Focused Feedback: Travel Power Updates (Build 2)

[golstat2003]

6 hours ago, SuperPlyx said:

Just curious but why words like "most" and "some" why not just say 75% ?? Is it 75% ? If so, say so.

 

Traditionally it has not been written like that in descriptions.

 

With that said, damn tradition, and put in the actual numbers. /shrug.

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

Perhaps this could be part of a sweeping change to power text descriptions, but with very few exceptions this game's power text descriptions do not give any numbers at all.

 

And is why I find most of them useless and always go to the the areas of the game that give actual numbers. (Like the details tab or the when you click on a power on the build/respec screen).

 

With that said some traditions need to go.

[InvaderStych]

Am I missing something?  Numbers, granting inconsistency and sometime inaccuracy, are available in the Details pane of Power Info.  So, maybe not in the Descriptions, but one tab over?

 

What is being asked for here?

Edited March 22, 2021 by InvaderStych
missed a comma

[UberGuy]

The biggest problem with the descriptions is that they are mostly static text with no way to give you "real" numbers unless someone actually types them in there.  That's a problem, because the effect of an awful lot of powers varies in ways that make giving a specific number immediately wrong if a character has any accolades, set bonuses, or so on. That then creates more questions and confusion than it solves.

 

 

[kelika2]

Why not use Combat Teleports "no range enhancements" coding into Teleport, and bump Teleport (and all its variants) to like 550-750ft base?

Pro: Puts slotting on par with the other travel powers that generally dont need more than base slot

Con: same old cons, cant always see the reticle and 90degree angles.. and caves.. and little walls

[twozerofoxtrot]

9 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

What is being asked for here?

 

I think very specifically for Stealth (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not home to check for myself) and powers like Stealth, the only information given in the Details tab is the out-of-combat defense. The amount you retain in-combat stays a mystery, unless you 1) check for yourself by running the power and entering and exiting combat with Combat Attributes open or 2) configure Mids to show you the in-combat values, necessitating a third party application.

 

By identifying up front how much defense is remaining in-combat in the first Info tab, you cut out a little of that hustle. 

[InvaderStych]

7 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

By identifying up front how much defense is remaining in-combat in the first Info tab, you cut out a little of that hustle. 

 

Ok, yes.  I figured I was missing a piece of the puzzle.

 

You are correct; unless you're monitoring def in a window (and can safely surmise nothing else is changing def values like debuffs), or have combat attributes open to that section (for those of us fortunate enough to have that sort of screen real estate) then yes, the Details Tab for Stealth doesn't split the In/Out differences for Defense.

 

I could be mistaken, but Stealth isn't the only power who's Details tab doesn't keep up with those sorts of changes.

 

@UberGuy makes an important point.  Descriptions, being static text, could only offer base (unmodified, not real-time) numbers for the power, and the Details tab is the spot for more "in practice" numbers on the power (Level slider, calcs enhancement values, etc).

 

Personally, from a "design" standpoint I like that Descriptions are "Flavor" and Details are "Details," but I don't see the harm in writing base values into Descriptions, assuming they would be described as such so as not to confuse new players.

 

However, more realistically with the resources available to the HC team, I'd rather see the Details tabs for various powers fixed and editing the static Descriptions getting a lower priority.

[FaradayGauss]

I agree that Infiltrate could use something more or different. At first, I thought Infiltrate's in-combat defense would stack with Stealth's, making it more or less the solo players' alternative to Leadership's Maneuvers but requiring investment in two power picks and the hassle of worrying over endurance management (not unlike Leadership, come to think of it). Kinda liked that from a roleplaying standpoint. It'd be the equivalent of having extroverted folks that take charge and are all teamwork makes the dream work, and introverted folks who'd rather avoid the limelight and be lone wolves. But having a perception bonus like Luminara suggested works thematically, too, and would make Concealment kind of a hybrid pool between Leadership and a dedicated Travel pool. Wavicle's Exfiltrate idea would be a neat alternative, too, making Infiltrate a stronger contender for meeting your character's travel needs. If the ability to climb things were in the game, that'd be perfect. Or if attacks from Infiltrate had an increased chance to crit.

 

To me, anyhow, the pick always came down to either Leadership or Concealment as a 4th pool pick before, and that's because Concealment didn't have a travel power. Now Concealment does, but it still doesn't have enough going for it when you factor in the Stealth IO procs that can be slotted into pretty much any travel power in addition to their superior speed/maneuverability, or Leadership's greater defensive bonus, team utility, and general utility. Concealment's caught in between, inferior to either option.

