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

[kenlon]

3 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Of course it's going to be a preferred pick when the majority of other pool powers are shit.  Make better pool powers.

Unless you make pool powers better than Primary/Secondary power choices, you're still going to see Hasten taken more often than the other pool powers, outside of travel. In which case you'll see Hasten taken alongside those pool picks! I firmly agree that other pool powers should be improved, but Hasten is really just that good. And there's nothing we can do about it at this point, without messing up game balance to a degree that isn't worth it.

 

3 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Hasten is taken heavily because most all other pool choices stink. 

Hasten is taken because it provides the equivalent of breaking the action economy in other games. Changing other pool powers won't affect that. 

[ShardWarrior]

9 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Hasten is taken because it provides the equivalent of breaking the action economy in other games. Changing other pool powers won't affect that. 

Is the game fundamentally more difficult or challenging without it?  Or are players going to continue to steamroll content if it were changed or even removed?

[ABlueThingy]

18 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Thats not how it works, not one single power in my plan is based off how good hasten is, except maybe my illusion rad.

 

To open up the design space make the crap powers and pools not crap anymore.

 

Again... 

 

None of that is hastens fault.

 

Not everyone has Hasten, not everyone needs Hasten. Personally I don't use it in any builds right now.  But that wasn't quite my point.

 

  It's kind of a crap power thematically imo.  It's not engaging to use in play, it's just a click with a flat +rech.  You set it on Auto and then once it's Perma you never think about it again.  Mechanically it's amazing of course.  But I don't really feel "Super speed" off this power.  You know?

 

And yes I'm talking about my personal feelings on the matter but I think enough people feel something is off about the power that it's worth while for me to at least try to articulate what I think needs done with it.

 

I think there are 3 big issues not just with Hasten but with the SS pool as a whole.  Hasten is just part of it and cannot be taken into consideration alone.

 

1. There are no good alternatives if you want to build for large amounts of +rech
2. Hasten overwhelmingly dominates the power distribution in the SS pool.
3. SS offers very little aside from Hasten, the Sci pool is now going to often be a better choice for a "Super Speedster" character.

 

 

To address the first that we need to add a few dozen more power pools that open up new thematic and mechanical styles of play.  Things like a "Undead" pool, a "Vamperism" pool, an "Icey form" pool, a "Kung Fu" pool, a "Millitary gear" pool.  If you just took a hammer to Hasten all you would do is make people mad.  I think alternatives are better.  Maybe some toggle +rech or attacks with secondary +rech effects.  Or clicks with quirks.

 

At the same time the existing SS pool should be combed over and buffed into more cohesive theme. (also all other pools should be looked at)

 

Don't just "Nerf hasten."  Update the whole SS pool.  As an example...

 

• Flurry: Lower it's animation time for every additional SS power you have.  It's the same animation just faster.  Until you're hitting someone 42 times in a second.
• Hasten: Lets say, for the sake of argument, we shave off one third of it's bonus
• Super Speed: While Hasten is going this power has no Travel Suppression and it gives you back that third of bonus we took off Hasten. Every SS pool pick gives this power  -rech/slow res
• Whirlwind: While active, if you have Flurry, it changes Flurry to have 3 charges before it goes on cool down.  If you have Hasten then Whirlwind gives you the same amount of +rech Super Speed does.(for a total of 133% more +rech then we have now)
• Burnout: Shave off a minute on it's cooldown per SS power you have. Instantly recharges Flurry. If Flurry is used in the next 10 seconds it becomes "Mach Punch" which is a high dmg ST melee attack with KD or Stun maybe.  If Whirlwind is going you get three charges of Mach Punch. Mach 1, 2, and 3 in escalating levels of dmg

 

Take some of the power out of Hasten so it can be spread to the rest of the pool so you can make a true Speedster character that could, if you wanted, focus on "Super Speed" as a viable game play alternative.  This also lets the SS pool compete with the Science pool as a true "Super speed" pool.

 

If you invested five whole ass power picks and one of your only four pool picks and whatever slotting into these powers you should absolutely be able to use them alongside or even instead of your Pri/Sec.  If you invested in the endurance to be able to run all these powers at once you SHOULD be able to feel like the Flash. Of course if you just want a chunk of +rech you can still just grab Hasten.  But someone who invested in the pool and runs Whirlwind/Super Speed will have a larger bonus(at a higher cost of picks/slots)

 

Now also go through and update the rest of the pools similarly.  Add in some more Pools with completing buffs and powers.  A "Drain" pool that lets you steal rech from enemies with a touch.  Perhaps "Berserk" pool that gives +rech as HP is lost.  Maybe a "Machine body" pool with a power to that has 3 charges of "overlock" to give you a stacking +rech at the cost of lowering max HP or a ticking DoT you can't resist.

