ABlueThingy

Frankly I never liked having the Taunt and (most)Build Up powers be identical across the melee power sets. I'd rather see something more thematic and unique in each set. It just seems like a waste of potential. Maybe make the Scrapper taunts into a unique per power set "Challenge" buff/debuff power. It taunts and gives a stronger effect the higher rank the enemy is. Maybe give the basic AoE taunt to brutes/tanks as an inherent power and convert their existing taunts into unique debuffs. That was my big issue with Stalkers honestly. They have the same issue but worse. They all have to have a build up, a hide and a placate that are all identical. They even chunked the unique traits to give them a more reliable build up in some cases. If the AT really and truly needs every one of those powers and they're all identical...the original devs should have made them into inherent powers the AT gets by default and used the design space to give Stalkers more of a unique identity. Mind you I'm not suggesting to boost the strength of the ATs or anything. Just give them more flavor, more options.

...Dr. Vahz working with Freakshow/Lost to integrate Rikti tech? So Dr. Vahz gets new toys and semi-immortal test subjects and the Freak have been promised a cure for... some kind of degenerative disease as a result of constantly injecting Mt. Dew? Or maybe just new tech. That looks like the bio armor aura

What if they added KB protection to other parts of the set and then added some other benefit to being on the ground? Maybe a small +absorb as some energy/kinetic force from attacks just defused off into the ground? Keeping the thematic feel while repairing a mechanical hole

Frankly I see the overabundance of AoE at this point in the life of the game as a problem that doesn't need fed anymore then it has been. But if we're making requests to change the set more then just rolling the animation changes back? Maybe update it to a more modernish set? I'd rather see the build up changed. (IMO) Build up is a waste of a power slot in most power sets and should be changed to something more mechanically and thematically appropriate in almost all cases.

It seems like maybe the issue here isn't hasten Maybe the issue is that all the big long rech powers are not impactful enough to warrant their long recharges. Maybe we need to go through and clean up a lot of the old power sets and decide what powers are "Situational" and what powers are "Every fight"

I have three thoughts upon reading this thread... It's anecdotal but I have a friend(who shall remain nameless) who had a lot of epileptic seizures when younger. They're on the good meds now so it's not as much an issue. The kids at their school sometimes found it funny to mess with my friend by flickering lights at them or as a group pretending to be on their phones and all hitting the flashlight app at once. It didn't always trigger an episode or anything but it did once in a while. One too many times being mocked and laughed at while the world breaks down around them and they can't move has given my friend less than kind opinions on games that do that. I got my friend to play CoH for a bit and I don't think the had issues with elec based mobs. I didn't ask why but the Freakshow and Clockwork animations didn't seem to bother them. They hard quit after Elec Aff dropped. The idea of other players being able to make them seize and the threat of players doing it over and over to grief them was a deal breaker. Additionally. My SG had someone quit back on live when Thermal Rad came out. Because they had an Ex who dumped lighter fluid on them and threatened to light it. When thermal dropped... I want to say they quit but I don't remember honestly. I think maybe they stuck around and just only teamed with close friends? (I didn't know them well I just remember that going down in my periphery) And lastly I remember when Sonic Resistance was added in the game a million years ago, long before power customization. When Sonic was originally added it had similar effects to sonic blast. Basically rings of alternating grey. The rhythmic pulsing actually gave people headaches and seriously threatened epileptics playing. We had a whole thing on it. The Devs altered the animations, colors, sounds a half dozen times before scrapping the existing style and going with the weird orange stuff we have now. As I recall they also changed Trick Arrow's Disruption arrow for the same reason. It used to pulse faster I think. I guess my point is that this isn't a new issue. The HC devs just have to decide how accessible they want the game to be. Personally I think going hard on this and building a new UI that lets us go through and check off which power effects we want to see. Maybe a minimum option and a remove option for all buffs and wide area persistent effects. Debuff auras and dispersion bubbles such. I'm not gonna pretend that that would be easy or quick to implement. But it would solve a lot of issues all at once and I think it would be worth the investment.

They might be able to lower the chance of invasions in the lower level zones. Or force the server to auto-instance any zone with an invasion and pop up an invasion free alternative. So the tram shows "Steel Canyon" and "Steel Canyon - Safe"

Honestly I don't think that's really a Hasten thing. If Hasten is so good that Control/Support need compensatory buffs to them in the event Hasten get nerfed/changed. Then I don't think the issue is actually with Hasten. The issue is a lot of old control/support sets are not designed for the meta of today. But that's an issue with control/support sets.

