I just thought of this, so while it's fresh in my mind here it is:
In my Pathfinder campaign, it's pretty well known that the Cleric actually ends up casting FEWER healing spells if he takes the "Healing" domain as a sub-specialty. This is because the "Healing Cleric" get's a bonus to the heals he performs per heal spell, as as such since you're doing more healing per spell, you have to use fewer spells per day on healing and can use your daily allotment for other things.
So being "efficient" in a particular area means not having to devote as much space to it in your spells-per-day list, which is good.
If you apply this idea to toons in CoX-like games, what it would have you expecting is something like this:
The Tanker doesn't need to take MANY resistance and defense powers, because the FEW she has are very efficient, which frees her up to take more other types of powers. This is the advantage of being a tanker, you get a higher resistance hard cap and you get to it with less effort than the rest of the tooniverse.
Does this work? Are the specifications/classifications etc in CoT going to be anything like this, or am I trying to apply this to broadly?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Would that be similar to getting Bonuses from IO Sets? ..and not having to take Tough from the power pool?
I think its too vague to be applied.
For example we know that the idea currently is that Stalwarts will have the highest Protection Caps (Def/Res/Absorb/etc) than any other Class.
I would ASSUME that the powers themselves will also have higher base numbers than Enforcers or Gunners - for example:
T1 Def
Stalwart: 18% Base
Enforcer: 15% Base
Gunner: 12% Base
This allows for Stalwarts to not only be more survivable out of the gate than Enforcers or Gunners but will also allow them to get higher totals. BUT it doesn't guarantee that a Stalwart will be able to HIT those caps just by slotting what becomes the accepted 'efficient slotting rules' - ie: After ED was introduced most Protection Toggles were allocated 3x Def/Res + 1x EndRed. The 3 Def/Res got you to over ED but not so much that you wasted any extra slots.
If there is no ED will the Stalwart be able to hit the caps just by taking the Powers from its Primary (Protection) if you slot enough DefRes/etc enhancements? Will you need to slot 5 enh out of the (assumed) 6 slots you MAY have?
Is it worthwhile spending 6 slots per Toggle to get to/close to the cap versus taking a Tertiary Power and putting some slots in both?
Also as Izzy pointed out what about IO Set bonuses. Not everyone used these but for those that did it could make a HUGE improvement to your character and I LOVED planning my builds in Mids with IO's. I even loved in a perverse kind of way the Rule of 5.
Now there is a discussion to be had about allowing Stalwarts to hit cap with normal Enh slotting (whether you need to saturate your Protection powers with slots, leaving less for attacks or not) thereby allowing you to use IO Set bonuses for non-Protection reasons.
Same with the Primary Damage classes. If they can hit VERY hard all on their own with normal/saturated slotting they can use IO Set bonses for other reasons (Protection/CC/CC protection/etc)
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Was cox already like this, that's why you made a tanker instead of a scrapper. You're hard caps were higher, just like playing an empath the heals were secondary to you're buffs once you were at full power and slotted. You no longer had to auto fallow with heal area in auto attack.
"Gotcha!"
I'd like to suggest that a Primary Power, like a Tanker/Stalwart's defenses should be effective enough to not require 'Power Pools' for defense.
In CoH, an 'Invulnerability' Tanker could be extremely tough... But, a player named 'Call Me Awesome' had a build strategy that coupled 'Invulnerability' with the 'Fighting' pool's 'Tough' and 'Weave' and some IO Set-bonuses to produce a character that was much closer to the 'invulnerable' ideal. One was, then, near the Caps or over, for Resistance and Defense.
Sadly, it also required a Lot of endurance to run the toggles and one was generally forced to give up attacks and utility-powers to make it all work. True, one did not 'have to' use the Pool Powers to be an effective Tanker, but the difference was Significant. And I don't feel that it should have been.
