Hasten: Make it Inherent, or get rid of it?

[Snowdaze]

2 hours ago, Solvernia said:

Literally everybody uses this power (except for a few people who refuse to out of spite/protest) because they're pretty much obligated to in order to be viable or compete with other players who do have it. This means not only one less power that everyone could be taking but also one less power pool everyone can choose from. Kind of a steep price for something so ubiquitous.

 

The last time something like this happened, it was with the Fitness power pool, and they eventually reworked that entire pool to be automatically granted to all players.

 

There's no reason to not make Hasten an inherent power. No need to change anything else about it, just automatically give it to everyone at level 2 and keep everything else as is.

Please show me Hasten on my character, this is my main, also ask anyone who has teamed with me, I more often then not outclass them! I do NOT need hasten to make myself "viable or compete" with other players.

The biggest difference that you are completely missing is that Health and Stamina were AUTO POWERS! Hasten is a "turbo" button, it's a pain in the butt to try and make perma, and if you do manage it on MOST builds a perma hasten means you had to take a hit somewhere else. Speed/recharge is great, but it simply is not the end all be all of character building.

 

Lastly a lot of people take hasten and don't run it all the time! The worst offenders are the people who take hasten and can't support the end cost of using their powers more frequently and aren't prepared for the 15 point end drop at the end of the hasten cycle. So I can say too many (not "literally everybody") don't know how to manage or use hasten!

Edited May 8, 2020 by Snowdaze
edited for grammar and punctuation, still probably missed something

[BrandX]

I just feel like the work has been shown.

[Bionic_Flea]

No, thank you.  Hasten is fine just as it is.

 

[Snowdaze]

1 hour ago, Outrider_01 said:

Medicine and Presence are not exactly a useful option outside theme and you only really need 1 travel power really.

Says who? Medicine and Presence do great things and fill holes! And I have builds that have Super Speed, Super Jump, AND Fly on them! If anything you should get all basic travel powers inherent so you can choose which one(s) to use and not be tied to their Pools!

[Lines]

Big no on this suggestion. Hasten is a very powerful choice, and the price tag of a power pick, a pool pick, a slot or two, some boosters and often your autofire power is a pretty fair exchange.

 

I often don't take it, like others because I find I often don't particularly need it.

 

I could get behind Rathulfr's proposed changes here, but I'm not in any rush to see it be changed.

[macskull]

We couldn't even let the last Hasten thread die before making another one?

[tidge]

7 minutes ago, macskull said:

We couldn't even let the last Hasten thread die before making another one?

We have achieved perma-Haten.

[kenlon]

13 hours ago, Abysmalyxia said:

I am astonished by the level of deceit in this thread.

 

 

Your troll game is weak - take more superadine. 

 

13 hours ago, Abysmalyxia said:

To put it into terms most people I believe can understand.... Hasten, just Hasten, slotted appropriately, is either as good, or better than any tier 4 alpha power. The closest that comes to it in terms of recharge is the Spiritual Core Paragon, which provides a recharge buff of 45% (while buffing stun/healing by 33%)... which does not stack fully with enhancements.

 

Hasten is a bad piece of design, and never should have been put in the game. I'll agree with you there. But it is not on the same level as the Fitness pool pre-inherent, where if you didn't take Stamina, you might as well not be playing the game, it was so vital.

 

Hasten is very, very good - too good, in fact. It's also so fundamental to the way the game has been built and balanced that removing it would require a massive rework of at least fifty percent of the powersets in the game (and I'm being insanely conservative here) to ensure they aren't hit too hard by the knock-on effects of the change.  

 

Now, the changes proposed to make it into a toggle power earlier in the thread do quite a bit to make Hasten work better in a QoL sense and could maybe cover somewhat for a slight reduction in it's effects, but that's still iffy.

[WanderingAries]

I do and don't want this. On the one hand, yes, most my alts get it, but at the same time it's still going to be my default auto-power and Most of my builds have a hard enough time using all the powers they get already. Often I'm just picking something to finish leveling to 50 TBH.

[Snowdaze]

If the current Dev's could just come out and publicly say that Hasten is too polarizing and they don't dare touch it, we could put all this nonsense to rest!

[kenlon]

Hasten is overpowered, true. It's bad design, true. It is, however, not required to make a viable character in the way that Stamina was, back in the day. Every build *should* take Hasten from a min-maxing perspective, you can still play without it just fine.

 

Therefore, there's no good reason to make it inherent.

 

4 hours ago, macskull said:

We couldn't even let the last Hasten thread die before making another one?

Some things are eternal. (Besides, I like these threads because my view on Hasten is apparently incomprehensible to plenty of people on both sides.)

