Pool Powers / hasten / epics / thoughts

[Incursion]

1 minute ago, Tyrannical said:

 

Right, so you just want Hasten to be a pick that doesn't influence the maximum number of power pools available? Great, we got there in the end didn't we?

But even if that's the case, there's a cost to picking pool powers, which @Greycat put rather well. You're not just picking a new power, you're 'locking in' a pool, that's the sacrifice you need to make when considering builds like this. Hasten is popular, sure, so is Tough, and Combat Jumping, should they be made freely accessible outside of pools too? How far do we go with this? Do we just remove the concept of power pools entirely?

These restrictions exist for a reason, to ensure you can't just hoard all the best powers from each pool and play an absolutely monster of a build, deal with it.

I've been there, i was just waiting for you to catch up.  

 

I understand there are restrictions, i understand there should be cost. I just think it be cool to see builds where it's not the only power taken in the pool, because that's the reality. You either deal with SS as your travel, or you waste a pool.  I think this would be a quality of life improvement

[AerialAssault]

Just now, Incursion said:

 Fitness is/was a trash pool but if you go back in time you'd probably still use it.  IO's, incarnates weren't a thing at that time, and there weren't that many hami'd out characters that would skip it unless you had quickness or quick recovery.  different times really

 

Fortunately, I started playing a few issues after the IO system came out. Back before then? Yeah, I can see why it would be popular.

 

I picked it up on my characters because, back then, I hadn't realized the value of simply slotting Invention IO EndRedux into powers, which is what I do now rather than waste slots on Stamina. Invention IO's are my go-to these days, thinking back on all the inf wasted on SO/DO's makes my stomach curl.

 

To keep this on topic, it's why I don't see Hasten as a must-have pick. Usually, two or three Invention IO Recharge enhancements do the trick for me. On my Mind/Traps Controller, Hasten is a massive pick to take because /Traps has a lot of long cooldown powers. On my AR/Dev Blaster? Not as necessary.

[Outrider_01]

Lets drop Hasten and get back to the rest of the OP's suggestions.  Its starting to sound like a bunch of politicians yelling back and forth with no productive outcome.

 

Anyone mention Hasten will have to clean up the entire sewers using only brawl with a level 50 character.

 

Starting....NOW!

[Greycat]

9 minutes ago, Incursion said:

None removed

No stacking, can only be selected from one chosen pool, like experimentation and force of will can't be used together.

It's a recharge buff, that's all it is.  It's no different than slotting you powers for recharge.  Call it whatever you want in the other pools.  Again you don't have to choose it. 

Leave Adreinal as is. can be used either or or in conjunction as it is now. 

 

Just so you know, the five powers per pool we have now? That caused some *issues* when it first happened. They *were* fixed in beta, but it broke three whole ATs for quite a while.  (Dominators - as Domination either wasn't able to be activated or activated while selecting something else, and Peacebringers and Warshades had powers shifted to where they were practically unplayable unless you liked playing "guess which power is going to go off now.")

 

So two followon questions for the suggested change:

 

What are you adding to the speed pool to make up for it now having one less power?

 

Do we add powers to all the other power pools so they all have six now? Fighting, Concealment, Leadership, Medicine? Yes, this is a legitimate followon, since you're now changing the design of power pools.

 

And yes, it is different from slotting your powers for recharge, as you should well know. If it were no different, you wouldn't be arguing for it to be inherent, since you could just slot for more recharge by tweaking your builds for slotting and set bonuses that give recharge. It's an instant cut to recharge on almost all powers. Trying to downplay it by "that's all it is" means either you're being dishonest about it to try to minimize the impact, or you're undercutting your *own* opinion about how necessary and powerful it is. I'd rather not believe either of those.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Greycat

[AerialAssault]

2 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

Lets drop Hasten and get back to the rest of the OP's suggestions.  Its starting to sound like a bunch of politicians yelling back and forth with no productive outcome.

 

Anyone mention Hasten will have to clean up the entire sewers using only brawl with a level 50 character.

 

Starting....NOW!

 

Let's talk about one of the other suggestions from the OP that surely won't start anything controversial...

 

Buff Regen.

 

[Alchemystic]

1 minute ago, Incursion said:

I've been there, i was just waiting for you to catch up.  

 

Sarcasm isn't a good look for you, but I suppose it beats prepubescent aggression. 

 

7 minutes ago, Incursion said:

I just think it be cool to see builds where it's not the only power taken in the pool, because that's the reality. You either deal with SS as your travel, or you waste a pool.  I think this would be a quality of life improvement

 

That's not the case though, it's already been stated that people opt for powers like Burnout, and with the updates to all travel powers coming out, Super Speed is going to be more of a contender too.

