Suggestion: Remove limit of 4 Pool Power sets.

[Rathulfr]

15 hours ago, Ukase said:

My thoughts: yes please! 
My reasoning: 
Hasten/CJ/Fight/leadership/Sorcery

 

I suspect that for most players, especially ranged characters, the nut of the problem is Hasten.  Hasten is often the only power pool taken from the Speed pool in many builds.  Nobody would choose the Speed pool otherwise, except for those characters who take Super Speed or Flurry for concept reasons (there are a also a few who take SS to replace Stealth) .

 

Let's face it: Hasten is stupidly good and OP, period.  It's the poster child pool power for metagaming: most of the uber 1337 meta builds simply wouldn't exist without it.  Perma Rage.  Perma Dom.  Perma PA.  With its +70% recharge (and then on top of itself, no less), Hasten is the cornerstone of all of the builds that revolve around ridiculously over-the-top recharge.

 

I think Hasten needs to be neutered into the Fitness pool so that everyone gets a weaker, non-stacking, version of it automatically.  Or else it simply needs to be nerfed into oblivion.  If that happened, we wouldn't need more than 4 power pools, because everyone would either have all the recharge they can get without a pool, or have no additional recharge beyond Enhancements.

 

Of course, this will never happen.  Hasten is so ingrained into the metagame now, has such a long history, and is essential for so many builds, that any mention of touching it would result in a global thermonuclear meltdown the likes of which will make Chernobyl look like a Cub Scout campfire.  If Hasten ever got even the lightest of balancing passes, easily half (probably more) of the player base would evaporate faster than a drop of Everclear on a stone in the Sahara desert.  And the rest might take a few more minutes to leave.

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Rathulfr
spelilng

[Outrider_01]

13 hours ago, Sif said:

So the argument is it won't benefit min/maxed end-game builds (where the game is already too easy), so it shouldn't be done? Not everyone is as dead-set on a specific combo of pools as you suggest. The beauty of this game has been the acceptance of concept over microoptimization, allowing a much wider range of possible viable builds than is common in other games.

What you say is true, but more often you will see people with the "now manditory" build powers.  My thought was, how many powers in primary/secondary are effective for a certain combo.  Some power sets have choices that are the core of the set, others build upon having several that work in synergy to and some prim/sec are exceptional together. 

 

Hard to gimp yourself, but imagine unlimited power pool to the limit of maximum of total choices.  Now imagine you only take 2 primary/ 1 secondary; the minimum until PP are available.  I would find it to be incredibly frustrating to play with 12 power pool choices that don't work with each other.

[Sif]

26 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

Hard to gimp yourself, but imagine unlimited power pool to the limit of maximum of total choices.  Now imagine you only take 2 primary/ 1 secondary; the minimum until PP are available.  I would find it to be incredibly frustrating to play with 12 power pool choices that don't work with each other.

You can already build a character with 2 primary, 1 secondary, 20 pool powers, and 1 epic. I'm sure it'll be totally unfrustrating to play that when the powers are from 4 pools, but unplayable if spread over 5+ pools. /s

 

Personally I don't really care much one way or the other about this suggestion, I'm just curious by the curt negative responses this immediately generated (and generated the previous time I've seen it suggested). The reasoning I've seen has seemed rather... weak, considering the reaction. Standard Code Rant violations and appeals to tradition, primarily.

[EmmySky]

The reason for my negative response, which I have posted before when this topic arises, is generally ignored.

 

Do a quick search of the forums and you will find many posts complaining about how the game is too easy, teams roflstomp everything and we need more content, more difficulty.  I find two mechanics that stem the tide.  Limited slots and limited pool choices.

 

So many people go on and on about someone will build an inferior character.  So what.  Considering the overpowered nature of most characters, this isnt the problem.  To keep some semblance of difficulty, I think we, as players, must be required to use some strategy somewhere.  Limited slots and limited pools do this.  This thread isnt about slots so we'll leave that alone for now.

 

You are building a toon, do they need faster recharges (hasten) or do they need another attack (air superiority) to fill in a chain?  Do they have the endurance to run a bunch of toggles for a team (leadership) or will they mostly solo so only looks out for number one (fighting)?  There is give and take on this to purposefully limit your choices so you have to sacrifice one thing to get another.  (Same applies to slots.)  This is the nature of strategy.

 

We no longer have to rely on team strategy as much, pulling and herding and buffing/debuffing.  Already, people can build toons that are so overpowered they can solo content intended for teams or even leagues.

 

What if you could give your character hasten AND leadership AND fighting AND super jump AND air superiority?  Are you going to be happy with that, or are you going to wish for more difficult content, wondering why you ever thought the game was so fun that you had to play every day?

