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

Icecomet · April 5, 2021

After watching the discussions and conversations that go on here, the lack of any real dev engagement or willingness to change a direction on these powers. I had a more generic suggestion regarding the beta of changes. Instead of a closed beta, where a small collection of minds decides the direction for everybody to a point that when it hits open beta we're basically going to be stuck with the chosen direction with maybe being able to get a few % tweaks around whatever the point is.

I am not entirely sure that a small collective should be base lining the direction for the servers at large from the first iteration and I would ask that in future decision making that the beta is open from the beginning before a "general path" is set in stone to a point where many are unhappy, except the chosen few that laid the path out. Please consider changing your approach in future development so the people paying for the monthly support of costs can not only know they are directly supporting the game financially, but providing valuable feedback at a time when suggestions can be realized.

I want to be clear that I am appreciative of the devs time and willingness to keep things fresh in game while making no money or profit for their efforts. In the MMO world companies shove their choices down the consumers throat and they just have to take it. I do also recognize that you'll never please everybody with any given change (i.e. a camel is a horse designed by committee, I get that), though I can't imagine anybody (including me) with being upset at flying faster. It's the renaming of powers, addition of unnecessary powers in a system tray that I think was avoidable and simply modifying the powers that exist would have accommodated the desired changes and you'd have seen FAR less push back and complaints if you simply said "we are improving the powers as they exist today. Fly will be faster, AB will have it's affecting self removed and some 'defensive' bonuses added, etc". People could say, great, the powers we have are just buffed up more, fantastic.

Anyway, thanks for reading, though I know this won't necessarily change where we are today with the current changes.

arthurh35353 · April 6, 2021

On 3/28/2021 at 10:33 AM, GM Arcanum said:

Pool: Flight

Fly
Now increases your fly speed cap by 50% while toggled on (from 58.6mph to 87.9mph)
This increased cap is the equivalent of fully slotting the old version of Afterburner
You now get this for free, without picking two more powers, and without old Afterburner's Only Affect Self component

This means Fly speed buffs and enhancements actually matter, as you won't hit the new cap without them

This increased cap doesn't apply in PvP

Base flight speed has been increased slightly (some speed has been moved from Evasive Maneuvers)

On 3/28/2021 at 10:30 AM, GM Arcanum said:

Pool: Sorcery

Mystic Flight
Now increases your fly speed cap by 50% while toggled on (from 58.6mph to 87.9mph)
See Fly above for more information on this speed cap increase

This increased cap doesn't apply in PvP

Base flight speed has been increased slightly (matching Fly)

Hmm.

I had a new character that I'm starting to play with using Mystic Flight, but as far as I understand, it should function identically to Fly itself. So I figured 3 slots with the Soaring IO set should be a fairly valid choice. Slotted Swift with a level 50 IO Flight Speed.

Is it intentional for Fly and Mystic Flight to not be able to hit the caps (not using afterburner) at this point? Right now on Brainstorm it shows that you would only hit 80.69 mph with level 50s slotted. Even with a couple of mph boost, that still looks that with using (what I think is a valid slotting and using the IO travel set) and slotting Swift for flight speed, that there is no way to reach your normal Fly and Mystic Flight improved cap without using Boosters.

As far as I know the developers hate boosters a ton, so I can't see them wanting to incentivize people to use them to get that last bit of flight speed. Or are they saying that you must devote at least 4 slots (the IO soar set + 1 more) to actually reach the cap here?

I would think that 3 slots towards the travel power plus dedicating Swift towards it should be enough to reach the basic cap of flying fast without using Afterburner or Evasive Maneuver (which Mystic Flight does not get, of course).

Or is my logic being weird here again?

PirateCrew · April 6, 2021

The soaring IO set is loaded with endurance reduction at the expense of speed, so that's about what I'd expect to happen. This is one of those cases "Common IO + 2-slot Soaring" might be the best option, if the character's end consumption is manageable and there's no desire to pursue +speed set bonuses elsewhere. If the Soaring set is being considered, then I'm guessing set bonuses *are* on the table, and might approach the cap with just 2 slots of Soaring (3, if the pure EndRed one is also desired). Making extensive use of the travel sets is rather mismatched to the higher-cap Beta designs for SS, SJ, and the Flights, due to that heavy EndRed enhancement.

