Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Build 1)

[Wavicle]

I’m not against making pool powers better in principle, but if you do so it will further erode the distinctions between the ATs.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Wavicle

[Galaxy Brain]

17 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

Your analysis is spot on.  And I think the solution to both issues is to make pool powers more relevant and useful and to use pool powers to address weaknesses in the game like the binary aspect of mez protection.  Offer quality mez resistance as part of certain higher level pool powers so that players have access to mez resistance outside of their primary and secondary power options - *if* they choose to invest a significant portion of their 24 powers toward that goal.  I suspect much of the negative reaction to nerfing RoP is simply because there are so few mez protection options.  It seems inconsistent to me that you can get a lot of recharge, defense & resistance through pool powers but precious little mez resistance outside of Acrobatics and RoP. 

 

So I wanna highlight this because the latter is actually super super important to differentiate. If Mez RESISTANCE, IE the ability to cut down the time you spend mezzed were prevalent to take, that would be a huge boon for squishies while not really mattering too much to armored classes as they already have protection and do not get mezzed much if at all. The main thing about being mezzed is that being unable to act sucks, let alone for 8+ seconds on top of more mezzes piling onto you to extend the mag and duration. I for one would gladly choose "oh, I may get mezzed but only for like a second or two" over other options any day.

 

27 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

And I completely agree it makes no sense to offer useless pool powers.  And it makes no sense to make pool powers pointlessly weak.  Why not allow someone to swap out primary and/or secondary powers for decent pool powers?  Why force someone to stick with a primary power they don't really like?  The idea that we have to maintain the "purity" of the archetypes is not really consistent with incarnate powers, temporary powers, amplifiers and the fact that some AT's can get exactly what they need from pool powers while others cannot.  If someone wants to be a scrapper / healer and is willing to take 4 or 5 Medicine Pool powers - they should get some kick-ass healing powers out of that investment.  Not the crappy Pool Power heals we have now.  Give folks more flexibility and more opportunity to be creative.   And if someone wants to commit to taking all 5 Sorcery Pool powers, make RoP last 120 seconds.  Surely a 120 second duration RoP and 4 other Sorcery powers is not going to be over-powered compared to the 5 powers you could have chosen from your primary/secondary choices.  Heck, give other powers like Adrenal Booster a longer duration the more you invest in a specific pool.  That will only make the game more interesting, more fun and more complex.

 

The best way to deal with powers like Hasten and RoP is *not* to nerf the powers (and certainly *not* to make them inherent).  Just make it incredibly difficult to choose these powers because there are so many equally good pool powers available to choose.  I would be much less likely to always choose Hasten if there was an amazing self-heal I might be able to get from the Medicine Pool or an amazing Spring Attack from the Leaping Pool.  The problem is not that Hasten is over-powered in and of itself - the problem is that Hasten is over-powered compared to all the other Pool Power options.   The change to the Teleportation Pool is a wonderful example of how to move forward.  All 5 Teleportation Pool powers are now useful and desirable.  Taking 3-4 of these powers is not making anyone over-powered compared to what they could have chosen with those 3-4 powers.  People love the new teleportation powers as far as I can tell.  I certainly do.  People choosing Fold Space might not be choosing Hasten now.   People are more invested in their creations because the toons are more individualized.  It's a win all across the board.

 

You're spot on as well here. The real problem is that so many pool powers are just underdeveloped to the point of not being competitive with other picks, not only within other pools (we all know the top pool power choices) but from primary picks as well. Outside Air Superiority with it being a very nice mez, the other pool attacks are all either very situational or not powerful enough to be considered over another pick for most AT's. I feel like if the pool attacks were treated more like epics (many have TINY recharges and thus tiny damage), and relegated to have better niches (Flurry is an actual ST destroyer on a long recharge, Air Sup is more of a mez, Jump Kick is in between with good damage and a decent chance to knock) and then give them the Fighting Pool treatments where the more investment in a pool the better all the abilities get (each speed power taken boosts the others, perhaps granting end reduction on Hasten and Whirlwind, damage on Flurry, etc) could go a long way.

 

After all, your point where you are getting all these powers INSTEAD of primary powers should not be a trap.

