Focused Feedback: Teleportation Pool Revamp

[naraganeun]

3 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

TP protection is used to prevent us TPing things we shouldn’t be able to, like Mission Objectives for example. The fix isn’t as easy as we’d like, apparently.

That sounds messy alright. No wonder some things have 1000000000% resist to XXXX, just to resist something like a mag 2 hold 😹

[Myrmidon]

The Gaussian’s Proc is now working with Combat Teleport.

[DoctorDitko]

You folks are certainly putting in the work on these changes. Thanks!

[Myrmidon]

7 minutes ago, DoctorDitko said:

You folks are certainly putting in the work on these changes. Thanks!

Time is my ally, Steve.

[DoctorDitko]

15 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Time is my ally, Steve.

Good on you!

Time seriously seems to hate my sorry self!

[...]

I've come around to combat teleport much more. For the right character it's pretty amazing and stands on its own with out defense slotting.

 

Please make it usable in nova and dwarf forms though. In nova for setting up cones from eclipse, mire, mire, and in dwarf because that damn floating is so, so annoying. 

 

Your red headed step children feel neglected. Don't leave us behind.

[Rodion]

It looks like Brutes and Tankers have the same number of targets with Fold Space (both are 16 when I look at the info in the game). For powers such as Proton Sweep Tankers can hit more targets (10) than Brutes (5).

 

When tankers take Fold Space should it have an increased number of targets?

[Burnt Umber]

I've been playing with the changes to teleport with my Warshade's equivalents, and for the most part, I really like the changes.

 

My impressions are as follows:

• Inherent / Umbral Aura > Shadow Recall
  • Frankly, I'm not really a fan of this power.
  • I don't think the "Teleport Foe" part of the power works very well because it alerts nearby enemies when used on a individual (even outside line of sight) and because the interrupt time prevents it from being useful during combat to grab runners or enemies staying at range.  And so, I will probably treat this power exclusively as "Recall Friend" for the foreseeable future.
  • On my characters who will have the pool power version of this, I may in fact respec out of it entirely since those characters mostly took it as a stop-gap for Assemble the Team during its cooldown or as a niche power to complement a rez/Vengeance.
• Umbral Blast > Starless Step
  • I really enjoy this/"Combat Teleport."  Although I kind of wish that this power gave +Def rather than +ToHit, I think I can live with it as it is now, especially if it works a place to put the Gaussian's Build-up Proc.
  • On my Warshade, it gives a quick follow-up to Grav. Emanation to get him into melee range for his PBAoE powers.  On my other characters, it works wonders a way for my stalkers or controllers to jump into melee range before using their openers, and I'm debating swapping out normal Teleport for this on my Stone Armor tank to lessen the pain of Rooted/Granite.
  • That said, I have something of a problem with this power specific to Warshades.  I wish that this power were the inherent rather than Shadow Recall.  Such a change would bring it inline with Peacebringers getting a hover equivalent as an inherent, and given my above gripe with Shadow Recall, doesn't force me to have a less desirable power.
• Umbral Aura > Shadow Slip
  • This power is absolutely phenomenal.  It let's me gather up a host of nearby foes for my Warshade to fuel his Mire-Eclipse-Quasar combo.  My only wish would be for it to have a slightly shorter cooldown, but it's so good as is, that I'd rather not sacrifice anything to get that reduced recharge.
  • I wish I could fit this power into more of my other melee builds but I don't see many ways to make the power sacrifices to get there, which I think does a good job of indirectly balancing this power - it's great for those who can squeeze it into their builds but that takes enough effort that I don't think were going to suddenly have teams competing to use/chaining "Fold Space."

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Vigilant Vergil

[Wavicle]

I apologize profusely if I already posted this somewhere.

This update, while awesome, has exacerbated the disparity between Warshades and Peacebringers.

Although, regarding Combat Teleport, it really does seem like BOTH Dwarves should be able to use that.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Wavicle

[Jacke]

12 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

This update, while awesome, has exacerbated the disparity between Warshades and Peacebringers.

