As much as I'm looking forward to Gladiator spec of Enforcer and the powerset options it contains, I find I'm really excited about all the possible tertiary powers we'll have access to fine tune our characters to the flavor of choice. That got me thinking more about them. When we select those powers, do we get the buffet, and can select from any individual power, or do we treat it like the primary and secondaries and have to choose an entire powerset?
Thu, 08/30/2018 - 15:43
#1
Tertiary Question
You gain access to Tertiary Sets through leveling up.
They are based off the Secondary Sets in the game, just not as many powers nor as effective. Some Tertiary Sets May be u issue unto hem selves or have their own category of power types such as Super Senses, though there may not be any of these unique Tertiary sets at launch.
You have to take a tier 1 or 2 Tertiary Power before you can choose a Tier 3 or 4 Power, which both are required before you can take a Tier 5 Power.
Tettiary Sets don’t offer alternate power choices like the Primary and Secondary Sets do.
Any Archetype can choose from any type of Tertiary set.
They power slots required can make choosing between a Primary, Secondary, or Tertiary Power. However, it is entirely possible to choose all of your Primary and Secondary Sets and 1 full Tertiary Set, or 5 sets of the tier 1 or 2 powers. After unlocking the Tettiay Sets, you can forego choosing a primary or secondary power and choose a Tettiary Power. You can never have access to more than 5 Tertiary Sets.
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Thanks for the quick response!
So if I have this straight, the setup is ladder-like (no branching like primary and secondary). Tier 1/Tier 2 -> T 3 or 4 -> 5 and that's within a set. So if I want a Gravity T3 power, I have to get a T2 power first, if I also want a psychic blast T4 power, I have to get the T1 or 2 power first? Or does having any T2 power work as a prerequisite for T3/T4?
Power slots are power slots and we can put whatever unlocked type of power in them, be they primary, secondary or tertiary. However, we can't have powers from more than 5 tertiary sets at any time.
I get that right?
Primary and Secondary Sets don’t have pre-requisite powers outside of when you start at leve 1.
You don’t have to take t3 to get t4, younjust have to wait until the appropriate level to unlock that power and have an available power slot.
Tertiary powers operate a little bit differently in that they have pre-requisite power selections.
You are correct otherwise.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Greatly appreciated for the clarity :)
Has it been decided yet what the theoretical upper limit on Tertiary power slots is? I can see the number of sets is five maximum, but presumably power slot progression and the level at which you unlock Tertiaries inherently defines a maximum.
So if (pulling numbers out of my head just for an example) you unlock Tertiaries at 10, by which time you've been awarded 6 slots with another 17 to come (a previous dev post mentioned 23 power slots at level cap) you could in theory spread 17 powers over 5 Tertiaries. Going to that extreme is probably going to result in a hugely sub optimal character, as you would lose access to all the high tier powers in your primary and secondary and really should have probably been a different Archetype, but I'm interested in what the theoretical extreme is.
I'm really impressed by the huge variety in possible builds we're offered under this type of system. Working out what to skip from your main pools in order to get the ancillary powers you wanted (whether for concept or end result) was something I really enjoyed in CoX. The synergy with IOs, where I found myself often taking a pool just to be able to slot a certain set, was a bit jarring, but the actual figuring out how to do it was fun. What wasn't so well implemented was a lot of ancillary pools were very lacklustre bar from exploiting IO sets in this way, or capping out significant stats, primarily defence.
Building in diminishing returns through the use of Output will hopefully allow the tertiaries to have a lot more direct impact without allowing characters to stray wildly outside the bounds of expected performance (i.e. defence capped blasters were probably not a deliberate design intent of CoX).
The maximum number of Tertiary Powers obtainable is 15 or 3 full sets.
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I assume tertiary sets have a kind of limit that prevents you from choosing across 3 different protection sets? (ie, Being a Ranger who chooses Invulnerability, Solid Form and Grit tertiary powers all at once?)
Not currently. A Protection Tertiary for a Ranger won’t match anything close to a Proction Secondary and within a Output dimishing he returns on stacking similar effects, the benefit would be if there were layered protections of different effects. Even then the net result while providing some benefit won’t be “broken”.
And this is still subject to change.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Thanks Tannim. I thought 15 was an elegant number, funnily enough, as it's not only 3 full sets, it just allows 5 T5 tertiary powers if you sacrifice everything else. Somehow that made sense as a 'it's there but you'll probably never actually use it' option.
