Steampunkette

Thank you for having that faith in me, even if we don't agree. I really do appreciate it! Mechanical Inertia isn't -always- bad. That's why we have the cottage rule. But it seems to me that in this case? Mechanical Inertia is giving people the idea that Hasten is "Fine". That it's not Overpowered. That it's perfectly balanced as a pool power 'cause Cryptic put it in and never changed it. But then again, Cryptic stuck with mechanical inertia on Stamina and the Fitness pool in general for 18 issues of people spending a pool pick and 3 power picks on something they eventually realized would be better suited as a part of every single build without fail. I think Hasten is kind of in the same boat. Maybe not -quite- as massively tied to baseline combat as Stamina, obviously. But it's become such a central pillar of player experience, and is so terrible OP compared to it's contemporaries... ... so I went over all my calculations trying to find the error and I found it: The Value is 1/2 for 100%, 2/3 for 200%. Not 1/2 for 100%, 3/4 for 200%. Fuck me... I'll be back Sunday with a new calculation... Also the TTK is pretty variable, particularly once you start getting into Defensive Buffs (+Def, +Res, +Regen) and Defensive Debuff (-Acc, -ToHit, -Rech, -Dam) powers. Once I get up into figuring out expected outputs at levels higher than 12 I find it's easier to just grab a random selection of NPCs of that level, choose a Baseline PC for that level, and go Second by Second through the combat on Paper. Like literally mapping out the Arcanatime for each attack for each combatant on their specific powers' damage and recharge rates based on 'Optimized Play'. That is to fire off the big attacks first so their recharge starts. Then I find out how long everything takes and modify the stats of the different powers and combatants in opposite directions to find out how far from the TTK I found in that combat the modifiers move things.

The first one is always going to be subjective. I have a BIG problem when people call me a tranny. But the people who call me that don't care a whit. I can provide them all the evidence in the world why they shouldn't, but they're not going to care 'cause it's not a problem for -them-. No matter how real, demonstrated, or urgent it is for me or other people like me. I've expressed the ways that Hasten is a vast outlier in the field of power pools. I've expressed how it's viewed as a Must Have and several people have stepped into this thread to say "You can't delete Hasten, it's a Must Have!" to paraphrase them. So that's pretty clearly established. Does the fix do more harm than good? Well, suggestion 3 does very little harm, except to the fingers of the Dev Team as they pound keys to get it all inputted across literally hundreds of powers... In a few edge cases it means people require more recharge than they already have to be at full power, but it's kind of rare. There's also a few specific enemies that will need to be adjusted, like Reichsman and Valkyrie. And there might be a simpler way to fix the problem... But I think anything simpler is going to conflict with item 2. The bigger question I think we should ask ourselves is: Are we clinging to hasten in it's current form because it's how it's always been, the Status Quo, or because it's -actually- fine the way it is because it's not really stronger than any pool powers?

Sorry! 12 Mag 1 attacks at 8.6 damage. 8.6 at level 1 is 1 Magnitude of damage. As you level up the damage increases per mag but so do your hit points in a nonlinear manner (Takes more Mags as you get up in level because HP grows on a slightly different line to allow for greater magnitude variety without insta-killing PCs, this is why Alphas tend to kill squishies instantly while more leisurely combat gives them more room to maneuver: All the enemies are throwing their higher mags at once) 8.6 damage hits you 11 times and you go from 100hp to 5.4HP, but you've probably had a Regen Tick or Two in there over the course of normal combat, so the 12th hit finishes you off. It's important to note: You don't fight 1 enemy throwing Mag 1 attacks at you at level 1. You fight 3. And typically a Lieutenant throwing Mag 1.3 attacks. So unless you narrow out the field (Whether through controls or murder) you can rack up those 12 hits in as little as 15-20 seconds.

