DELETE Hasten, SLIGHTLY ALTER all enemies, SLIGHTY ALTER all player powers

[Steampunkette]

There are about 60k characters at level 50. About 50k of them use Hasten. It's one of the single most used powers in the game, far outstripping most pool powers, though less people overall use Hasten than Fly.

 

It's a power that is, essentially, never used for Theme but exclusively used for Function. Much as how Stamina, Health, and Swift were used before the Fitness Pool was incorporated into all characters.

 

Instead, we should increase the baseline recharge of all characters by 20% and replace the power with something else.

 

The 20% value is based on Hasten's recharge time being 3.75 times longer than it's Duration, then dividing the 70% hasten bonus by the time difference which is 18.6%. I rounded up the other 1.4% just to make it looks more presentable. This way everyone gets the 'full benefit' of unslotted Hasten by averaging out it's effect as a permanent autopower instead of a click power.

 

With Hasten gone we'd need a new Super Speed power. I'd like to suggest some sort of 'Combat Superspeed' ability. Perhaps a weaker version of Martial Manipulation's "Burst of Speed"? I'm open to suggestions.

 

To be clear: This is a serious suggestion at this point. Not a ruse or a joke meant to poo poo on a different thread. Seeing the level 50 numbers on Hasten compared to the populace showed me that Hasten is the new Fitness. It may not be MANDATORY. But it is too good in relation to it's neighbors in other power pools.

 

EDIT:

 

After continued discussion I have revamped my suggestion to the following:

 

1) Lower Hasten's Cooldown to 200 Seconds

2) Lower Hasten's Recharge Rate Buff to 25%

3) Grant all players a +20% Recharge Rate Buff starting at level 1

 

This would allow Hasten to be 'Perma' with 2 Recharge SOs at 45% Recharge Rate increase. But would also allow people to Double-Stack Hasten if they have enough recharge rate buffs to a full 70% total Recharge Rate Increase over the current baseline.

 

The intent is to split out portions of the buff to make it less attractive, overall, while still retaining it's ultimate function, in the hopes that more people will take the 20% recharge rate increase as 'Enough' of a benefit that they feel they don't -have- to take Hasten.

 

Also I made the title a little less drastic to better reflect the current leaning.

 

Annnnnd here comes Version 3! We're back to Deleting Hasten, but also incorporating Permahasten into all builds... kinda.

 

4 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

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

Topic has been changed to better represent option 3.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Steampunkette

[QuiJon]

Sorry worst idea ever. This change has more sweeping implications then just giving a smaller insignificant recharge boost to all characters so they can have a different power pool selection.  The recharge level of hasten is in many cases the basis around which a character is built. For example Perma-Doms would be almost completel impossible to have under this plan. A 20 percent recharge bonus would mean you would have to find like 160 percent recharge from set bonuses. Also even if many of the melee characters T9 armors are not perma anymore, people have builds based around recharge that off set that down time in different ways that would be totally borked if hasten lost its power.

 

Essentially Hasten is a good power. It offers great recharge bonuses because it has a long recharge and because it requires a power choice. You want to have some benefit of that bonus but don't want to have to take the  power choice. This is different completely then the stamina fitness issues. Game design was really built around the idea that people took fitness. The cost of powers required it to maintain the fight and to use your toggles.  Also the only power people really in most cases wanted in that pool was stamina which required taking 3 power choices and waiting until level 20 to get at that point. It was a borked system that required to much investment to get the required return out of it. Hasten is simply one power choice, and though yes I tend to take it on most of my builds, it is honestly not required, and with IO sets more then ever can be skipped now if people really choose to. Again back in the old days a power was pretty much slotted with SOs at 2 acc, 3 damage or some combination. With IOs we 6 slot powers more often now. Those IO sets build in a certain level of recharge in most cases that already grant the 20 or so percent you want hasten to give. And if you don't want hasten it is pretty easy to get said 20 percent global recharge in other ways without taking hasten. 

 

What you want is the ability to take more power pools and not  have to "waste" one on hasten. And what I am saying is if you only want a 20 percent all the time bonus to recharge then get it from IOs and don't take hasten, the solution to your issue already esists. There is no reason to muck up 100k other characters to get what you want for yours.