There is almost always a power in any given build that could be sacrificed for Hasten and have it improve the build's overall DPS, support, survivability, and/or utility. Across all Powersets and archytypes. That's just how good +rech is. And Hasten is a cheap and easy source of it. My main from beta onward was a Kat/Regen scrapper. Every build, no matter which way I sliced it, was always clearly better at being a scrapper with Hasten. Even when I made stupid builds. Like the time I made a sword less attack chain using Fighting/Airsup/Jumpkick; I just kept telling people I lost my sword. With Hasten that build was-- well it was terrible. But it was playable, I could still solo up to 6/+2. Albeit slowly But it also worked on my endgame builds. Using nemesis as a baseline(Pre IOs) Hasten was the difference between soloing him or not. I was able to drop an attack from my attack chain while IMPROVING my dps and squeeze in Maneuvers for the extra def. When CoV came out I mained a Robot/Dark MM and Hasten absolutely made that character work above and beyond. I think I soloed all content at max diff. Took down multiple AVs. It wasn't much but I was able to slot a bit for duration and rech and stack enough fear/hold/imob that I could pin down almost anything. I would have lost that extra hold stack that actually let me pin down bosses and AVs without Hasten. And keep the AV regen tanked. I wouldn't have been able to fear down every entire single spawn without Hasten. Now I would have been close, sure. But Hasten pushed it over the top. There was no other single power that could have improved the build as much as Hasten. All that said... I never kept Hasten on my Scrapper very long. And as soon as my MM got to 50 I chunked Hasten in the trash. I hate those glowy pompoms. It made them less fun to play having a "This is the most effective choice" power in there periodically reminding me via it's autocast that I'm min-maxing at the cost of the thematics of the character. It wasn't fun. But the point isn't that Hasten is fun or un-fun. It's that it's just so useful, the only downside is that it costs you a pool choice and a power slot. Seeing how it mechanically outweighs most other choices those are a small price to pay. It's an *almost* universal build panacea. Does your build just suck? Why not try Hasten. Are you dying to much? A little dab of hasten will fix that right up. Do your pets die too much? Are you doing a quirky themed build and want to up your play so you're not a total load for your team? Enemies don't stay held? Can't solo AVs? Is your build already at or near the true godhead but you just need that little push to achieve final apotheosis? Do you need more cowbell? AWW U JUST GOTTA SLAP SOME HASTEN ON THERE. It may not get you all the way there but the only thing that could improve your build more is, like, a 4 billion inf Purple IO build.

Frankly Controllers/Corruptors/Defenders/Dominators all need to be looked at, as a whole. Irrespective of hasten. The baseline design of a lot of old support/control sets is really for a bygone era and they need some updating.

I'm pretty sure you'd only need to do that if you were doing a full "wings" style rig where the dress/robe is a special model that has it's own set of animations in response to yours. So a flowing animation when you walk, a flair up when you kick, etc. But you'd have to add in animations for everything where your legs moved... that's... a lot. There's actually few "Robe" models in game already that are actually just two large leg/pant models fused together with a texture that warps and deforms between them. I think that's what the Tsoo Sorcs do? The old CoT too. When they do the kick you can see it 'cause the center strip of their robe deforms pretty bad. If everyone is ok with kind of terrible robes we can do that easily. They'd look okish when standing around but any kind of kicks or serious movement would look weird or bad. If you want to use the cape/trench coat tech could do it hypothetically. Just have a wrap around cape. But OG Devs said it looked bad and the physics broke all the time. Like how sometimes your trenchcoat butt will flip around on you and cut you in half? Like that. Apparently there was a lot of "Umbrella in a hurricane" type effects that happened everytime you walked or jumped. Honestly I think fixing up the physics engine is the best bang for the buck. It would (likely) be a lot of work but we could use that in other parts of the game too afterwards. I imagine, anyway. In the mean time more short skirt/robe options! (Also kilts/skirts for monstrous legs!)

