Work In Progress: Weapon Mastery (Updated)

Weapon Mastery is a good idea and concept for the bored players, but the way you are approaching it will unbalance the game instead of balancing it out for players whilst taking our money doing it and here is how its going happen.

1. Tunso said and i quote "You are still going to want to use your skill points for stats before you even start considering of spec'ing into weapon mastery" Now think about it.
If you had 2 players at Tier 1 for example and one player knows how to clip and the other does not, so they need to use weapon mastery so they can at least be at the same calibre of the player that knows how to clip, well how is this possible? Low level players wouldnt have the necessary SP at low level content and further more i see a lot of noobs at T5 with roughly 60-70SP and have no urge to gain more SP. All this is going to create are more and more morons in the game that will go for weapon mastery before stats. Problem here is education, there is no education in this game about SP. You have no idea on how many come into my league and have no idea about SKILL POINTS, now thats a broken gameright there.
Also the player that doesnt know how to clip needs to pay $10 for the DLC to have that option (weapon mastery), so how is this fair? Taking peoples money because they cant clip.
And after you have collected all the stats that you need for your role specific duties then this is where you start spec'ing into weapon mastery, well it takes roughly 80SP+ to get all stats including the ones in the 0/3 and around 100+SP to get the 0/6 stats, so you would need approx 130SP+ spent on stats before you could be competative with weapon mastery to a person that knows how to clip, so how is this balancing out the game? You might as well spend a day or two to learn on how to clip, then go through all that trouble and spending money.

To me your taking money off people because they dont know how to clip and promoting it saying its going to balance the game, well i would be ashamed of myself if i were you dev's, telling people here is a way to compete with the clippers in the game, spend $10 so you can have access to weapon mastery, cant play the content as of yet cause your at level 10 but at least you have access to weapon mastery now, oh and by the way you need at least 25+ SP before you can have fun utilizing weapon mastery, so dont bother with stats just go for weapon mastery. But still they wont be any better off cause they went to weapon mastery instead of stats. lmfao great work dev's!

2.Given the past history of the DCUO dev's that try and create new methods towards the game (eg. weapon mastery) instead of fixing the old things that are broken, this is why its unbalanced, its you dev's not the game.
We have 2 things already in the game to make the game balanced, but you choose not to fix it and ignore it, its called "Hit counter" & "Powers Ovewriting"

Hit Counter
If you fixed the hit counter to which it would not reset unless you stopped attacking the enemies then this would eliminate 2 problems we have already to date,
1. running with 3 trollers in raids so the group can have endless supply of power, instead of changing stats in the stat tree for trollers like your thinking of doing now, just fix the hit counter so peoples power would be getting
automatically replaced by their efforts, like it was attended from day dot, even its stated in the power description in game.
The second problem this would eliminated would be the troller batteries in game, 3 trollers in a raid, 1st troller PoT's and instant, 2nd troller instants and 3rd troller Debuff's & CC. If the hit counter was fixed or revamped then this would solve this ongoing problem entirely.

Powers Overwriting
If you had fixed this problem in the first place, there would be no reason for clipping & Weapon Mastery and the only reason why you would use clipping and weapon mastery would be for street cred. Have any of you dev's ever stopped and ask yourselves why YOU pushed us towards clipping in the first place?
Well this is why, T5 content you have implimented 2 huge factors, 1. Rage Timers & 2. Beefed up Bosses
So we need to Burn, Burn, Burn, if powers didnt overwrite each other there would be no reason or need to clip and now weapon mastery to be able to get through a nex or dox run, how about you spend the time and money on fixing problems instead of implimenting newer things to stuff up and you wonder why the veteran people are leaving the game.

This is why the game is broken, but instead of fixing things like this you are trying to add more things to make the game more balanced, lol. The game is already balanced if you got of your buttholes and just fixed whats broken. And also we would go back to that 2-2-2-2 role method to which the game was intended in the first place.

3. Here is proof of why i dont spend a lot of my time in your forums because 95% of the people in your forums are noobs and tossers and here is a perfect example of it. I wrote a post of why it was unfair to people that couldnt clip were getting kicked from T5 raid parties because they couldnt clip and nearly everyone said it was us players that were putting that requirement in place not the dev's. Well Spytle said and i quote "That you needed to clip in order to complete T5 content" he said it at approx. 9:30 on the "working in progress" video and here is my post https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/clipping-vs-non-clipping.179837/
I have been here since 1 month before the "Fight for the light" DLC pack was released live onto the servers, so yeah i have been around for a while and veteran players like me are dwindling rapidly, because of these reasons.

