Focused Feedback: Rage

[Captain Powerhouse]

It’s being changed in the next patch to be highlighted when it’s safer to use.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

It’s being changed in the next patch to be highlighted when it’s safer to use.

 

I have done some Double testing (a SS Tanker) and to be fair, while I would very much prefer to drop the crash and have no stacking, I can live with the version on test if I must. I can avoid the crash if I like and can take the Rech to an acceptable range (10-seconds of less damage is preferable to the crash).

[calash]

Is there any way to set Auto-cast on Rage to never stack, but still allow the button to be pressed when you want a double stack?

 

Use to have a Fire/SS tank, now SS/Fire brute.  I hate the crash personally but understand and accept it.  My only issue with the current test version is I am very likely to press that button when it will cause me a crash later.

 

That being said, none of the changes here would make me respec out of Rage.  

[Haijinx]

2 hours ago, calash said:

Is there any way to set Auto-cast on Rage to never stack, but still allow the button to be pressed when you want a double stack?

 

Use to have a Fire/SS tank, now SS/Fire brute.  I hate the crash personally but understand and accept it.  My only issue with the current test version is I am very likely to press that button when it will cause me a crash later.

 

That being said, none of the changes here would make me respec out of Rage.  

Other than tailoring the amount of recharge in the power so you can't stack, no.

[RenInferno]

I still think it should be turned into a toggle. 

Make it work like Assault Hybrid, building stacks of 'rage' as a fight goes on, either off your attacks hitting, or attacks hitting you. 15% damage each stack, [I am unsure about the tohit numbers, but that'd build each time too, to keep it mildly consistent with how it currently works] build up to x number of stacks, all stacks fade when you leave combat, end use increases per stack you have.

[golstat2003]

13 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Other than tailoring the amount of recharge in the power so you can't stack, no.

I would not mind if they did this and called it a day. But I am sure it would cause an uproar if you couldn’t stack it anymore.

[golstat2003]

10 hours ago, RenInferno said:

I still think it should be turned into a toggle. 

Make it work like Assault Hybrid, building stacks of 'rage' as a fight goes on, either off your attacks hitting, or attacks hitting you. 15% damage each stack, [I am unsure about the tohit numbers, but that'd build each time too, to keep it mildly consistent with how it currently works] build up to x number of stacks, all stacks fade when you leave combat, end use increases per stack you have.

This is very similar to how an ability called Enrage works in another superhero mmo who shall not be named. 😜

 

I would not mind if Rage were changed to this. Or if an extra power were added that does this, that SS can take as an option. (You would be blocked from taking Rage if you took this power.) VEATs have this tech in their level up screen.

[Myrmidon]

3 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

I would not mind if they did this and called it a day. But I am sure it would cause an uproar if you couldn’t stack it anymore.

 I think that, while it might cause an uproar for the few Stacking Junkies that just “need to have it, man!”, most players outside of these forums would like it a lot.

[Moka]

If Rage is so hard to balance why not just remove it all together and give super strength build up and up the damage of the basic powers. It's one of the most underperforming melee sets in the game in terms of damage. 

[Haijinx]

Its double rage that is tricky to balance..

 

Single rage has been determined to be ok.

 

Seems like reverting to build up would be a net loss.  

[csr]

4 hours ago, Moka said:

If Rage is so hard to balance why not just remove it all together and give super strength build up and up the damage of the basic powers. It's one of the most underperforming melee sets in the game in terms of damage. 

So, likely rework 5 powers (Rage, Hand Clap, Jab, Punch and Hurl) instead of just tweaking Rage.  Ignore all the extreme suggestions for Rage that suggest it's hard to balance.  They aren't coming from Captain Powerhouse.  What Capt P has done isn't radical.  He moved the END cost from the crash to the cast, added a mechanic to avoid the rest of the crash, and made the crash mitigation debuff more balanced.  That's it.  Three relatively minor changes (and the last I would call closer to a bug fix than anything else), not a complete rework of the entire AT (giving every Tanker Rage or something similar) as has been suggested by some, nor a complete reworking of the set, as has been suggested by many.

Edited September 17, 2019 by csr

[Captain Citadel]

9 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

I would not mind if they did this and called it a day. But I am sure it would cause an uproar if you couldn’t stack it anymore.

