What if T9 armors....were T2s?

[Menelruin]

So, crazy idea, but hear me out.

 

The idea of the T9 armors by and large is to get that burst of short-term power you need for an extra-challenging fight.  The problem is, by the time you GET your T9, you've often already gotten sustainable benefits that are nearly as good, anyway.

 

What if instead the T9 was available SUPER early on, so that when your defenses/resists suck anyway, you can still get that burst effect for a little bit, as like a taste of what you're going to grow into?  The fact that low level recharge enhancements aren't that strong, means you wouldn't be having it up very often, as a way of balancing it.

 

A level 32 SR tanker looks at Elude and likely shrugs and moves on.  That same character at level 2 would look at it as a godsend.

 

(I'm semi basing this off of another MMO I used to play, FFXI, where every class had an amazingly powerful ability from level 1 onwards, but only usable every 2 hours real time.)

 

Thoughts? 

Edited March 11, 2020 by Menelruin

[Replacement]

This is one of those suggestions I put firmly in the territory of "I would be all for this if we were making big changes and starting over."  We're far enough in, with expectations being what they are, that it's not realistic.  

 

I've mentioned it before... if we had Leagues, like Path of Exile... I would absolutely love this as a league gimmick (and fold it into the base servers if it were received well enough).

 

1 hour ago, Menelruin said:

(I'm semi basing this off of another MMO I used to play, FFXI, where every class had an amazingly powerful ability from level 1 onwards, but only usable every 2 hours real time.)

Showing your age, buddy!  They changed them to "1-hour" abilities like a decade ago. 

...Though we still call them "using my 2-hour" and we roll our eyes at anyone in the group who doesn't know what we're talking about.

[biostem]

There are already many powers one can get fairly early in there career with cooldowns that are on the long side.  Maybe if such "limit break" abilities were inherent or such, I could see them being available early on, but not in lieu of a more regularly available/useful power...

[Leo_G]

Glad to see fellow old fans of FFXI.

 

It's a bygone era of games where the content was actually difficult.  2-hour abilities were a strange but exhilarating little gem of that game that could completely turn the tides of a fight.

 

But even on a low level character, fights are too short for anything above a handful of inspirations is needed to turn the tide.  I do wish the game revolved more around conserving your power for situations that you're in dire need (I tend to play like that instinctively because it's more interesting to vary your fights rather than putting everything on auto, more or less, and running through rotations and throwing out max power as fast as possible) but that isn't this game.

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, Leo_G said:

But even on a low level character, fights are too short for anything above a handful of inspirations is needed to turn the tide.  I do wish the game revolved more around conserving your power for situations that you're in dire need (I tend to play like that instinctively because it's more interesting to vary your fights rather than putting everything on auto, more or less, and running through rotations and throwing out max power as fast as possible) but that isn't this game

On several of my lower-level characters. the 'inner inspiration' power from the P2W vendor is far more useful than many of their other abilities.  If the cooldown is too long on some powers, people, (IMO), would rather just take something that may be less effective, but more readily available...

[kelika2]

There would still be a crash and even lowbies would avoid after their first Unstoppable crash

[nihilii]

What a strange idea.

I love it.

 

41 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

There would still be a crash and even lowbies would avoid after their first Unstoppable crash

Idk, man. I'd happily crash and die to experience a level of awesomeness seldom obtained that early in the game.

[Menelruin]

1 hour ago, kelika2 said:

There would still be a crash and even lowbies would avoid after their first Unstoppable crash

Or they'd just be careful about WHEN they used it.

[Leo_G]

21 minutes ago, Menelruin said:

Or they'd just be careful about WHEN they used it.

Now that's a novel idea. Great power having great responsibility and all... Actions having consequences? 

 

.... No no no, that's just crazy talk. 

[Black Zot]

Crashes are bad game design regardless of when they become available.  You want to make T9s worth the code space they take up?  Ditch the crash.

[DSorrow]

Most likely I still wouldn't use them. I just dislike low uptime powers that drastically change the way your character behaves, and the crash associated with most T9s doesn't help at all.

[SwitchFade]

Here's the Crux of T9 armours,

 

Useless, currently. Why?

 

T1-8. What do we do to fix?

 

Nothing, armour sets are good. What should we do with T9?

 

That's the actual question. Armour sets don't need more armour. What a great opportunity to mold a very convincing case for change for us, gather data and come up with a highly convincing suggestion that has maximum ROI.

[Leo_G]

1 hour ago, DSorrow said:

Most likely I still wouldn't use them. I just dislike low uptime powers that drastically change the way your character behaves, and the crash associated with most T9s doesn't help at all.

So far, I have 3 characters that I'm slowly maturing that have that build mentality (long cooldown abilities that have moderate to drastic changes in the character's performance). They're mostly Regen characters (elec/Regen and nb/Regen) but currently working with an elec/nin blaster who is also going to utilize a few long recharging self buffs. 

 

I think that's the rub: it's nice to have sustain good performance characters, but variety is a good thing...having the choice to have that variety... But lots of folks around here are dead set on removing those options... Or at least the decent options. The last tier pool powers are more like discount knock offs you can kinda pretend are worth locking yourself out of 2 other powers for. Imaging trying to put 3 of those pool buffs in a build... 