4. Like everything else that you DCUO dev's impliment into the game, you are just going to stuff up the game even more if you alter, change or modify the jump clip. I know you will loose 100's if not 1000's of people if you touch this.
You will impliment weapon mastery to the game and it will take you months to get it running right, because i know this from past events and history of all you dev's when it comes to fixing things. I would suggest not touching this
particular area of the game until you have weapon mastery running at 100%, because whilst your ironing out the bugs from weapon mastery at least us players could still get through content with jump clipping. Example, the ENTRAP defensive debuff power isnt fixed yet and you also know about it, but yet you have done nothing to fix this issue. So judging off how long it takes you guys to fix major things it would be months before your game could be playable again.

5. It was also mentioned that the weapon mastery combo's are vulnerable to interupt's, well you werent exactly clear on how exactly it would be interuptable, but i cant see how these weapon mastery techniques are going to work in a nex or dox run. Your moving forward towards the enemy as your attacking with weapon mastery and plus its interuptable, hmmm i wonder how this will work against bosses in the paradox tunnels especially towards ravenger, lol. Oh well another failed mechanic the other purpose of clipping too is the fact you stay in one spot and dont move, but i dont have to worry about it too much because you will release another DLC that players would have to pay for, to have fix your stuffed efforts of weapon mastery DLC, like your doing now, releasing weapon mastery for $10 as a DLC, when all you have to do is fix the power overwriting & hit counter problem.


My personal View of weapon mastery
I like weapon mastery as an added bonuses to have fun when your bored, but it shouldnt become a requirement to have like you are all promoting it as. I feel that if you ar going to force people to spent $10 on a DLC so they can compete with people that know how to clip, then your just taking people's money for the sheer fact that people cant clip and on top of that, those people have to have a staggering amount of SP in order to have weapon mastery to work at the same level of clipping, to me sounds too much work plus 90% of the players now dont even know or care about the SP, maybe this may push them to get those SP points, but i highly doubt it, your just going to start seeing more and more people only specing for weapon mastery instead of stats. I like the idea of it and concept of weapon mastery but having it compared to other things in the game as of now, like for reasons i mentioned above then i see it as dev's have nothing else to do, so instead of fixing old content which makes the game balanced, which they choose to ignore, they sit around and do nothing accept come up with more ideas to screw up the game even further, possibly so they can keep there job's, but i dont know the real reasons why the DCUO people waste our $$$ and time when it could be well spent fixing things and maybe we may get back all the older veteran's back into the game.
And as much as i hate to clip myself, but i took the time to learn it so i could pull me and my league through T5 content, so i cant wait until weapon mastery comes out at least if its as good as clipping results then ill be using
weapon mastery more then clipping but im at 140+sp, but i'd rather finish raid first, i dont care what method i use clip or weapon mastery i just want to finish the end game content, but others may not have the experiance or SP to do weapon mastery.

I'm a little concerned about the Dual Pistol chains. Since Loft Shot and Jump Shot are both being used for the purposes of Masteries, what will happen to the old chains? I particularly remember both attacks already have two other chains attached to them when holding either Melee or Ranged attacks. Loft Shot chains into Jump Shot and Slip Shot, whereas Jump Shot chains into Sweep Shot and Magnum Round. How will the weapon masteries fit then?

The more I think about it the more upset I get. We're going to see the same thing. There will only be 2 types of DPS' once this hits. There won't be anymore variety just Type A and Type B DPS. Not to mention what a waste this will inevitably be for support roles, regardless of what you add to it, in the end it's a fruitless endeavor. I feel like you guys don't even play your own game. This isn't getting to play our way, you're making us play your way. And thus far a vast number of people are not happy with your way.

I've seen multiple references to giving trolls boosts to Vit or Dom at the completion of a combo, but there are already options for the two of those between trinkets and sodas. What about something that modifies how the powers work? For example, what if a dump done at the end of a combo had the same 100% critical chance, as an attack done at the end of a combo? Or, if the dump either extended to the full part or the power out wasn't split?

For the Controller Weapon Mastery buff, I don't see increased Dominance being very useful. Controllers are currently only able to inflict maximum-length stuns on trash mobs that pose little threat to the group. Everything else a Controller would want to control breaks out after a few seconds. Enhanced dominance would help shield strength a little bit, but Controller shields don't last long enough for that to be too useful. If a Controller is using a shield heavy loadout, that will interfere with their ability to control enemies due to the lack of controlling powers. If Controllers are to receive a bonus, how about giving a temporary boost to Crit Power Chance or Debuff Length/Potency?

Type A and Type B DPS is one more type than we have now, so that's a bit better anyway.

