<font class="post">Issue 13 PvP Powers Changes
By Floyd “Castle” Grubb
Helloagain everyone. Last time, I told you about the PVE powers changes wehave planned for Issue 13. This time, we're going to talk about PvP.
Playervs. Player combat (PvP) is a fun topic. Currently, we have a smallportion of our players actively engage in PvP on a regular basis. Wethink this is in part due to problems in how PvP is implemented in ourgame. We want to take some steps to help make Player vs. Playerencounters more attractive to a larger group of players, while at thesame time opening up more "character build" options for the existingdedicated PvP players. This is a challenging issue to tackle, given thescope of the proposed changes, but we feel the time is right to addressthese issues.
Our first step was to look at what archetypes (AT)were actually doing in PvP. What we found was there are two distinctdifferent PvP categories: Zone PvP and Arena PvP. This isn’t verysurprising, since we originally wanted there to be differences betweenthe two. However, the actual differences were different from what we'dinitially planned. Zone PvP was less hyper specialized and formulizedthan Arena PvP. Zone PvP is more open to new PvPers, but more likely tosee the new PvPer 'griefed' and driven out of the playzone (often,never to return.) Arena PvP by contrast, is much more civil but has ahuge barrier to entry -- if your character isn't up to par, you are notlikely to contribute much.
We wanted to spend time working onrevamps for the existing PvP zones; but due to the massive amount ofwork involved we’ll need to address this in a future release. Thatmeant that we had to focus almost entirely on Base Raids and Arena PvP.We did a lot of work on Bases, Raiding and the Cathedral, but we haveto save that for later -- those are all works in progress for a futureupdate. Arena PvP, though, was a self contained area which could beisolated and worked with. It also provides an excellent testbed forBase Raids, since the two are at least in the most basic terms similar.That's where we focused our attention.
We began by looking atthe disparities that existed, and discussed how to address them.Ultimately, we decided that in order to allow better competitionbetween the AT's and powersets, we needed to take some drasticmeasures. We decided that a different rule set needed to apply in PvPthan in PvE. By changing the basic rules, we hope to encourage agreater variety of character builds in Arena PvP, and ultimately inBase Raids and Zone PVP.
At the core, many of the power effectsare the same: Heals still heal, attacks still deal damage, and holdsstill hold. However, the new system makes a number of adjustments thatshould be friendlier to a wider range of AT's and skill levels. Thegoal is for players to be able to bring any AT and powerset combinationinto PVP and to be competitive and have fun! Furthermore, with theIssue 13’s Multiple builds feature, players can design a PvP specificbuild and not have it affect their normal character.
There arestill a number of balance factors which we are working through; theprevalence of Phase Shift type defenses, "caging" and "Spiking" to namea few. These are things we are working on in the beta process to findthe correct balance.
So, without further ado, here is the listof the current changes and how they were implemented. Please keep inmind that there is still more testing and tuning to be done.
Diminishing Returns
Nearlyall attributes characters have are now subject to Diminishing Returns.The specific numbers vary from attribute to attribute, and from classto class (it's easier to Buff Resistance and Defense on a Tanker, thanon a Blaster.)
* In general, a single buff will have near fulleffect, while additional buffs begin to offer less and less benefit.Example: Under the old system, Aim + Build up might provide a combined67% To Hit buff, while under this system it provides a combined 49% ToHit Buff.
* The calculation is based on the sum of all buffs, so the order the buffs are applied in does not matter.
* It is important to note that the Real Numbers tool will not alwaysreport the results of diminishing returns accurately, at leastinitially. This is specifically true of Damage Buffs, which alwaysdisplay the Pre-Diminished value.
Melee Attacks
* Changed Melee Range to 7'. Since this is essentially a buff, this effect will be present in PVE as well.
Travel Powers
* PvE Travel Suppression continues to work as it has since it wasintroduced. PvP Travel Suppression will be handled differently, however(see below.)
* All Teleportation and Summonable Teleportals are Disabled while PvP Travel Suppression is active.
TheDuration of Movement Suppression in PvP is now variable based on themost recent suppression event applicable to the character. In case ofmultiple events applicable on the same server tick, only the longestvalue is applied.
Suppression events are:
Activating a foe TargetedRange (range > 7') damaging Power: 3s * Sum of damage scales.
Example1: Power Bolt has a damage Scale of 1.0 (0.1 + 0.9) resulting in a Suppression Duration of 3 seconds.
o Example2: Power Burst has a damage scale of 2.12 resulting in a Suppression Duration of 6.39 seconds.