How do you think it is on Homecoming, both with i26 and now i27?

 

I've yet to recreate my pre-2012 Peacebringer and Warshade on Homecoming.  But as far as I could determine, Peacebringers still tend to a tanky toon more suited to a human build.  While Warshades are better at a tri-form synergy (like the famous MF'in Warshade build).  Though they both could do well with other builds too.  Wasn't sure about the relative strengths.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Jacke said:

How do you think it is on Homecoming, both with i26 and now i27?

 

I've yet to recreate my pre-2012 Peacebringer and Warshade on Homecoming.  But as far as I could determine, Peacebringers still tend to a tanky toon more suited to a human build.  While Warshades are better at a tri-form synergy (like the famous MF'in Warshade build).  Though they both could do well with other builds too.  Wasn't sure about the relative strengths.

Personally I love both on HC and I play both as Tri form. Changes to the PB made the human only thing not so true anymore. I don’t think the disparity is as great as some make it out to be, but it’s there. The changes in beta give warshades even more toys and tools than before. It’s not a huge difference though, I don’t want to overstate it.

[Vanden]

5 hours ago, Vigilant Vergil said:

I don't think the "Teleport Foe" part of the power works very well because it alerts nearby enemies when used on a individual (even outside line of sight) and because the interrupt time prevents it from being useful during combat to grab runners or enemies staying at range.  And so, I will probably treat this power exclusively as "Recall Friend" for the foreseeable future.

Well that's just Teleport Foe in a nutshell, innit

[Wavicle]

Yea that’s no different on beta than live.

[Jacke]

11 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Well that's just Teleport Foe in a nutshell, innit

 

10 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Yea that’s no different on beta than live.

 

I can't remember, what's the effect if you attack at range or melee a mob in a similar out-of-sight situation?  (Out-of-sight of the caster?  The mob's friends?)  I think in all cases, the other mobs are alerted, which means they have their special power of knowing roughly where the player is and then pursue and attack.  If Teleport Target acts the same, then that makes sense.

 

As to having an interrupt time and its size, that needs testing, perhaps even beyond what can be done on beta.  As I have several toons with Recall Friend, I'll be sure to see how Teleport Target works when this goes to release.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Jacke

[Wavicle]

As an Energy Manipulation Blaster with Boost Range and Range slotted in Teleport I am finding that I still get "Teleported in Place" fairly frequently, when trying to TP long distances among buildings. Probably not much can be done, but it is definitely still an issue.

[Troo]

 

Having Pocket D in the LRT: means changing alignment and then wanting to use LRT to get to a zone is a no go or 10 min wait.

 

Am I missing something?

[Wavicle]

9 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

Having Pocket D in the LRT: means changing alignment and then wanting to use LRT to get to a zone is a no go or 10 min wait.

 

Am I missing something?

I don’t understand what you mean. Are you saying switching alignments causes a problem with the LRTP?

 

edit: oh I get it. Yes, if you use LRTP to get to pocket d to change alignment then you either need to use the base portal or wait or leave normally or use some other teleport.

 

 Since there’s a base portal right there it doesn’t seem like a big issue.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Wavicle

[Jacke]

On 11/13/2020 at 12:35 PM, Jimmy said:

Pool Powerset Revamp: Teleportation

 

Power Changes

•  Teleport Target (Replaces Recall Friend)
  • Now combines the functionality of Recall Friend and Teleport Foe
  • If you previously had Recall Friend, you'll now have Teleport Target

....

 

Warshades

•  Inherent / Umbral Aura > Shadow Recall
  • Now functions the same as Teleport Target, and has a new icon to match (previously this power mirrored Recall Friend)

 

Really trivial point: the icon for Teleport Target is new.  These are the old Recall Friend icons.

 

But this did lead to me creating two toons on Beta to check out the actual icons.  And thus a bug report and a suggestion.

 

 

EDIT: Well, I post that bug report in the wrong subforum.  Just reported it asking for the post to be moved.

