Steampunkette

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.

I mean... Except that the cooldowns of all powers are reduced by 14% which is equivalent to a 70% recharge rate increase when regular slotting is taken into account... Like... Did y'all read the third suggestion, yet, or are you still arguing against the first one?

Bonus: Option 3 frees up Autocast for all the current Hasten-Brigade. That means no more "Bind Juggling" for Dominators, Humanform PBs can just put Lightform on Autocast, etc etc etc.

Permadom, under Suggestion 3, would require a total of 92% Global Recharge from all sources instead of 123%. Possible, but expensive. Here's an example build with 100% recharge rate without hasten:

Suggestion number 3: Step 1: Delete Hasten. Replace with a new power which does not affect recharge. Possibly a Burst of Speed type ability with lower damage, or perhaps an enemy-targeted teleport-to in the same vein as Savage Leap. Step 2: Reduce cooldown of all player powers by a flat 14% across the board. This is not a Recharge Rate bonus, and Diminishing Returns does not apply. Exclude powers that are unaffected by recharge rate. (Though what I'd do with them is a whole other thread, entirely...) Step 3: Increase all NPC Health Values by 9% at level 1-20, 19% from 20-27, 24% from 27-34, and 30% after 35. This applies Hasten at full power (I.E. Permahasten) to all builds, and rebalances enemies accordingly... essentially. Keyword: ESSENTIALLY. At low levels it offsets the attack rate increase of a few fast-recharging powers (The biggest outliers would be KO Blow and TWs, but TW needs a balancing pass as it is). At higher levels the heavier attacks with the longer cooldowns require further HP increases to retain the current TTK<TTD ratio. Take Aim for example. Aim has a cooldown of 90 seconds. With an 14% reduction in cooldown it slips down to 77.4 seconds. Two slotting Aim for Recharge Rate brings the cooldown a further 83% (Roughly 41% cooldown reduction) to 31.7 seconds. With Aim under the Hasten Model, 2 slotting for Recharge brings it to 49 seconds and then Hasten takes it to 35.53. However it doesn't -stack- with further Recharge Rate changes. As a static reduction in cooldown it benefits them in a nonlinear manner. This becomes important at the most extreme ends of recharge, as demonstrated by Phantom Army: Phantom Army normally slotted exactly like people slot it now with Hasten removed you'd have a 230% recharge rate. The cooldown would drop from 240 to 206, and that 230% recharge rate bonus (including slotting PA) would bring the cooldown to 62 seconds. But you'd get another pool power choice (Or a different power pool) for your trouble. MAAAAAAATH

That was the original idea. Only transferred into an autopower rather than a slottable full-form, so as to avoid recharge-looping itself and MASSIVE global power boost in favor of a smaller one. Which, of course, would wind up being a Nerf to recharge-centric builds. There's no reasonable way to make Hasten an auto-grant in the form that it's currently in, sadly. Though... fun note about Fitness becoming Inherent? That happened in i19. It came about when the IDF became a thing. So it's not like "Happening late in the game's life" is a real issue for power pool rebalancing. But I am formulating a new idea for a different suggestion, here, it's just requiring a ton of math (Which is why I didn't post, yesterday)

Why bother? I've explained. Why now? Because it wasn't done on Live. What if people leave to the other servers? Any change to any system that isn't a flat buff is going to risk that. Any power that gets removed, or severely altered. Any Archetype that gets short-shifted by some alteration. Sentinel's getting a massive rework. People who love Sentinel as it is, now, are going to get angry and leave. But you don't make the game better or healthier by leaving in massive feedback loops of power and pretending it'll either go away or somehow be fine. You're wrong. And the fact that you're wrong was covered in the first page of this thread. 155,593 players had Hasten between levels 4 and 50. The only Pool Power that is more popular is Flight at 182,678. Third place is Superjump with 129,071. Then Combat Jumping at 93k and Superspeed at 84k. In the "Add Recharge to Swift" thread I initially used that data to try and deflate the idea that Hasten was overrepresented, because while it was the second most used power pool there was, it still represented around 1/8th of the playerbase which wasn't a majority. TheAdjustor pointed out that 83% of level 50s use it. So players who aren't 50 who use Hasten? 102,013. Which still puts them ahead of the total number of Combat Jumpers including 50s. And Superspeeders including 50. And all other power pools at all level ranges except Flight and Superjump. It's a massive outlier in popularity. "Hasten is always taken because it alone is a MUST HAVE" And there it is, folks. That's the problem. The power is simply too damned good. Tell me, Cooltastic, what could we do to, say, the Stealth power that would make you choose it -over- Hasten? What buffs, what changes, what overwhelming power would Stealth need that you choose Stealth but -not- Hasten? Because that's what it would take to make "Buff the other pool powers" a reasonable suggestion. A massive power increase across the board to all the power pools so that Hasten is no longer a "Must Have" You wanna talk about Power Creep? That shit would be Power Dash. Power Mach 1.