As as anecdote, one of my characters on Live is getting >+6mph from set bonuses according to combat attributes. Heavily IO slotted, to be sure, but the speed bonuses are purely by accident; I didn't go looking for them.

As for the devs' intentions, no real comment - except the usual time limitations and risk of tinkering with sets. If it were me, I'd probably have applied different scaling years ago for travel sets as we've seen done for winter sets and purples, added more secondary /special features, and added a 4th IO in each set for more variety, so that both Speed and EndRed could get into diminishing returns territory with four slots of one set. This provides max variety with the 1-3 slot Hami route, several 1-4 slot Set routes, 1-2 slot Commons route, and 1-3 slot SOs route...each having its pros and cons.

Edited April 6, 2021 by PirateCrew
set bonus anecdote added

arthurh35353 · April 6, 2021

24 minutes ago, PirateCrew said:

As as anecdote, one of my characters on Live is getting >+6mph from set bonuses according to combat attributes. Heavily IO slotted, to be sure, but the speed bonuses are purely by accident; I didn't go looking for them.

IO sets appears to be part of the end game and design though, is what I'm getting. This seems to go against that design where IO sets are designed around getting all or most of the set bonuses, the part that you try to get back the lost level that the game had before Enhancement Diversification.

You would expect that if you put in the full IO set that is available for a power, you have pretty much maxed it out, outside of boosters and possible set bonuses. The set bonuses for the travel powers are fairly on the low side, I'd say.

Where is your incentive to use travel IO sets at this point? Minimal set bonuses and not even reaching those ED diminishing returns? Or to the caps in this case? I took a closer look at the IO set bonuses for Speed and not as many as you would think are that accessible. And some of the amounts are incredibly tiny. That may be enough to get up to those caps, but it looks a little dodgey.

I'll probably want to think a bit more on it at this point.

PirateCrew · April 6, 2021

4 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

You would expect that if you put in the full IO set that is available for a power, you have pretty much maxed it out, outside of boosters and possible set bonuses. The set bonuses for the travel powers are fairly on the low side, I'd say.

I agree. The first half of my prior answer was worded more as general advice to any reader facing the current limitations, but like you, I'd rather see the sets be adjusted to bring them up to this standard.

Bopper · April 6, 2021

3 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

Hmm.

I had a new character that I'm starting to play with using Mystic Flight, but as far as I understand, it should function identically to Fly itself. So I figured 3 slots with the Soaring IO set should be a fairly valid choice. Slotted Swift with a level 50 IO Flight Speed.

Is it intentional for Fly and Mystic Flight to not be able to hit the caps (not using afterburner) at this point? Right now on Brainstorm it shows that you would only hit 80.69 mph with level 50s slotted. Even with a couple of mph boost, that still looks that with using (what I think is a valid slotting and using the IO travel set) and slotting Swift for flight speed, that there is no way to reach your normal Fly and Mystic Flight improved cap without using Boosters.

As far as I know the developers hate boosters a ton, so I can't see them wanting to incentivize people to use them to get that last bit of flight speed. Or are they saying that you must devote at least 4 slots (the IO soar set + 1 more) to actually reach the cap here?

I would think that 3 slots towards the travel power plus dedicating Swift towards it should be enough to reach the basic cap of flying fast without using Afterburner or Evasive Maneuver (which Mystic Flight does not get, of course).

Or is my logic being weird here again?

Based on Jimmy's post awhile back, the increase in base fly speed should help in this regard. Now, there is no design goal that states you're supposed to reach the speed caps by slotting only 68.9% enhancements in your travel power (which is what a Speed IO and Speed/Endurance IO would give you). Also, none of the travels hit their new speed caps with this type of slotting. But I'll break down the numbers to show how close you'll be, and with set bonuses from IOs you'll likely hit the cap anyway (or very close to it). But let's assume no set bonuses for now:

Flying Speed: Base + Swift (+42.4%) + Fly (+68.9%)

21.477 mph + 4.175mph + 58.37 mph = 84 mph (95.5% of cap)

Jumping Speed: Base + Hurdle (+42.4%) + Super Leap (+68.9%)

14.318 mph + 25.384 mph + 60.216 mph = 99.9 mph (98.1% of cap)

Running Speed: Base + Swift (+42.4%) + Super Speed (+68.9%)

14.318 mph + 7.136 mph + 84.643 mph = 106.1 mph (88.2% of cap)

If you use Sprint with Super Speed, you will hit the cap, but you're also running two toggles for what that's worth.

If reaching 95.5% of the cap is not enough, I recommend losing that 3 piece set bonus (+0.75% HP) and throw in another Fly/End to hit your mark. Or use boosters on the Fly/End IO while attuning the other two, that way you hit the cap and keep the 3 piece bonus when you don't exemplar.

Edit: I thought about it more, but you could 3 slot Fly with Winters Gift, you'll get 9% speed bonus. Throw in the 7.5% from 2 slotting Stamina with performance shifter, that 16.5% speed boost will add:

21.477 x 0.165 = 3.544 mph.

Add that to the 84 mph you're already at and you'll have 87.56 mph. You'll be at 99.6% of the speed cap, likely to not notice the difference.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Bopper

ForeverLaxx · April 6, 2021

4 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

You would expect that if you put in the full IO set that is available for a power, you have pretty much maxed it out

Not sure where you'd get this idea unless you only look at high level sets and purples. Many sets don't function this way, in particular many "low level range" sets that are essentially just a version of higher level sets designed to be used while leveling and replaced with their higher level analogs. Even some of these higher level sets just barely get into the "soft ED" range (in Mids this is when the number is yellow rather than red). In fact, looking at Mids for my permaDom character, only the purple sets really overcap any stat (usually two stats) well beyond the "red ED" range while most of the orange sets only approach the top end of the "yellow ED" range on a single stat (usually the one that set cares about most, be that damage, ToHit, etc). It just gets worse for sets that don't scale to 50. Kinetic Combat, despite being an orange set, doesn't even break past the "green ED" range because the set stops scaling past 35.

Travel sets have it particularly bad with this change though as these powers were essentially speed-capped out of the box, so having bonuses to movement speed on the IOs themselves wasn't as useful as endurance reduction was. That's no longer the case, but the old sets are unlikely to get adjusted to account for the newer, higher caps.

Regardless, I figured I would just clear up this misconception that slotting a "full set" is meant to "cap out" a power. Anything short of a Purple or Superior Set generally doesn't come close, and the few that do only do so for one stat.

siolfir · April 6, 2021

11 hours ago, Bopper said:

Flying Speed: Base + Swift (+42.4%) + Fly (+68.9%)

21.477 mph + 4.175mph + 58.37 mph = 84 mph (95.5% of cap)

Jumping Speed: Base + Hurdle (+42.4%) + Super Leap (+68.9%)

14.318 mph + 25.384 mph + 60.216 mph = 99.9 mph (98.1% of cap)

Running Speed: Base + Swift (+42.4%) + Super Speed (+68.9%)

14.318 mph + 7.136 mph + 84.643 mph = 106.1 mph (88.2% of cap)

If you use Sprint with Super Speed, you will hit the cap, but you're also running two toggles for what that's worth.

Based on many of the complaints about relative speeds and considering that the same slotting gets so close to the cap for Fly and Super Jump but still leaves extra room for Super Speed (which is made up by Sprint so people will still hit the cap), I'm wondering if perhaps reducing the cap increase in Super Speed to 110 or 111 mph would provide people the "parity" that's being discussed.