[Acroyear]

Please don't reduce the animation time on Dual Pistols - Hail of Bullets. The animation time is perfect for the epic maneuver that is Hail of Bullets, and making it run faster will just ruin the look and feel of the power (just like it did when Total Focus had its animation time reduced).

 

Thanks.

[PeregrineFalcon]

44 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I’m not against making pool powers better in principle, but if you do so it will further erode the distinctions between the ATs.

I really don't understand how making Kick or Flurry not suck is going to somehow blur the line between my Blaster and my Tanker.

 

If Kick is buffed to always knock people back or Flurry is buffed to have a decent DPS how is that going to make my Stalker more like my Defender?

[siolfir]

31 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I’m not against making pool powers better in principle, but if you do so it will further erode the distinctions between the ATs.

Honestly, that ship sailed a long time ago with something as seemingly benign as creating new ATs that fill the same team roles for City of Villains, powerset proliferation (due to the way it was handled where minimal changes were made but "everything should be copied"), and Incarnate abilities put a pretty sturdy nail in the coffin.

 

At high levels the only real distinction between ATs is purely AT modifiers and inherents because everyone gets some form of armor against at the bare minimum S/L, ranged single-target and AoE attacks, at least one nuke, an option to pick up control powers, and can get permanent mez protection at the expense of having a choice in Incarnate Destiny.

 

On a team, you can receive buffs to have all of those options much earlier, so powers like Rune of Protection which can't be made permanent only offer a "panic button" utility. Since you can combine inspirations, it's pretty easy to get a 30-90 second duration mez protection without limiting your power pool choices so it acting like a medium orange is "meh" and not worth having to take Mystic Flight for travel and pick up a power that I have to explicitly find reasons to want to use. I even have characters that took Sorcery for concept reasons and will use Arcane Bolt and Enflame, but skipped RoP because it offered nothing to them (a Plant/Kin Controller who still has Sorcery but not RoP and a Mind/Dark Dominator who originally took it and ditched it in a respec that got rid of the pool entirely).

 

Just now, PeregrineFalcon said:

If Kick is buffed to always knock people back or Flurry is buffed to have a decent DPS how is that going to make my Stalker more like my Defender?

Since this was posted while I was writing this, I'll bite: I think the concern was that having a good melee attack would make your Defender more like your Stalker instead of the other way around, and having good pool ranged attacks (Arcane Bolt or Toxic Dart, for example) would make your Stalker more like your Defender.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, siolfir said:

Since this was posted while I was writing this, I'll bite: I think the concern was that having a good melee attack would make your Defender more like your Stalker instead of the other way around, and having good pool ranged attacks (Arcane Bolt or Toxic Dart, for example) would make your Stalker more like your Defender.

Stalkers have Sniper attacks in their Epic/Patron pools. Tankers can get Fireball in their Epic Pool.

 

Those things blur the line between ATs. Buffing Kick so that it doesn't suck isn't going to blur the line even remotely claiming otherwise is just disingenuous.

[siolfir]

7 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Stalkers have Sniper attacks in their Epic/Patron pools. Tankers can get Fireball in their Epic Pool.

 

Those things blur the line between ATs. Buffing Kick so that it doesn't suck isn't going to blur the line even remotely claiming otherwise is just disingenuous.

I'm not arguing that the concern was one that I shared - reading the remainder of my post would clearly explain that I feel that the lines are already pretty hopelessly blurred - but I was trying to express what I feel the concern was: they don't want them further blurred.

[scottocamp]

6 minutes ago, siolfir said:

I'm not arguing that the concern was one that I shared - reading the remainder of my post would clearly explain that I feel that the lines are already pretty hopelessly blurred - but I was trying to express what I feel the concern was: they don't want them further blurred.

 Further blurring the lines seems to be the best part of CoH.  If someone wants to create Doc Scrapper - a scrapper that kills AND heals - then why not?  The game is largely a character creation game.  I don't really see what is accomplished at this point (given all the existing AT's, set bonuses, epic powers, temp powers, amplifiers, incarnate powers and such) to try to pretend a Blaster is This and a Tanker is That and a Mastermind can't be either This or That.  

