Mastermind changes in beta

[TheSpiritFox]

50 minutes ago, Maxzero said:

 

To me clicking upgrades adds nothing tactically to MMs. Did ST upgrades, long recharge summon times, shorter range pet auras, pets not persisting through zones, group fly having limited range for pets add extra complexity to MMs? Yet those charges were/are all cheered on.

 

What arbritary line does auto upgrade powers cross? Are people trying to say wether or not to click the upgrade equipment button is some great tactical decision? I would argue that long resummoning timers were something I did have think about and plan for especially in high damage situations. Yet here we are.

Its not the clicking upgrades, it's the choice. Most other classes have trade offs to doing the kinda damage MMs do, having to rebuff dead pets is a much smaller tax on the damage MMs can do than like a blaster's lack of defenses and mez protection, a corruptor or defender having to directly choose between damage and support casting, melee has to chase shit around if it's not locked down. MMs having to watch our pets, and rebuffing being a cost of failing to keep them alive, is the one tradeoff MMs really have to do the honestly large amount of damage both ST and AOE the AT is capable of doing with the right setups. 

 

The line it crosses is removing the motivation to try to keep pets alive. If they can be resummoned and then like slap your say secondary shield on them and two casts later you're back to full power, that means that you can afford, as an MM, to let your pets die much more easily and in more situations. You lose less when you lose them, less time devoted to pet management is indeed more time devoted to either just casting support powers or doing damage. And that makes the pets less a keystone of the AT. 

 

The entire line is the line whereby it is actively important to keep your pets alive, vs not nearly as relevant because they are disposable. That's the arbitrary line. Pet disposability. MMs are not supposed to treat their pets as disposable. The new changes actually encourage non disposable pets. You still have the cost of rebuffing them if they die, but you can resummon them instantly, because MMs are ALSO supposed to have all their pets out, so by buffing summon cooldowns but leaving upgrades the way they are they point the AT towards "Always have all your pets out, but protect them cause you don't want to waste time rebuffing in combat if you don't have to. 

 

It's an intended inconvenience. A limitation. The same way melee range, scourge only kicking in at half health, controllers needing to mez things to do full damage, are all limitations of the class intended to promote a certain playstyle. The entire point of games and challenges is to be given both power and limitations and use your power around the limitations. While some limitations, like rebuffing pets individually, are actually negative for the game experience not just for the MM but for everyone waiting 45 seconds for the MMs to summon and buff (originally at the start of every mission), other limitations like making pets not expendable on purpose, and limiting the damage MM attacks do, serve purposes of directing the gameplay down certain avenues that differentiate classes and change the intended play experience. 

[Maxzero]

16 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Its not the clicking upgrades, it's the choice. Most other classes have trade offs to doing the kinda damage MMs do, having to rebuff dead pets is a much smaller tax on the damage MMs can do than like a blaster's lack of defenses and mez protection, a corruptor or defender having to directly choose between damage and support casting, melee has to chase shit around if it's not locked down. MMs having to watch our pets, and rebuffing being a cost of failing to keep them alive, is the one tradeoff MMs really have to do the honestly large amount of damage both ST and AOE the AT is capable of doing with the right setups. 

 

The line it crosses is removing the motivation to try to keep pets alive. If they can be resummoned and then like slap your say secondary shield on them and two casts later you're back to full power, that means that you can afford, as an MM, to let your pets die much more easily and in more situations. You lose less when you lose them, less time devoted to pet management is indeed more time devoted to either just casting support powers or doing damage. And that makes the pets less a keystone of the AT. 

 

The entire line is the line whereby it is actively important to keep your pets alive, vs not nearly as relevant because they are disposable. That's the arbitrary line. Pet disposability. MMs are not supposed to treat their pets as disposable. The new changes actually encourage non disposable pets. You still have the cost of rebuffing them if they die, but you can resummon them instantly, because MMs are ALSO supposed to have all their pets out, so by buffing summon cooldowns but leaving upgrades the way they are they point the AT towards "Always have all your pets out, but protect them cause you don't want to waste time rebuffing in combat if you don't have to. 