I don't see why people want to stack it. I want to auto-cast it and not crash, but I only stack it right now because I can't avoid the crash anyway, as it stands on the live servers. If it was a choice between being able to stack, and not having the damage crash, I'd choose the latter in a heartbeat. I guess because I play a Tanker with SS and not a Brute?

 

20 hours ago, RenInferno said:

I still think it should be turned into a toggle. 

Make it work like Assault Hybrid, building stacks of 'rage' as a fight goes on, either off your attacks hitting, or attacks hitting you. 15% damage each stack, [I am unsure about the tohit numbers, but that'd build each time too, to keep it mildly consistent with how it currently works] build up to x number of stacks, all stacks fade when you leave combat, end use increases per stack you have.

I like this, I think it's thematic with the idea of building up a character's level of rage in combat. It ebbs and flows as the heat of battle grows and fades. But for Brutes it might be too much like having a second Fury meter.

I've stated previously in this thread that ideally I'd like to just have the damage crash removed and let people stack Rage as high as their defenses can handle, but I really hate the damage crash enough that I'd be willing to accept Rage not stacking and turning into a toggle. I have tolerated the mitigation debuff up till now because my SS character is a Tanker and can easily achieve Incarnate-level 65% defense, meaning I can generally eat the mitigation debuff almost entirely on my own and can usually count on backup from my SG's party buffs. Even the -10% resistance half of the revised form of the debuff is manageable.

I just think doing next to zero damage for 10 seconds is antithetical to the entire premise of Super Strength as a powerset and would really like to see that debuff removed. The fact that SS does such poor damage to begin with that the set needs Rage just to keep up with other sets (when they all have Build Up instead) seems like a pretty solid point in favor of removing Rage and replacing it with Build Up anyway. Just fiddle with the numbers to bring SS back in line with other sets.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, csr said:

So, likely rework 5 powers (Rage, Hand Clap, Jab, Punch and Hurl) instead of just tweaking Rage.  Ignore all the extreme suggestions for Rage that suggest it's hard to balance.  They aren't coming from Captain Powerhouse.  What Capt P has done isn't radical.  He moved the END cost from the crash to the cast, added a mechanic to avoid the rest of the crash, and made the crash mitigation debuff more balanced.  That's it.  Three relatively minor changes (and the last I would call closer to a bug fix than anything else), not a complete rework of the entire AT (giving every Tanker Rage or something similar) as has been suggested by some, nor a complete reworking of the set, as has been suggested by many.

Honestly I would not mind a rework. I find things that are up some of the time and crash after some use to be . . . not great design. The change to making nukes crashless done a few years back I think was beautiful work.

[csr]

4 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Honestly I would not mind a rework. I find things that are up some of the time and crash after some use to be . . . not great design. The change to making nukes crashless done a few years back I think was beautiful work.

I actually like powers with drawbacks.  For two reasons.  One, they tend to increase diversity instead of having all sets the same with merely cosmetic difference (see Champions Online).  They also tend to give strong positives to the power, which can be leveraged by good builds and play while the drawbacks are similarly mitigated by the same.  So, give me plus/minus powers instead of a bunch of zeroes.

[Megajoule]

4 hours ago, csr said:

I actually like powers with drawbacks.  For two reasons.  One, they tend to increase diversity instead of having all sets the same with merely cosmetic difference (see Champions Online).  They also tend to give strong positives to the power, which can be leveraged by good builds and play while the drawbacks are similarly mitigated by the same.  So, give me plus/minus powers instead of a bunch of zeroes.

Whereas I am in favor of simplicity, and against complexity-for-its-own-sake (which some call "flavor", YMMV) and min-maxing. 😕

[sailormoonv]

Just thinking aloud here.... but what if picking Rage gave you two buttons instead of one (kinda like how Swap Ammo gives you three)?  You have have Rage (standard click, non-stackable, no crash or penalty) and you have Double Rage (toggle, decent cool-down, high end-cost, boosts Damage even further like a second stack of Rage but comes with a Def/DamRes penalty).  Then you can have your usual Rage while stomping around and yet have some extra oomph if you need it, but you will pay a price for it.  (You might be able to mitigate the End cost of the toggle, but the hit to Defense and Damage Resistance is going to be felt regardless.)  Just a thought.  YMMV.