[TheAdjustor]

Delete the fitness pool and inherent fitness. They were even more widely taken before being made inherents.

Edited September 25, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[DSorrow]

22 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

But it is too good in relation to it's neighbors in other power pools.

Can't disagree with this but my only fear is that any meaningful nerf to Hasten would see ED levels of outrage. As much as the numbers prove Hasten being too good, I'm going to have to go with a no.

Edited September 25, 2019 by DSorrow

[PaxArcana]

Don't delete it.

 

Double it's recharge time, so it can't be perma'd.  Watch it get respec'd out of most of those 50K characters double-quick.

[PaxArcana]

5 minutes ago, TheAdjustor said:

Delete the fitness pool and inherent fitness. They were even more widely taken before being made inherents.

The difference being, most people took MOST or ALL of the Fitness pool.

 

Not just a one-power "dip", like with Hasten.

[TheAdjustor]

1 minute ago, DSorrow said:

Can't disagree with this but my only fear is that any meaningful nerf to Hasten would see ED levels of outrage. As much as the numbers prove Hasten being too good, I'm going to have to go with a no.

There would be outrage, but the bigger problem goes to the whole nerfing a single power concept.  There are sets and powers within sets that have been designed or later tweaked to take into consideration high levels of recharge. Deleting hasten would mean just about every set in the game would need to be looked at and adjusted so it performs properly. In dominators and blasters you would need to look at the whole AT since they both live and die by long recharge powers.

[Infinitum]

27 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

There are about 60k characters at level 50. About 50k of them use Hasten. It's one of the single most used powers in the game, far outstripping most pool powers, though less people overall use Hasten than Fly.

 

It's a power that is, essentially, never used for Theme but exclusively used for Function. Much as how Stamina, Health, and Swift were used before the Fitness Pool was incorporated into all characters.

 

Instead, we should increase the baseline recharge of all characters by 20% and replace the power with something else.

 

The 20% value is based on Hasten's recharge time being 3.75 times longer than it's Duration, then dividing the 70% hasten bonus by the time difference which is 18.6%. I rounded up the other 1.4% just to make it looks more presentable. This way everyone gets the 'full benefit' of unslotted Hasten by averaging out it's effect as a permanent autopower instead of a click power.

 

With Hasten gone we'd need a new Super Speed power. I'd like to suggest some sort of 'Combat Superspeed' ability. Perhaps a weaker version of Martial Manipulation's "Burst of Speed"? I'm open to suggestions.

 

To be clear: This is a serious suggestion at this point. Not a ruse or a joke meant to poo poo on a different thread. Seeing the level 50 numbers on Hasten compared to the populace showed me that Hasten is the new Fitness. It may not be MANDATORY. But it is too good in relation to it's neighbors in other power pools.

Can you explain why any of that is a "problem" worthy of discussion?

[Epsilon Assassin]

5 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

Don't delete it.

 

Double it's recharge time, so it can't be perma'd.  Watch it get respec'd out of most of those 50K characters double-quick.

So what's the reason behind nerfing Hasten besides arbitrarily nerfing it because it's good?

 

Travel powers are taken by almost everyone as well. Nerf them too. Oh and Fitness is basically required, so nerf that. 

 

No one has given a real reason why Hasten is hurting the game. Yes it is one of the objectively best powers in the game. Yes it is objectively overpowered, but City of Heroes has *never been about balance. *

Edited September 25, 2019 by Epsilon Assassin

[TheAdjustor]

1 minute ago, Infinitum said:

Can you explain why any of that is a "problem" worthy of discussion?

She had her head handed to her about numbers of people using the power and this is her reaction.

 

Take a look at the add a smidge of recharge thread.

Edited September 25, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

The difference being, most people took MOST or ALL of the Fitness pool.

 

Not just a one-power "dip", like with Hasten.

fly didn't always have afterburner, that probably affected the speed pool because fly now has a decent answer to superspeed.

 

Maybe it's the other powers in speed itself that need a look.

