Hrm.
Okay, I support the goals of (a) diversitying what paths folks take in developing their powers, and (b) how different folks tune up their powers to do different things. So I’ve long been vaguely sorry that too many builds end up looking very similar, and that though many powers are open to a variety of enhancements, the enhancements actually taken by most folks tend to be fairly limited.
The answer to this would seem to be to increase the number of powers and increase what different, less-used enhancements do in order to make them more valuable.
The Devs, it seems, have a different idea: Enhancement Diversification. Which sounds like the right name, but is more of an “affirmative action” than a reduction of barriers to taking a variety of enhancements.
This is a new system being implemented into City of Villains and City of Heroes (when City of Villains launches) to promote the use of more different types of Enhancements in powers. Using a system of diminishing returns, when slotting the same type of Enhancement into a power, you will begin to see less effect of that Enhancement when the bonus reaches a certain threshold. The effectiveness of Enhancements you are slotting in can now be seen in the Enhancement Slotting screen.
What does this mean? Simply, if you are slotting Enhancements and your bonus to a single attribute reaches 70% through Enhancements, you will begin to see a drop in the amount each Enhancement should be giving you. If you exceed 100% bonus, then the drop will be more severe. We have added to the Enhancement Slotting screen a display of how much bonus you are getting from your Enhancements. When you are adding in Enhancements that will be reduced in effectiveness you will be able to tell.
Note that this only affects Enhancements of the same bonus. So you can have a Damage bonus of 66.66%, and an Accuracy bonus of 66.66% (from 2 SO Damage and 2 SO Accuracy Enhancements) and you will not be affected in any way. Adding in another SO Damage Enhancement will not give you a 99% bonus, but a 94% bonus, because the damage bonus now exceeds 70%.
A good rule of thumb is “2 Single Origins Enhancements = No Reduction. 3 SO’s = Slight Reduction. 4 SO’s = Moderate Reduction. 5 or 6 SO’s = Major Reduction”
Maxing DOs will give you 95% increase (rather than 100%) for 6 DOs.
So an initial read of this makes it sound like the “Perma-Hasten” of 6 SOs to Hasten … will no longer be possible? Or “Perma-DullPain”? And, of couse, it’s nice that I’ll be encouraged to use those extra slots on Stamina to improve my other powers, but it’s a shame that I’ll run short of breath sooner.
Unless, of course, base effectiveness of all these powers is increased. Of which there’s no word, but that would certainly make this feel better (i.e., less room for improvement, but a higher foundation to build on).
Apparently all internal QA and playtesting has been using this system since 3/2005, so they’re pretty convinced that this is nothing “new.” Which may explain why some of the complained-of I4/I5 changes were not seen the same way by them as by “us.”
Will a new free respec be given for this? Given that it may encourage folks to seriously want to redo either their powers or, more likely, their slotting …
There will be a modification to the Enhancement screen that shows the percentage effectiveness being attained at any given level, so folks will get a better feel for this. (Note that this seems to be an exception, albeit a critical one, to the Devs resistance of making this “City of Numbers.”). And, to that end:
Schedule A Enhancements (33.33%, 16.66%, 8.35%) are:
Accuracy, Confuse, Damage, Defense DeBuff, Drain Endurance, Endurance Discount, Fear, Fly, Heal, Hold, Immobilize, Intangible, Jump, Recharge, Recovery, Run, Sleep, Snare, Stun, Taunt, To Hit Debuff
These bonus types start to see reduction when the bonus is 70% or more, and a severe reduction at 100% bonus or greater.
Schedule B Enhancements (20%, 10%, 5%) are:
Range, Defense Buff, Resist Damage, To Hit Buff
These bonus types start to see reduction when the bonus is 40% or more, and a severe reduction at 60% bonus or greater.
Schedule C Enhancements (40%, 20%, 10%) are:
Interrupt
This bonus type starts to see reduction when the bonus is 80% or more, and a severe reduction at 120% bonus or greater.
Schedule D Enhancements (60%, 30%, 15%) are:
Knockback
This bonus type starts to see reduction when the bonus is 120% or more, and a severe reduction at 180% bonus or greater
I don’t necessarily think this is a bad idea per se — the goal (more diverse heroes) is a good one. But the means — restricting (effectively) what you can do with your hero, as well as reducing the overall value of enhancements (“nerfing”) — strikes me as … not productive. As someone noted, this sort of diversity is possible today, it’s just not incented. So what you should be doing is incenting this, as opposed to disincenting the opposite. The ends may work out the same, but the feel turns out very different, nefty badness aside.
To further clarify, reading through the 77 pages (so far) on this thread, I am not the sort of person to personalize this and assume that the Devs are bizarrely out to laugh at us, make us cry, and/or steal our money. Well, the latter, perhaps, by making a “good” game that people will want to persistently play.
That said, I’m not surprised there are some further fundamental changes like this happening tied to CoV, since there will be interaction between it and CoH (much driven by PvP, but much driven by, well, it’s all on the same servers and probably uses much the same code).
That said, this is change seems:
a. Poorly thought out. The Devs seem always, always more interested in pulling powers/abilities back than pushing them out there. Granted, making things more powerful has possible unbalancing issues, and you hate to give and then take away. But when things feel like a constant take away …
b. Badly communicated. Evidently CuppaJo pulled teeth to get this announced when it was. That’s a huge problem. The other part of it is that the communication itself is lengthy but not good fully informative. Folks want numbers, and they want examples. So, e.g., what is this going to mean to Hasten/DP/Stamina? And how does this result sit with the Devs?