 

 

I do think the name Shadow Fold is a better one for the Warshade equivalent of Fold Space, rather that the current Shadow Slip.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Jacke

[Jacke]

15 hours ago, Wavicle said:

As an Energy Manipulation Blaster with Boost Range and Range slotted in Teleport I am finding that I still get "Teleported in Place" fairly frequently, when trying to TP long distances among buildings. Probably not much can be done, but it is definitely still an issue.

I get something like that on i26 and before using the teleport feature of Mystic Flight too.  I use a click bind for it in my bind file:

 

LSHIFT+LBUTTON  "powexecname Translocation$$powexecname Teleport$$powexecname Shadow Step$$powexecname Nictus Shadow Step"

 

As I'm teleporting click after click, sometimes it's as if a click triggers a new teleport but didn't get that it was to a new distance spot but to the location of the last click, which is where I'm currently hovering.  My character faces to the side, and teleports, but barely moves.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Jacke

[Jacke]

Just figured out I posted that Warshade teleport powers icons bug report in the wrong subforum.  So I reported the post asking for the topic to be moved to the correct subforum.

 

I'd also want to amplify my suggestion the new Warshade power "Shadow Slip" be renamed to "Shadow Fold".

 

The power is the Warshade equivalent of the Teleport Pool power "Fold Space".  The changed name connects the two similar powers.  I think such a name will help comprehension of the many new teleport powers in i27p1.

[Luminara]

18 hours ago, Jacke said:

I can't remember, what's the effect if you attack at range or melee a mob in a similar out-of-sight situation?  (Out-of-sight of the caster?  The mob's friends?)  I think in all cases, the other mobs are alerted, which means they have their special power of knowing roughly where the player is and then pursue and attack.  If Teleport Target acts the same, then that makes sense.

 

Very few critter-affecting powers are flagged not to aggro.  Perception debuffs (Smoke, Smoke Grenade, Flash Arrow) and Confuses are a couple of examples.  Teleport Foe, and its replacement, are treated as attacks, thus causing aggro.  If a critter is far enough away from the spawn point, and not near other critters, and nothing is looking in that critter's direction (critters have visibility limitations (specifically, the general AI underlying basic critter behavior has a cone of sight, outside of which it's coded to ignore players and their actions completely)), it can sometimes be attacked without aggroing the rest of the spawn, but that's not a guaranteed result.  When performing what counts as an attack with any power not specifically flagged to prevent aggro, expect the entire spawn to bring the party to you.

 

14 hours ago, Jacke said:

As I'm teleporting click after click, sometimes it's as if a click triggers a new teleport but didn't get that it was to a new distance spot but to the location of the last click, which is where I'm currently hovering.  My character faces to the side, and teleports, but barely moves.

 

Yeah, it's been fiddly since the game went live.  Teleporting repeatedly as quickly as possible (queueing teleports by selecting a destination before the current teleport activation has completed) tends to cause it to occur more frequently.  They're working on it.  Of course, so was Cryptic, then Paragon, and it's still wonky, so... *shrug*.

[Jacke]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Yeah, [teleport powers have] been fiddly since the game went live.  Teleporting repeatedly as quickly as possible (queueing teleports by selecting a destination before the current teleport activation has completed) tends to cause it to occur more frequently.  They're working on it.  Of course, so was Cryptic, then Paragon, and it's still wonky, so... *shrug*.

I can't remember when I first encountered it, but I do remember it's been around a long time.

 

@Wavicle opened a beta bug report on it.  Both of us give more detail of what we observed, as well as speculating on what's the factors that affect it happening.

 

It is a bug of long standing and unless there's a eureka moment from one of the devs, I don't expect it to be solved soon.

[Wavicle]

35 minutes ago, Jacke said:

It is a bug of long standing and unless there's a eureka moment from one of the devs, I don't expect it to be solved soon.

Indeed. It's always been this way, since at least i4.  Probably since i1.