Archetype-defining powers ought to be effective enough by themselves.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Yes Tankers could Tank without Power pools or Set Bonuses for most normal content. But (from memory) I don't think ANY Tank could hit the Cap without Power Pools and/or IO's (this is all after ED - I wasn't around pre-ED).
Running at higher difficulties (harder or more enemies) often needed higher Protection values.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
The closest we will get to being able to choose a particular domain, deity, or what have you are the global enhancement slots. Pump healing, damage, or resistance enhancements into those and they will affect all applicable powers. So, essentially the equivalent of global IO set bonuses. As others have mentioned, beyond that it would be a case of choosing, for example, a defensive tertiary set because the classification and/or specification is/are already powerful enough.
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This is all interesting discussion so far. Here's some more food for thought: If being a tanker means taking a "resistance" primary set, doesn't my toon feel MORE like a tanker if I take MORE resistance powers? But if he's to be an EFFICIENT resistance toon, doesn't that mean I should be able to take FEWER resistance powers and still be really tanky? There seems to be a paradox there. We can either define "tanker" as "the guy who takes lots of resistance powers" or we can define it as "the guy who get's BETTER resistance powers and therefore can take fewer of them and still be really tough". In the latter definition, your tank's primary power set might be really small, in terms of number of powers, because the expectation would be that while some toons need to take like 5 different powers to cover all of the different types of resistance and whatnot, the tanker might only need like 2. So what then do you use to populate the tanker primary set, if not more resistance powers? Or do we need to rethink this "efficiency means not having to devote as much of your build to something" idea entirely?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
As others have pointed out, a tank's defensive powers will have higher base values (and a potentially higher ceiling) so that any enhancements provide a greater result. So, yes, a tank could get the same numbers as a non-tank with fewer powers and/or enhancements. Obviously this would mean that the character is (well) short of its potential.[color=red]*[/color] As Fireheart has pointed out, the tank has the option to make do with the powers that are available in the classification or (potentially) go still further by investing in a tertiary pool with more defensive powers.
In general a tank not only has better resistances but can also have more resistances. A non-tank may have respectable values against A, B, and X, but can find themselves in a difficult spot when faced with damage types C and Z.
First of all, this rolls into the basic balance and design of the powersets. If I decide 40% resistance is sufficient but bulwarks get to 50% resistance without trying, I might choose to play a gladiator and put in the effort to hit that 40% resistance. My reward will be a character who is relatively tough and also has a strong offense. (This concept is nothing new to anyone who has played CoH, of course.)
Assuming that the efficiency does mean I do not have to devote as much of my build to something, to what else would I devote the build (which ties back in to the [color=red]*[/color] below). If I can sacrifice 'excessive' offense or defense in favor of defense or offense, respectively, does that not basically end in everyone being a tank-mage?
[br]
[color=red]*[/color] There is also the question of how the classification and specification powersets, and advancement in general, would have to be designed, to even allow a character to choose not to invest any more power choices in those sets.
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I would say that being a tanker, without being a tankmage, would then mean that you take a few very efficient resistance powers and get more bang for your buck than the other types, but you need that extra room in your build for the less-than-best attacks, self buffs, etc that you need to provide what offense you do have, which is still less than a blaster would have. To use the Stone tanker set as an example, your best resistance power might be one that actually has drawbacks in other areas (like mobility, or recharge time, or damage output, or accuracy, etc) which then requires you to work harder to bolster those things as needed.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
You'd have Blasters devoting to Blasting reducing the amount of Blast attacks they would need to take and increasing the amount of Defense and Resistance powers. You'd have Tankers devoting to Tanking reducing the amount of Defensive and Resistance Powers to take and increasing the amount of Damage powers taken. While in the beginning stages of the game I could see this as being advantageous, when the game starts to develop more and flesh out it would end up hurting the game as everybody would be running around as Tankmages. Devotion works great on Pen and Paper games, but then again you have a DM that can manipulate the circumstances to balance it out. RNG is not so good at that. That is one of the problems with trying to convert a Pen and Paper game into a Console or PC game.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I agree. At some point, you reach a stage where things become too muddled. I know this sounds simplistic. But I think that even though there will be three levels of powerset adjustments, a Tank still primarily needs to be a tank... with all that implies in terms of advantages and disadvantages. Same with every other AT.
Didnt they already say somewhere you wont be able to stack tetries with youre primary and secondary sets? So im assuming with that there will be no need to stack resistance sets, or that it wont be allowed anyway so no super uber tanks.
"Gotcha!"
Fire tanks could hit the fire res cap I suspect. Many could hit the caps with tier 9s.
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I believe that's the case, but I was not certain.
I do think that those people who expect to play CoT and be able to tweak their characters to achieve the kind of 'god mode' that IO sets allowed in CoH will be in for an unpleasant surprise. Nonetheless, I hope it will be possible for those people who want to give their characters a push to a little extra defense/offense/control will be able to do so.
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To respond to the tankmage problem once again, I have a few points I'd like to make:
1. This is what hard caps are supposed to eliminate. Your blaster or tank shouldn't be able to achieve "tankmage" levels of both damage and resistance if the hardcaps are what they probably should be.
2. Assuming the caps are in place (see 1. above), if your effort to reach the hard cap in damage as a tanker is requires SO much of your build that you have to focus on powers and set bonuses that improve damage to the exclusion of almost everything else, your toon is somewhat nerfed anyway, isn't it? I mean if you could get to the hard cap in damage and resistance, but at the cost if having to settle for terrible movement speed, endo problems, and no travel powers, that wouldn't be too overpowered, would it?
3. The tankmage problem persists (for tankers) as long as the following two conditions are met:
A) The tanker's damage hard cap is too high, and...
B) The tanker's damage powers and enhancement set bonuses, etc can actually get him to the hard cap somehow.
As long as the cap is where it should be and the tanker's available array of damage powers are inefficient enough that you'd have to really sacrifice everything else to get there, you should be fine, right? In that scenario, the tanker might have only devoted 2-3 powers with less that full slotting to resistance and a lot more space to damage, buffs, travel, and other things, making him "efficient" in resisting damage and "inefficient" in damage output, while still being effective.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
When you make it too easy to achieve the hard cap on your Tanker's resistances you then open the door for more dedication to developing maximum damage capability. CoH had it right in how Tankers developed by stretching all of your defenses over the multiple levels as you leveled up. If you are able to develop all of your resistances or defenses in the early levels that just gives you that much extra time to devote to your attacks. On top of that, even if you did manage to grab ALL (including Tough, Weave, Combat Jumping, and Maneuvers) of the defensive powers by level 26, you still had enhancement slots to put into them that made it even more difficult on top of the fact that you maybe had three attacks. You either had to decide on putting all of your enhancement slots in your defenses gimping your attacks, put all of your slots on attacks gimping your defenses, or balance it out to be somewhat defensive and somewhat offensive. A tanker really didn't start to shine until around the level 35 to 38 stage. Then they picked up and started becoming more beast mode.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I Loved my Stone Melee/Willpower brute, because even Exemped down for a Positron TF's, he STILL never Died once! ;) And yes, he held all of the aggro like a tank.
LOVE my BRUTE, Blue Gem! ;)
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NOW... we have to persuade MWM to use the clenched Fists as the default for hands, even if toons have all five fingers. ;)
Oh, I'm not saying that Tanks/Brutes weren't survivable in the lower levels, but once you got into the upper levels is when they really became good.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I guess another angle that's relevant to this conversation is the sheer number of different specification/classifications to begin with. CoX had, what, 14 different official archetypes, plus some amount of freedom of building the toon withing the AT. Can there really be 14 different things the one could be "efficient" at in the first place? I doubt it. I guess at some point being "better" at something might just mean taking the same number of powers and using the same amount of slots, but getting more for your investment than some others get.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I wasn't including the T9's as they were not always on so couldn't be used for every fight without stopping for a Cpl of mins between each fight. Should have included that in my early post though.