 

tl;dr version: just because you don't favor something doesn't mean no one favors it. Somebody will like it, cherish it and make it shine. 

[Chris24601]

About the only T9 from an armor set I’ve used regularly is Willpower’s.

 

I don’t run hyper-optimized builds so only my S/L resist is anything close to capped on my scrappers. The T9 therefore adds significantly to all my resists while it’s up and it’s “crash” is effectively non-existant and needs virtually no slotting since it’s unaffected by recharge (two 50+5 resist IOs basically caps it).

 

As a result it’s an easy choice to pop just before you jump into a bigger fight to soak the alpha and other early damage and there’s no danger to you from the crash if the fight stretches past two minutes for some reason.

 

I think it’s worth remembering that of the thousands actually playing, only a much smaller number actually reads/posts to the forums and/or devotes time to building high end def/res capped builds.

 

For the many who don’t, the T9s are what give them enough mitigation to actually take the multitude of tougher EB/AVs who turn up in those level 35+ story arcs (newer content features lower level AVs more often, but the bulk are still found in the old i0/i1 “end game” arcs).

 

That said, I would not be opposed to seeing a NEW power set or two try this concept out.

 

One of the biggest disappointments in SWTOR while I was away was that they ultimately homogenized every class option down to essentially just cosmetic variations applied to the trinity roles.

 

Here we have much greater variation and there’s no reason we couldn’t have some different approaches taken for the express purpose of getting a different experience when running through the content (ex. an early access T9 might make some of the Praetorian content more palatable for example).

[Sarrate]

As things are currently designed, I think that moving T9s (especially the older ones like Unstoppable) to T2 would be problematic.

 

-- The uptime in these powers is pathetic. Unstoppable has a 180s duration and 1,000 second recharge (16.67 minutes), for an uptime of 18%. Longer recharge powers like Dull Pain (120 / 360 = 33%) already feel pretty bad at low levels. It enough to put me in "save it for when I really need it" mode.

 

-- Even though low level enhancers are weaker, you can't just lower the recharge because characters would eventually get high level enhancers. If you lowered their recharges, then you'd either have to reduce their duration, strength, or just flat out make their recharges unenhanceable. The newer powers that go this route tend to be much milder and shorter. Their real strength isn't alone, but how they compliment the rest of the set. (eg: WP + Tough on SOs is around 66% s/l res, with SoW you can hit 90% s/l res. That's a dramatic change. SoW by itself? Not as much.)

 

-- A lot of these powers have brutal crashes. Unstoppable is uniquely bad at this. Even if it never outright killed you, it's dropping you to 10% hp. That's going to take a long time to recover from, almost 4 minutes, or several inspirations, for which you have a very limited tray size for at that level. (Hmm, Rest used to have a really long recharge, but I think that's been relaxed quite a bit?)

 

-- It'd be pushing back attaining your baseline powers further. It's not too bad for the earlier powers, but when you start realizing that it would push T7 to T8, that's an extra 7 levels to wait for some set defining powers. (Brute & Scrapper Invincibility, for example.)

 

-- I was going to say you could give characters some low uptime "super power"... but (1) I don't think that melee characters really need much help and (2) that gets trickier when you start thinking about non-melee ATs.

 

 

It's an interesting thought experiment that clearly got my brain going, but at low levels, I'd just prefer to get my mainstay powers than an intermittent god mode.

[kelika2]

10 hours ago, Menelruin said:

Or they'd just be careful about WHEN they used it.

Id rather take something that will be useful all the time or at least more often than that.  which is the problem we face currently.  the crash instantly and always screws itself out of any situation.  to me t9s are just IO mules if applicable like 7.5% hp, or something or somesuch and things

---

Removing armor crashes as they did with nukes would make some of them more.. easier or willing to use.

Or complete and total revamps like turning One with the Shield to give you Block Charges when you deflect that increased the damage/targets hit of Shield Charge

or Unstoppable storing damage you do take in the form of +dmg% for X time

or Elude+others like it giving you a Thrill of Battle buff that +heals/end for every dodge

or Moment of Glory giving you +regen/end, +heal over time, +absorb over time.  think spirit ward/nature heal/time heal/another 300% regen all in one

or Strength of Will giving you X% resist to all when you take damage for X time

there are probably other ideas but i got bored typing

Edited March 12, 2020 by kelika2
---

[Leo_G]

2 hours ago, Sarrate said:

-- The uptime in these powers is pathetic. Unstoppable has a 180s duration and 1,000 second recharge (16.67 minutes), for an uptime of 18%. Longer recharge powers like Dull Pain (120 / 360 = 33%) already feel pretty bad at low levels. It enough to put me in "save it for when I really need it" mode.

I think you're missing the point though.

 

Uptime wouldn't be the reason to pick them.  Emergency Button is why you pick it up, even if you needed an emergency button every 10min but are limited to 10+ here, that at least takes care of 1 instance of needing that button vs just going to the hospital.  And if encounters are challenging enough to get your team hospital visits, that just aids in the opportunity costs of long recharge powers since travel time will be used to regroup.  And just because the power is off cooldown doesn't mean press it which further eats into uptime (uptime is really irrelevant...) 