 

It's an intended inconvenience. A limitation. The same way melee range, scourge only kicking in at half health, controllers needing to mez things to do full damage, are all limitations of the class intended to promote a certain playstyle. The entire point of games and challenges is to be given both power and limitations and use your power around the limitations. While some limitations, like rebuffing pets individually, are actually negative for the game experience not just for the MM but for everyone waiting 45 seconds for the MMs to summon and buff (originally at the start of every mission), other limitations like making pets not expendable on purpose, and limiting the damage MM attacks do, serve purposes of directing the gameplay down certain avenues that differentiate classes and change the intended play experience. 

 

Long resummoning times we a far greater incentive to keep your pets alive them the upgrade buttons were.

 

Take for example Thugs. If one of my Enforcers die not only do I lose a high damage pet but also half on the Enforcer auras so its a priority to bring them back. Base Enforcers come with the Manueveurs Leadership aura so it caps my pets defence to keep more pets dying leading to a cascade failure. The upgrade only adds some extra attacks and DPS auras.

 

Which do you think was the more critical decision in this case: resummoning while managing long resummon times or when to upgrade pets?

 

If it really was about rewarding pet management then upgrades should be auto but pet resummoning times extended. 6 pets with no upgrades can still fight. 6 dead pets with all the upgrades cannot.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Maxzero

[DreadShinobi]

7 minutes ago, TheSpiritFox said:

Most other classes have trade offs to doing the kinda damage MMs do, having to rebuff dead pets is a much smaller tax on the damage MMs can do ....... MMs having to watch our pets, and rebuffing being a cost of failing to keep them alive, is the one tradeoff MMs really have to do the honestly large amount of damage both ST and AOE the AT is capable of doing with the right setups. 

 

 

On 3/15/2021 at 11:43 PM, Maxzero said:

 

For me my MMs have two modes:

 

Stationary: Life's great and I feel super powerful.

 

Moving: Oh crap.

 

Automatic upgrades combined with the new reduced summon times would make me much more mobile. I could fight in a location, unsummon, zip off to the next location, quick resummon and I am into the action again.

 

MMs probably have the largest gap between theoretical effectiveness and practical effectivness.

This is the trade-off. Mobility. If playing MMs works for /your/ playstyle then that's great, I have nothing against those who enjoy playing MMs. For the way I run content, MMs have the lowest practical effectiveness of any archetype in the game by a large margin because they're just not strong picks for doing objective-based speed runs.

[Maxzero]

2 minutes ago, DreadShinobi said:

 

This is the trade-off. Mobility. If playing MMs works for /your/ playstyle then that's great, I have nothing against those who enjoy playing MMs. For the way I run content, MMs have the lowest practical effectiveness of any archetype in the game by a large margin because they're just not strong picks for doing objective-based speed runs.

 

I am eyeballing Group Fly.

 

It's far from a perfect solution but the ability to move through the air and just have my pets fly with me in outdoor areas will help a lot. It will also help against ground hazards which give pet AI fits.

[DreadShinobi]

1 minute ago, Maxzero said:

 

I am eyeballing Group Fly.

 

It's far from a perfect solution but the ability to move through the air and just have my pets fly with me in outdoor areas will help a lot. It will also help against ground hazards which give pet AI fits.

Group fly is still slow as molasses. It also doesn't stealth pets when running past mobs, and doesnt address the lower ceiling on IO'd MMs compared to IO'd other classes that don't need to be concerned about survivability and can run with a stack of 20+ red insps.

[tidge]

6 hours ago, Maxzero said:

What arbritary line does auto upgrade powers cross? Are people trying to say wether or not to click the upgrade equipment button is some great tactical decision? I would argue that long resummoning timers were something I did have think about and plan for especially in high damage situations. Yet here we are.

