Level 1 choices on secondary sets.

[HelenCarnate]

I'm sure there are creative ways to make it work. They may just not be easy to implement but likely not impossible.  While I would love to see this as an option, I would not get my hopes up.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Roderick said:

And when they get around to doing it properly, and it's time to remove the duplicates, what happens to all the corrupted characters that don't have a secondary any more?

 

No, "Just edit them so they have the new secondary" isn't a good answer. That's a good way to break things even worse.

Given that, as one of the projects I worked on in my previous position was an import/export module for multi-layered data sets that would let you export a dataset and all of its supporting records, transfer them to a new system, import it all into temporary tables, then go through the old system to see if the supporting records were already there, and if so, go through the imported dataset and update its pointers to point to the existing supporting records, remove the duplicate records from the temporary tables, then move the remainder of the records into the main database, updating those pointers because the pointers to the main tables will change from the pointers in the temporary tables, I'm intimately familiar with how to do it right.

 

A brute-force solution is neither clean nor efficient; its only virtue is that it works. And it's all just pointers; sweeping a database to update pointers is comparatively simple to write, compared to going through the spaghetti code that eight years of development left CoH as to 'fix' something that was baked into the code before launch. Doing the set-duplication process has the sole advantage of being able to be done in a short time, compared to the effort involved in digging into the core server code to allow secondary selection, which is likely to be a long time coming.

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

Given that, as one of the projects I worked on in my previous position was an import/export module for multi-layered data sets that would let you export a dataset and all of its supporting records, transfer them to a new system, import it all into temporary tables, then go through the old system to see if the supporting records were already there, and if so, go through the imported dataset and update its pointers to point to the existing supporting records, remove the duplicate records from the temporary tables, then move the remainder of the records into the main database, updating those pointers because the pointers to the main tables will change from the pointers in the temporary tables, I'm intimately familiar with how to do it right.

 

A brute-force solution is neither clean nor efficient; its only virtue is that it works. And it's all just pointers; sweeping a database to update pointers is comparatively simple to write, compared to going through the spaghetti code that eight years of development left CoH as to 'fix' something that was baked into the code before launch. Doing the set-duplication process has the sole advantage of being able to be done in a short time, compared to the effort involved in digging into the core server code to allow secondary selection, which is likely to be a long time coming.

And you did all that because some whiners that didn't pay you money couldn't be arsed to "waste" an early power pick that they can simply remove from their tray in an online game?

 

I remember getting criticized when I said most of the suggested ideas on here are pure "gimmie gimmie gimmie NOW!".  The truth hurts, though.

 

OP, you can just wait 2 levels and pick that other power you want, you know.  It's not that hard.  Your character will still function.  The system is built as a give-and-take.  The reason you can't pick either power in your secondary is a layer of "take" to glean a semblance of "give" to the AT that uses those powers as a primary.  You remove that and it's all "give" with the next stage likely asking to choose powers, either primary or secondary, at the same level...then ANY power at any level instead of the variable give-and-take that occurs as you progress from level 1 to 50.  This same bullshit was tossed around asking for EPP/PPP to be dropped to level 14 or 20.  It's all unnecessary filler ideas baselessly kicked around that shouldn't have effort wasted on.

 

That was my 2 cents. Continue to kick around the idea.  It won't go anywhere, but if it does have a semblance to possibility, you will find me as your opponent.

[Haijinx]

4 hours ago, Vanden said:

No one who actually looked into a solution and understood how it might be implemented actually said it was impossible, only very difficult. They only people who were saying it was impossible were putting words into their mouths.

Impossible for a certain definition of impossible

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

And you did all that because some whiners that didn't pay you money couldn't be arsed to "waste" an early power pick that they can simply remove from their tray in an online game?

 

I remember getting criticized when I said most of the suggested ideas on here are pure "gimmie gimmie gimmie NOW!".  The truth hurts, though.

 

OP, you can just wait 2 levels and pick that other power you want, you know.  It's not that hard.  Your character will still function.  The system is built as a give-and-take.  The reason you can't pick either power in your secondary is a layer of "take" to glean a semblance of "give" to the AT that uses those powers as a primary.  You remove that and it's all "give" with the next stage likely asking to choose powers, either primary or secondary, at the same level...then ANY power at any level instead of the variable give-and-take that occurs as you progress from level 1 to 50.  This same bullshit was tossed around asking for EPP/PPP to be dropped to level 14 or 20.  It's all unnecessary filler ideas baselessly kicked around that shouldn't have effort wasted on.

 

That was my 2 cents. Continue to kick around the idea.  It won't go anywhere, but if it does have a semblance to possibility, you will find me as your opponent.

