How much better or worse would the game be if AT's except Stalker could choose the 1st or 2nd power from their secondary at creation?

[DougGraves]

It's a common complaint - you don't want the first power in your secondary but are stuck with it.

 

Would allowing that choice at creation break anything?  Would it make things significantly better?

 

[Machariel]

what, you have something against Stalkers without hide? 😤😤

 

(I do too)

 

It would increase the average power level of the game in that it’s basically giving players an extra power pick to play with. Probably won’t change damage output at all but would leave more room for pool powers or one slot wonders. 

[Coyote]

21 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

Would allowing that choice at creation break anything?  Would it make things significantly better?

 

Neither. If the Tier 1 power that you're forced to take is the least relevant power that you have, then the power that you take at 49 is usually the next least relevant. So the replacement power that you get by not having to take a nearly useless Level 1 power isn't going to be that great, or you would have selected it by 49. So you're really just taking a cool power, or one that may be helpful like Stealth, but wasn't important enough to squeeze out more important powers, etc. So it's not going to make a great difference on ANY build, because if whatever power you end up taking would make a great difference, then you would have picked it up already in the build.

 

I like the idea, it would be cool to not have a power pick that is useless at high levels (and some of the powers do remain useful at all levels)... but in the long run, characters won't end up significantly stronger for getting the choice.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Why can't stalkers skip hide in this scenario?

[DougGraves]

9 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

Neither. If the Tier 1 power that you're forced to take is the least relevant power that you have, then the power that you take at 49 is usually the next least relevant.

 

I never play to level 49.  I don't play characters above level 34.  Almost all of my playing is characters level 8-24.  At those levels each power matters.

[Outrider_01]

Doesn't matter, you already got the option to pick your primary and a number of secondary power pools or epic powers.  You also don't need to take every primary/secondary and power pools are all optional.  Its one power forced on the character, won't break the game but apparently it blows out the gasket in some people's cinnamon hole when they pucker in frustration over a "useless" power while trying to squeeze in optional "mandatory" secondary power pool picks like hasten.

[Yomo Kimyata]

15 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

I never play to level 49.  I don't play characters above level 34.  Almost all of my playing is characters level 8-24.  At those levels each power matters.

 

That is certainly a valid way of playing, but probably not one that many others pursue.  

[Grindingsucks]

It wouldn't affect game balance in any meaningful way, if that's what you're asking?

 

It would allow the player that one extra choice in how they allocate powers.

 

Apart from that, there would be no other affect.

[Apparition]

Captain Powerhouse tried this with Tankers in the Issue 26, Page 4 update over a year ago.  It literally broke the game.  Forcing a power in the secondary for ATs is too deeply embedded in the game engine to change.

[DougGraves]

15 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

Doesn't matter, you already got the option to pick your primary and a number of secondary power pools or epic powers.  You also don't need to take every primary/secondary and power pools are all optional.  Its one power forced on the character, won't break the game but apparently it blows out the gasket in some people's cinnamon hole when they pucker in frustration over a "useless" power while trying to squeeze in optional "mandatory" secondary power pool picks like hasten.

 

You seem strangely agitated by this question.  One might say it blows out the gasket in your cinnamon hole when you pucker in frustration that someone would post this question.

 

Why is this question so important to you?

[DougGraves]

Just now, Apparition said:

Captain Powerhouse tried this with Tankers in the Issue 26, Page 4 update over a year ago.  It literally broke the game.  Forcing a power in the secondary for ATs is too deeply embedded in the game engine to change.

 

Good information, thanks

[Grindingsucks]

37 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Captain Powerhouse tried this with Tankers in the Issue 26, Page 4 update over a year ago.  It literally broke the game.  Forcing a power in the secondary for ATs is too deeply embedded in the game engine to change.

How?

 

Yes, my skepticism is extreme.

[Peacemoon]

It would be better IMO if you could earn extra powers. Like every 100 prestige levels after 50 you got an extra power. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

Captain Powerhouse tried this with Tankers in the Issue 26, Page 4 update over a year ago.  It literally broke the game.  Forcing a power in the secondary for ATs is too deeply embedded in the game engine to change.

 

That only means he didn't dig hard enough through the horrific spaghetti code!

[Outrider_01]

3 hours ago, DougGraves said:

 

You seem strangely agitated by this question.  One might say it blows out the gasket in your cinnamon hole when you pucker in frustration that someone would post this question.

 

Why is this question so important to you?

Why is it so important to you?  So many "gotta have hasten/weave/acrobatics as inherent" suggestions yet they get pissed when you say no.  Everything is optional, except for that secondary T1 power.

