Steampunkette

You have made the single most grave error any person could make when making anything CoH based.

You left out Blue Steel.

Of course in this situation Blue Steel would be all the cards if things were to make sense. However I think making him stand for "Strength" would be good enough to appease him.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What I hate about Tanks is they are the ONLY At that adds nothing if you bring in a second one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of the issues Tankers do have, Tanker stacking is one.

If you simply give them extra damage, you potentially boost solo effectiveness, team effectiveness with only one Tanker, and team effectiveness with multiple Tankers (the situation you're trying to solve). Unless Tankers are under performing in the other two areas, the Tank stacking issue should revolve around that one circumstance.


This discussion has given me an idea, though. Hmmm....

[/ QUOTE ]

Does that idea include causing them to have a global damage or end or recharge buff while within 30 feet of other tankers?

'Cause I like that idea.

-Rachel-

Personally, I'm a big fan of dual-speccing (I also never use IOs beyond a proc or two here or there)

I've got a Tri-Form Dual-Speeced PB. The Dwarf build still has Nova in it, but it's unslotted Nova. While the Nova build has Dwarf, just unslotted.

Both share the similarity of the human-side of the build being fairly well rounded, however. =-3

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Brutes and Tanks follow a similar axiom. Tankers have better defenses and more hit-points with, initially, a similar damage output. So in the beginning of a tank/brute standoff the tank would be winning. As the fight progressed, however, the brute's fury would come into play more, balancing the fight out again.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not to mention also that a Brute can be buffed up to the same Def/Res caps as the Tanker while also having a much, much higher damage cap.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which the brute won't be reaching without several different support characters buffing him AND a half a dozen reds to pop.

Count the buffing powers that increase damage in the game. Not a huge number, huh? And even with all of them on your average (Non-Rage Non-Against all Odds) Tanker will not hit his damage cap.

The damage cap is all well and good if you can reach it. Most people won't reach it during normal play.

-Rachel-

Do what I do! Dual-spec your second build to DROP Taunt and shift focus from defenses to damages. If a second tnak hits the team ask if he wants to play tank. Then swap to damage spec. -IF- he goes down, you're still better suited for Aggro and Damage sponging than the scrapper.

-Rachel-

Well.. The Cobalt Constable is a Shield/SS tanker with Tough and soon she'll have weave.

She can one-shot entire groups of enemies with Shield Charge and pop One with the Shield when fighting against incredible odds to hold her own.

I'm sure she couldn't take on 8 man spawns of +2 enemies (she's a bit squishy for that) but I know she can do a 6 man spawn of +1s without popping OWTS.

Thard, my old Invuln.Nrg tanker used to routinely save the entire team because some reckless scrapper would drag all the aggro of a second (sometimes third) group back and I'd just tank it, drop a waken on the support character (presuming we had one) and slowly chew my way through all the enemies until the area was clear enough for people to get up.

A Tanker can be incredibly impressive, if you let it. Cobalt Constable routinely does more damage than the team's Blapper.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just because the game sets you up with some basic outlines doesnt mean you have to follow "the rules"...

Be the character you want to be. Their is NO guideline.

After saying that, I honestly don't understand why anyone would still be hung up on the issue...

/sigh

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. A well Specced Defender can take out an AV. Yes. An Ill/Rad troller can drop AVs like nothing.

That's not what the discussion is about at this point.

-Rachel-

[/ QUOTE ]

That is because people are hung up on extra stuff.


[/ QUOTE ]


No. It's because they are discussing something else.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
Just because the game sets you up with some basic outlines doesnt mean you have to follow "the rules"...

Be the character you want to be. Their is NO guideline.

After saying that, I honestly don't understand why anyone would still be hung up on the issue...

/sigh

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. A well Specced Defender can take out an AV. Yes. An Ill/Rad troller can drop AVs like nothing.

That's not what the discussion is about at this point.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What can you do to the tanker class that will make it more interesting for you and Johnny to play WITHOUT turning it into a Brute, a Scrapper, or a "Perfect" character?

Come up with that and we'll talk about how to make it work in City of Heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

People been discussing mechanics distinct from Scrapper and Brutes for Tankers to allow then more damage (or the equivalent in debuffs) for ages. Starsman just posted one a couple of days ago. It, and also many of them a number of players have agreed, wouldn't be overpowering or result in a "perfect AT" and are at least worthy of trying out.

Here is not the place to discuss them however, but you're welcome to come by next time they come up in the Tanker forum.


.

[/ QUOTE ]

Apparently here -is- the place, if the conversation has come this far along.

