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

[Infinitum]

20 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

I believe most everyone would like to fly faster. (am I off the mark there?)

 

Unfortunately, that's not what these changes are about. If they were, simply increasing the speed and cap then walking away would suffice.

 

Instead we're gonna get a fix on top of a fix to fix the fix of the initial flawed change. Take the blinders off.

 

 

Well at first it was faster, now its not.

 

I never had blinders on, thats why this reverse course patch has made me reverse course also.

[Troo]

13 hours ago, Bopper said:

Of course, if you were really hurting, you could just go ahead and grab yourself the Base Empowerment that boosts fly strength and you'll be going 78.33 mph vs 75.82 mph, without set bonuses. And since set bonuses can't raise your cap, that 78.33 mph will only grow further away from Live's numbers.

 

I really hope base empowerments, incarnates, and IO set bonuses are not being used to justify lackluster 'improvements'.

[Bopper]

Just now, Troo said:

 

I really hope base empowerments, incarnates, and IO set bonuses are not being used to justify lackluster 'improvements'.

They're not. I brought up potential solutions to an edge case scenario. If folks invest enhancements in Fly powers, their Fly speed performance will be better than Live. But I'm a strong defender of folks to play their way, so if people don't want to enhance their powers that's ok. FWIW, I already showed the math that this is still an improvement even if you don't slot enhancements. Use Afterburner with Fly, you'll maintain an average speed faster than what you maintained on Live.

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, Bopper said:

They're not. I brought up potential solutions to an edge case scenario. If folks invest enhancements in Fly powers, their Fly speed performance will be better than Live. But I'm a strong defender of folks to play their way, so if people don't want to enhance their powers that's ok. FWIW, I already showed the math that this is still an improvement even if you don't slot enhancements. Use Afterburner with Fly, you'll maintain an average speed faster than what you maintained on Live.

Again, I'm not saying unenhanced flight should be at the cap automatically, but it is rather lackluster being slower than live when the last 2 builds had it faster than live with Fly+EvM - I would even settle for the same speed as live.

 

Otherwise its a patch thats kinda meh that requires a lot of effort to make it not so meh.

 

Which hell I will do of course but I liked it better when I didn't have to - and be a little bit faster (not even at the cap)

[dangeraaron10]

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

One thing that bothers me about the general direction of these conversations (especially in the past threads), is how much people were using fly+evasive Maneuvers as a way around using the Afterburner click.

 

Previous complaints about Fly changes are not the reason for this current batch of changes (that appears to be more about combat flight speed), but it has shaped the way Feedback is flowing.

 

To put it briefly: Fly allows you to ignore verticality and most aggro and afk your way to your objective. 

Afterburner says "you are allowed to be fast, or afk. But not both."

Is that really so bad?

 

So that's broadly my perspective. But this still sounds like the current values are a little overcorrected:

Especially less flight control. 

 

Can we really even say anymore that flight deserves to be slow because of its relative convenience and safety when Super Speed makes you both invisible AND intangible and Super Jump gets all the vertically they want with Double Jump?  

 

Those two pools get love after love but god forbid Flight doesn't get kneecapped.

[arthurh35353]

1 minute ago, dangeraaron10 said:

 

Can we really even say anymore that flight deserves to be slow because of its relative convenience and safety when Super Speed makes you both invisible AND intangible and Super Jump gets all the vertically they want with Double Jump?  

 

Those two pools get love after love but god forbid Flight doesn't get kneecapped.

To be fair, with just slotting a travel set and hurdle with non-boosted IOs, you can't hit the jump speed cap any more.

Edited March 29, 2021 by arthurh35353

[America's Angel]

3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Speed concerns aside - this shouldn't be the case. Can you test again to confirm this wasn't due to the bug causing EvMa's effects to fall off?

Ah yes that was the cause of it. Have amended my earlier post to reflect this. 

[Apparition]

I did some thinking.  Most of my characters use the Agility Core Paragon Alpha.  Most of those builds also simply do not have the enhancement slots to spare to put in Fly.  So what I'll probably do if Evasive Maneuvers goes live much like how it is in this current beta patch is grind out on those characters for a new Alpha, Agility Radial Paragon.  It means that those characters will lose some endurance, but c'est la vie.

[SwitchFade]

My initial vote: first build where fly+evm=old fly+ab was good, leave it there.

 

Due to how unwilling so many are to listen to logic, reason and facts and how ungrateful the feedback has been...

 

I say, put it back to how live is now and let people enjoy what they have been blindly advocating. Push the beta changes to leap and speed to live once debugged, revert any change to fly and leave it how it is now.

 

Let them fully enjoy how it is now.

[Starforge]

I’d rather revert to the changes to Fly in Build 1 or 2 that the vast majority of people were in favor of and approved.

[Wavicle]

20 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

 

Yeah.  Now that I've tested it, it's a solid nerf to fliers.  All but one of my characters had their Fly+AB/Fly+EV flight speed reduced by seven to eight MPH.  Ironically, my one character that maintained the flight speed cap with Fly+EV is my Electric Armor Tanker.

