QoL Request: Counter mechanics changes in PVE

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Apollonia, Sep 2, 2020.

  1. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    QoL Request: Counter mechanics changes in PVE

    tl;dr.
    Currently counter mechanics are being inconsistently applied through the game. It's a bit messy. I suggest counter mechanics should only/always be applicable/available in fights where the player’s Dom exceeds the target NPC’s Dom.


    Detail:
    When [PVP] counter mechanics were first introduced into PVE years ago with GU whatever, it was pretty controversial. PVE players were turned off having to use the PVP system. PVP players were happy because it improved those players’ skills when they did PVP. Devs were happy it slowed down PVE burn by pacing players so they couldn’t just mow down their targets.

    The state of [PVP] Counter mechanics in PVE today is a little sketchy. The community raised concerns about the consistency of application of this system and Spytle assured us it would be applied consistently across the game and it was pretty quickly.

    There was good and bad to that, but as an initial detractor, I have to admit over time I came to appreciate its inclusion. As a tank I adapted and embraced it I guess.

    Flash forward to today. The mechanics aren’t consistently applied at all anymore. Some bosses use them and some don’t. Some rooms use mechanics to turn them off and then back on. Some bosses can use them against you but you can’t use them back against those bosses — so the player is expected to do what? Just take the hit basically. Honestly, it’s not cool and it’s getting a little out of hand.

    From a development perspective I imagine the reasoning for the current direction of this mechanic is to introduce difficulty because some players are just so good, they can keep a boss countered during a whole fight trivializing it to a large extent. And from a lore perspective it’s dumb to see certain iconic characters planted on their backs after being countered by a low level players. — These were among the types of objections we as a community pointed out when the mechanic was applied to PVE years ago! Cough cough! However, the current state isn’t really good to the players. The game shouldn’t have to “cheat” the player to beat them. The same rules should apply to both the game and to players.

    Solution:
    What I suggest as a solution is relatively simple (in concept). The game should check player Dom against NPC Dom, if it’s higher than the target or even within an established threshold (depending how this is implemented) counter mechanics should be active for the player against that target NPC. If it’s not, that NPC / boss should be un-counter-able to the player. As I imagine it, a set of ranges would be setup and success thresholds for those ranges. An NPC with a high dom range would have a much lower likelyhood of being countered by a player. And as I imagine it, counters wouldn't even be available to players without a sufficient amount of Dom to counter at all.

    For example; Superman should have a high dom. A player’s dom shouldn’t exceed Superman’s and a player should probably never be able to counter him. Or at least it should have a very low likelihood of successfully landing the counter and triggering the mechanic. Same with someone like Deathstroke. Probably not easy to counter. Lex Luthor or Joker probably more counter-able though. It would be easier to setup if the game used a dedicated “fighting ability” stat in it but using the Dom stat in this way should still work just as well more or less.

    The reasoning here is that this prevents potential fights the Devs are worried about where players keep a boss on their back, or a tank is tanking while some healer or DPS in the group just keeps pegging the boss with counters from a distance without any risk. Because of how stats are distributed it would mean that only tanks and some trolls would be able to counter a boss.

    The pressure would be on tanks and trolls to be solid on their counter mechanics but otherwise this would solve everyone’s problems with the current state of counter mechanics without introducing any new ones. This is also a win for players (tanks and trolls specifically) because it adds mechanic and social value to their group roles.
    • Like x 3
  2. xm3n3hun3 Well-Known Player

    natch to me..... so a healer can't counter?
    what about 3 dps and healer? often healers take on the boss and counter

    I'd rather see a Quality of Life addition - like your friends name along with their current role.
    Far far more useful.... than your wanting tanks and trolls only to be able to counter bosses. With the lessening population of players, you will continue to see those who can - will - and those who can't -won't- counter.
  3. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    So you don't want anyone able to counter. Okay.

    We have this already.

    Read closer friend.
  4. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    Let me TL;DR your words in another way: You want to remove certain bosses' anti-being-countered buff and introduce a dominance-based counter system that will make it harder for any non-tanks to get through alerts and raids.

    Almost every mob in alerts and raids have willpower that can never be toppled by healer's and dps' dominance within relevant cr,
    that's why the suggested dominance is there to indicate the minimum stat required to cc them.
    If you want consistency, counter-ability based on dominance won't just be applied to bosses but to those adds as well.
    When you combine those two, you stripped away dps and healer's ability to counter entirely.

    Especially hard on healers when they are the most likely victim of being swarmed by adds, and this system makes them unable to defend themselves through counters and explosive blocks.
    Certain combos that could be countered to avoid the upcoming bigger hits means more strain on healing through themselves or any non-tanks that are being targeted.
    This can make alerts with optional roles more likely to fail, but even in raids where support roles are compulsory, the healer becomes more dependent on the tank (or a troll who temporarily cc them) and if they are slightly less good at multitasking, maybe in the middle of a combo, dealing with a boss mechanic, temporary hardware issues... more wipes than we have now.