Edited May 9, 2020 by kenlon

[Zepp]

I disagree about Hasten for min-maxing for DpS builds. In fact, I find that many DpS builds are better off without Hasten.

[SwitchFade]

Nerf Regen.

[Rathulfr]

Haven't seen it yet in the this thread, so here it is: /jranger.  Use the search function to find all the other threads about Hasten for supporting documentation.

The comments above were meant for the duplicate post, not this one.  Now I'll simply edit this with a brief summary of my personal opinion on the topic.

 

About half my builds take Hasten, but more often than not, it's only because I need a smidge more recharge than I can get from IO sets alone.  Hasten is way more recharge than I need, but I don't have an alternative.  This is why I originally suggested (last year) that the inherent Swift be modified to include +10-15% recharge (the functional equivalent of 1-2 LotGs).  That would allow me to remove Hasten entirely from those builds that don't really need it.

 

Of course, if we add 10-15% recharge to Swift (which everyone gets by default), then we'll need to compensate by shaving off that amount from Hasten (nerfing it from +70% to +55-60%).  Well, all anyone heard was "nerf Hasten" (never mind that I also said "buff Swift") and all hell broke loose.  I was massacred in the forums (along with @Steampunkette, who followed my post with her own variant) for daring to approach this sacred cow.

 

When this master thread came along (not the new one that's been merged with it), I suggested the following:

 

1. Add +15% recharge to Swift.
2. Nerf Hasten to +50% recharge.
3. Make Hasten a toggle that costs 0.32 end/sec. (Yay, perma-Hasten!)
4. Add the same ~2% defense to Hasten that's also in Combat Jumping and Hover.

 

This suggestion was originally made tongue-in-cheek, as it would obviously add to power creep.  However, I came to realize that it wasn't a bad idea, as it would "normalize" 3 of the 4 original power pools.  And I was surprised that it got pretty good reception by other posters.

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Reiska]

18 hours ago, Solvernia said:

It does, yeah. Especially if you're playing a powerset in the early levels that only has one 'attack' set: scrappers, tankers, brutes, sentinels, stalkers, SoAs. City of Heroes' power mechanics are already pretty janky, and Hasten does well to lubricate that jank by letting people continuously use their powers without having to sit around and do nothing every couple of seconds.

In the Homecoming era this jank is already pretty well lubricated by simply using the P2W vendor and collecting all the free temp power attacks you're allowed to have.  Between your origin power, Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, and Sands of Mu, you usually can have something vaguely close to a gapless attack chain even as low as level 2 on many ATs.

 

I don't have any actual objection to Hasten being made inherent, but other than that it shouldn't be messed with because, as has been documented in the many other threads on this issue, it would have deleterious effects on the support and control ATs that rely on long-recharge powers to perform their basic functions.

 

That being said...

17 hours ago, Greycat said:

"The last time something like this happened, it was with the Fitness power pool, and they eventually reworked that entire pool to be automatically granted to all players."  Specifically *Stamina* was taken by a majority of players (and it really was a majority at that time.) AND that required not one power (like Hasten,) but *three* to be taken (sprint/leaping/health  - two of three as a prereq.) Hasten, again, does not. It's a very low cost choice if someone wants (note, not needs) it.

Cipher hasn't posted statistics since August 2019, but at that time 88.79% of all level 50 characters had Hasten in their build.  So it's pretty close to Stamina levels of ubiquitous.  (I would probably argue that a substantial portion of those characters do not use it properly or actually benefit materially from it, though.  Plenty of sets have near-optimal attack chains that can be achieved with only modest amounts of global recharge and no requirement for Hasten., and for them, the benefit of adding it is marginal and quite possibly less than adding some other kind of utility power.)

[Abysmalyxia]

10 hours ago, kenlon said:

 

 

Your troll game is weak - take more superadine. 

 

 

Hasten is a bad piece of design, and never should have been put in the game. I'll agree with you there. But it is not on the same level as the Fitness pool pre-inherent, where if you didn't take Stamina, you might as well not be playing the game, it was so vital.

 

Hasten is very, very good - too good, in fact. It's also so fundamental to the way the game has been built and balanced that removing it would require a massive rework of at least fifty percent of the powersets in the game (and I'm being insanely conservative here) to ensure they aren't hit too hard by the knock-on effects of the change.  

 

Now, the changes proposed to make it into a toggle power earlier in the thread do quite a bit to make Hasten work better in a QoL sense and could maybe cover somewhat for a slight reduction in it's effects, but that's still iffy.

At this stage then instead of.. "making it inherent" why not reduce recharge times across the board? Because the argument is being made that people want to use their fun stuff more often. That seems like an excellent reason for the development team to reduce recharge times.