 

I don't feel strongly about either side of the argument, but here is what looks to be the thinking behind the upgrade powers:

• By giving the henchmen new abilities, the upgrades mimic the new powers that can be taken by other classes (at appropriate levels) to improve performance at higher-level content. Granting "auto-upgrades" could risk imbalance (at lower levels).

Now, even though I don't feel that strongly about the specific arguments back-and-forth about whether or not the upgrades should be automatic, I will repeat my complaint that to me, they feel like boring and wasteful power picks... even as I recognize that without the upgrades (in the current game) the henchmen would be rather pathetic.

 

There is another peculiarity (beyond the fact that slotting the upgrade powers is near-pointless): Why is the level 6 upgrade necessary for the level 12 and level 26 henchmen?

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by tidge
catching myself refering to "pets" when I mean "henchmen"

[Arbegla]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

There is another peculiarity (beyond the fact that slotting the upgrade powers is near-pointless): Why is the level 6 upgrade necessary for the level 12 and level 26 henchmen?

 

I'm unsure what you mean, but I also haven't played anything but Robotics in a long time. The Protector bots do just fine without the level 6 upgrade, and the Assault bot actually performs worse with it (mostly due to Flamethrower taking 6 seconds, but we know that's on the list of things to fix....)

[Coyote]

4 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

I'm unsure what you mean, but I also haven't played anything but Robotics in a long time. The Protector bots do just fine without the level 6 upgrade, and the Assault bot actually performs worse with it (mostly due to Flamethrower taking 6 seconds, but we know that's on the list of things to fix....)

 

@tidge meant... "why don't the henchmen that you get access to AFTER you get access to the upgrade already have the upgrade built in?". Clearly the "powers being gated by level" argument doesn't apply when the upgrade is available at 6 and the henchmen only at 12 and 26.

[Coyote]

8 hours ago, Maxzero said:

What arbritary line does auto upgrade powers cross? Are people trying to say wether or not to click the upgrade equipment button is some great tactical decision?

 

Don't weaken your argument by using silly phrases like "great tactical decision". A tactical decision doesn't have to be great in order to be a tactical decision, and by saying it that way you're trying to pretend that arguments are silly, or must meet a high standard of relevance. This is not the case. Using the upgrade in the middle of combat IS a tactical decision.

 

If I summon a henchman in the middle of a fight that will last another 20 seconds, then I have a choice: upgrade NOW and get 20 seconds worth of buffing on the henchman compared to the alternative of upgrading after the fight is complete. Upgrading takes animation time that prevents me from healing, debuffing, or doing damage or mezzing opponents. In some cases, the 20 seconds of upgraded henchmen may be worth the animation time, in other cases they won't, but in all cases there is a trade-off between upgrading vs using other powers in the middle of combat.

 

I have a lot of problems with the upgrade powers, chiefly that they're a boring and repetitive plan compared to gating henchmen powers by level, and getting two other powers that are actually tactical other than in terms of eating up animation time or not. However, I don't see how it's possible to make the argument that eating up animation time in the middle of combat in order to upgrade a henchmen is NOT a tactical decision. It's exactly a tactical decision: do I spend the next 4 seconds buffing up the Demon Prince, or throwing an attack and a mez at the Boss? Which will end up killing/debuffing/controlling the Boss faster or better?

 

It's not a tactical decision if it's not in combat. But then, there are few non-combat decisions that are tactical.

[Arbegla]

5 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

@tidge meant... "why don't the henchmen that you get access to AFTER you get access to the upgrade already have the upgrade built in?". Clearly the "powers being gated by level" argument doesn't apply when the upgrade is available at 6 and the henchmen only at 12 and 26.

 

I think that's a balance issue. As the level 6 upgrade gives additional powers and mechanics to the henchmen that having at 'base' would cause imbalance issues. For example, giving the protector bots their heal right outta the gate can basically allow you to dismiss/resummon them on the fly to heal your other pets. Granted, you could do this now, but you have to at least spend the endurance, and animation times to equip them first.

Thematically speaking, that makes sense as well, as things like Thugs without the equip power are not much better than Skulls or Hellions, the robots simply don't have an attack chain without the equip, and so on. I do feel that the equip/upgrade henchmen powers are very simple 1 slot wonder things that if you're lucky, you're only using once or twice a play session.

Getting your henchmen trashed all the time isn't really a good thing, so being able to get them back instantly, without any downside doesn't seem like a good thing either. If your henchmen are being destroyed so often that you need to resummon and re-equip/upgrade them constantly, there are other problems going on that the automatic upgrades aren't going to fix.

[TheSpiritFox]

8 hours ago, DreadShinobi said:

 

This is the trade-off. Mobility. If playing MMs works for /your/ playstyle then that's great, I have nothing against those who enjoy playing MMs. For the way I run content, MMs have the lowest practical effectiveness of any archetype in the game by a large margin because they're just not strong picks for doing objective-based speed runs.

 

See, and I would say that mobility is NOT an intended trade off but rather an unintended aspect of the difficulty in programming effective pet AI. I'd say that the new changes to summon times are in part a move away from MMs having limited mobility, same with reducing the summon cast time for Demons down to something shorter and thus easier to quickly resummon all your pets all at once. I would not be surprised if at some point homecoming devs do even more, there have been alot of requests from MM players for a "summon pets to me" button and tbh we really do need one. Put it on a 30 second timer and make it a pet command instead of a power activation that is like a button you can hit in the pet window or something you can macro, like imagine if you could make a macro that first summons the pets to you then puts them in a stance then does the goto command so you can tell them where to go next. 

I would say that MMs aren't absolutely terrible for objective based speed runs, but it does require planning. My thugs/traps and demons/nature both have super speed with celerity which is enough to stealth through move PVE content, and during speed runs I am often one of the first to the objective. At the same time, yeah an MM is not good for like the beginning of Ms Lib when you have to go hunt the guard captain dudes and content like that, because of pet travel being finicky and unpredictable. 

 

The reason I disagree with you here is that the devs agree with me. Pet buffing IS intended as a trade off, but I do not think that mobility is intended as a trade off. If it were, I don't think they would have lowered pet summon cooldowns and endurance cost the way they are about to while considering further changes to the AT. So I would say that based on the above, leaving pet upgrades the same as they are but making enhancements to pet mobility seems like it's right up the alley the devs of Homecoming themselves are walking and I'm gonna hope that mobility is one of the things that gets an actual look and balance/buff pass, as while the re-upgrade issue directly affects combat and how MMs perform against enemies, the mobility issue is a primarily out of combat issue that is about how MMs perform in between fights and that seems like an area the devs would be more than willing to make adjustments to. 

[TheSpiritFox]

8 hours ago, Maxzero said:

 

Long resummoning times we a far greater incentive to keep your pets alive them the upgrade buttons were.

 

Take for example Thugs. If one of my Enforcers die not only do I lose a high damage pet but also half on the Enforcer auras so its a priority to bring them back. Base Enforcers come with the Manueveurs Leadership aura so it caps my pets defence to keep more pets dying leading to a cascade failure. The upgrade only adds some extra attacks and DPS auras.

 

Which do you think was the more critical decision in this case: resummoning while managing long resummon times or when to upgrade pets?

 

If it really was about rewarding pet management then upgrades should be auto but pet resummoning times extended. 6 pets with no upgrades can still fight. 6 dead pets with all the upgrades cannot.

 

I would agree with this except honestly I am not used to long resummon times, I build all my MMs purpled out with recharge bonuses everywhere, and like I was already down to like 15 seconds on minions, 30 on lts and 45 on boss pets, which honestly I almost never like had to wait to summon pets absent the damn level shift killing them when I wasn't expecting it. So that for me was never much of a limitation, but I can understand if you build an MM for anything other than perma hasten, like softcapping ranged/melee defense or something, suddenly that changes quite alot. 

