Focused Feedback: Travel Power Updates (FLIGHT POOL) - Build 3

[QuiJon]

1 hour ago, Icecomet said:

So my counter proposal on the flight pool proposed changes would be as follows:

 

1. Hover would get a 1-2% base defense buff.

2. Fly would be increased to the same speed and caps as what is on beta.

3. Evasive Maneuvers + AB on beta would be rolled up into the existing AB, including removing 'affecting only self' portion of AB. (AB will remain a full time toggle and if a slight overall speed adjustment has to take place, thats ok too, any way you slice it, we'll be profoundly faster than we are on live today).

 

To me this is way more simple and elegant that this massive pool revamp, introducing a system tray power and all the like.  I have a hard time understanding this massive overhaul when the existing powers could just be tweaked to achieve exactly the same result without messing around with what we have.

 

 

This is kind of similar to what i was going for. However i would argue that most all of these changes are pointless without afterburner being attached to fly, the main selling of this over all would be the increase in speed without all the power choices. So i would argue Ab stays with Fly, set afterburner to full time again, but keep the only effecting self. Maybe lower AB down like 2 mph and boost jumps cap up to 105, this gives jumping a noticable boost compared to how it stacks up to current afterburner.

 

Then i say you just block all the speeds from stacking. BUT you allow slotting of Fly Speed hancers to work like swift does between Fly and EvMan. Then you have their toggles mutally exclusive so both cant run at the same time. But EVM can run with Hover. Give EM another 1-2 def bonus full time and its combat immb, kb etc resistances and figure out what a good combat flight cap for speed is (like maybe the current 58 or whatever and just set its speed so that can be reached with 1 SO. 

 

Now then should you want to take less powers you can just take Fly and with 1 slot added reach cap and have AB. And in combat will essentially be suppressed as you are currently on live with fly running. Or you can also have hover, which gives you the flight control bonuses and defense bonus running but at hover speeds, and toggle between them as you choose, OR you can also take EvMan, which will turn off flight butmatch with hover. So you can get the combat speed from EVman, the control from hover, the status resistances from EvMan, and an additional 1-2 percent defense to add to what hover gives from EvMan as well. 

 

So the three powers give you clear in combat bonuses and travel bonuses. Taking any number of them gives you something useful, and taking all  three will perhaps loosen up your build a bit to allow you to maybe play with a new power pool you wouldnt normally get to choose from because maybe EVM defense bonus being in combat means you might replace a small defense power you took elsewhere. And if you do take EVM it would mean you can save the slot that would be needed to cap fly's flight speed by putting a speed in that power that is tied to fly. So really all current slotting (might need to be moved around) but should be able to be left alone in so far as how many slots are being used over all.

[Troo]

One advantage the Flight pool has had is that it can use powers like Combat Jumping and still fly. The Leaping pool cannot use Hover and still effectively jump. Teleport can use both and still teleport. Super Speed cannot. There are many combinations of travel powers that leverage different aspects of the available powers to achieve different goals.

 

Increasing Lives minimum flight speed a little would be preferred by many.

Increasing Lives flight cap, and providing a path to or near the cap that does not require 3 power selections or slotting an individual power to ED range sounds good. (I haven't see this entirely yet)

 

Question: Power swaps/removal/replacements by the dev team still come with a free respec? With multiple builds per character are there multiple free respecs?

 

I look forward to build 4.

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Troo

[Zepp]

On 3/29/2021 at 8:13 AM, Jimmy said:

Nothing to do with Leaping. Fly's maximum speed is unchanged. Fly's minimum speed is in fact slightly faster. The issue being identified in this thread is due to legacy slotting setup (specifically Afterburner being the power you had to slot before, not Fly). This is categorically not a nerf to Fly.

 

A large goal with these changes was to ensure that travel flight was fast without needing 3 powers. EvMa isn't meant to be something you need to pick in order to travel fast, and the prior build encouraged exactly that setup, hence these changes.

 

However if you think EvMa is now too slow for its primary purpose (combat mobility), that is feedback we'd like to hear.

 

And on that note, a quick comparison:

• Grounded combat (Sprint with 1x 50 IO, Swift with 1x 50 IO): 38.81 mph
• Aerial combat (EvMa with 1x 50 IO, Swift with 1x 50 IO, Hover with nothing): 42.35mph

So with minimal slotting, you're actually a tad faster than normal ground combat speeds.