The fact of the matter is; You'd have to sacrifice SOME of the Tanker's survivability in order to increase it's damage in order to keep it -balanced- with other classes.

This is why Shield Tankers can do ungodly amounts of damage compared to other tankers. (My Shield/SS can Shield-charge to take out a full spawn of carnies except the Bosses and Lieutenant Strongmen)

But her defenses are lacking compared to other tankers. On-par with a scrapper, almost.

To get something added you've got to expect something be taken away. And in this game? Tankers don't have a lot you can take away.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think If they had a system like Vigilence for tanks it would help. Instead of end reduction though have the tank gain damage strength as his team takes damage.

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought the whole idea of 'the tank' was to hold aggro and keep their teammates from eating damage?

[/ QUOTE ]

The idea of 'the tank' is that it's a tough machine that prowls around the battlefield. It's extremely hard to bring down and its weaponry is devastating.

CoH Tankers are indeed hard to bring down but they aren't really that devastating compared to the other melee ATs.


.

[/ QUOTE ]

A Tank is a weapon of war.

A Tanker is a very large boat usually filled with oil or another liquid that moves very slowly.

Alternatively it's a trailer on the back of a large semi which contains either liquids or gasses.

Tanker. Not Tank.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
200% and No brute is desperately trying to stay alive. You are referencing a Blaster. For solo play a Brute's defence is much like a Scrappers. Any Scrapers here have issues staying alive while solo?

In group play they will start seeing buffs which gives them tanker values. Any tankers here have trouble staying alive in groups? Any brutes in here have trouble building fury in groups when you are the primary target?

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you referring to their CAP or to the amount that they'll normally have whilst solo and not on a tricked out build with IOs?

I was thinking the latter.

A Brute can survive as well as a scrapper, and dish out similar damage (on average) But it doesn't have the same level of defenses a tanker does.

Ultimately the question I have for you is this:

What can you do to the tanker class that will make it more interesting for you and Johnny to play WITHOUT turning it into a Brute, a Scrapper, or a "Perfect" character?

And when I say "Perfect" character I'm not referring to perfect for it's role, or concept. I mean to say a Tankmage with abject pwnage, no weaknesses or shortcomings, and balanced against the other archetypes to avoid a mass migration to the new tanker AT.

Come up with that and we'll talk about how to make it work in City of Heroes.
-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Are you grossly ignorant of the survivability differences between tankers and brutes, or do you just want people to think you are?

[/ QUOTE ]

The survivability difference between Tankers and Brutes or between Tankers and Scrappers derived just from their defensive sets is not insignificant.

However, that is not the totality of survivability a melee character has. There's lot of mitigation loaded into the melee offensive sets. The mitigation value from powers like KO Blow, Air Superioritry and Foot Stomp is astounding and a Brute gets the same amount of it from them as a Tanker does. Not to mention powers like Invoke Panic. Then factor in that with more damage, often they have to face enemies for a shorter amount of time, meaning the enemies don't get a chance to expend as much damage or stack as many debuffs.

Yes, there is a gap between Tanker and Brute(or Scrapper) defensive sets, but with so much survivability coming from other sources, their actual compared survivability is much closer than that gap would suggest. That actual gap, in my opinion, is much smaller than the damage gap between Tankers and Scrappers or Brutes, and that seems unfair to me.


.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meanwhile a tanker doesn't have to take invoke panic, air superiority, and other pool powers to maintain the same survivability as a brute that does take them. Instead of spending time and endurance activating those powers, he can instead swing and hit his enemies, mitigating some of the damage cap difference between tankers and Brutes...

Assuming of course the brute has his fury at full it's a, what, 100% damage bonus? Or is it at 120 or somesuch?

Meanwhile a Brute's base damage is lower than a tankers. And his base defenses are lower as well.

It's only through fury, outside buffs, and pool powers that a brute becomes as sturdy as a tanker. Otherwise he's just trying, desperately, to hit things hard enough to put them down before he is put down.

-Rachel-

Ohhhh... More polite. So... Golf Clapping? Discussing the absurdity of decisions and telling people that making sound business decisions based on previous titles would be more or less polite than what I said?

I'd still like my answers, Mr. Butane. Or at least responses to the points I've made.

-Rachel-

Now how about addressing my concerns, Johnny?

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with many of the points made in the article. It sums up nicely part my issue with Tankers in CoH and illustrates the cause of it.

The developers trying to play up to an forced, artificial convention of traditional MMOs, took a character archetype that when going off of expectations from comics, PnP games and other media, should have had amazing offensive potential, and transformed them into mediocre damage dealing decoys.

I've spent two and a half years trying to make the developers recognise this mistake and make reparations to it.

This is is an excellent paragraph from the closing of the article:

[ QUOTE ]
Players want to feel like heroes, not fragile rag dolls; by imbuing all characters with greater survivability, granting players a host of abilities to protect their friends and allies, and moving towards a more tactical system of combat, MMO players will all be empowered to face more challenges, and will no longer be reliant on a single tank to soak up all the hurt.


[/ QUOTE ]

The flipside to that is making tanks(Tankers) feel more like heroes (or in our case super heroes) by not gimping their offensive abilities and flying in the face of the AT's conceptual roots just to serve this absurd trinity.

CoV was a move away from the trinity, seeing more hybrid ATs that were individually stronger. The problem there, was that the content for teams was identical to CoH's and thus catered to the trinity style of play. There we come to the notion that CoV ATs don't team well. And that's true. There's many conflicts and some of the villain ATs don't mesh in a team situation as well as they could.

So, red side represents progress made on the AT end of things, but the team content never adapted and also the team dynamic was far from optimal.

I look forward to future super hero MMOs where the roles are more loose and you can switch them as the situation demands. Both of the upcomming games allow you to switch from tank to DPS on the fly for example. I look forward to seeing how that works out.

Nothing would make me happier for upcomming games to do well and demonstrate how backwards and idiotic the trinity is, how outdated and foolish CoX's AT and power system is for still trying to play up to it and how CoX's devs fail for not trying to advance beyond it any further and for keeping some ATs slaves to the trinity.
.

[/ QUOTE ]


This entire post is a series of logical fallacies.

Tankers are not all about damage dealing. They're all about taking hits constantly. Just because you happen to think "Superman" when you think of a Tanker doesn't make him a tank. Superman is a Super-strength Scrapper with SR, Invulnerability, Fly, Superspeed, Superjump, The Body Mastery Epic Pool, and a buttload of useless pool-powers (Super Ventriloquism, anyone?)

To expect a game to let you create and play the "Perfect" character is silly. You'd get bored within the hour and give up on the game. This is why every "Superman" game that's ever been released has sucked. They try to avoid "God Mode" but with superman there really isn't another mode.

You've spent two and a half years trying to force your philosophy on others.

Please, by all means, enlighten me as to a method to ensure all archetypes are well-played if a single archetype has as much or more damage than a scrapper and all the survivability of a tanker. How much of a buff would you have to give the other archetypes AND the villains to keep the game both fair and challenging? You can't? How shocking!

As for the Villains not teaming well, or being a "Break" from the trinity? You're just being silly, now.

Villains aren't team-oriented, generally speaking. those who -do- work on teams together have obvious and exploitable weak-points so that a hero or team of heroes can defeat them. However in a one-on-one fight a villain should have an almost equal chance of success against a hero.

Scrapper versus stalker. If the stalker doesn't flee after the AS then the match -should- be fairly even. The scrapper took a LOT of damage, but their overall damage output -is- comparable (especially with placate and a second assassin strike) And the Stalker has only slightly weaker defenses than the Scrapper. Functionally they fill the same role (Melee burst damage and possible off-tank)

Brutes and Tanks follow a similar axiom. Tankers have better defenses and more hit-points with, initially, a similar damage output. So in the beginning of a tank/brute standoff the tank would be winning. As the fight progressed, however, the brute's fury would come into play more, balancing the fight out again.

You can do this with -every- class, excepts Dominators. (Corruptor/Defender, Blaster/Mastermind) Dominators and Controllers have a Binary system of "I Win" in their ability to hold their foe. Which makes it a "Who strikes first" victory.

And finally, your assertation that "Open" archetypes will be the ultimate saving grace of MMOs.

Having worked on the core systems of an MMO, myself, it's difficult to balance enemies versus each of the archetypes to make the fights challenging without being one-sided in either direction. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to try and develop challenging (but not one-sided) encounters in a system wherein the most important variables (The player character's abilities) are unknowable?

How do you balance X versus N when you've no idea what X -or- N are? You don't. You make N a random number or an educated guess and you hope for the best.

Class systems are a strong way to balance and define abilities. Avoiding the Holy Trinity has nothing to do with getting rid of classes. And you're just deluding yourself if you think it will.

-Rachel-

Another one.

Cut and Paste your latest argument and take it to the Clockwork Symphony forums for 3 days, then return to the City boards when they launch, copy and pasting the conversation between the two locations.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
3. We have I16 just around the corner with long demanded features, and Going Rogue is another coming attraction that will be introducing new zones, new content, new AT's.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's wait on some actual evidence of the new AT(s), huh?

[ QUOTE ]
4. Villains will be getting access to 30+ zones when Going Rogue is released.

