Energy Melee - Does not need

[Infinitum]

22 minutes ago, Troo said:

What does increasing aoe instead of reverting Energy Transfer have to do with anything? Make everything the same?

Again....

 

Take AOE out of your equation.

 

If EM is made to feel the same and perform better than pre nerf EM ST but it achieves it through a mechanic.

 

You wouldnt want that just because of a mechanic?

[Troo]

Is the mechanic full time Energy Transfer or part time?

 

I could be incorrect but my impression is that a mechanic would be part time.

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Troo

[Lines]

3 minutes ago, Troo said:

Is the mechanic full time Energy Transfer or part time?

Just for clarity, are you asking about animation time here?

[Troo]

Sort of.

 

With the proposal; Does Energy Transfer work with pre-nerf efficiency with or without the proposed mechanic?

If it solves Energy Transfer only some of the time or potentially less than half the time.. well that's just pushing the issue around.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Troo

[Infinitum]

23 minutes ago, Troo said:

Is the mechanic full time Energy Transfer or part time?

 

I could be incorrect but my impression is that a mechanic would be part time.

 

My question is what if the mechanic however it worked increased EM to greater performance than pre nerf regardless if it were full time or part time.

 

I'm just trying to figure out if you are anti mechanic or anti gimmick EM

 

Cause my scenario is not a gimmick if it would do that.

[Troo]

If it is just part of the time, no thanks. Folks would rather take what-it-did OVER something janky that does more damage sometimes.

[Troo]

I'm not trying to be difficult.

It just seems to me that something is being pushed that a good number of people don't want.

 

In response proponents of a rework are trying to negotiate a "see it does both what you and what we want" which under examination just isn't true.

 

While it may not be "if a player does x, y, z perfectly they'll get what they want from time to time" it doesn't sound like it will work as intended or as it currently does. We're talking a completely different third option. Even if it is AWESOME something that diverges greatly should just be a new set. Folks have characters and builds already using the power set. Folks have been hoping a quick reversion might be possible.

 

Revert Energy Transfer..

..and then if there are other tweaks that work on top of that without being an over correction. That might be palatable. 

 

Holding any improvement to Energy Transfer hostage when the solution is quick and simple is just not cool.

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Troo

[Infinitum]

14 minutes ago, Troo said:

Holding any improvement to Energy Transfer hostage when the solution is quick and simple is just not cool.

Isnt that what you are doing?

[Infinitum]

34 minutes ago, Troo said:

If it is just part of the time, no thanks. Folks would rather take what-it-did OVER something janky that does more damage sometimes.

Better performance than pre nerf is not janky.

 

That means that scenario is light years better than what we currently have at the moment.

[siolfir]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Which gimmick sets have you played?

Pre-shutdown, just going with the highest level achieved and only going through melee sets:

• Dual Blades to 50 (Stalker; played Brute + Scrapper versions to lower levels)
• Street Justice to 38 (Stalker, for CU crits; I also had a Brute but stopped in the 20s)

On Homecoming:

• Rad Melee to 50 (Brute, on test with a Stalker)
• Psi Melee to 50 (Stalker)
• Titan Weapons at 35 and 50 (Scrapper on test using insta-leveling, thus "at" vs "to")

At some point I've played every melee set to at least the mid-20s except for Battle Axe, Katana, Savage, and Staff; I haven't played those sets at all, and only played "Claws" to 50 as a Widow, having stalled out in the early 30s on a Brute and Scrapper on live.

 

Include Blast sets and you've got Water Blast (here and pre-shutdown), Beam Rifle (pre-shutdown to mid-30s), and Dual Pistols (to 50 twice pre-shutdown on Blaster + Corruptor: Swap Ammo counts, right?); plus the fast-snipe changes on Homecoming mean that you can add Dark Blast, Fire Blast, Dark Assault, and Fiery Assault (I didn't have a build that would get unassisted fast snipes before).

 

Long story short - I've tried almost all of them. That doesn't make me like the gimmicks; in many cases it was "let's try the new shiny to see how I feel about it." And I'm not the only one who doesn't like gimmicks for gimmicks' sake: the effect of Static in Electrical Affinity was reduced dramatically from what it was based on player feedback while it was on test to make the set a more consistent performer that relied less on an internal gimmick.

 

Up-and-down performance is debated for sets like Super Strength (stacked Rage vs double crashes, is it worth it?), for ATs like Dominators (Domination vs not), or using crashing armor tier 9s instead of building for reliable performance through IO sets. Titan Weapons is slow without Momentum but even then it's still comparable in damage to other sets (seriously, the animations aren't that much slower than Rad Melee's single target chain) and it's such a noted outlier with Momentum that a lot of people put up with it (again, I'm not one of them), but for the most part people build and play to remove these variations from the game.