    It doesn't even benefit trolls as much as you think it would.
    Many of them just get to the suggested dominance through gear, not everyone invests in both vit and dom.
    Your suggestion marks that bosses have varying levels of dominance, so it devalues trolls who are more primarily focused on power by telling them "you know, you could have countered Doomsday if only you get a full set of vendor gear, purple augs and artifacts within the first week that it drops", not to mention it muddles the benchmark that is required for the raids which they will have to pay extra mind to.
    It also means that when there are multiple adds out there, trolls bear a lot more burden by being the only non-tank that can counter them.

    Too bad the tank needs to take on a full spinning attack from Zeus, but if your solution leads to the healer getting KO'd by some rando's Pulse Beam...no. Not worth it.
    Bad take. Back to the drawing board.
  5. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    Bad take. Comically wrong in fact. You're upset Healers can't counter in what I suggested, but it's too late bc they already can't.

    Like I said, the Devs already removed counter mechanics for many of the endgame fights and continue to. The counter system is NOW inconsistently being applied throughout the game and trending to get worse.

    Here, I've suggested that instead of removing the system all together like they already are, they should (at least) let players with high enough Dom be able to use the mechanic. -- that's the tl;dr.
    • Like x 1
  6. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    You're too focused on certain bosses that you're blind to side effects that applies to the adds. That is what I'm referring to.
    I can counter most adds now, in fact I can't think of any specific examples that I can't. Under your suggestion however I wouldn't be able to just because I don;t have the required dom as heal or dps.
  7. SekretVillain Loyal Player

    Instead of going off of dom why not go off of CR? closer you are to max CR the easier counters become, imo that's how it should be anyways.

    This would allow more then just tank or troll to be able to counter and would be more fair for all roles that doesnt use dom as a stat to still counter when counters are needed.
  8. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    Like I said; bad take.

    I literally explained (with examples!!) that Dom would be assigned appropriately to NPCs based on the character. Did I really need to specify that adds would have low Dom because they're adds and not iconic characters? hehe.
  9. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    Almost every mob in alerts and raids have willpower that can never be toppled by healer's and dps' dominance within relevant cr,
    that's why the suggested dominance is there to indicate the minimum stat required to cc them.

    Still waiting for a "bad take" reply to this or maybe you finally realize that your suggestion interferes with the purpose Dominance currently has in this game?
  10. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    It's not a bad idea at all and I considered it. The problem is that the Devs seem to want less of us to be able to counter in general so it wouldn't be in keeping with their direction since it would still allow most players to counter when that's not their plan for us.

    Since there's a degree of dom added on all gear regardless of roles anyhow (to meet min Dom requirements for content), I focused on Dom because the stat allowed for more nuance than the flat CR would. :) And it conveniently let specific types of characters play how the game really intends encounters to be played.
    • Like x 1
  11. SekretVillain Loyal Player

    I havent read any announcements from devs saying anything along these lines(that they only want x roles to counter) so I'm still under the impression that they want and expect all players within a group to help do counters if they see it quick enough. I mean isnt 1 of the DPS prec artifacts based around securing counters?

    Would annoy alot of those ppl who use that artifact and paid for it to be 200.

    All I'm saying is you have to think what is in favor of all roles, rather YOU play those roles or not or want those roles doing counters or not. You have to be fair to others when suggesting these kind of changes.
    • Like x 1
  12. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    Like I said, the encounters are already doing it. Think about the boss fights in the current DLC and the last DLC and remember which ones are counterable and which aren't. And what circumstances they are/aren't.
  13. Magnificent Loyal Player

    I like it.

    [IMG]

    I find it very annoying and immersion-ripping to be able to counter a boss in one piece of content but not in another (Sinestro and his chainsaw spin, for example). Instead of having it implemented to every boss in the game though I would rather see it only on those bosses who are not counterable. Allow counterability to be a difficulty, but do not ever make non-boss NPCs invulnerable to it.

    I would especially like to see this in content players are well over-geared for (say 20+CR?)


    This idea could be be expanded to different counter situations, especially in situations where it could make some sort of sense (like Nature Healers being able counter Ivy, Magic DPS being able to counter Superman, Fire & Nuclear players being able to counter Captain Cold, etc):

    -Counters based on stats other than Dom
    -Role-specific ability to counter
    -Powerset-specific ability to counter
    -Weapon-specific ability to counter
    -CR-based ability to counter
    • Like x 2
  14. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    This was basically going to be another feature request I planned to write up. The game is LONG overdue for a damage types and material system to add layers to the combat system. It would help keep power creep under control too in the sense that the devs wouldn't have to keep adding millions of health onto things anymore. They could structure stats around having the right damage type doing "super effective" damage to the target instead.

    For example: Sorcery users (both DPS and healers) would do "super effective" (for lack of a better term atm) damage to Superman and could get a modest bonus to counter chance against him.

    Fire users should get damage bonuses against Ice users/characters and so on on. Like you point out, this rock, paper, scissors is already a thing in PVP anyhow too. So, it's easy to expand on the idea into PVE in a meaningful way that adhere to the IP and lore of the property; which adds to the immersion experience for players.

    I admit I hadn't considered the other criteria you offered though. All of which I like.
    • Like x 1
  15. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    This isn't just a bad take any more: it's pure ignorance.

    Normal DPS and Healer gear do NOT have any dominance stat, it's not even tiny numbers, literally 0.
    This is so they are less likely to interfere with crowd control effect made by tanks and trolls.

    The entire piece, while based on the reasonable frustration regarding boss counters, ends up being very ill-thought-out, and it seems you are so deeply committed to the idea that you wilfully ignore any flaws pointed out to you.
    This is just about wish-fulfilment, and if you truly want to add nuance, you better actually understand what the reality of other roles are.
  16. Rainnifer Committed Player

    I wouldn't like or want this, you will end up having situations where some players feel pressured to switch to another power and change everything just so they can be effective enough and wanted for groups. I can already see the LFGs full of "MUST BE SORCERY"

    Also, with your original suggestion what I'm getting is that Trolls and Tanks will not only have responsibility for CC-ing the adds but also countering them? What if the boss is lunging a non-tank/troll? You can't really block counter such an attack if it wasn't targeted at you.
    Maybe because I'm already a troll most times (I DPS sometimes too though) I haven't really noticed this lack of being able to counter bosses except for when they gain an immunity to counters (example when fighting Etrigan in Darkness Rising from JLD he is able to be countered out of his fire and spin attacks most of the time except a few times he will have immunity to those counters.)

    The system seems to work fine for the most part to me, honestly my main gripe about what they've been doing lately to content is adding more and more boss attacks that completely ignore your shields. It's making my shields feel less and less effective or important.
  17. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    Not at all. The topic has come up in the past. And literally the objections you raised are the same.

    Damage types are an important element of the genre. This wouldn't be a concern because a proper implementation of the system would mean that more than one type is effective against another type ensuring wide type coverage. In addition, all content would be planned around it to include material types and neutral damage on non-element based damage too. It's just simply not an issue. The mechanic exists in so many similar games it's a no brainer to include and it wouldn't negatively impact the community. It adds for more depth to the game than any possible perceived problem.
    • Like x 2
  18. Brav Well-Known Player

    Not a bad idea overall but to not complicate things the current counter system isn't terrible, though it can use some adjustments. I'm content with the current system, my only gripe (besides the complete immunity with certain bosses, though that mostly has to do with a lore aspect) is with false/unintended counters from npcs' and players that can occur and give the target/enemy immunity, which prevents the tank from landing a successful counter. If only the developers can figure out a way for counters and immunities to be separate for each individual player/role, mainly for the tank. Allow the tank to override any immunity in which they weren't responsible for.

    I once thought about dominance being used or some other stat but dominance makes sense as it's already a used stat for crowd control in the game. Perhaps giving each gear set a range of dominance, which can meet the requirement for intended counters and crowd control for particular roles in particular content would work. Any content like raids (alerts when it comes to crowd control, only tanks and trolls can cc mainly unless a player met the requirement by other means though most don't create such builds) should have a higher requirement, which only intended roles for crowd control and certain counter mechanics can meet.

    My thought process is to keep crowd control requirements the same for the intended roles and counters as well, the only difference I'm suggesting is to find a way to use dominance or something else to still allow players to counter intentionally but if a non tank/controller gives the boss an immunity then they won't be able to counter until that immunity fades. The only roles that can get another chance at a counter within the immunity window will be a controller or tank based on an increased/buffed dominance within that immunity window. Controllers will have a 2nd chance over the other roles, while the tank will have the 3rd and final chance at a successful counter based on their higher dominance being used to over ride the lower dominance failed counter attempts from other players and npcs'. If the tank fails the lower counter immunity/dominance buff then it will be increased much higher so that no one can counter for the duration of that immunity window.

    This is just one suggestion to allow tanks a proper chance at countering. If the developers can figure out another/better way then I'm all for it. I would really just like a chance to counter without being prevented by unintentional counters/immunity from other players/npcs'.
    • Like x 1
  19. Faelwolf Active Player

    We don't need a whole new system for countering, we just need the devs to cool it a bit with the unblockable mechanics. Getting one-shotted while blocking is more than a bit annoying, and has become rather too common. As a DPS, I shouldn't have to build up my health to near tank levels to survive at range.
  20. Magnificent Loyal Player



    Not quite. What I get from this is the replacing of whatever their Invulnverable_To_Combat_Mechanics toggle is with one that's scalable. That should not change anything with content bosses that are counterable unless the Devs were to consciously make that change on individual bosses.

    At least the way I envision this is that all NPCs initially default to a counterable mechanic level of 0 (meaning that any player can counter them). If the Devs want to make group content a little harder then this allows them to add only a limited sort of CM invulnerability (leaving it for the players to find a way around it) instead of the all-or-nothing we currently seem to have.

    I find this a far more reasonable idea than the mindless perma-invulnerability we have in some cases now.
    • Like x 1