DR_Mechano

Oh good lord my talk in another topic has inspired someone to this...for that...I am sorry and merely wish you god speed. When I did this originally I went with a Brute since they get better damage from their melee pool attacks, back then Boxing and Kick did not have the buffs they did to each other or Crosspunch, they're still not going to be good...and I don't think they're not going to generate fury (this may not be true I'd need clarification on that) so I hindsight I think I should have chosen a scrapper. They may not crit but they'll have initial higher damage scaling and you don't have to worry about Fury generation (if the pool attacks do generate Fury the DEFINITELY go brute instead). The pools I picked from where Fighting, Leadership, Leaping and Medicine for the self heal though there are probably better picks out there and replace it with speed for Hasten etc. along with the classic leaping+Superspeed combo. I think I managed to get them to like 35 before I lost my god damn mind and was like "I'm too old for this these days..." so good luck to you good sir.

You can blame Game devs for government stepping in to regulate them, they kept pushing and getting more and more greedy with their practices, more shameless with them. If companies like EA and Activision knew when enough was enough and held the reigns back we wouldn't have this problem. But know we all know that just making money isn't enough for these companies they've got to have ALL the money...and this is inevitably where it was going to lead.

And so here we are...with the same suggestion..the same amount of backlash only this time if I don't like the choice it's not a case of "Well there is only one CoH, so this change I completely disagree with went through but I've got nowhere else to go", nah...I can go elsewhere, like, for example, the CoXg or Rebirth servers. You're basically saying "lets do the massive change that causes huge upheaval and will probably generate a huge backlash...for the sake of 'balance' that doesn't actually need to happen...and drive the people who like how things are operating elsewhere on to servers that still have Hasten the way it is" Why bother and why now of all times? Blizzard lost people to the numerous Classic or expansion specific private servers because of their infamous 'you think you do but you don't' (in response to official classic servers) because they kept making silly changes and it was only when the noticed the figures of possible revenue (they would not have bothered with Classic servers if they couldn't make any money off of it) that they relented. From what I'm seeing of these proposed Hasten changes is "You think you like Hasten the way it is but you don't," and that ain't convincing me.

So it's not just a case of 'nerf or delete hasten and all is better' it means having to do huge massive reworks to a lot of powers in the game, like, a massive chunk of them. That's a metric shit-ton of work for, honestly, what seems like very little gain. OR you could not rebalance everything and just make hasten an inherent...which means everyone gets it anyway.

All that will end up doing is people basically slotting MORE recharge out of their powers and IO bonuses. It doesn't actually do anything good, in fact it now limits build variety EVEN MORE since you're now everyone is going to be focusing on cramming as much recharge into their build as possible to replace the 50% lost by hasten. Also this kills, completely, Perma-dom and Perma Phantom Army. Like I said Perma PA require waaaaayyy more recharge than perma Hasten (like a LOT more recharge) so then in order to still make this achievable you're not just removing hasten, you're also going to have to rebalance dominators and Illusion control so that they can, once again, get back up to the heights they once got to. So deleting hasten is adding even more balancing work.

That is my main problem and NOBODY has answers. What is the long term benefit to the game by nerfing hasten and what are the predicted consequences of any of the imposed changes? How is it actually going to be healthy for the game beyond just saying 'balance'. Tell me exactly how this really does help, like, go into the gritty details.

If there is one thing the MM pet AI saga has taught me that 'they could just' is certainly not something I will throw out in the future.

Not to mention most of them are only 4 or 3 sets, sometimes 5 if you're lucky with set bonuses that seem rather...meh... Out of the low level melee sets only Kinetic Combat offers any really decent bonuses. And it seems like Steadfast protection was designed entirely to be broken apart and never used as a full set.

This, never understood the point of certain sets not going all the way to 50.

Or if they offer the thing for sale directly in a cash shop and only that thing but also offer it in lootboxes with a 'chance' of getting it cheaper but also containing lots of stuff I personally don't care about but might be useful to people then I think that would be the best option. Those that are prone to gamble can do it through lootboxes while the rest of us can buy that item without the high chance of overspending just to get something we want.

The problem I had with lootboxes is that they changed how games did microtransactions. Say a new ship comes out in STO, you can't directly buy that ship anymore like you could before lootboxes were a thing. Instead you've got to buy a lootbox HOPING it has a (usually very small) chance of containing the ship you want. So if there is an item you really want you're going to end up spending more in lootboxes trying to get said item than you would have spent just buying the item when it first came out in the old fashioned way of doing things. Oh, but the devs cry, you get all the stuff in those lootboxes while also trying to get the thing you want which is value for money. It's not if I don't CARE about the rest of the stuff in the lootboxes and literally only want that one thing. I don't care if I get a double XP booster or some decals if the only thing I want is that item since all the rest is just fluff used to pad out lootboxes to make it seem like you're getting something of value.

Judging by the visceral reaction to Battlefront 2 I don't think a lot of people enjoy lootboxes...