'For a Ranger' implies tertiaries will be weighted by archetype, so if I have a damage primary, attacks from tertiaries will be more impressive than if my primary is control? I was under the impression that there was a flat 100%/80%/60% or similar scaling, irrespective of archetype but it seems I have misunderstood. Having an adjustment for archetype makes a lot of sense. I was concerned that alternative attacks in particular, whether to pick up a bit of ranged or melee if your primary lacks it or to add a damage type you don't usually deal, would be pointless for primary damage dealers and thus restrict their choice of viable tertiaries.
The reason damage dealers are specifically at risk for this is once you have a seamless attack chain, adding more attacks doesn't do anything in and of itself, whereas defence and utility powers always bring something to the party. If the scaling of tertiaries was flat then to make attacks not overpowered for control/support archetypes would probably make them pointless for damage archetypes. Taking an alternate damage type becomes pointless if the damage on the attack is so low relative to your primaries that you're better off just brute forcing through enemy resistance with your primary attacks, even against enemies highly resistant to your primary damage type. Equally adding an aoe or two to a single target focused primary isn't worth it if you can still do more damage rapid firing each enemy in turn with your high damage primary attacks.
From memory there are "modifiers" applied to powers based on if you can take the basic power-type as a primary, secondary, or tertiary. This was mainly explained by using buffs (mainly protection-type) and they said there were two of them, one for the receiver of the buff and one for the caster of it. Of course a Guardian would be the one who "gives" the highest buffs but a Stalwart would gain more (in absolute numbers) out of having protection-type buffs thrown on them than say an Operator even if the same person/build casts on them both at the same time, and for Enforcers/Rangers the self-modifier would depend on if they take the defense specification or not.
So damage focused ATs would have higher damage oriented tertiaries than non-damage focused ATs.
Power effects don’t have a specific Archetype modifier per se, but certain effects to scale output differently based on if the effect type is represented as a primary / secondary / tertiary. This is an additional modifier to the weighting applied to the set based on its placement.
A Stalwart taking a Protection Tertiary will see that it is not as strong as his Primary Protections but it will also be modified less.
A Ranger with no protection in the primary / secondary taking a Protection Tertiary would are less benefit from the Protection Tertiary than the Stalwart.
However, because outputs stack, a Stalwart taking a Tettiary with the same effects as his Primary might not see the full improvement of the Tettiary either. Only protection effects that the Stalwart either doesn’t have in his Primary ornthat are very low eoudlnsee more benefit.
Everyone is considered to have “damage” represented as an effect and thus Damage outputs are modified differently.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Thanks Tannim, I think I'm with you here. Just to check my understanding with some absolutely made up numbers:
A stalwart takes a protection tertiary power. The power's baseline output is 10. The weighting for a tertiary power is 0.6, giving an output of 6. Because protection effects are 'primary' for stalwarts, 6 output equates to 12% resistance or whatever (we're assuming he has none of this resistance from powers in the primary set or you'd sum the two outputs and then convert, still using the 'primary power' output to effect curve).
A ranger takes the same protection tertiary. Again the baseline output is 10 and the weighting is 0.6 giving 6 output. 6 output equates to 9% resistance because protection effects are tertiary for rangers.
I can see why you use the terms primary/secondary/tertiary for the different scale outputs, because you're using whether an effect type is primary/secondary/tertiary for that Archetype, but I can see that terminology getting hellishly confusing. Might want to consider defining separate terms, unless you guys are so ingrained in using those words in both contexts it would be really hard to shift. Something like 'outstanding', 'skilled' and 'capable' so a stalwart would be outstanding at protection powers and capable at everything else (depending on how your 'damage outputs are modified differently works). Yes, any archetype having protection effects as a primary set will always be 'outstanding' at protection powers, but actually the language distinct would, I believe, help players understand what they're looking at and give clarity when discussing powers.
This is especially true if it's the type of power that affects output scaling, not which set it's in, which I'm pretty certain is the case . So a stalwart with a buff power in their primary set will get full output from the power, because it's a primary power, but the impact of the buff will be lower than if it were applied by a guardian at exactly the same output level, because buffs are primary power types for guardians and tertiary power types for stalwarts?
I just think trying to explain to another player that 'the stalwart is using a primary but it's a buff so it's tertiary, whereas the bodyguard is using the same buff from his tertiary, which are secondary, whereas the guardian's using a primary which is primary' is rapidly going to turn into 'Who's on first base?'.