She. Not He. I figured the name would give it away... Or the -last- time someone called me "He" in this thread and I corrected them, but whatever. No. I'm not 'Trolling'. I sincerely believe the things I'm writing, here. I think Hasten is bad for the game's overall health because it limits choices by standing out as too good for what it is, a pool power. The Pool Powers are meant to be fun and interesting, to change how you play or give you the ability to do some things you're not normally able to do. Like Tankerminds Taunting in Bodyguard mode or a Defender using Placate when the Tank drops so they can rez without being murdered by the AV the tank no longer has aggro on. Or giving Controllers some melee attacks so they can actually put out some damage even if they're not Illusionists. Hasten was meant to be part of the "Superspeed" style of gameplay. The person who hits faster than other people 'cause they're a speedster. But because of it's wide-ranging applications, how it improves -every- power that isn't a toggle or autopower, it's not really a thematic power, anymore. It's just a power everyone takes because it makes you better at everything. So we should cut it. And replace it with something that -is- thematic. But I also recognize that it's a part of a -lot- of people's playstyles. So the compromise is to make it a core baseline function of gameplay. We could turn it into an Autopower with slots and everything, sure. But it would be -super- boring and impossible to balance around because slotting exists and you can't change the visual FX of your autopowers so everyone would be stuck with glowing yellow hands. Or we can find a different way to implement it. Like the 14% reduction to base cooldown before Recharge Rates are applied.

14%, not 13. Also the 30% is at highest level. So. Hasten at Autohasten levels provides a constant 70% bonus to Recharge Rate, globally. By itself, on any given power, that's a Recharge Time reduction of about 35% of the power's overall cooldown duration. This is because every 100% recharge rate you apply to a power drops it's Cooldown in Half from the Current. So if you have a power with a cooldown of 60 seconds and 100% Recharge rate (including any slotted Enhancements) the cooldown becomes 30 seconds. If you get another 100% Recharge Rate (Say, 70% from Hasten and a further 30% from Accelerate Metabolism) the cooldown becomes 15 seconds, half of 30, not 0. So assuming you put in any Global Recharge And/Or Slot the power, Hasten's -actual- benefit can be anywhere from 35% of the power's cooldown length to 8% of the power's overall cooldown length. That is to say the first 100% reduces the original cooldown by 50% and the second 100% reduces it by only 25% of the original cooldown. I workshopped different values from as low as 8% to as high as 20% through a loooot of calculations on powers at different levels of recharge and found 14% through process of elimination. (For what it's worth I put in 8% first and found it way too small, then 20% and it was too big but not by, like, a -ton-? So I dropped to 18% and then 14%!) As to the 30% health increase: Workshopped. I took a look at low level encounters, first, and plugged in some Real Numbers to determine how much of an -actual- increase the Recharge Rate Buff was. I found that the times were similar but that a miss or two skewed results high for the 14% reduced cooldown design, so I skewed health up by 9%, then looked at how many attack powers a player had access to at increasing levels and the Damage Magnitudes of those powers. Averaged them out and increased HP by the stated value, up to the maximum of 30% to offset a full attack chain coming out SO slotted and 14$ lower base cooldown. As to TTD it varies based on level, but the simplest expression is 11 Mag 1 attacks, modified by AT HP Modifier and NPC Rank. I.E. a Lieutenant NPC firing a Mag 1 attack has a bit of a damage bonus more than a Minion firing a similar attack. Part of the conning system.

Those who did take Hasten, before, no longer have to deal with Hasten's Endurance Crash. Assault's End cost to it's benefit is fairly balanced against other pool powers. People who took Hasten and lose it to gain the benefits of Hasten get to pick up Assault. People who had Assault and didn't get Hasten get the benefits of Hasten. Fair point! And, as previously noted in reference to Valkyrie and other ATs who have Regeneration Powers, it would need a second pass. But this is another hedge case. Not the overall.

You do know that's a titanic strawman, right, @Demon Shell? Minimally slotting recharge and using recharge set bonuses would still work. You'd just need to get the global recharge rate from IO Set Bonuses, Quickness, Accelerate Metabolism, etc. You just wouldn't use Hasten to achieve it. And wouldn't -need- Hasten to do it 'cause the baseline cooldown would be reduced by 14%. As to "Rebalance the whole game"... I kinda already did...? Like... I went through the math on power recharge rates from 2 seconds all the way up to 300 seconds+. I went over the NPC HP Values and baseline regeneration rates as well as damaging power availability by level range and archetype... There are a few hedge cases that need finagling (Particularly regenning AVs and EBs as noted)... but the base idea is sound. It even works to keep high end recharge builds largely intact. The 14% reduction of cooldown on fairly short recharge (Relative to the 300 second recharge times...) powers (Like the high damaging powers used in optimal chains) still gain the benefit as if they had hasten. They might need to eke out a tiny bit more recharge to reach a plateau but... Yeah.

