Eldagore

Not so weird when taken in context with the rest of my post.

Comicsluvr elaborates a bit 2 posts after yours so i dont feel the need to. Suffice to say, I find the "not noticing" concept as a whole to be a good thing- but you should still notice, just a little, that the team dynamic has changed.

here here!!

To narrow. I pay a sub yet, and the SSA's are one of the carrots that get waved in front of me to continue that sub. While it seems more and more (on the forums anyway) that IO's and MAXIMUM POWAH are the goals of the game for the players, I am confident that there are countless players that play for the exploration, storytelling, and other fun things that the game was founded on.

That said, I agree the price tag is too high in the store. I am sure it is commensurate with production costs somehow- but I doubt it is directly tied to cost, but more of a market research thing where they decided long term that is the price point needed to make the amount of money they wanted on the venture. Especially considering it is bound to go on sale eventually(read, when the next SSA comes about). Also, as a "first time" type experiment, it is obviously better to overprice it, then reduce cost after evaluation then underprice it, and then raise the price later(read, piss off a lot of customers) or otherwise miss out on potential earnings by undershooting the initial price.

i am sure that the next SSA will benefit from the data collected from this SSA in both development and marketing.

Here is a copypasta of my post from page 2 of this very thread. LOL, it reminds me very much of my comments to Arcanaville in the snipe thread. Way to go Arcana! You fixed it again!! hahaha

From page 2:
IMO, mez protection for blasters needs a mega overhaul, to the point all the current inherent mechanics go out the window and something new comes into play. Just what that is is obviously a much contested issue.

that being said, if we come to find ourselves totally unable to remove our thought patterns from 7 years of history and simply cant think of a better way to do things then defiance, some other things should occur. if we remain true to the "use these 3 attacks while mezzed" idea, then IMO we should be allowed an immense increase in allowable custimization of the 3 powers we come to rely on so heavily. if, solo, i am to remain locked into a power bolt-power blast-power bolt-power blast-etc themed attack chain due to inherent mechanics, then I think i should be able to customize more then color on these powers.

Tier one and two blasts do not grow enough with the character. Certainly, enhancment slotting grows them for a while, but as a character approaches lvl 25 or so, the powers are basically peaked out. Some alteration to function can be achieved with set bonuses, like excessive rech bonus or the like, but even this does not alter the animation times or rooting times or secondary effects.

Maybe those things should change as level increases. maybe animation time should slowly reduce for tier one and two attacks on blasters so that when mez becomes so common, you have grown those powers to compensate. maybe while defiance is in effect under mez, secondary effects of those powers should be magnified, or made 100% chance. More secondary dot dmg for fire, 100% chance of knockback for nrg blast, greatly increase endo drain/transfer on elec blast, etc. More effects, and animation time reductions. The higher level you get, the more important position becomes to survival, and reduction of cast time and root time would accomdate this.


basically, if the blaster AT stays the course on defiance/mez, then the blaster AT really should allow the tier one and two powers to grow to a power peak that is significantly higher then current, and significantly higher then other AT tier one and two comparitively as the other AT are not so heavily reliant on those powers.

End copy.


It's almost like I suggested the tier one and two attacks get better chance of their secondary effects(based on the set they are in) and are improved to help blasters win in a mez state, and also improve the defiance blasts in other ways as the character lvls up to help the blaster stay on top of their game instead of slowly becoming weaker in those situations as level iincreases. /sarcasm

I made a related post over in the dmage modifier blaster issue thread.

basically, it is my opinion that rooting times are not weighted properly in the balance of damage output for the blaster AT. I am not going to copypasta the whole thing here, but it does also have ramifications for mez and survivability. Being able to "kite" more effectively/easily would have definate impact on survivability for the AT.

About that, the beam rifle snipe. i think it is really odd how they designed that power. I draw two conclusions, niether of which may be true of course...

First- perhaps the dev team simply does not understand how players want to use snipes, or how they are being used in play. beam rifle snipe has that spread effect, but it outranges the other powers of the set, including disintegrate. so, one could presume the intended use is actually in combat- such that the effect can actually be used which totally goes against common use in actual play.

OR

second- the devs already have some kind of idea on how they want snipes to work in the future, and designed this power ahaed of these changes so when they do come about, the power will already be designed to work correctly with the spread effect.

Only time will tell which theory holds any water, or of course perhaps neither does.

Certainly not. I was just commenting on our culture where self promotion is so ingrained that it holds back improvment. Would it really be so hard to acknowledge "hey this guy had this great idea"?

99% of the time, the answer is yes, it is too hard because said person is not self, and self is always more important then the end results. if there is nothing in it to gain for self, then there is little point in "revealing" an idea.

I have been forced to live this culture in real life to many times to count. However, this is just a stupid video game, so i honestly do not care who takes credit for my ideas. I am simply pleased when an improvment based on them makes it into the game I enjoy. So, even in this instance, there is somthing in it for me in the end result.

So, feel free to "steal" my ideas. So long as it makes it into the game for me to enjoy I really do not care.

lol. I dont care. if I have learned anything in life, it is that none of my ideas are actually my idea because I am not in a position where my voice is loud enough to hear, and the human race in general is to competitive and selfish to actually allow for any type of true collective think tank to reach it's potential. Such is why change and improvment takes so long.

IMO of course...

No. The damage of the attack powers is sufficient to feel powerful as a blaster. However, the damage is delivered too slowly, both in terms of animation time(mostly) and also as a function of rooting...i will explain.

A blaster will have a very hard go of it if (solo mostly, which seems to be most of the focus in these discussions of late) if they "plant" themselves and attack nonstop. As the animation times appear (IMO) to be "balanced" around attack chain times, stopping to move will significantly lower DPS output. So, the player must choose- move and lose significant DPS(makes leveling slower) or stay planted to achive max DPS, but watch in horror as your foes close in to smash your head in. Scrapper comparison: movement will decrease DPS also, HOWEVER it is a fundamental AI mechanic that the foes will come to you, so much so that this DPS deminishing effect is almost wholly countered.

it could be argues that mellee attacks in general will dole out more dmg to those foes that do close on the blaster, however my gut feeling is that as a general forum consensus, the melee dmg does not compensate for the amount of punishment potential there for being in a more dangerous situation.

So, for the question or MOAR DMG? The answer is in two parts-
One, the rooting effect has never been properly calculated or applied when considering balance for ranged attack animation times- moving can significantly reduce a blasters dmg output.
Second, the secondary sets, while most provide for some reactive "higher DPS", it is not commensorate with the risk for the blaster in close combat.


Moreover: I have brought this up before but- secondary sets for blasters totally contradict what some developers have been saying for years- that range is defense. Explaination: for years we have been told that melee AT's get mez protection, def and res, you know, armor sets because of the mush higher risk of melee combat. Yet, when looking at a blaster secondary: the melee combat oriented secondary sets offer little or no counter to the increased threat of melee combat. if an invuln scrapper gets temp invuln and unyeilding to counter their risk of close combat, what does the /dark blaster get for the same? It is an inherent design flaw that flys in the face of the developer mantra of range=defense and melee AT need armor sets to balance the risk.

Of course the blaster secondary conundrum is likely a discussion for a different thread as it is only partially related to dmg modifiers.