Brainstorming session: How do we fix the Teleport pool?

[Menelruin]

Just throwing out whatever ideas people can come up with.  Here's a couple:

 

1:  Combine Team Teleport and Long-Range Teleport into one power, that lets you select an ally on the same map, and move both yourself and any willing allies to their location.  Like a reverse "Gather the team."

 

2:  Super Jumping and Flight both have handy slotting options for Defense IOs.  What if we make at least 1 teleport power give some tiny, trivial amount of damage resistance (perhaps due to a sheath of residual dimensional energies?), just so different IO options can be slotted in it? 

 

3:  Combine Teleport Enemy with an attack, akin to a Scorpion "GET OVER HERE!" strike.  Alternatively, just make a fast-acting teleport-attack.  Seriously, why does Jumping get a teleport-attack, and not the TELEPORTATION pool?

 

4:  Give Teleport Enemy a minor defense debuff, due to it throwing off the enemy's equilibrium and catching them off-guard.  Again, more for slotting options.

 

Any other thoughts? 

[Menelruin]

It's also notable to me that the other commonly picked travel sets have a "lesser" travel mode meant for use in combat, and a "greater" one meant for actually getting around.  Combat Jumping vs Leaping, Hover vs Flight....where's our Reposition power in TP?

[Replacement]

Big one is combining teleport foe with recall friend to make way for a melee-friendly combat teleport.

 

@Zepp for the link ups.

[AerialAssault]

1. Hell yes. I'd be 100% down for a Mission Transporter power as the final Teleport power.

 

2. With the free power slot you could get creative. My suggestion would be Jaunt, a short range, quick animating teleport that gives a small Defence buff for 5-6 seconds.

 

3. Personally I would combine Teleport Ally & Teleport Foe into one power, as we know that powers exist which have different effects depending on whether the target is friend or foe, freeing up another power slot for a Teleport Attack power.

 

4. Agreed. You could even throw in a ToHit Debuff as well if you were feeling adventurous.

[Solarverse]

We can start with reducing the cost of Teleport drastically.

[biostem]

Why should "can I use this power to mule set IOs" be a consideration when it comes to adjusting powers?

[Menelruin]

3 hours ago, biostem said:

Why should "can I use this power to mule set IOs" be a consideration when it comes to adjusting powers?

Because it's definitely a factor when people decide what pools to get?  Do you have a reason NOT to allow it in?  Right now people take Leaping and Flight for LotG, Speed for Hasten, and Sorcery for slotting in that arcane barrier power, whatever it's called.  Teleport is the only one left out in the cold.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Menelruin

[ABlueThingy]

1. Fold TP Ally and TP foe into one power that's different depending on target.  And shorten the animation time by... lets say 0.2 for every other TP power you have.

 

2. Add in Combat Teleport.  Short range, no animation, no hover effect, just a flash.  Gives small (nonstacking)+def boost.  Maybe one quarter the range of TP and 50% of the cost?  Not effective to travel with... but you could if you really wanted.  People do use CJ instead of SJ after all.

 

 3. Speed up the animation and the lockouts on regular TP a little bit for every TP power.

 

4. Make Long Range Teleport a free power you get for picking Group Teleport.  Also it offers a TP prompt to the whole team to follow you when you LRT.  ie Group LRT baseline.

 

5. Fill in LRT's slot with TP Beacon.  First cast drops a little floating mote of light pet.  If you target the mote and cast again, it switches to Safety Beacon Mode.  In Safty mode it will TP Ally you as soon as your health dips below... lets say 1/3rd.  If you cast it again targeting anything besides the mote(or targeting nothing) it orders the mote to cast TP Ally on you.  Limit is map range.  ...You could also get a little weirder with it and make it so you can cast it while targeting an ally and it will spawn where the ally is standing and bind to them.  Otherwise works the same.  So you can yoink your ally right out of the fight.  Or if you're busy, you can set to auto-yoink.

 

THERE.

 

That's what I'd want.  Give it some useful buffs and folding redundant powers in. Some good in-combat powers that work well with melee classes.  So you can have the thoughtful battlefield manipulator AND the lightning fast nightcrawler type who weaves in and out, yanks foes around.