There's a range, Nihili. Balance in any game cannot be 1 to 1 without all the abilities being identical or having an identical impact. It's true. Which is why -no one- tries to balance things flawlessly. Flawless balance would be dull. But balance in games is still something developers strive for. There's a reason there's a formula for end cost-recharge-damage in the CoH engine. There's a reason PvP kept getting balance waves that rippled across it (At least early on before everyone kinda gave up!) Because there's a difference between "Absolute Balance" and "Ballpark Balance" A balance where stuff is within 10-15% of equal one way or the other. This power isn't great, but that one's good, and this one's pretty cool. The latter is what you want in a game. So that even though a given member of the team might not be able to knock it out of the park, everyone can take the field. Hasten? Hasten hits it out of the park every time it gets to bat in the Minor Leagues. You don't keep Hasten in the Minors. You put Hasten into the Major Leagues where he has some competition and it makes the game more fun. Enemies take up to 30% more damage before dropping 'cause you hit them 14% (baseline) more quickly with all of your attacks. The more attacks you have to cycle, the more hits you get within the same 15-20 second window before the critter dies. Without the HP Bonus you'd just kill everything faster. It's there to reduce the power creep of handing everyone 14% faster attacks. The extra power could cause creep. Particularly if people take Assault. But it also has an Endurance cost to it that constantly ticks away and the enemies are slightly tougher which could help to offset the extra 10% damage slightly... You get the idea. And hit him faster. Why do people keep separating the components of the suggestion without trying to understand how they work together?

There's no way to buff all the power pools to be as good as Hasten. It's effects are just too far-reaching. There's no way to buff all the power pools to be as good as Hasten. It's effects are just too far-reaching. My third suggestion -basically- gives everyone Permahasten. By reducing all cooldowns by 14% -before- applying any Recharge Rate Modifications to them, it mimics the effects of permahasten at almost all levels except the most extreme values. And even in those extreme cases it's still possible to push a tiny bit harder than people are currently pushing to get right back to the full effects. It also reduces the recharge rate for everyone who -doesn't- take Hasten, obviously, so an HP increase for NPCs is there to help offset the increase in damage dealing capabilities.

It increases your click healing by making it recharge faster allowing more clicks in a given period (Whether self-targeting, ally targeting, or area of effect). It increases your click damage by making it recharge faster allowing more clicks in a given period (Whether ranged, melee, single target, or AoE). It increases your Debuff Capability for click debuffs by making it recharge faster allowing more clicks in a given period (Whether single target or AoE, defense, tohit, resistance, damage, speed, recharge, etc etc etc). It increases your buff capability for click debuffs by making it recharge faster allowing more clicks in a given period (Whether single target or AoE, defense, tohit, resistance, damage, recharge, etc etc etc). It increases your click based Control powers by making it recharge faster allowing more clicks in a given period (Whether AoE, Melee, Single Target, Immob, Hold, Confuse, Stun, Etc etc etc and increases your Mag Stacking window) It is easier to list the things it does not affect, which amounts to "Toggles and Autopowers and Powers that Ignore Recharge Rate Modifications". Oh. Except for Telekinesis and Dimension Shift. Toggles with a long recharge time. We also don't balance the game around IO Set Bonuses... but if we did.... it would make Hasten even MORE VALUABLE. Not less so. Otherwise less level 50 characters would take it, not the 83% as it stands.

The point of Power Pools is that they're basically Trash. They're not meant to be as strong as your primary or secondary powers. They're supposed to be 'Flavor Picks' rather than Mandatory. Hasten is basically as strong as "Quickness" from SR out of the gate, but can be enhanced to increase it's overall effectiveness while Quickness cannot. In the context of game design something being more powerful than it's contemporaries is a bad thing. That's why Nerfs exist. And Buffs, too. That's why powersets and archetypes and individual powers get balanced. It's a way to try and keep the game fair and fun. That's not a Fallacy. That's a logical conclusion. A Fallacy is when you use faulty reasoning to create a point in a discussion. There's a lot of fallacious arguments that have been catalogued. And we've seen a lot of them, here. Like the Strawman fallacy, where you don't debate a point the opposition made, but construct an argument tangentially based on a single point made by the opposition and then defeat that false argument with a logical conclusion. Or the Slippery Slop fallacy, where you infer that because of one change occurring, an unrelated change on a loose tangent of thinking must also occur at some point in the future.

