Sylph_Knight

Lies!!


And you'll never have to.

Or should have to, that is...

That was my point exactly.

I'm not against this change for my own sake. I'm rich enough to work around it and capitalize on this scenario. Many of my friends (and easily many other members of this community) are not.

Would you rather be part of the soupy resistance?

That's a pretty straightforward summary of the situation, yes.

In addition, considering no official thread exists regarding complaints about the SBE proc changes to those who spent money on them, all of those here who are telling others to leave this thread and go talk to Black Pebble are behaving no differently than someone telling a homeless person to get off the streets and if they got a problem with their situation to go talk to the president, all the while knowing fully well that neither of those things can be achieved, at best, easily. If this scenario were even a glimmer in Black Pebble's eye, he'd have said something by now and there would be an official topic for that discussion already created. Truth be told, they just want the people with those complaints to leave so they can disperse them enough to get away with doing nothing. So yes, Synapse has nothing to do with the market. But the one who does clearly doesn't care about this situation, largely because caring will only make it far worse.

Sorry, BP - I have nothing against you but it's pretty much a given at this point that I'm not making this up. Clearly it is easier to do nothing and accept future losses by a vocal minority than to draw attention to the matter by getting involved, since most of the players out there don't even know about this, and causing a PR disaster. Yes, I remember Lighthouse. I am only too aware about what kind of a powder keg these scenarios can turn into by acknowledging a concern and, quite honestly, I feel sorry for you because there is no way to be a good guy about it right now.

So if everyone plans on continuing to attack each other, then let's at least be honest about the situation and quit sugar-coating it with falsehoods.

My own position stands - I am going to take advantage of whatever loophole is left unaccounted for in this new system that Synapse is putting together, so I any losses I incur at this point are acceptable. For many others, that is not the case and I sympathize with them.

But due to activation rates never being reduced, Recharge operates on diminishing returns. The net benefit it provides in relation to the chance lost on procs after a certain rate is the main point of contention. The issue at hand is that end-game builds which use a certain amount of global recharge and also carry procs will actually take a blow against their optimization from having Spiritual Alpha. The variables affecting optimization will be drastically altered, forcing several of these players to take a different Alpha to regain optimization. There are casual gamers who simply do not have the time or resources to pursue this option meaningfully.

The baseline for optimization is being radically altered by taking what was once one of the most sought after enhancement types and granting it a level of toxicity against what is considered one of the most efficient methods of boosting damage.

Again, not really my problem - but that's why there are complaints like these. I fully sympathize with them.

I won't argue the case with you since there's clearly no middle-ground to be had in your position, but I will say you have, at best, a very twisted sense of justice.

It's also becoming a pretty well-known fact that the Devs are selling power. Exhibit A.

All you need to understand is this:

Global Recharge bonuses and Hasten = Good
Recharge Enhancements and Alpha slots with Recharge component = Bad

...in so far as the proposed PPM proc formula works, anyway.

So if you use a proc-heavy build with IO set bonuses, don't use Enhancement Boosters on any of the IOs that have a recharge component in your attack powers, and pick as many without the recharge component as possible. Recharge enhancement values (including those from certain trees for the Alpha slot) are toxic towards proc activation rates, but global bonuses and Hasten do not affect them.

If you were like me and used Enhancement Boosters on everything, including the aforementioned enhancements with a recharge component, then buying replacements to capitalize on this formula is going to hurt your virtual (or if you buy replacements from the Paragon Market, your literal) wallet.

Come to think of it, that last bit is almost suspiciously too convenient of an option in addressing this scenario...

I must have missed that part.

But I'm actually not lying - I really can't lose in this scenario. This is very advantageous for me, but wildly expensive for everyone else. Either changes will be made to resolve recharge toxicity or I can take advantage of my massive global recharge buffs and settle on a loss on my Enhancement Boosters to re-purchase key IOs to maximize proc chance with very literally split-second opportunity cost.

The latter option just happens to hurt a lot of people's builds in the process, but being sympathetic wasn't exactly helping my case anyway. If others' end-game builds suffer as a result, then c'est la vie.

