Please get rid of the Fear effect on Assault Rifle>Ignite

[Incursion]

2 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

 

The point is, if an enemy were to remain within the Ignite patch for the full duration, it would deal significantly more damage than Burn. If you remove the Afraid element, then Ignite effectively becomes a mini-nuke, since the damage can't be avoided by the enemies stood within it. For reference, Ignite deals the second most damage in AR, behind Sniper Rifle and ahead of Full Auto (the actual nuke of the set). That high damage is mitigated by the fact that most enemies don't want to stand in it. But then we as players can mitigate that by forcing enemies to stand in one place, either through Holds or Immobilization (or a lot of Slow). 

 

My full suggestion is as follows:

• Leave the Afraid element in Ignite. Give it a weak and short-lived unenhanceable slow so that enemies which enter it are unlikely to run very far once they're out of it.
• Have Ignite deal half of it's damage upfront to enemies with the initial attack, which requires a hit check.
• The Ignite patch then places a DoT on those enemies and any other enemies that step into the Ignite patch dealing the other half of the damage, which is auto-hit. Non-stacking.
• Increase the radius of Ignite slightly, at least so that it encompasses the size of the actual visual fx.

 

I feel this is the best of all worlds. People like myself, who can appreciate the comedy factor/immersion of enemies not wanting to stand inside a fire still get that, and people who want Ignite to deal it's full damage more reliably get that too. I guess the people who don't want the enemies to move at all won't be happy, but me and them disagree on that on such a fundamental level it's not worth going into in this thread.

I think that's the most thought out suggestion that tries to meet in the middle.  I have no issue with ignite dealing more damage than burn to be fair, burn is also part of an armor set that offers status protection. 

[dragonhawk777]

16 hours ago, arcane said:

The damage number on Ignite is balanced around it being so regularly escaped. You change the dynamic, you have to change the damage.

I wouldnt have an issue with rebalancing damage numbers if needed.  It is the mechanics of the power that are the issue not its damage numbers.  If its felt by the devs that the numbers are too high if mobs are standing in the Ignite patch and need to be tweaked I dont see an issue with that.  In groups the whole fear factor just makes mobs run away from the tank and spread out making the teams ability to aoe much more limited.  Solo you are running the risk of the mob running into another group and aggroing them.  There is a reason that after Jack left they got rid of the run away fear effect on nearly every other power in the game.  Overall it was hated by the community and was just a detriment to group gameplay, even Energy Blast knockback effect was preferable to mobs blindly running around the map, as at least you can somewhat control the knockback effect.

[Zeraphia]

On 3/15/2021 at 12:02 AM, UberGuy said:

Ignite does not cause Terror, which is the status effect cause by what we call "Fear" powers, like Fearsome Stare. Ignite causes Afraid, which is the effect that makes NPCs want to run out of it.

 

Most place powers (read: "pseudo-pet") which inflict unpleasant effects on NPCs generally also cause Afraid, because, realistically, you would not expect remotely intelligent beings to stand in such effects. Location-based damage fields like Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Sleet, Caltrops, etc. all cause Afraid on NPCs.

 

Ignite, however, has limitations those powers do not. All of them also inflict slows on the NPCs, either for theme (cold, caltrops) or just to keep the NPCs from fleeing out of the effect too quickly for it to be useful as a damage power.

 

Ignite could have a slow attached, but the power's radius is very small, so that's not likely to be useful.

 

Unless the design goal is for the power to have very low practical damage, I think the change to mixed TAoE + pseudopet that inflicts DoT probably is the way to go.

 

* The TAoE up-front damage ensures you get a certain fraction of damage dealt against targets in the target area

* The pseudo-pet could apply something like this:

   *  set_mode(ignited) on all affected target(s) for 5s

   *  X damage every 0.5s for 5.1s  (if !target.mode?(ignited))

 

So anything that wandered into the fire after the original cast would be set on fire for several seconds, even if it was not there when the patch landed, and that would stick to it even if it ran out of the patch. Standing still in the patch would not, however, stack DoTs on it due to the condition. (There may be some better way to do this than modes, which would, among other things, preclude stacking ignite from multiple players. This is hopefully  just an example.)

 

I have to agree with this solution from a practical gameplay standpoint. I understand the arguments others are posing to ward off changes, but I can tell you playing this set, if something like this were implemented it would be very helpful for the set to feel more powerful. 

 

This is essentially changing the power to be a ranged variant of Burn, so I think lessening the overall damage due to it being ranged would be the way to go. I like the idea though. 

 

I understand the people who like things as is or feel things aren't powerful enough already, both are valid arguments, but I feel the argument that we're just in different times than some of these sets were created for and HC is doing a lot to make every set feel competent is another valid counterargument. Overall, I think this is the best solution I've seen on this thread.

