ScarySai

I'm a harsh critic when I spot something shortsighted, especially when the person pushing the idea is acting a bit unlikable. In theory it's something to think about, like "What if this worked that way? what would happen? How would we address the problems that would arise from doing that?" but would never actually support changing a super important power based on the reasoning given.

A good designer will assess the problem, consider the context of the problem, consider if the proposed fix would have consequences, and decide if it's worth devoting resources to, over say - buffing regen. Needless to say, as a software designer, I'm inclined to disagree with how you both view and approach the feedback thread.

I think only tankerminds and human shades take it. The latter just being due to how easily killed the essences are. Last time we had a grand sweeping attempt to balance the game, Jack almost killed it and regen's still in a coma from the aftermath of that. Going back to that isn't something I ever want to see. Make bad things more worth taking, leave the good things alone.

Shortsighted.

I get that, but there's a difference between balancing a new game, and changing something in an established game that's been balanced around and iterated on for the better part of a decade. I appreciate the desire to improve things, but these posts strike me as shortsighted.

Instead of nerfing hasten, why not make other pools a bit more enticing? How about instead of nerfing weaken resolve, which was already pathetic, give people a reason to take that and not take the "standard" high end setup of leader/fighting/speed/jumping. CoH's balance is too far gone to try and "save", and certainly if we take the OP's approach and remove anything that crosses some made-up inconsequential line in PVE. Does hasten make the game unfun? Does hasten oppress other players in any way? Does hasten make a good build bad or a bad build good? Does hasten automatically enable you to solo +4x8? It's powerful, sure. There's zero reason to change it, and changing it is going to just cause dozens of worse problems. Don't know why people are suggesting these awful ideas lately. First domination, now this.

To me, permadom is a power you should have to earn, so I don't really like the idea of just giving it away. Accessibility is an easy thing to frame as "well why not? It makes things easier!" While ignoring that not everything should be easy.

Obviously, as your manifesto up there shows. Anyway. 1. /jranger is a lazy way for people who can't defend their stances to slap down discussion, it's stupid and makes the people who do it look stupid. 2. Some serious oversharing, dude. 3. Other things need a look, sure, but Thunderspy is by no stretch of the imagination the 'standard' HC should be held to, at all. At all.

I actually did miss that, it's late. One more, then sleep. I would be fine with that, sure. I don't see them doing it, though. I would put money down on them trying to nerf it to 'compensate' for this, but I wouldn't be nearly as vehemently opposed to it as some other proposals I've seen. If existing builds will not become impacted negatively in any form and the ability becomes more usable for lower recharge builds, I am for it.

Pretty sure I answered you, but I'll give you one more. Yes, but there are cases where the gain is massive, like perma-carrion creepers as opposed to not-perma carrion creepers, perma-eclipse/mire/soul drain over not perma eclipse/mire/soul drain, stacking/overlapping essences for shades, stacking/overlapping pets for /traps, perma PA, stacking freezing rain and similar debuffs, ect. It's not a 'one answer for all' question, which is why I gave you a vague answer. Those laugh emotes are truly a good look for you, by the way. @XaoGarrent

It depends. For a set like DB it can be pretty big, for others it can be proportionally smaller. I remember the rationalizations well, thank you. And this argument is still as weak as I remember. It's a nerf at the end of the day, and an unnecessary one at that. Thunderspy has some very ambitious changes, the necromancy set sounds amazing and had me considering going over there to try it, but overall I would consider HC's cautious approach more wise than just going full "do whatever we want" mode, especially if this thing's going to get licensed (Which for the record, I doubt.) Second, while I agree with the first half of your post, I reject your statement about dominators. A dominator without domination is still useful in a group, especially if domination is up. A permadom will solo better and have more consistent performance in a group, but I don't know if I'd say they are 'not great', we'll have to get into specifics there - because dominators are pretty strong in the hands of an experienced player.