Relative to Build 2? Or relative to Live?

[Wavicle]

20 hours ago, Jimmy said:

If you want combat speed, you can slot EvMa.

I haven't tested this extensively myself, do we know how much one wants to slot Hover versus EvMa?

[QuiJon]

20 hours ago, Bopper said:

In fairness, this is a bit of an edge case statement. Fly+EvMa is slower than Live's Fly+AB if you are slotting no enhancements in your powers (68.85 mph vs. 70.69 mph). If you slot 1 SO into EvMa and 1 SO into AB, you would be faster on Page 2 than you were on Live (72.76 mph vs. 70.69 mph). If you also add 1 SO to Fly, you are still faster than you were on Live (83.65 mph vs. 77.72 mph)

Ok my thing here is i am less worried about how fast i will be moving when i attack, and more about any changes that might effect its use or slotting as travel powers and this is what is confusing to me. I spent the last decade of play time hover blasting and toggling between fly and hover, so frankly i am assuming right now if i take evman that it will be kind of a leave it on with hover to move faster, but frankly i am not sure even then i will do that. I am fine with my hover speeds in combat right now. 

 

But it seems the ONLY real benefit of these changes was in slotting. I thought i read that in order to get to the 79.5 flight cap all that was required was to have flight with 2 50+5 IOs slotted into it. And then the free afterburner auto capped you at 102mph when it was on. Is this not right? Normally my hover/ab slotting on live consists mostly of def sets and global recharge pieces. In order to cap my travel do i now need to run +evman with flight speeds in it? 

[Bopper]

20 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

I thought i read that in order to get to the 79.5 flight cap all that was required was to have flight with 2 50+5 IOs slotted into it. And then the free afterburner auto capped you at 102mph when it was on. Is this not right? Normally my hover/ab slotting on live consists mostly of def sets and global recharge pieces. In order to cap my travel do i now need to run +evman with flight speeds in it? 

Correct, if you have two +5 Fly IOs in Fly, you will be at the 87.95 mph fly speed cap when outside of combat. And under that condition, if you activate Afterburner, you will hit the 102.27 mph fly speed cap.

 

You don't need EvMa to hit the fly speed cap. You can use EvMa to help you reach the fly speed cap if you don't want to invest 2 +5 IOs into Fly. Put an SO in Fly and EvMa and you'll hit the cap that way too.

[QuiJon]

8 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Well it wasnt so much as a way to get around the AB click - because that was a nice bonus too any way you slice it, but it was postures from the beginning that fly+EvM would faster than or at least equal to live fly+AB and now that isnt the case - its slower unless you want to unslot and convert every character you have that has fly to take advantage of the cap. Which is fine but it should have never been postured as the other way if this was the original goal.

 

It may not seem like a harsh change to some people unless you have 40+ characters that have fly that now require you to change slotting to take advantage of the increased caps where 1 build ago you didn't - and even then I wasnt at the cap but was faster that the live version of fly+AB and was totally fine with that.

 

Any version of it should at least be as fast as or a tad faster than live so you at least feel good about having the option to leave some builds alone.

 

And I realize there are ways to manipulate it by rotating jump packs and boosters with click AB to virtually make it perma - but if never been a big fan of playing that way.

 

This change just feels lile an overcorrection because of fly+EvM now being slower than live fly+AB

 

I still like the implementation of it just not the latest cut back.

It really feels to me that all these changes are getting way to convoluted instead of just finding out what we want as a base and giving it to us on each and every travel set.

 

Is run cap is to be 120, then lets find the acceptable levels of the other travel powers that allow at their base every main choice travel power to achieve and semi reasonable equivalent travel time. Perhaps not exact. But just spit balling, 120 run, 102 jumping, 88 flight. Then they each get their bonus and let running gets it leap, maybe jumping gets the double jump and a 10mph boost so on a always on toggle they would go up to 112 mph and do that double jump. Flight gets afterburner as a toggle again giving us a boost to maybe 100mph only effecting self. And boom travel is taken care of everyone is faster, some powers are faster then others but likely about 5-10 second difference in most areas. Make all caps for strait travel accessable with the power choice and 1 additional slot. All the same investment. 

 

Then go into all these EvMan things. Just figure out what you want the top in combat travel speed. Keep it exclusive and outside of flight. So you can run hover for the incombat defense and EVM together and reach whatever is considered to be an acceptable in combat flight speed with the added controls. 

 

It kind of feels like this attempt to make everything run at one time and give some kind of benefit is just getting way to convoluted. I dont get why they just dont keep it simple. I want to travel i hit fly button, i am fighting i hit hover or hover plus EvM. one is fast, the others give me combat advantages. 

[Troo]

22 hours ago, Jimmy said:

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.