Assault and Leadership can affect a team in a big way, absolutely. But it REQUIRES 8 players to all take it and team together. One person taking it? Not so big an improvement. Still nice to have. Would you choose Assault or Maneuvers over Hasten? Especially since Hasten also applies to Build Up and Mind Link and... Tough and Weave are not contemporary powers to Hasten. They're gated. And even if they weren't they -only- affect one specific piece of your character's build. Defense or Damage Resistance. Hasten also applies to self-heals, attacks, click-defenses, controls... Combat Jumping is a nifty power, but it only improves one or two narrow functions. Hasten improves -many-.

I'm not saying it being popular is a bad thing. I'm saying it being so powerful is a bad thing and it's popularity is because of how powerful it is. Creating equally powerful contemporaries is close to impossible because there's basically no function of player powers that is as strong as the feedback loop of Recharge Rate improvements. Animation times, for example, unless something has changed that I'm unaware of, are tied to the power itself and are fixed. While we can reduce the animation time of a power (Like Total Focus for Blasters) it's still hard coded into the power once you take it. For something like Titan Weapons and Momentum there's actually multiple power 'cards' that get pulled based on whether you have Momentum or not. Different copies of the same power.; Pool Powers versus Pool Powers is the only way to balance them... And it isn't in a vacuum at all, otherwise a Recharge buff would lose to Kick. If Hasten were in a vacuum it would increase only it's own recharge rate and kick would kick enemies, making it the superior power. It's only in the larger context of the game that Hasten becomes the superior power. As to making a case that it's a negative: It being overpowered compared to it's contemporaries IS a negative from a gameplay design standpoint. It being so popular that it bottlenecks character structure IS a negative from a gameplay design standpoint. It locks people's limited power choices. It locks people's limited power pool choices. It's the basis of the game's meta to the point that not taking it is essentially self-gimping. That Recharge Rate is valued? Not so much a negative. That's just an organic function of gameplay. So keep the organic function and fix the game design problems. The bottlenecky design, the overpowered power, the limiting of player choice. Build Hasten into the base game so that people don't have to choose it. It's just a part of how things work. Kind of like how the GunZ devs incorporated the glitch into the next game. Take the overpowered power, remove it from the player's choice, and incorporate it into the base function.

Citation of what is needed, Bossk? That it's more powerful than it's contemporaries? Okay. Let's go power pool by power pool in alphabetical order: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Power_Pools Concealment: Stealth: Increases defenses slightly and provides 35ft stealth increase. Grant Invisibility: Grants an ally slight defense increase and provides 45ft stealth increase. Neither of these powers increase the relative power of your attack, control, or healing effects. Fighting: Boxing: A minor attack that gains increased damage and chance to stun if you take other powers. Kick: A minor attack that gains increased damage and chance to KB if you take other powers. Neither of these powers increases the relative power of your attack, control, healing, buff, or debuff effects. You can go pool by pool and none of the "One Dip" powers have the same far reaching affects as Hasten does. Not Flight. Not Leadership. Not Leaping. None of them. As to 'appealing against popularity/frequency' that's not a fallacy. That's a datapoint in the 'It is largely viewed as mandatory for builds, demonstrated by how many people take it at 50.'

My level 13 Praetorian Brute is not an incarnate. Neither are all my level 20-40 characters. Granting all of them hasten would alter their power level through normal SO balanced content. Especially if they could slot the new inherent power for recharge.

It would be massively difficult to implement this sort of thing as an option, and would look something like Ninja Run, where the movement animation is changed and there's a different "From Attack to Neutral" animation. It would be -super- time consuming and be a toggle with no speed increase tied to it. Or there could be Emotes that you could bind for when you're standing still, like the "Waiting" emote cycle.