Emmert was big on the holy Quintet. Tank, Glass Cannon, Lancer, Support, Control DPS is a thing, absolutely, but it was broken into two segments. The Lancer or Melee DPS and the Glass Cannon or Ranged DPS. With the idea that Casters would have controls to keep themselves alive while Lancers had lesser defenses than Tanks. Meanwhile the Support character could provide heals but also buff you to the nines or ruin the enemies by making it harder for them to hit. And of course Control is all about battlefield denial and locking them down completely. And if you look at those character roles you can certainly see the seeds of the Holy Trinity of WoW or the Holy Quartet of EQ. But it's really, at it's core.... The 5 Man Band of D&D. The Five Man Band is a series of gaming roles that can be fulfilled in different ways by different classes. Sometimes the Tank is the Paladin or the Fighter or the Barbarian or the Wildshaped Druid. Sometimes the Glass Canon is a Sorcerer, a Warlock, or a Wizard. The Lancer can be a Ranger, a Rogue, or a Light Fighter. Clerics, Druids, Wizards, and Bards can play the Support Role. And of course Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers, and some Warlocks can play the Control role. Five Man Banding was the surest way to survive GenCon One-Shots because you covered specific roles that synergized well. Of course it was -absolutely- useless when Gygax pulled out Tomb of Horrors... but still.

Far more likely is: After ED they knew they wouldn't be able to take Hasten apart without a maaaaaaassive backlash.

Incarnate Enemies are designed to have enough ToHit to punch through Softcapped defenses and require 56% to be softcapped to them rather than the typical 45. So it's disingenuous to say that balance went out the window with IOs, since outside of SR using all toggles, autos, and their Tier 9 it's pretty much impossible for an SO-only character to hit 56% defense. Are you done? If you are we can talk like adults. If not I'll just put you on ignore, it's healthier for both of us.

I'm certain it seems like very little gain... to you. If it were determined that "Perma Phantom" and "Perma Dom" were something healthy for the game, those specific powers could be looked at and have their recharge lowered. To rebalance everything around everyone having inherent hasten would be much harder. You'd be rebalancing all the NPCs, leveling values, and then look at the powers and determine if you want to/need to increase the recharge time of essentially every single power to push them out to be harder to get up fast. If we did the delete and add version, a few specific powers would need to be revamped. Inherent Hasten would require a -game- revamp.

You're -way- back in the timeline. Also She, not he. I figured the name and the avatar gave it away, but whatevs. And yes. City of Heroes is a Balanced Game. Not entirely balance between powersets or balance between archetypes, but a rough balance between players and NPCs. That's where the whole "Challenge" aspect of gameplay comes in. However due to certain decisions, the challenge has been stomped into the mud. We can either dig it out and clean it up, which is healthy for a game, or we can just keep walking all over it, which is not healthy for a game. There's a reason DOOM gets -really- boring after you type in IDKFA and IDDQD. It's fun to blast through the levels invincible and with all the ammo and weapons, but it cheapens the victories and when you're finished instantly one-shotting everything you're left bored as hell.