[Incursion]

Just now, Tyrannical said:

 

Sarcasm isn't a good look for you, but I suppose it beats prepubescent aggression. 

 

 

That's not the case though, it's already been stated that people opt for powers like Burnout, and with the updates to all travel powers coming out, Super Speed is going to be more of a contender too.

Back to insults? Thought the gm’s were clear about that. “We got there didn’t we?” Suppose sarcasm isn’t just one sided is it. Clearly you aren’t going to see eye to eye on this or maybe anything. Let’s drop it

[Incursion]

18 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Just so you know, the five powers per pool we have now? That caused some *issues* when it first happened. They *were* fixed in beta, but it broke three whole ATs for quite a while.  (Dominators - as Domination either wasn't able to be activated or activated while selecting something else, and Peacebringers and Warshades had powers shifted to where they were practically unplayable unless you liked playing "guess which power is going to go off now.")

 

So two followon questions for the suggested change:

 

What are you adding to the speed pool to make up for it now having one less power?

 

Do we add powers to all the other power pools so they all have six now? Fighting, Concealment, Leadership, Medicine? Yes, this is a legitimate followon, since you're now changing the design of power pools.

 

And yes, it is different from slotting your powers for recharge, as you should well know. If it were no different, you wouldn't be arguing for it to be inherent, since you could just slot for more recharge by tweaking your builds for slotting and set bonuses that give recharge. It's an instant cut to recharge on almost all powers. Trying to downplay it by "that's all it is" means either you're being dishonest about it to try to minimize the impact, or you're undercutting your *own* opinion about how necessary and powerful it is. I'd rather not believe either of those.

 

 

That poses some interesting questions. If we do add to all of the other travel powers, speed would need something to replace it. Considering the other choices in the pool, maybe another useful power would be interesting. I would really have to put some thought into it, offhand I’m thinking of some sort of minus recharge Debuff power or something clickable that would be kind of neat. Regarding the other pools, I don’t think they would need an extra power just because the travel ones have five. However if we do take a hard look at some of the other pool selections, they are a lot of under used powers, and a lot of powers that just simply aren’t used by anybody. It’s very rare to see anybody take the taunt pool, or even medicine.  One thing that I do notice is that it’s apparent that you have to invest quite a bit to get those tier 4 powers. Maybe keeping the Hasten as a tier one could act as a substitute. So maybe you can go hasten, mighty jump, unleashed potential etc. I feel like some of the precursor powers are so build specific, Hasten-like version would be more universal. 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Incursion

[kelika2]

Even if Hasten was made baseline/inherent, it still needs enhancement slots.  Freeing up a Power Slot only really means its going to be another mule or used in a niche ultra tight build.

[Alchemystic]

11 minutes ago, Incursion said:

Back to insults? Thought the gm’s were clear about that. “We got there didn’t we?” Suppose sarcasm isn’t just one sided is it. Clearly you aren’t going to see eye to eye on this or maybe anything. Let’s drop it

 

Hey, you went there first. I dropped this ages ago...

You're making things out to be personal attacks when they really aren't.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Tyrannical

[Incursion]

3 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

Even if Hasten was made baseline/inherent, it still needs enhancement slots.  Freeing up a Power Slot only really means its going to be another mule or used in a niche ultra tight build.

if it were inherent it frees up choice, if it’s selectable it remains the same but you are t tethered to one travel power in a build with 4 pools used. 

[Incursion]

2 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

 

Hey, you went there first.

You're making things out to be personal attacks when they really aren't.

I said I was already there and waiting for you to catch up tongue in cheek as I had already made my concession on inherent idea and had already explained my position as far as keeping it a choice earlier on in reply to some thoughtful replies that were against my initial idea. That’s a little different than comments like

 

“Sarcasm isn't a good look for you, but I suppose it beats prepubescent aggression.”

 

just sayin

 
im done throwing shade, so if your good, let’s both clean it up.

 

[kelika2]

3 minutes ago, Incursion said:

if it were inherent it frees up choice, if it’s selectable it remains the same but you are t tethered to one travel power in a build with 4 pools used. 

or just not take hasten.

all of my masterminds work well without it

most of my melee do without it

and i cant remember an alt that needed more than 4 pools, with or without hasten

 

I mean you might have a better chance asking for hastens recharge time off all powers globally and rework hasten into something else

[Incursion]

2 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

or just not take hasten.

all of my masterminds work well without it

most of my melee do without it

and i cant remember an alt that needed more than 4 pools, with or without hasten

 

I mean you might have a better chance asking for hastens recharge time off all powers globally and rework hasten into something else

That would make its benefit across the board passive, which I was fine with in my OP.  Some characters certainly don’t need it, many I feel do. There’s also a playstyle factor here and what the expectations are that we all have when deciding if we enjoy playing a character or not.  I’d love to find a statistic on every level 50 character and see how many have and how many don’t have. Is that possible?