Oh. Crap.

Thank you for clarifying.

I am going to have to put down some examples when I get home later to try and make it clear to everyone how troubling this is. Entire percentages for proc activation will be lost for gains that amount to less than a second from recharge enhancements in several powers on a build with very high global recharge rates. I only hope this concern isn't lost on the rest of the community.

Well said.

Also, per my previous post above, I don't currently have the means of verifying whether Recharge buffs provide diminishing returns (as memory fails me at the moment), but if they do, it will mean that those with high Global Recharge benefits will be seeing toxicity in Enhancement Recharge values, which also makes Enhancement Boosted IOs with a Recharge component dangerous to min-maxed builds.

I'm surprised no one else caught this, or maybe I'm just going crazy.

Undoubtedly.

More importantly: I'm at work right now so my access is restricted, but when I get home later I am going to verify whether or not Recharge Speed benefits suffer exponential decreases as more is accumulated (the first +100% gives more of a reduction than the +100% that follows it), seeing how as I don't remember this off-hand.

If this is the case, I cannot stress deeply enough how impacting these changes will affect builds.

First and foremost, it will penalize players with very high global recharge values who used Enhancement Boosters in Enhancements that boost Recharge, because the net benefit from their Recharge Enhancement values will be minimal after 180+%, which is easy to do with set bonuses, Hasten, and one SO Enhancement. In other words, In an attack like Knockout Blow, attempting to add a 30% Recharge Enhancement on a build with roughly 140% global recharge and 60% standard recharge is going to see several points lost on their proc percentage in exchange for a mere .7 or so or a second of additional recharge. This means that Global Recharge benefits still heavily alter min-maxing on builds by rendering Recharge Enhancements toxic in comparison.

I'll elaborate on this further once I have some hard numbers in front of me, but seeing as how I've been -thankfully- wrong about some bad situations quite a bit as of late, maybe I'm getting flustered over nothing. I would actually very much appreciate it if someone could prove this theory wrong.

Fair enough, but what about the use of Enhancement Boosters now coming back to haunt us in regards to Recharge Speed gains that are negligible when stacked with global recharge rates but have an adverse effect on our proc percentages?

After all, recharge speed gains lose benefits exponentially based on the total recharge reduction. That extra 5 or 10% in our power's enhanced values will not afford us but may a .1 second gain because of Enhancement Boosters and slotting (thanks to existing global recharge benefits), but that's going to cost us full percentage points on PPM. In other words, this is punishing end-game players for slotting decisions and for using Enhancement Boosters to squeeze every last microsecond out of a power.

Finally, while this is not a personal problem, there are players out there who are going to have limited funds to go back and retool powers or re-purchase Purple IOs because using Enhancement Boosters to boost Recharge Speed is hurting their proc rates far more than their gaining from the Recharge Speed benefit due to global bonuses. In other words, even though you are removing Global bonuses as a factor, they are still indirectly influencing your proc percentages.

EDIT: I appreciate your feedback on my original post, but I'd -really- like to know your opinion on this part.

EDIT 2: On further observation, I initially believed that recharge speed diminishes in benefit as more are gained. Now I'm trying to figure how those values work out in the first place. All I can find on the subject is this:

Recharge

Maximum
Players and critters have a maximum recharge rate bonus of +400%, which cuts recharge time to 1/5th of normal.

Minimum
Players and critters have a maximum recharge rate penalty of -75%, which increases recharge time to 4x normal.

Penalized for 100%

While the newer formula is more acceptable Synapse, the current PPM rate you're using for powers like Foot Stomp is actually punishing players who use Procs in that power with a 2.2% nerf at higher recharge speeds which are, at best, fractions of a second in some cases. And while not enormous, but when you have 2 procs per power, 2.2% twice over starts stacking up. It also defeats the purpose we had for buying SBE PPMs in the first place.