 

Overall, the slower a team moves, the more likely you are statistically going to need an emergency button.  If your team is moving fast, likely the encounters are breezed through.  

Edited March 12, 2020 by Leo_G

[Call Me Awesome]

10 hours ago, Black Zot said:

Crashes are bad game design regardless of when they become available.  You want to make T9s worth the code space they take up?  Ditch the crash.

Agree with this 100%.  Crashing T9 armors are worthless.  Moving them to T2 doesn't suddenly make them useful, it just puts your most skippable power at T2 instead of T9 and it puts off a useful power that you could currently get at T2.  Very few armor sets actually have a useful T9... Stone, Willpower, Shield and Ice are all that come to mind right now, the rest are generally worthless.

[Black Zot]

1 hour ago, Leo_G said:

I think you're missing the point though.

 

Uptime wouldn't be the reason to pick them.  Emergency Button is why you pick it up, even if you needed an emergency button every 10min but are limited to 10+ here, that at least takes care of 1 instance of needing that button vs just going to the hospital. 

 

The problem is, an ability that effectively says "press this button to die soon" is not an emergency button.  It's a suicide button.  If T9s didn't blow up one or both of your bars, they'd be valid emergency buttons.  As-is, you're just opting to die in a later spawn instead of the current one, at best.

[Bartacus]

I would rather just see more T9s go the way of Rad Armor where the buff is less substantial but there's no crash. If that were the case, a lot of them would be more useful. 

[Leo_G]

3 hours ago, Black Zot said:

 

The problem is, an ability that effectively says "press this button to die soon" is not an emergency button.  It's a suicide button.  If T9s didn't blow up one or both of your bars, they'd be valid emergency buttons.  As-is, you're just opting to die in a later spawn instead of the current one, at best.

You can use crashing tier 9s without dying.  I'd hate to make the lrn2ply argument but...learn to play.

 

The main thing wrong with tier 9s is that with IOs, you get more sustained survivability than you'd ever get or need when tier 9s are available.

[Menelruin]

8 hours ago, Leo_G said:

You can use crashing tier 9s without dying.  I'd hate to make the lrn2ply argument but...learn to play.

 

The main thing wrong with tier 9s is that with IOs, you get more sustained survivability than you'd ever get or need when tier 9s are available.

Exactly.  Hence my suggestion of making the current T9s available BEFORE people are able to get continuous benefits that make them virtually obsolete.  You don't use the T9 just ANY time, you use it during a boss fight when you'd die WITHOUT it, so that hopefully the crash comes AFTER you win, when you have breathing room to recover.

[Bartacus]

8 hours ago, Leo_G said:

You can use crashing tier 9s without dying.  I'd hate to make the lrn2ply argument but...learn to play.

 

The main thing wrong with tier 9s is that with IOs, you get more sustained survivability than you'd ever get or need when tier 9s are available.

I mean, you can use it without dying but you still have to slow down when it crashes to wait for it to end or otherwise chug a ton of blues and retoggle. maybe i'm missing something here, but the crash is a significant debuff that most people don't want to deal with.

[Menelruin]

1 hour ago, Bartacus said:

I mean, you can use it without dying but you still have to slow down when it crashes to wait for it to end or otherwise chug a ton of blues and retoggle. maybe i'm missing something here, but the crash is a significant debuff that most people don't want to deal with.

Because the cost (the crash) isn't worth the benefit, relative to what you can achieve WITHOUT it.

 

Hypothetical comparison, that I'm not actually suggesting.  So Unstoppable isn't worth the crash, right?  Let's say it somehow magically raised your resistance CAP, so that a Tanker could have 99% resist while it was up.  It would see more use, right?  Because it would open up the ability to do things that can't easily be done WITHOUT it, thus being worth the crash in order to power through a challenging fight.  Maybe it's that tiny bit extra that lets you survive Recluse until his towers are down, or hold off Tyrant even if you get caught in the lightning.  It doesn't last long, but it doesn't HAVE to.

 

At lower levels, there would be a bigger discrepancy between what you can do with the T9 and what you can do without it, thus the relative benefit is greater, and potentially worth the cost.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Menelruin

[Replacement]

10 hours ago, Leo_G said:

You can use crashing tier 9s without dying.  I'd hate to make the lrn2ply argument but...learn to play.

 

The main thing wrong with tier 9s is that with IOs, you get more sustained survivability than you'd ever get or need when tier 9s are available.

You "can" win fights with just brawl, too. No one is enjoying doing so, though.

 

The crashes are still mostly stupid or too strong for the benefit. 

 

I still would love to play this on a server, but some adjustments would be necessary for the fun factor. Either removing crashes or lowering cooldowns (or reducing both).

 

All of this is a great thought experiment, but I think there's a deeper truth and community desire: cottage-wrecking most of the t9s that are obsolete by the sets they live on. No one wants a panic button that gives them 5% extra survivability and a crash at the end.