'The stalwart is using a primary power and stalwarts are only capable at buff powers, whereas the bodyguard is using a tertiary power but bodyguards are skilled at buff powers so the effect isn't that much weaker. The guardian is using a primary power and guardians are outstanding at buffs, so that's why that buff is so much stronger.' seems a bit easier to follow. Obviously I'm sure there are much better terms than the three I've offered, I just picked three descriptors that didn't overlap with primary/secondary/tertiary or clash with existing concepts like mastery.
To further prey on your good nature, care to expand on 'Damage outputs are modified differently'? Same output scaling for everyone? 'Everyone is considered to have damage' implies you've gone that way.
Incidentally I'm getting the impression here you guys have created a different output to effect conversion graph for every different instance you require one, which is a lovely way of doing things. Effective softcaps on things like resistances are going to be built in to the shape of the graph, and you can set the caps differently for each instance of power strength. This is a way more elegant solution than 'tankers cap resists an 90%, scrappers at 75%'. Sure you can put the point that the gradient of the resistance protection primary graph drops off to almost nothing at around 90% and set the resistance protection secondary curve to do the same at around 75%, but you get a smoother transition and people can push past the 'cap' if they want to, just with horribly diminishing returns. Is my understanding correct?
Not only that but they can also make it so that it happens at, just picking a number, say 40 output for everyone making so that it requires the same effort for any and every build to reach their effective (soft)cap.
Power Sets are initially modified in our Power Designer system by their placement. The final Output is then fed through an effect pipeline and modified again through a conversion formula to provide the in game value. Many of these conversion formulas are asymptotic. This makes it so that as Outputs for the same effect stack (like with a Protection-Resistance-Physical power) that the more Output you have, the more difficult it becomes to increase the in game value.
To clarify your example, if a Tertiary power has 10 output in an effect like Physical Resistance giving say (example only) 10%, and a Stalwart picks it up and it doesn't have any other Physical Resistance, than the Stalwart will have 10% Physical Resistance. If the Stalwart had say 50 Output in Physical Resistance already giving it 35%, and it picks up the Tertiary, it now has 60 output in Resistance and would not have 45%, but say (again example only) 39%.
Now with the Ranger, taking the same Tertiary Power that is at 10 Output, it might see a total of 6 output, yes. Because the Ranger's conversion function is weighted differently.
The terminology is primarily for internal use. You will see how effects wills tack and such, but won't see the Outputs, just the final values.
This is correct.
No, it goes by the effect. In essence all positive effects on the character are buffs, regardless of source. If you have a Primary power with an increase to Resistance, it is a buff. Placing an Augment in that Power is a buff too.
The system follows the effect type. What effect does the buff have?
If the buff is a protection effect, say a buff that increases Max Health. And the buff is taken from a Tertiary Set. The Stalwart takes it, and since it is a protection effect for Stalwarts, the Output is modified the least if it is applied to the Stalwart. However, if the Stalwart can target a team mate with that same buff and that team mate is a Guardian, they will receive less benefit from the effect than the Stalwart does.
Example: Guardian has a max health buff from a Tertiary. It has 10 output resulting in 10% for a Stalwart, 7% for an Enforcer, and 5% for everyone else, that is if none of the targets has any other Max Health buffs already applied. The Guardian targets itself, it will get 10 output of Max Health resulting in a 5% increase.
'The stalwart is using a primary power and stalwarts are only capable at buff powers, whereas the bodyguard is using a tertiary power but bodyguards are skilled at buff powers so the effect isn't that much weaker. The guardian is using a primary power and guardians are outstanding at buffs, so that's why that buff is so much stronger.' seems a bit easier to follow. Obviously I'm sure there are much better terms than the three I've offered, I just picked three descriptors that didn't overlap with primary/secondary/tertiary or clash with existing concepts like mastery.
To further prey on your good nature, care to expand on 'Damage outputs are modified differently'? Same output scaling for everyone? 'Everyone is considered to have damage' implies you've gone that way.