 

But you don't even need to try a specific set for a "gimmick", since they exist all over the place: just look at the redside inherents. Brutes chase Fury as a minigame (and that variable performance has been changed repeatedly to make it more consistent), Stalkers get some control over their critical hits and have Assassin's Focus, and Corruptors can try to manipulate their attack chains to get Scourge to fire easier, usually with mixed results. Those "bland, boring, just do damage" sets gain those gimmicks for those ATs.

[Infinitum]

21 minutes ago, Troo said:

Revert Energy Transfer..

..and then if there are other tweaks that work on top of that without being an over correction. That might be palatable. 

One power does not a set make.

 

If thats all it got EM would still be outclassed and borderline unplayable as it is now.

[siolfir]

Just now, Infinitum said:

One power does not a set make.

 

If thats all it got EM would still be outclassed and borderline unplayable as it is now.

Rage.

 

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Rage.

 

Not even then, you still need haymaker footstomp and ko blow to be viable.

 

It is a pivotal power, but suppose EM got a mechanic that was just as powerful and pivotal as rage - made it the ST king again by a country mile and even better than before nerf.

 

You would gripe that down?

[siolfir]

5 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Not even then, you still need haymaker footstomp and ko blow to be viable.

 

It is a pivotal power, but suppose EM got a mechanic that was just as powerful and pivotal as rage - made it the ST king again by a country mile and even better than before nerf.

 

You would gripe that down?

Haymaker is standard and unremarkable beyond having an 8 second recharge where many of the newer sets used 3/5/7 instead of 4/8/20; Knockout Blow has a recharge 5 seconds too long for the power it is. I'll grant you that Footstomp is good, mostly for the radius because otherwise Frozen Aura is better, but it wouldn't be nearly as good without the consistent damage boost from Rage. If you're playing SS it's for theme or for Rage. If you were playing Energy Melee it used to be for theme or for Energy Transfer. Now it's just theme.

 

As for stating that the mechanic would make EM the ST king "by a country mile," I feel it's an overpromise, underdeliver sort of statement. I also feel that it's overcomplicating things, and that what I want is a fast, punch-based set with smash/energy types, which uses the harder-hitting base recharges (4/8/(12) vs 3/5/7), and that doesn't sound like a car door slamming (I did play KM to 50 on Infinity but just couldn't do it again here).

 

Reverting the ET changes by itself would boost EM's standing in single target rankings; correcting Whirling Hands to either a larger AoE (a 14 second recharge, scale 1 PBAoE should have a 10.6667' radius) or more damage (at 8' it should do scale 1.1818 damage) would help with the AoE and force the power to follow the design formulas; if you wanted to be nice, updating Total Focus to use the Dominator animation would be another boost to the single target damage, and none of those require code changes for a new mechanic while still providing a boost in performance.

 

Replacing Stun with something not godawful is fine, too, but I'd still probably skip whatever it got replaced with; at least as it is it's an obvious "you don't need this" power.

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, siolfir said:

As for stating that the mechanic would make EM the ST king "by a country mile," I feel it's an overpromise, underdeliver sort of statement. I also feel that it's overcomplicating things, and that what I want is a fast, punch-based set with smash/energy types, which uses the harder-hitting base recharges (4/8/(12) vs 3/5/7), and that doesn't sound like a car door slamming (I did play KM to 50 on Infinity but just couldn't do it again here).

You are taking the what if out of my what if though.  

 

The What if is what if it can do that.

[siolfir]

Just now, Infinitum said:

You are taking the what if out of my what if though.  

 

The What if is what if it can do that.

The answer is still "it depends;" you haven't explained what the mechanic is, and any mechanic is development time taken away from other features and/or bug fixes. Relative performance between sets is not the end-all-be-all of what I'm looking for.

 

Is the longest animation in my attack chain going to be 1.5 seconds or less, while still watching significant chunks of my opponents hit points disappear and not suffering penalties for needing to switch targets when one dies? Then probably. Will the mechanic force me to build up to dealing that much damage and so only apply to AV class enemies and above? Then no, don't want it, carry on.

 

I hope my previous posts are clear that I'm not anti-gimmick as "no gimmicks ever" as much as anti-gimmick here in terms of "why add extra complexity when a non-gimmick solution will meet my expectations much easier without additional complications or tricks," and that I'd like consistent performance out of the set which some unexplained mythical mechanic purports to but hasn't demonstrated or explained.

[Infinitum]

9 minutes ago, siolfir said:

The answer is still "it depends;" you haven't explained what the mechanic is, and any mechanic is development time taken away from other features and/or bug fixes. Relative performance between sets is not the end-all-be-all of what I'm looking for.

Any time spent is their time to spend, and if its important to them to do that for us on a freelance basis, I wouldnt look at any usage of their time as a waste.

 

I'm not a game designer, im saying if they added a mechanic, if this mechanic they added - if it increased performance of the set to greater than pre nerf - however the mechanic worked even if it were to pull down the enemies pants and whack their hiney - it would be worth it to me if the performance factor was there.