I personally never made a Fire Res Tank but Ill stand corrected on them hitting the Fire Res cap without IO's or non-Primary powers. But even then that's one Tank Primary and only for one Damage Type.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Although there were 14 AT's, they were a combination of different primaries and secondaries, and CoX *did NOT* have 14 different primaries...
According to Paragon Wiki the area's of "focus" were:
Assault
Buff
Control
Defense
Melee
Ranged
Summon
Support
And yes, the Summon was only "used" by the Mastermind, and Assault was the Dominator secondary. Sure, we can quibble over what each AT actually was, but I am using a resource that we (the player base that is) created and used.
Would I expect ANY character to do ALL of that well? No... but I could expect a well built character to do well in 2 or 3 area's... and if IO's are used then you might as well throw out the rulebook, because those broke rules so much (as in they IO set bonus ignored ED IIRC)
Stone could reach near the Caps, but you gave up a lot, when you hit Granite. Willpower side-stepped the defensive Cap issues, by having superior regeneration - you didn't worry too much about getting hit, since it just grew back after a bit. Alphas could be trouble. Fire and Dark and others had self-heal powers that eased the damage-taking issues.
And you didn't reach those caps just because you were level 32 and had your T9. Usually, you didn't get everything well-slotted until you neared 50. Still, I'm suggesting that defensive power-sets be well able to approach the the defensive Caps by level 50, or whatever the max level is.
Those power-sets that leverage some other mechanism, such as regeneration, or self-heals, should still have significant defenses, for a tanking AT.
Be Well!
Fireheart
In regards to the idea that Stalwarts can take less Protection powers to be 'survivable' that is true only so far when comparing the numbers to other classes.
So yes a Stalwart can take less powers, or not need Tertiary powers, to reach 50% Res versus an Enforcer or Gunner which will need more powers or Tertiary powers. HOWEVER the role of the Stalwart is to be the focus of most of the attacks so will NEED to have higher Protection numbers than the Enforcer or Gunner.
Example (CoH):
an Invulnerability Tank could reach 62.5% S/L Resistance by only taking the Primary Powers: Resist Physical Damage (2x Res IO) + Temp Invul (3x Res IO). However this made the Inv tank 'squishy' for its role.
Turn on Unyeilding (with 3 Res IO's) and this takes your S/L Res to 70.4%.
NOTE: 3 Res IO's put you way over ED (58.48% Bonus vs 76.5% Pre-ED Bonus).
The only way to get S/L Res to over 90% (Hard cap) was to take Tough. With Tough with 3x Res IO's your S/L Res hit 94.21%
Without Tough you could only hit 75.1% S/L Resistance with the following slotting:
TI = 5x Res (allowing the 6th slot for EndRed)
RDP = 6x Res IO
Unyielding = 5x RES + 1 EndRed IO
An Inv Scrapper however with the same Inv slotting as above could reach: 56.4% S/L Res
TI = 5x Res (allowing the 6th slot for EndRed)
RDP = 6x Res IO
Unyielding = 5x RES + 1 EndRed IO
Add in Tough (5x Res + 1x EndRed IO) and you get 75%
So for the Scrapper to ALMOST get as much S/L Res as the Tank the Scrapper needed to take a Tertiary Power and over slot it.
At the games close there were very few IO Set Bonuses that gave Bonus Resist Damage, and those that did were small values, only gave non S/L Res or higher values required 6 slotting a particular Set. With i24 there were plans to add more Resist Damage IO Bonuses but they never hit production so I don't know how much they would help?
A Blaster to reach 50% S/L Resistance was VERY difficult but did improve their survivability by a lot compared to the base line of Blasters.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
IMO, this concept doesn't necessarily apply the same way in the kind of game-play setting CoT is looking to emulate.