[tidge]

4 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

@tidge meant... "why don't the henchmen that you get access to AFTER you get access to the upgrade already have the upgrade built in?". Clearly the "powers being gated by level" argument doesn't apply when the upgrade is available at 6 and the henchmen only at 12 and 26.

 

Yep, that is my exact point of inquiry. Because the upgrades act as a sort of "targeted AoE" it isn't as if there is an easy way to avoid buffing (only some) henchmen... so the necessity (or choice, if you prefer) of applying the L6 upgrade to L12 and L26 henchmen really does seem like a penalty. Minor perhaps, but hard to justify.

 

I can totally accept a MM primary power choice that makes henchmen MOAR BETTER, but having to use TWO primary power picks... and having next-to-no utility from slotting those TWO primary powers... There is an upper limit on how much lemonade we can expect.

 

I can suggest LOTS of things that could be done with those two powers that would risk game balance, but I can also think of some minimal changes that would not. Personally, I don't think baking the L6 upgrade into all the henchmen would be catastrophic to game balance. If the L6 upgrade was replaced with another power... the MM Endurance tax would almost certainly cost more (in the long run) than the cost of applying the 1-time upgrade.... but MM would have more options. Just to close out the circle of my thoughts:

1. Give every henchmen (T1, T2, T3) the 'extra' powers (granted by the Level 6 upgrade) at time of summoning. This is a slight buff to the Level 1 henchmen, but effectively only for the first 5 levels of play.
2. Replace the Level 6 upgrade power with a recharge-intensive pet which provides some boost (perhaps +Acc?) of suitable flavor for the primary... which ought to allow all MM classes the ability to slot the Aura pieces without having to frankenslot every henchmen build just to include them.
3. Keep the Level 32 upgrade as is.

 

 

[Maxzero]

5 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

Don't weaken your argument by using silly phrases like "great tactical decision". A tactical decision doesn't have to be great in order to be a tactical decision, and by saying it that way you're trying to pretend that arguments are silly, or must meet a high standard of relevance. This is not the case. Using the upgrade in the middle of combat IS a tactical decision.

 

If I summon a henchman in the middle of a fight that will last another 20 seconds, then I have a choice: upgrade NOW and get 20 seconds worth of buffing on the henchman compared to the alternative of upgrading after the fight is complete. Upgrading takes animation time that prevents me from healing, debuffing, or doing damage or mezzing opponents. In some cases, the 20 seconds of upgraded henchmen may be worth the animation time, in other cases they won't, but in all cases there is a trade-off between upgrading vs using other powers in the middle of combat.

 

I have a lot of problems with the upgrade powers, chiefly that they're a boring and repetitive plan compared to gating henchmen powers by level, and getting two other powers that are actually tactical other than in terms of eating up animation time or not. However, I don't see how it's possible to make the argument that eating up animation time in the middle of combat in order to upgrade a henchmen is NOT a tactical decision. It's exactly a tactical decision: do I spend the next 4 seconds buffing up the Demon Prince, or throwing an attack and a mez at the Boss? Which will end up killing/debuffing/controlling the Boss faster or better?

 

It's not a tactical decision if it's not in combat. But then, there are few non-combat decisions that are tactical.

 

Compared to upgrading resummoning (with its old long cooldown) was of far greater importance then whether you upgraded your pets or not.

 

If we are going to 'tactical decision' argument then shouldn't the pet upgrades go back to single target because in mid combat you would have to prioritise which pet to upgrade based on tier, gained abilities according to the situation? What are way to really show your skill!

 

With the reduced end cost, AoE nature and minimal cooldown the upgrades have been stripped of virtually any level of tactical thought yet suddenly this last step is a bridge too far.

