All along, I thought I was on the fence side that wanted more realistic accuracy and more misses. But then I saw Project Hero's post:

Project_Hero wrote:

I like the "100% hit rate unless" system, let's dodgey folks know they're doing good. If you're a dodger and you know that everything has 100% chance to hit and you see that sweet sweet "miss miss miss miss" (or dodge, or evade, or what have you) it'll probably feel pretty good. On the other hand having an enemy that you can't seem to land a blow on makes them seem a lot more dangerous.

And from a gameplay perspective, I gotta say, I think I like this.

Missing isn't just a matter of degrees now, its a defensive [i]THING[/i]. And I kind of like that it becomes a [i]thing[/i]. And I kind of like how if someone is all evasion'd-up and the attacker hits anyway because of their accuracy refinements. That defender would be, "say what!? How'd you hit me?" and it would mean so much more.

Doctor Tyche wrote:

There is closed and open Beta as well. Open Beta will be 4-5 months after the closed/backer Beta access. And with Facebook being the way it is, experience tells us it is better to point to the open when answering questions on there.

So, we're discussing July-August for backer access, October-November for more open access.

Gameplay beta is more up in the air, as we need more parts of it integrated to give a proper estimate, so the range is far wider. We should be able to give a more firm date around the end of June than "end-of-2018/beginning-of-2019" it is now.

So, no last minute backers for those of us who were broke in '13 :p

desviper wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:

There is closed and open Beta as well. Open Beta will be 4-5 months after the closed/backer Beta access. And with Facebook being the way it is, experience tells us it is better to point to the open when answering questions on there.

So, we're discussing July-August for backer access, October-November for more open access.

Gameplay beta is more up in the air, as we need more parts of it integrated to give a proper estimate, so the range is far wider. We should be able to give a more firm date around the end of June than "end-of-2018/beginning-of-2019" it is now.

So, no last minute backers for those of us who were broke in '13 :p

That's what Second Chance is for.

Nice! Great to hear!

What is the difference from recharge timer and passively recharge timer.
Does this mean a power that is not ready to be used can have its recharge timer reduced.

alltrueist wrote:

Godling wrote:

What is the difference from recharge timer and passively recharge timer.
Does this mean a power that is not ready to be used can have its recharge timer reduced.

Recharge lowers the cooldown
Passive Charge means "cast time"

Recharge is the cool down.
Passive Charge is now Interrupt Reduction - it isn’t cast time, it is a reduction of the time required for powers that are passively charged to build up the power effect during which the charge can be interrupted causing it to fire off before fully charging.

Redlynne wrote:

Brand X wrote:

Don't understand the hate I'm reading here.

Considering the fact that what you're seeing [i]isn't hate[/i] that's probably the root cause of your confusion.

Magic 8 Ball says ... Try Again.

Okay, how about whining? Complaining? There was never any problem with having to use accuracy. :p

From what Tannim is saying, it sounds like there will still be a chance to miss, but that it will be linked more to the relative abilities of targeter and target, which in turn allows MWM more possibilities for tweaking or varying the system. That all sounds good to me.

Sounds good. Of course, I'll need to actually play with it some before I will fully comprehend it. I need to both read and do, to learn. :)

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Cinnder wrote:

From what Tannim is saying, it sounds like there will still be a chance to miss, but that it will be linked more to the relative abilities of targeter and target, which in turn allows MWM more possibilities for tweaking or varying the system. That all sounds good to me.

Exactly. Also means no need for things like the GDF

Excellent!

Brand X wrote:

Okay, how about whining? Complaining?

Nice flamethrower you've got there. Stop using it and maybe you won't keep smelling that burning smell in your vicinity.

In other words ... we see what you did there.

Project_Hero wrote:

I think the word you're looking for here, Brand is "Discussion."

Thank you. I didn't want to have to point out the obvious (for obvious reasons).

Cinnder wrote:

Here's a question: how prominent will numbers and calculations be in this aspect of the game?