In DLC9, there are a lot of NPCs that can be stunned aside the manhunters. From my study, I'd say all but the general match npcs can be stunned for an extended period of time. Generals just breakout instantly. If they kept it like OC, where litterally everything broke out except for the nexus drones, then I think you would be right about this. But WM is coming with DLC10 and if they keep going with controllable mobs from here on out, it would benefit more in the long run. Personally, I think we should be able to control the Match NPC generals too.

I know you are an advocate for that dom doesn't matter, but I think they added it in earlier than it's actual use.

As I just posted to bob, DLC9 is definitely a step in the direction to need more dom. Currently in that DLC only the generals breakout instantly. They need to remove that also. We should be able to lockdown all NPCs based on our dom, otherwise what's the point and I would agree with you on that.

I don't like the idea of WM giving power increase, that just promotes the power battery more. I still will accept it if there was an "AND" included with it. Debuf is nice, but I mentioned that could cause some PvP problems.

I 100% agree

Agree to disagree Bary. We have all kinds of DPS right now. What we only have one type of are top tier DPS. If they balance out the other DPS powers then we'll be back to having several competitive powers without all needing to rely on one skill/ability/mechanic to carry them.

What top-tier non-clipping DPS do we have right now?

Ya, I'd really like to see their input in all of this. Some good ideas were posted, really want to hear them out. And WM combos will provide significant stat boosts that will last through tiers 6 and 7 as mentioned in the video.

This % stuff is what should have been the case for ALL roles from the beginning including DPS We should get a % buff to our damage and or longer ticks and or wider AoEs This whole combo system is a bunch of bells and whistles where there shouldn't be. There was nothing wrong with the combat mechanics as they were. Did we need power balance? Yes but the combo system isn't the answer in my opinion. Big thumbs down from me, a three year vet.

As FarmerBob mentioned, that Dominance update for crowd control powers didn't have much practical effect. It basically added an extra 1.0-1.5 seconds to certain types of crowd control powers and that time bonus was only applicable to trash-level enemies.. Most raid-level enemies still break out out of anything very quickly. If the time bonus was applied to all enemies, it would be more useful.

I don't think a modest bonus to Crit Power Chance or Debuff Length/Potency would be unbalancing. A couple extra seconds on Debuff length would help reduce power consumption for Controllers. Something like a 2% increase on Crit Power Chance for a few seconds would be ok. If you consider that too unbalanced, how about a temporary Precision-stat increase for Controllers? Extra Precision would be useful for the way I play the game. It'd also encourage Controllers to attack more.

After some thought I would prefer there not be a buff to Vitalization, consider as an alternative that the combo refreshes or extends the POT in action, or returns more power to the Controller. This would free up the controller to be either type of controller they want - the debuf/cc or battery troller as they choose and can change up on the fly.

Example in action: POT is triggered by controller, then debuff's, then executes the WM combo successfully - gets an extra boost of power back into his/her power stack and the POT counter is refreshed, then tosses an instant power and rolls into another combo.

If someone wanted to be more competitive with a double tick POT they can choose not to combo and go with the way things are now. However if they get into a crunch and are power starved (soders and SC are on cooldown) they can opt to pull off a combo or two, juice up and bam back into their preferred rotation. For a 2nd controller who is doing instant power and debuff they could work the combos for extra power return for more instant power.

The concept is give the controller options to build up their own power through activity to differentiate a good/poor/bad controller and not just have the % higher because they clicked an option.

I feel like the em is too slow you can't clip it. You can do more by getting the new inmates and clipping as u would today

Plus the combos are dumb I would love to go from ma to hb but instead u have to go into pistols first like wtf why use pistols wen you can shoot blasts out your hands

I agree that pistols look out of place in MA, IMO. I posted some suggestions on the first page.

Seems this will only benefit those who have more skill points than needed already to max out their innates. If say someone with 100 sp spends the additional points to reach 20 in one tree. Will the bonuses gained from weapon mastery be better than using those sp on their innates instead. Healers or tanks will need to in some cases depending on which weapon is choosen need to speck into vit for example as apposed to their roles needed skills.

I really like the suggestions to enhance power interactions, either instead of role-specific buffs or as an additional option. Anything that encourages and enhances teamwork would make this game much more interesting. Plus, having a raid makeup determining which combos to use rather than the boss encounters determining the preferred raid makeup would be a huge win.

Along that line of thinking, having weapon mastery combos affect PIs normally outside of the player's powerset would be very interesting: A fire tank enhancing frostbite, a nature player prolonging stuns or encasements through spores, etc.