 

Also, I don't really get what the point of Phase Shift is, despite wanting to like it. It's supposed to be a 4th tier power, requiring significant investment in the pool, but it just functions as a panic button with a 2-minute cooldown. And Misdirection serves the same purpose, but with a 4-minute cooldown and the bonus of -resist. If either of these powers were more compelling, then it'd make the Concealment pool more attractive, too. If Phase Shift allowed you to hover or fly and had the -collision detection bonus of Speed Phase, that'd make it pretty cool. Replacement suggested something like that a while back, coupled with a return to it being toggleable and introducing a heavy End cost instead of having a long cooldown (to prevent repeated cycling issues).

Edited March 23, 2021 by FaradayGauss

[macskull]

13 hours ago, kelika2 said:

Why not use Combat Teleports "no range enhancements" coding into Teleport, and bump Teleport (and all its variants) to like 550-750ft base?

Pro: Puts slotting on par with the other travel powers that generally dont need more than base slot

Con: same old cons, cant always see the reticle and 90degree angles.. and caves.. and little walls

Teleport pretty much just needs two endurance reduction enhancements to be a viable long-distance option as long as your build has a decent amount of recovery. Sure, you might have to detoggle some powers over very long distances, but it isn't as big a deal as it seems. Teleport is already significantly faster than any other travel power out of the box - those other travel powers require enhancements to reach their new higher caps (and with the exception of flight powers, to reach their previous ones) so it makes sense Teleport would require a bit of investment to be universally useful.

[America's Angel]

After testing out rooting changes on Mighty Leap, I would like to suggest that [Takeoff] have the foe knockdown element removed, so that it can then in turn have its rooting removed.

 

It's a movement based power. It rooting me feels counterintuitive. (Also having to be grounded to activate it kinda sucks. None of the other popup tray movement powers have this restriction.)

[BalrogLord]

My 2 inf: while I like most of the travel power changes, and they're not much of a big deal since they're just

travel power changes, 2 items I don't like/agree with, since they weren't broken:

 

"Level Scaling

• Travel powers no longer increase in strength as you level up, the previous level 50 values now apply at all levels
• Travel speed caps no longer increase in strength as you level up, the previous level 50 values now apply at all levels"

Don't like this, all chars with lvl 50 travel speed? Why? I think faster travel is a nice perk of leveling up, giving it to

starting chars is OP and messes with immersion a bit.

 

"Pool: Concealment

• Invisibility and Stealth have been merged together, the best parts of both powers are now available with just Stealth"

IMO this is also OP and unnecessary to make Stealth have so much. So starting chars can get full invis with one power pick

and not even need Celerity? Before there was a choice: Stealth + Invis or Stealth + Celerity, both requiring more investment.

 

I guess these 2 changes mean the current devs want to make chars OP right from lvl 4 - first SOs for everybody, now

full invis and lvl 50 travel speed?

• Concealment has been updated to include a new sneaky & versatile travel power: Infiltration

And this replacement for Invis is useless unfortunately.

[Hew]

9 hours ago, BalrogLord said:

Don't like this, all chars with lvl 50 travel speed? Why? I think faster travel is a nice perk of leveling up, giving it to

starting chars is OP and messes with immersion a bit.

And undeniably, hitting 14 to get your travel power, or 20 (22?) to get stamina were also defining bits of character growth.

 

I, in no way, want to revisit those days. Count me all in on the speed updates. Moreover, it is all moot, since if speed scales with relative level, exemping to low level TFs, teams, or trials will result in a pretty significant impact to how fast/effectively those can be done. No thanks! 🙂

 

[FrostyIgloo]

 

•  

Is it me or does super jump feel like it was forgotten in this update?

 

Double Jump feels pointless when someone  can get a jump pack or steam jump with the same shared cool down.
 

This to me, becomes especially apparent when one could have mighty leap, takeoff, and a jump pack/steam jump active at the same time. 
 

I wonder if there is maybe something better that could be done.  Either using a different way  power all together or removing the time limit on double jump or something?

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, FrostyIgloo said:

Is it me or does super jump feel like it was forgotten in this update?

What about the increased horizontal travel speed?  I mean, my main jumper has gone from 60mph to 90mph just by copying him over to Beta.  (I.E. no changes to slotting or enhancements.)
 

 

1 hour ago, FrostyIgloo said:

Double Jump feels pointless when someone  can get a jump pack or steam jump with the same shared cool down.
 

This to me, becomes especially apparent when one could have mighty leap, takeoff, and a jump pack/steam jump active at the same time. 