* Activating a foe Targeted Melee (Range >0' && Range => 7') damaging Power: 2s* Sum of damage scales.
o Example1: Swipe has a damage scale of 0.76 resulting in a suppression time of 1.52 seconds.
o Example2: Eviscerate has a damage scale of 1.99 resulting in a suppression time of 3.98 seconds.
* Activating a foe targeted Range debuff or control power: 3.5s
* Activating a foe targeted Melee debuff or control power: 2.5s
* Placing a Location Based Entity: 4s
* Activating a self or friend targeted Heal power: 4s
* Activating a Friend targeted Buff power: 4s
* Being the target of an attack: 2s
Control Powers
Controlpower changes are fairly extensive. The goal here was to make controleffects less binary in nature. The shorter durations of status effects,combined with the change from status Protection to Status resistancemeans that these powers will now how impact on a PvP situation morefrequently, but are no longer quite as severe a deciding factor.
*For Controllers: Change Duration base to 4 seconds for Stun, Sleep,Hold, Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse, Untouchable, Intangibleattributes. Duration of Status Effects (Hold, Sleep, etc.) no longerscale by level; instead they have fixed base durations.
* ForDominators: Change normal control Duration base to 4 seconds for Stun,Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse, Untouchable, Intangibleattributes. Duration of Status Effects (Hold, Sleep, etc.) no longerscale by level; instead they have fixed base durations. ChangeDomination control Duration base to 4 seconds for Stun, Sleep, Hold,Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse, Untouchable, Intangible attribs.Duration of Status Effects (Hold, Sleep, etc.) no longer scale bylevel; instead they have fixed base durations. Change Magnitude bonusfrom +3 to +1.
* For ALL OTHERS: Change control Duration base to 2seconds for Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse,Untouchable, Intangible attributes. Duration of Status Effects (Hold,Sleep, etc.) no longer scale by level; instead they have fixed basedurations.
* For Tankers: Change Taunt to a fixed 6 second duration.
* For Scrappers and Brutes: Change Taunt to a fixed 4 second duration.
* For the Manipulation Pool: Change Taunt to a fixed 4 second duration.
* For Stalkers: Change Placate to a fixed 10 second duration.
* For VEATs: Change Placate to a fixed 4 second duration.
Buff and Heal Powers
* A Heal Event now imposes a 25% Resistance to further heals on thecharacter, regardless of source. This Resistance to heals will last for15 seconds, and stacks with itself. This means that if you are healed 4times, no further healing will affect you until the resistance durationends.
* Status Protection attributes for all statuses exceptKnockback and Knock up changed to Status Resist. For example, a Tankerrunning Unyielding at level 50 has 12.975 points of protection in PVE,while in PVP he has 129.75% Hold Resistance. That will convert an 8second hold into a 3.48 second hold.
Damage Powers
* Powers now calculate damage based on their activation time, instead of their recharge.
* Lower activation time powers get a slight bonus to damage, due to chaining low damage powers being difficult in PvP.
* Longer Recharge time powers also get a slight damage bonus, so higherlevel powers with long recharge times deal extra damage.
* Damage has been adjusted for all AT's, reducing the damage gap between each AT.
Resistance Powers
* Each AT now recieves a bonus resist buff while in PVP, in order toset each AT closer in overall survivability. This resist primarilyreduces up the gap in hitpoints between lower hitpoint AT's and higherhitpoint AT's
* Epic armors and Tough (Pool Power) now provide resistance to all damage types while in PVP.
* Any armor set lacking a type of resist or defense will now provide it while in PvP zones.
Taunt Powers(NOTE: These changes are effective in PVE as well! They are essentiallyaccross the board buffs which should give greater crowd control abilityto those who possess these power.)
* Add 75% Range Debuff to Tanker Taunt (full aoe)
* Add 75% Range Debuff to Scrapper Confront (and equivalents.) These remain single target.
* Add 75% Range Debuff to Brute Taunt/Confront powers. The Range Debuffshould have radius outer set to 0 so it only affects the main target.
Classes Tables
* Increased MAX RESIST value for all status effect attribs. This meansstatus resistance effects will have more meaning. This also affects PVE.
* IncreaseRange STR MIN value to 25%. This means no player or critterpowers range can be decreased to more than 25% of its original range.So, an 80' attack can never be debuffed below 25'. This also effectsPVE.
So, there you have it. A whole slew of changes for you tochew over, plan around...and test on the Training Room! We still have alot of testing and tuning to do. While our initial playtests areshowing these changes to be fun, we’ll ultimately look to broaderplaytests to validate the changes.
Here's hoping you all enjoy it!