Some folks on the forum have said they like to have all the details so they can min/max while others have said they just like to modify powers 'by feel' -- e.g. 'I've slotted a Dam Aug so this power will do more damage; I don't care by exactly how much.'

In the old game, the only numbers one had to view on the Enhancement screen were the levels of the Enhs, but the option to see more stats was eventually added. Will it be similar in CoT so that the numbers folks can have all their values displayed but the 'feel' folks can turn these off if they want to?

In City of Heroes, people like Arcanaville had to go to "heroic" lengths in order to do the necessary regression testing in order to verify that the underlying math wasn't behaving in the anticipated and/or desired fashion, simply because the data WASN'T displayed that would allow that analysis to be done more easily. Not having values displayed for stuff makes it a lot easier for mathematical misbehavior to go unnoticed, simply due to a lack of sufficient information. It prevents the Players from being able to backstop QA by providing additional verification that things are working properly.

Does everyone "need" all that info? No, of course not, and a lot of people won't care about it if they're able to see it ... but some people will care, and they will need to see it and verify that things are working properly, both as anticipated and as intended. Detailed information like that is basically the gaming equivalent of SHOW YOUR WORK that a lot of us ought to remember from being in school. Don't just give the answer, show HOW you got to the answer.

Now, that said, MWM could probably take a page out of the old Zork text games by having a menu option somewhere that determines how "verbose" the detail on tooltips needs to be. That way you can satisfy both crowds of people ... those who want to know everything (maximum verbosiity!) and those who don't (minimalists). Furthermore, by catering to both, you satisfy the need for information not only during internal testing (by QA and Design and others) but also the "need" (or want, if you prefer) for independent Open Source verification of systems and mechanics in the game. And that's important, because a game's health LIVES OR DIES based on the quality of its tools ... and I heard that, in person, from CuppaJo, former City of Heroes Community Manager. Even if the majority of Players don't want or need the tools, an important minority of Players (the Explorers and Theorycrafters) will, along with internal staff Testers who need to verify and validate that stuff works the way it's supposed to and it isn't a bug ridden mess because someone made a mistake somewhere and no one ever checked it through testing.

ThunderCAP wrote:

There is still something you didn't seem to put into your equation Redlynne: the more the players know, the more exploits will arise, which is the main reason devs don't give all the info to the players but just what they need to play and get the fun.

You make it easier to cheats and exploit when you deliver all the math in their hands. You may think that will translate soon or later in more fixes and bans as well, but truth is that once you unleash hell there is no turning back, the game will be easy to exploit forever and will never reach the immunity to exploits even with hundreds of patches, the math will never become perfectly balanced for everything in the game. Players are more and will always find something to exploit, once you deliver them the main keys the only way to stop would be to completely rebuild the game and don't do the same error again.

Transparency is not all flowers, far from it. The best future a game can get (and therefore what makes a better environment for the players as well) is usally the middle ground: not all the math delivered to the masses but enough to play with it and find major bugs or minor ones in more time.

This is an interesting notion, but it's one that I don't entirely agree with. The major element you seem to be missing is BETA TESTING. The more exploits caught ASAP the fewer that will end up in the game after launch and clever testers (like the obsessive PhD rookslide mentioned) who know the "maths" behind all that will help that process.

But even after launch a game like CoT is a finite system regardless of the "numbers" involved. If the game still has the potential to be exploited after testing then it will be exploited regardless of how much the players are informed of the "inner workings" or not.

Yes, if players are given the intimate details of the maths involve it may be [b]easier[/b] for the most clever min/maxers to more quickly find combinations that push the system to its limits or maybe even go past those limits into exploit territory. But again even without being handed the so-called "keys to the kingdom" the most clever min/maxers will STILL eventually explore every nook and cranny there is to be explored and find any exploits that remain regardless.

Knowing the math behind the system doesn't by itself make a game vulnerable to exploitation. At worse it could only expose any vulnerabilities that exist regardless and frankly the quicker people start to exploit those weaknesses the quicker they'll be identified and corrected.