1) Cramming more recharge is futile 'cause you'd be losing 50% recharge if we removed it. You could -try- to make up the loss, but you'd never be able to obtain the same level of optimization... If we removed it entirely. 2) Does kill Perma lots of stuff, yup. Unless there's a rebalance pass around the increased presence and lowered availability of +Recharge. It's something discussed on page 2, I think? Maybe 3... 3) Any change is going to require more balancing work when it involves a power that LITERALLY AFFECTS EVERY OTHER POWER IN THE ENTIRE GAME. Except the handful that are immune to recharge rates, obviousl. I think there are 3?

Megajoule has -kinda- got an understanding of it: It's pretty much impossible to completely remove hasten without doing -anything- to fill at least some of the hole. My initial intention was to do so with a smaller bonus, because the gaping hole it would leave behind requires -some- filling. But that wasn't sufficient, leading to the second suggestion.

The End cost would be closer to 2 than to .26... but it could be done. It just wouldn't mean a whole lot in the end.

If we do the Delete Hasten and shift to 20% global recharge for everyone (Effectively giving everyone unslotted Hasten) the immediate result is the Recharge Meta goes out the window. Recharge will still be a strong mechanic, particularly among set bonuses, but it won't be the end-all-be-all of power. Long term, this would encourage different builds. Different "Optimal Attack Chains" and overall increase the challenge of the game by stripping some of the extreme ends of power away. If we do the "Shift things around" design, very little changes in the short term. In the long term, though, more people who are moving into choosing sets and final builds for characters will run into the 'Smaller gains' appearance, since "Permahasten" just takes you from +20 to +45. And might try something different... It wouldn't be the Optimal Build, but it would at least be variety, which is the spice of life.

Short answer: No. Long answer: The Arachnos Soldier and Widow costume slot was required as an entirely separate setup covering a bunch of different pieces attached to body points that don't always line up right with the standard character creator. Even putting them in the game actually broke the character creation UI to the point where the art department gave the fuck up on fixing the costume slot window so that Soldiers and Widows 'appear' to have the same number of costume slots as everyone else with one of them locked. When in fact they get an extra slot that's off the end of the UI accessible only through /cc commands. The Helmets we got just fine... but almost everything else would require some MASSIVE changes to the way the character creation system works.

Posted in wrong thread...somehow.

IOs weren't put in the game to "Fix" ED. ED was put into the game as preparation for IOs. The current culture of "Six Slot Reds" was unhealthy and caused people to get really frustrated really fast when their attacks missed and their endurance cratered. People had to be prepared for the idea that 6 slotting Damage wasn't the end all be all of how to make a character -work-. People had to be prepared for the idea that sets were coming and they wouldn't be 6 Damage IOs with full set bonuses tied to them. ED was the healthiest improvement to the game. It made people make choices. Particularly around their Blue Bar... But yeah. IOs weren't "Fixing" ED. ED wasn't broken. There's just people who didn't like it 'cause it made their attacks hit less hard and their defenses less powerful.

I disagree. Hami-Os. They used to be a big deal! With Hami-Os, which are basically the precursor to IOs, you could get mix n' matched powers to push ED further while still getting some of the 'other stuff' that you needed but wouldn't have gotten when using only SOs.

Let's not go there, Pax. He doesn't want the change because it would negatively impact him. That's basically why everyone who is against the change is against it: It would ruin the current recharge-centric meta of which they are a part. There's some people who are against it 'cause they're against change, or think that it would be a catastrophic change that pisses off the people who are in that Meta... But yeah. Most people arguing against it are probably part of the recharge meta. And there's -nothing- wrong with that. Being against something because it negatively impacts you, personally, isn't wrong.

Before ED you just slotted for whatever the power gave you the most of. MAYBE an Accuracy with 5 slots of damage, but everyone took Stamina and slotted it with a boatload of endmod. I was there, too. I had 6 slotted Blasters who dealt great damage and ate floor 'cause the tanks couldn't hold aggro. They were different days... Yeah... so... That wasn't a response to you. It was a response to someone who was being condescending so I responded with condescension. Why are you trying to be insulted by something not aimed at you?

No doubt. But they were a new company struggling to get the game built and out the door so they could start making money. Decisions that seemed like no-brainers at the time turned out to have complex reasons that weren't considered when the decision was made. The mistakes they made, in the long run, however, still lead to a pretty great game, for all it's foibles.