 

A final note: EvMa does appear to be suffering from some bugs which cause the effects to drop off frequently, so it likely feels a lot worse than it's meant to be.

You should be comparing Infiltration+Sprint+Swift with EvMa+Hover+Swift (or Sprint+Swift with Hover+Swift) to be fair.

 

In which case you have the following numbers:
Swift only:
21.45 (ground) v 25.65 (air, although functionally 0)

Swift + Baseline travel power (sprint/hover):
38.81 (ground) v 29.93 (air)
Swift + Baseline + Extra (infiltration/Evasive Maneuvers):
67.35 (ground) v 46.63 (air) [this also requires a three power investment in air compared to a one power investment in ground - ground can also achieve 56.73 with now power investments by using Athletic Run)

 

In other words, air is 77% as fast at baseline and 69% as fast with the extra power.  It would be nice to see air travel being at least 90% as fast as ground.
 

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Zepp said:

You should be comparing Infiltration+Sprint+Swift with EvMa+Hover+Swift (or Sprint+Swift with Hover+Swift) to be fair.

 

In which case you have the following numbers:
Swift only:
21.45 (ground) v 25.65 (air, although functionally 0)

Swift + Baseline travel power (sprint/hover):
38.81 (ground) v 29.93 (air)
Swift + Baseline + Extra (infiltration/Evasive Maneuvers):
67.35 (ground) v 46.63 (air) [this also requires a three power investment in air compared to a one power investment in ground - ground can also achieve 56.73 with now power investments by using Athletic Run)

 

In other words, air is 77% as fast at baseline and 69% as fast with the extra power.  It would be nice to see air travel being at least 90% as fast as ground.
 

Why would you use Infiltration to compare alongside Evasive Maneuvers? It suppresses its speed in combat just like any other travel power. Evasive Maneuvers does not.

[Zepp]

10 hours ago, Bopper said:

Why would you use Infiltration to compare alongside Evasive Maneuvers? It suppresses its speed in combat just like any other travel power. Evasive Maneuvers does not.

What power would you use for comparison?

[ScarySai]

Probably CJ or something like that.

[Wavicle]

43 minutes ago, Zepp said:

What power would you use for comparison?

Fly

[Jimmy]

13 hours ago, Zepp said:

You should be comparing Infiltration+Sprint+Swift with EvMa+Hover+Swift (or Sprint+Swift with Hover+Swift) to be fair.

 

In which case you have the following numbers:
Swift only:
21.45 (ground) v 25.65 (air, although functionally 0)

Swift + Baseline travel power (sprint/hover):
38.81 (ground) v 29.93 (air)
Swift + Baseline + Extra (infiltration/Evasive Maneuvers):
67.35 (ground) v 46.63 (air) [this also requires a three power investment in air compared to a one power investment in ground - ground can also achieve 56.73 with now power investments by using Athletic Run)

 

In other words, air is 77% as fast at baseline and 69% as fast with the extra power.  It would be nice to see air travel being at least 90% as fast as ground.
 

 

12 hours ago, Bopper said:

Why would you use Infiltration to compare alongside Evasive Maneuvers? It suppresses its speed in combat just like any other travel power. Evasive Maneuvers does not.

Exactly.

 

EvMa lets you fight in the air slightly faster (not slower) than you can fight on the ground, instead of at the arthritic airborne crawl you get from normal suppression whilst in the air.

Infiltration, Super Speed, Ninja Run, etc, all suppress in the same way that Fly does. You'd need to compare them to Fly if you want to compare suppressed speed.

 

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

Probably CJ or something like that.

 

Combat Jumping gives you +0.14mph of speed.

 

I'm not kidding. The tooltip describes it as a moderate increase.

[ScarySai]

I thought we were talking about combat mobility, guess I misread that one.

[Yuro]

22 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Am I mistaken in thinking Rocket Board has always been faster than Jet Pack, justified by not being able to use other powers with it?

Rocket Board and the other "detoggle" fly powers are faster than the jet packs on HC Live, yeah.  I made that same mistake at first, but went back and tested and it's definitely faster...

 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Yuro

[Wavicle]

17 minutes ago, Yuro said:

Rocket Board and the other "detoggle" fly powers are faster than the jet packs on HC Live, yeah.  I made that same mistake at first, but went back and tested and it's definitely faster...

 

 

Presumably then they should REMAIN faster (that is now they should be in between P2W and Fly).

[Zepp]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

 

Exactly.

 

EvMa lets you fight in the air slightly faster (not slower) than you can fight on the ground, instead of at the arthritic airborne crawl you get from normal suppression whilst in the air.

Infiltration, Super Speed, Ninja Run, etc, all suppress in the same way that Fly does. You'd need to compare them to Fly if you want to compare suppressed speed.

 

 

Combat Jumping gives you +0.14mph of speed.

 

I'm not kidding. The tooltip describes it as a moderate increase.

EvMa allows air combat mobility slightly faster than ground. However, there appears to be no comparable ground power for ground mobility. Comparing a 3 power investment with a zero power investment for a very specific and limited form of mobility creates a false perception.

 

Fly is still significantly slower than other options. With the old speed cap in place for hover and EvMa and a new mechanism to prevent consistant SS comparable speed I feel that the travel adjustments are not as good for Flight as they are for the other travel pools or Concealment. In addition, the shift in movement speed from EvMa to Fly decreases the value of the pool by taking away from combat speed and moving it to an area which requires a single power choice. This is a good move for out-of-combat-only usage, while it is detrimental to the value of EvMa making it much less appealing.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Zepp

[Wavicle]

I'm sorry if it has been mentioned, what about the idea of allowing global recharge to effect Afterburner?

[QuiJon]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

I'm sorry if it has been mentioned, what about the idea of allowing global recharge to effect Afterburner?

I would be cool with that. In fact i would take it one step further and say change Fly so that it accepted recharge IOs and Hancers that also effected Afterburner. I mean even if we concede that giving you the power free only grants you the effect 1/3 of the time its running, why should someone intrested in investing resources for more be prevented from doing so?

[siolfir]

6 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Combat Jumping gives you +0.14mph of speed.

 

I'm not kidding. The tooltip describes it as a moderate increase.

By itself, yes - it's +1.0% increase in jump speed. The air control allows Hurdle's unsuppressing +124.5% increase (literally half of Super Jump's +249%) to take effect with no drawbacks, though, even ignoring the immobilize protection. That's why it's faster to jump around in combat, and is likely why CJ was brought up as the example for in-combat mobility.

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, QuiJon said:

I would be cool with that. In fact i would take it one step further and say change Fly so that it accepted recharge IOs and Hancers that also effected Afterburner. I mean even if we concede that giving you the power free only grants you the effect 1/3 of the time its running, why should someone intrested in investing resources for more be prevented from doing so?

I'm okay with the idea of allowing recharge enhancements that only affect Afterburner for those who want to build towards it, but since range-affecting travel IOs which can be slotted in Mystic Flight don't currently affect Translocation it would also need the same treatment for consistency.

 

If they're worried about the uptime if it's affected by global recharge they could also use the Widow Mind Link approach where slotting affects it, but global recharge doesn't. I wouldn't personally use slots for recharge in Fly to increase Afterburner's uptime, but it's far from game breaking either way.

Edited April 1, 2021 by siolfir

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

By itself, yes - it's +1.0% increase in jump speed. The air control allows Hurdle's unsuppressing +124.5% increase (literally half of Super Jump's +249%) to take effect with no drawbacks, though, even ignoring the immobilize protection. That's why it's faster to jump around in combat, and is likely why CJ was brought up as the example for in-combat mobility.

 

To expand on that, with two 50+5 Jump IOs in Hurdle and 67.5% +Movement bonuses, and CJ toggled on, you can jump at 59.05 mph.

 

63.31 mph with Agility Radial Paragon.

 

Unsuppressed.

 

Eat my dust, @Jimmy.  😜

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

To expand on that, with two 50+5 Jump IOs in Hurdle and 67.5% +Movement bonuses, and CJ toggled on, you can jump at 59.05 mph.

 

63.31 mph with Agility Radial Paragon.

 

Unsuppressed.

 

Eat my dust, @Jimmy.  😜

I'm curious, is the mobility aspect tied to a metric in game or is it based on a person's subjective opinion? I have tried to demonstrate this build's flight mobility improvements using side by side comparisons, but without a visual reference of a known object over frame per second, it just becomes my subjective opinion as well. Speed (MPH) seems to be the closest metric to use. 

[Luminara]

30 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I'm curious, is the mobility aspect tied to a metric in game or is it based on a person's subjective opinion? I have tried to demonstrate this build's flight mobility improvements using side by side comparisons, but without a visual reference of a known object over frame per second, it just becomes my subjective opinion as well. Speed (MPH) seems to be the closest metric to use. 

 

Everyone is going to have different concepts of what's "fast enough", but my personal breakpoint for running is 26 mph.  Anything less than that, I'm pushing that W key harder and harder, subconsciously trying to squeeze a little more out of it.

 

But you're right, most people don't look at the movement speeds beyond "Am I at the cap" and "Am I debuffed".  The best way to provide evidence of something related to movement is to show it in action.  For example, when I started using Hurdle as my only travel power, just showing up at the mission door before the entire team had assembled was all the proof most people needed to realize that it wasn't as restrictive as they'd thought.  Using Hurdle + CJ, I could leap over spawns and fire off something like Explosive Arrow at the right moment to turn the KB into KD, and others could see that I wasn't just madly hopping around the room.  Repositioning by leaping, to get out of dodge, to pull critters back into Glue Arrow's Slow patch, to line up Tenebrous Tentacles better, showed others that even without Hover, one could hover blast effectively.

 

Speed is an important factor in combat mobility, but showing what one can do with that speed and mobility is just as important.  Being fast enough, whatever that may mean on an individual basis, isn't quite enough to make something compelling.  Seeing what one can do, though, makes a much stronger impression.

[Zepp]

4 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

To expand on that, with two 50+5 Jump IOs in Hurdle and 67.5% +Movement bonuses, and CJ toggled on, you can jump at 59.05 mph.

 

63.31 mph with Agility Radial Paragon.

 

Unsuppressed.

 

Eat my dust, @Jimmy.  😜

With a three 50+5 flight enhancements in Swift, Hover, & Evasive Maneuvers and 76.5 Movement bonus you can hit 54% flight mobility.

[Glacier Peak]

11 hours ago, Luminara said:

Everyone is going to have different concepts of what's "fast enough", but my personal breakpoint for running is 26 mph.  Anything less than that, I'm pushing that W key harder and harder, subconsciously trying to squeeze a little more out of it.

 

But you're right, most people don't look at the movement speeds beyond "Am I at the cap" and "Am I debuffed".  The best way to provide evidence of something related to movement is to show it in action.  For example, when I started using Hurdle as my only travel power, just showing up at the mission door before the entire team had assembled was all the proof most people needed to realize that it wasn't as restrictive as they'd thought.  Using Hurdle + CJ, I could leap over spawns and fire off something like Explosive Arrow at the right moment to turn the KB into KD, and others could see that I wasn't just madly hopping around the room.  Repositioning by leaping, to get out of dodge, to pull critters back into Glue Arrow's Slow patch, to line up Tenebrous Tentacles better, showed others that even without Hover, one could hover blast effectively.

 

Speed is an important factor in combat mobility, but showing what one can do with that speed and mobility is just as important.  Being fast enough, whatever that may mean on an individual basis, isn't quite enough to make something compelling.  Seeing what one can do, though, makes a much stronger impression.

Oh yeah totally agree with the fact that the perception of what is fast is both relative and subjective. I mean, just for the sake of discussion, for the players that were on legacy during 2004-2005, remember how fast your character moved between levels 1-14? Remember slowly hovering over Perez, then the Hollows to get to that one contact or mission? The closest a player can get to that slow speed is playing through one of the four tutorials with just sprint/slide and no swift.

 

That bit aside, measuring combat mobility in particular has been tough. I 'think' I am moving faster, but how to I quantify that? I took some gifs of live and beta hover, but again, it is my subjective view - not actual data that can be replicated or retested. 

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

That bit aside, measuring combat mobility in particular has been tough. I 'think' I am moving faster, but how to I quantify that? I took some gifs of live and beta hover, but again, it is my subjective view - not actual data that can be replicated or retested.