Hasten on it's own is a little on the too powerful side. Compare a cyclic 70% recharge rate buff (Averaging out over it's recharge-cycle to an 18.6% recharge rate buff) to any other pool power and tell me if any are as good? Especially since by slotting it for recharge (And it's recharge affecting itself) you can increase the buff to literally all support, control, heal, and damage powers. There's just nothing that compares at all. And no. My argument isn't that the game is "Too easy with it" in such a myopic perspective that just changing my -own- playstyle or content engagement means anything, Macskull. It's that as a power it's just too strong to be in a power pool where everyone can grab it. I don't get why people keep trying to insist "Well you shouldn't use it, then, problem solved!" The problem isn't whether or not I use it, the problem is that it's too damned strong and popular because of it's strength. This also wouldn't "Make things more difficult for difficulty's sake". The latest suggestion literally keeps the difficulty right around where it is. It changes the game to deal with an outlier without upsetting the status quo 'too much'.

I don't think this is a good idea. The increase in player power would be massive in relation to NPCs in standard content. On it's face, it would be a moderate decrease in difficulty through cyclical recharge benefits for everyone, but you can't adjust the difficulty of an NPC relative to whether or not a player has slotted their inherent Hasten for Recharge, which can drastically increase the overall value of the power. 3 IOs of Recharge puts it at 110 second downtime, further reduced by itself to only a 49 second downtime. That's a rough average increase of +56% recharge rate buff. Do we balance the game around every player having that +56% recharge rate buff or assume they won't slot it and go with an 18% recharge rate buff assumption? Or do we split the difference and assume they 1 slot it for a 33% recharge rate buff assumption or 2 slot it for a 45% recharge rate buff assumption? It's too variable a balancing point.

True. And it shouldn't be. And wouldn't be. Suggestion 3 retains the SO Balance of the game by increasing NPC HP while reducing the recharge times of powers. Allowing players to continue using SOs or IO Sets as they currently do while removing a... let's say 'Problematic' power. It also increases the variety of powers and IO sets that could be added to the game without asking the inevitable question "How does this interact with Hasten?" It's definitely a thing. We'd be looking at a -days- of work just combing through and updating the powers themselves, then the time spent designing a hasten replacement, and then the tables to increase the NPC Health values. It would probably eat up a couple weeks for the Powers Developer.

It is -definitely- annoying that it exists... But if it didn't, we'd have 50% Defense builds that literally nothing could hit without ToHit buffs.

To get back on track: I sincerely believe that Hasten in the game as it stands, today, narrows build variety into a Bottleneck. It creates a serious problem which is best exemplified by the 83% of level 50 characters who use it. The power on it's own was really strong, but not game breaking, before Invention Sets were added back in Issue 9. Once Recharge bonuses became a thing, it's relative value exploded. Due to the way recharge works in the game, with 100% Recharge equating to 1/2 of the current value of the cooldown. That is to say that if a power has a recharge time of 240 seconds and you have a recharge rate increase (from enhancements, set bonuses, or other powers) of +100% the cooldown drops to 120 seconds. If you have 200% it goes from 240 to 60. At +300% recharge that 240 second cooldown takes 30 seconds. And at +400% recharge, the cap, it drops to 15 seconds. This makes 70% Recharge bonus from a single power (Which reaches permanent status at 275% recharge, including it's own 70% value) just massive. I'm not saying people are 'Bad' or 'Doing it Wrong' for choosing Recharge as their path to power. I'm saying Hasten is too good to be a power that anyone can take at any time after level 4. Because it's just -such- a no-brainer power to take. You can still "Beat the Game" without it, obviously, but it outshines literally every other power there is among it's contemporaries. And creating "Equally Strong" contemporaries won't fix anything, it'll just make it worse 'cause you could take Hasten -and- 3 of the Equally Strong Contemporaries. So the 14% baseline recharge time reduction, not a Recharge Rate Buff, would essentially give everyone Permahasten at full power. Commensurately increasing the HP of enemies to offset the lower baseline recharge times keeps the TTK right around the same place it is, now, barring hedge cases like Valkyrie (That is to say EBs and AVs that have Regen Powers) which would need to be balanced in a second pass. Pretty much every high end player gets to keep their badass abilities and optimum attack chains, with a few hedge cases that need to squeeze out a tiny bit more recharge and get another slot or two and another power to try and do it in. Benefits of this change: Keeps the most OP combos still OP, though some require slightly more inf to achieve Raises the capabilities of the lower tier players Retains the majority of the game's challenge Makes Controls in generally marginally more powerful Frees up 1-2 slots for most level 50 builds (Don't we have a thread about people wanting 1 or 2 more slots?) Frees up a power selection for most level 50 builds Frees up Autofire for those who use it (Don't we have 2-3 threads about this?) Frees up a Power Pool Selection for those who choose Hasten (Don't we have 2-3 threads about this?) Cons of this change: Takes a lot of Dev Time to go power by power in the database to change things. Makes AE Player Minions harder (Is that -really- a bad thing? More challenge!) Creates hedge cases (Phantom Army, Domination) where more recharge from sets is required for perma Creates hedge cases (AVs with high Regen) where certain enemies skew more time consuming to defeat

