Hi, I appreciate your thought out reasoning, however I find the logic of it flawed. I am not a fan of exclusionary approaches to items in game, particularly allies as they should be trying to appeal to as many people as possible. I can appreciate your lore specific reason and if that were to the be the case then JS should exclude all powers entirely except for Green Lanterns and perhaps Yellow Lanterns (despite being the wrong faction). If that isn't the case then I think excluding combo abilities based on one or some players desires to decide what does or doesn't qualify as a "combo ability" to be a dangerous precedent. You mention in your second reason tumbling master allowing other players to stack Shazam and John Stewart or BWL, I'd say, "so what?", They already are running Shazam and BWL if they want... Even if you restrict JS to some combo powers only that almost seems an attempt to allow yourself the ability to do the very thing you're denying others the ability to do, when you will almost certainly run Shazam, BWL and JS combos. The only real issue or complaint from Combo players is the power consumption and if that is the issue then the more important aspect of JS isn't attempting to restrict JS from being used by others but making sure lanterns have enough power to effectively utilize both as well, which is a different issue.
"As always thanks for y'alls time and feedback it is mightly helpful when working on things of this delicate nature so I appreciate the time you guys give to us so that we can continue to improve this great game we all play" -Ranmaru I though about that and something seem to be forgotten by developers and the community. Not every Feedback in this thread comes from someone who is activly testing on the "Test-Server" which is an issue, since developers set the baseline and we as testers give feedback on the fine tuning. If there is however someone or multiple people giving feedback based on opinion and not testing, things going to be unbalanced. I also retought about this, since we as testers in most cases determine what will later be used on Live-Servers, cause most people won´t be able to test every artifact etc. combinations on live. I believe most people heard the quote "With great power comes great responsibility" and i would like to change power with reach. If any person with a high community reach will make a video showing what´s best or should be used, then there is a big chance people will use what been shown or said and build there opinions based on that knowledge, since their not able to go to the source themself. It´s not intended to be a personal offense just a reminder, we all grown up enough to take anything the like aside. Plus, i´ve seen what you meant with "reliable", therefore i´ve tested to use Trans/Grim/Ebon with HL Handclap spam, and the use of finisher when power going to ~10%, i´ve cancelt the finisher (Ebon restores power no matter the finishers duration) With that i´ve been getting results around 210k/s ST on Sparring Target above 35%. For Celest i tried the combination of Trans/Grim/Quislet and only Soul? spam (1. Ability in screenshot) and that also been around 200k/s all 60s parsers which worked amazingly good in solo, power never been under 80% (Power base/lair mods, Allys John Stewart and Cyborg). Finisher cancel might also work for other powers, test went down...couldn´t check. I believe that we have to think out of the box and determine again what people should use, individualy to their powerset. Apart from all that, i think there really is the need of blocking artifact swap, since you can´t really boost combo powers that way besides supercharges, which seem to cause another aspect of unbalance. Also Ebon works kinda against combo powers which require the power, so maybe even there it should have been considered when it been tested, or an alternative in future.
The other main factor to consider when I or anyone says what you "should" use is taking into account that on test server artifacts and allies are free. That is not the case on live server. The majority of the playerbase does not have an unlimited bank account to draw from. If something new is introduced it will be compared against what players "should" be using to not only maximize their potential but the least number of things they need to spend money on. If an ally is only marginally better or on par with Shazam/Static + BWL then why would a player spend the resources or $150.00 to level the new ally? for example JS. Just because there is a niche situation in a couple of powersets where you can try to justify usage doesn't mean its responsible to say "sure everyone level JS" Which is why alot of dps rotations will be tested with Trans-Strat-EoG/Quislet as a baseline because players more than likely already have that because those 3 artifacts offer coverage for nearly every role and powerset, as an example. All the extra subbing out EoG for Ebon; art swaps like DKS, Mercy, Scrap, Pstone, Pipers is to the level the player wants to expand on.
You have to ignore some of that noise though or it results in power creep. You can't balance everything around whether or not something motivates an existing player to spend $150 or resources on a new ally, because the only way you're going to do that is by making it better than what they already have and that is power creep. You want to present people with a choice, if it's as good as something they already have and they're not spending their resources on anything else and they know that they're not going to be wasting resources building something then they're not going to fear using those resources when something new, but on parity with existing tools is released. Power Creep is not a good thing and actually it discourages players from using saved resources because they're always fearing for how more powerful the next creep is going to be.