Can often be bigger than you'd think. I'm okay with fixing bugs, though I think they often use the 'bug' thing as an excuse to nerf something, like what I suspect is what they did with tar patch. Fact of the matter is that SS as it is was balanced with double rage's nonsense in mind. Taking that away without compensation was a bad move, and delaying urgent fixes the way they did wasn't a good look. Tar patch was the way it was since the very beginning of the game's lifespan. I'm pretty sure it didn't need to be 'fixed', and even granting that it was unintended and simply let alone due to deadlines, I figure it should be left alone just by virtue of it being that way since the dawn of time. No, people really liked the first version, it was a bit crazy powerful because dark melee can buff it's own damage by a lot, because soul drain, but nothing I'd call out of line. The second version was okay mechanically, but way over-nerfed. People didn't like the third version because the idea of a fifteen second DoT was just stupid and very unpopular even to people who disagreed with me about the first version and considered it too powerful. You're one of the few people who provided data instead of trying to inject their awful ideas into the thread, I have some reservations about the testing methodology, but you did fine.

I'm not speaking of you there. I agree with your intentions, but don't see a solution that wouldn't compromise the viability of existing permadom builds, and I see doing that as unacceptable. Also, sorry I missed your reply, must have scrolled past it. Every AT has a recharge requirement to use their "max DPS chain", a notably difficult one being dual blades, which is pretty much impossible to run solo if you don't specifically use a secondary with +recharge. Most ATs require building for some defense/resistance in order to not get thrown through the wall the minute they get tapped, this goes double for squishies, like defenders, blasters, controllers, dominators, some masterminds. Is it unfair that those who build for this are able to survive longer? I suppose you could argue it, but I wouldn't call it unfair. They put in the effort and got rewarded for making a good build. To me, this is no different. I love the mastermind AI changes, I love the snipe changes (once they listened and added the tohit bit, especially.) and I love what they did for beam rifle and devices. They handle system changes and slight tuning pretty well, I've seen. When it comes to redesigning powers, or balancing powers? I think they've done an awful job with a few, as well. Rage, the cornerstone of super strength was unceremoniously destroyed and is on the shelf indefinitely. Gun drone was given a taunt for god knows what poorly rationalized reason and the ability is even more worthless than it already was as a result. Dark melee had a fantastic change to dark consumption on the table and was altered before becoming yet another shelf decoration, because a mini nuke killing +0 minions was just too powerful I guess. Notice, how the good changes involve things I support: Bringing up under-performers, adjusting the clunky garbage to be reliable, making bad sets good. I am 100% for that, but am not for altering core abilities that are fine as they are. Of course, the reply to that is "They aren't fine as they are", to which I vehemently disagree, but you know, that's an argument that could go on forever.

How is it fair that an entire AT's core ability should be nerfed because some hypothetical build came up short on recharge because it was either unfinished or was built improperly? It's no different than other goals in the game centered around IO builds. Domination is binary: You can maintain it with permadom, or that bar goes down if you come up a second short, heck, sometimes you can hit it just before it goes down. I do not support fundamentally changing how a very, very, very important power works in the name of 'accessibility' when it is already a very accessible. If you are leveling, domination is pretty consistent with just a bit of recharge. Hypothetical new player probably isn't soloing +4x8 where permadom starts becoming necessary to not die horribly, otherwise they'll pop it plenty of times, and if they want to perma it, they can look up how, ask how to do it, and people like me will help guide them to that awesome goal. Unless it is to 'bring up' an often skipped, under-performing powerset, I am generally against changing what Paragon left behind for us. I am against domination being changed, I am against Hasten being changed, but if HC wanted to take a look at something like regen, energy melee or DB's combo system? I'd be interested in that.