 

So instead of Hasten being "The recharge power" Hasten can be the "The click +rech you can make perma... power."   Heck you could even give some new Pool a power that gives more +rech then Hasten without hurting SS's theme now.  Because with those changes the "Super Speed pool" stands pretty well as "THE Super Speed Pool.  It's not just "The Hasten pool" anymore.

 

[ZacKing]

11 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Hasten is taken because it provides the equivalent of breaking the action economy in other games. Changing other pool powers won't affect that. 

LMAO!  "action economy".  This isn't D&D man.  You can only ever fire off one power at a time here. 

[KelvinKole]

14 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

It makes certain long recharging power picks palatable and I am sure players in the PvP community like having powers up as often as possible.  Hasten is taken heavily because most all other pool choices stink.  Even removing it completely does not make the game any better.  People are going to steamroll content without it.

You don't take hasten in your builds, so I understand how this could be your opinion of what it does, but that is not what it really does, or atleast it doesn't do only that... 

 

It reduces recharge time of all powers and the consequence of that is what becomes important. It creates higher uptime for buffs, it removes gaps from single target and Aoe damage rotations, it encourages the spamming of nukes on every mob, and provides regular availability of life saving clicks. I don't think it's exaggerating to say it changes the pace of the entire game. 

[ABlueThingy]

1 minute ago, ZacKing said:

LMAO!  "action economy".  This isn't D&D man.  You can only ever fire off one power at a time here. 

 

Well, in D&D your actions are all taken during that 6 second round.  You break the "Action economy" if you can preform more actions during that 6 second period.  Extra bonus actions or getting to take your turn twice due to a power kind of things.

 

You could break CoH up like that too if you wanted.  Imagine a 6 second block.  How many powers can you cram in there?  Normally that's a function of recharge + Animation time.  If you get your recharge high enough then it's really just animation time gating you.

 

See also; The claws buff

 

2 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

You don't take hasten in your builds, so I understand how this could be your opinion of what it does, but that is not what it really does, or atleast it doesn't do only that... 

 

It reduces recharge time of all powers and the consequence of that is what becomes important. It creates higher uptime for buffs, it removes gaps from single target and Aoe damage rotations, it encourages the spamming of nukes on every mob, and provides regular availability of life saving clicks. I don't think it's exaggerating to say it changes the pace of the entire game. 

 

This is a really important point.  It's not just damage.  +rech also makes many builds tougher.  Because this game is "Are you taking more damage in a 6 second period then you are regenerating"  or whatever arbitrary time chunk we use.  Heals and controls both help you survive and lower the net amount of damage you taken in a given time frame. Buffs where you'd die without the buff up suddenly becoming Perma because of +rech is a massive gain.

 

+rech is a massively potent buff in this game and should be handled with more care then it has been.

 

 

[kenlon]

3 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

LMAO!  "action economy".  This isn't D&D man.  You can only ever fire off one power at a time here. 

You will note I said "the equivalent of", yes? Hasten gets you more activations of a power in a single time period than you would get otherwise, at the cost of a single power pool pick. Recharge set bonuses making it straightforward to get permahasten only exacerbates the problem, from a design perspective. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Is the game fundamentally more difficult or challenging without it?  Or are players going to continue to steamroll content if it were changed or even removed?

. . . you aren't even reading my posts, are you? 

 

Powers in CoH are balanced around three things: The effect/damage of the power, the end cost of the power, and the recharge time of the power. If one of these is too high or too low, you get an unbalanced power/powerset. (This is the issue with TW - it breaks the formulae that other melee powersets use, and is unsurprisingly, thus the hands-down top performer.)

 

Hasten lets you grab the recharge time of all your powers, regardless of AT/powersets, and yank it down significantly. The fact that we can or can't steamroll content is utterly irrelevant. A build that does not include Hasten is objectively less powerful than one that does, all other things being equal. 

 

But, again, I don't think Hasten should be nerfed, because it's been a fundamental assumption of how the game was balanced and run for too long to be changed. But just because that is the case doesn't mean we should try to claim that it's not bad design.