[Cawshun]

10 hours ago, Megajoule said:

Whereas I am in favor of simplicity, and against complexity-for-its-own-sake (which some call "flavor", YMMV) and min-maxing. 😕

Rage isn't a new mechanic, so people who made a SS character knew what they were getting in to. SS isn't the only melee set either. A Street Justice character can have similar animations to SS if strength is the theme of the character and you don't want to deal with rage. If you don't like one of the primary mechanics of a kit, maybe consider that kit isn't for you. There are plenty of people that like the rage mechanic because it requires thought to bring out its full potential instead of being another mindless damage increase. If rage was affecting the overall balance of the kit, that would be a different issue, but it's not with the changes on pineapple.

One approach to the thematic issue some people have mentioned could be to change the way recharge affects it. I've seen several people state the crash isn't thematic because Superman doesn't crash, however there are a number of different super heroes who have time limits to their full strength before a "crash." These heroes tend to train those powers, and as they get stronger they can last longer before crashing. Perhaps an approach that might be more appealing would be to change recharge from decreasing the cooldown to increasing the duration. As you level your character and get stronger (slot recharge, etc), you would be able to last longer before crashing. This would come with its own slew of issues, though. It wouldn't be very intuitive, so it would need to be in the description of the power. It would likely snapshot the current recharge on activation, as I don't know if there is a way for the duration to shift around like the remaining cooldown can, which would likely lead to popping ageless or proc fishing for FF +rech procs before activating rage. It would take much longer to get to the second stack than it currently does with decent recharge. This would probably create more problems that it's worth, but I had the thought and figured it was worth sharing.

 

[Kimuji]

14 hours ago, Cawshun said:

I've seen several people state the crash isn't thematic because Superman doesn't crash, however there are a number of different super heroes who have time limits to their full strength before a "crash."

Indeed and Superman works as a comic book character not as a playable one in a video game. Taking Superman as a reference is just terrible: that character is so OP that they had to create Kryptonite as a plot device to keep him in check. Superman is basically in perma god mode unless he's completely depowered. We can't compare a CoH character with that.

Edited September 19, 2019 by Kimuji

[summers]

As far as I know there is no comic book character that can fight for 2 minutes before being exhausted and totally unable to fight back for 10 seconds. I think we can probably just settle that it is not exactly in the theme of a super hero game to be that way.

[FUBARczar]

Thematically it shouldn't even be called "Rage."  It should be something like, "No holding Back," "Unleash," or "Overpower," etc.  Calling it "Rage" is not only unfitting for "Super Strength" but also seems to be limiting perceptions, imaginations.   I think that would help a lot with some people's perceptions that this power needs to HAVE a penalty at all.   Because in no way should Superman turn into Bruce Banner.   

 

SOLUTION:

Remove the crash and increase the recharge time to make double-staking difficult, and only attainable for some amount / % of overlapping-time with a lot of +recharge.  It seems fitting. and reasonable.  It gives reward, incentive and brings balance to the power in a much simpler solution.  It rewards having teammates providing +rech, it rewards obtaining harder to get IO sets, it rewards getting certain Incarnate powers, and it's more inline with "Super Strength."

 

edit:

for instance, for a starting point, say one could obtain double-staking 50% of the time at the recharge cap.  

Edited September 19, 2019 by FUBARczar
added example

[Chrome]

personally i think crashes on all abilities are annoying and cause me never to take those powers.... regardless of what changes are made if it crashes i wont pick it...in the case of Super Strength ...i wont even pick the powerset

 

 

edit: also crashes do not add a thought provoking aspect to those sets with them , they just limit power usage, if the team is wiping on a particularly hard boss those powers wont save your team they just delay the inevitable full team wipe.  in the case of Rage...why not just give SS a standard build up and buff the damage of under performing powers within the set or give them one similar to dark melee and remove the crash entirely...easy peasy 

Edited September 19, 2019 by Chrome

[Cawshun]

 

6 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

SOLUTION:

Remove the crash and increase the recharge time to make double-staking difficult, and only attainable for some amount / % of overlapping-time with a lot of +recharge.  It seems fitting. and reasonable.  It gives reward, incentive and brings balance to the power in a much simpler solution.  It rewards having teammates providing +rech, it rewards obtaining harder to get IO sets, it rewards getting certain Incarnate powers, and it's more inline with "Super Strength."

 

edit:

for instance, for a starting point, say one could obtain double-staking 50% of the time at the recharge cap.  