Oh! Sorry, I wasn't trying to start anything. Just wanted to make sure I was clear. I like... 90% agree with this. I don't think removing or flat nerfing it is the way to go. But I think we can wiggle it. Change it a bit to suit the evolving status of the game. (ideally as part of a larger initiative)

With a full team this game does kind of turn into a... like... one of those cartoon fighting clouds? Just a big blob of glowing nonsense FFXIV has an option that's like... "Minimal FX for everyone except me" which might be a good idea

I'm just saying that Hasten is taken by so many people that if you up and erased it from the game there would now be slightly more situations where people would die. Even people that didn't take Hasten. Because they were in a team and the healer's recharge was lowered enough that they didn't have a critical heal/buff ready in time. Or a boss didn't die fast enough and he got off an additional big strong power. A Con/Dom didn't have an AoE hold in time to stop an alpha strike. Or whatever. I'm not saying it would be HUGE but statistically it would have to kill at least a few extra and force far more to alter their strategy a little. How big a deal this is. Unless you only play solo and don't use Hasten... then it wouldn't impact you. Or if you're playing in such a way where your teammate's DPS, defenses, control and heals don't impact you in a team.

Yeah, exactly. Even if you personally don't use it. Every buffer/healer who now has a large gap in their buff up time or has to wait for a heal to cool down. Every tank that's a little closer to dying because their defensive clicks are on a slightly longer cool down. Every Blaster/Scrapper/etc that took a chunk right off their DPS due to slower activating power. Even if you can manage to make up the gap somehow with IOs or alternitive powers/slotting. You had to give something up. Damage, def, etc. All of those are going to impact the game as a whole. You may not notice it right away but if Hasten just vanished it would make the game harder.

Removing Hasten would have AN impact. We can argue about how much of one but it would impact quite a lot of builds. How easy is it to get Perma Dom without it?

Well, in D&D your actions are all taken during that 6 second round. You break the "Action economy" if you can preform more actions during that 6 second period. Extra bonus actions or getting to take your turn twice due to a power kind of things. You could break CoH up like that too if you wanted. Imagine a 6 second block. How many powers can you cram in there? Normally that's a function of recharge + Animation time. If you get your recharge high enough then it's really just animation time gating you. See also; The claws buff This is a really important point. It's not just damage. +rech also makes many builds tougher. Because this game is "Are you taking more damage in a 6 second period then you are regenerating" or whatever arbitrary time chunk we use. Heals and controls both help you survive and lower the net amount of damage you taken in a given time frame. Buffs where you'd die without the buff up suddenly becoming Perma because of +rech is a massive gain. +rech is a massively potent buff in this game and should be handled with more care then it has been.

Not everyone has Hasten, not everyone needs Hasten. Personally I don't use it in any builds right now. But that wasn't quite my point. It's kind of a crap power thematically imo. It's not engaging to use in play, it's just a click with a flat +rech. You set it on Auto and then once it's Perma you never think about it again. Mechanically it's amazing of course. But I don't really feel "Super speed" off this power. You know? And yes I'm talking about my personal feelings on the matter but I think enough people feel something is off about the power that it's worth while for me to at least try to articulate what I think needs done with it. I think there are 3 big issues not just with Hasten but with the SS pool as a whole. Hasten is just part of it and cannot be taken into consideration alone. There are no good alternatives if you want to build for large amounts of +rech Hasten overwhelmingly dominates the power distribution in the SS pool. SS offers very little aside from Hasten, the Sci pool is now going to often be a better choice for a "Super Speedster" character. To address the first that we need to add a few dozen more power pools that open up new thematic and mechanical styles of play. Things like a "Undead" pool, a "Vamperism" pool, an "Icey form" pool, a "Kung Fu" pool, a "Millitary gear" pool. If you just took a hammer to Hasten all you would do is make people mad. I think alternatives are better. Maybe some toggle +rech or attacks with secondary +rech effects. Or clicks with quirks. At the same time the existing SS pool should be combed over and buffed into more cohesive theme. (also all other pools should be looked at) Don't just "Nerf hasten." Update the whole SS pool. As an example... Flurry: Lower it's animation time for every additional SS power you have. It's the same animation just faster. Until you're hitting someone 42 times in a second. Hasten: Lets say, for the sake of argument, we shave off one third of it's bonus Super Speed: While Hasten is going this power has no Travel Suppression and it gives you back that third of bonus we took off Hasten. Every SS pool pick gives this power -rech/slow res Whirlwind: While active, if you have Flurry, it changes Flurry to have 3 charges before it goes on cool down. If you have Hasten then Whirlwind gives you the same amount of +rech Super Speed does.(for a total of 133% more +rech then we have now) Burnout: Shave off a minute on it's cooldown per SS power you have. Instantly recharges Flurry. If Flurry is used in the next 10 seconds it becomes "Mach Punch" which is a high dmg ST melee attack with KD or Stun maybe. If Whirlwind is going you get three charges of Mach Punch. Mach 1, 2, and 3 in escalating levels of dmg Take some of the power out of Hasten so it can be spread to the rest of the pool so you can make a true Speedster character that could, if you wanted, focus on "Super Speed" as a viable game play alternative. This also lets the SS pool compete with the Science pool as a true "Super speed" pool. If you invested five whole ass power picks and one of your only four pool picks and whatever slotting into these powers you should absolutely be able to use them alongside or even instead of your Pri/Sec. If you invested in the endurance to be able to run all these powers at once you SHOULD be able to feel like the Flash. Of course if you just want a chunk of +rech you can still just grab Hasten. But someone who invested in the pool and runs Whirlwind/Super Speed will have a larger bonus(at a higher cost of picks/slots) Now also go through and update the rest of the pools similarly. Add in some more Pools with completing buffs and powers. A "Drain" pool that lets you steal rech from enemies with a touch. Perhaps "Berserk" pool that gives +rech as HP is lost. Maybe a "Machine body" pool with a power to that has 3 charges of "overlock" to give you a stacking +rech at the cost of lowering max HP or a ticking DoT you can't resist. So instead of Hasten being "The recharge power" Hasten can be the "The click +rech you can make perma... power." Heck you could even give some new Pool a power that gives more +rech then Hasten without hurting SS's theme now. Because with those changes the "Super Speed pool" stands pretty well as "THE Super Speed Pool. It's not just "The Hasten pool" anymore.

