Hey Everyone,
Today we wanted to talk about some upcoming change to Roles, Stats, and Super Stats. While we’ve been working on framework reviews, we’ve been keeping tabs on some larger issues that affect characters of all types. With the upcoming release of Specialization Trees, we decided that now was the right time to address these issues.
Super Stats
Our first major change is that you will no longer have two Super Stats (or Characteristic Focuses, if you want to use the old technical term, but why would you do that?). Instead, you will now have one Primary Super Stat, and two Secondary Super Stats. The Primary Super Stat will largely behave the same way you are used to Super Stats behaving. Secondary Super Stats will behave similarly, except they will have different scaling for the benefit they provide (how much bonus damage per stat point) and they will grant fewer points in that stat as you level up.
We noticed that, while some players were gearing stats outside of their two Super Stats, many focused solely on gearing for those two. In some cases, this could work pretty well, but some stat combos worked far worse, especially when trying to itemize properly for it. This created stat combos that were considerably more viable than other stat combos, with no real way for a player to know this when choosing Super Stats early on, or when just gearing up. The new method will make it easier for players to see which stats they want as an Archetype, and make it easier for Freeform characters to maximize their potential.
Roles
We’ve renamed the roles to more accurately describe what they are intended for, as several of the previous names were similar enough in meaning that it was difficult for new players to tell which role was for tanking, for example - Sentinel, Protector, or Guardian?
The real major change for Roles, though, is that they will now affect what your Super Stats do for you. Previously, even if you were in a Support or Tanking Role, Super Stats always provided you with more damage. While more damage is nice, it isn’t really what you want out of those roles. Now, being in a DPS role will provide you with the maximum damage bonus, while Tank and Support Roles provide bonuses targeted at those Roles. The Hybrid Role provides a mix of benefits, aimed at allowing players to fulfill more than one Role, just not quite as well as someone that picks a specific Role.
In addition to the way that Roles interact with Super Stats, we made some additional tweaks to the Roles. Several of the penalties have been removed, and several of the benefits have been increased. Here are some highlights: (of course, these are all still being tweaked, so they may change)
- The Ranged Damage Role (previously Avenger) no longer reduces your base health nor causes a reduction in your healing strength, and the base damage of their ranged attacks is now slightly higher.
- The Melee Damage Role (previously Brawler) no longer deals reduced Ranged damage, and also had the base damage of their melee attacks increased slightly.
- The Tank Role (previously Protector) now gains some innate damage resistance, and had their resistance to Crowd Control effects increased slightly.
- The Support Role (previously Sentinel) now gains a larger benefit to healing and control effects, and has less of a damage and max health penalty than before.
Stats
We also made some changes to the base stats themselves. In addition to a few minor tweaks like base Avoidance being 20% instead of 16.7%, and some changes to low level Energy/Equilibrium amounts to make the early game less frustrating for some Frameworks, several of the core stats got some big changes.
Strength
We made some tweaks behind the scenes to improve the reliability of the damage bonus it provides to melee attacks, and also changed the hard cap of 20% Melee Damage Strength to a soft cap, allowing melee players that focus purely on Strength to continue to see good benefits from doing so beyond the old hard cap.
Presence
Some big changes came to Presence - it no longer affects your threat generation, as this is now completely handled through the Roles, and the amount of healing bonus granted was changed to use a similar soft cap to Strength. This means that up to ~70 Presence (at level 40), you’ll see little change, but beyond that point, it will not get as high as it used to. The changes to the Support Role will allow them to keep strong heals, but this reduction will make it harder for Tanks and DPS character to also have incredibly strong heals, potentially obsoleting the Support Role... and sometimes even the Tank Role. Presence now also grants resistance to multiple Crowd Control effects.
Ego
Ego got a complete overhaul. Before our previous change to Ego, it was the only stat in the game that was completely dependent on another stat (Dexterity) for it to be useful. This created lots of bad situations, and meant that choosing to Super Stat Dexterity or Ego usually meant the best pick was to Super Stat both. After the changes that granted Ego some amount of Crit Chance in addition to Crit Severity, that diminished, but not enough. Ego was still a very dependent stat, and was still not in a good place.
So, we completely removed all Crit interactions from the Ego stat. It no longer grants any Crit Chance or Crit Severity and as such, the base Crit Severity has been increased, and you’ll be gaining additional Crit Severity through Specializations. Ego now acts like the Ranged equivalent of Strength, granting additional Ranged damage with the same soft cap that Strength uses for Melee damage. We also increased the amount of Hold Resistance it provides.
Dexterity
Because of the changes to Ego, Dexterity has been changed back to its old self. It no longer provides any Crit Severity, and the amount of Crit Chance it provides has been increased back to the pre-Ego change amount.
These changes also go hand in hand with the itemization changes we’ll be rolling out at the same time, and the Specialization Trees. Some stats will be able to receive additional benefits, including some of their old benefits, through Specialization. One example - if your Primary Super Stat is Ego, you’ll be able to Specialize and allow your Ego stat to also increase your Critical Severity. Another will cause your Secondary Super Stats to... oh, looks like I’m running out of space, and I haven’t even touched on some of the other changes...
Like power Tier requirements being reworked, including the Tier 4 powers... Tweaks and fixes to many various powers. Passive changes that go along with the Super Stat changes! Hold re--- (character limit reached)
Thanks all! ;-p
Chris "Ame" Matz
Lead Systems Designer
Champions Online