Incidentally I'm getting the impression here you guys have created a different output to effect conversion graph for every different instance you require one, which is a lovely way of doing things. Effective softcaps on things like resistances are going to be built in to the shape of the graph, and you can set the caps differently for each instance of power strength. This is a way more elegant solution than 'tankers cap resists an 90%, scrappers at 75%'. Sure you can put the point that the gradient of the resistance protection primary graph drops off to almost nothing at around 90% and set the resistance protection secondary curve to do the same at around 75%, but you get a smoother transition and people can push past the 'cap' if they want to, just with horribly diminishing returns. Is my understanding correct?[/quote]
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Thanks again Tannim, I really appreciate the level of detail you're willing to go into in order to answer our questions. This level of response would be excellent for a game that was actually launched, let alone one still in development. You've answered many of my questions very well, and generated some more...
As protection covers Evasion, Defense, Subtraction, Resistance, and Health/Healing/Regeneration, I'm left wondering what's left as far as buffs go? Even things which would have been 'mez protection' in the world of CoX are going to be 'Control Defense' or 'Control Resistance' in this system, and thus a protection.
You've already stated 'damage will be done differently', so accuracy, power recovery (are we calling it recovery?), movement speed, power recharge, critical threshold and maybe some stuff to do with momentum...these are the only 'buffs' I can think of that won't come under the protection type. Will Rangers see the same improved conversion if they receive an accuracy or crit threshold buff like a Stalwart does on receiving a protection buff? What effect types, if any, give conversion above baseline for Operators and Guardians?
You also imply this 'how attuned to the effect type is your target?' adjustment only applies to positive effects, is this because 'de-buffs' actually directly lower your output for a given effect. So your Stalwart example with 50 output giving 35% resistance gets hit by a 5 output debuff then they'll drop to 45 output and thus 32% resistance. A Guardian who also happens to be running at 50 output and thus 20% resistance would also drop to 45 which is 18% resistance for them. If it does work this way, are negative values allowed, so you can de-buff past zero and create vulnerabilities?
How do the rules work for PvE enemies? Do they have assigned inherent associations with effect types (so tanky enemies 'use the protection primary tables' as it were) or does output conversion just vary by rank (mook/lieutenant etc.) across the board (so bosses get the best output conversion out of everything, irrespective of type, and mooks the worst)?
And how does damage work?
Thanks again!
You're so very welcome. When I have time sitting between appointments, I tend to be on my phone and well, either I can idle my time away or I can do something helpful for our community. I always try to answer in a manner that I would appreciate were I on the other end of things (as I have been and are in other places).
Other buffs do include Damage, Accuracy, Awareness Max, Recharge,Power Recovery, Power Max, Crit rate, Control Effect, Movement, and Range, Area of Effect, and Momentum Gain (some of these may be only applied to Augments, Refinements, and / or Mastery Powers). Since everyone uses Accuracy and Crits equally as a base line, there are no separate modifiers to the Outputs of these effects.
Debuffs don't lower the output, they lower the effect value, resulting in an output. The effect isn't affecting output, it is affecting the targeted effect. If a target has 50% Physical Resistance, and is hit with an unresisted type say, Exotic Typed Resistance Debuff of 50%, the result will be the target has 25% Physical Resistance. However, if you are stacking same Typed debuffs on a target, they are in the same pipeline and the Debuffs themselves will experience diminishing returns in value as they are stacked. Applying 2 50% Exotic Typed Resistance Debuffs won't result in a 100% Resistance Debuff. The Outputs of the Debuff will stack and diminish the returns.
Yes, you can debuff Protections past zero resulting in improved effect on the target due to vulnerability.
NPCs have their own modifier to output in the Power Designer to provide the appropriate final Output to determine their in game value. Similar to how PCs have modifiers based on their Power Set placement, we use the pawn rank as a modifier. They use the base pipeline modifiers from there to keep things simple, or consider it this way, all NPC effects are considered "primary". We specifically set each pawn rank with a basic protection "package" of powers are certain level intervals. Any unique powers called for in their composition write ups then improve upon those effects with additional powers.
Every Archetype is considered to use damage, whether as a Primary or Secondary. It is its own pipeline. We may have to provide a modifier for the Damage effects depending on testing, but for now, the set placement mod in the Power Designer differentiates the starting outputs of damage powers.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Everything here is Gold! It sounds like some really great concepts have been designed to more than update the experience we had with COH. The more I’m reading about the mechanics and Chargen progress the more I feel like this game will be so Epic!
It’s especially nice how well you guys deal with all our tedious reconnaissance. Much thanks!
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
Further and further down the rabbit hole... I'm thoroughly enjoying the intricacy of the design.
