Suggestion: IO for making Rage overwrite instead of stack

[sutasafaia]

So I originally had a thread about turning Rage into a toggle but after a few posts and discussions this seems to be the better way to go. All the same points are valid though so seems like it may be worth a shot?

 

So I've been on the discord a lot lately, especially in the Feedback section, and there seems to be a ton of requests for single IO's that change how characters play. This is an interesting idea to me. One of the most requested ones was an IO that would turn all of a characters knockbacks into knockdowns. This ended up giving me an idea as well, why not have an IO that lets you force Rage to overwrite instead of stack?

 

1: It could allow SS to be ported to Scrappers (although I feel this may have to be a forced change to Rage on scrappers, rather than an IO, since double (or even triple) stacking Rage on scrappers is the big reason they don't have SS). We do know that power sets can be changed based on archtype so this could be possible?

2: It would allow you to have more reliability for Rage at the cost of strength. Double stacking Rage is powerful but keeping track can be a pain. I know you can set it to auto-fire but that would mean keeping track of Hasten, so one way or the other you're monitoring your timing. Giving players ease of use but sacrificing power seems like an interesting game play choice to me.

3: It would allow you to avoid the crash, again at the cost of strength. I like the idea of giving players a choice between safety/reliability vs more damage/accuracy.

 

Just thought I would (re)throw it out there with the altered suggestion.

[SwitchFade]

I believe Perma rage was an issue at some point. Without regurgitating half remembered metrics, the buff was heavily imbalanced.

[sutasafaia]

I am fairly sure that perma rage was only an issue because it overlapped and allowed you to bypass the crash at the same time as overlapping, it basically allowed you to double stack it with zero downside, providing a 160% damage buff and 40% accuracy buff that was always on without drawback. They later changed it so that you could not bypass the crash while overlapping, so you still have the damage debuff + defense loss even if you overlap. The proposed change would allow you to get perma-rage but it would not be able to overlap, it would overwrite the buff instead, allowing you to bypass the crash but not allowing you to double (and in some cases, even triple) stack the buff.

[Sniktch]

Not mechanically feasible.  IOs cannot take away parts of a power's codebase, and changing the performance from 'stack' to 'overwrite' would be exactly that.

 

Let me save you some time on creating a third iteration of this:

 

If Rage gets changed, it will NOT be by an IO, as it CANNOT be done that way.  Period.

 

Now, as to the merits of making Rage overwrite or a toggle, mechanically, that is doable - but it would be universal, and would be rather busted in sum effect.  Matt Miller AKA Positron regularly fielded this particular want, and his answer was always the same - "if we made it a toggle or no-crash, we'd have to AT LEAST quarter its effect".  Same reason why Targeting Drone for /Devices Blasters has no damage buff at all and slightly less ToHit buff than Rage.

 

To put it another way, if you want Super Strength to have Build Up as a toggle or a no-crash permaclicky by only having 3 level 25 or higher Recharge IOs, how are you going to NOT extend that benefit to every other set with Build Up?

[_NOPE_]

Not mechanically feasible.  IOs cannot take away parts of a power's codebase, and changing the performance from 'stack' to 'overwrite' would be exactly that.

 

Let me save you some time on creating a third iteration of this:

 

If Rage gets changed, it will NOT be by an IO, as it CANNOT be done that way.  Period.

FALSE. ANYTHING is possible in code, given enough time and resources devoted to making it happen. That being said, the Standard Code Rant applies, always: