Stats Revamp 1.6: Power!

QUESTION:
why is the power buff takin away completely the weapons power back? i mean, it is contraproductive, since with the stat taken, you run out of mana anyways, and if you are heavy into might attacks, that leads you even in a worse possition than without the stat...

would it not be more beneficial if the power through weapons would still replenished, but weapon attacks would get reduced dammage? or anything... i mean, if power back is your goal, then this is more of downer if the passive power regen would stay that low anyways...

And that's exactly the problem. Notice you keep using the word "intended". There's also a term called "unintended", often used in the phrase "unintended consequences". They don't have the foresight to make things work the way they want them to work. The community has never cared about what's intended, it's about what produces the best results. Clipping wasn't even intended at the beginning of this game but it's considered a default assumed factor in dps'ing now. A game rewarding mechanical skill, knowledge, and producing a fun environment is more important than just following intention. If your parents tell you to go to school because they want you to go to college but you like rapping with your friends and skip class on a daily basis. Guess what? Yeh, you failed at school and didn't go to college. Yeh, that's not how your parents planned for your life to turn out. But let's just say hypothetically, your "mixtape" or a funny music video you make spreads like wildfire on Facebook, and the next thing you know, you have subscribers on Youtube, followers on Soundcloud, and you're actually making a profit sizeable to a living. Even though you ignored your parents, you still ended up being successful and if you continue that route you could make more money than what you would've if you went to college. You living life how your parents wanted isn't the goal in life, it's to have fun and enjoy your life doing something that you enjoy doing and being successful at it.

In PftT you arent suppose to use your weapon. Its basically the new version of AMs where if you are using this playstyle, you arent using Weapons. Players are to make their Loadouts to be power conservative depending on their Power pool. in PftT you're to spec into Power to help with managing Power Costs.

now THAT makes sense when i rethink it... thank you trexlight!

Again, agree to disagree. My way provide results and yours does to for your playstyle. My #1 concern with PftT was in fact the Power Regen was horrid and couldnt be sustained with the loadouts I was using. Now that this Mastery concept function is implemented I can move a bit easier around to find the best loadout(s) for the powers that gives the best results. Before this, yeah using 3 controllers I could see depending on the loadouts but that was because the environment for PftT was bad. Now its good and using 3 controllers wont be necessary.

Clipping and cancelling were intended. A playstyle developed by the players is where things started to show larger gaps and discrepancies. An entire powerset playstyle was completely designed around players, but it also was the one that was most impacted by a specific game update. At SOE Live, the devs admitted they were surprised by what we were capable of pulling off. That's why I'm not completely upset about a lot of these changes, a new FOTM and "Meta" (I still don't understand why they call it "meta". Just means that's the "optimal" or "best" route. *shrug*) will result from this as it always has. But Power consumption based on CR DOES need to be reworked for anything to work "well".

But I think there are a lot of issues that do result in unintended consequences, as you say. There is also a lot of careful what you wish for too. But all of this should be left for a discussion for another thread.

3 controllers still necessary for nature heals and celestial heals but ya know... no one listens to sage

That's not the reason why 3 controllers were needed. 2-3 controllers were needed to sustain hybrid when you spec 175sp for might. While you can power spec and run PftT with 1 controller, you can increase your output by 30-50% for most powers (yes, this actually possible, me and Soul were arguing with Moja about this earlier once we found out this was possible), if that 175sp were put into might instead. The reason this is important is because of situations like the following for raid scenarios.
Say 2 controllers allows for 30-35% damage increase.
Say 3 controllers allows for 35-50% damage increase.
Let's say you have a rotation that does 15k damage per second on single target with a power spec and 1 troll.
A regular controller rotation with hb will doing 5-6k damage per second.

So in a standard raid composition, you'd have 5 dps @15k each and 1 troll @5k, for a total of 75+5=80k dps.

With 2 trolls, with a 30% damage increase, the dps would be 19.5k each.

4 dps @19.5 = 78k, 2 trolls @5k each = 88k.

3 trolls, with say a 50% damage increase for the highest damage rotations currently possible on test server, that'd be

3 dps @ 22k = 66k, 3 trolls @5k each = 81k.

Which means 2 trolls is actually the best group dps set up under these circumstances. And having 2 trolls also alleviates pressure on the healer, and on the top from a supercharge perspective along with applying that many more debuffs. And 3 trolls amplifies that comp even harder.

Where this becomes even more of a problem is that there 2, maybe 3 outliers, that can actually double your dps if they have 3 straight energy battery controllers. These are the powers that can reach 50-55k dps on 3 targets and 25-30k on single target. Compared to 25-30k on 3 targets, maybe barely 15k on single for might/pow specs.

When you have that big of a difference for those, and instead of 15, or 19.5, or 22k on single target, and you say 3 dps @ 30k each. That's 90k. Those 3 dps's alone just outdps'ing 4 dps's and 2 trolls. And then you have the 3 controller damages to add onto them, and you have a controller shield supercharge alternating ever 10 seconds for the group. We tested this in OLY and our tank was able to put on switch out half of their tank gear for dps gear and split their skill points for dps as well. When you have supercharges to add the missing mitigation, you can bring up additional battle tank, even battle heal damage to the equation as well since power is no longer an issue. And with a battle tank, battle heal, and 3 trolls worth of damage added on the 3dps @30k each already. You have the means for the new cheese meta for elite content.

But most people on test, including you unfortunately, don't know the max potential of the different powers from being able to clip and use high-power cost moves in an unlimited fashion because they removed the power back from sparring targets, and that's something you can't test in solos, duos, or alerts. Blue bubbles and a passive aren't going to simulate 3 straight vit controllers with a supercharge every 10 seconds. Only a sparring target can give you something close and they disabled it.

After playing around with it a bit. It seems PftT is way better than it was before. However it will be difficult to balance this especially since now you can literally spam big power moves as long as there are 2 controllers in the group, which means weapons will need another damage pass.

New dev team, new set of surprises for them, I suppose. But this also asserts through current content, which is either watered down or nerfed. Content designed in T2/T3 era, I'd say 100% uptime was impossible, as the NPCs had way too many CC abilities that were removed in later GU iterations. So who knows, they might create content where it would be difficult to be able to achieve 100% no matter what. They did say that content was difficult to design because of damage from AMs.

Also, NPCs now have updated breakout profiles and a lot of them are going to go straight for players, due to scripted attacks that aren't in the Tank hate. Yep. 2 batteries, 0 controllers.

Anyways, this thread is about the power changes. And I want to reiterate, they need to FIX/REWORK CR scaling.

Haven't had a chance to get back on test but very excited about the idea of these new mechanics and how it can impact PftT. Nice!

I like the idea of weapon mastery but instead of the boost being a set number make it a Percentage boost to your Precision stat so the boost grows with your character.

Another way to the Play form tray players have your innate power regeneration linked to your Vitalization stat when in DPS roll with can also get a Percentage based boost with Power mastery

this , every bit of work u invest now will be more and more meningless the higher CR we get and u have to rework the concept.

as i see, the power consumption to CR ratio is the problem.

Thanks for the heads up, I haven't really started testing or reading feedback since 1.3 anything before that I am not aware of. I am sure I am being too technical but you think the devs will explain in detail how much power is returned based on combo length? Ill try searching in the archives for more info. Just wanted to know if a bulk power return happens after a long combo ends, if power is returned over time after the combo, and if you start a new combo will it stack if power is regened over time instead of in a large bulked sum.

Well that's probably part of the problem

Hmm that might be back in 1.0 or 1.1 area they talked about it but its only by a Percentage and the Passive Power Regen is a set % based on your Max Power Pool. I dont think they've given the exact formula for it though or at least i dont recall.

It's ok Sage. We all still appreciate you.

So I've given it a pretty brief overview (still catching up on mental specifically). As someone who played the role extensively for 6 years (almost exclusively for 4) I wanted to give my thoughts.

Why? I'm not sure I get why this is the direction you're going in with the role. Like, I get it needs an overhaul, and I've been a major advocate of it for years now, but why make it so boring?

Look at every power and every other role. Tanks actively engage enemies, each uses a different mechanic from shields/absorption/pet/self heals, etc. Healers all heal differently from HOTs/Passive/combos/pets with different heals hitting different group members and areas while doing so. Controllers are all the same. Right now, the only thought I have as a controller on live, is when to hit PoT for a double tick. Now I won't even have that.

I think if you're going to look at the mechanic of returning power, you need to break it down completely and "personalize" it for each powerset, like you do with other powers/roles. Maybe gadgets plays a more passive role, where they lay robots/machines down. Maybe quantum slows and siphons energy from enemies and creates an "active" playstyle. Maybe mental embues allies with confidence so when they attack they regain power. Put some creativity in this.

It sounds like I'll kinda just be playing like a DPS, but will throw instant power with this new set up. I think that's boring, uninspired and just bad design.

If anything gets me to stop playing this role, this update sounds like the thing to do it. And this is coming from someone who really thinks the live version needs a massive overhaul as well.

Controlling (aka "Power Healing") needs to be fun an interactive. I proposed this option way back when AM's where implemented but seemed to of got buried by DPS input; we all know support roles get little love in this game. But my proposal was to add different power healing abilities to powers. I'll use gadgets as an example since I have played this power the longest. (As a note these are simply ideas and input would be welcomed!)

I have given titles for each of these different powers based on how they will interact with the group. Again, all simply ideas.

Let's start with the powers that are already in the game.
-POT (Still your classic power over time moves that will require recasting and give us the ability for "double ticks" again): Sticky Bomb, Taser pull,
-Critical Power Heals (Heals the power pools for 3 of your lowest group members): Defib
-AOE Power Heals (These will be your power heals over time based of proximity to the controller; players closest to individual will receive ticks of power back while power is active): Cryfield
-PET Power Heals (While pets are active they will restore power to the group; upon destruction they will give a percent burst heal of power to the group. Similar to how battle drone acts but you have to be within a certain distance of the pet to get the power heals. Risk vs Reward): Holographic Decoy; Suppressor Turret
-AOE Self Power Heal (Will power heal self based on the number of adds. This you could use to stun and drain power from a group of adds to heal your power pool us when low): EMP
-35% Self Power Heal (Will power heal self when used on add; will heal back more power when enemy is below 35% health): Photon Blast
-Weapon Attack Power Heal (Will power heal you and your group members based on weapon damage inflicted): Intimidation
-Power Buff (Will increase %crit and %mag of power heals while active): Battle Display

Like I said this is simply an idea for Gadgets but I would like to hear from the community as to what your thoughts are and weather this would be viable for DCUO. I welcome anyone that would like to implement this idea for Mental, Light and Munitions. I can if you would like; I have spare time.