To keep close to your analogy, in my Pathfinder experience, Healing is rarely done in combat unless things are hitting the fan. Additionally, available healing is more or less fixed when entering an encounter/dungeon, and therefore must be conserved through the entire encounter. I'm not saying that's better or worse, as it's a fundamentally different kind of resource management.
With CoT, I'm assuming they'll be sticking with the regenerating energy model, meaning that healing potential is (generally) limited by how fast you can cast, or in an extended fight, how quickly you can regenerate energy. There's generally no reason to conserve healing unless you're in an extended slug-fest. and then you'll still probably be healing whenever you can get the full value out of it, and reserving non-healing abilities because they use energy that you need for healing. Practically every fight will have you starting from 100% capacity.
However, one of the things that bothered me with the enhancement system of CoX is that with SOs the endurance cost enhancements were generally considered a poor choice compared to a healing or enhancement. The Cooldown reduction enhancements were similarly reserved for abilities that couldn't slot something that directly enhanced their raw power, such as Haste, or non-combat abilities, like Rest. This was because a Healing/Damage/Resistance enhancement made a power both more powerful, and more cost-efficient. With a Cooldown reduction enhancement, the ability becomes more powerful in isolation, because you can use it more, but it gains no endurance efficiency because you are just casting it more often in order to achieve that increase in power. Endurance cost enhancements increase efficiency, naturally, but do nothing for the overall output.
Therefore, in terms of allowing someone to build different styles that maybe rely on different ability sets, as well as making more enhancements viable, perhaps the cool-down reduction enhancements should merge with the endurance cost enhancements, so that you get both effects from a single enhancement. This would give a single ability a mathematically similar boost to output and efficiency as a straight power enhancement, and it would gain flexibility in the build because you would be chaining fewer, more powerful, abilities continuously, but with less potential because a raw damage dealer could take more abilities, slotted for raw power, but at the cost of utility.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Interesting idea, to combine the Edno Cost and Recharge Rate SO into one thing. Personally, I like them better as separate items, from a design standpoint. The fact that they are separate allows you as a designer of powers to make some powers that "need" one recharge SO and 2 Endo SOs or visa versa as a design choice. Making them one item reduces the number of degrees of freedom the designer has in designing a power in that sense.
Take the Radiation Blast set power Cosmic Burst, for example. It did good damage and had chance to stun, but had limited range, so needed range enhancement. If they had packaged the Range and Accuracy SOs into the same item, you wouldn't be able to put people to a decision about how much range, accuracy, etc to slot into it, people would just automatically get the best of both worlds. Leaving the SO's separate allows the designer to force the play to a decision about what aspects to anhance and how much, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I believe the way they have it planned is youre mastery is gonna have ALOT to do with how youre toon plays out. Possibly how easy it will be for you to reach caps and max youre toon not so much your slotting, it may be a successor but it isnt coh. Things are gonna be different, but that doesnt mean in a bad way.
"Gotcha!"
I don't think I quite follow you here. In my mind, this kind of enhancement merger would allow the developer to worry [i]less[/i] about slotting because the alternatives are, at least mathematically, more comparable in effect. That, and trying to force a particular slotting layout on your players doesn't seem like a particularly good design path for a game that emphasizes customization.
This is something of a different issue, because both Range and Accuracy enhancements were, in practice, both used, and mathematically, Accuracy boosts an ability's power and efficiency similarly to a straight power enhancement because you hit more often (more damage delivered) and waste less (more efficient). Accuracy was probably the 2nd most commonly used enhancement. Range was more specialized, just by its nature but it was consistently used as well, IIRC.