[Herotu]

  

On 3/15/2021 at 7:36 AM, AerialAssault said:

 

 

Let me say it again: Burn does not have an Afraid effect because it is used by Melee ATs (Brute, Tanker, Scrapper). It would be counterintuitive for enemies to run out of the Burn patch, forcing these ATs to continually chase the enemies running away from them.

 

Ignite, by contrast, is used by Ranged ATs, who (mostly) want enemies to stay away from them. You even say yourself that it's radius is small enough that it won't affect many enemies, so it's not like you're scattering whole swathes of enemies.

 

 

Those two points have logic to them: 

• Melee want enemies to be near them,
• Ranged want enemies to be at range.

 

But that's not how things should work. We need layers of complexity to make games interesting. 

 

 

The question is, SHOULD those players always get what they want? 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Herotu

[Incursion]

1 hour ago, Herotu said:

  

Those two points have logic to them: 

• Melee want enemies to be near them,
• Ranged want enemies to be at range.

 

But that's not how things should work. We need layers of complexity to make games interesting. 

 

 

The question is, SHOULD those players always get what they want? 

If it means more fun, helps out a pretty poor set do a little better, then yes!  Fear is a flawed mechanic as evident by the drastic changes taken back in issue 3 or 4.  Melee wanting enemies near them is probably almost always true, they do get some ranged attacks in their epics for fleeing mobs, just to feel cool, whatever the reason.  Sets like blasters have secondary littered with close combat/melee so even though they are a ranged AT, It's not always in their best interest for mobs to fun away.  Layers of complexity i do agree with, it should be interesting.  there's a line though between interesting and frustrating or annoying.  I think mobs fleeing is annoying.  It reminds of that last couple mobs running around in the warehouse with half health and you're doing a defeat all mission.  

Edited March 16, 2021 by Incursion

[Herotu]

21 minutes ago, Incursion said:

If it means more fun, helps out a pretty poor set do a little better, then yes!  Fear is a flawed mechanic as evident by the drastic changes taken back in issue 3 or 4.  Melee wanting enemies near them is probably almost always true, they do get some ranged attacks in their epics for fleeing mobs, just to feel cool, whatever the reason.  Sets like blasters have secondary littered with close combat/melee so even though they are a ranged AT, It's not always in their best interest for mobs to fun away.  Layers of complexity i do agree with, it should be interesting.  there's a line though between interesting and frustrating or annoying.  I think mobs fleeing is annoying.  It reminds of that last couple mobs running around in the warehouse with half health and you're doing a defeat all mission.  

I love fleeing mobs - it lends an element of humanity to otherwise robotic NPCs.

 

Fleeing mobs is an almost unique feature of CoH - seeing enemies just charge towards danger the whole time always strikes me as bananas. It doesn't seem natural - most people flee from fights, and it's nice to see that reflected in this simulation.

 

I think we can all get behind Fun as a driving ethos, but my concern is that too much QoL inevitably leads to Easiness which leads to Pointlessness. To clarify, I'm not against progress, I'm against unnecessary changes that remove the game's unique features.

[Incursion]

37 minutes ago, Herotu said:

I love fleeing mobs - it lends an element of humanity to otherwise robotic NPCs.

 

Fleeing mobs is an almost unique feature of CoH - seeing enemies just charge towards danger the whole time always strikes me as bananas. It doesn't seem natural - most people flee from fights, and it's nice to see that reflected in this simulation.

 

I think we can all get behind Fun as a driving ethos, but my concern is that too much QoL inevitably leads to Easiness which leads to Pointlessness. To clarify, I'm not against progress, I'm against unnecessary changes that remove the game's unique features.

I respect your point of you, I get that you don’t want things to be too easy either. Give everyone what they want, the game gets water down. Truthfully I think that’s what the Original devs did when they introduced the incarnate system, but I digress. I don’t see how fear increases difficulty when it comes to mobs running around like chickens with their heads cut off, especially as a secondary effect were the intention is to do dmg to them. I think fleeing as a control factor makes sense as it’s intended. Are people using ignite because it does damage or because they want mobs to scatter and not take dmg? Depends on point of view I suppose. 

[AerialAssault]

As @Herotu points out, it makes the game world more alive.

 

For contrast, let's take Popular Fantasy MMO. You encounter a Greedy Bandit, who says "Heh heh, I'm robbing you because I only care about myself and money!", who then .. fights to the death. Seems a bit strange that someone who is A) Mortal and B) Motivated only by greed would stoically fight until they are dead, when really, they should be trying to preserve their life.

 

A lot of MMOs have de-fanged themselves in favour of enemies fighting to the death, regardless of context or circumstance. Same goes for damage auras. Many enemies will continue to stand in the very thing melting the flesh from their bones.