 

 

If the large goal was to ensure flight was fast without 3 powers.. why not just boost to Fly? If the team wanted to add something, a popup that made Fly go faster and be done with it.

 

Why monkey with multiple existing powers if this was about speed?

In my opinion: Only Affecting Self > might work sometimes

 

Seems like this possibly underwhelming result in speed does not outweigh lost functionality. Increases in flight speed was the leg these changes had to stand on.

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Troo

[Wavicle]

I think we as forum posters may be overthinking things. Based on my playtesting I think most players will see these changes as buffs.

[Wavicle]

But that said, it WOULD be nice if it was clearly a buff, even with no enhancements. For the skeptics. XD

[Jimmy]

2 hours ago, Troo said:

If the large goal was to ensure flight was fast without 3 powers.. why not just boost to Fly?

After resolving the <2mph discrepancy mentioned earlier in the thread, this a comparison between live and beta, with no other set bonuses or buffs (outside of unslotted Swift):

 

	Live	Beta
Fly (0 IO)	58.63	58.97
Fly (1 IO)	58.63	73.62
Fly (0 IO) + AB/EvMa (0 IO)	70.69	70.69
Fly (1 IO) + AB/EvMa (0 IO)	72.95	83.35
Fly (0 IO) + AB/EvMa (1 IO)	70.69	75.67
Fly (1 IO) + AB/EvMa (1 IO)	79.02	87.95

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a significant step up in any case where enhancements are used. Any case where enhancements aren't used, it breaks even. We said Fly should be great without 3 powers, we didn't say it should be great without enhancements. This also isn't factoring in the 30 second windows of going even faster with the new version of Afterburner.

 

This is the same treatment the other travel powers have received (apart from Teleport, but that's a special case - it already relied on significant slotting and this kind of change wasn't practical there).

[Troo]

4 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Fly (1 IO) + AB/EvMa (1 IO) 79.02 87.95

 

So the fastest new option is 3 powers and the top option you posted goes 8.93 faster.. "significant" might be employed generously here.

 

Does Evasive Maneuvers now only require 1 pool pick to select?

If you don't slot a flight enhancement, is it essentially the same?

 

3 power picks and 'encouraged' slotting to go marginally faster does not in my mind equate to "ensure flight was fast without 3 powers".

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Troo

[Bopper]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

 

So the fastest new option is 3 powers and the top option you posted goes 8.93 faster.. "significant" might be employed generously here.

 

Or you can use one power (Fly) and slot two level 50 IOs into it (not boosted) and be at speed cap. Pretty significant over Live which required 3 powers and more enhancement slotting.

[Wavicle]

4 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

So the fastest new option is 3 powers and the top option you posted goes 8.93 faster.. "significant" might be employed generously here.

 

And is no longer OAS. Flight is getting a reasonable boost to travel speed and a huge boost to combat speed.

[Sovera]

Well, it's back to jump packs to the rest of us who don't squander slots in travel powers.

 

Just like with the new pools it's a lot of time, lots of code hours, lots of talking and testing, for, what? What net gain? Oh, if you're not carefully weighting whether to add another 0.20 EPS or a damage proc you can add that slot to Fly to reach a mission faster for the 5% of the time spent not fighting things.

 

Lord, how can we go from one thumbs up patch to this? No, I get it, It's our turn to be a vocal minority.

 

 

*water sprays Jimmy* No, bad patch, bad! Away with it!

[Replacement]

4 hours ago, Sovera said:

Well, it's back to jump packs to the rest of us who don't squander slots in travel powers.

 

Just like with the new pools it's a lot of time, lots of code hours, lots of talking and testing, for, what? What net gain? Oh, if you're not carefully weighting whether to add another 0.20 EPS or a damage proc you can add that slot to Fly to reach a mission faster for the 5% of the time spent not fighting things.

 

Lord, how can we go from one thumbs up patch to this? No, I get it, It's our turn to be a vocal minority.

 

 

*water sprays Jimmy* No, bad patch, bad! Away with it!

I assume it's been a while since you've onboarded a new friend to the game? That it's been a while (or never) since you've had that sad wince when your friend tells you they blew their meager cash on the biggest fly enhancements they could find and slotted them into Swift and Fly?

 

Or maybe it's been a while since you looked at the travel sets and realized the catch-22: "these are seriously bad, but there's no room to improve them because all the stats they provide are worthless."

 

And finally: there's the fact they felt like it. And that's always going to be enough cause to tinker; I'm sorry if you don't see or care for the benefits and future-proofing this still will provide.

 

... In the meantime, I vote this thread should be locked until next build, since there are a couple of issues that could really spoil feedback right now.

[ScarySai]

My only complaint is moving so much of the speed from evma to fly means more of that speed surpresses after an attack.

 

I think build 3 overcorrects and should probably go back to something closer to what the earlier builds were doing with evma, but if it stays this way for the purposes of pure travel, it's really no big deal.

 

Rather not see such a cool power be relegated to garbage status like acrobatics.