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I can suggest LOTS of things that could be done with those two powers that would risk game balance, but I can also think of some minimal changes that would not. Personally, I don't think baking the L6 upgrade into all the henchmen would be catastrophic to game balance.

 

I don't necessarily agree that the replacement power should be another pet (though I'm not against it either, I just don't want to limit it to a pet power). But the rest of the ideas are pretty good... basically, since it comes at Level 6, the first upgrade is almost an irrelevant power pick since its absence is only relevant for levels 1-5. Turn it into anything useful, and the class will improve both in being more interesting and more capable.

[Maxzero]

4 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

 

I would agree with this except honestly I am not used to long resummon times, I build all my MMs purpled out with recharge bonuses everywhere, and like I was already down to like 15 seconds on minions, 30 on lts and 45 on boss pets, which honestly I almost never like had to wait to summon pets absent the damn level shift killing them when I wasn't expecting it. So that for me was never much of a limitation, but I can understand if you build an MM for anything other than perma hasten, like softcapping ranged/melee defense or something, suddenly that changes quite alot. 

 

While perma Hasten is almost a feature of all my builds the point is that now that recharge no longer matters for pet powers in anymore pet IO slotting has become even simpler.

 

My preferred change: 

 

Make the upgrades auto since they now have low End costs, are AoE and a low CD and then use those power slots for something that is an ACTUAL tactical decision.

 

What if Equip/upgrade were are pet only Build Up effect? 30sec duration, 2-3m CD? They need not be only damage but also defensive (regen?) or utility (Taunt?).

 

There would be so much design space. You could have Bots using Temp tech powers, Ninja's with fancy new martial arts, Lich casting new spells, etc.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Maxzero

[Coyote]

9 minutes ago, Maxzero said:

If we are going to 'tactical decision' argument then shouldn't the pet upgrades go back to single target because in mid combat you would have to prioritise which pet to upgrade based on tier, gained abilities according to the situation? What are way to really show your skill!

 

They could, except that I think you keep missing my point. The point isn't that the upgrade on its own is a tactical decision... other than bad balance where you want to skip specific tiers because of bad powers, you will generally always want to use it on every pet.

The tactics comes not in deciding to use it, because that's a "yes, on all summoned pets". Instead, it's on the choice of "upgrade or attack/heal/control", and that choice always appears whenever you summon a henchman to replace a deceased one, and it's there whether you are upgrading multiple henchmen or just one.

I don't know if you're actually paying attention, or just kneejerking and trying to put out arguments that aren't well-reasoned. If the upgrade powers were dropped to being single-target, then in many situations it would kind of make the choice irrelevant, because of course it would be better to throw out the other powers since they do more, and only upgrade whenever there is a lull in the power animations.

In other words, make the choice too obvious either in being good or bad, and the decision makes itself. The only time it's a relevant decision is when the balance between upgrading henchmen vs using other powers is good... that there is a good argument to be made for using either.

 

In fact, right now, considering that a fight may only last for 20 more seconds, and the amount of extra damage to be gained from upgrading a henchman or two over those 20 seconds may not be worth two powers with pretty long animations, I actually think that the decision is kind of tilted AGAINST mid-combat upgrading, and it would be nice if they were sped up a bit. Weakening them would make the decision less interesting.

 

A good balance makes tactics interesting. Making them automatic removes the tactics... making them not worth using mid-fight also removes tactics. Making them worth using rather than Transfusion or Ice Arrow creates a viable decision point. And on top of that, using them between fights as AoE upgrades is okay, but turning them back into single-target buffs would be seriously annoying.

[Maxzero]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

Yep, that is my exact point of inquiry. Because the upgrades act as a sort of "targeted AoE" it isn't as if there is an easy way to avoid buffing (only some) henchmen... so the necessity (or choice, if you prefer) of applying the L6 upgrade to L12 and L26 henchmen really does seem like a penalty. Minor perhaps, but hard to justify.