 

TL;DR Give TP more tactical options and more strategic options.

 

Edited March 18, 2020 by ABlueThingy

[Menelruin]

1 hour ago, ABlueThingy said:

1. Fold TP Ally and TP foe into one power that's different depending on target.  And shorten the animation time by... lets say 0.2 for every other TP power you have.

 

2. Add in Combat Teleport.  Short range, no animation, no hover effect, just a flash.  Gives small (nonstacking)+def boost.  Maybe one quarter the range of TP and 50% of the cost?  Not effective to travel with... but you could if you really wanted.  People do use CJ instead of SJ after all.

 

 3. Speed up the animation and the lockouts on regular TP a little bit for every TP power.

 

4. Make Long Range Teleport a free power you get for picking Group Teleport.  Also it offers a TP prompt to the whole team to follow you when you LRT.  ie Group LRT baseline.

 

5. Fill in LRT's slot with TP Beacon.  First cast drops a little floating mote of light pet.  If you target the mote and cast again, it switches to Safety Beacon Mode.  In Safty mode it will TP Ally you as soon as your health dips below... lets say 1/3rd.  If you cast it again targeting anything besides the mote(or targeting nothing) it orders the mote to cast TP Ally on you.  Limit is map range.  ...You could also get a little weirder with it and make it so you can cast it while targeting an ally and it will spawn where the ally is standing and bind to them.  Otherwise works the same.  So you can yoink your ally right out of the fight.  Or if you're busy, you can set to auto-yoink.

 

THERE.

 

That's what I'd want.  Give it some useful buffs and folding redundant powers in. Some good in-combat powers that work well with melee classes.  So you can have the thoughtful battlefield manipulator AND the lightning fast nightcrawler type who weaves in and out, yanks foes around.

 

TL;DR Give TP more tactical options and more strategic options.

 

A whole lot of awesome in there.  And it seems like pretty much everyone can agree that TP Ally/Foe need to be rolled into one.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Menelruin

[biostem]

3 hours ago, Menelruin said:

Because it's definitely a factor when people decide what pools to get?  Do you have a reason NOT to allow it in?  Right now people take Leaping and Flight for LotG, Speed for Hasten, and Sorcery for slotting in that arcane barrier power, whatever it's called.  Teleport is the only one left out in the cold.

Those powers provided the various effects BEFORE IO set bonuses were a thing, so no, (excepting Sorcery, which has no indication that its functions were added with set bonus muling as a design consideration), adding features to a power just to facilitate muling set bonuses doesn't have a precedent.  Asking me why *not* to include such features does not answer my question;  You either proposed or support said addition, so defend your position.  I'm all for improving the teleportation set, but not in the name of further feeding the power creep. 

Edited March 19, 2020 by biostem

[Menelruin]

Basically, I'm just looking at every single factor that makes people opt for choices OTHER than Teleportation, and IOs are definitely among them.  I'm not saying that HAS to be a change made, I'm just throwing out every (non-game-breaking) idea I can think of.

[Redlynne]

This topic came up before ...

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/10252-teleportation-power-pool-rework/?do=findComment&comment=96783

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/14756-new-teleport-animations/?tab=comments#comment-156114

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/10252-teleportation-power-pool-rework/?tab=comments#comment-95542

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/10252-teleportation-power-pool-rework/?tab=comments#comment-95684

 

I'll summarize(?) things I've said before on this topic.

 

---

 

On 9/14/2019 at 11:53 PM, Redlynne said:

Now I COULD get behind a 2-for-1 power combo akin to Mystic Flight where the "main" power is Recall Friend and that for 6 seconds after you've used Recall Friend you have access to an Assemble the Team "second" power so as to bring EVERYONE in as an "alternate mode" of Recall Friend after teleporting the first friend in order to enable the "recall everyone" option.  THAT would be something I can support.  Recall Friend (single target) enables use of Recall Friends (entire team) for 6 seconds ... so first you bring one, then you bring the rest of them all at once.  Just use the existing Recall Friend animation for both powers (with the long 6 second windup animation) and call it good.