[TheAdjustor]

6 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

The difference being, most people took MOST or ALL of the Fitness pool.

 

Not just a one-power "dip", like with Hasten.

You have the numbers on that ? If I recall correctly back in the day Positron just said "overwhelming".

 

With the fitness pool before it was inherent, IIRC you couldn't take just health or stamina, you had to take either hurdle or swift, hence the fun of watching people having trouble jump wall in perez park.  (people just didn't take it)

[DSorrow]

2 minutes ago, TheAdjustor said:

There would be outrage, but the bigger problem goes to the whole nerfing a single power concept.  There are sets and powers within sets that have been designed or later tweaked to take into consideration high levels of recharge. Deleting hasten would mean just about every set in the game would need to be looked at and adjusted so it performs properly. In dominators and blasters you would need to look at the whole AT since they both live and die by long recharge powers.

True, but in my opinion the outrage alone is reason enough not to do it. Whatever the numbers say about Hasten, a sweeping change like this causing many people having to alter most of their builds is a pretty good reason to be pissed. And then we'd get to looking at the side effects the change had on the performance of some recharge reliant powersets...

[Steampunkette]

Oh, no. This isn't about what I want, @QuiJon. You're guessing at my motives and missing wildly. I'm not a minmaxer and, frankly, I never reach the limit of my power pools. I usually take all of my primary and secondary, minus Taunts, Confronts, and Placates, and only grab a handful of pool powers. Hasten and Fighting are usually two of them, with an EPP as the third. But I never use Combat Jumping and only take Leadership for characters who will use both maneuvers -and- assault or tactics... Point is: I've never had a character with 4 pools in my life. Usually I try to get by with 1 or 2, I've never had a permadom (though I have some doms) and I have only one character who has Permahasten and it's a badass humanform PB rawr.

 

I was talking in the "Swift +10% global recharge" thread when I saw that 90% of level 50 players have Hasten. That's an outsized impact by any measure.

 

That's literally the reason that I brought this up. The total and exclusive reason.

 

Also for Permadom you need a total of 123% Recharge Rate. This would be 20% of it off the bat, leaving you with 103% recharge rate required to maintain permadom. Dunno WHERE you got the 160% stuff from... Getting 3 LotGs gets you 22.5, you can get 10% from up to 5 Purple Sets (including the Dominator-Specific sets) which puts you at 72.5% meaning you need only 3 of the 6.25% recharge bonuses and 3 5% recharge bonuses and you're set. 

 

And hey. Since you won't have Hasten, anymore, you can just leave Domination on autocast with no more juggling!

 

14 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

Can't disagree with this but my only fear is that any meaningful nerf to Hasten would see ED levels of outrage. As much as the numbers prove Hasten being too good, I'm going to have to go with a no.

I'm not looking at a nerf. I'm looking at a globalization. Everyone gets it, like everyone gained Fitness.

 

8 minutes ago, Epsilon Assassin said:

So what's the reason behind nerfing Hasten besides arbitrarily nerfing it because it's good?

 

Travel powers are taken by almost everyone as well. Nerf them too. Oh and Fitness is basically required, so nerf that. 

 

No one has given a real reason why Hasten is hurting the game. Yes it is one of the objectively best powers in the game. Yes it is objectively overpowered, but City of Heroes has *never been about balance. *

Again, not nerfing it because it's good because I'm not suggesting a nerf. I'm suggesting it be removed from the game, -entirely- and that all characters, whether they took hasten or not, get a 20% global recharge buff.

 

Fitness got the same treatment, in fact. It's no longer a power pool, and is instead a Global Grant at level 2, with everyone getting it. I'm suggesting the global setup because giving everyone a power as strong as hasten from level 1 onward seems a bit OP, so I averaged it's function over time.

 

But there has been some decent points brought up about the effects of hasten. 

 

So how about the power we replace Hasten with is an Autopower called "Quick". Always on, no Endurance cost, +15% Recharge Rate. Taking that power would be roughly equivalent to having Hasten 2-slotted for Recharge Rate. And while it might still be -super- popular at high end, it wouldn't be more powerful than slotting 2 LotG powers, and most people wouldn't 'need' it for their builds because they're already getting the +20% baseline increase.

