297 réponses à ce sujet

[GodlessPaladin]

PluralAces wrote...

This game is basically competitive co-op lol

Eh, I don't really think so.  Though if you want to see a game that is built around that idea try "The Legend of Zelda:  Four Swords."

Modifié par GodlessPaladin, 25 juin 2012 - 08:14 .

[Kronner]

capn233 wrote...
You can very easily rectify part of that by modifying the general purpose damage bonus, which is probably the biggest issue with a cloak that allows you to fire a power and a weapon at the same time, and do it every 3s.

 

Modify in what way? Turn the 90% damage bonus into what? 10%? 30%? 50%? 70%?
How about the insane sniper multiplier at rank 6? Lower from 40% to what?
Be specific please.

I am still going to have to disagree here.You yourself are of the opinion that a "good" infiltrator can kill things rapidly enough that aggro dump isn't a problem, and on the flip side what is also true is that a killing machine infiltrator can kill most targets or groups of targets quickly enough that maneuvering is also not something that needs to be done on any regular basis except to find more targets.

Even so, it takes something like 16s maybe maximum to cross the largest map.  Indeed even if you reduce base cloak to 5s you still are getting more than enough "utility" to perform similarl, at least in a team game, and maneuver a fair distance.  At least assuming that you apply 5% more strategy.  In SP or in a solo game the duration cut will hurt more.  I do not think that a choice between 5s and the best damage bonuses in the game vs 11s invisibility and ok bonuses is really going to make anyone jump to duration.  Nor do I think it will affect the disparity in killing speed in a game with a good infiltrator and regular players of other classes in a game if the infiltrator still has similar damage boost at Rank 4 but only 5s invisibility time.

It would provide a choice. At the moment, there is no choice. Taking the Duration now is absolutely pointless. Yet, some people still take it. The difference between 90% damage 5s Cloak and 65% 11s Cloak is much better than the choice between 90% damage 10s Cloak and 50% damage 13s Cloak.

Modifié par Kronner, 25 juin 2012 - 08:17 .

[PluralAces]

GodlessPaladin wrote...

PluralAces wrote...

This game is basically competitive co-op lol

Eh, I don't really think so.  Though if you want to see a game that is built around that idea try "The Legend of Zelda:  Four Swords."

People are always competiting for kills and scores in this game, how could it not be?

[capn233]

Kronner wrote...

Modify in what way? Turn the 90% damage bonus into what? 10%? 30%? 50%? 70%?
How about the insane sniper multiplier at rank 6? Lower from 40% to what?
Be specific please.

No need to get snippy.

I have already stated in various places that I think the rank 4 damage evolution should lose 10% damage.

As you have pointed out in other places, the "insane" sniper rifle bonus is partly there because of the relatively poor damage that the class does on a whole.  I agree with that and would probably reduce it to 25 or 30% with a corresponding change in sniper rifle damage excepting the Krysae (no change) and the Viper (which I would rather see get more rate of fire).

Regarding the rest of the post, I have never attacked you or anyone for attempting to make the choices more viable in the existing framework of the cloak evolutions.  What I have pointed out is simply that if you leave the damage bonuses relatively neutral with regard to infiltrator (keeping the general damage bonus the same, and making a damage neutral change on the SR rank 6 bonus) you are not going to have a class that is all that much different than the current regime in terms of how everyone perceives the balance (ie infiltrators kill everything faster than any class).  Hell that is more or less actually true, outside of a few grenade spamming exceptions.

[Hakuthehedgehog]

Not always, speaking for myself, I rarely compete with score unless we are having an easy time defeating the enemies.

Getting the credits is always the most important thing in this game, cooperation is always present IMO.

[Kronner]

capn233 wrote...

No need to get snippy.

Hah, no worries about that. I am genuinely interested in your opinion about that damage modifier. It is not easy to come up with a number that actually works properly (i.e. it does not nerf the class too much, but balances the power at the same time) 

edit: ah, just saw the 10% nerf. OK, thank you!

Modifié par Kronner, 25 juin 2012 - 08:38 .

[rmccowen]

GodlessPaladin wrote...

...Without balance, a few strategies rise to the top of the metagame and render other options as trivial curiosities rather than as meaningful alternative ways to approach the challenges of a game.  With balance, a greater variety of playstyles are relevant to conquering the challenges of the game, each offering unique benefits and tradeoffs and different competitively viable styles of gameplay.

Another reason balance matters is because of an old and basic aspect of the fun formula for the RPG genre in general... making optimization choices when building a character.  ...part of the reason this is fun for many RPG fans is because optimizing a character is (potentially) an interesting mental challenge.

Really, this point can't be made often or clearly enough. In an RPG (or hybrid shooter-RPG) context, there should be at least a reasonable presumption that no one choice is clearly better than others. In the current ME3 metagame, one-third of Gold players use Infiltrators (which corresponds to approximately an 80% chance that a Gold lobby will contain at least one Infiltrator). That fact represents at least the perception in the ME3 community--and, arguably, the mechanical reality--that Infiltrators are simply more effective than other classes.

And that reduction in variation isn't terribly healthy for the game. It undervalues player choice by restricting it to only a few possible avenues. Ideally, a new player is faced with choosing between thirty characters with a handful of successful builds each--but in practice, Infiltrators have double the representation to which they're entitled.

A large range of meaningful choices leads to an interesting, varied, and dynamic play experience for everyone. The question I'd like the anti-balance crowd to answer is: what part of that doesn't sound like a good idea?

[nicethugbert]

Kronner wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
No, that's an opinion.  I could opine that a good infiltrator is one that does 500 dps, or 1000, or a trillion.  The dividing line between good and bad is a matter of opinion, not fact.

 

What's opinion, that a good player plays efficiently? That's a fact.

Effciency is something that can be rated.  It's not black or white as a matter of universal law.  One person's efficient is another person's not efficient enough, or inefficient.  It does not get any more efficient than a OHK, projectile speeds being equal.  But, there is no such thing in game except against trivial opponents.

Kronner wrote...

nicethugbert wrote... 
If it is true that TC will always make the player "invisible" and that the problem with TC is that it gives damage bonus and utility then what you are saying is that TC will be nerfed by making the player choose between "invisible" and damage because "invisible" is the utility aspect of TC which you said would never change.

I never said anything like that. You are basically complaining that water is wet.

You did say that:

Cloak will always make the player "invisible", just like Charge is
always going to fill your barriers. It's just a fundamental feature.

You did say that:

Cloak is not balanced because it gives damage bonus AND utility. The
player is not forced to pick between the two options. He gets both. This
should be fixed.

So you want the player to pick between damage bonus and utility.  "Invisibility" is a utility, not a damage bonus.  So, you want the player to pick between damage bonus and "invisibility".

[nicethugbert]

Lord Rosario wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

Kronner wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

What bothers me the most about infiltrators is tactical cloak and what bothers me the most about tactical cloak is aggro dumping, I think Tactical cloak should be less effective in all it's functions, especially aggro dumping, the more infiltrators there are in the match such that it is 1/n effective with n infiltrators present in a match.

There is no aggro dumping unless the Infiltrator flat out sucks. A good Infiltrator will kill/disable the aggro he "dumped" (i.e. the enemies that were focused on him before he cloaked) on the team quicker than they have a chance to attack the non-Infiltrators.

There is aggro dumping mechanics in this game that tactical cloak uses.  It's just a proven, easily demonstable, fact.  What you are actually saying is that the infiltrator that does not flat out suck kills the enemy whose aggro he just dumped.  This implies that there is an aggro dumping mechanism but that some players trivialize it by thier actions.  It also implies quite a high bar for not sucking as an Infiltrator, a highly fantastic high bar I would say, when you consider all the enemies that cannot be one shotted or how fast one would have to eliminate a swarm of lower grade mobs.

Having to rely on magical skill presumably held by the tinest percentage of players to resolve the unfairness of aggro dump means no resolution is available by your suggestion.

