Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Build 1)

[Goat]

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

Can you confirm if this is listed time?  Can you turn on cooldown indicators and activate and see what the actual recharge is?  I'm playing with SR at the moment and seeing it visually ignore my global recharge reductions, but the actual power is adhering and I'd like confirmation on if I'm crazy.

 

This is with cooldown indicators. The actual recharge time of Kuji-In Rin on Live is about 59 seconds, and the actual recharge time of it on Test with an identical build and recharge values is 2 minutes and 10 seconds. The listed recharge when right-clicking the power is 2 minutes 10 seconds on both Live and Test, but the actual recharge of the power when factoring in global recharge buffs is different.

[scottocamp]

3 hours ago, ScarySai said:

I'm personally a fan of more options than less.

 

The reality of the situation is that most pools are mediocre and have a gem or two in them.

 

Fighting/leadership/speed all offer something tangible and powerful to a character who invests into them.

 

In the case of fighting, you take one useless melee attack for two universally good toggles. In the case of speed, you get hasten right off the bat. CJ and flying offer mobility control with a defensive toggle. None of the leadership powers are dead picks.

 

Do these pools need to be nerfed for not being total trash? I don't think so, I think more pools should feel as useful as these. The rune change takes a mediocre pool set and just kinda stomps on it for no real discernable reason.

 

Absolutely agree with this.  The game is much more fun and interesting when power choices are difficult to make because the choices are all good choices.  In the past I would never have considered the Teleportation Pool for any of my builds.  Now with Fold Space and Combat Teleportation the Teleportation Pool is relevant, my build choices are more varied and complex, the obvious choices are less obvious and I spend more time playing and thinking about the game. 

 

Making Rune of Protection less useful and less attractive runs counter to everything else the Homecoming Team seems to be putting in place.  Instead make it difficult to not consider taking a pool power.  Reducing the effectiveness of RoP makes it simpler to just ignore the whole Sorcery pool.  Adding more pool powers and buffing powers like Unleash Potential, Corrosive Vial, Enflame, Spring Attack, Misdirection and such make the game a lot more complex, enjoyable and varied.  There is already a limit hard wired into the game - the number of powers you can take.  Make choosing those 24 powers as difficult as possible because the choices are so amazing. 

 

The rest of the proposed power changes look great.  But I would also vote to buff other similar pool powers rather than nerf RoP if consistency across the board is deemed necessary.

[Replacement]

53 minutes ago, Tigraine said:

 

I think Hasten, Tough/Weave, and Maneuvers/Tactics are all far more guilty of this.  RoP is hardly a "every build must have, regardless of theme" power; it's just important to the builds that do rely on it.  Until the other more popular "needed" pool powers get addressed, there's really no foundation for this argument for RoP.

What the heck are you talking about?

I'm not talking about pool popularity.

 

Step 1:

List out all the origins available to players at character creation.

 

Step 2:

Count how many of them are called "magic".

 

Spoiler alert: it's one out of five.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Replacement

[Infinitum]

I was a little concerned about the ninjitsu change but i just tested it on beta and live and i dont think its a horrible change with some creative slotting changes - not too difficult also.

 

The largest area hit will be the jump height - but only if you are using Athletic run or another P2W power - but i understand the reasoning behind that also.

 

The good news is now that you can run both Ath Run and CJ you will have more speed, and better jump height with slighly better defenses because you dont have to detoggle one or the other now.

 

[SwitchFade]

1. I'm not really sure we need inherent fitness at lvl 1. I'm not against it, but what's the problem being solved here?

 

2. Does rest actually need to be instant recharge? From a casual SO balance world where a new/inexperienced player uses it, is there a need for instant re-use, and should we be encouraging an even easier experience?

 

3. Super speed used to be at the absolute speed cap based on what the server could handle, has this changed?

[Jimmy]

2 hours ago, Carnifax said:

The "what happens when mezzed" is a bug fix

This isn't the case, it was an intentional mechanic - although you are correct that it wasn't properly telegraphed.