 

What does it really to to the game if you can pick a T2 pick from the secondary?  Nothing, its just "I can't fit it into my preferred FOTM" build.

[Nayeh]

I'd be for lifting the secondary level intervals to move along the same pathway as your primary. This way you could choose between your secondary's first two powers and be allowed to select your final power at 32 instead of 38.

 

Doing so would allow players to access their Epic pools at the 35/38/41 level ranges instead of putting it off into the 40's in most builds, locked away from most content.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Nayeh

[MTeague]

Personally, I'd like to see Stalker Hide become an inherent, and for them to get the various powers that were ripped out of their armor/defense set to make room for it. 

I don't expect to see that happen, mind you.  But I'd like it. 

 

re: the original proposal, I'm loosely in favor of the idea.  There are definitely characters I have rolled as a Corruptor instead of a Defender JUST because of this. And other characters where I've argued with myself if I really want a Tank vs a Brute. And I'd definitely pickup a different power on my Dominator. Psi Dart stopped being useful around lvl 4 (imo).

 

But I'd certainly box up the whole idea into a  "It would be nice if" box, not a "zomg I needz this!" box.

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

That only means he didn't dig hard enough through the horrific spaghetti code!

Well that's the thing.  When you're talking programming, very few things are flat impossible.  Many may be deemed "not worth the time or trouble", and hey, we're not paying them a salary, so entirely their call if they choose to say "nope, not worth it to us to dig that far."

 

But power customization was once claimed to be "impossible, animations are baked in too deeply."

I'm sure making the T1 secondary skippable is possible. 

I'm also sure it would probably be a giant pain. 

And it might require a serious cost in terms of debugging time / code refactoring / delaying OTHER things that people really want.

 

But impossible? Nah.

 

(also, whenever I hear "spaghetti code", I briefly wonder at the difference between that and "ziti code" or "linguine code" or "farfalle code"....)

[Grouchybeast]

26 minutes ago, MTeague said:

But power customization was once claimed to be "impossible, animations are baked in too deeply."

 

IIRC, power customization was never considered to be impossible because of code constraints.  It was simply too time-consuming, because of the sheer number of power files that needed to be rewritten.  It happened in the end because someone worked out a way to automate most of the process, which brought down the dev-hours required to a reasonable amount.

[Coyote]

3 hours ago, MTeague said:

(also, whenever I hear "spaghetti code", I briefly wonder at the difference between that and "ziti code" or "linguine code" or "farfalle code"....)

 

Don't get me started on cavatelli code

[Sovera]

We accept mule powers because we have been indoctrinated into it. Most of the time the T1 and Punch is not even serving as a mule (and yes, some people take Kick and put a FF proc in it, but I'm just 🙂 Good luck hitting anything with zero accuracy).

 

Sometimes they do serve as mules which makes the point they are not useless and would have been picked.

 

But this was attempted back on live and it did not work, and then re-attempted recently and it did not work either. With all the copies of CoH's code around someone brave could try to untangle things and then offer the solution to the devs.

[KC4800]

How much better (to the original question posed)? ...Not much.

 

Getting Hide as inherent? A bit better, but it would be like getting two level 1 secondary picks when all the other ATs get one. Then blasters cry about why they have to take that immob they never use....

 

Huge can of worms.

[Carnifax]

It'd make Traps secondary less horrific earlier on.

 

Traps really is a "crap sandwich". Nice powers in the middle, bookended by shite at the start and end.

 

On a controller it's like "yay. I start with a power that manages to copy yet be much worse than one of my primaries".

 

And like Bill says just let Stalkers not take hide too. Why not? It's probably gimping them but no worse than anyone else could gimp themselves anyway by missing their set signature powers.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Carnifax

[Replacement]

I'd finally make a savage dominator.

 

Every time I get interested... And then come the bees.

[golstat2003]

On 3/20/2021 at 4:23 AM, Sovera said:

We accept mule powers because we have been indoctrinated into it. Most of the time the T1 and Punch is not even serving as a mule (and yes, some people take Kick and put a FF proc in it, but I'm just 🙂 Good luck hitting anything with zero accuracy).

 

Sometimes they do serve as mules which makes the point they are not useless and would have been picked.

 

But this was attempted back on live and it did not work, and then re-attempted recently and it did not work either. With all the copies of CoH's code around someone brave could try to untangle things and then offer the solution to the devs.

 

Pretty much this. If it's going to happen someone on their own time would have to dig into this. Not worth the amount of already limited time this volunteer team doesn't have.