Have all the numbers you want, but have the option not to have to see it all. Like Rookside, I HAVE a job, and I never liked Math class. And I HATED "show your work". If the answer is right, it's right. It pissed me off when I'd get a problem right, then get it marked wrong because i didn't "show all my work." If people want to see all that, fine, they should be able to (Exploiters gonna exploit, however much or little info they get), but I shouldn't have to be flooded with technical information if I don't want it. The "Making of the Movie" should be a separate feature, not integrated into the movie.

Regarding numbers: we plan to let you see the basic improvements gained from socketing your Augs and Refs. I tried to express this point in the update.

We also plan to allow more advanced options to see many details. There will be options in the avatar builder for seeing details for powers too.

We want to give a combat log so you can see how encounters played out.

Now the real kicker is we plan to let people play on their own server if they are so included. Which means for the real savvy, every single, nitty gritty detail will be obtainable.

Now there is concern over exploits. There are 2 ways of using the term. One is taking advantage of bugs in the system to do something that is not intended by the system. Example: item duping.

The other is taking advantage in flaws of the design to gain something in a way that the system allows but the developer didn’t intend. Example: completing content in an order that yields rewards faster than the developer intended (Quick Katie for those that remember).

There is a third way, and it is mostly benign: using a loophole in the design to perform a function that was intended to be allowed but not for the purpose the person exploiting it is used for but isn’t viewed by the devs to be egregious. Example: resetting a mission prior to comlletion in order to repeat the content. The reset was there for people to resolve issues that may have occurred without requiring GM support, but players use it to farrm. As long as the farm doesn’t result in the first 2 examples, it is rather benign.

Players using the details of numbers may find combinations that we as devs didn’t know would yield a certain rate of performance. I expect this to happen at some point. At such time, we will evaluate what is going on and either need to adjust our performance metrics or adjust one or more of the powers. It is the nature of the 3D chess game between devs and players.

The first two examples will require resolving the bug or adjusting the reward system for the content.

I just noticed that duration of effect seems to be missing from the augments or refinements we see in the update. I would expect things like control powers, barriers, landmines and DoT would be affected by such an augment. Is this omission intentional?

I am also of the opinion that the game should't give the players too much information. So I think if the combat log is interrogated on the live server it only needs to go so deep as to say
[indent][indent][i]your attack did [b]7[/b] points of damage ((Base 16)[color=purple](- 4 due to defense)[/color][color=orange](*0.75 due to resistance)[/color][color=magenta](-2 due to subtraction)[/color])[/i][/indent][/indent]

at the most. One could even go so far as to say only:
[indent][indent][i]your attack did [b]7[/b] points of damage (Base 16 [color=red]- 9[/color] = [b]7[/b])[/i][/indent][/indent]

I know that there is an element of the player base that thoroughly enjoys all the number crunching, and I think those elements would probably actually enjoy running their own experiments to examine the effectiveness of all their augments and refinements, just like they did with CoX, so I really don't see it as being too much of a problem. And to this end I sincerely hope that MWM will give us some combat dummies so we can parse our own info in a controlled environment. This type of metagaming can be its own fun playtime.

However, on the test server, if there is going to be a test server; I would want and expect full backstage number disclosure so everyone can run all the validations they want. So the same attack combat log on the test server would show:
[indent][indent][i]((Base Damage =6 + (rnd*(10)result=4) =10) [color=blue](+2 due to lvl2 damage augment)[/color] [color=green](*1.333 due to tertiary power bonus for melee attacks)[/color] =[b]16[/b]) ([color=purple](-4 due to defense vs melee attack)[/color] = 12) [color=orange](*0.75 due to resistance to physical damage type)[/color][color=magenta](-1 due to subtraction)[/color])=[color=red][b]7[/b] total damage[/color]) [/i][/indent][/indent]

Then access to the test servers can either be as restricted or open as the devs see fit.