[Pzn]

12 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I was a little concerned about the ninjitsu change but i just tested it on beta and live and i dont think its a horrible change with some creative slotting changes - not too difficult also.

 

The largest area hit will be the jump height - but only if you are using Athletic run or another P2W power - but i understand the reasoning behind that also.

 

The good news is now that you can run both Ath Run and CJ you will have more speed, and better jump height with slighly better defenses because you dont have to detoggle one or the other now.

 

If I'm looking at this correctly then you need to run athletic run in order to get the same jump height that you get currently on live with only CJ and shinobi?  That seems like a heavy endurance penalty for the same performance.

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

If I'm looking at this correctly then you need to run athletic run in order to get the same jump height that you get currently on live with only CJ and shinobi?  That seems like a heavy endurance penalty for the same performance.

I should have ran the beta number without ath run, give me a bit and i will - but i normally ran it with ath run anyway - with the Endurance click of ninjitsu it was never an issue of endurance honestly.

[Pzn]

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I should have ran the beta number without ath run, give me a bit and i will - but i normally ran it with ath run anyway - with the Endurance click of ninjitsu it was never an issue of endurance honestly.

My ninjitsu build is really heavy on endurance even with the click.  It would suck to run an additional toggle to get back jump height I already have.

[Replacement]

2 hours ago, Carnifax said:

 

 

Actually I don't believe the Recharge change and the fix to mez are related at all. The "what happens when mezzed" is a bug fix, there's currently nothing in the description to say "If you're mezzed you won't get the Resist". So saying one is dependant on the other isn't really true. One is a bug fix. The other just seems to be a change to make things line up (which is something that's been done before, for example with Tier 1 Blaster secondaries. Personally I don't like that way of balance through homogeneity, sets are balanced, not powers).

 

Really what it looks like to me is that the Powers person looked at it, said "Oh, this is supposed to be basically a reactive Inspiration and it has a bug. I'll fix that and normalise it with the other Tier 5s" assuming everyone just uses it like an Inspiration. My Fire/Nature doesn't, he uses it to stop 3 of the toggles he uses to live from dropping from mezzes, which is why I have 5 slots dedicated to it. 

 

As for using not changing it as an excuse not to fix Enflame and Bolt (I quite like the travel power and Ward) that's not true, like I said earlier in this thread I think it's sad that these 3 new Pools got developed just so everyone can mostly ignore them. This change just exasperates that trend by making Sorcery poopier too. I mean it's not like 100s of people were running around abusing RoP was it (again I've seen very few posted builds which bother with any of Sorcery, Experimentation or Force of Will. As a developer if I write something new and no-one uses it that's a sign it wasn't done right for whatever reason and needs tweaking).

 

I even proposed quick fixes for Enflame and Vial earlier. Bolt and Dart could be buffed too of course (reduce the animation on Bolt and increase the damage of Dart for example, maybe by 25% apiece). 

 

Bug fix -- not true.  @Captain Powerhouse mentioned (probably on Discord) this as WAI originally.  If I remember right (@'d you in case I'm talking out my ass, Powerhouse), the notion is something like "It was deemed ok to react to mez with a Break Free, but not other buffs" - a rule which is being relaxed.  (Hai Faraday Cage)

 

In this scenario though, it's a buff to a power that is obviously already more desirable than half the t9 armor powers.  My fear still seems well-founded, that if we get the extra 30s "back", that we will lose the mez "alternate behavior" approach and just get like... a better description to at least warn people of this.

 

As for not changing/Enflame/etc... I'm not sure you and I are on the same topic there?  

 

Logic tree:

"I acknowledge RoP is Overpowered or over-convenient" --> "but it's ok because you need 2 trash picks to get there.  It's nowhere near OP when you are spending 3 power slots on one effect."

 

Ergo

 

"We cannot lift those 2 required picks out of the trash, because then RoP will be very obviously OP."