[kelika2]

1 minute ago, Incursion said:

There’s also a playstyle factor here and what the expectations are that we all have when deciding if we enjoy playing a character or not.

why do you know of these words to put into this sentence but cant accept that not all characters need hasten and turned a 5 post max thread into a 4pager

[Incursion]

6 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

why do you know of these words to put into this sentence but cant accept that not all characters need hasten and turned a 5 post max thread into a 4pager

I fully accept that it’s not required but it feels like a must have for many players including myself.  That’s purely opinion and my initial post said inherent, passive, or selectable. The rest of the OP was ignored and I felt like I was being made fun of for broaching the subject. I accept my part in the thread growing into a little bit if a shit show but there are some meaningful thoughts and balance related comments that need to be considered. 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Incursion

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, Incursion said:

maybe there are, it was just an example i remember from mine back on live.  Can all primary/secondary dominator combos achieve that much recharge without hasten? I honestly don't know.  I've been maining scrappers the last couple months as i primarily played ranged AT's back on live.  My builds have been going for a healthy amount of recharge to keep heal powers and T9's up often.  

 

 

I would be shocked if Permadom can be achieved while levelling (ie, in the 30's) without Hasten. 

But at 50's, with Purples and Winter-O's and ATO's?  Wouldn't surprise me. 

 

I do take the long slow road deliberately when levelling my characters though. I'm like the exact opposite of powerleveller.  I disable XP the moment I join a group to preserve my story arcs upon levelling, and I flashback a lot after lvl 50 to get more that I missed while on the way up.  

[Greycat]

30 minutes ago, Incursion said:

I fully accept that it’s not required but it feels like a must have for many players including myself. 

 

And this circles right back to "If it's not required but it's something you want, there should be a cost to picking it."

 

... part of why the thread is so long. :)

[dragonhawk777]

49 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

 

As @Outrider_01 said, Stamina and Hasten are not close to being comparable. It would be dishonest to say that they both have similar impact.

 

Fitness was a trash power pool. Looking back on it now, I don't know why I ever bothered with it.

 

If we're going to give players powers simply because they're 'popular', will that mean inherent Combat Jumping? Manoeuvres? Tough & Weave? By giving players these for free, you're reducing player agency in how they build their characters, which includes not taking something which might be considered 'meta'. A lot of people also complain that the game is too easy, giving all players Hasten is not productive for the balance of the game, and you can say 'well don't use it', but if you give something to players you have to assume that it will be used.

So by my suggestion not everyone would have Hasten working by default.  You still need to slot it and set it to auto if you want permahasten.  The only change is that its removed from the Speed pool.  As far as other popular powers go I would say its a false equivalent in that Hasten is unique among the power pools, most if not all the other pools have a power that provides a defense buff (combat jumping, hover, stealth,...) but Hasten is the only ability that gives a recharge boost.  If you want to stack defense for whatever reason then you would go after multiple defense buff powers in a variety of pools, but with IOs reaching def soft caps doesnt seem to require taking multiple pools.

 

As far as it making the game too easy, if the vast majority of players are taking it already then how is moving it out of the Speed pool changing anything but the players ability to experiment and find a new meta build.  The easy issue is more of a content and mechanics issue than a thing related to any one or even any set of powers.  The devs a long time ago made the decision to make raid content super easy in this game and to not have much in terms of gear progression.  They said they didnt want a WoW style of game where you were chasing the next gear set and the next raid tier.  Well the consequences of that are that players very quickly become powerful enough to make the raids easy.  Between IOs and Incarnate powers we are doing a Tier 1 raid in Tier 3 gear (to use WoW terms).  The fix is to make raid content that is set for more geared up characters and for raid mechanics that are tight enough to make the raid benefit from being on Discord and listening to verbal instructions.  Currently all you need to do is have a macro typing in the basics of the mechanics and you can get nearly every Incarnate achievement badge there is.

 

I had been saying for years before the game shut down that they needed to add content more suited towards friends in an SG and on Discord working together in order to get it done.  Give people a real reason to be in an sg, other than it being a crafting base and teleport hub.  Even now I would like to see more challenging content, but I do understand that its much tougher since the guys running Homecoming have lives and jobs outside of this game.

[Alchemystic]

17 minutes ago, Greycat said:

... part of why the thread is so long. 🙂

 

A lot of circling back in this thread, huh

[AerialAssault]

9 minutes ago, dragonhawk777 said:

snipped for huge

 

If everyone has Hasten, then you have to assume that everyone will be running it, which means some powers may/will have to be rebalanced. You can say 'People don't have to use it', but you have to assume that they will with something as powerful as Hasten. You say yourself that people are upset that the game is too easy. Giving everyone easy access to Hasten would push the game further into the 'Too Easy' side. It seems counter-productive to make the game more challenging by .. giving everyone Hasten?

