/selectbuild and cooldowns on non-"build" powers

[Aeolius]

I propose that swapping between builds shouldn't set certain categories of powers on cooldown -- namely, build-agnostic ones, such as day job powers, accolades, prestige utility and prestige travel, etc.

 

From a mechanical perspective, these are powers completely incapable of being affected by anything you can change within a build, and some of them (e.g., Renewal of Light) have pretty wild cooldowns in the first place, which really hampers their availability for someone who wants to flip between, say, a combat build on one hand and a getting-around build with more room for travel powers on the other,

 

And even from a RP perspective, it seems silly for a martial artist to phone up his Team Transporter and be told, "sorry chief, you switched from Tiger to Crane style; we're gonna need a half hour to retool the Chaser."

[General Idiot]

As i understand it that's a technical limitation. The build swap isn't capable of remembering active cooldowns or of differentiating between one power or category of powers and another, it can only set everything to recharged or on cooldown for the full duration.

 

Back when there was a 15 minute cooldown on swapping builds and you had to do it at a trainer having everything recharged made sense, but once it was made available via slash command and the cooldown removed, having it recharge everything would be too abusable for free recharges of long cooldown powers. Old school perma elude, just /selectbuild every three minutes. Thus it puts everything on cooldown.

[Obus Form]

Just now, General Idiot said:

As i understand it that's a technical limitation. The build swap isn't capable of remembering active cooldowns or of differentiating between one power or category of powers and another, it can only set everything to recharged or on cooldown for the full duration.

 

Back when there was a 15 minute cooldown on swapping builds and you had to do it at a trainer having everything recharged made sense, but once it was made available via slash command and the cooldown removed, having it recharge everything would be too abusable for free recharges of long cooldown powers. Old school perma elude, just /selectbuild every three minutes. Thus it puts everything on cooldown.

This was my understanding as well when /change build was added to the game.

[SeraphimKensai]

That said I still find it uniquely amazing on my FortNight that has three distinct builds, and my BaneCrab that runs two build. I can live with the CD's as I just have to be more cognizant of when to pop secondary mutation or mission teleport, etc.

[Obus Form]

If you need to change your incarnate powers..... do so before you swap builds!  Or else you gotta wait for the cooldown.

[tidge]

On 3/26/2020 at 2:11 AM, Aeolius said:

I propose that swapping between builds shouldn't set certain categories of powers on cooldown -- namely, build-agnostic ones, such as day job powers, accolades, prestige utility and prestige travel, etc.

On the surface, this is a wonderful suggestion. Unfortunately it would almost certainly have the side-effect of bypassing cooldown timers on powers which would be abusive.

[Aeolius]

11 hours ago, tidge said:

On the surface, this is a wonderful suggestion. Unfortunately it would almost certainly have the side-effect of bypassing cooldown timers on powers which would be abusive.

i suppose that's possible, depending on implementation. i certainly didn't mean that it should auto-recharge anything; just that things not affected by build remain unaffected.

 

but yeah, if there's a deeper technical limitation at play, as General suggests (e.g., a lack of the categories I named for internal/programmatic reference purposes, or w/e), then that could be a hassle.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Aeolius