 

The simplest, most direct and obvious measurements I can think of would be how rapidly you can move from spawn to spawn, how quickly you can exit damage patches (which would also give you a damage metric with which to compare to your live build), how it feels when chasing a runner, things of that nature.  Test it in actual combat, see how quickly it takes you into and out of melee range, and into and out of ranged attack range (for example, can you fast snipe a critter and fly away quickly enough to prevent retaliation?).  Can you reposition your cones more easily than before?  Line up a couple of critters quickly for Cross Punch?  Are you able to better control the aggro you have by leading foes where you want them to be without waiting as long?

 

You're examining combat mobility and how it affects your approach to the game, so looking specifically at it from that perspective, using it in missions and during combat, would tell you what you want to know.  Being flight-related, improved combat mobility may not be of immediate obvious benefit, since having three degrees of free movement is already pretty powerful in relation to what most critters can respond to, but there are still ways you can test, analyze and make conclusions about how well, or poorly, Evasive Maneuvers is working as a combat mobility power.

[Icecomet]

On 3/30/2021 at 4:15 PM, Icecomet said:

So my counter proposal on the flight pool proposed changes would be as follows:

 

1. Hover would get a 1-2% base defense buff.

2. Fly would be increased to the same speed and caps as what is on beta.

3. Evasive Maneuvers + AB on beta would be rolled up into the existing AB, including removing 'affecting only self' portion of AB. (AB will remain a full time toggle and if a slight overall speed adjustment has to take place, thats ok too, any way you slice it, we'll be profoundly faster than we are on live today).

 

To me this is way more simple and elegant than this massive pool revamp and introducing a system tray power and all the like.  I have a hard time understanding this massive overhaul when the existing powers could just be tweaked to achieve exactly the same result without messing around with what we have.

 

 

 

Yes, I know, quoting myself seems like bad form but since my last post was on another page, figured I'd quote it so it's here as a reference for anybody that hadn't read it.

 

I'd really love to see what my suggestion above would look like on test or something?  How hard is it to put this sort of iteration to the test, see how people feel about it?  Also interested to know if it was even looked at or considered this way before the rework took place?  Were them some barriers or issues preventing something more simplified like this from being implemented?

 

In closing, I know I get all passionate about some of these subjects, let's call it a character flaw and sometimes I struggle to sound more constructive in my feedback.  It's not deliberately being a jerk, like I said, my passions get the better of my fingers sometimes!  👍  It's a work in progress, like anything else in life...

 

[Wavicle]

5 minutes ago, Icecomet said:

 

Yes, I know, quoting myself seems like bad form but since my last post was on another page, figured I'd quote it so it's here as a reference for anybody that hadn't read it.

 

I'd really love to see what my suggestion above would look like on test or something?  How hard is it to put this sort of iteration to the test, see how people feel about it?  Also interested to know if it was even looked at or considered this way before the rework took place?  Were them some barriers or issues preventing something more simplified like this from being implemented?

 

In closing, I know I get all passionate about some of these subjects, let's call it a character flaw and sometimes I struggle to sound more constructive in my feedback.  It's not deliberately being a jerk, like I said, my passions get the better of my fingers sometimes!  👍  It's a work in progress, like anything else in life...

 

 

I think it's pretty clear that Always On AB without OAS was never going to happen. You can have it Always On or you can have it without OAS but not both. Slotting Fly OR taking EvM lets you go at current Live AB speed always on AND without OAS, so basically you got what you're asking for.

[Kara Kinesis]

4 minutes ago, Icecomet said:

 

Yes, I know, quoting myself seems like bad form but since my last post was on another page, figured I'd quote it so it's here as a reference for anybody that hadn't read it.

 

I'd really love to see what my suggestion above would look like on test or something?  How hard is it to put this sort of iteration to the test, see how people feel about it?  Also interested to know if it was even looked at or considered this way before the rework took place?  Were them some barriers or issues preventing something more simplified like this from being implemented?

 

In closing, I know I get all passionate about some of these subjects, let's call it a character flaw and sometimes I struggle to sound more constructive in my feedback.  It's not deliberately being a jerk, like I said, my passions get the better of my fingers sometimes!  👍  It's a work in progress, like anything else in life...

 

 

I know we can all get passionate about certain powers and changes to things we hold dear, it's what makes our community greater than most.  The fact that we love and hold dear so many things is something I can't really say about other games I've played, just this one.  So, I feel your pain and for what it's worth, I think your suggestion sounds great and I'd like to see it myself, not that my opinion carries much weight.  🐶