into picking specific stats to use a Passive that they want to use, especially when those stats don't work with the way they envision their character. We also run into issues where some Passives are "better" just because of the stat choices that were required to use them. This now allows people to pick the stats that they like for the character they are building. While some people believe this is going to lead to a world of everyone using Dexterity and Ego for all of their characters, we're confident this will not be the case. Many builds rely on various stats, and many work best with more than just your Super Stats maxed out as much possible. Diversifying can actually be very beneficial once the soft-cap on damage from Super Stats kicks in. That being said - we're aware that a direct stat-to-stat comparison is not favorable for certain stats. While we haven't addressed this specific issue yet, it is something we are working toward. This is one of the steps as we move toward it.

2) Crowd Control powers (primarily the various forms of Hold powers) got a pretty large overhaul. This means not only the way holds get applied, but also the way Hold Resistance works. One of the main goals with these changes was to make it much easier to understand how an individual Hold works, and whether or not it was actually going to work on your target.

On Live, many of the holds have variable "Hold Strength" which is a value that is compared to your targets innate Hold Attribute to determine whether or not they are held. If the Hold Strength was larger than their innate Hold Attribute, they got held, for the full duration of the Hold. If the Hold Strength was lower than the Hold Attribute, they would not get held at all. (Things are slightly more complicated than this, especially when stacking Holds, but this is a fairly accurate simplification) It got confusing when Hold Resistance would be applied to a target, and you wouldn't know what Hold Strength was needed to hold the target, and whether or not it was possible to hold them at all. It also meant that if you could hold the target at all, regardless of Hold Resistance on them, it was always a full duration hold.

All Hold powers now apply a consistent Hold Strength to your target (we no longer even display the Hold Strength, as it is no longer a relevant value), making it much easier to know that yes, your Hold is going to work on this critter, because it works on all critters of this rank. Some exceptions may apply for specific bosses that are hold immune/resistant, of course.

Hold Resistance has changed as well. Instead of it providing a negative Hold Attribute, thus making it harder for a Hold to activate on the target, it now provides resistance in the form of reducing the duration of the Hold. For example, if you had a 12 second Hold and use it on a target, the first one would last 12 seconds (not counting reductions from breaking free). They would then get a stack of Hold Resistance. If you applied the same Hold to them again, it would last 6 seconds. A third time, 3 seconds. After 3 stacks of Hold Resistance, the target will be immune to Holds until the Resistance wears off.

There are 2 basic types of Hold in game now - Stuns and Paralyzes. Paralyzes are similar to what you are currently used to; they have a lengthy duration (around 12 seconds) and players can struggle to break free. Stuns are short term Holds (around 3.5 seconds) that you can't struggle out of.

We also made a similar pass on Root, Snare, and Confuse powers, and are still looking at other issues with Knock, Placate, and Disable.

3) A lot of stuff has changed. As I said, we have made many changes to specific powers, and some changes to the way a Framework works/synergizes. A lot of the powers that Archetypes are using have been "reviewed" in a similar way to how we've done previous reviews of Frameworks. Passives have been looked at a lot, and in some cases (Targeting Computer) are almost completely different powers. (For those wondering, MSA is getting a rework as well, but isn't there yet). The functionality of some things that never worked right (Cold Snap) now work. If you see something that seems totally crazy, it may be because the power has changed. It may also be that we're trying things out, which is why we're having a Beta. The Archetype power lists aren't locked into place, though they are the general idea of what we want them to be. As others have realized, we're really trying to make them feel thematically tied together, and to be viable builds for soloing or grouping, not min/maxed to the point that a well built free-form character can be.

I'm going to post up another thread here shortly, that details some of the new powers that are coming for those that are interested. This will include the powers that Archetypes have, as well as some of the others (though not all... some are still being thought out and tested, and may not make it to Live).

Hope this helps clear up some of the confusion all, sorry we didn't get this information out earlier.
-Ame

EDIT: The new powers thread is up: http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?p=1716661

oH, hi tHere, i goT a sUggEstIOn, how about you just.....
...
mAke SOME MORE POWERS? jEez, thought it was the most obvious idea
buT, oH, well.. oH, and
predicting ur questions- bY Add powers i Mean more Power PoiNts/ lvL up, And the actual powers, 2 or 3 for each category. Oh, anD yEah- cAll me a CuST -Addict, but id REALLY want to see some mor cuStOmEd options for supeR powers, rather than just eG. colour.
YoU got the bLade hcoice for swordsman-gReat! Now, similar stuff would be awesome , say, for travel powers- customise thE thIckness of swining rope & itS textures, cHoose acrobatic animations, mAke a cHoice foR the hovEr disc, For gods sake!
Its all aBout experience, cryptic- tHere are some good, and some bad powers out there. AlwAys. no mAter how hard you try to improve it, people will always have more popular powers- sO, it would be awespme if u jUst tried 2 survey, and use the best bits from most popular powers and use them in new/ add tHem to other old powers.

[Archived Post]

oH, hi tHere, i goT a sUggEstIOn, how about you just.....
...
mAke SOME MORE POWERS? jEez, thought it was the most obvious idea
buT, oH, well.. oH, and
predicting ur questions- bY Add powers i Mean more Power PoiNts/ lvL up, And the actual powers, 2 or 3 for each category. Oh, anD yEah- cAll me a CuST -Addict, but id REALLY want to see some mor cuStOmEd options for supeR powers, rather than just eG. colour.
YoU got the bLade hcoice for swordsman-gReat! Now, similar stuff would be awesome , say, for travel powers- customise thE thIckness of swining rope & itS textures, cHoose acrobatic animations, mAke a cHoice foR the hovEr disc, For gods sake!
Its all aBout experience, cryptic- tHere are some good, and some bad powers out there. AlwAys. no mAter how hard you try to improve it, people will always have more popular powers- sO, it would be awespme if u jUst tried 2 survey, and use the best bits from most popular powers and use them in new/ add tHem to other old powers.

If you want to make an honest suggestion, please try to make your post as readable as possible, rather than the opposite. Thanks in advance!