 

I don't see any other logical conclusion to the argument of "it's fine due to the required garbage."

 

@ScarySai I intend to give you a better response, but for now: I'm also curious what builds are "Requiring" RoP to work!  My supposition is they need it to last multiple fights (implying they have another solution for other fights - which could just be a nuke!) and I'm happy to be challenged on the assumption.

 

It sure would help me understand if people would replace a general "this ruins builds/build diversity" with "here's what my character needed 90s for and why it's not worth it at 60s."

 

[Jimmy]

14 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

1. I'm not really sure we need inherent fitness at lvl 1. I'm not against it, but what's the problem being solved here?

As the speed buffs no longer scale with level, the jump in speed that occured between level 1 and 2 (due to Fitness) was quite large and was just a bit unnecessarily jarring.

[Infinitum]

3 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

My ninjitsu build is really heavy on endurance even with the click.  It would suck to run an additional toggle to get back jump height I already have.

 

That is beta without athletic run - i can work with this.  I mean its not awesome but ill take this if any change had to be made.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Infinitum

[Pzn]

That's a little bit of a nerf.  Maybe they could increase the jump height slightly.  If the power being unaffected by global recharge was unintentional then the problem will be solved by stacking it anyway.

 

edit: Looks like it will be even better than before then since I'll be stacking it.

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by josh1622

[ScarySai]

Just now, Replacement said:

 I intend to give you a better response, but for now: I'm also curious what builds are "Requiring" RoP to work!

The builds that take rune of power? I don't really understand the question.

 

If people take the power, it's reasonable to come to the conclusion that they wanted it's effects for one reason or another.

[Jimmy]

The global recharge thing is a bug.

[SwitchFade]

14 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

As the speed buffs no longer scale with level, the jump in speed that occured between level 1 and 2 (due to Fitness) was quite large and was just a bit unnecessarily jarring.

That makes sense; this might be handy to add to the patch notes, if anyone has time 😁 thanks!

[Coyote]

7 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

The builds that take rune of power? I don't really understand the question.

 

If people take the power, it's reasonable to come to the conclusion that they wanted it's effects for one reason or another.

 

A build can TAKE RoP and have it ready for use as a reactive Break-Free replacement.

A different build can RELY on RoP because it's part of cycling Instant Healing - MoG - RoP - MoG - repeat   (or with Hybrid Melee - Shadow Meld - RoP - SM again), so that it's relying on the Resistance bonuses of RoP to have a defensive cycle that permanently allows it to run above its normal "no non-perma powers" defensive stats.

So @Replacement was asking, "what kind of build RELIES on RoP?".

Of course, the answer is that second type of build. Usually a melee character trying to alternate multiple non-permanent powers to end up with a permanent "above baseline" defensive stat line.

[Infinitum]

13 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

That's a little bit of a nerf.  Maybe they could increase the jump height slightly.  If the power being unaffected by global recharge was unintentional then the problem will be solved by stacking it anyway.

 

edit: Looks like it will be even better than before then since I'll be stacking it.

 

yeah jump height is the only downer really, but - meh  lol  i can get past that. 

 

i just moved three slots to kuji in rin and put the BotZ set in it to get the bonuses and movenent buffs plus one recharge so its perma.  didnt really lose anything to do it but increased to near live levels in all aspects but jump height as i said.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Infinitum

[Neogumbercules]

After having spent some time playing with AR I would strongly prefer the speed up of Ignite be applied to Flamethrower instead. Ignite is still an awfully situational power and even using it on tightly packed enemies in a x8 AE mission I use to test out builds It was challenging to get more than 2-3 enemies trapped even with Web Envelope from Mace Mastery. Plus the rare situations where one might try to use Ignite (like the ITF Computer, for example), the long animation isn't gonna factor in. However the long animation and slow dot of Flamethrower is a hassle on every encounter for an AR user.