 

A quick word on 'required'.  I see folks post about hasten being required for most builds so it should be inherent, or squishies require tough and weave so it cuts down on what they can pick.  No.  I have a couple toons who took hasten (human form PB, anyone?), and a couple who tried out fighting or leadership, but by and large my ONLY power pool on most toons is travel.  I will usually also pick up an epic/patron pool if there isn't anything I want in primary or secondary.  No pool power is REQUIRED (now that fitness is inherent).  

 

I am usually all about more choices and you play how you want but I really believe that limiting pool choices (and slots) serves a vital purpose to the game and the players.

 

Sorry for book 😁

[tidge]

Imma no.

 

All about me: It is rare that I find myself looking for a 6th (Power + Epic/Patron) Pool choice. The only circumstances I can think of when I seriously felt frustrated would have been Mastermind builds in which I feel like skipping the Primary attacks and am tempted to dip into (even more) Power pools for (even more) play variety. There have been times of less serious frustration when I felt like I wanted "just a little more" Global Recharge/Positional Defense and longingly eyed one or more powers to mule IOs. I simply adapted my builds to live without the "moar betta" and had fun playing the character AT I chose.

 

The Homecoming team has opened up a large variety of temp powers via P2W, including boosts (including defense), travel (including Assemble the Team, 2 teleport to mission, jumping, flight, running) as well as a variety of attacks. It is possible to craft temporary bonuses (including Recharge, Recovery and Resists) using salvage. Playing the game gets temporary powers as well.

 

The Incarnate system allows 6 extra bonuses/powers, including an AoE attack and Pets.

 

Life is full of choices, I believe the Homecoming environment has given us plenty... even without considering the 1000 alternate character slots per account.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

12 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

 

I suspect that for most players, especially ranged characters, the nut of the problem is Hasten.  Hasten is often the only power pool taken from the Speed pool in many builds.  Nobody would choose the Speed pool otherwise, except for those characters who take Super Speed or Flurry for concept reasons (there are a also a few who take SS to replace Stealth) .

 

Let's face it: Hasten is stupidly good and OP, period.  It's the poster child pool power for metagaming: most of the uber 1337 meta builds simply wouldn't exist without it.  Perma Rage.  Perma Dom.  Perma PA.  With its +70% recharge (and then on top of itself, no less), Hasten is the cornerstone of all of the builds that revolve around ridiculously over-the-top recharge.

 

I think Hasten needs to be neutered into the Fitness pool so that everyone gets a weaker, non-stacking, version of it automatically.  Or else it simply needs to be nerfed into oblivion.  If that happened, we wouldn't need more than 4 power pools, because everyone would either have all the recharge they can get without a pool, or have no additional recharge beyond Enhancements.

 

Of course, this will never happen.  Hasten is so ingrained into the metagame now, has such a long history, and is essential for so many builds, that any mention of touching it would result in a global thermonuclear meltdown the likes of which will make Chernobyl look like a Cub Scout campfire.  If Hasten ever got even the lightest of balancing passes, easily half (probably more) of the player base would evaporate faster than a drop of Everclear on a stone in the Sahara desert.  And the rest might take a few more minutes to leave.

 

Agreed. This can be fixed by making hasten more costly. Ie. you cant choose it without either flurry or SS. Also those perma states can be achieved nowadays without hasten.

[Tugzug]

13 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

 

I suspect that for most players, especially ranged characters, the nut of the problem is Hasten.  Hasten is often the only power pool taken from the Speed pool in many builds.  Nobody would choose the Speed pool otherwise, except for those characters who take Super Speed or Flurry for concept reasons (there are a also a few who take SS to replace Stealth) .

 

Let's face it: Hasten is stupidly good and OP, period.  It's the poster child pool power for metagaming: most of the uber 1337 meta builds simply wouldn't exist without it.  Perma Rage.  Perma Dom.  Perma PA.  With its +70% recharge (and then on top of itself, no less), Hasten is the cornerstone of all of the builds that revolve around ridiculously over-the-top recharge.

 

I think Hasten needs to be neutered into the Fitness pool so that everyone gets a weaker, non-stacking, version of it automatically.  Or else it simply needs to be nerfed into oblivion.  If that happened, we wouldn't need more than 4 power pools, because everyone would either have all the recharge they can get without a pool, or have no additional recharge beyond Enhancements.

 

Of course, this will never happen.  Hasten is so ingrained into the metagame now, has such a long history, and is essential for so many builds, that any mention of touching it would result in a global thermonuclear meltdown the likes of which will make Chernobyl look like a Cub Scout campfire.  If Hasten ever got even the lightest of balancing passes, easily half (probably more) of the player base would evaporate faster than a drop of Everclear on a stone in the Sahara desert.  And the rest might take a few more minutes to leave.