I still need to sit down and figure out how this is going to affect Knockout Blow. The problem is that most of us use sets like Hecatomb WITHOUT the Damage enhancement because components like Damage/Recharge serve us much better with high-ranking procs like this. A few percentage points switched out on the base Enhancement values won't mean much on a high global-recharge build, but it still requires us to swap enhancements on every power just so we can keep ourselves from losing whole percentages of proc chance in exchange for mere fractions of a second in speed enhancement. This forces an unfair benefit exchange with min-maxers who now have to try and avoid certain recharge caps just so they don't lose percentage points in proc chance in exchange for quarter-second recharge gains, and that's if they even get the choice since most set bonuses rely on you having so many IOs from a set.

Also, this punishes players for taking IO Sets as opposed to just slotting individual Enhancements for Damage, Endurance, and Procs. It also punishes those of us who used Enhancement Boosters on powers that enhance recharge speeds. This is counter-intuitive.

That's a cop-out, Z, and you know it.

*sigh* Whatever. At this point I'm all about damage control. If the modified procs release like this, it's going to be a global nightmare. The modified recharge component is downright sinister, and the only ones who'd be satisfied are the trolls. As such, I'm far more concerned about my performance than a mere $40+.

The variables involved with adjustments based on recharge speed is also... concerning.

Someone brought up an interesting point about now having to adjust recharge speeds to be very precise to maximize proc output, but that can be very easily thrown entirely out of whack in a team environment where recharge speed buffs get thrown around like candy. It's a highly unbalanced variable, and punishes players like myself who take even more recharge speed than my chain calls for to capitalize on my Click utility powers.

Thank you for further clarifying.

Still wondering how this is going to affect the procs on Jab and Haymaker though. I can't imagine a scenario where Jab would even get the baseline 20% from these changes, especially since the SBE procs already offer lower activation rates on Jab than standard IO procs. There would have to be a 20% floor to stabilize it.

Holy crap, I hadn't even thought of that. That's terrible.

I appreciate the breakdown. However, I know I'm going to look stupid for asking this, but please clarify where these values are coming from. The original PPM formula had a baseline of 4 seconds before exceeding standard 20% Proc rates. 6.5 seconds is not a significant improvement from that.

EDIT: I realize that was in comparison to 3ppm as opposed to a 4.5, but that still seems like a pretty big jump.

Look, I don't care that the store-bought IOs I paid for are going to be evenly balanced to in-game IOs as long as I maintain a better advantage than what I had before SBEs.

But then there is THIS:

This PENALIZES EVERY BUILD IN THE GAME WITH HIGH RECHARGE SPEEDS (and some!) that use ANY procs with this change. My Knockout Blow has been reduced to nearly 6.5 seconds - firing off a Purple PPM based on this modified value won't even amount to the EXISTING 33% chance to fire on the standard in-game Hecatomb!

"Small performance hit" my butt!

I didn't throw my money at Paragon Studios to just so they could destroy ALL of my procs, both SBE and IO. I can understand the other changes, but #3 is a global stealth nerf, the likes of which if I've haven't seen since ED.

How could you even suggest this?!

There was also some implications at the time of Executive Meddling, though I don't think that was or ever will be confirmed.

Indeed, the problem was that the Dev team at the time ignored a sizable portion of the establishment to cater towards potential new participants. In Business Economics, I believe they call this "Churn". This gamble didn't work because the changes failed to attract new members to replace the old, even though the instructions they provided for garnering their interest were followed almost to the letter.

But as your entire post laid out, this whole thing was way more complicated than an Us VS Them scenario. PvP has always been a series of complicated problems.

No, that's 23 - if you use the WWII Japanese Zone model.

The jinx has been set! The end is upon us! DOOOOOOM!!!

Seriously, I think we'd go nuts without you Z.

Did anyone ever manage to compile a list of all those threads or the contents of his posts? I'd love to read them all.

I wish they'd quit worrying about all the clipping issues. That cat was already let out of the bag when they gave us the cloaks from the Magic origin pack. Good costume designers can and have found ways around clipping problems to make for some pretty awesome costumes. I'm already considering the options for merging Celestial parts with those heavier Dread Templar components.