106.1 mph - the slotted speed - is 96.45% of a 110 mph cap and 95.6% of a 111 mph cap. It would still be faster than the other two travel powers with the same slotting (numbers above) and the same amount of slotting will get both Fly or Super Speed to their respective caps, but the running speed cap would still be 8-10 mph higher than the other travel powers even with their temporary boosts (sure, Mighty Leap can get there but only after a rooting animation that eliminates the usefulness of the higher cap - I think it was calculated as a negligible increase in actual jump speed in discussions about removing the knockdown so it wouldn't root).

This is more of a "general" travel power idea, but almost all of the discussion about this topic has been in the flight-related discussions and the numbers were from this thread, so I thought I'd bring it up here.

Edited April 6, 2021 by siolfir
more detail on thoughts relative to other powers

Troo · April 6, 2021

On 4/5/2021 at 8:44 AM, Icecomet said:

After watching the discussions and conversations that go on here, the lack of any real dev engagement or willingness to change a direction on these powers. I had a more generic suggestion regarding the beta of changes. Instead of a closed beta, where a small collection of minds decides the direction for everybody to a point that when it hits open beta we're basically going to be stuck with the chosen direction with maybe being able to get a few % tweaks around whatever the point is.

I am not entirely sure that a small collective should be base lining the direction for the servers at large from the first iteration and I would ask that in future decision making that the beta is open from the beginning before a "general path" is set in stone to a point where many are unhappy, except the chosen few that laid the path out. Please consider changing your approach in future development so the people paying for the monthly support of costs can not only know they are directly supporting the game financially, but providing valuable feedback at a time when suggestions can be realized.

This likely needs to be restated by more folks and stated more often. It is not negative feedback, it is a perspective that gets lost in an echo chamber.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Troo

Bopper · April 6, 2021

26 minutes ago, Troo said:

This likely needs to be restated by more folks and stated more often. It is not negative feedback, it is a perspective that gets lost in an echo chamber.

It's also a misperception. I've been a closed beta tester for almost a year now, and things being released on closed beta is not being steered by closed beta testers. Testing for bugs/etc happen, and if their findings are significant enough that might steer the developers direction to something that will function appropriately or simply gets reverted before hitting open beta. But if anyone thinks a secret group of closed beta testers is pushing design choices, they are believing in a misguided fantasy. Closed beta is no different from open beta, other than there are a lot more technical bugs (like Granite Armor using super speed...whoops). I'm sorry if I'm ruining anyone's fantasy of what closed beta testing is like, but it is (for me atleast) a lot of pressing a button and seeing if it does what it's described to do. My ideals of this type of testing is to ensure open beta doesn't have to go through the same growing pains so that they can focus on the fun stuff like playing the game with new powers and seeing if it's suitable for Live.

But honestly this discussion (and my response) is grossly off-topic for this feedback thread. If the mods want to move the discussion to a general thread within the Beta forum, then it would be appropriate to continue the conversation there. But let's not divert this thread from testing feedback.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Bopper

Jimmy · April 6, 2021

On 4/5/2021 at 4:44 PM, Icecomet said:

After watching the discussions and conversations that go on here, the lack of any real dev engagement or willingness to change a direction on these powers. I had a more generic suggestion regarding the beta of changes. Instead of a closed beta, where a small collection of minds decides the direction for everybody to a point that when it hits open beta we're basically going to be stuck with the chosen direction with maybe being able to get a few % tweaks around whatever the point is.

I am not entirely sure that a small collective should be base lining the direction for the servers at large from the first iteration and I would ask that in future decision making that the beta is open from the beginning before a "general path" is set in stone to a point where many are unhappy, except the chosen few that laid the path out. Please consider changing your approach in future development so the people paying for the monthly support of costs can not only know they are directly supporting the game financially, but providing valuable feedback at a time when suggestions can be realized.