Floyd 'Castle' Grubb
There you go hot off the forums
ZAZ
</font>
By Floyd “Castle” Grubb
Helloagain everyone. Last time, I told you about the PVE powers changes wehave planned for Issue 13. This time, we're going to talk about PvP.
Playervs. Player combat (PvP) is a fun topic. Currently, we have a smallportion of our players actively engage in PvP on a regular basis. Wethink this is in part due to problems in how PvP is implemented in ourgame. We want to take some steps to help make Player vs. Playerencounters more attractive to a larger group of players, while at thesame time opening up more "character build" options for the existingdedicated PvP players. This is a challenging issue to tackle, given thescope of the proposed changes, but we feel the time is right to addressthese issues.
Our first step was to look at what archetypes (AT)were actually doing in PvP. What we found was there are two distinctdifferent PvP categories: Zone PvP and Arena PvP. This isn’t verysurprising, since we originally wanted there to be differences betweenthe two. However, the actual differences were different from what we'dinitially planned. Zone PvP was less hyper specialized and formulizedthan Arena PvP. Zone PvP is more open to new PvPers, but more likely tosee the new PvPer 'griefed' and driven out of the playzone (often,never to return.) Arena PvP by contrast, is much more civil but has ahuge barrier to entry -- if your character isn't up to par, you are notlikely to contribute much.
We wanted to spend time working onrevamps for the existing PvP zones; but due to the massive amount ofwork involved we’ll need to address this in a future release. Thatmeant that we had to focus almost entirely on Base Raids and Arena PvP.We did a lot of work on Bases, Raiding and the Cathedral, but we haveto save that for later -- those are all works in progress for a futureupdate. Arena PvP, though, was a self contained area which could beisolated and worked with. It also provides an excellent testbed forBase Raids, since the two are at least in the most basic terms similar.That's where we focused our attention.
We began by looking atthe disparities that existed, and discussed how to address them.Ultimately, we decided that in order to allow better competitionbetween the AT's and powersets, we needed to take some drasticmeasures. We decided that a different rule set needed to apply in PvPthan in PvE. By changing the basic rules, we hope to encourage agreater variety of character builds in Arena PvP, and ultimately inBase Raids and Zone PVP.
At the core, many of the power effectsare the same: Heals still heal, attacks still deal damage, and holdsstill hold. However, the new system makes a number of adjustments thatshould be friendlier to a wider range of AT's and skill levels. Thegoal is for players to be able to bring any AT and powerset combinationinto PVP and to be competitive and have fun! Furthermore, with theIssue 13’s Multiple builds feature, players can design a PvP specificbuild and not have it affect their normal character.
There arestill a number of balance factors which we are working through; theprevalence of Phase Shift type defenses, "caging" and "Spiking" to namea few. These are things we are working on in the beta process to findthe correct balance.
So, without further ado, here is the listof the current changes and how they were implemented. Please keep inmind that there is still more testing and tuning to be done.
Diminishing Returns
Nearlyall attributes characters have are now subject to Diminishing Returns.The specific numbers vary from attribute to attribute, and from classto class (it's easier to Buff Resistance and Defense on a Tanker, thanon a Blaster.)
* In general, a single buff will have near fulleffect, while additional buffs begin to offer less and less benefit.Example: Under the old system, Aim + Build up might provide a combined67% To Hit buff, while under this system it provides a combined 49% ToHit Buff.
* The calculation is based on the sum of all buffs, so the order the buffs are applied in does not matter.
* It is important to note that the Real Numbers tool will not alwaysreport the results of diminishing returns accurately, at leastinitially. This is specifically true of Damage Buffs, which alwaysdisplay the Pre-Diminished value.
Melee Attacks
* Changed Melee Range to 7'. Since this is essentially a buff, this effect will be present in PVE as well.
Travel Powers
* PvE Travel Suppression continues to work as it has since it wasintroduced. PvP Travel Suppression will be handled differently, however(see below.)
* All Teleportation and Summonable Teleportals are Disabled while PvP Travel Suppression is active.
TheDuration of Movement Suppression in PvP is now variable based on themost recent suppression event applicable to the character. In case ofmultiple events applicable on the same server tick, only the longestvalue is applied.
Suppression events are:
Activating a foe TargetedRange (range > 7') damaging Power: 3s * Sum of damage scales.
Example1: Power Bolt has a damage Scale of 1.0 (0.1 + 0.9) resulting in a Suppression Duration of 3 seconds.
o Example2: Power Burst has a damage scale of 2.12 resulting in a Suppression Duration of 6.39 seconds.
