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Kid_Gloves

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Everything posted by Kid_Gloves

  1. The text short description and description needs to be updated, then. I know that fly doesn't anymore (and the text reflects that).
  2. With the proliferation of various temp powers, etc. that grant flight, Group Fly is likely vying for worst power pick in the game. I suggest removing the -tohit from it and improving the flight handling - shifting it's role from an unnecessary travel power option to a more useful in-combat power. A boost in speed for targets that aren't the person using it would also be nice, since as it stands the person who does the flying tends to outpace their allies.
  3. Adding my voice to the 'no change, please' chorus. Hurricane is a really fun power. I'd hate to see it change.
  4. Have the four basic travel powers (flight, superjump, superspeed, teleport) automatically available for everyone at level 4, in a new inherent power pool. Not the entire pools, just those four specific travel powers. Why? As CoH has been trending towards more P2W travel powers and other unlockable travel powers, it becomes progressively more viable to have a build that doesn't need a pool travel power. You can fly on a magic carpet, or use a jetpack, or whatever else. Furthermore, requests for even more vehicles or similar travel-related powers are extremely common as additional suggestions. Such suggestions become much less questionable from a mechanics or balance perspective if everyone already has access to something roughly the same, albeit without cosmetics. Travel is something that just happens in the game. People find all sorts of mechanisms for getting around the world quickly, from ouroboros to base portals to whatever else. Many missions even assume travel enough that they just hand out things like jetpacks or similar for players to use. What about the existing travel pools? Most of the other powers in the travel power pools have combat use - hasten, hover, combat teleport, air superiority, etc. Even Afterburner does a similar job to what Personal Forcefield does - giving it a valid in-battle use. The four powers that have very limited (and easily replicable) utility are the four basic travel powers. I'd suggest, in order to keep the pool UI the same, looking closely at each of the four pick-able travel powers (flight, superjump, superspeed, teleport - and their more recent variants, such as mystic flight) and asking the question: what could these benefit from that makes them stand out in combat usage from what the auto-awarded, P2W or other temp/additional powers that doesn't require a precious power pick to acquire?
  5. What about having one of the primaries able to do double duty as a taunt? Or if the taunt didn't kick in until you had a minimum number of minions - but I'm not sure how well that would function for a lower level MM.
  6. Add a taunt to all Mastermind primary power pool attacks that starts at a base of 0 magnitude, but then scales up based on the number of minions who are within superiority range and set to defensive/follow. This can use the same code path to calculate validity as the existing health sharing check that already exists for masterminds. Reasoning When MMs were first introduced, they were touted as the villain tank-alternative. However, Brutes very quickly took that spot for a number of reasons - ease of use in the role, defensive secondary, and the fact that their core mechanic is very much about being an attention diva. For people coming across from CoH, the similarity between the Brute and the Tank made the comparison easy. Masterminds have since been left with a bit of a questionable team role. There's no question that a MM can solo like a champ, but in teams they often end up as being a bit defender-ish with weaker support but more numerous (and sometimes irritating) attacks. They end up being a quasi-defender that, honestly, a defender or corruptor is probably better suited to perform. What they bring that a defender or corrupter doesn't is personal survivability.... sometimes. They also bring minions, which are controversial enough that some MMs will intentionally run without their class-defining feature when in large groups. On top of this, Masterminds have superiority - complete with the health sharing mechanic - which is all about survivability. Survivability is a trait you want in someone filling a tank role, but a tank role is barely viable if you can't actually attract the attention of anything. While it's true that a MM could grab provoke as a pool power (and it works!), it seems a bit weird that a pool power would be a necessity to be able to effectively exploit a core AT ability in a group situation. For this reason I suggest doing something about it, and by having the taunt scale based on superiority it means those MMs who want to tank things can, while those MMs who prefer not to aren't suddenly landed with a taunt they don't want. Solo Impact None. It's tied to an attack already, so if the MM was drawing agro, they were going to do it anyway. Team Impact MMs can grab agro! Because it's tied to how minions work, it means a MM can control how much agro they're grabbing. By using a smaller number of minions, they can set their taunts to be lower magnitude than the tanks or brutes, making them great for off-tanking or similar. By running with more minions, masterminds can experiment with more central tanking roles - although it's likely MMs will need more than just a taunt for tanking late-game content. Even so, being a viable off-tank is still a useful role to fulfil, and doesn't step all over the toes of ATs like the Tanker or (to a lesser extent) the Diva (Brute). The taunt effectiveness is tied to the attack itself, so for many MMs their taunt will be single target rather than group based. This immediately changes how they interact with enemies, and sets them well apart from Tankers (who are all about the AoE taunt) and Brutes (who are all about the attention from everyone!) - making them a much more strategic, scalpel-like tank. One might even say... a mastermind. As MM minions die, their ability to effectively tank wanes. This puts MMs in a position of being able to relief-tank (stepping in and taking over from a main tank for a short while to provide the MT with some brief respite). Love ya, Brutes!
  7. I'm leery of adding vehicles, in part because of what happened with vehicle proliferation in CO. Here's my overall concerns on travel powers - which is mainly posted as food for thought to whomever is thinking about the overall player experience of travel. Vehicles vs Powers - Which Is Best For The Game? Adding vehicles (and temp travel powers) all undermine the value of travel powers. It might be that ship already sailed the moment the jump pack was introduced, but all of this pushes travel powers to the sidelines. To ask a related question: does the CoH player experience want people to invest a power pick in order to travel? If the answer is no, it immediately brings into question every power that is predominantly for travel purposes (flight, mystic flight, superjump, etc) and it's value. So, to my mind, if the push is for more travel options that don't require power investment, then any power investment should be reviewed with the question: what does it bring to a build beyond travel? Travel and New Players - Presenting Travel In The Best Light Another consideration (albeit a minor one) would be the new player experience. Travel powers are presented clearly as part of the level-up path the moment you hit level 4, making that a go-to for a new player since that's what's dangled in front of them. However, without temp powers being given similar exposure you risk people making an early power pick that they quickly regret, now needing a limited resource (respec) to correct. So if temp powers is the way forward, I'd look very carefully at ways to push people (especially new players) towards them - even if it's just a text only mini-quest or something set up in a starter zone that directs people over to the P2W vendor and suggests they grab a jump pack the moment they hit level 2 or level 3. I'd also seriously look at adding the default travel methods (flight, superspeed, teleport, superjump) as things you can grab from the P2W vendor so people aren't forced to a certain travel aesthetic in the interest of build integrity. This even more obviously raises the question of the value of these powers in their respective pools.
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