 

I'm definitely in the camp of "give me all the pools" because I like having options, but this is pretty much the main roadblock in any build I make. I love Combat Jumping and I love Hasten, and Fighting is generally necessary to softcap defenses on non-melee. That leaves just one remaining Pool to play with, and as these new Pools get rolled out I can only look at them and decide that they're not worth sacrificing the CJ + Hasten + Fighting combo (especially if I grab Stealth or Maneuvers as 4th). 

 

I understand that it's just my own powergaming mentality that creates this problem... but nevertheless I still would love the option of more Pools. You still have the same max power total to work with so I can't see it being terribly unbalanced.

[Rathulfr]

1 hour ago, Tugzug said:

I'm definitely in the camp of "give me all the pools" because I like having options, but this is pretty much the main roadblock in any build I make. I love Combat Jumping and I love Hasten, and Fighting is generally necessary to softcap defenses on non-melee. That leaves just one remaining Pool to play with, and as these new Pools get rolled out I can only look at them and decide that they're not worth sacrificing the CJ + Hasten + Fighting combo (especially if I grab Stealth or Maneuvers as 4th). 

 

I understand that it's just my own powergaming mentality that creates this problem... but nevertheless I still would love the option of more Pools. You still have the same max power total to work with so I can't see it being terribly unbalanced.

The last time I was involved with a thread suggesting that we change Hasten, I barely made it out alive.  There were a few other survivors, but mostly it was just charred corpses as far as the eye could see.  Messing with Hasten is like messing with Social Security: it's the third-rail of CoH politics.  Touch it and you will die horribly.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Tugzug]

Honestly, if I didn't rely on Hasten for permadom, I wouldn't mind it getting nerfed or reworked somehow. But I'm not at all surprised that you had to survive that reaction considering this community's... distaste, shall we say, for nerfs or change.

[Ukase]

15 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

 

 

 

Of course, this will never happen.  Hasten is so ingrained into the metagame now, has such a long history, and is essential for so many builds, that any mention of touching it would result in a global thermonuclear meltdown the likes of which will make Chernobyl look like a Cub Scout campfire.  If Hasten ever got even the lightest of balancing passes, easily half (probably more) of the player base would evaporate faster than a drop of Everclear on a stone in the Sahara desert.  And the rest might take a few more minutes to leave.

 

Ha! I'm glad you said it would never happen, because I love CJ/SS. All but three of my 30 something level 50's have CJ/SS/FIght/Leadership or CJ/SS/Fight/Sorcery. 

I do get hasten on all my characters as it's essentially required if you want dish out as much DPS as you can. Anyone that says it's not necessary isn't doing as much dps as they could. That's a fact. There is no way around that fact, either. 

I understand that there are people who do things differently than I would..and I suppose that's fine. But, me, I like hasten. 

[JumpingSpider]

On 3/24/2020 at 12:22 PM, Sif said:

So the argument is it won't benefit min/maxed end-game builds (where the game is already too easy), so it shouldn't be done? Not everyone is as dead-set on a specific combo of pools as you suggest. The beauty of this game has been the acceptance of concept over microoptimization, allowing a much wider range of possible viable builds than is common in other games.

P2W, AE for normal rewards, and Incarnate powers are the top reasons the game is "too easy."

If people want to perma Hasten or Rage, let them.  It takes at least 3 slots to do it.  Adding the crash to Rage just punishes a set that doesn't have nearly as many high damage attacks or a chain bonus.

[Doc_Scorpion]

17 hours ago, Sif said:

I'm just curious by the curt negative responses this immediately generated (and generated the previous time I've seen it suggested). The reasoning I've seen has seemed rather... weak, considering the reaction.

And the pro-change reasons aren't equally weak?  "Making choices is hard" and "I can't be as l33t as I want!" hardly strike me as anything but weak.

 

7 hours ago, Ukase said:

Anyone that says it's not necessary isn't doing as much dps as they could.

Nobody ever claimed otherwise.  The dispute is over where "ultra maxed out" should be treated as a standard to meet, or a goal that can only be achieved through sacrifice.

[Haijinx]

8 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

The last time I was involved with a thread suggesting that we change Hasten, I barely made it out alive.  There were a few other survivors, but mostly it was just charred corpses as far as the eye could see.  Messing with Hasten is like messing with Social Security: it's the third-rail of CoH politics.  Touch it and you will die horribly.

The first rule of Suggestions and Feedback is we don't talk abut Hasten.

 

Or Rage. 

[Grouchybeast]

16 hours ago, Ukase said:

I do get hasten on all my characters as it's essentially required if you want dish out as much DPS as you can. Anyone that says it's not necessary isn't doing as much dps as they could. That's a fact. There is no way around that fact, either. 

Do you also only play the highest DPS set for each archetype?  Because if you don't, you aren't doing as much DPS as you could.