The result of (b) is that people *guess* at numbers, or *try to test* the numbers out, and cries of DOOOOOOM resound. And because they don’t get communicated effectively up front, people then turn around and assume that they are being neglected, intentionally screwed, or that the worst-case scenarios are, in fact, true.
The other aspect of this is that folks hate change — and, frankly, from I4 to I5 to the CoV release/ED we have just too many changes coming too quickly. Even if they were all fluffy-bunny and sunny-sky changes, folks would be justifiably griping.
Yes….the idiot Lupun logged on late saturday with anguished cries of DOOOOOOOOOooooooooooom.
Bah!
Since I am not a power gamer and never have been (ask Doyce or Randy about my builds for the FtF games), this will only effect Stamina and Health slotting and I will have to see what happens before I decide to repec them.
So far for me…everything the Devs have done in the game has been a good thing.
Gotta agree with Dude, as much as I can. I don’t really understand a lot of these posts. My eyes glaze over when people start talking about percentages and stuff like that, but what I *thought* I understood was that you can still put something like 4 or more enhancements of the smae kind in a power, and it’s just that instead of each one increasing the power’s effectiveness by a set percentage, at a certain level, the percentages get smaller? Is that right? So, you can still do it, just, instead of something jumping to 85% on the 4th enhancement, it goes to 80% instead? I may have this all wrong, but I guess I’m gonna go with a big ole shrug.
I didn’t understand it before, and I’m not sure I understand it now, so from my perspective — nothing’s changed!
I caught Lupin at the end of the evening kvetching about it, and had no idea what he was talking about. I know Margie wasn’t particularly happy when she finished reviewing the thread, and she’s enough of a numbers person for me to trust her opinion.
Part of the problem is that nobody has solid numbers to work with — the percentages talked about in the thread (from what I read — about five of the seventy-odd pages) are guesswork.
The biggest change to most folks may be the end of perma-Hasten — which may or may not have been a good thing to add to the game but which, once there, is a bad thing to lose. Ditto for the running-out-of-breath in Stamina, etc.
Given history, yes, people will adjust (as they have to I5, as predicted). And the results will be nowhere near as catalysmic or apocalyptic as the DOOOOMsayers have it. But, still, it’s conceptually not well done (in and of itself), and not well communicated.
Aha!
All powers will get a 13% endurance reduction. Which addresses, probably, the stamina bit.
Now, just increase the base damage/resist/defense and decrease the base attack rate for everything, and we’ll call it golden and well done.
(I pity the fist that this and the Defense category changes must be causeing the CoH Planner folks.)
Thanks for your news! My company blocks most website so your the only news I get at work!
For me, half of the fun in COH is figuring out the best way to develop a unique character. This is another twist but to me part of the fun.
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I have no problems with creation of unique heroes (as noted above). I think this particular scheme, though, was ill-considered in how they went about it, and in how they let folks know about it.
And, in the previous comment of mine … that should be “fits,” not “fist.” And, um, other typos. Jeez, that’ll teach me to comment quickly before heading out the door.
Clearly the forum-breaking kerfuffle over this causing consternation, since States himself has come out with a statement.
Basic “we didn’t change powers, we changed enhancements” and “hopefully this is the last fundamental shift” sort of thing one would expect (and, depending on your perspective, possibly quite sincere).
One interesting item: not only are the endurance costs being reduced (as noted above, though States says 12%), but the the debt cap is being cut in half.
So when you die a bunch due to I6 (which I guess this is) changes, it will only hurt so much …
Statesman opines that the advantage here for things like Hasten which gravitate toward a single enhancement type is that it will free up enhancement slots for other powers …
… and then notes, almost without catching a breath, that powers impacted by loss of perma-Hasten could use some recharge enhancement slots.
Hrm. The Devs giveth, and …
Stateman also suggests that:
We feel that the game ends up being more fun – players will learn the benefits of other types of Enhancements.
I note that a lot of folks have actually gone to perma-Hasten to reduce the number of recharge enhancements needed for their powers. Myself, in some cases, for example. So, regardless, we’re going have have more down time between battles, while folks wait for, say, Hasten to come up (and other powers recharge faster under Hasten).
And, as others have pointed out, the big advantage is a reduction in down time. Being able to trot from encounter to encounter, and wait only for everyone to get down the corridor or identify the best tactics for an encounter, is fun.
Waiting for for everyone’s powers to be ready for the next encounter is not fun. Nor is dying because you got impatient and started the combat rather than waiting for one more person’s powers/buffs/auras/armor/heals to recycle.
Not fun.
States is also surprised about the criticism that enhancements other than the “Big 10” aren’t always available at all stores.
ALL Enhancements are available through Contacts…are you suggesting putting them in the store? The only reason why we didn’t, originally, was to prevent the nightmare of scrolling through hundreds of Enhancements…
Um … yes, I’d suggest that. If they’re manageable through Contacts, they should be good through Stores. If they’re now the “fun” part of the game, they should be as ubiquitous as possible.
Frankly, I wouldn’t at all mind seeing a better interface to the enhancement purchase process. Rather than a scrollable screen, why not a single full-screen setup (akin to the manage screen), with the available levels showing up next to the power names rather than repeating each row. It could all easily be put on a single screen and make it a much easier process.
(Of course, I wouldn’t mind seeing the origin-centric funky names getting dropped, too, but I realize someone must like that “color.”)
We shall see.
And then there’s the TV commercial …