Maybe it’s just me but I find that going overboard with number crunching inevitably becomes “they aren’t being fair”. By this I mean at some point someone points out a flaw and the devs either knew about it or they don’t either way a change to the system will end up pissing more users off because now they’ve “nerfed” something.

While I agree that it is nice to know details of numerical in the game for some things ultimately I trust the devs to do their job so I can enjoy the game. I don’t need to monitor the people that are doing everything they can to provide me my entertainment.

Mistakes may exist but I don’t really need to be involved in proving whether or not the mechanics are valid and working or not. These thing will prove themselves through gameplay. QA/QC is part of the devs job not the players. If they don’t do it well they will know soon enough without number crunching.

Just my opinion I know others disagree.

Huckleberry wrote:

I just noticed that duration of effect seems to be missing from the augments or refinements we see in the update. I would expect things like control powers, barriers, landmines and DoT would be affected by such an augment. Is this omission intentional?

It's perhaps not explicitly stated as being so, but I had assumed that DoT durations (or more specifically, the number and tempo of damage ticks) would be fixed and unchanging. How much damage each DoT tick does would be shifted by Damage Augments, but there wouldn't be an Augment that turns a 10s DoT duration into a 15s DoT duration (for example).

By contrast, I fully expect the Control Augment to extend the duration of Mez effects, and possibly even modify what amounts to their "magnitude" in whatever system Tannim is building. That way an Augmented Control Power would not only last longer but also be more likely to edge a target towards a "lockdown" condition (since controls will have [b]Degrees of Impairment[/b] to them in City of Titans) compared to an un-Augmented performance profile.

ThunderCAP wrote:

Therefore maybe I worry too much and this game cannot reach the hellish environment others did, simply because of its nature. Still imho they shouldn't risk delivering all the math details because some risks shouldn't be taken lightly, but not even deny all the knowledge since the players will need at least some simple math to take decisions accurately.

I'm not really trying to completely discount your concerns about this issue; I simply think you're taking it a tiny bit too far in the direction of being overly alarmist about it.

Say on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 is the Devs aren't paying any attention to it at all and 10 would make it their number one top priority I think this thing about "giving players too much numerical info" should rate about a 4. You on the other hand seem to be setting this thing at about a 7 or 8.

Basically I trust the Devs of this game will be mindful about how much (or how little) info they provide. Still I think it would be worth their effort to allow as much info to flow into the hands of the players as possible because again I ascribe to the theory that the quicker exploits are identified the quicker they are dealt with. Many of the worst exploits in CoH were discovered by the work of mathematically-gifted players who in fact had the numerical data/evidence at their disposal to explain the situations at hand to the Devs.

Again we should have the option (as players) to choose how verbose we want our GUIs to be concerning the numbers that get displayed on our screens. But at the same time we should be able to access as much of the underlying math as possible for those players who want to understand what's -actually- happening. People who want to exploit the game are going to exploit it regardless, but those people who want to help the Devs fix things need as much information as possible to do that.

Tannim222 wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:

I just noticed that duration of effect seems to be missing from the augments or refinements we see in the update. I would expect things like control powers, barriers, landmines and DoT would be affected by such an augment. Is this omission intentional?

It is intentional. There is no direct way to improve durations of an effect. This has to do with how duration affects Output as it affects the destination.

However we have a function for Control effects. Augs improve the value of the control effect. The base duration is increased based on the how much the target is affected by their rank. Basically controls last longer on Mooks than they do against Elites or Players. This would probably require an update to explain. I would prefer such an update with a video but that isn’t up to me.

This makes sense could apply to things other than control as well in thinking...

Huckleberry wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:

I just noticed that duration of effect seems to be missing from the augments or refinements we see in the update. I would expect things like control powers, barriers, landmines and DoT would be affected by such an augment. Is this omission intentional?

It is intentional. There is no direct way to improve durations of an effect. This has to do with how duration affects Output as it affects the destination.

However we have a function for Control effects. Augs improve the value of the control effect. The base duration is increased based on the how much the target is affected by their rank. Basically controls last longer on Mooks than they do against Elites or Players. This would probably require an update to explain. I would prefer such an update with a video but that isn’t up to me.

Thank you for the quick response.

You have stated before that control effects would be non-binary. I may be presumptuous, but I take that statement with this response and come up with a conclusion that the non-binary nature of control effects will be manifested in the time the target is under the influence of the effect.

Heretofore, I had questions about it. For example, I had been wondering if a snare or stop or paralysis was going to be just a degree of slowness. But I think duration of effect would be far easier to code.

Oh no, non-binary effects are much more than that. Like I said, discussing Controls needs to be an update in of itself. So as intriguing as the previous statement is and I know it will cause no end of speculation. Hold tight onto the speculative assumptions. We won’t be divulging details just yet.

As far as this update is concerned, just know that Control Augments increase the value of the control effect. It does not directly increase the duration. The duration is improved by how well the control effect applies to the target based on its rank.

rookslide wrote:

Maybe it’s just me but I find that going overboard with number crunching inevitably becomes “they aren’t being fair”. By this I mean at some point someone points out a flaw and the devs either knew about it or they don’t either way a change to the system will end up pissing more users off because now they’ve “nerfed” something.

While I agree that it is nice to know details of numerical in the game for some things ultimately I trust the devs to do their job so I can enjoy the game. I don’t need to monitor the people that are doing everything they can to provide me my entertainment.

Mistakes may exist but I don’t really need to be involved in proving whether or not the mechanics are valid and working or not. These thing will prove themselves through gameplay. QA/QC is part of the devs job not the players. If they don’t do it well they will know soon enough without number crunching.

Just my opinion I know others disagree.

I mostly agree. Let people have the info they want, but by special access. Don't fill the screen with numbers by default. No Math class, please, though it should be available for those who want it, and thus activate the setting. And I also trust the Devs. It's their job, after all, whereas I already have one of those, which takes far too much of my time. I don't need another (unless I'm being paid for it lol).

Tannim222 wrote:

Yes we plan on providing basic info - just enough to grasp how the Aug / Ref is affecting the power (here is how the value will be improved).

And we will give an option for those that want the fine details to see them.

Best of both worlds. The Devs are Wise. :)

Are the npc's you fight held up to the same "My attacks never miss unless evasion exists"? Cause I can get behind that happening with PC's, but if every minion has that then it's just going to get weird. Like it would make sense for my guy to never miss because he's a Titan, but a common rook, should definatly miss even if I have no protection on me at all.

notears wrote:

Are the npc's you fight held up to the same "My attacks never miss unless evasion exists"? Cause I can get behind that happening with PC's, but if every minion has that then it's just going to get weird. Like it would make sense for my guy to never miss because he's a Titan, but a common rook, should definatly miss even if I have no protection on me at all.

What do you mean by "protection"?

If you have shields or armor, then they only work when they get hit, right? But they work by reducing the damage received. That's a whole lot different than the attack missing you. I would want the NPC's to experience the same accuracy calculations as we do. That way we reap the rewards for making an investment into evasion.

If we have 100% hit rate, this would mean all CCs hit 100% of the time. Is there going to be status resists or just status reduction?

Just stun people to death?

Brand X wrote:

If we have 100% hit rate, this would mean all CCs hit 100% of the time. Is there going to be status resists or just status reduction?

Just stun people to death?

You can have Defense of a certain style vs. Control effects. This reduces the value of the control based on the style of the attack if the Defense is of the same style. Ranged Defense vs. Control effects would defend vs Controls.

Resistance reduces ALL effects based on the damage of of the Resist vs the Damage type of the effect. If you have Physical Resistance, it reduces the effect of Physcal typed control effects.

Controls are non-binary. Even an unprotected PC can take 2 hits of most NPC control effect in order to be fully effected. Even then, you can have a Reserve to Break Out of the control.

You will have plenty of access to powers which reduce control effects. Control effects are non-binary. Eventually though, it is possible to be fully controlled. The duration of such is not long for player characters.