On 9/15/2019 at 9:35 AM, Redlynne said:

Making Teleport Foe be aggro-less like Wormhole just makes too much sense.  Increase the base accuracy so it doesn't MISS as much, although I'd be fine with giving Teleport Foe an Accuracy and +ToHit bonus on the power itself that suppresses upon attack or when attacked (ie. In Combat) so as to make the power more accurate when Not In Combat (and can thus be leisurely in execution).  Increasing the Teleport MAG to 2.7 so as to be able to "pull" Lieutenants of a higher Level than yourself, but still not Bosses that are higher Level than the caster feels like a decent upgrade (always hated not being able to use Teleport Foe on +1 Lieutenants due to insufficient MAG).  PvP implications for Teleport Foe would seem warranted, and a 2 second duration mez of some kind that gives the "initiative roll" to the Teleport Foe caster would seem appropriate ... for which Stun, Sleep or Confuse (pick one) would seem to be in order.  Of the three, I'm starting to think that a 2 second Sleep upon Teleport Foe, purely to give the "initiative" to the Teleport Foe caster in the follow up after the Teleport animation completes might be the best option, since Sleep can be quickly broken by incoming damage (looking at you Trip Mine stack!).

On 9/14/2019 at 11:53 PM, Redlynne said:

For Teleport itself, as a travel power, perhaps it could be inverted from how Mystic Flight works.

Mystic Flight offers a Fly power (that can be enhanced), which when engaged enables access to a Teleport (which can't be enhanced).

Do that in reverse for Teleport.

Teleport offers a Teleport (self) power that when cast will automatically toggle on a Hover (self only) sub power which will automatically toggle off within 4 seconds after use of Teleport.

 

Just for ease of explaining, let's call this (temp) Hover effect (to self only) ... Soft Landing.

So you Teleport, and upon arrival at your destination Soft Landing is automatically toggled on for 4s.

 

This arrangement would then allow you to simply edit your keybinds in the following manner.

If using W as the "go forward" keybind, the standard keybind looks like this:

W "+forward"

You could then edit that keybind on a character with the Teleport+Soft Landing pool power to make use of this modification to the movement keybind:

W "toggleoff Soft Landing$$+forward"

What this syntax would do is toggleoff the Soft Landing power automagically any time you click the W key to move.  The +forward means that while the key is held down, your PC will continue moving forwards.  What this combination then provides is a way to access the desired "Hover until cancelled by attempt to move" functionality that we've been wanting.  You could easily add the toggleoff function to ALL of a character's keybinds and have everything set up as a reference bindloadfile of modified keybinds posted in the Guides Forum for ease of use and "installation" onto any given character, making personalized edits for different keybind layouts much simpler for people to adapt and implement on their own.

 

THAT would seem to be something which is eminently doable using existing tech and game mechanics, no need for additional animations required.  By making the Hover "feature" of Teleport a "linked" secondary power that will automatically toggle off after a few seconds, but which can be toggled off directly by Player command, you "solve" a lot of the Teleport Tar problems involved in trying to make a One Size Fits All solution for everyone.

On 9/15/2019 at 9:35 AM, Redlynne said:

Team Teleport simply doesn't serve a useful purpose, especially given the levels and degrees of coordination to even attempt to make use of it (and even then, it's still nearly worthless) ... especially as a long distance "travel" power.  However, if you want to keep it as a "move the whole team" travel power functionality, particularly if done as a "on off ambush" type of opening for an attack by an entire team (or even just solo?), one thing you could do is do a copy/paste of the self only Teleport and modify the following parameters:

• AoE Sphere instead of Affects Caster
• -1 Endurance cost per teammate teleported (so the cost reflects the "load" being carried per jump) which is modified by Endurance Reduction enhancement
• Hover upon arrival functionality swapped to be 4 second Stealth on all affected teammates of 70 ft radius to prevent instant aggro upon arrival and allow for surprise attacks(!).  This effect will of course suppress upon attacking or being attacked, just like any other Stealth effects, but it carries no bonus Defense.