I can't remember a single situation where you would willingly choose to slot an end-cost enhancement, as you could get a similar mathematical effect from just slotting for power, then casting less often, while still retaining the option of going more ham-fisted with your ability use if you really need/want to drop something quickly. End-cost enhancements didn't force the player to choose, they were simply ignored outright, and until ED and IO sets started to force players into new slotting patterns, there were very consistent "optimal" builds simply because of how the numbers worked out. Before ED, with rare exceptions, no one seriously considered slotting anything except Accuracy and Damage into their primary damage abilities, and with good reason. Maybe range in certain odd-ball short-range powers, but generally never End-cost or Cooldown. That's where the numbers led us. Even after ED, you only slotted things other than Damage and Accuracy once the stacking penalty made it no longer viable. This same priority occurred with IO sets (which was its own beast, and somewhat separate from this issue).
Note that this was an issue with a select few enhancements that ended up with virtually no real purpose in the game because their benefits were just so far overshadowed by the other options.
I would say that with regards to things that were, IMO, overspecialized, like the Run, Jump, and Fly enhancements, You might consider rolling them together with other enhancements. Rather than 3 (4 counting range with Teleport) sets of movement enhancements, you just have a single enhancement that will enhance all 3, but due to the nature of the power its slotted it, you would only really get the benefit from one at a time. An enhancement would enhance 30% bonus Run, Fly, and Jump speed, but since Super Speed didn't give bonus jump or fly speed, those bonuses would essentially be wasted. Of course, this also opens of the viability of the designers making a hybrid run/jump skill that starts off weaker than Super Speed or Super Jump, but can be enhanced uniquely by the SOs.
In this sense, a power like Haste could be slotted with a End/Cooldown enhancement, but since it didn't actually have an endurance cost, it would only really benefit from the cooldown reduction. Alternately, if some toggle power really needed an end-cost reduction for you to keep it up, you'd slot the same enhancement, even though the cooldown reduction would be largely meaningless to you in that context. The enhancement still retains its mathematical ability to substitute for a straight power enhancement as well, making it viable enough to actually be used, as opposed to what we saw in CoX where some enhancements were simply useless.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
By extension, the place your argument is leading us to is to just make one enhancement that buffs everything you could enhance about the power it is slotted into. This guarantees that the power will be enhanced as efficiently as possible and eliminates the process of having to pick and choose which enhancers to put into which powers entirely and just gives everyone a "one size fits all" answer to the problem of power enhancement. The game of building a toon is then devoid of choices and made less enjoyable for having done this, even though the powers themselves might benefit from the enhancements more than doing it the other way.
The reason HamiOs were so awesome before IOs came out was precisely because they were like a double SO, they enhanced TWO things but only used ONE slot. The system we had (post ED, the pre ED days are just the dark ages as far as I'm concerned) was robust because there were choices to make if you were confined to just SOs, but then you got to reconfigure things for added efficiency when you got a HamiO. Woo hoo, HamiO!
For the record I did in fact have Endo Redux SOs in some of my attacks powers on some of my toons (before IOs). I expect your response to that to be "You were doing it wrong then." which may be true, but I had the freedom to choose to do it that way, and the game was deep enough to make me think about that choice and not just use the one enhancer everyone gets for everything.
The desire to fold different SOs into each other, and thus to provide FEWER different types of SOs is, as I have already stated, cutting down the number of options, simplifying the game, and eliminating build-phase decisions and thus reducing fun and limiting the options the designers have in making powers. If I'm a game designer, I might want to design a blast power that has great damage and secondary effects, but is an endo hog and is inherently less accurate and has shorter range than you'd want. In a world where these are generally all separate SOs, you have to think about how many slots you want to put in the power in the first place, and then how many to devote to each of Range, Endo, and Accuracy. It adds fun that different people may be apt to come up with different solutions to this problem. Handing everyone the same "Here, you just use this because it's the only option anyway." thing breaks that and removes fun. I think I want to have my choices from among all the one-dimensional SOs and then if I get a HamiO, I'm excited because I can improve things from there.