Is there a one to many relationship between set type and effect type? So every effect is a member of one, and only one set? (counting 'untyped' as a set, and that's where Accuracy and Crits etc. lie)?
We've established that Evasion, Defense, Subtraction, Resistance, and Health/Healing/Regeneration effect types all sit within the protection type
Crit and Accuracy are untyped so the conversion factor is the same for all archetypes
Control effect presumably sits within the control type, although that's still worth checking. Do operators not only have stronger control effects because their controls have high output from being in a primary pool, and because they use a primary conversion factor from control output to effect, but they get a better conversion on control effect buffs too? From the limited details released so far, the only thing that buffs control effect (rather than duration or critical chance) is the Operator mastery Overpower, so control effect buffs could equally be untyped. It's a complex web you've woven.
Where do Power Recovery, Power Max, Recharge, Movement, Range, Area of Effect, and Momentum Gain sit? I could make a case for a fair few places.
Do damage sets also contain non-damage effects, so do the Range and Area of Effect types sit within the Ranged Damage set type?
Is 'the set placement mod in the Power Designer' describing a property of a set that affects every power in the set depending on where the set in placed in an archetype (primary, secondary, tertiary)? So some sets get worse more than others when taken as a secondary or tertiary?
To further check understanding, damage works the same way as non damage effects, but there's no 'tertiary' value of conversion factor. Every Archetype uses either a primary or secondary conversion factor, and the equations governing the conversion are distinct to the damage pipeline?
Do the conversion factors differentiate between ranged and melee? So a Ranger presumably uses the primary conversion factor for damage. If they take a melee attack in a tertiary set, it will have it's starting output set by being a tertiary, but will it then use the primary conversion factor, or the secondary because Rangers are considered primary only for ranged damage and secondary for melee damage?
Stalwarts and Guardians being the only two ATs at launch that have a damage dealing secondary, do they use primary or secondary damage conversion factors for their damaging attacks? Rangers and Enforcers using primary and Operators using secondary seems pretty clear cut as they either have damage dealing as a primary set or not at all, respectively. Setting aside the possible distinction between ranged and melee damage for Rangers and Enforcers I've already asked about in the previous paragraph.
To avoid confusion, let's call groups of effects categories instead of types, since Type is the label for identifying the damage type of an effect.
Protections are their own category as they are applied to the target and modified accordingly by the target's Protection placement.
Debuffs are their own category and check the value applied by their combined output, these are actually segmented down by the specified debuff effect and the damage Type assigned to it.
Everything else is agnostic in application. Each may have their own function. Accuracy will have its own Output function which is different than say Power Max. But neither is modified by the archetype power set placement.
The set mod in the power designer is a multiplier that determines if the Power Rating (which is the input value of a power in the designer) is reduced or not. Primary Sets are not modified, Secondary and Tertiary Sets are modified. The result is that the final output for A Secondary set is lower than if it were a Primary, and even lower if it were a Tertiary set.
Each Archetype's base damage value is determined by their set placement. A Stalwart and Enforcer both using the same Power Set will show the Stalwart's base damage to be lower than the Enforcer's. As they improve their powers, the Output is effected the same (currently) for both.
No. Ranged and Melee have nearly identical modifications in the Power Designer. The difference for starting power outputs is negligible resulting in a difference of several points over all in the final value. Any Archetype taking a offense (melee or ranged) Tertiary, the value would be the same for everyone.
I explained this above.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Tannim, your posts are the highlght of my morning reading, the information is always very appreciated!
Aww shucks.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I am curious to find out how much of this information will be communicated to the playerbase (in an official way once the game goes live) so they can make informed solutions?
Will there be exhaustive tutorials (in game), explainer videos, forum posts or some other method leveraged?
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Mostly this will be provided through in game details as you go to select powers and improve your powers.
Beyond that, I have no doubt that a player-based wiki and perhaps build planner will be made for those interested in nitty-gritty details.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
And questionably-written screenshot guides showing off game visuals with bad editing, incorrect information, obscure in-jokes and lotsa typos.
I really need to start researching unreal's equivalent of demorecord. And a spell checker.
Woowee! Lots of insight. I need to read this thread more carefully...right after my nap!
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
Thanks again Tannim, an excellent overview. I'm thinking this should probably go into Pyromantic's superb summary of 'info so far'. Does he just stalk the boards picking up the good stuff, or does one point him in the direction of a thread somehow?
You could PM him a link.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I have done so, good idea.