[ShardWarrior]

18 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

It reduces recharge time of all powers and the consequence of that is what becomes important. It creates higher uptime for buffs, it removes gaps from single target and Aoe damage rotations, it encourages the spamming of nukes on every mob, and provides regular availability of life saving clicks. I don't think it's exaggerating to say it changes the pace of the entire game. 

I understand perfectly what Hasten does.  Does reducing the effectiveness of or removing it from the game make the game fundamentally more challenging or difficult?

[ZacKing]

10 minutes ago, kenlon said:

You will note I said "the equivalent of", yes? Hasten gets you more activations of a power in a single time period than you would get otherwise, at the cost of a single power pool pick. Recharge set bonuses making it straightforward to get permahasten only exacerbates the problem, from a design perspective. 

Yeah we all know what it does man.  The question is, so what?  So you kill that EB in 30 seconds instead of 20.  People aren't making the game any better by suggesting hasten get nerfed or removed.  they're just making it more of a slog.

[Galaxy Brain]

7 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I understand perfectly what Hasten does.  Does reducing the effectiveness of or removing it from the game make the game fundamentally more challenging or difficult?

In a grand sense, yes as many powers suddenly lose access to a massive on-demand speed boost that even with a ton of IO slotting still like Hasten to be there for both offense and defense.

 

What are you trying to ask, exactly? 

[ZacKing]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

In a grand sense, yes as many powers suddenly lose access to a massive on-demand speed boost that even with a ton of IO slotting still like Hasten to be there for both offense and defense.

 

What are you trying to ask, exactly?

So what?  My tanks, brutes and scrappers still aren't going to die.  My blasters are still going to 1 shot stuff and nuke mobs.  Removing hasten has zero impact.  You're all making a mountain out of an anthill.

[kenlon]

9 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

People aren't making the game any better by suggesting hasten get nerfed or removed.  they're just making it more of a slog.

You aren't reading my posts either, apparently. Seriously. If someone was designing this game right now and came up to me with the idea for Hasten, I would tell them it was terrible. Because it is. But we are not dealing with a new, blank-slate game, but with the game as it stands.

 

Therefore, let me restate what I have put in one form or another in every post I've made in this thread, and do it loudly enough that it might get read:

HASTEN SHOULD NOT BE NERFED OR REMOVED AS IT IS BAKED INTO THE BALANCE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE GAME. THIS DOES NOT PREVENT IT FROM BEING A BAD PIECE OF GAME DESIGN AND SHOULD BE CALLED OUT AS SUCH.

 

I am, literally, on your side as to whether Hasten should be changed. *facepalm*

Edited April 27, 2020 by kenlon

[ABlueThingy]

2 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

So what?  My tanks, brutes and scrappers still aren't going to die.  My blasters are still going to 1 shot stuff and nuke mobs.  Removing hasten has zero impact.  You're all making a mountain out of an anthill.

 

Removing Hasten would have AN impact.  We can argue about how much of one but it would impact quite a lot of builds.  How easy is it to get Perma Dom without it?

[tidge]

3 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

 

Removing Hasten would have AN impact.  We can argue about how much of one but it would impact quite a lot of builds.  How easy is it to get Perma Dom without it?

Now you've done it.

[kenlon]

6 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Removing hasten has zero impact. 

You're being disingenuous here. That's like saying "increasing the recharge time on all powers by 42% would have zero impact" (if my back of the envelope math on what hasten does to recharge timers is correct). Of course it would have an impact. 

 

Would it make the game unplayable? No. Would it upset a lot of people who've been used to how things work with Hasten around? Yes. Would it mess up the balance of powersets that were created with the existence of Hasten in mind? Yes.

 

Is it worth doing? Hell no But claiming it would do nothing is ridiculous.

[ZacKing]

10 minutes ago, kenlon said:

You aren't reading my posts either, apparently. 

Yeah you're not reading mine either.  I said "people" not "you". 

[ShardWarrior]

9 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

In a grand sense, yes as many powers suddenly lose access to a massive on-demand speed boost that even with a ton of IO slotting still like Hasten to be there for both offense and defense.

 

What are you trying to ask, exactly? 

My question is fairly obvious.  How is removing Hasten making the game any more challenging or difficult?  Short answer: it is not.  From my perspective, I have characters built with enough defense that whether I defeat something in 30 or 90 seconds makes no difference to me.  Most everyone else I know is built the same, so they will not see any significant issue either.  I just do not see the need for any changes.

 

 

[ZacKing]

2 minutes ago, kenlon said:

You're being disingenuous here. That's like saying "increasing the recharge time on all powers by 42% would have zero impact" (if my back of the envelope math on what hasten does to recharge timers is correct). Of course it would have an impact. 