 

To cut a long and drawn out story short, I don't buy 'But everyone takes it!' as a valid reason to make Hasten inherent. That's the way I feel, and personally, I haven't read a convincing argument otherwise. The most I could warrant is having it not take up a Pool Power selection.

[dragonhawk777]

10 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

And this circles right back to "If it's not required but it's something you want, there should be a cost to picking it."

 

... part of why the thread is so long. 🙂

Well for one thing the cost would still involve putting enhancement slots in it and having to set it to auto if you wanted permahasten by default.  You may not feel that even that cost balances out the benefits of Hasten, but as I said in my earlier reply to you this game through out real costs to things long before these private servers even existed.  What costs is there to going to the auction house and buying up sets of IOs at level 25 to get a bunch of recharge through set bonuses?  Influence, big deal I have multiple toons outfitted with IOs and if I need more influence to gear up a new alt then just hop on my fire brute and farm some AE runs.  The only IOs that are level restricted are the epic ones and the pvp ones, but you can build a super solid character even without them.  You can only equip one epic set as it is so even if your not 50 they dont affect your build all that much.

 

Hasten does fit within the theme of the Speed pool but I do agree with the op that overall Speed has more issues than other travel powers.  Teleport used to have them also but the built in hover effect seems to have relieved most of those.  Super Speed however still has a number of issues due to how the game world is setup.  Super Jump is needed for so many maps and if you didnt take it with SS then you basically negated the travel benefits of SS.  I dont give DCUO much credit but I do think they did a much better job with SS in that game by allowing players with it to scale buildings and bypass any vertical obstacle.  The tech may not have been there when CoH was first launched but DCUO was out before CoH shut down so the tech existed before the game shut down.

 

 

[Greycat]

Just now, dragonhawk777 said:

Well for one thing the cost would still involve putting enhancement slots in it and having to set it to auto if you wanted permahasten by default.  You may not feel that even that cost balances out the benefits of Hasten, but as I said in my earlier reply to you this game through out real costs to things long before these private servers even existed.

You aren't understanding the idea of the cost. Especially for a power with this much potential impact.

 

No.

[Incursion]

It circles back really to how powerful the power is, especially considering it's a pool power.  If you want it to cost something, that's fine with me but i wish it to be a choice that's not tied to a pretty crappy pool. Travel pools are a hot mess, they always have been.  The 5th power was put it for what, just to add something cool?  Speed is so borked in general. You have hasten which is arguably one of the most powerful tools in the pool powers, of which players like me always use it, then you have Flurry, whirlwind, and burnout?  A pool power with a 30 minute cool down?   what, now we are putting accolade like recharges in pool powers?  Fly and Jump both have  always had some level of consistency, you get a weak attack that nobody gives a hoot about, and a pre-cursor mini version of the power (ie CJ and Hover).  Teleportation  was always an odd one, but it seems with combat teleport makes sense to align with say jump kick, and then you have Teleport target which makes sense compared to the old TP foe/ally setup.  Speed gets a recharge power (makes no sense as it has nothing to do with movement/travel.  I don't even know what to make of the new ones.  Maybe the suggestion is just to open up the limit of pools from 4 to 5.  I dunno, just seems like a huge portion of characters use it, even if it's 30-40%, that's a LOT and shows the inequity of choices people make.  

 

[dragonhawk777]

1 minute ago, AerialAssault said:

 

If everyone has Hasten, then you have to assume that everyone will be running it, which means some powers may/will have to be rebalanced. You can say 'People don't have to use it', but you have to assume that they will with something as powerful as Hasten. You say yourself that people are upset that the game is too easy. Giving everyone easy access to Hasten would push the game further into the 'Too Easy' side. It seems counter-productive to make the game more challenging by .. giving everyone Hasten?

 

To cut a long and drawn out story short, I don't buy 'But everyone takes it!' as a valid reason to make Hasten inherent. That's the way I feel, and personally, I haven't read a convincing argument otherwise. The most I could warrant is having it not take up a Pool Power selection.

Well if now it only requires you to pick up the first power in the Speed pool then what is stopping people from getting it now.  If Hasten is not a "mandatory" power than certainly no other pool power is and in fact the big buffs that people like from other pools can be found in a variety of pools.  Since you say the most you could see is it not take up a pool power than whats the difference if its inherited?  I am getting the idea that you and maybe some others are equating making it inherited with making it a passive like the fitness pool is.  I know I am not proposing that and I dont think the op is either, but I dont have psychic powers so I cant say for sure.  I am saying still require it to be slotted with recharge enhancements and its still a click power that you can set to auto if you want to tie up your auto power with it.