 

In these conversations I always like to refer to The Monsters Know What They're Doing by Keith Annan. It's given me a lot of insight into the way enemies should behave, and while it applies primarily to roleplaying games I feel a lot of it could also apply to video games too. tl;dr mortal creatures are likely to flee when on low health, outmatched or outnumbered unless otherwise controlled or compelled, mindless creatures will fight until dead/destroyed unless specified otherwise, and immortal creatures are unlikely to flee but will do so if defeat would mean a serious set-back.

 

Back on topic to Ignite, the Afraid effect only lasts 0.75 seconds according to City of Data. Not really long enough to make enemies run particularly far away, although the rapid amount of hits might trigger their 'flee' AI if they haven't got a hit in yet. With my own suggestion, adding a Slow element would mean that enemies caught in the fire would go only as far as necessary to not stand in it, although it wouldn't really matter since they'd be under it's full effects. If someone can't stand an enemy stumbling a measly 5 ft then I don't really have anything to say to that.

[Hew]

Isnt this what web grenade is for? M30 w/ kd conversion proc? Buckshot w/ kd conversion proc?

 

With the 2 sec animation, and these fast cast options, it is trivial to keep some (most?) of your targets on their back/immob while you light them up with ignite, and still pump out damage. Two of those powers are in ar proper. Toxic web grenade is in /dev, and has a 17.88 sec duration on the immob before slotting. (ar/dev, kinda an oldschool thing :P)

 

For aoe effect, you get glue arrow in a secondary, dark pit, ice patch, throw sand, various holds. All of those provide a modicum of immob-ness in an aoe that will allow you to apply multiple stacks of ignite.

 

Even better, you get a st immob at level 1 on all blaster secondaries, which can be used at range to dump multiple ignites on hard targets.

 

[Black Zot]

37 minutes ago, Hew said:

Isnt this what web grenade is for? M30 w/ kd conversion proc? Buckshot w/ kd conversion proc?

 

With the 2 sec animation, and these fast cast options, it is trivial to keep some (most?) of your targets on their back/immob while you light them up with ignite, and still pump out damage. Two of those powers are in ar proper. Toxic web grenade is in /dev, and has a 17.88 sec duration on the immob before slotting. (ar/dev, kinda an oldschool thing :P)

 

For aoe effect, you get glue arrow in a secondary, dark pit, ice patch, throw sand, various holds. All of those provide a modicum of immob-ness in an aoe that will allow you to apply multiple stacks of ignite.

 

Even better, you get a st immob at level 1 on all blaster secondaries, which can be used at range to dump multiple ignites on hard targets.

 

 

Knockdown doesn't even hold stuff in place long enough to fire off Ignite, even with the cast time reduction on beta.  And it won't go off soon enough after Ignite to pin stuff in that tiny fire patch.  Slows, likewise, are useless in this regard because one step is all it takes to get out of the effect.

[Hew]

2 hours ago, Black Zot said:

 

Knockdown doesn't even hold stuff in place long enough to fire off Ignite, even with the cast time reduction on beta.  And it won't go off soon enough after Ignite to pin stuff in that tiny fire patch.  Slows, likewise, are useless in this regard because one step is all it takes to get out of the effect.

Your single target immob absolutely will though, as will your secondary holds. 

[Razor Cure]

12 hours ago, Herotu said:

I love fleeing mobs - it lends an element of humanity to otherwise robotic NPCs.

 

Fleeing mobs is an almost unique feature of CoH - seeing enemies just charge towards danger the whole time always strikes me as bananas. It doesn't seem natural - most people flee from fights, and it's nice to see that reflected in this simulation.

 

This can be true, but really, it does not happen THAT often. Like a mob of Council not running as soon as a mob of 8 incarnates shows up. They literally should head for the hills.

Or even just normal mobs (like lvl 1-50). Not enough of them do actually run away, when its clear a fight is gonna go bad. Logically (sorta) when half a mob is dead, teh rest should bolt. Or killing a mob boss (killing them early in a fight, something quite common), should give minions a chance to run in terror.

But none of that happens.

What makes mobs run is a very very minor amount of powers (rains, burns, ignite) and NOTHING else. I know that seeing my mate get smashing with an AS two feet away would make me run, if I was an evil minion type.

Going back to ignite, as some have said, it does make sense for people not to wanna stand in a patch of fire, but what about all the other stuff they just ignore? Fire blast sets em on fire. Do they run to the nearest water source? No way, they charge in, burning as they go.

 

OR how about the situation where a team does NOT have immobs/taunts (pretty common), and an archvillain (!!), purple conning and a few levels about you, starts trying to set the land speed record across the map? You can't tell me that is fun or about them being humane. If they had any sense, they would simply kill the team one by one.

Chasing an AV over a map does not make the fight a challenge (assuming you have the dps to kill em anyway). It just makes it god awful.

[oedipus_tex]

I think this power should apply a long duration DoT to anyone who steps in it. Stepping out of the power would stop refreshing the DoT but you'd still take a lot of damage even after leaving the effect.