 

I can totally accept a MM primary power choice that makes henchmen MOAR BETTER, but having to use TWO primary power picks... and having next-to-no utility from slotting those TWO primary powers... There is an upper limit on how much lemonade we can expect.

 

I can suggest LOTS of things that could be done with those two powers that would risk game balance, but I can also think of some minimal changes that would not. Personally, I don't think baking the L6 upgrade into all the henchmen would be catastrophic to game balance. If the L6 upgrade was replaced with another power... the MM Endurance tax would almost certainly cost more (in the long run) than the cost of applying the 1-time upgrade.... but MM would have more options. Just to close out the circle of my thoughts:

1. Give every henchmen (T1, T2, T3) the 'extra' powers (granted by the Level 6 upgrade) at time of summoning. This is a slight buff to the Level 1 henchmen, but effectively only for the first 5 levels of play.
2. Replace the Level 6 upgrade power with a recharge-intensive pet which provides some boost (perhaps +Acc?) of suitable flavor for the primary... which ought to allow all MM classes the ability to slot the Aura pieces without having to frankenslot every henchmen build just to include them.
3. Keep the Level 32 upgrade as is.

 

 

 

Honestly bake all the upgrades in.

 

If Equip is dull at 6 how is Upgrade any more compelling at 32?

 

Every other AT is almost always starting to get their best, most build defining abilities at 32 and MMs get Upgrade Equipment.

 

To put into perspective how mindless these abilities are we don't even bother which using the different names. I can just say Equip and Upgrade and everyone knows exactly what powers I am talking about even if they have not played Thugs.

 

 

 

[Coyote]

8 minutes ago, Maxzero said:

Make the upgrades auto since they now have low End costs, are AoE and a low CD and then use those power slots for something that is an ACTUAL tactical decision.

 

What if Equip/upgrade were are pet only Build Up effect? 30sec duration, 2-3m CD? They need more only be damage but also defensive (regen?) or utility (Taunt?).

 

There would be so much design space. You could have Bots using Temp tech powers, Ninja's with fancy new martial arts, Lich casting new spells, etc.

 

While it would be a major redesign that I'm not sure the Dev team is up for, replacing the upgrades with different and more interesting powers (and basically, anything other than Rest would probably be more interesting) is something that everyone seems to be in agreement with.

 

Personally I'm not going to throw out suggestions yet, but I'd be down with pretty much anything like yours or @tidge's or any other similar suggestion. The main thing is whether the Dev team would be open to all of the work required to add 2 new powers to all of the powersets, migrate all of the powers to the base pets (maybe work on gating some of them based on the level of the henchman), and balance them all. The result would be a great improvement, IMO, but it's also on the other side of a large mound of work 😞

[PeregrineFalcon]

4 minutes ago, Coyote said:

While it would be a major redesign that I'm not sure the Dev team is up for, replacing the upgrades with different and more interesting powers (and basically, anything other than Rest would probably be more interesting) is something that everyone seems to be in agreement with.

No. Everyone is NOT in agreement with this. I do not agree with this.

 

Also, the Homecoming developers recently posted that they will not make the powers auto powers.

[Maxzero]

5 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

While it would be a major redesign that I'm not sure the Dev team is up for, replacing the upgrades with different and more interesting powers (and basically, anything other than Rest would probably be more interesting) is something that everyone seems to be in agreement with.

 

Personally I'm not going to throw out suggestions yet, but I'd be down with pretty much anything like yours or @tidge's or any other similar suggestion. The main thing is whether the Dev team would be open to all of the work required to add 2 new powers to all of the powersets, migrate all of the powers to the base pets (maybe work on gating some of them based on the level of the henchman), and balance them all. The result would be a great improvement, IMO, but it's also on the other side of a large mound of work 😞

 

I understand it would be a huge amount of work for an AT which is probably already the most resource intensive already.