Yeah well, it´s hard to draw a line of where it starts and ends. If we only test with said artifacts, then how to balance if there might be an outlier powerset with a different artifact in use. And do we begin with people only having rank 80 artifacts, or do we end with 3x rank 200 artifacts available or more? And what if someone would put 1 of his art into another one to rank up faster with less money etc. And to the Ally´s, shouldn´t it be a range to choose from? Because if we go and always say "make it better than the last one"...then you would always have to spend on the new one again. Isn´t it an act of balance to have them on par with existing legendary ones, to keep the balance? I´m going to test without Grim and apply power interaction via ability instead, maybe that works out. In general it doesn´t hurt just testing everything all over again and see how it turns out. Also will try with Oracle Bot as alternative, if lower rank artifacts beeing used. *Corrections to my last post: Used Trans/Strat/Grim with Celest´s "Consume Soul" spam (200k/s), Trans/Grim/Quislet been HL test, due to Handclap having a lower crit chance but only reached around (195k/s).
That is exactly how dps has worked in DCUO for the past 13 years. When every new powerset came out besides Earth and Water. When every new AM was released. EoG with powersets that heavily favored their supercharges. Allies can take many directions, if they are going to be used to lift a mid-tier powerset like Nature to top tier with Ivy. Universally used by all roles like BWL/Zatanna or Allies that get released for niche situations and as the meta changes they are useless i.e. Aquaman and Harley. Or you have ones that offer nothing and are more just a reason to release something like Flashpoint Batman, Queen Dianna, Batman, Black Adam before this new EoG & BOP SC meta. that would be the point of Powerset Allies. Powerset allies, like Ivy, would be better than the last but the player needs to make the choice if they want to commit to that powerset and have the matching Ally to benefit.
I think the whole "Powerset Allies" is a really bad idea and i dont know who came up with that, and while there is Poison Ivy there is no other ally with the intent to be that. John Stewart seem to be intended for all combo abilitys, since we have not heard them say otherwise. And as you wrote already "The majority of the playerbase does not have an unlimited bank account to draw from", which they would need if it goes to powerset matching allys to benefit. I believe Poison Ivy been a test, and since many bought her and they dont wanna make the players upset they keep her like that. As Ranmaru wrote: "2. Allies are a means to balance underperforming powers - While there is a level of truth to this idea, I would say that its moreso if I think a powerset sucks. In order for it to be competitive with powersets that are strong naturally(or through other sources) it might need more assistance but the intent is not to try to use a secondary system to solve a problem with a primary system; its simply that the task of a power rebalance is far greater than that of making an ally." Somehow it looks like they are unsure themself, to be honest.
Since this didn't get posted to the feedback thread, the following changes were made yesterday: I can confirm Tumbling Master and Brand of Hectate no longer proc Corps Combo.
Feedback I went ahead and tested some loadouts and rotations again with the current changes. My strongest rotation averaged at 180k/sec with 269000 might. For comparison, with the exact same might on live server using Gagdets might i can do ~215k/sec average damage while not needing to use Oracle as 2nd ally. This ally is in a good spot for what its meant to be i guess. Buffing the damage stats would still buff powers that dont need any buffs, so another ally concept would be needed to directly fix Light or combo-specific powersets in general unless its strictly stated that this ally only applies to powerset X, Y and Z. Something to also keep in mind when trying to balance Light is the fact that this powerset is much clunkier to use in actual content compared to gadget for example due to long animations (the time it takes to block after casting an attack) and possible fatal misclicks from wrong combos. Off topic It would be really nice if we could get OP item boxes on the same vendor that provides the whole vendor gear set etc. Its not helpful that we have to play with diminished stats if we missed the initial testing phase of an episode. As soon as an episode hits live we cant progress the introduction mission of an episode which grants the access to OP items most times.
Increased combo ability power cost reduction (-15% at max rank ) That low amount is a joke, even if it were 50% hl would still be behind some powersets. Poison Ivy was done so well, yet John Stewart gets minimum effort. But I understand, you don't want to make this ally to be chosen by most hl dpses. If you're going to create allies with this kind of disapointing bonuses, just don't bother with allies. Focus on creating new content/dlcs/ fixing bugs.
I recommend doing the following. Get the vendor set from wonderverse on both live and test server. This way the gear aspect is identical. Your augments and arts would be the same too. The only difference should be in terms of the head augments and generator mods. The gen mods from drops should be close enough to not matter. And I personally just remove my head augments. This does a few things. Lowers your dom so that you aren’t CCing the dummies which throws off your numbers Lowers your dps so that the dummies don’t glitch and stop taking damage And gives you nearly identical stats to have a more accurate analysis. These days when I test rotations I’m always using the wonderverse vendor gear. Thou I have been contemplating going down even further personally.