The miss chance is hard coded into the tohit roll mechanic. A Clamp if you will. Removing it would take a massive amount of effort, if it's at all possible.

Standard Aqua Bolt has a 1 second activation time and a 4 second recharge time. So the Combat's duration, assuming 4 hits it goes: Combat starts at Second 0: 9.42 damage, Aqua Bolt goes on Recharge At 4 seconds the animation time for Aqua Bolt begins. It ends at the start of second 5. 9.42 damage. At 9 seconds the animation time of Aqua Bolt begins. It ends at the start of second 10. 9.42 damage At 14 seconds the animation time of Aqua Bolt begins. It ends at the start of second 15. 9.42 Damage and combat ends. Alternate Aqua Bolt has a 1 second activation time and a 3.44 second recharge time. So the combat's duration goes: Combat Starts at Second 0: 9.42 damage, Aqua Bolt goes on Recharge At 3.44 seconds the animation time for Aqua Bolt begins. It ends at 4.44 seconds. 9.42 damage. At 7.88 seconds the animation time for Aqua Bolt begins. It ends at 8.88 seconds. 9.42 damage. At 12.32 seconds the animation time for Aqua Bolt begins. it ends at 13.32 seconds. 9.42 damage At 15.76 seconds the animation time for Aqua Bolt begins. It ends at 16.76 seconds. So you're right. It increases the combat time by 1.76 seconds. Strawmen not welcome. That's not an answer. It's not a discussion. It's "Shut up and stop." It doesn't add to the conversation by saying "These are the reasons I don't think it'll work" or "These are the reasons it shouldn't be done" or literally -anything- to the conversation. It's just "Stop talking" Strawmen not welcome.

So you have nothing to actually -add- to the conversation, you'd just rather it not happen... 'kay.

There is no case in which a level 4 character has access to only one attack. Even a Defender has 2 attacks available at level 2. But let's say, for the sake of argument, a Defender -decided- to take only one attack and is level 4. There is no first tier attack a Defender gets that is higher than 4 seconds of recharge, baseline. Fire and Archery have a 2 second recharge, Radiation has a 1.5 second recharge, everything else has a 4 second recharge. A level 4 enemy has 35.8HP base, and the additional 3.2HP from the 9% increase. For the sake of argument let's look at Aqua Bolt, a 4 second recharge power with 9.42 damage for a level 4 Defender. 2.44 seconds Activation time of 1 second means that it deals it's 9.42 damage every 3.44 seconds. Normally the combat would require 3.8 casts of Aqua Bolt to reach the TTK. Roughly 15 seconds (Combat starts with the first attack) Under the suggested variation it takes 4.14 casts to kill the thing. Which takes 14.24 seconds. So... No. The TTK doesn't increase by 30% under normal circumstances. It decreases by over half a second. Roughly a 6% decrease in TTK. Maybe I wasn't generous enough with my health buff at low levels... Thanks, Koopak! And yeah. At high end it would result in the "AV Beating Value" 131dps or higher. But with faster high damage attacks across the board it should be easier for everyone to reach. As to the HP Increase: SUPER EASY. Baseline HP for all NPCs is based on a series of leveling charts (One for each tier of NPC) Here's the Minion one. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Minion It functions as a spread-sheet inside the CoH engine with references to specific cells based on the NPC call involved. So changing all the NPCs is fairly simple, all things considered. It's changing each power's recharge rate that would be time-consuming as heck. But the actual changing of them is moderately easy because you're altering a single value.