Sweet Jesus...good luck my dude, those about to die, we salute you. Currently I'm tinkering with my own challenge run I'm calling the 'Monster Hunter Challenge' while not as difficult as an Iron man challenge it does come with its own set of rules. First set of rules: Standard ones, No P2W vendor use. No AE, No PI radio mission PLing, no Auction House access, DFB is allowed to be run exactly once for the badge. Second set of rules: Every 10 levels I must gather a team, who must also be all equal to my level or under (not exemplared down, actually that level or under), and defeat a giant monster of my choice (I cannot hunt the same monster twice, each one must be different). I am not allowed to earn XP until I have defeated said monster. Once said monster is defeated I must create a costume slot wearing an 'armour set' that represents the creature or a theme linked to it. Third set of rules: Once the level 10 hunt is complete I unlock the ability to use DOs, once the level 20 hunt is complete I unlock SOs, once the level 30 hunt is complete I unlock common IOs (remember I can't use the Auction house so its what I get off of mobs only and whatever salvage I get off mobs in order to craft it), once the level 40 hunt is complete I unlock uncommon IOs and once the level 50 hunt is complete I finally unlock rare IOs.

Now Burnout isn't useless I honestly think its not taken because its so deep in the Super Speed tree and Super speed is the third most popular travel power. Most people will take flight or Super Leap because they enable you to get around easily. Also Gang war>Burnout>Gang war or as the above mentioned combo that enables a Blaster to nuke something with aim+BU+nuke and then burnout to reset all its cooldowns.

The thing is within the Iron Man challenge actually has another difficulty selector. Do you pick easy and got for tank, who, if they make it to level 30, is unlikely to die, do you go for medium which is corruptor, you've got range and debuffs so you're sort of ok. Then you have blaster...especially a fire/fire blaster...that's hard mode, no safety net, all you've got is damage and a prayer. If an Iron man blaster challenger made it to level 50 without dying that was definitely an achievement.

Sadly no but if you want to go thematic Necromancy suits you to a T, nobody cares about Zombies just keep throwing them in to take the alpha. Infact I think traps has the option to booby trap one of your henchman with a bomb so that when they die, they explode. Yup level 38 Detonator. "A good Mastermind always plans ahead, but a great one knows when to make a strategic sacrifice. You have equipped all your henchmen with explosives. When the time is right, select a henchman and set off the Detonator. Undead and Robots are easily rigged and will blow up instantly, devastating nearby enemies. Ninjas, Soldiers and other free thinking henchmen will try to place the explosive on the ground and get away. But you know... the fuse is short."

Sometimes you're just going to have an idea that doesn't work out, best to just shelve this and move on.

Ah that, my friends, is where you are wrong about there being nobody to share it with. One of my favorite speed runs styles started out as something done a Games Done Quick and it has grown on twitch. In fact speed runs are very social these days. What you can do is have a group of you all run the challenge together. You ALL start a POWER POOL MAN challenge which, will be difficult in the early levels, when you're slotting DOs but slowly becomes easier and easier once you all start filling out the leadership pool. You challenge yourselves to do every single TF with your team POWER POOL including a LRST or MsTF. I know back in the day people use to run SOs only ramping difficulty Iron Man SGs together and run as a group.

Yup suggested that but didn't get told why it's a bad idea since it just creates a new baseline of 'normal'.

Or you guys could do ye olde style Hardcore challenges. Back in my Dark Soul playing days (if the posts are still there you can search me on the Eurogamer forums for proof of this) I was known as a challenge runner for Dark Souls on Eurogamer forums. I did things like soul level 1 runs (including the DLC), Fist weapons only runs (in dark souls 1 fist weapons were shockingly bad), Whip only runs (Which is actually harder than fist only runs since, also in dark souls 1, the whip could not riposte a parried attack and did pathetic damage) and a few others. The challenges are there, you just need to take them. For example classic Iron Man challenge runs. You die, you lose. Delete the character and start over and you have to go up a notch of the difficulty scaler every 10 levels with no IOs involved, only SOs. Or you could make POWER POOL MAN, as soon as the power pools become available they are the only things you can take, epic/patron pools are included. I find it strange that speed runners and the like take a game and look for the challenge in itself but it seems people here are like "just make the challenge for me!".

Fair enough, I apologize. I had assumed the worst of you and you'd edited the title in order to make people look bad in that you'd suggested these alterations all along and people had over-reacted. It IS an all too common tactic I've seen on forums before but you kept the original post intact and amended it. As said though...what can you provide that changing hasten would improve the game in any way? If so, how would it improve the game.

Oh and nice thread title change there. Incase people missed it the thread was titled "Delete Hasten" before it was changed.

See this is why I have no problem with your suggestion. I was railing against completely nerfing Hasten into oblivion just because it was popular which is what seemed to be the overarching goal of most here. As for what power I'd add in to compete with hasten. A Rage type toggle in the fighting pool, +30% damage and +10% to hit however it costs a decent amount of endurance to use per tick and requires you take both tough and weave. That is a decent chunk of bonus damage there and damage is something all ATs can use. That's just an idea off the top of my head. On my SS/Invuln brute I would totally drop hasten for a power like that and it's useful to all ATs. Is it overpowered...well apparently just having recharge is overpowered so..yeah.... Edit: Also I noticed nobody answered my question of asking where nerfing hasten some how magically improves the health of the game can be proven...not Biostem (who actively avoided the question) or Steampunkette (who I think just missed it).

No I'm saying it would be a start towards balancing things.

Firstly the easiest one I can think of, is you make the power pools act like the travel power pools. You don't need the first or second to pick up the third or fourth. You can get Tough and Weave without taking the crappy melee power that is boxing or kick. I don't need to take stimulant to take Aid Self. This opens up more diversity on builds for a start. Then I'd work on making those powers useful. Aid self, for example, would have the interrupt removed, making it more useful for ATs without defense and heals, that's just one idea off the top of my head.