It doesnt help anyone else testing their rotations like usual though, unless they read this comment and redo all their testing. I get that its a good workaround but overall its misleading when comparing numbers, especially if the stats are not mentioned in given feedback.
Not necessarily. So many players still use 10s parsers which is highly inaccurate. When I provide feedback I’m not just giving numbers without an explanation. I showcase my own numbers from a baseline them numbers for the tested target. So the numbers given this was are far more accurate than what many use. So instead of molding into the inaccurate standard I’d rather use a more accurate formate. You are of course free to use what you wish. But I’ll use what I use since imo, it’s a better testing format.
How to make players leave this game : 1) server lag , wanna do cte+ on reset day? no ! 2) lack of content, waiting for new dlc... 3) disapointing new ally ,check . I am preparing myself to disapointing new dlc also .
The buff would have to be insanely significant for that to not be a nerf. If you have to maintain only construct combos for this buff you're going to be sacrificing the biggest portion of your dps through clipping the combos and powers.
Why put that here? This isn’t feedback. And based on your last comment, the issue has more to do with how you’re playing HL than anything else. JS does not need to give a 50% buff in order to compete. HL is actually strong, especially on ST. While I believe JS could be a little better it’s definitely not bad. Mathematically it’s better than other buffing most buffing allies. Jumping from 10s to 15s is actually quite good.
Corps Combo. This feels very bad as a dps support-ally. I won't go into why as I feel that was heavily addressed here already.I believe this should have something more helpful to HL and even other combo powersets. What are their weaknesses? I've seen some suggest faster animations for combos as a buff, but for HL this is very unnecessary. Celestial on the other hand could benefit from such things greatly. I believe that it should absolutely be granting a power buff of some sort (considering power is the number one problem for combo powers), whether its increased regen or reduces power cost. I'm gonna go with regen over reduced cost as we can synergize this with pre existing power regen effects and it will combine into the weapon clipping for even more regen. It allows itself to continue being useful if we DO get low on power, too. Reduced power cost only helps when you're not out of power. I believe we should get more though. As opposed to faster combo animations, I'd suggest echoed combos (double visual animation included hopefully), but having the damage repeated with diminished damage. Let's rename it from Corps Combo to Echo of Willpower. This would benefit other combo powersets as well. So if I were to use say Ram and then tap melee for combo Whipthrash it would perform 2 combo Whipthrashes with just the use of one. You could then adjust the might buff accordingly, but it should be higher than 6% at 15 seconds (more time is mandatory for long combo animations in celestial) if you don't change other functions as I suggested with echoed combos or something else. Another idea with this is perhaps each echo grants a portion of power back. Or maybe each echo increases the effective power regen buff for a certain time, without an internal cooldown. The idea being the more you combo the better your regen stays. Yeah sounds like advanced mechanics a bit, but maybe better balanced and not requiring maintained hit counter. Honestly we've gotten things in game with artifacts that grant you the effect of a tactical mod before, why not this ally? Make something in Corps Combo also grant the power restore tac mod for weapons without equipping it? Make it able to proc from a combo power maybe? if not that just straight up make Corps Combos proc a burst of power like the tac mod? Whatever you do, do not make anything about combo hit counter! That is a terrible idea as it is so suboptimal to just endlessly spam combos without rotating into weapon clips and power clips from combos. Also the other combo powers can't even do that and it seems you guys are making JS a general ally and not a powerset ally. -Fear MegaMan
Now after you changed John Stewart to give 6% might for a 15s duration/15s downtime with -15% power cost, you nailed it. The game will become even more unbalanced and pay2win as it already been. Let me tell the playerbase how they can make above 200k/s with each combo power now, simply use Trans/Grim/Ebon and do a short combo of choice and use it as Iconic ability booster for Heat Vision, Freezing Breath, Sonic Shout. Don´t worry about running out of power those 3 iconics only have 150 base power cost with a long duration of hits. Now the game has the variety which it needed. Might DPS can use those 3 iconics abilitys. Precision DPS can use Superspeed abilitys. Nice method of balancing, just make everyone use the same stuff...never tought about that, good job. Ah wait, i forgot...90% of the players who don´t buy the ally and rank it up will still have to enjoy the good old unbalanced ********. That´s the way to improve this "great" game. "its simply that the task of a power rebalance is far greater than that of making an ally" The task is far greater, since you seem to put in only 30 minutes of work. And since the little work on allys is already to much for you guys, i´m out of this useless forum. Now test the stuff yourself, you getting paid.