Are you going to die more or less without hasten?  If you're answer is more, then you're built wrong or playing wrong or both.

[kenlon]

1 minute ago, ShardWarrior said:

From my perspective, I have characters built with enough defense that whether I defeat something in 30 or 90 seconds makes no difference to me. 

So a build that can defeat an enemy in 30 seconds isn't more powerful than one that can defeat an enemy in 90? This forum needs that psyduck emote, badly. Hasten is a massive force multiplier, surely you can see this?

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, kenlon said:

So a build that can defeat an enemy in 30 seconds isn't more powerful than one that can defeat an enemy in 90? This forum needs that psyduck emote, badly. Hasten is a massive force multiplier, surely you can see this?

I did not suggest it was not.  What is being suggested is that if I how I build my characters makes it so I have little to no chance of being defeated, what is the difference in the length of time the encounter takes?  Making it take longer just makes it more boring in my opinion.  Do we really need all encounters to be a Reichsman level slog encounter?

[kenlon]

Would you agree or disagree with me that, in a clean slate game, not CoX as it stands, a power like Hasten is badly designed? 

[ABlueThingy]

Just now, kenlon said:

So a build that can defeat an enemy in 30 seconds isn't more powerful than one that can defeat an enemy in 90? This forum needs that psyduck emote, badly. Hasten is a massive force multiplier, surely you can see this?

 Yeah, exactly.  Even if you personally don't use it.  Every buffer/healer who now has a large gap in their buff up time or has to wait for a heal to cool down.  Every tank that's a little closer to dying because their defensive clicks are on a slightly longer cool down.  Every Blaster/Scrapper/etc that took a chunk right off their DPS due to slower activating power.

 

Even if you can manage to make up the gap somehow with IOs or alternitive powers/slotting.  You had to give something up.  Damage, def, etc. 

 

All of those are going to impact the game as a whole.  You may not notice it right away but if Hasten just vanished it would make the game harder.

 

 

 

 

[kenlon]

3 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

You may not notice it right away but if Hasten just vanished it would make the game harder.

 . . . for those who were using Hasten. The game is nowhere near hard enough to require Hasten, but it's undeniable that it makes a large difference in player power. 

 

When I respecced from my Inv/EM gimmick build that skipped the fighting pool (and thus didn't have slots for Hasten) to a more normal, permahasten build, there was an immediate jump in power, mostly driven by my much higher damage output. This was despite the fact that the attack powers were the same in both builds, and enhanced to similar percentages.

 

Could I tank the exact same things on both builds? Yeah. Could I solo the exact same things? No. Because the non-hasten build didn't have the damage output to take down some targets that the Hasten build does with ease.

[ABlueThingy]

18 minutes ago, kenlon said:

 . . . for those who were using Hasten. The game is nowhere near hard enough to require Hasten, but it's undeniable that it makes a large difference in player power. 

 

When I respecced from my Inv/EM gimmick build that skipped the fighting pool (and thus didn't have slots for Hasten) to a more normal, permahasten build, there was an immediate jump in power, mostly driven by my much higher damage output. This was despite the fact that the attack powers were the same in both builds, and enhanced to similar percentages.

 

Could I tank the exact same things on both builds? Yeah. Could I solo the exact same things? No. Because the non-hasten build didn't have the damage output to take down some targets that the Hasten build does with ease.

 

I'm just saying that Hasten is taken by so many people that if you up and erased it from the game there would now be slightly more situations where people would die.  Even people that didn't take Hasten.  Because they were in a team and the healer's recharge was lowered enough that they didn't have a critical heal/buff ready in time.  Or a boss didn't die fast enough and he got off an additional big strong power. A Con/Dom didn't have an AoE hold in time to stop an alpha strike.

 

Or whatever.  I'm not saying it would be HUGE but statistically it would have to kill at least a few extra and force far more to alter their strategy a little.  How big a deal this is.  Unless you only play solo and don't use Hasten... then it wouldn't impact you.  Or if you're playing in such a way where your teammate's DPS, defenses, control and heals don't impact you in a team. 

 

 

 

[kenlon]

I wasn't disagreeing with you, merely expanding on what you posted to address the inevitable "I don't use Hasten and I'm fine, therefore Hasten doesn't do anything!" replies. 

 

I'll reiterate this until doomsday: Hasten, and things like it, are bad design. But it's not worth changing something that is as baked into the fundamental balance assumptions of CoX as Hasten is.