On 9/15/2019 at 9:35 AM, Redlynne said:

Now, if you wanted to be "friendly" you could rig up Long Range Teleport to function as a Team Teleport with a very small area (I'm thinking 10 ft radius PBAoE) so as to pull a "beam US up" to the Tram/Ferry/Transfer point in SAFE zones for more than just yourself.

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Redlynne

[MTeague]

I would like a Teleport attack similar to [Burst of Speed] in Martial Kombat (blaster secondary).  not super high damage, but not a huge cooldown, and lets you bamph around a battlefield a couple times in a row.

 

Long Range Teleport seems the most sacrificial power, given that it takes you 3 power slots to do.... the same thing that a free macro can do for you.  And while I'm aware of the thread talking about tamping down that macro, it doesn't really sound like they plan to TRULY take it away.

[Sarrate]

2 hours ago, Redlynne said:

For Teleport itself, as a travel power, perhaps it could be inverted from how Mystic Flight works.

Mystic Flight offers a Fly power (that can be enhanced), which when engaged enables access to a Teleport (which can't be enhanced).

Do that in reverse for Teleport.

Teleport offers a Teleport (self) power that when cast will automatically toggle on a Hover (self only) sub power which will automatically toggle off within 4 seconds after use of Teleport.

 

Just for ease of explaining, let's call this (temp) Hover effect (to self only) ... Soft Landing.

So you Teleport, and upon arrival at your destination Soft Landing is automatically toggled on for 4s.

I had a similar, but different idea. Have Teleport grant this (Soft Landing / Combat Teleport) toggle upon choosing it. The toggle costs 0 endurance, doesn't get detoggled, etc. When teleporting, it just checks the status of the toggle. If you're in "travel mode," you hover. If you're in "combat mode," you don't. It's simple, easy to understand, and doesn't require a suite of binds to really benefit from it.

 

(There could be multiple toggles, too. Perhaps even an "Adaptive Teleport" that behaves switches between combat and travel mode depending on whether you've attacked / been attacked recently.)

[Zepp]

12 hours ago, Replacement said:

Big one is combining teleport foe with recall friend to make way for a melee-friendly combat teleport.

 

@Zepp for the link ups.

Thanks for the call-out.

The most thorough discussion on this pool is here:

and the suggestions are curated and compiled in this post:

On 9/21/2019 at 11:45 PM, Zepp said:

Alright, I went through the thread and am trying to get some of the best ideas for the rework:

T₁; Recall: Can target enemy (range 200) or friend (range 20,000), brings target to caster, never causes aggro. Cast time around 3s (no interrupt) and recharge around 4s. [Cast time and Recharge needs more discourse]

On 9/21/2019 at 1:08 AM, Replacement said:

I agree with whoever said to combine recall friend and teleport foe into one power with a fast cast time (same as regular teleport) and a low cooldown. 

 

If no one said that, then I did.

T₂: Tactical Teleport: Short range 30' Teleport with a 30s unstackable defense buff (similar level to combat jumping) and Teleport resistance.

On 9/15/2019 at 12:39 PM, Zepp said:

There have been several types of ideas that have come up over the years. One is a simple short-range TP with minimal animation time, short range, and low endurance cost. There is also the possibility of adding a 15-30s non-stacking defensive buff to the power to give it similar stats to combat jumping. A different way to approach this would be to not have a TP power per se, but a displacement toggle. This would mean that you are constantly teleporting and thus making yourself more difficult to hit. This would include a minor universal movement bonus, but it would not give you the Nightcrawler feel.

T₃: Teleport: 3-5 endurance per TP, 6s hover after TP cancelled by movement.

On 9/13/2019 at 8:10 PM, GM Sijin said:

Counter suggestion (though probably much more difficult to implement):

Teleport grants you ~6 seconds of hover after the teleport. However, if you activate any movement it's cancelled immediately.

T₄: Long-Range Teleport: Basically no change.

T₅: Teleport Assault: Chain attack.