* Activating a foe Targeted Melee (Range >0' && Range => 7') damaging Power: 2s* Sum of damage scales.
o Example1: Swipe has a damage scale of 0.76 resulting in a suppression time of 1.52 seconds.
o Example2: Eviscerate has a damage scale of 1.99 resulting in a suppression time of 3.98 seconds.
* Activating a foe targeted Range debuff or control power: 3.5s
* Activating a foe targeted Melee debuff or control power: 2.5s
* Placing a Location Based Entity: 4s
* Activating a self or friend targeted Heal power: 4s
* Activating a Friend targeted Buff power: 4s
* Being the target of an attack: 2s
Control Powers
Controlpower changes are fairly extensive. The goal here was to make controleffects less binary in nature. The shorter durations of status effects,combined with the change from status Protection to Status resistancemeans that these powers will now how impact on a PvP situation morefrequently, but are no longer quite as severe a deciding factor.
*For Controllers: Change Duration base to 4 seconds for Stun, Sleep,Hold, Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse, Untouchable, Intangibleattributes. Duration of Status Effects (Hold, Sleep, etc.) no longerscale by level; instead they have fixed base durations.
* ForDominators: Change normal control Duration base to 4 seconds for Stun,Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse, Untouchable, Intangibleattributes. Duration of Status Effects (Hold, Sleep, etc.) no longerscale by level; instead they have fixed base durations. ChangeDomination control Duration base to 4 seconds for Stun, Sleep, Hold,Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse, Untouchable, Intangible attribs.Duration of Status Effects (Hold, Sleep, etc.) no longer scale bylevel; instead they have fixed base durations. Change Magnitude bonusfrom +3 to +1.
* For ALL OTHERS: Change control Duration base to 2seconds for Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Terrorize, Confuse,Untouchable, Intangible attributes. Duration of Status Effects (Hold,Sleep, etc.) no longer scale by level; instead they have fixed basedurations.
* For Tankers: Change Taunt to a fixed 6 second duration.
* For Scrappers and Brutes: Change Taunt to a fixed 4 second duration.
* For the Manipulation Pool: Change Taunt to a fixed 4 second duration.
* For Stalkers: Change Placate to a fixed 10 second duration.
* For VEATs: Change Placate to a fixed 4 second duration.
Buff and Heal Powers
* A Heal Event now imposes a 25% Resistance to further heals on thecharacter, regardless of source. This Resistance to heals will last for15 seconds, and stacks with itself. This means that if you are healed 4times, no further healing will affect you until the resistance durationends.
* Status Protection attributes for all statuses exceptKnockback and Knock up changed to Status Resist. For example, a Tankerrunning Unyielding at level 50 has 12.975 points of protection in PVE,while in PVP he has 129.75% Hold Resistance. That will convert an 8second hold into a 3.48 second hold.
Damage Powers
* Powers now calculate damage based on their activation time, instead of their recharge.
* Lower activation time powers get a slight bonus to damage, due to chaining low damage powers being difficult in PvP.
* Longer Recharge time powers also get a slight damage bonus, so higherlevel powers with long recharge times deal extra damage.
* Damage has been adjusted for all AT's, reducing the damage gap between each AT.
Resistance Powers
* Each AT now recieves a bonus resist buff while in PVP, in order toset each AT closer in overall survivability. This resist primarilyreduces up the gap in hitpoints between lower hitpoint AT's and higherhitpoint AT's
* Epic armors and Tough (Pool Power) now provide resistance to all damage types while in PVP.
* Any armor set lacking a type of resist or defense will now provide it while in PvP zones.
Taunt Powers(NOTE: These changes are effective in PVE as well! They are essentiallyaccross the board buffs which should give greater crowd control abilityto those who possess these power.)
* Add 75% Range Debuff to Tanker Taunt (full aoe)
* Add 75% Range Debuff to Scrapper Confront (and equivalents.) These remain single target.
* Add 75% Range Debuff to Brute Taunt/Confront powers. The Range Debuffshould have radius outer set to 0 so it only affects the main target.
Classes Tables
* Increased MAX RESIST value for all status effect attribs. This meansstatus resistance effects will have more meaning. This also affects PVE.
* IncreaseRange STR MIN value to 25%. This means no player or critterpowers range can be decreased to more than 25% of its original range.So, an 80' attack can never be debuffed below 25'. This also effectsPVE.
So, there you have it. A whole slew of changes for you tochew over, plan around...and test on the Training Room! We still have alot of testing and tuning to do. While our initial playtests areshowing these changes to be fun, we’ll ultimately look to broaderplaytests to validate the changes.
Here's hoping you all enjoy it!
Floyd 'Castle' Grubb
There you go hot off the forums
ZAZ
</font>