This is sort of the other side of it.  Once you get past a certain point in IO builds, you realise you aren't power pick limited.  You are slot limited. 

 

So just giving us some slots somewhere would be far more helpful to "solve"  the "issues" of the power pick.  

 

But considering we don't actually need more power creep ...

 

Means even if it were easy enough to do, it likely wouldn't be something they should do.

[srmalloy]

8 hours ago, Leogunner said:

And you did all that because some whiners that didn't pay you money couldn't be arsed to "waste" an early power pick that they can simply remove from their tray in an online game?

No, I did it because the project I was part of -- to computerize the development of the Navy's instructor and trainee guides from the core material, making updates vastly easier and allowing them to be used in a computer-based training environment -- needed to be able to package up a course and ship it to another training facility.

 

One of the things that I've learned to do as a programmer over the years is to look at other ways to solve problems. Duplicating the powersets with the first two powers inverted would work. It's not the best solution, nor is it the most elegant solution, and would need a second fix if they decide later to implement it in code to fold the duplicates back into the original in characters that used them. However, it has the single advantage of being doable by playing with the database, with no programming involved, unless there are limits in the number of powersets that can appear in a list that I don't know about,  which would make this approach nonviable. However, any decision whether to do this at all is up to the Homecoming staff. As Haijinx points out, characters are, in the long run, slot-limited rather than power-limited, so switching the order of the first two powers for your secondary really doesn't get you much.

[plainguy]

Oddly enough I ran into this situation with creating a toon with MIDs.  I wished I didn't have to pick that lvl 2 power either.

 

 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

On 12/21/2019 at 12:57 PM, Leogunner said:

And you did all that because some whiners that didn't pay you money couldn't be arsed to "waste" an early power pick that they can simply remove from their tray in an online game?

 

I remember getting criticized when I said most of the suggested ideas on here are pure "gimmie gimmie gimmie NOW!".  The truth hurts, though.

 

OP, you can just wait 2 levels and pick that other power you want, you know.  It's not that hard.  Your character will still function.  The system is built as a give-and-take.  The reason you can't pick either power in your secondary is a layer of "take" to glean a semblance of "give" to the AT that uses those powers as a primary.  You remove that and it's all "give" with the next stage likely asking to choose powers, either primary or secondary, at the same level...then ANY power at any level instead of the variable give-and-take that occurs as you progress from level 1 to 50.  This same bullshit was tossed around asking for EPP/PPP to be dropped to level 14 or 20.  It's all unnecessary filler ideas baselessly kicked around that shouldn't have effort wasted on.

 

That was my 2 cents. Continue to kick around the idea.  It won't go anywhere, but if it does have a semblance to possibility, you will find me as your opponent.

first of all leo chillaxe bro we are just spitballing there's no need to get so defensive. second of all its not that i disagree with you im just having a hard time understanding your position it looks like u oppose this because......"no" (stomps foot)?

[QuiJon]

On 12/21/2019 at 6:22 AM, Roderick said:

And when they get around to doing it properly, and it's time to remove the duplicates, what happens to all the corrupted characters that don't have a secondary any more?

 

No, "Just edit them so they have the new secondary" isn't a good answer. That's a good way to break things even worse.

If all the power choices were the same in the set other then slot 1 and 2 being reversed you could easily still convert any of the extra secondary sets into their normal configuration with the powers and slotting that was originally chosen at the time

 

So if I had chosen option 2 and skipped the t1 power completely when  you convert me back to the standard secondary set that now has that choice available to it, I convert basically directly into that set with all my powers chosen at the same level with the same slotting. 

[Zepp]

There are plenty of worthless or low-value T1s (and some secondaries that have both a low-value T1 and T2 -- Storm Summoning, I see you...), but outside of a handful of secondaries, and most Blaster secondary T1s, I do not think this move would be exceptionally useful.

[Zepp]

null comment -- board bug --

Edited December 29, 2019 by Zepp
Board reposted my post a second time for no apparent reason.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Zepp said:

There are plenty of worthless or low-value T1s (and some secondaries that have both a low-value T1 and T2 -- Storm Summoning, I see you...), but outside of a handful of secondaries, and most Blaster secondary T1s, I do not think this move would be exceptionally useful.

think most Blaster T1s were seen as an active survival vs one bad guy tool. The classic Mage Root and Shoot 

 

So either a immob 

Or a Knockback melee attack 

 

 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

9 hours ago, Zepp said:

There are plenty of worthless or low-value T1s (and some secondaries that have both a low-value T1 and T2 -- Storm Summoning, I see you...), but outside of a handful of secondaries, and most Blaster secondary T1s, I do not think this move would be exceptionally useful.

while true, it wouldnt be exactly a useless change either

[boggo2300]

4 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

while true, it wouldnt be exactly a useless change either

I'd be quite pissed about it actually, most of my Tier 1 secondaries are what I WANT at low level

[Saiyajinzoningen]

im not sure whats being suggested is a powere switch and is instead a choice between 4 powers at start.....maybe?