[Zepp]

Most of my builds do not take Hasten... You usually do not need it to solidify your attack chain on DPS toons.

[Rathulfr]

1 hour ago, Zepp said:

Most of my builds do not take Hasten... You usually do not need it to solidify your attack chain on DPS toons.

Same here: I've been forcing myself to play without Hasten as much as possible, and find that in most cases, I don't really need it, especially if I have enough +Recharge from IO sets.

Edited March 26, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Blackfeather]

I can't agree with just plain removing the 4 power pool limit, but I'd definitely be up for making the Origin power pools a separate group akin to the Ancillary/Epic ones. I figure that since they're mostly 'theme/flavor' powers, it shouldn't cause too much of a disruption - they don't really provide much in the way of a 'numbers benefit' (i.e. no easy always-on defence like the Flight/Leaping/Fighting pools). Allow people to pick a travel power that's outside the standard Speed/Leaping/Flying pools that better fits their character sounds fairly reasonable.

[Tugzug]

I generally don't take Hasten to complete my attack chains (I usually just grab too many attacks lol). I usually get it for 2 reasons:

1) for long-recharge buffs and nukes and whatnot to be usable more often, and

2) because there's almost always an open choice or three, and Hasten outshines any niche choice--and chances are I'm already devoting one of my 4 Pool choices to Super Speed anyways.

[Snarky]

Great minds think alike. Or the moon is full. Whatever the reason i just started a similar thread in general discussion

 

i make A LOT of brutes. Many. More than a few. Soooo. Fighting is a must. 3 left. Manuevers 99% time, so Leadership is a must.  2 left. Combat Jumping 99% time, so Leaping.  1 left. Modern builders wont even consider a build that doesnt have Hasten unless you are playing ?/willpower.  ? Being some mystical set that derives no value from recharge.  So. Super Speed.  
 

Sigh. Another build with Perma Temp Jet Pack.  which reminds me i need to do an alt with the Perma Temp Jet Pack as part of their origin. Should make an interesting writeup

 

But what (if it does not grind the game code into splinters) is the harm of more power pools.  Wasn't Diversification what the Devs wanted at one point. Go wide not deep?  
 

in the modern game with i/o builds giving more than what the entire fighting pool manuevers and combat jumping give with a side of stealth and incarnate powers slathering on powah i cannot see a logical justification for saying more power pools are a game changer. Other than “ well this is how we always done it”

 

so please look at this   Thank you

Edited March 27, 2020 by Snarky

[MrSnottyPants]

28 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Wasn't Diversification what the Devs wanted at one point. Go wide not deep?

Diversity doesn't seem to be what folks are after 😁- this is about min/maxing and getting all the powers that allow it.

 

Not saying min/maxing is bad.  I just don't see diversification as the goal here.  Even you are talking about building all your brutes on the exact same framework.

 

This is like fitness - either you agree everyone needs these powers and you make it built-in, or you decide it isn't.  

[Snarky]

I posted here after starting the topic in discussion. I was informed there was a discussion going in here

 

now i went back and read through. My opinion my point if view is that this is not so much a discussion. It doesnt really fit into an argument. Nor is it just snarky comments. It just seems everyone is unhappy with the opinions of everyone else and are expressing that. Peace out

[Vanden]

The four power pool limit really only seems like an issue for people making min/maxed builds. I'm not really in favor of removing it if the only practical effect it will have is to let players make more cookie-cutter CJ/Maneuvers/Tough/Weave/Hasten builds.

[WindDemon21]

19 minutes ago, Vanden said:

The four power pool limit really only seems like an issue for people making min/maxed builds. I'm not really in favor of removing it if the only practical effect it will have is to let players make more cookie-cutter CJ/Maneuvers/Tough/Weave/Hasten builds.

Then that's the beauty of it. Then YOU don't have to make your build cookie cutter. But that doesn't change that fact that allowing us to choose from more pools would in any way be game breaking .

[Blastit]

1 minute ago, WindDemon21 said:

Then that's the beauty of it. Then YOU don't have to make your build cookie cutter. But that doesn't change that fact that allowing us to choose from more pools would in any way be game breaking .

Maybe it isn't more gamebreaking than IO sets and incarnate powers already are but I don't think that's a good premise to start from. You can already create characters that can solo things that were meant to challenge entire teams.

[WindDemon21]

Just now, Blastit said:

Maybe it isn't more gamebreaking than IO sets and incarnate powers already are but I don't think that's a good premise to start from. You can already create characters that can solo things that were meant to challenge entire teams.

Exactly, so if you think someone doing so wants to also take recall friend, or at the most beneficial getting that one more lotg 7.5% from stealth/hover is going to break the game, you're only kidding yourself.

 

Personally, I have builds like that, and it would be nice to be able to pick up hover for purely QOL to use for hami raids instead of getting the p2w power.