You will gain Momentum which bleeds into Reaerves - one of which is to Break Out of control effects. There are also certain powers that can let you do this.

Ghost-Spectre wrote:

Please, please, please do not do with stuns, mezzes, or controls in such a fashion that you can be chained and lose all control of your toon, especially in PvP. Please give a toons immunity to all of those mentioned for a duration of 15 to 30 seconds if they choose to allow said actions run its course (IE: not using a stun breaker defensive power to break said control) or give us the same type of consumable we had in CoH to give us immunity. Nothing is more frustrating and rage inducing than being chain stunned to death. This is especially true when you fight weak, standard, or veteran enemies who throw slows or flash bang grenades every 15 seconds as found in other games (Stun Wars: The Old Republic of Controls). >:-(

{* polite cough *}

That only makes sense (Immunity to Mezzes) if the same thing gets applied to Damage too ... meaning that there should be Immunity to Damage windows ... because (and I quote), "nothing is more frustrating and rage inducing that being [s]chain stunned[/s] [b]damaged[/b] to death."

Immunities are ALWAYS a dumb thing to do in an effort to patch the holes of a broken system. Please do not make the mistake of advocating in favor of them unless you're willing to accept that [i]what's good for the goose is good for the gander[/i] with regards to Immunities.

Ghost-Spectre wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:

Brand X wrote:

If we have 100% hit rate, this would mean all CCs hit 100% of the time. Is there going to be status resists or just status reduction?

Just stun people to death?

You can have Defense of a certain style vs. Control effects. This reduces the value of the control based on the style of the attack if the Defense is of the same style. Ranged Defense vs. Control effects would defend vs Controls.

Resistance reduces ALL effects based on the damage of of the Resist vs the Damage type of the effect. If you have Physical Resistance, it reduces the effect of Physcal typed control effects.

Controls are non-binary. Even an unprotected PC can take 2 hits of most NPC control effect in order to be fully effected. Even then, you can have a Reserve to Break Out of the control.

Please, please, please do not do with stuns, mezzes, or controls in such a fashion that you can be chained and lose all control of your toon, especially in PvP. Please give a toons immunity to all of those mentioned for a duration of 15 to 30 seconds if they choose to allow said actions run its course (IE: not using a stun breaker defensive power to break said control) or give us the same type of consumable we had in CoH to give us immunity. Nothing is more frustrating and rage inducing than being chain stunned to death. This is especially true when you fight weak, standard, or veteran enemies who throw slows or flash bang grenades every 15 seconds as found in other games (Stun Wars: The Old Republic of Controls). >:-(

Wouldn't someone in a control class, want the ability to keep a player fully stunned?

Brand X wrote:

Wouldn't someone in a control class, want the ability to keep a player fully stunned?

What an interesting supposition.

The short answer would be yes.
And the Target Class would want to resist being fully stunned.

So an arms race would ensue.

Exciting.

But at what point does it stop? The target class, would want to have some ability to deal damage so that if it can get attacks in, the show is over.
Likewise, the controller would want to have some damage dealing or else what good would the constant control be.

Hmmm...

But if they had teammates, they could afford to be single-purposed, especially the controller.

So the feedback loops of this system between the controller and the controllee seems pretty balanced. Only the numbers will tell just how balanced it will be, but the potential is there for to make this an interesting arms race.

The problem most people experience, however, is that DPS classes usually put so much effort into maximazing their DPS at the expense of all else that they would be the easiest targets for controllers. Most players in this situation would complain about how overpowered the controllers are long before they ever consider that they don't have enough control resistance.

Edit: dammit Tannim222, you responded while I was typing.

Ghost-Spectre wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:

You will have plenty of access to powers which reduce control effects. Control effects are non-binary. Eventually though, it is possible to be fully controlled. The duration of such is not long for player characters.

You will gain Momentum which bleeds into Reaerves - one of which is to Break Out of control effects. There are also certain powers that can let you do this.