 

Plus I dropped it on GM Jimmy when he was standing near Ms. Liberty and it did literally nothing to him. Trash power!

 

As an aside... one of the new powers, I don't remember which one. May have been the new flight toggle has a "whilst" in the description. I understand some of you are speaking the Queen's english but it was a little jarring considering the rest of the game doesn't have English-ass English writing in any of the descriptive text.

[ch3mistry]

13 hours ago, Goat said:

My question, then, is what problem is this trying to solve? Is the speed reduction intentional? If so, why? Going Fast certainly wasn't something that made Ninjitsu overpowered. It seems like nerfing a huge part of what makes Ninjitsu fun and unique as a set, to no tangible benefit that I can see. I am genuinely curious about the rationale behind it, since this is the second time a speed reduction like this has shown up for Ninjitsu in the patch notes.

QFT

 

I specifically chose Ninjitsu over SR on my Sentinel because of Shinobi-Iri. It's a fun and in no way overpowered combination of a bit stealth and some travel boni. And I could take it as low as level 4. Please, don't change Shinobi-Iri and Kuji-In Rin, there is no problem here.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

In this scenario though, it's a buff to a power that is obviously already more desirable than half the t9 armor powers.  My fear still seems well-founded, that if we get the extra 30s "back", that we will lose the mez "alternate behavior" approach and just get like... a better description to at least warn people of this.

 

It sure would help me understand if people would replace a general "this ruins builds/build diversity" with "here's what my character needed 90s for and why it's not worth it at 60s."

 

Snipped for brevity and to focus on the two parts I wanted to comment on. 
 

First, yes, currently rune of protection is more desirable than half armor t9s because half the armor t9s are completely worthless as has been discussed many times. Their crashes and/or not allowing for cooldown reductions make them very unpopular picks. The huge draw backs of T9s has been a very common complaint or source at least one weekly discussion apart from many other discussions on these forums. 
 

Second, there are basically two uses of rune of protection. Mez protection/break free and resistance boost for extra mitigation. Both styles of use still require heavy opportunity cost to go deep into the pool. Both styles of use are completely valid.  This change makes using rune of protection as a defensive cooldown boosting resistance worse because its uptime is much shorter.

 

I personally hate the change. I am happy that at least some people like the direction of the change if it does go through though. But, people not liking the change are equally valid. Both opinions matter. The devs will do what they think is best for the game overall. In either case some people will be happy and others disappointed. 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Saikochoro

[AerialAssault]

Here's my non-detailed take on the Stone Armor changes;

 

Holy moly, Rooted not making you as slow as molasses makes the set a lot more fun to play. Two thumbs up from me.

 

That said, Stone Armor is still an absolute endurance fiend if you're running the toggles. Even with 2 EndRedux in each, it goes from 100-0 very quick in combat. I'd consider looking into this once this round of changes has been finalised.

 

edit:

 

Ammendum to above, I was also running a few other toggles, but they also had EndRedux slotted into them. I'll have to go back and check the endurance economy on just the Stone Armor toggles.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by AerialAssault

[scottocamp]

Another possible solution to Rune of Protection (following similar changes in the Fighting Pool) would be to extend the duration of RoP based on the number of Sorcery powers picked.  Like 60 seconds for 3 Sorcery powers, 90 seconds for 4 Sorcery powers and 120 seconds if you invest in all 5 Sorcery pool powers.

[Infinitum]

4 hours ago, Goat said:

 

This is with cooldown indicators. The actual recharge time of Kuji-In Rin on Live is about 59 seconds, and the actual recharge time of it on Test with an identical build and recharge values is 2 minutes and 10 seconds. The listed recharge when right-clicking the power is 2 minutes 10 seconds on both Live and Test, but the actual recharge of the power when factoring in global recharge buffs is different.

i just tested this myself and can confirm this - i thought something felt off about it.  good catch!

[Super Atom]

Was really hoping to see FSC on stalkers not giving AF addressed.