On 9/16/2019 at 12:56 PM, Cooltastic said:

NEW POWER: Teleport Assault: This is a PBAoE attack. No target needed. This ability both phases you out(while immobilizing you) for the duration while damaging up to 10 Foes in a Large Area around you. It has a long cooldown(Maybe 2mins) and a duration of about 3.5 seconds. The FX would be a normal teleport FX around your character while your character vanishes completely until reappearing in the same spot. Effected Enemies will be hit with large puffs of teleport smoke FX repeatedly for the duration, they just need to be sporadic in nature to make it look as if your teleporting around to each one.

 

I think this sounds reasonable, and it allows people to continue to have access to all current powers with the same current requirements. It also addresses both the need for a defensive and more clearly offensive power. It is not overpowered, but each power could be reasonably desirable.

As always, I'm open for discussion about these ideas, but I would definitely be happy if something like this was the end result of the rework.

I would, however, like to add a suggestion to LRTP: using this power creates a pseudo-pet for 10s; allies who interact with the pseudo-pet can follow you to the targeted zone.

[Menelruin]

I love the idea of moving automatically turning off the Hover from Teleport, it would make it feel MUCH more fluid. 

[AgentForest]

On 3/18/2020 at 1:28 PM, Menelruin said:

It's also notable to me that the other commonly picked travel sets have a "lesser" travel mode meant for use in combat, and a "greater" one meant for actually getting around.  Combat Jumping vs Leaping, Hover vs Flight....where's our Reposition power in TP?

If there was a weaker move called "Warp" that's very fast cast time, short range, and lower cost, and provides a minor regen buff or something upon warping, so you can jump around a battlefield, that would be neat.  The only problem with balancing that would be PvP.  This was just an idea off the top of my head.  Perhaps make it so it builds up stacks, and each Warp cast increases the cooldown of the next one, so if you use it too many times in a row, you end up unable to use it when you need it, forcing you to be more careful with it.  Attacking enemies eats up the stacks so you can Warp again.

[Menelruin]

1 minute ago, AgentForest said:

If there was a weaker move called "Warp" that's very fast cast time, short range, and lower cost, and provides a minor regen buff or something upon warping, so you can jump around a battlefield, that would be neat.  The only problem with balancing that would be PvP.  This was just an idea off the top of my head.  Perhaps make it so it builds up stacks, and each Warp cast increases the cooldown of the next one, so if you use it too many times in a row, you end up unable to use it when you need it, forcing you to be more careful with it.  Attacking enemies eats up the stacks so you can Warp again.

Reminds me of Kassadin in LoL, who has a teleport-attack move that he can use rapid fire...but every time he does it in rapid succession, DOUBLES the mana cost.....

[AgentForest]

It would be nice if Teleport pool came with an attack like the other travel pools.  Honestly, I had an idea back before the shutdown that they could make all of the travel pool attacks have a repositioning effect.

Air Superiority should let you knock the enemy from the sky, but zip past them a short distance (like overshooting them and hitting them as you pass).  The attack for the Speed pool could be to dash into melee, hit the enemy, and dash back, essentially a ranged move scaling off of your melee attack scale.  Jump Kick could activate at range, but send you flying into melee when cast.  Teleport Foe could easily be the opposite of Jump Kick in this scenario, dragging the enemy into melee range and hitting them when they arrive.

[AgentForest]

10 minutes ago, Menelruin said:

Reminds me of Kassadin in LoL

That's kinda where I got the idea, lol.  In PvE only content, this sort of issue doesn't really come up much, but the moment you have someone always popping out of melee range in PvP, you've broken the game, lol.  There always needs to be a check on mobility moves in a PvP environment.

[PartyKake]

If you want to combine teleport ally and foe together, you might also add a teleport attack that teleports enemies high into the air, and makes them fall.

If you have any locational hazards like trip mines around, they should fall on those as well.

 

I always wondered why that kind of attack wasn't in the game to begin with.

 

There'd even be enemy groups resistant to it - because they fly.

Edited March 24, 2020 by PartyKake

[Tugzug]

A simple change that I believe is easily possible is to make the Teleport power come double-packaged with the "hover" effect the current version has, that you could just toggle on for chain-teleporting but leave off for more fluid single ports. Also, maybe shorten the animation time? These changes alone would make one power useful in combat without sacrificing it's long distance travel.

 

I dunno about the rest of the pool, I feel like a big overhaul would be needed.