The problem is then damage has to be adjusted either to rage or to the kit as a whole to adjust for the lower up-time. Not to mention characters with perma-double stack will feel weaker regardless because with your example they would be hitting for less during 60 of those 120 seconds. Even if the numbers were balanced perfectly to compensate so that the damage over an extended period was the same, going from hitting hard permanently outside of crashes to only hitting hard for half the duration would feel awful.

It's easy to give players something. It's very hard to take it away once they have it without leaving a bad taste in their mouth.
 

1 hour ago, Chrome said:

also crashes do not add a thought provoking aspect to those sets with them , they just limit power usage

Inherently an ability having a consequence for its use means it will involve a decision on its use. I'm not saying it's a complex decision, but you can't say it doesn't add one. For a fully built character that's built to ignore the crash that's sort of true, but some level of thought had to go in to planning the build around being able to ignore it.  

There's also the thought of, "Do I save judgement for the crash for additional damage during the downtime? Are there any active powers that I can delay re-applying until the crash so I can fit in another damaging ability?" Things like that. Again not complex decisions, but still decisions to be made mid-gameplay.

Also I'll mention the bio/ss tank I fully built on pineapple with the design idea of using defensive adaptation during the crash, then swapping to offensive outside of it for additional damage. While the fully built version could ignore the crash even in offensive adaptation, the idea worked great in some lower level testing, where I didn't have all the means to ignore the crash. It's a very fun and active play style.
 

[Chrome]

I am trying to imagine a time when doing 90% less damage is fun...regardless of the AT

 

In an ITF when Cyclops hits the T9...no

When i am fighting paragon protectors in the black scorpion mission...no

Any other enemy type that pops a T9 to drop my damage to nothing...no

 

however at least during those cases my defensive/resistances are not dropped to minute amounts, so again even if you consider that there is thought behind the ability in the IO stage or during low level play ...the entire point is you are trying to find ways around the crash...most other builds more recharge = more damage. On SS more recharge means i wont suck at damage or survivability on current live patch, and with the change it means i am still going to have periods where i suck regardless of the recharge or worse yet more recharge = im definitely going to suck if i stack this awesome damage buff but if i dont have hi recharge im going to fall behind everybody else as far as damage contributions.  Its confusing and contrary to every other Powerset in the game.  hold on let me tell my friend who loves playing kinetics that when i play SS play another toon because im afraid of double stacking rage, damn everyone else on the team.  That doesn't work in a game where every other time you can bring anybody we will succeed as long as people push buttons.  

 

my personal vendetta against all abilities with crashes notwithstanding, having an ability that while up makes you "mostly competitive" and then tries to kill you when it is done is not a great concept.

At least other Crash type abilities are hail mary type things, that have the intention of pushing you beyond what you may be capable of otherwise, rage is an ability that makes you on par with everyone else...and then kills you.

 

this seems awkward and should be seriously re-imagined and reworked

Edited September 19, 2019 by Chrome

[FUBARczar]

1 hour ago, Cawshun said:

 

The problem is then damage has to be adjusted either to rage or to the kit as a whole to adjust for the lower up-time. Not to mention characters with perma-double stack will feel weaker regardless because with your example they would be hitting for less during 60 of those 120 seconds. Even if the numbers were balanced perfectly to compensate so that the damage over an extended period was the same, going from hitting hard permanently outside of crashes to only hitting hard for half the duration would feel awful.

It's easy to give players something. It's very hard to take it away once they have it without leaving a bad taste in their mouth.
 

Didn't quite follow your thought.

 

Do people feel weaker currently when BU is not up?

Or currently when Rage isn't double stacked?

Or how about when Rage crashes!?....  that one for sure!

Or when there's no kin on the team?

 

The point is there is a reward for achieving higher recharge numbers, for teaming with others than can boost your recharge, etc.

And for the sake of balancing I would much rather have the buff #'s lowered on Rage than keeping any crash in it.

 

Also I think you are not taking into account other changes, such as the Tanker melee damage modifier being increased from 0.80 to 0.95

And Rage is not the set, it should be a flavor like Build Up, Follow Up, Staff Forms,  Power Siphon, etc.

[ironjoe]

Sorry for being late to the party on my feedback. Best part of this is the power being highlighted. After playing and thought, the plan to change to the reverse also works. The change works well in game play for me and I like this and other suggestions that give a similar result of a single stack of rage. There has been enough comments on different ways to potentially tweak things further but I like what the devs are trying to do here. I find I have a lot less management for watching things with this change over what is currently live.