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, scottocamp said:

 Further blurring the lines seems to be the best part of CoH.  If someone wants to create Doc Scrapper - a scrapper that kills AND heals - then why not?  The game is largely a character creation game.  I don't really see what is accomplished at this point (given all the existing AT's, set bonuses, epic powers, temp powers, amplifiers, incarnate powers and such) to try to pretend a Blaster is This and a Tanker is That and a Mastermind can't be either This or That.  

There’s already a feeling that the erasure of AT distinctions has exacerbated the degree to which Support and CC lose value in the high levels. While I agree that flexibility is good, it would be nice if all ATs were (roughly) equally valued.

[oedipus_tex]

I appreciate the difficulty of balancing a power like Rune of Protection. I don't envy the position you're in.

 

IMO what would make this power interesting if you kept the mezz duration at the new lower value but then add +Global Recharge to Rune of Protection that does not stack with Hasten. I tend to agree with folks that Hasten is both overpowered and probably unfixable, but a way to make people drawn to alternatives would be if there were other "varieties" of Hasten that traded away some of the +Recharge for some other benefit. I'll leave the math up to you, but just eyeballing it, at 600 recharge, 120 seconds of +50% Global Recharge unstackable with Hasten would make this fairly attractive; the built in Recharge would cover gaps more easily. You couldn't perma it like Hasten but the combined benefits are still pretty nice.

FYI to balance that you'd have to watch for exploits with Hasten / RoP combos with low overall global recharge bouncing between the two effects so probably a total lockout of or the other may be in order.

Edited March 17, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[firelightx]

I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'll mention it here, too.

 

Losing Invisibility is fine from a mechanics point of view (being rolled into Stealth makes a lot of sense, those powers were always weirdly redundant), but aesthetically I'm going to miss being actually invisible. Is there some way we can get Invis levels of transparency added to Stealth's tailor options?

[Mezmera]

59 minutes ago, firelightx said:

I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'll mention it here, too.

 

Losing Invisibility is fine from a mechanics point of view (being rolled into Stealth makes a lot of sense, those powers were always weirdly redundant), but aesthetically I'm going to miss being actually invisible. Is there some way we can get Invis levels of transparency added to Stealth's tailor options?

 

I think they'll still see you because of your clothes.  Maybe try taking off all your clothes and running through AP to see if that's what it is...

 

At the very least the badguys would likely go easy on you.

 

Now I want an option at the tailor to be all invisible except for a hat and shoes running around.   

Edited March 17, 2021 by Mezmera

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

I appreciate the difficulty of balancing a power like Rune of Protection. I don't envy the position you're in.

 

IMO what would make this power interesting if you kept the mezz duration at the new lower value but then add +Global Recharge to Rune of Protection that does not stack with Hasten. I tend to agree with folks that Hasten is both overpowered and probably unfixable, but a way to make people drawn to alternatives would be if there were other "varieties" of Hasten that traded away some of the +Recharge for some other benefit. I'll leave the math up to you, but just eyeballing it, at 600 recharge, 120 seconds of +50% Global Recharge unstackable with Hasten would make this fairly attractive; the built in Recharge would cover gaps more easily. You couldn't perma it like Hasten but the combined benefits are still pretty nice.

FYI to balance that you'd have to watch for exploits with Hasten / RoP combos with low overall global recharge bouncing between the two effects so probably a total lockout of or the other may be in order.

There’s already a power like that, it’s in the Experimentation pool.

[scottocamp]

34 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

There’s already a feeling that the erasure of AT distinctions has exacerbated the degree to which Support and CC lose value in the high levels. While I agree that flexibility is good, it would be nice if all ATs were (roughly) equally valued.

 

You make a good point.  I think Support and CC powers are less effective in high level group situations because of the speed these groups now operate at - but not everyone enjoys participating in these high level groups, Support and CC toons are still both interesting and insanely powerful and a broader and more varied selection of useful pool powers should allow Support and CC AT's to better tailor builds to contribute at the higher levels.   At present I also feel like some AT's are able to leverage the few existing good pool powers better than other AT's.  Which leads me to think giving players more and better pool options is a preferable solution to more rigidly defining AT's.  

[Arcanum]

3 hours ago, firelightx said:

I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'll mention it here, too.

 

Losing Invisibility is fine from a mechanics point of view (being rolled into Stealth makes a lot of sense, those powers were always weirdly redundant), but aesthetically I'm going to miss being actually invisible. Is there some way we can get Invis levels of transparency added to Stealth's tailor options?

 

I've posted this elsewhere in the thread; but it got a bit lost. There's already been an 'invisible' theme applied for Build 2 of the beta!

[Captain Powerhouse]

On 3/16/2021 at 7:10 PM, Katharos said:

why isn't sentinel bioarmour's athletic regulation getting a look?

 

Oversight, it will be addressed in the next build.

[Katharos]

2 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Oversight, it will be addressed in the next build.

Oh no. Oh god. What have I done? 

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 minutes ago, Katharos said:

Oh no. Oh god. What have I done? 

 

It would had been caught regardless, just a bit later.

[Crasical]

On 3/16/2021 at 6:10 PM, Katharos said:

I'd really like some clarity on the logic used here. Between the last attempt at a ninjitsu mobility nerf and this one, it's starting to look something like a fixation. If "they would be absorbed into the new stacking mechanics" is the true reason, why isn't sentinel bioarmour's athletic regulation getting a look? It's much stronger than nin's mobility, since it's an autopower granting movement speed debuff protection and defence debuff resistance with fly speed, which shinobi-iri doesn't get, and it's in what's absolutely the top sentinel defence set. Not that I think any sentinel sets need a nerf, but it seems like, if the concern with shinobi-iri was really the stacking, athletic regulation's exclusion deserves an explanation. 

 

Seconded. Moving the movement to the click feels like a kludge way of resolving the 'stacking' problem, which feels like a non-issue. Yes, if you have better movement powers than Shinobi-Iri, they will get overriden. So...okay? I would prefer that over having the mobility be on a click, even if one stacks and the other doesn't.

Considering that Ninjutsu was on the block for adjustment last page, too, this is starting to feel like someone's single-issue fixation. I'd like some feedback.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Crasical said:

 

Seconded. Moving the movement to the click feels like a kludge way of resolving the 'stacking' problem, which feels like a non-issue. Yes, if you have better movement powers than Shinobi-Iri, they will get overriden. So...okay? I would prefer that over having the mobility be on a click, even if one stacks and the other doesn't.

Considering that Ninjutsu was on the block for adjustment last page, too, this is starting to feel like someone's single-issue fixation. I'd like some feedback.

As has been stated elsewhere, putting it in the click gives it to the Stalkers as well.

[Crasical]

6 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

As has been stated elsewhere, putting it in the click gives it to the Stalkers as well.

Why not just give it to stalkers then? The scrapper and stalker versions of the set area already pretty strongly diverged.

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Crasical said:

Why not just give it to stalkers then? The scrapper and stalker versions of the set area already pretty strongly diverged.

Because then the stalker would get it stacked with CJ and the scrapper and sentinel wouldn't, per the new stacking rules.

I understand you've said you don't care about that, but I think a lot of others do.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Wavicle

[ScarySai]

2 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

It would had been caught regardless, just a bit later.

 

Well, that was the only appealing thing sentinel bio had for me, lol.

 

Least I don't have to make one now.

Edited March 18, 2021 by ScarySai

[PhoenixV117]

Nerfing rune of protection?! 

 

This will make 3 of my characters trash. 

 

I may as well just stick to my tw/bio scrapper and cheese everything if I get punished for trying to mellee on my blaster by nerfing the few options I have at surviving. 

[CaptainLupis]

4 minutes ago, PhoenixV117 said:

Nerfing rune of protection?! 

 

This will make 3 of my characters trash. 

 

I may as well just stick to my tw/bio scrapper and cheese everything if I get punished for trying to mellee on my blaster by nerfing the few options I have at surviving. 

You have the opportunity now to copy your blasters to test and run some missions with them, then give feedback to the devs as to how exactly it makes them trash, give them some data to back it up. That's what this thread is for.

 

If you can do things like run the same mission on live and on test and say how they fared differently you are more likely to get their attention. Just saying it will make them trash without having even tried it isn't going to get you anywhere I'm afraid, you need to show them.