I want to be clear that I am appreciative of the devs time and willingness to keep things fresh in game while making no money or profit for their efforts. In the MMO world companies shove their choices down the consumers throat and they just have to take it. I do also recognize that you'll never please everybody with any given change (i.e. a camel is a horse designed by committee, I get that), though I can't imagine anybody (including me) with being upset at flying faster. It's the renaming of powers, addition of unnecessary powers in a system tray that I think was avoidable and simply modifying the powers that exist would have accommodated the desired changes and you'd have seen FAR less push back and complaints if you simply said "we are improving the powers as they exist today. Fly will be faster, AB will have it's affecting self removed and some 'defensive' bonuses added, etc". People could say, great, the powers we have are just buffed up more, fantastic.

Anyway, thanks for reading, though I know this won't necessarily change where we are today with the current changes.

Icecomet, this really isn't a fair assessment of what's been happening. You've repeated your own points and suggestions multiple times, and they generally amount to "I want more speed without more investment" reorganised in a few different ways. We don't agree, and we aren't going to spend our time implementing your suggestions against our own direction just because you and a very, very small group want us to. That doesn't mean we are ignoring you, and it doesn't mean we aren't engaging, it just means we think you are incorrect. I know that sucks, and I'm sorry, but that is the reality of the situation. Repeating yourself over and over certainly doesn't help your cause.

The players who take part in the closed beta process don't have a great deal of influence as you may be imagining. They just make sure things aren't flat-out broken before we open up for wider testing. If anything, open beta is where we can actually focus on feedback and iteration more then just ensuring if the thing works. Seriously, the closed beta builds can be pretty rough sometimes. You've seen some of that happen here when a few builds bypassed closed beta - EvMa being broken in the most recent build really got in the way of getting proper feedback.

In general I think we do actually engage quite a lot - just go take a look at past feedback threads and the patches that happened alongside them. We know we're never going to please everyone, trying to do so would be a fool's errand, but we try our best, and I genuinely believe that most players will be happy with these changes.

Mezmera · April 6, 2021

Yeah I'm gonna have to chime in here from an objective standpoint. Every travel is getting a speed buff at less of a slotting, you can still slot sets if you choose to want to do that. We are getting free buffs to the travels like Afterburner and the like. We're getting revamps of some pools like stealth and flight. Wins all around....

Other than testing for wonkyness and maybe some critiques of what it looks like for SR and Ninjitsu's movement interacting with other travels I don't see where there can be much of a fuss for this. This is a straight change to everything for the better.

It would be neat to maybe see a purple travel set added some time later to celebrate the travel revamp.

Mezmera · April 6, 2021

BUT if with these new speed buffs @Jimmy if I can't actually reverse time in game with Super Speed well my disappointment will be immeasurable.

Jimmy · April 6, 2021

1 minute ago, Mezmera said:

BUT if with these new speed buffs @Jimmy if I can't actually reverse time in game with Super Speed well my disappointment will be immeasurable.

Sorry you can't go back in time to ~~save your mother~~ create plot holes.

Mezmera · April 6, 2021

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Sorry you can't go back in time to ~~save your mother~~ create plot holes.

Egads! How ever will we be able to have new issues? With continuity?! Pfft!

Troo · April 6, 2021

31 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Every travel is getting a speed buff at less of a slotting

?! I think it's mostly the opposite of this. Additional slots will now have value to be able to increase speed. Any additional speed without additional slotting is negligible.

Keep using a travel power as a mule = negligible increase

Change from mule to slot for travel = increase

Add slot for travel in addition to mule = increase

"Free buff" to Afterburner is objectively not the same as Live Afterburner.

31 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

It would be neat to maybe see a purple travel set added some time later to celebrate the travel revamp.

This is worthy of consideration.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Troo

Mezmera · April 6, 2021

1 hour ago, Troo said:

"Free buff" to Afterburner is objectively not the same as Live Afterburner.

From what I understand the new base flight speed is equal to what we have currently in Flight AND Afterburner (which you're not allowed to fight in). Then you can intermittently buff your flight speed further using Afterburner. Then the old t5 power is now a defense power you can fight with while using plus some control resist. And this is bad in any way how?

Plus I never said Afterburner was being "buffed" I said Flight was getting a free buff to its speed along with getting Afterburner to use for even further speed.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Mezmera

Arcanum · April 6, 2021

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