[/ QUOTE ]

This statement is patently disingenuous. Villains are not getting access to 30+ zones with Going Rogue. Reformed villains are.

[/ QUOTE ]

The latter statement isn't wholly true! Heroes who have fallen are villains, and can go to those zones. Making them zones for villains! =-3

Also, I think it won't matter which side you're on. Going to Praetoria will probably be open to any character and it's -there- that you can reform or fall, if you choose.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
It becomes active only after you level up. It can only be used once each time you level. You would have to wait to level again before power became active again. It would be a use it or lose it deal like the Freespecs, you can have it active only once.

Perhaps they can put this in a Booster Pack or (unlikely) a Vet Power award.

[/ QUOTE ]

Use the Pocket D VIP Pass and talk to War Witch.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In short: Ignore people who post pointlessly on the pointlessness of posting pointless threads while attempting to make a point that the points you're making are pointless. They don't understand how posting works.

-Rachel-

[/ QUOTE ]

If I was a sig-quoting kinda person, that would totally be in my sig.

[/ QUOTE ]

*takes a bow*
-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So the time investiture really isn't much of an argument if you ask me. So A and C in Billz' list are pointless. Leaving only B: The Antisocial player.

[/ QUOTE ]
Also D: The player who wants the full story, and to take it at his/her own pace.

Putting together a team of 8 people to do a TF may not be that difficult. Putting together a team of 8 people who don't want to speed run it is difficult.

I like TFs - there's a lot of good stuff in them - interesting stories, unique maps, encounters and enemies. I'm just tired of going to the Wiki following a TF to find out what I just did.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point made, Legree. And I agree.

-Rachel-

People do realize they can set TFs up in advance, right?

You oculd get together with a group, do half the TF one day and the other half the next, if you're strapped for time. Heck! You could do the other half 3 weeks later, if you wanted.

So the time investiture really isn't much of an argument if you ask me. So A and C in Billz' list are pointless. Leaving only B: The Antisocial player. And really, there's nothing anyone can say or do to make the antisocial player drop his limitless case that all content must be soloable. Why? Because it's not his problem if nothing in the game is team oriented. It -is- his problem if something in the game is team oriented.

-Rachel-

Number two would be fantastic. Number one, however, would lead to epic failure.

Screenshots are nothing more than jpegs with specific filenames. Someone could put a picture of Adolf Hitler into their screenshot folder, rename it, and have a little memorial shrine in your SG base.

Is that what you want?!

-Rachel-

I'd have to say that Heroside the "Worst Zones" are Indy port and Boomtown. I agree fully that Boomtown should be revamped into a runing gunfight between the Column and the Council. There's really nothing that can be done about Indy port, it's just -too- big! Though I'd -love- to see the Devs expand it further. Downward. Once swimming is in the game I'd love to have a downward zone-expansion into the bay to fight Lusca underwater and try to stop Corallax invasions.

Villainside? Grandville. I love Nerva's wild-jungle feel as you head to the northern islands with waterfalls and forests standing high on rocky cliff-faces. In St. Martial I love the bright and shiny casino districts surrounded by tenements. Sharkhead's got the great feel of a huge labor-intensive mining operation and oppression that I can't help but want to stop (so I fight Cage, all the time!). Mercy's not that good in my opinion.... Poakes has nice scenery in Marconeville. Cap Au has the Gremlins and Aeon. Those two things alone make it win.

So yeah. Boomtown and Indy. Mercy and Grandville.

-Rachel-

P_P? You do realize that some players (Turgency, for example) -really- like KR?

You do realize that there are SGs in the game like the King's Row Avengers, the Paragon Protectorate (of Pinnacle), and the KRPD Special powers Division who all use KR as their base of operations because they love the zone so much?

Just checking... To the Suggestion: An emphatic no.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
Out of all of the content in the game, the task forces and strike forces stand out as special because of the requirements of them. It's generally understood by most people that it takes some time and effort to put together the team, and there's generally dedication on the team to stick with it because of the extra work involved in getting the team together.

There's more commitment amongst the teammates to see it through.

Taking away those elements makes it not much different than any other radio mission or story arc and they'll get treated as such by the playerbase. The game should have special content with higher requirements just for teams. These missions are the only ones that fill that role. Remove those requirements and there will be nothing designed for teams any more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Therein lies the issue of the solo mindset.

They don't care. They don't care if there's nothing in the game that can't be soloed. They -want- to solo it. They don't want teams so they don't want team oriented content. Appealing to the side that accept there's stuff in a game which encourages teaming is a waste of time. It's not their playstyle so why should they care?

-Rachel-