Obviously the set-based uncommon and rare IOs had this too, some of them buffed FOUR things, albeit to a lesser extent, and you got set bonuses on top of that. This is fine, but ultimately even there you had different sets that focused more range and others on other things (endo redux, interrupt time, recharge time, KB, etc). This still allowed for there to be more variety among the different sets and thus you gave the players choices to make. You can make some enhancers that buff Endo Cost and Recharge rate, but they need to be considered "rarer" and "better" than the run of the mill SOs, which, as a baseline, should be the most common, most inefficient, cheapest option.
This whole "combining SO effects into fewer different SOs" idea feels like players trying to win the game in the design phase by designing it to be more easily won, to me. You look at the SOs and say "These types of SOs suck, I don't see why anyone would ever use them, there should be BETTER SOs in place of these so that my choice to not use these is less obvious." If all of the options that actually exist are about equal, then you can't go wrong and the choice itself is therefore less meaningful.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I think what Cybermitheral was trying to point out, is the outer limits of what could be done with Invulnerability under the old CoH system. An Invulnerability Tanker was 'required' to take Tough from the Fighting Pool, in order to reach the cap, even when slotted to ridiculous levels against ED.
My argument would be that they shouldn't have to do that.
However, I do recognize that it could be appropriate to leave the Primary as an 'incomplete' defense which is then reinforced by a defensive Mastery.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Defense Wholes like Psyonic Dmg? ;)
Gaps in defenses, like Invulnerability's (comparative) weakness to Elemental damage and lack of Psionic protection are certainly Flavor elements that the Devs would have to balance. But those gaps are part of what led to practically Everything in the Endgame doing Psionic damage.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I really wish we had numbers on how often enhancements were used in different powers, particularly before and after ED.
Your use of Endo enhancements is your choice, but when I say it's the incorrect choice, I'm not say that as a mater of opinion. It's a matter of numbers and how they work out. Specific to the Endo enhancements, Pre-ED they were inherently inferior in any way that you would measure an ability to the other options. If you slotted for enhancing a power's efficiency or output, Endo's provided less, which is why I would say you're the exception to the rule that Endo's just weren't considered a viable alternative by most players. They just offered too little benefit compared to the alternatives for what I would assume is the majority of people who enhance their abilities certain ways in order to hit particular power spreads.
Again, my issue here is specifically for types of enhancements that saw negligible use, and were justifiably seen as useless by the majority players who build, at least so some degree, for power. The straight "power" enhancements, such as Damage, Healing, Accuracy, Resistance, ect. Should [/i]absolutely not[/i] be merged willy-nilly, as they are already highly effective for their designated purposes. It's just a few exceptionally enhancement types that would fall into this "largely useless" category.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
My main point in my above post was to show that it IS possible to follow the OP's suggestion that a Stalwart can take LESS Protection powers to reach the same/similar numbers of protection compared to a non-Protection Primary class that's needs to take MORE Protection powers, HOWEVER even though the numbers are the same/similar all that will happen is the Stalwart will not be able to do its role - that is to take the agro and have the majority of attacks focused on her/him and survive.
If the same Protection numbers are good enough to survive then why be a Stalwart? In the Inv example all it took was 1 non-Primary power plus some slots to get within a 1-2% difference. The Stalwart on the other hand (using CoH Tank/Scrapper numbers) by taking another attack power will NOT get within 1-2% Damage potential of the Enforcer. So we have the Brute vs Tank problem again.
So YES the Stalwart can be as survivable as the Enforcer with less powers. But the Stalwart will be meant to take on more or tougher enemies and survive longer than the Enforcer so they still NEED to take more powers to survive.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
It's not quite that simple. If the addition of the endurance enhancement means you can actually stay alive without your toggles dropping (you can afford to use the horribly expensive dark self heal for example) or keep attacking while running the old toggle version of IH, then it is more important than adding another damage enhancement to something else so your broadsword overkills minions by more.