[MTeague]

I could see it for some things like ForceFields as a secondary for a corruptor, if I have no interest in *ever* using Personal Force Field.  Or someone with /Storm as a secondary who didn't want to have to take Gale (though I love Gale on my Storm def, slotted wtih KB to KD...).

[tidge]

I grok the desire for more options, but I wonder if there isn't a clear case to be made that certain secondary T1 are recognized as being bad enough to merit swapping with the T2? 

 

Setting aside the question of Tanker/Bruising, the T1 choice that always bothers me is Traps secondary for MMs: Web Grenade. Even slotted it isn't very useful, and it certainly doesn't serve as a mule.

[MTeague]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

I grok the desire for more options, but I wonder if there isn't a clear case to be made that certain secondary T1 are recognized as being bad enough to merit swapping with the T2? 

 

Setting aside the question of Tanker/Bruising, the T1 choice that always bothers me is Traps secondary for MMs: Web Grenade. Even slotted it isn't very useful, and it certainly doesn't serve as a mule.

No matter the power, there's someone out there already using it who would be upset if it were removed and just as upset if he were forced to take the other one on his next respec.  It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not. It doesn't matter if one is clearly better than the other. Swapping it will screw up someone. 

 

Adding choices that no one has to take and can be done either way, is vastly better than just swapping which power is a forced choice at lvl 1.

Edited December 29, 2019 by MTeague

[Haijinx]

16 minutes ago, tidge said:

I grok the desire for more options, but I wonder if there isn't a clear case to be made that certain secondary T1 are recognized as being bad enough to merit swapping with the T2? 

 

Setting aside the question of Tanker/Bruising, the T1 choice that always bothers me is Traps secondary for MMs: Web Grenade. Even slotted it isn't very useful, and it certainly doesn't serve as a mule.

Didn't they add a damage component to the blaster version?  That wouldn't be so bad.  

 

I'd vote for no damage but a AOE effect like the VEAT one.  

[MetaVileTerror]

Web Grenade is absolutely . . . what's the kid the words use these days?  "Baller?"  -Fly and Slow should not be scoffed at.  Sure, ol' Webby's pretty heavy on the Endurance cost, but that can be compensated for without too much agony.

Gotta have another Power you could use for your example, no?

[Zepp]

Gale can be a good power in the right build with the right player, unfortunately, it is still a low-value pick compared to other T1 buff powersets. That being said, O₂ is one of the lowest value buff powers out there -- and is completely useless for solo builds.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

4 hours ago, Zepp said:

Gale can be a good power in the right build with the right player, unfortunately, it is still a low-value pick compared to other T1 buff powersets. That being said, O₂ is one of the lowest value buff powers out there -- and is completely useless for solo builds.

um nope my pets love o2 when im playing solo

[tidge]

On 12/28/2019 at 10:13 PM, MetaVileTerror said:

Web Grenade is absolutely . . . what's the kid the words use these days?  "Baller?"  -Fly and Slow should not be scoffed at.  Sure, ol' Webby's pretty heavy on the Endurance cost, but that can be compensated for without too much agony.

Gotta have another Power you could use for your example, no?

-Fly and Slow, but only AFTER a To Hit Check, to a SINGLE target, and those debuffs don't do anything to most of the opposing figures you would actually want to keep in place, especially at lower levels (for example: Warwolves, Demon Lords, or boss+). Web Grenade is pathetic. I grok that the idea is that the Mastermind ties up a single character for the pets to attack, but in practice this is not useful. I'd like to see how many slots level 50 Mastermind players assign to this a la 'flavor of the month'.

 

By contrast, the MM secondary T2 is Caltrops. This is an AoE slow that also does Damage, and is much more useful at keeping enemies where you want them for the pet attacks, and is better at grabbing initial aggro for Tankerminds.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

also the built in fear from caltops is an excellent CC

[boggo2300]

On 12/29/2019 at 8:44 AM, Saiyajinzoningen said:

im not sure whats being suggested is a powere switch and is instead a choice between 4 powers at start.....maybe?

It's already been said there will be no choosing between tier 1 and 2 secondaries, too much work as it's actually hard coded (at least for the foreseeable future), so the only option on the table is a tier 1/2 swap, which I'm not in favour of

Edited December 30, 2019 by boggo2300