I guess I'll have to wait and see how this plays out. I am of the mind that, most developers, not all, use stuns, mezzes, and other player controls (read more stuns) to counter player skill. Why else would some standard mob thrown flash grenades to blind a player or cement them to the ground with slow grenade? I understand there's a time and place for using such things in PvP; however, not to the extent where a player is chained and killed because they cannot do anything to defend themselves. This is something that really needs not happen.

Sounds like another person who didn't like Malta Sappers... :)

Tannim222 wrote:

notears wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:

notears wrote:

Are the npc's you fight held up to the same "My attacks never miss unless evasion exists"? Cause I can get behind that happening with PC's, but if every minion has that then it's just going to get weird. Like it would make sense for my guy to never miss because he's a Titan, but a common rook, should definatly miss even if I have no protection on me at all.

Very few PC's will have no protection unless it's a conscious choice.

I'm not talking about protection though I'm talking about miss rates. Do npc's have the same100% hit chance that PC's do?

We design NPC powers the same way we make PC powers. The only only difference we have with NPCs is they can “see”’ threat that is generated in order help their brain process who to attack, and they have Perception Range paramters to notify players when the NPC is alert to their presence and when they are aggroed.

What that means is that there is no base MIss rate baked into their powers. We can do that if we must, but it makes the math for determining how it affects all their hit rolls more...complex than PCs. Which means separate metrics for us to monitor.

What Dr. Tyche means by virtually everyone will have access to protections unless it is a concious choice has to do with 3 things, then I’ll add one of my own.

First, Support Powers that provide Protection effects will be plentiful. Unlike the old game where a support power cast a shield and it effected only the team - it affects the originator as well. We plan to allow self targeting as well. This changes things a lot.

The second was mentioned - Tertiary Protection Sets are open to every Archetype.

The third is access to Protection Reserves. Being hit by an enemy boos your Momentum. Momentum falls and bleeds into Reaerves.

Now another part of this is Powers that carry debuffs, or Support Powers that carry certain debuffs can affect Miss Rate, reduce damage values, and so on. Did you notice Attenuators improve Damage Debuffs?

So yes, constantly being hit by bad guys may be an issue. There a multiple ways of dealing with avoiding or reducing their capability of harming you.

Alright okay cool, I think I understand. The difference between a Titan and a Minion in this game is that minions don't typically have protections while titans do no matter what AT they are. That's good, most heroes and villains at that level have some form of protection while thugs and cops typically don't. That makes sense thanks for clarifying :]

Ghost-Spectre wrote:

Mordheim13 wrote:

Sounds like another person who didn't like Malta Sappers... :)

I hated them with a passion. That's why I hunted them at every opportunity! LOL

Oh, yes. I lost no opportunity to kill any Malta Sapper I saw, if at all possible. :D

Scott Jackson wrote:

I am not clear on the mechanism(s) by which our supposed-to-be-tough classes are adequately protected from NPCs' controls to maintain heroic-feeling combat. I understand that everyone can get some small amount of control duration reduction and can use breakfree reserves, but I'm thinking specifically about tankish types of characters, who will face an opening volley of attacks at every spawn and whose usefulness and enjoyment in combat depends on movement. Can you help me understand which of these are part of the current plan to help them be relevant and fun to play?

1. Are control powers rare among NPCs, or their powers made weak, so that a medium / large spawn group will seldom contain enough controller NPCs to stack the effects onto a tough class PC?
2. Is NPC AI being designed to throttle their use of controls when many NPC controllers are present in the same spawn group?
3. Are the tough classes given some modest amount of immunity to control "value/magnitude" through their defensive powers, so that NPCs have at least a little difficulty breaking through it first, and then must stack the non-binary effects before a full control effect occurs?
4. Are the tough classes given a good amount of duration reduction to controls through their defensive powers, so that NPCs have difficulty stacking enough before the first stack wears off, so that the non-binary effects seldom build up enough to prevent active combat action for the player?
5. Use of breakfree reserves, for rare cases when the tough character is overwhelmed by multiple spawn groups or an especially-dangerous elite boss?
6. Are the tough classes meant to be dependent on teammates with anti-control powers when facing NPC spawn groups above the size for soloing?
7. Something else?