[Burnt Umber]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Very few critter-affecting powers are flagged not to aggro.  Perception debuffs (Smoke, Smoke Grenade, Flash Arrow) and Confuses are a couple of examples.  Teleport Foe, and its replacement, are treated as attacks, thus causing aggro.  If a critter is far enough away from the spawn point, and not near other critters, and nothing is looking in that critter's direction (critters have visibility limitations (specifically, the general AI underlying basic critter behavior has a cone of sight, outside of which it's coded to ignore players and their actions completely)), it can sometimes be attacked without aggroing the rest of the spawn, but that's not a guaranteed result.  When performing what counts as an attack with any power not specifically flagged to prevent aggro, expect the entire spawn to bring the party to you.

To elaborate on my prior feedback a bit, I was already familiar with how the live version of Teleport Foe works, and was already similarly dissatisfied with it.  But I was hoping that since the power on Test is labelled as "not notifying nearby enemies" in the power info description, the new Teleport Target power(s) would end up operating similar to Smoke/Confuse/etc. That hope was dashed upon testing.  Ideally, teleporting an critter would cause other nearby critters to become alerted to the existence of an enemy and to go searching for the player; that is probably impossible within the confines of the AI in this game.  I'm just not a fan of the critters having the extrasensory ability to zero in on the player after the power's use.

 

I've never been a huge fan of the teleport pool as it was on live.  I have Recall Friend on a few of my characters yet I don't think I use it outside of the rare circumstance such as dragging a fallen ally out of a death patch or the like.  I've tried and respec'ed out of Teleport Foe, finding it too clunky and unhelpful to use. (Why delay myself to use this power when I have probably better powers to use on a troublesome critter?)  And I've scarcely taken Teleport as my travel power because of its twitchy nature.   So, all in all, I do happily welcome most of these changes.  They are revitalizing a very limited and dated power pool. 

 

However, I also want to note that given the current changes being made, Warshades are uniquely disadvantaged by the changes.  They have to sacrifice a power pick to get the better entry level teleport power after being given a lesser power for free.  Admittedly, this might be little different than other archetypes who have to sacrifice a power pick - alongside a power pool option - to get the Teleport pool powers.  Nevertheless, if Warshades were supposed to get the key powers in Teleport as inherent powers then I think Warshades are being penalized by getting the niche Teleport Target power but having to pick Combat Teleport.  This is unlike Peacebringers who get Hover and Flight for free.

[Luminara]

6 minutes ago, Vigilant Vergil said:

Ideally, teleporting an critter would cause other nearby critters to become alerted to the existence of an enemy and to go searching for the player; that is probably impossible within the confines of the AI in this game.  I'm just not a fan of the critters having the extrasensory ability to zero in on the player after the power's use.

 

It's deliberate.  If players had the ability to TP one critter after another without aggroing the entire spawn, they'd do exactly that, and diminish what little challenge Cryptic was capable of creating.  The Alert mechanic is the specific counter to player tendency to find the easiest way to "win" with powers like TP Foe/Teleport Target or snipes.

 

The HC team could change it, make it a more realistic response, basically causing critters to start searching in different directions when they're Alerted that a buddy has gone missing, but that would lead to entire spawns scattering all over the map.  Is that what we want?  Fears were changed precisely because they did that, caused entire spawns to flee in different directions.  Most players avoided Fear powers so they didn't have to deal with that.  I suspect that creating the same situation with TP Target would probably lead to very few people bothering to use it, and be viewed as a sizeable step backward.

 

We do have spawn leashes now which could be used to limit scattering, but then, we'd have players leveraging TP Target to pick off one enemy at a time, staying beyond the scatter/search range, essentially negating the purpose of the Alert mechanic, and aggro altogether in many scenarios.  That's not a very balanced approach, so it would require reducing the enhanced range of TP Target to something inside the distance of the leash, diminishing its value and limiting its usage, and probably reversing all of the work by causing spawns to aggro on the player almost immediately anyway, since they wouldn't be far from the spawn.

 

As unrealistic as the interaction between Alert and aggro may be, it's probably the best way they can work within the confines and context of the balance decisions made and the way various powers work in conjunction with these mechanics.