 

 

[TheAdjustor]

2 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

True, but in my opinion the outrage alone is reason enough not to do it. Whatever the numbers say about Hasten, a sweeping change like this causing many people having to alter most of their builds is a pretty good reason to be pissed. And then we'd get to looking at the side effects the change had on the performance of some recharge reliant powersets...

We see this differently but I think we both might be able to agree that it's really dependent what the concept for the game should be and what the defining aspects of that should be.

 

If you don't have a place where you want to get to, it's really hard to argue that making changes or even not making changes is a good or bad thing

[MunkiLord]

This would be a nerf to every single one of my characters so I'm against all negative changes to hasten.  

[TheAdjustor]

Just now, MunkiLord said:

This would be a nerf to every single one of my characters so I'm against all negative changes to hasten.  

You're just too powerful and a bad person min maxer farmer marketer / sarcasm.

[TheAdjustor]

58 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

 

To be clear: This is a serious suggestion at this point. Not a ruse or a joke meant to poo poo on a different thread. Seeing the level 50 numbers on Hasten compared to the populace showed me that Hasten is the new Fitness. It may not be MANDATORY. But it is too good in relation to it's neighbors in other power pools.

 

Okay so when you were posting that things were a joke in that thread, that was what ?

 

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[DSorrow]

1 minute ago, Steampunkette said:

I'm not looking at a nerf. I'm looking at a globalization. Everyone gets it, like everyone gained Fitness.

The way I see it, making Hasten an auto +20% Rech is a pretty significant nerf to everyone who actually picks Hasten because it's worth much more than that even with basic SOs, let alone with any IOs.

[Infinitum]

6 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Oh, no. This isn't about what I want, @QuiJon. You're guessing at my motives and missing wildly. I'm not a minmaxer and, frankly, I never reach the limit of my power pools. I usually take all of my primary and secondary, minus Taunts, Confronts, and Placates, and only grab a handful of pool powers. Hasten and Fighting are usually two of them, with an EPP as the third. But I never use Combat Jumping and only take Leadership for characters who will use both maneuvers -and- assault or tactics... Point is: I've never had a character with 4 pools in my life. Usually I try to get by with 1 or 2, I've never had a permadom (though I have some doms) and I have only one character who has Permahasten and it's a badass humanform PB rawr.

 

I was talking in the "Swift +10% global recharge" thread when I saw that 90% of level 50 players have Hasten. That's an outsized impact by any measure.

 

That's literally the reason that I brought this up. The total and exclusive reason.

 

Also for Permadom you need a total of 123% Recharge Rate. This would be 20% of it off the bat, leaving you with 103% recharge rate required to maintain permadom. Dunno WHERE you got the 160% stuff from... Getting 3 LotGs gets you 22.5, you can get 10% from up to 5 Purple Sets (including the Dominator-Specific sets) which puts you at 72.5% meaning you need only 3 of the 6.25% recharge bonuses and 3 5% recharge bonuses and you're set. 

 

And hey. Since you won't have Hasten, anymore, you can just leave Domination on autocast with no more juggling!

 

I'm not looking at a nerf. I'm looking at a globalization. Everyone gets it, like everyone gained Fitness.

 

Again, not nerfing it because it's good because I'm not suggesting a nerf. I'm suggesting it be removed from the game, -entirely- and that all characters, whether they took hasten or not, get a 20% global recharge buff.

 

Fitness got the same treatment, in fact. It's no longer a power pool, and is instead a Global Grant at level 2, with everyone getting it. I'm suggesting the global setup because giving everyone a power as strong as hasten from level 1 onward seems a bit OP, so I averaged it's function over time.

 

But there has been some decent points brought up about the effects of hasten. 

 

So how about the power we replace Hasten with is an Autopower called "Quick". Always on, no Endurance cost, +15% Recharge Rate. Taking that power would be roughly equivalent to having Hasten 2-slotted for Recharge Rate. And while it might still be -super- popular at high end, it wouldn't be more powerful than slotting 2 LotG powers, and most people wouldn't 'need' it for their builds because they're already getting the +20% baseline increase.

 

 

I'm still not understanding the over arching issue here to suggest such changes that would totally change the game for a ton of people both good and bad - granted, but it seems like a lot of work to change something a lot of people like.

 

hasten pre IO was probably not used the same way it is now because you can perma it now with up sets and global recharge and incarnate content.

 

Pre IOs I still always took hasten because I liked it, I didnt have to but wanted to because its a cool power.

 

I dunno I dont live or die by recharge honestly but I like hasten the way it is.

 

I'm going back and forth in my mind here because it is an intriguing change, but I'm not sure its necessary.

[TheAdjustor]

4 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

The way I see it, making Hasten an auto +20% Rech is a pretty significant nerf to everyone who actually picks Hasten because it's worth much more than that even with basic SOs, let alone with any IOs.

Minimally 35% in a pure SO build. ( Kin, SR, Rad etc etc all have plus recharge so they get considerably more.)

[Obsidius]

Quote

There are about 60k characters at level 50. About 50k of them use Hasten. It's one of the single most used powers in the game, far outstripping most pool powers, though less people overall use Hasten than Fly.

Hold.

 

Did I miss some sort of report from Cipher detailing how many level 50+ characters use Hasten? Where are these figures from?

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, DSorrow said:

The way I see it, making Hasten an auto +20% Rech is a pretty significant nerf to everyone who actually picks Hasten because it's worth much more than that even with basic SOs, let alone with any IOs.

With SOs or IOs you can get the recharge down to 240 seconds. Which is why I suggested adding 'Quick' to the Superspeed Power Pool as an additional 15% recharge increase. 2 SOs or IOs gets you to about 50% uptime 70/2 is 35, so 20% base +15% from Quick.

 

This change would be a fairly major buff to the majority of builds and a mild to moderate nerf to some extreme outlier builds. Including my badass humanform PB Build who currently enjoys a total of 300% Recharge over the baseline 100... She'd get a 35 point recharge hit and bring her down to 265%... which... y'know. Still more than enough for permanent Light Form.

 

Permadom, on the other hand, would largely remain unaffected.

 

3 minutes ago, Obsidius said:

Hold.

 

Did I miss some sort of report from Cipher detailing how many level 50+ characters use Hasten? Where are these figures from?

It's right here:

 

 

 

[Rathulfr]

1 hour ago, PaxArcana said:

The difference being, most people took MOST or ALL of the Fitness pool.

 

Not just a one-power "dip", like with Hasten.

 

But that one-power "dip" comes with a hefty "tax" in the form of burning one entire power pool out of a maximum of four allowed.  Most of my builds that have Hasten have only Hasten from the Speed pool (I'm not a fan of any of that pool's other powers).  If I could skip Hasten (and I frequently do), then that would open up an entire power pool for my builds.  Yes, please!

 

[Steampunkette]

The more I think about this change... the more I realize how minor a nerf it would turn out to be...

 

So to clear things up: Turns out I forgot to turn off my 3 Force Feedack Procs in my powers on Mids. The actual recharge time, with Hasten on, for Light Form is 85 seconds with a 90 second duration. I have 173% recharge on this character, not 300% recharge. I was SO CONFUSED when I started looking over her powers!

 

Without Hasten, the recharge is 106 seconds. Meaning it's got a 16 second downtime. That's a 21 second difference! If I had the global +20% and a further +15% from Quick that's out to an 11 second downtime. But I could take the one slot I added to Hasten and put it into Lightform to bring it down to nothing. No downtime whatsoever... pretty swanky, since I could just set that one power to autocast rather than having to also worry about Hasten.

 

And I'd wind up losing about 1 second on the recharge of my main attacks... which ain't the worst thing. I could just slot some other power in during the chain. Unless, of course, any of my 3 Force Feedbacks proc and then my chain is back to normal.

 

All in all, it seems like the impact it would have on high end builds isn't as bad as it might initially seem. If only because of the Diminishing Returns of recharge rates.