In other words, what combat mechanics will prevent a tank or scrapper-like character from being hard-controlled or overloaded with non-binary effects each time they approach a medium to large group of NPCs of a faction which has control users?

Well in CoX minions and even bosses didn't really start gaining control powers until much later, so at most your enforcer or stalwart would only have to worry about knockback at most before dealing with enemy mobs that can hold you in place.

Tannim222 wrote:

We have Evasion (avoid being hit) m, Defense (reduce effect by style of attack - which lowers the possible variable roll), Resistance (reduce effect by percentage), and Subtraction (reduce damage by flat amount).

Yes I’m intentionally ignoring healing / regen here) but we have those as well.

Combat ends up working differently as a result of all these factors.

Then we are taking things a step further with giving everyone access to Protection Tertiaries. This opens up a lot of opprotunity to deal with being hit (or not) that the old game didn’t have to worry about for every character.

Ooooh, I like the sound of this, even if it means I’ll be desperately working on ways to get all four levels of defence to work somehow for the first few months of the game.

I’m guessing the order by which damage goes through to a character would be Evasion then Defence then Subtraction then Resistance, as enough resistance might make the damage small enough that the Subtraction reduces it to 0, while having Resistance last would mean that a character hit would be guaranteed to have at least one point of damage, unless the first thing was the intention, which might actually be kinda neat.

A Protection Tertiary also sounds delicious, and now I REALLY want a character planner. With something like that, I will more than likely be going for Gladiator over Bulwark (depending on if Gladiator has access to the Super Strength/Invulnerability set of this game at launch). Hm… Let’s see, Super Strength Primary, Invulnerability Secondary, Protection Tertiaries, Flight, Rage and/or Reinforcement Masteries, man I really can’t wait to get stuck in.

Will keep an eye out for the second chance funding.

Coooollllll!!!! :)

Avatar build??? :) Please, do to save the uniform out of the game! After then give to put in the game!

The jury is still out for me concerning the current combat mechanics. My immediate, and albeit knee-jerk reaction, isn't entirely warm towards the hit/miss system (or lack thereof). But that's mostly due to inability to see the proposed system in action and the unfamiliarity of it compared to the previous system in CoH/V (change is scary, amirite?). Looking forward to the forthcoming update(s) concerning more intimate details, and even moreso to tinkering with it.

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

The jury is still out for me concerning the current combat mechanics. My immediate, and albeit knee-jerk reaction, isn't entirely warm towards the hit/miss system (or lack thereof). But that's mostly due to inability to see the proposed system in action and the unfamiliarity of it compared to the previous system in CoH/V (change is scary, amirite?). Looking forward to the forthcoming update(s) concerning more intimate details, and even moreso to tinkering with it.

Oh, there is a hit/miss system, but it's now relative rather than absolute.

With an "all-time hit" system, it [i]sounds[/i] [b]more[/b] absolute than relative, with the one except being where Evasion/debuffs are involved (as confirmed by Tannin222's post #148).

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

The jury is still out for me concerning the current combat mechanics. My immediate, and albeit knee-jerk reaction, isn't entirely warm towards the hit/miss system (or lack thereof). But that's mostly due to inability to see the proposed system in action and the unfamiliarity of it compared to the previous system in CoH/V (change is scary, amirite?). Looking forward to the forthcoming update(s) concerning more intimate details, and even moreso to tinkering with it.

Oh, there is a hit/miss system, but it's now relative rather than absolute.

With an "all-time hit" system, it [i]sounds[/i] [b]more[/b] absolute than relative, with the one except being where Evasion/debuffs are involved (as confirmed by Tannin222's post #148).

And as evasion and debuffs are not the exception but the rule, that would make it relative.

Thank you for the clarification!