 

I remember from reading stats somewhere on the forum that MMs are one of the most popular ATs at lower levels yet one of the least popular at 50.

 

That tells me that for many players they start out attacted/intrested in MMs and actually start likely the class less the more they play it.

 

That to me is a major red flag.

[TygerDarkstorm]

9 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

No. Everyone is NOT in agreement with this. I do not agree with this.

 

Also, the Homecoming developers recently posted that they will not make the powers auto powers.

  Exactly.

On 3/13/2021 at 3:17 PM, Number Six said:

There's a lot of text here, but I can save you all a lot of time and back and forth.

 

We considered making upgrade powers auto a while back (9-12 months) because it was a player suggestion that had come up a few times, but ultimately ruled it out. The reason was that there has to be some opportunity cost to give the player an incentive to try and keep their pets alive. If you want to get them back up to full strength, you have to spend extra time not using your secondary powers to do it.

 

So while the changes on beta are intended to make life a little less painful when they do die, the intent is not to make it trivial to have an infinite supply of full-strength pets out.

I am not quite sure why this keeps getting ignored. It will not be happening and this is not the the suggestions and feedback forum. It would be lovely to see it dropped and perhaps other MM discussion take place.

[Maxzero]

6 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

  Exactly.

I am not quite sure why this keeps getting ignored. It will not be happening and this is not the the suggestions and feedback forum. It would be lovely to see it dropped and perhaps other MM discussion take place.

 

Well no one is forcing you to stay in this one single topic.

 

If you want to discuss other topics you are free to do so but I don't know why you feel the need to police others discussions.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Maxzero

[PsychoThruster]

I'm going to reiterate making the upgrade powers similar to swap ammo in that it gives the player three powers that represent a unique kit when applied to each pet tier is a way to make upgrading way more interesting. 

 

Is upgrading still mandatory? Yes, but if I can swap my soldiers kit from aoe dot assault rifles to knock back shotguns during a fight, I have some tactical considerations to make during the entire battle. 

 

Make the upgrades single target, with reasonable recharge and I have the option to respond to the battle and be more engaged in managing pets. Am I taking too much damage? I turn another soldier into a medic. 

 

Each upgrade power essentially does 9 different things this way. Three powers with a unique effect depending on which pet tier is targeted. Simply make it so the powers pets get start on cool down to prevent abuse. 

 

You retain the need for the masterminds to manage and upgrade the pets, but they become more than just buff and forget powers by actually offering enough flexibility to consider active use. 

 

It doesn't require inventing new game mechanics or invalidating old ones, arguably it's closer thematically to how the AT was intended to be played, and is something the community could come together to help design. 

[Maxzero]

1 minute ago, PsychoThruster said:

I'm going to reiterate making the upgrade powers similar to swap ammo in that it gives the player three powers that represent a unique kit when applied to each pet tier is a way to make upgrading way more interesting. 

 

Is upgrading still mandatory? Yes, but if I can swap my soldiers kit from aoe dot assault rifles to knock back shotguns during a fight, I have some tactical considerations to make during the entire battle. 

 

Make the upgrades single target, with reasonable recharge and I have the option to respond to the battle and be more engaged in managing pets. Am I taking too much damage? I turn another soldier into a medic. 

 

Each upgrade power essentially does 9 different things this way. Three powers with a unique effect depending on which pet tier is targeted. Simply make it so the powers pets get start on cool down to prevent abuse. 

 

You retain the need for the masterminds to manage and upgrade the pets, but they become more than just buff and forget powers by actually offering enough flexibility to consider active use. 

 

It doesn't require inventing new game mechanics or invalidating old ones, arguably it's closer thematically to how the AT was intended to be played, and is something the community could come together to help design. 

 

There are heaps of good ideas and honestly I find Equip/Upgrade so lacklustre and dull that pretty much anything would be an improvement.

 

The issue is its a lot of work for the Devs that are already stretched thin.