Double Jump, which takes up no tray space, is disadvantaged compared to powers that take up as many as three tray slots?  I'm not seeing it that way.   With a single power pick I can hit the flight ceiling everywhere but the Shadow Shard and stay airborne completely across many city zones...  What's not to like?

I wouldn't have minded a boost to base jump height, to reduce the times I need Double Jump, but that would just be a cherry on top.  Many jumpers think of Super Jump as a vertical travel power too...  I don't think the Dev team agrees or sees it that way.  (But again, Double Jump to the flight ceiling, so vertical is covered with a slight cooldown.  So, shrug.)

[Wavicle]

3 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

What about the increased horizontal travel speed?  I mean, my main jumper has gone from 60mph to 90mph just by copying him over to Beta.  (I.E. no changes to slotting or enhancements.)
 

 

Double Jump, which takes up no tray space, is disadvantaged compared to powers that take up as many as three tray slots?  I'm not seeing it that way.   With a single power pick I can hit the flight ceiling everywhere but the Shadow Shard and stay airborne completely across many city zones...  What's not to like?

I wouldn't have minded a boost to base jump height, to reduce the times I need Double Jump, but that would just be a cherry on top.  Many jumpers think of Super Jump as a vertical travel power too...  I don't think the Dev team agrees or sees it that way.  (But again, Double Jump to the flight ceiling, so vertical is covered with a slight cooldown.  So, shrug.)

The issue is that Mighty Leap gets Takeoff AND Double Jump (because the Jump Pack is identical to DJ except in end cost).

My suggestion is to put a jumping buff (similar to Takeoff) in Acrobatics, so that the Super Jumper can, with investment, go as fast or faster than the Mighty Leaper.

Since the devs themselves indicated that the latest changes are intended to make the Travel pools better at their specialty than the Origin pool, it seems like a reasonable request.

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

The issue is that Mighty Leap gets Takeoff AND Double Jump (because the Jump Pack is identical to DJ except in end cost).

My suggestion is to put a jumping buff (similar to Takeoff) in Acrobatics, so that the Super Jumper can, with investment, go as fast or faster than the Mighty Leaper.

Since the devs themselves indicated that the latest changes are intended to make the Travel pools better at their specialty than the Origin pool, it seems like a reasonable request.

When looking at the math and factoring in the 2.1s cast time, the gains of Takeoff is minimal. At best you're adding about 1% more speed using Takeoff assuming Takeoff is perma'd.

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

The issue is that Mighty Leap gets Takeoff AND Double Jump (because the Jump Pack is identical to DJ except in end cost).

My suggestion is to put a jumping buff (similar to Takeoff) in Acrobatics, so that the Super Jumper can, with investment, go as fast or faster than the Mighty Leaper.

Since the devs themselves indicated that the latest changes are intended to make the Travel pools better at their specialty than the Origin pool, it seems like a reasonable request.

But Force of Will does not get Combat Jumping (or anything even close to it) and it's that power alone that's keeping me from ever really considering Force of Will over Leaping. I realize I'm not everyone here which I why I think your suggestion about Acrobatics is a good direction to take things.

[arthurh35353]

So did some testing on travel powers (Only Fly, Super Speed, Super Jump and Teleport) and travel set IOs. (I played around with lower levels (30th) and then 50th level

 

1) If you want to get max or near max on your travel power, you can't just slot the Travel IO sets that give -Slow, -KD and such. They just lose out on the Travel/END combo slot. So you either will have to slot an common IO or pick the ones that have Travel, END, Travel/END and then slot in the your unique in a 4th slot or something else.

 

2) Super Speed actually wins the lotto. With 3 slots of a travel set all focused on travel, you can hit the cap with only activating a sprint (does not even need to be slotted for run speed, BTW. Handy). You do have to slot Swift with a Run Speed IO to get the last 2mph.

 

3) Super Jump does not actually hit the jump speed cap with 3 slots, but does hit the normal jump height with a Travel IO with all three enhancements focused on travel. I also discovered that slotting Sprint only boosts Run Speed and jump height by a tiny bit that is totally inconsequential later. There is no Jump speed boost at all. Max speed that you can hit with Hurdle slotted with a Jump and using a travel focused IO set (Springfoot) you only get to 100.3 mph. (Cap is 101.8 mph, right?) So almost a rounding error in adjustment to hit the cap using the travel sets. I wonder if wonkiness I come across is affecting it?

 

4) Fly only gets to 80.6 mph and with the timed-toggle of AB 97.57mph. So it looks like it's not too far of actually getting to the caps with just the travel power and slotting 3 Travel focused IOs Flight set and Swift with a Flight Speed IO. But you'll have to get Evasive Maneuvers to actually cap it.