[Bionic_Flea]

Because people would still take hasten and make perma-whatever even easier to obtain.   But you keep jousting against that Hasten-monster!

 

[ABlueThingy]

It seems like maybe the issue here isn't hasten

 

Maybe the issue is that all the big long rech powers are not impactful enough to warrant their long recharges.

 

Maybe we need to go through and clean up a lot of the old power sets and decide what powers are "Situational" and what powers are "Every fight"

[tidge]

4 hours ago, Reiska said:

That being said...

Cipher hasn't posted statistics since August 2019, but at that time 88.79% of all level 50 characters had Hasten in their build.  So it's pretty close to Stamina levels of ubiquitous.  (I would probably argue that a substantial portion of those characters do not use it properly or actually benefit materially from it, though.  Plenty of sets have near-optimal attack chains that can be achieved with only modest amounts of global recharge and no requirement for Hasten., and for them, the benefit of adding it is marginal and quite possibly less than adding some other kind of utility power.)

Here is some anecdotes from my builds with Hasten. I'm adding this post to try to demonstrate that a single player can have completely different reasons for picking Hasten:

 

Several took Hasten as the level 49 pick, usually because the build 'felt complete' and +recharge is something I can't get from an inspiration (or in solo play).

 

A few took Hasten earlier in the build (usually between levels 22-35) for the 'obvious' reasons: long-recharge thematic powers (or mechanics, like Domination) are becoming available/viable and I *want* those to be available on a faster recharge. I've seen builds take Hasten much earlier (before level 10) which I don't understand from the PoV of a 'leveling build' (how much Recharge could you need before level 20?); if a build is only playing at level 50 I can understand 'odd' choices of when powers are taken.

 

I have two characters that don't quite fit the profile above, and I think each can be used to support whatever argument different corners want to make:

1.  I have a Fortunata build with lots of Global recharge but no Hasten. I could easily respec her into Hasten and shave some time off of her 'nuke' (Psychic Wail) but I'm pretty happy with her control/attack chain(s) as is and aside from some (presumably) faster mission speeds (one more 'nuke' per spawn?) and a perma-Mind Link, which she herself doesn't need for most content, here I don't feel the need for Hasten. This toon hasn't taken all four power pools either, so this would be a rather painless swap in the build. Perma-Hasten would be achieved if taken.
2. I have a Scrapper who (at level 50) dropped Provoke (taken instead of Confront, for AoE) and replaced it with Hasten. I like having toons that can help out allies, and so while I miss being able to pull mobs off of teammates I explicitly wanted this toon to maximize DPS. This meant faster build ups, faster (Global) recharge on the proc powers, faster recharge on the click defenses. Perma-Hasten is achieved.

I think that, for my two specific toons described above, adding an inherent 'Hasten' would simply make each more powerful (which as I wrote for the first, isn't necessary) and for the second, it's basically getting something for nothing (depending on the extent of the Global Recharge situation). I'm in the camp where I don't think it is necessary to make Hasten inherent. I made my choices and I'm comfortable with them. The original situation with Fitness doesn't apply because that was taking 3 power picks that could have been used to flesh out primary and secondary choices... all to get a single mechanic (more Recovery, from Stamina) that applies to all characters at every level.

Edited May 9, 2020 by tidge

[Greycat]

35 minutes ago, tidge said:

The original situation with Fitness doesn't apply because that was taking 3 power picks that could have been used to flesh out primary and secondary choices... all to get a single mechanic (more Recovery, from Stamina) that applies to all characters at every level.

I was going to point that 3 power cost out (again) but it looks like you beat me to the punch. 🙂

[tidge]

3 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I was going to point that 3 power cost out (again) but it looks like you beat me to the punch. 🙂

I think it is worth repeating 🙂

 

Many of us will recall that at launch, the level cap was 40. Burning three power picks to get Stamina (which was necessary to hang in combat) was an incredible amount of build overhead for *everybody*. Four extra powers (and all those slots!) by raising the cap to lvl 50, and saving us one pool and 3 power choices added so much to the character design and play experience. Just because many players take Hasten/Tough/Weave/Maneuvers doesn't mean we should give those powers out to everyone (pre-Incarnate, anyway!)

[SwitchFade]

Oh hey, did i already no vote this?

 

I think so.

 

But since we're Perma-Haten...

 

/Omgbbqnovote

 

Hasten ok as is.

 

Also, let's nerf energy melee.

 

And Regen. Nerf that sucker, twice.

[GM Tock]

Did a topic merge, since it's essentially the same discussion.  Carry on.

[Redlynne]

[Blastit]

Syndrome was right, tho.