This is where I'll have to disagree with you. It's absolutely fair. Why? Because it's easily obtainable by those who wish to obtain it. It is a dramatic leap in performance and consistency. Could it have been implemented better by Paragon? Sure, many of the ATs are the product of absolutely horrible design choices being improved upon over time, especially stalkers and dominators. You can fund a permadom build without a single purple in your build. How is that 'unfair'? Is it 'unfair' for a dual blades scrapper to be unable to run the maximum DPS chain without building for it? Is it 'unfair' that scrappers with the ATO will significantly outperform those that don't? I suppose it is, but does it warrant massive change when the remedy is effectively "work on your build for like five minutes" and (at risk of sounding elitist) "learn to play"? No.

Your ideas for domination and your rationalization for changing it. All dominators have it, so logically, you have to admit that the entire AT is not missing that ridiculous power. Permadom is a massive bonus to performance, but the AT is hardly what I would call crippled without it. I didn't really say it's expected, but I'll humor you: It's 'expected' because it's honestly one of the easier things you can build for in the game. Even a slightly io'd build can get decent uptime on domination. It's a pretty great boon while solo to have permadom, yet in groups it's not only likely going to be easier due to recharge buffs, but that domination bar is going to be easier to fill because you have seven other bodies taking hits that would otherwise be intended for you. I don't see how this is a weird line to draw into the sand: Dominator players like domination , I like domination, you are trying to drastically change domination to be nothing like how it currently is. This is not an issue of being elitist, despite your attempt to frame it that way - this is an issue of "What we have is fine and works well, I don't like your ideas or the motivations behind them."

Going to give this one a hard no. Domination is fine as a ridiculously powerful ability. People can build it to be perma and that's incredibly rewarding. IOs are more accessible than they have ever been. Don't fix what isn't broken.

Why not just make the hover able to be turned off at Null? Ninja run + teleport would be more than enough to get around for me, especially if recovery time was reduced further.

The teleportation power should be just as responsive (if not more) as jaunt, but with no cooldown, standard teleport range and remains effective at travel. Rather than 'combat teleporting' or whatever, teleport itself should just get the buffs to make it just as practical for combat as SJ, SS, and Fly are.

I'd like to see teleport be quicker and more responsive for both travel and combat, not really advocating for a 'combat' version, unless it were to be a lotg mule.

Granting this, as a best case scenario: If nerfed hasten is still needed to max out certain builds, then the change is entirely pointless. At worst, you just kill build diversity, rather than add to it, either due to PPM, faulty math, new bugs, or perhaps them deciding to nerf certain powers while they're adjusting everything. Resources are better spent on things that would make the game more fun. Don't fix what isn't broken.

I'm against nerfing anything, especially something like hasten, which is massively important to high-end builds. Focus should be on bringing old dumpster fires like regen in line, and making commonly skipped powers more enticing. Realistically, the only way to 'fix' hasten would be to give it the fitness treatment and just give it to everyone, or raise the pool cap so people can just take the 'mandatory' powers while still being able to have a flavor ability or two of their choice. Same reason I'd be scared of a dominator rework, nerfing permadom would be awful. I'd rather they buff controllers. So yes, I'd be 3000% against nerfing hasten, and cautious of dominator changes. For your idea specifically, hasten is still going to be required in the builds that need it (read: all of them.), all that happens is that people without hasten might notice a slight difference when leveling. The work and attention that would be required to make a recharge overhaul work and not cripple tons of sets would be incredible - and I have zero faith in such a thing being done well, even if Powerhouse wasn't involved at all. Nerfing hasten would cause more problems than it would solve.

Long as hasten's left alone, that sounds pretty great.

Nerfing hasten would be probably the single worst power change they could possibly do.

Nightcrawler wouldn't have lasted long if he was as slow as current teleports. Jaunt is awesome, I don't care for much of the experimental set, but speed of sound, specifically it's teleport, is how all teleport powers should behave. Instead of slowly flexing before reappearing in a slow hover, you vanish in an instant and are winding up an attack less than a second later. Teleports should be fast and practical in combat. I'd even drop combat jumping from some of my builds to fit it, were it to function like jaunt does.