 

As a note, flight speed bonuses are not displaying correctly at all. Swift is actually like it's only a 8.3% buff, not the 13.65% it is. So small bug in combat attributes?  The small bonus of 3% travel power is adding, but it should be add .64 mph?

Number do not actually add up. Manually doing the numbers I think they do. They bonuses numbers are like 33% low? I dunna grok.

 

5) Teleport doesn't get anywhere near getting to the ED limits of slotting for Range (only gets to 42.3% of the IO ED 2 slotting cap of 58.5%). This is no surprise, as Teleport has always required 3 SOs or 2 IOs slotting in just range to near its ED limits. 4 slotting to get to its own caps.

 

Oh, almost forgot mention that teleport is really weird in his that it maxes out fly to to the cap while it hovers.

 

And I feel that the travel power set (or really the powers they enhance) aren't all being equal in enhancement. In perfectly homogenized powers by the numbers in the IO sets.

 

 

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by arthurh35353

[Wavicle]

7 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

Teleport doesn't get anywhere near getting to the ED limits of slotting for Range (only gets to 42.3% of the IO ED 2 slotting cap of 58.5%). This is no surprise, as Teleport has always required 3 SOs or 2 IOs slotting in just range to near its ED limits. 4 slotting to get to its own caps.

 

You can easily get very close to the cap for both range and end in 3 slots by frankenslotting, 2 Zephyr, 1 Jaunt.

[arthurh35353]

3 hours ago, Wavicle said:

 

You can easily get very close to the cap for both range and end in 3 slots by frankenslotting, 2 Zephyr, 1 Jaunt.

Frankenslotting specifically kind of limits getting not only set benefits and would (I believe) leave you really, really under slotted for End Reduction there.)

(Reading comp failure in the morning)

 

Wait, how is that possible with getting both only of 3 slots? Range + Range/END + Range/END would get your Ranged near ED, END Reduction would only be worth x1 IO slot. That would actually make you less than optimal on End reduction, which is already the worst on Teleport.

Edited March 26, 2021 by arthurh35353

[FrostyIgloo]

What if teleport was toggle that opened a pop up tray with multiple teleport powers in it that are set to different ranges? 

 

That way you would have more control over the distance that you could travel with single port.

 

Maybe one power treleports at the current distance, one teleports mid way between the current and cap and one teleports at the cap?

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by FrostyIgloo

[arthurh35353]

30 minutes ago, FrostyIgloo said:

What if teleport was toggle that opened a pop up tray with multiple teleport powers in it that are set to different ranges? 

 

That way you would have more control over the distance that you could travel with single port.

 

Maybe one power treleports at the current distance, one teleports mid way between the current and cap and one teleports at the cap?

 

Eh, I'd actually be okay with Teleport being changed to a toggle with a normalized end cost and with a popup target click like you have now (out to clickable range). I think you can actually bind distances on powexecname targets now, IIRC. So you could technically do macros with distances. In fact, the left/right forward/back binds/macros definitely already do that.

[Bopper]

7 hours ago, Wavicle said:

 

You can easily get very close to the cap for both range and end in 3 slots by frankenslotting, 2 Zephyr, 1 Jaunt.

You're right. Personally, I would use a +5 Range/End from Jaunt, Zephyr and Winter. Sure, it doesn't give me a set bonus, but it's not gonna make or break my character if I miss out on a 3-slot set bonus from a travel set. This of course is assuming I need that much endurance reduction. Personally I have only 26.5% endurance reduction on my tank and I never run out of endurance when spamming it.

 

 

  

4 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

END Reduction would only be worth x1 IO slot.

Range/End IOs give 62.5% strength each. So having two of them actually gives you 1.25x (53% reduction). But if you +5 it, that's another 1.25x you get, which gets you to 66.25%. Of course enhancement boosting will limit your exemplar options if you wish to maintain set bonuses, so you might look to only boost the one not providing a set bonus and attune the other. That gets you 59.62% reduction.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Bopper

[Vanden]

19 hours ago, Bopper said:

When looking at the math and factoring in the 2.1s cast time, the gains of Takeoff is minimal. At best you're adding about 1% more speed using Takeoff assuming Takeoff is perma'd.

 

 Sometimes you can skip the animation of Takeoff by jumping at the exact right moment during activation, though, and when you do, hoo boy!

[Bopper]

4 minutes ago, Vanden said:

 

 Sometimes you can skip the animation of Takeoff by jumping at the exact right moment during activation, though, and when you do, hoo boy!

Is that true in Page 2? It has a RootTime field, so if you're bypassing it somehow that would be a bug.