It's not that it take a lot of skill to not agro dump, all you have to do is cloak, then fire almost immediately. Then, no agro was dumped whether you killed the enemy or not. Also, just cloaking then firing off a skill + gun keeps the full damage bonus, dumps no agro on your team, and cuts your recharge speed to the minimum no matter how heavy your guns. Could have a Crusader and a Widow and would still have that 3 second cooldown. For an infiltrator that's made for dealing damage, they aren't going to be hidden long enough to dump any agro because they are going to be firing as many times as possible.

That's a red herring.  The fact is that the player can dump aggro and they frequently do.  They do it to escape fire and to line up shots.  No other power in the game is so abusable, frequently abused, and unfair to the team.

[capn233]

Kronner wrote...

capn233 wrote...

No need to get snippy.

Hah, no worries about that. I am genuinely interested in your opinion about that damage modifier. It is not easy to come up with a number that actually works properly (i.e. it does not nerf the class too much, but balances the power at the same time) 

edit: ah, just saw the 10% nerf. OK, thank you!

Sorry for misinterpreting your post then.

No it isn't an easy endeavor, that's why it has taken Bioware trial and effort to get it done and why you guys are apparently putting a lot of time into it.

I think central to the problem is also disparity between SI, QMI and GI relative to HI and QFI.  Specifically the powers available that can get a damage bonus.  You can't nerf out a bunch of damage bonus simply because Proxi Mine is giving SI and GI an additionaly 20% effective damage, or because Arc Grenades are ridiculous... HI only has Cryo which is basically pure CC and or debuff, QFI has Sabotage (which is a mess right now, IMO), but they do both have Sticky Grenades which perhaps is a good target for a little buff.  What they need is however unclear to me, whether that be more damage or more radius or both, I don't know.

It would also be nice to preserve high burst damage for the role as Assassin, and realistically I think that one of the changes that I liked the most in the whole Spectre difficulty business was the small minipulation up of the base minimum CD.  I thought that a base minimum change could be applied with a hotfix, but if I was mistaken on that, so be it.

I have never been too keen on a radical change to cloak since I think a lot of the overpoweredness is exaggerated, but nevertheless I do feel like it is maybe a bit more powerful than it should be in the context of the weapon and power synergies within the infiltrator class.  I do agree that you can already get close to the killing efficiency of an infiltrator with a Human Soldier, but you are relying more heavily on a limited resource (frags) compared to free proxi mines in the case of SI or GI, and frags don't quite match Arc Grenades.  I am not entirely sure that is true with other soldiers, or with a lone biotic with the possible exception of Drell Adept or perhaps expertly played Human or Krogan Vanguard.  Or maybe even mindless Smash spam now...

Modifié par capn233, 25 juin 2012 - 09:13 .

[Geek]

nicethugbert wrote...

Lord Rosario wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

Kronner wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

What bothers me the most about infiltrators is tactical cloak and what bothers me the most about tactical cloak is aggro dumping, I think Tactical cloak should be less effective in all it's functions, especially aggro dumping, the more infiltrators there are in the match such that it is 1/n effective with n infiltrators present in a match.

There is no aggro dumping unless the Infiltrator flat out sucks. A good Infiltrator will kill/disable the aggro he "dumped" (i.e. the enemies that were focused on him before he cloaked) on the team quicker than they have a chance to attack the non-Infiltrators.

There is aggro dumping mechanics in this game that tactical cloak uses.  It's just a proven, easily demonstable, fact.  What you are actually saying is that the infiltrator that does not flat out suck kills the enemy whose aggro he just dumped.  This implies that there is an aggro dumping mechanism but that some players trivialize it by thier actions.  It also implies quite a high bar for not sucking as an Infiltrator, a highly fantastic high bar I would say, when you consider all the enemies that cannot be one shotted or how fast one would have to eliminate a swarm of lower grade mobs.

Having to rely on magical skill presumably held by the tinest percentage of players to resolve the unfairness of aggro dump means no resolution is available by your suggestion.

It's not that it take a lot of skill to not agro dump, all you have to do is cloak, then fire almost immediately. Then, no agro was dumped whether you killed the enemy or not. Also, just cloaking then firing off a skill + gun keeps the full damage bonus, dumps no agro on your team, and cuts your recharge speed to the minimum no matter how heavy your guns. Could have a Crusader and a Widow and would still have that 3 second cooldown. For an infiltrator that's made for dealing damage, they aren't going to be hidden long enough to dump any agro because they are going to be firing as many times as possible.

That's a red herring.  The fact is that the player can dump aggro and they frequently do.  They do it to escape fire and to line up shots.  No other power in the game is so abusable, frequently abused, and unfair to the team.

I think you are making way too big a deal about aggro dump. I agree it is a problem if you have 3 other infiltrators on your team, but in that case you either change to an infiltrator or find another game. Outside of that it is such a tiny thing and the benfeits of having at least one infiltrator on your team far outweigh the negatives.

[nicethugbert]

rymoulton wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

Lord Rosario wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

Kronner wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...

What bothers me the most about infiltrators is tactical cloak and what bothers me the most about tactical cloak is aggro dumping, I think Tactical cloak should be less effective in all it's functions, especially aggro dumping, the more infiltrators there are in the match such that it is 1/n effective with n infiltrators present in a match.

There is no aggro dumping unless the Infiltrator flat out sucks. A good Infiltrator will kill/disable the aggro he "dumped" (i.e. the enemies that were focused on him before he cloaked) on the team quicker than they have a chance to attack the non-Infiltrators.

There is aggro dumping mechanics in this game that tactical cloak uses.  It's just a proven, easily demonstable, fact.  What you are actually saying is that the infiltrator that does not flat out suck kills the enemy whose aggro he just dumped.  This implies that there is an aggro dumping mechanism but that some players trivialize it by thier actions.  It also implies quite a high bar for not sucking as an Infiltrator, a highly fantastic high bar I would say, when you consider all the enemies that cannot be one shotted or how fast one would have to eliminate a swarm of lower grade mobs.

Having to rely on magical skill presumably held by the tinest percentage of players to resolve the unfairness of aggro dump means no resolution is available by your suggestion.

It's not that it take a lot of skill to not agro dump, all you have to do is cloak, then fire almost immediately. Then, no agro was dumped whether you killed the enemy or not. Also, just cloaking then firing off a skill + gun keeps the full damage bonus, dumps no agro on your team, and cuts your recharge speed to the minimum no matter how heavy your guns. Could have a Crusader and a Widow and would still have that 3 second cooldown. For an infiltrator that's made for dealing damage, they aren't going to be hidden long enough to dump any agro because they are going to be firing as many times as possible.

That's a red herring.  The fact is that the player can dump aggro and they frequently do.  They do it to escape fire and to line up shots.  No other power in the game is so abusable, frequently abused, and unfair to the team.

I think you are making way too big a deal about aggro dump. I agree it is a problem if you have 3 other infiltrators on your team, but in that case you either change to an infiltrator or find another game. Outside of that it is such a tiny thing and the benfeits of having at least one infiltrator on your team far outweigh the negatives.

Or, the infiltrators could get off my server so I can have my savage gold run.

Having an I Win button on the team far outweighs the negatives.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 26 juin 2012 - 10:16 .

[Seifer006]

GodlessPaladin wrote...

PluralAces wrote...

This game is basically competitive co-op lol

Eh, I don't really think so.  Though if you want to see a game that is built around that idea try "The Legend of Zelda:  Four Swords."

wiat. I gotta hear your view on LOZ Four Swords. It looks great, is it?

[KuroFye]

Give any class to a good player and the whole set of weapons to choose, you will have anything you want, crowd control, single-target assassin, support, say any class and any tipe of build and you can do one, simple.

[AreleX]

an easy solution to the sniper problem: make the rank 4 evolution a 15% damage bonus, make the rank 6 evolution a 40% ALL damage bonus, and give a flat rate sniper rifle damage buff across the board

[deadpixel92]

OMG nicethugbert shut your mouth, everything you say doesn't makes any sense.

[Kronner]

nicethugbert wrote...
So you want the player to pick between damage bonus and utility.  "Invisibility" is a utility, not a damage bonus.  So, you want the player to pick between damage bonus and "invisibility".

No. I want the player to pick between damage and duration. Invisibility is there by default, you can't not pick that without skipping Cloak altogether.

AreleX wrote...

an easy solution to the sniper problem: make the rank 4 evolution a 15% damage bonus, make the rank 6 evolution a 40% ALL damage bonus, and give a flat rate sniper rifle damage buff across the board

 

This would make every single weapon Infiltrator use significantly more powerful than it is now, because the Rank 6 damage bonus is a multiplier.

[robarcool]

AreleX wrote...

an easy solution to the sniper problem: make the rank 4 evolution a 15% damage bonus, make the rank 6 evolution a 40% ALL damage bonus, and give a flat rate sniper rifle damage buff across the board

40% on all weapons means people would never take the 6b bonus power evo (which I take with SI), since they can happily go about claymoring everything. Also, with the hunter mode boost, the GI would become uberpowered. I would say let TC follow normal cooldwon rules or give a 1s base cooldown increase with current system. A damage nerf is problematic in the sense that it woud affect the burst damage, which is what the infiltrator is all about.

[GodlessPaladin]

AreleX wrote...

an easy solution to the sniper problem: make the rank 4 evolution a 15% damage bonus, make the rank 6 evolution a 40% ALL damage bonus, and give a flat rate sniper rifle damage buff across the board

That would be a huge Infiltrator buff, since the rank 6 bonus does not work like other damage bonuses.

[nicethugbert]

Kronner wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
So you want the player to pick between damage bonus and utility.  "Invisibility" is a utility, not a damage bonus.  So, you want the player to pick between damage bonus and "invisibility".

No. I want the player to pick between damage and duration. Invisibility is there by default, you can't not pick that without skipping Cloak altogether.

BW can do all sorts of things to the aggro dump.  They can make it more effective or less effective.  And it is a utility.  So, my statement remains true.  If you choose to specify what you really want, that is another matter.

People can already choose duration over damage.  Why would anybody choose duration over damage?  What are they going to do with a longer duration that's more fun than damage.  And longer duration means more aggro dump.  that's the worst option as far as I'm concerened.

[capn233]

GodlessPaladin wrote...

AreleX wrote...

an easy solution to the sniper problem: make the rank 4 evolution a 15% damage bonus, make the rank 6 evolution a 40% ALL damage bonus, and give a flat rate sniper rifle damage buff across the board

That would be a huge Infiltrator buff, since the rank 6 bonus does not work like other damage bonuses.

Yikes.

I tremble at the thought of a GI with that damage boost...

The "additive" general purpose bonus would be "only" 65%, which effectively becomes 91% again after you multiply it by 1.4... on top of more boosts to additive power/weapon damage bonuses from other places, plus the extra 40% times base damage.  That would make a GI do eleventy billion damage per cloak cycle if my calculations are right.

Modifié par capn233, 25 juin 2012 - 11:06 .

[AreleX]

it's krysae or nothin'!

[robarcool]

AreleX wrote...

it's krysae or nothin'!

Hmm?

[Lord Rosario]

nicethugbert wrote...

Kronner wrote...

nicethugbert wrote...
So you want the player to pick between damage bonus and utility.  "Invisibility" is a utility, not a damage bonus.  So, you want the player to pick between damage bonus and "invisibility".

No. I want the player to pick between damage and duration. Invisibility is there by default, you can't not pick that without skipping Cloak altogether.

BW can do all sorts of things to the aggro dump.  They can make it more effective or less effective.  And it is a utility.  So, my statement remains true.  If you choose to specify what you really want, that is another matter.

People can already choose duration over damage.  Why would anybody choose duration over damage?  What are they going to do with a longer duration that's more fun than damage.  And longer duration means more aggro dump.  that's the worst option as far as I'm concerened.

Seems that helping your team out of sticky situations isn't considered fun by most. Personally, I love knowing that I saved the entire team from losing several times in a single run, did 90% of the objectives, and was able to pick off the low level enemies that are far off from the group without having to leave their side. To me, that is what being an infiltrator is all about. Could care less about being able to one/two shot a brute.

[This post is entirely opinion. :]