 

For me EM doesn't necessarily have to be reverted for me to feel better about it.

 

Furthermore I dont think that would even work well from a game spanning scope as it is currently.

 

It may have an initial spike in play, but I think it would end up being a flash in the pan for nostalgia purposes because it wouldn't be optimal making it revolve around one attack IMO.

Edited September 19, 2020 by Infinitum

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

Better performance than pre nerf is not janky.

Do you know the proposal is better or speculating?

If you know let talks details.

 

FYI

Janky is a common word in technology, gaming circles, and media, too. When a new app, device, game, or movie premieres and doesn't live up to high-performing expectations, critics use janky as a synonym for glitchy or buggy to describe it.

 

Energy Assault currently fits that description

 

Asking for Energy Transfer to get reverted holds nothing hostage.

 

sorry made edits and got sniped by your reply.

Edited September 19, 2020 by Troo

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Troo said:

Do you know the proposal is better or speculating? If you know let talks details.

No I'm selling only what ifs and hopes at the moment.

[siolfir]

40 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

It may have an initial spike in play, but I think it would end up being a flash in the pan for nostalgia purposes because it wouldn't be optimal making it revolve around one attack IMO.

You mean like the entire Stalker AT?

[Infinitum]

12 minutes ago, siolfir said:

You mean like the entire Stalker AT?

You think Stalkers are a flash in the pan?

[Troo]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

One power does not a set make.

 

If thats all it got EM would still be outclassed and borderline unplayable as it is now.

Take one power away from many sets and it's a big deal.

 

If Energy Transfer was reverted. It becomes my main for two archetypes and I would try it on others and in combination with lots of the new pairings. Something doesn't have to be the best for it to be fun.

 

AT LEAST WE WOULDN'T BE HITTING CORPSES. If a janky new mechanic still results in Energy Transfer hitting corpses after a long animation, even some of the time, that's not fixed.

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Troo

[Super Atom]

28 minutes ago, siolfir said:

You mean like the entire Stalker AT?

Yikes. Thinking this of stalkers just big yikes. Also the mechanic does exist and won't take dev time. It's the energy assault gimmick you can play right now. 

 

2 hours ago, siolfir said:

Rage.

 

Is a good example of things that need reworked yes.

 

@Troo you keep using imaginary people to support your dislike of a change that you haven't played. The tiny vocal minority on both forums and discord is not a defining point for or against any one side. More people spoke in support of em changes on disc then there are people in this topic combined. So if we go just off vocal minority you wouldn't like it. Time and data will have to speak for itself.

 

 

Still away replies will be spaced.

 

[siolfir]

36 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

You think Stalkers are a flash in the pan?

No, I think that a great deal of the performance of the AT as a whole is reliant on one power in their primary, though. Where were they at for damage before the Assassin's Focus changes?

 

For what it's worth, I responded in the EM weekly discussion thread to a proposal that would boost the damage on Barrage and Bone Smasher, effectively making Energy Punch the lowest DPA power in the set (edit: barring Stun, which nobody in their right mind takes as a damage power). Some of the ideas I liked, but I would want a different, preferably faster, animation for ET than they proposed (1.8 seconds matches Stun, and I just don't like that animation for a melee attack - it's a throw, it looks like a throw, why try to force it in as a punch). Hell, use Smashing Blow's animation (1.2 seconds, 1.23 second hit time) with a different sound effect if 1 second is just too fast, it has a short gathering and double-handed torso strike that would work well - it would give a DPA of 3.14/sec, and the other changes would give Barrage 1.035/sec, Bone Smasher 1.142/sec, and Total Focus 1.284/sec. For comparison, that's the same for Barrage and Bone Smasher as Chop and Gash in Battle Axe, only it would have Energy Punch instead of Beheader and wouldn't use a weapon. Energy Transfer is currently at 1.5702/sec, so it would double using that animation: this puts it ahead of Titan Weapons' Rend Armor (2.2121/sec with Momentum), which is ahead of Seismic Smash (2.0746/sec), Follow Through (2.0428/sec, requires Momentum), and Clobber (2.011/sec). The old one second version was scale 3.838/sec.

 

Part of that proposal used a gimmick/mechanic for AoE splash on hitting a corpse, which I disagree with because a) with the other changes I feel as though the single target performance boost would be enough that it's not needed, and b) corpse blasting is currently bad for EM because of the long animations, but part of the proposal was reducing both of the long animations, and if that happens it's no worse than other sets, because its animations wouldn't be significantly longer than the others: at that point Kinetic Melee would need it on CS more than EM.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by siolfir
reason included in-line

[siolfir]

8 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

More people spoke in support of em changes on disc then there are people in this topic combined.

How many of them played the old Energy Melee? How many of them know nothing other than the current version and want anything else?