This is a good post. I like this post. Many of these would just be new kilt options. Wouldn't even require new physics bull-*freem*

Timeline wise it kind of makes sense that post-incarnate players can pound him into the grave. I'd say try and remove the sillier exploits but otherwise leave him be. Maybe we just need a new post-[REDACTED]'s death TF that deals with Recluse's response to all that with a new power up?

See I was kind of trying to make the point that Disney was twisting his words to suit their goals. Which they were. But if you ignore that part then yes, I guess you're right?

Well you COULD use the clone technology to make a pet that has the same model as the target... that should be possible... I think... Like if Phantom Army could be cast ON someone to make the pets copy off them instead of you And just have the pet wear the skin of the NPC and use some generic zombie powers But that wouldn't work for non-baseline model things like Rikti drones. OR just have it target dead NPCs like the warshade or Dark Affinity heal and spawn one generic zombie per corpse. Or one ghost?

Now I know you're better then that. I've been taking your claims at face value here. I've even provided you some examples of Disney's nonsense. Some of the stuff you're requesting is actually in my previous links. If you're not willing to put a little effort in here to meet me half way it's not going to matter what I post. Now keep in mind I've not asked you to provide any links or research into your claims. And I won't, because that would be silly. I trust that you're not just making stuff up to win rhetorical points on the internet and that's good enough for me. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to hate Disney. I came to a different conclusion from reading the same facts you did it seems. ...No they don't. Walt Disney is no longer in control of the company. And Walt Disney didn't say anything about any other company's property. They're intentionally obfuscating the issue and emotionally charging it with their dead founder. Walt Disney didn't want his company's characters used for things like graves. Because Disney has princesses and cartoon mice and other children's things. Walt Disney was talking about... Disney. He wasn't talking about Marvel Comics characters. Because this case is actually about Spider-man, not a Disney original. Someone Walt Disney didn't create and wasn't part of Disney at the time he said that. By Disney's logic George Lucas can't have Star wars characters on his gravestone. Because, and I quote: "they have to abide by the wishes of Walt Disney himself and not use Disney characters for these purposes." Using that justification to stop a grieving family from using a cartoon on the headstone of their dead kid is uh... yeah pretty mean and/or cruel

Maybe sprinkle some -res throughout the crap SS powers and have it so when Rage is on the -res won't go off? To kind of represent holding back your strength to help the team vs going full Superman v. Darkside. Really though Rage needs tweaked

I've done enough research for you. I'm 69% sure you have access to google. Inhumane has a legal definition and a number of successful lawsuits against Disney have have shown in court that Disney has absolutely treated people inhumanely. And in the lawsuit against the Michael Jackson Foundation, I'm pretty they sure literally called Disney hypocrites in their counter claim. I already posted part of that further up thread. You'd be wrong. Mostly I was going to site the lawsuits about how their workers are treated, the deaths and coverups at the various themeparks. Yes it does, I've not heard of this one so let me go look it up. Wow, nope. Doesn't change my perspective.