Slotting for end reduction might also have meant (depending on your build) you didn't need stamina so could pick 3 other powers, particularly useful at mid level.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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I already said I don't give a flying firetruck about Pre-ED. That was like a year of the 8+ years we played CoX. I don't even REMEMBER how I slotted stuff Pre-ED. So forget that, that was a broken system.
The inherent issue I'm saying is, if you weld the Endo and Recharge SOs together (or any other pair you want to name), it limits design options. The person designing a power has to take into consideration that a power with cruddy recharge time but really good endo use will have it's recharge time AND endo use improved by a single item. Similarly, it takes away the ability of the designer to design a power with good stats but for the long recharge time and high endo cost. If you KNOW the players can remedy BOTH endo cost AND recharge time with one item, you're not forcing them to a decision on how to slot the power, you're teeing up a power for them to knock out of the ballpark with one simple right answer. The SOs being different, and all one-dimensional, gives the designer more freedom to make different powers behave differently. Do I slot a power to enhance it's benefits while living with its drawbacks, or do I slot it to try to ameliorate the drawbacks at the expense of not pushing the good parts? That question has different answers for different powers, or should. That way when you roll out HamiOs that buff TWO things, it's like "Merry Christmas!" because you get more efficient swag for having defeated the Hamidon.
So I'm fundamentally in favor of the existence of less-than-optimal (what I call "bad") options. The only way you'll ever have any variety is to have better and worse things. The expectation that all SOs (of a given level) should have about the same enhancement effect on a power in the final analysis is critically flawed, in my opinion. If all SOs did about the same amount of good for your power, you wouldn't need to bother to decide which ones to use, you could just use anything and it wouldn't matter much. Thus the slotting decision turns into a fait accompli that you spend NO time thinking about or trying to optimize it. The problem comes pre-solved for you.
It's okay to make a single item that does both things, as long as it's the "better, rarer" option, not the "baseline, most common" option. It's the player's prerogative to find the best fit for their powers from among a large and varied list of available options, some great, some good, some bad. The argument that "this option is usually bad, so it should be gotten rid of" is totally wrong, as far as I'm concerned, for a game design standpoint. You NEED bad options to exist, as a designer.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This is, in experience, not quite correct. Toggles is about the only situation where endo's might be considered useful, but even there, if you have multiple abilities that perform similar functions (damage, heal, ect) the more powerful your toggle is, the less often you need to use endurance on other abilities, additionally, if you are concerned about endurance mangement issue, you still don't use endo enhancements, you just use your abilities less so that you don't run dry. They're individually more powerful than they would be with endo slotted, so you're still not loosing anything compared to slotting endo, while still retaining the option to go full ability-spam mode to throw out more damage.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
We've studied the issues and I think you will like our solution. By taking a ground-up look instead of the top-down as handled in the past, our game design group has developed an innovative approach for tackling the problem.
It will be detailed out in a future update.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Looking forward to it Dr T (he's like Mr T but smarter)
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
*patiently waiting for said update* .....
"Gotcha!"
you will always have people who shoot for max damage output, or damage reduction, or travel speed, etc.
if someone finds a way outside of what is considered the straight-foward way, they will be called broken, and unfair.
if someone finds the above and manages to keep it secret, they are ratted out as "hacking" over and over again.
in coh, as a villain (statue of lorriane, champion server) i could defeat 3-5 non pvps. or engage 16 people while taking out 1-2 before getting taken down. the devs/mods would use their "powers" to spy on me and tell everyone in open chat that i was not cheating, but they had to do it often.
a complex system should allow real intellect to do amazing things. here's to hoping that some get to shine. competition is vital in a game. i realize a whole generation was raised to hate it, but i will not play a game that forces everything to be "fair".
What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau
Way to "leave them wanting more" Doc, now I can't wait!
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I miss my sonic\devices blaster getting ragged on in Sirens call, something bout maxxing you're perception and hunting stalkers was unfair.
"Gotcha!"
your not GOOD, till they complain about how good you are.
What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau