Allow more pool selections

[Lockpick]

Now that page 2 is out I want to suggest allowing more pools to be selected if possible.  I could see myself wanting powers from Fighting, Concealment, Speed, Fly, Leaping, and Leadership, but I can't have all.

 

Any reason not to increase the number of pools?

[Alchemystic]

Its come up a few times and the main reason is game health and balance.

 

Right now, the game is arguably too easy for most people, and a lot of that is down to the fact that they can create builds through clever use of pool powers in order to maximise their effectiveness. Having access to all pool powers without restriction would create a scenario where these kinds of builds are not only easier to create, but also far more powerful.

 

And since the difficulty pacing of the game is at a standstill, there's going to be a lack of content that can challenge players enough to merit this kind of change, so we would effectively lose more than what we would gain.

[arcane]

Yeah, I gotta vote no, but do by all means try every single pool over the course of several alts. I certainly do.

 

What Tyrannical said plus my own belief that I don’t want this to be a pure sandbox game with no meaningful hard choices.

Edited April 24, 2021 by arcane

[MTeague]

Four pools still allows for a very wide variety of use.

It's only really limiting if you're irrevocably tied to the siren song min-max off defense powers to slot LotG's and Hasten.

 

It's OK to let that go. 

You can just.... not take the Fighting pool. At all.  Or Hasten. Skip it entirely.

I promise, your character will still WRECK FACE.  And it won't feel nearly so cookie-cutter anymore. 

[arcane]

I have never successfully brought myself to skip all of the Big 4 pools on one character (SS/SJ/Fighting/Leadership), BUT I have skipped 2-3 of them on lots of characters. And they are still OP because all decked out characters in this game are.

[Gobbledygook]

Once I'm in my 40's though, I'm normally out of powers I want from my primary and secondary. I have to take something though, because I can't choose from a 5th Column of pool powers.

 

(See what I did there?)

 

Over half of my toons I don't care for the apps or villain epics. Hell, I've only done the mission to unlock them once, because I finally had a toon that one power would fit the concept for. Of course, I had to break concept to go redside to get it, but hey, it's just a role playing game, right?

[General Idiot]

One thing I could see them doing is increasing the limit on pool powers by one, and making epic pools count toward the limit. So if you choose to not take an epic pool, you can take one extra normal pool instead. I'm not sure what effect that would have on overall balance though, some ATs care more for their epic pools than others.

[Gobbledygook]

2 hours ago, General Idiot said:

One thing I could see them doing is increasing the limit on pool powers by one, and making epic pools count toward the limit. So if you choose to not take an epic pool, you can take one extra normal pool instead. I'm not sure what effect that would have on overall balance though, some ATs care more for their epic pools than others.

 

 

[Alchemystic]

3 hours ago, General Idiot said:

One thing I could see them doing is increasing the limit on pool powers by one, and making epic pools count toward the limit. So if you choose to not take an epic pool, you can take one extra normal pool instead. I'm not sure what effect that would have on overall balance though, some ATs care more for their epic pools than others.

 

A more reasonable compromise at least, though would this additional power pool be restricted to level 35 as ancillaries are?

[Rathulfr]

I do not concur with the OP.  Having limits is what makes planning and creating builds interesting.  One has to think about what they want to prioritize, and to make trade-offs by forgoing one set of choices with a different set of choices.  It's a challenge that adds flavor to every build, and encourages creating multiple builds (in some cases).

 

The most obvious example of this challenge is Hasten, which is in the Speed pool.  Do I really need Hasten on this build?  Do I need it so much that I'm willing to burn one of my four available pools just for that power?  On a few of my characters, I actually have two builds to handle just that question: one build with Hasten, and the other without it.  I can then choose which build I need for a particular session/mission.

 

One of the biggest criticisms of Homecoming's approach to the game is that it already makes too many things too convenient.  While I appreciate many of these conveniences, I actually agree with this sentiment in general.  We already have too many people complaining that the game is too easy, partly because of these conveniences.  Taking away yet another inconvenience -- the challenge of picking only 4 pools per build -- only exacerbates that problem.

 

[Lockpick]

The challenge to me is that many of the pools only have 1 power I am interested in taking.

 

In Speed I like Hasten and often take it.  I'm not really a fan of SS, but I often take it for the stealth component.

In Fly I pretty much only like Fly.

In Leaping I like Combat Jump, but don't like Super Jump.

Fighting and Leadership have multiple powers that are good.

Experimentation and Presence have 1 great power, but you have to take 2 lackluster powers to get there.

I thought I was going to love the new concealment pool, but it doesn't work the way I would have liked, so no longer interested in that pool.

Teleport seems like it could be interesting, but haven't tried the new pool yet.

 

I think opening it up would allow more build diversification.  The 4 pools standard has been for so long that it is not really interesting for me any longer.  Opening it up would allow me to take more powers I want as opposed to taking some I don't really want, but am limited in my ability to select.

 

We are likely going to get new pools in the future, so opening it up would prep for future use.  I'm really looking forward to the Gadgets and Utility Belt pools.  I will definitely be taking the utility belt pool if it comes out.

 

 

 

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Rathulfr said:

I do not concur with the OP.  Having limits is what makes planning and creating builds interesting.  One has to think about what they want to prioritize, and to make trade-offs by forgoing one set of choices with a different set of choices.  It's a challenge that adds flavor to every build, and encourages creating multiple builds (in some cases).

A lot of people have zero tolerance for difficult choices and completely overlook the fact that trade-offs and challenges are a very large part of how games are made interesting in general.

[Alchemystic]

44 minutes ago, 5099y_74c05 said:

 

Nah. This isn't always about the powergamer, an extra pool wont break anything as we are still slot and power pick constrained.

 

Creative types enjoy playing the game too. I see this as an opportunity to appeal to a broader base of player types. So no its not about optimizing.

 

Breaking the game for the sake of creativity is why Thunderspy exists.

[arcane]

42 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

 

Breaking the game for the sake of creativity is why Thunderspy exists.

Truth

[Gobbledygook]

2 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

 

Breaking the game for the sake of creativity is why Thunderspy exists.

 

Great idea! Let's send our community to a different server, instead of comprimising!!

/e endsarcasm

 

No one's asking for game breaking alterations.

Why not let ppl have Fighting/Medicine/Leadership/Flight/Origin Power Pool.

 

You can take 5 pools now, one just happens to be the epics, which some of us don't take, specifically because of character concept and creativity. Some of us don't take them because we just don't like them.

There's a whole server here that is an unofficial RP server. 

 

 

 

[MTeague]

Declining an Epic / Patron pool entirely, and taking a 5th pool in it's place is entirely reasonable to me.  

(for awhile I thought that was in fact already possible....)

 

That's not something I think most people would do lightly. Most of the Epic / Patron pools are pretty darn good.  At least on the squishies, I'd have to realllly think about it to decline the armor toggles, and extra goodies that come with it.  Caltrops has saved my scrapper any number of times by making them slowly run and say "ouch ouch ouch" instead of attacking me, and i've used it to save teammates in trouble as well, and Exploding Shuriken makes a nice Proc-Bomb.  For a tanker, OK, you don't need Conserve Power often, but when you need it you NEED IT.  (pesky sappers....), and who doesn't love Laser Beam Eyes?  Stalkers chance to grab a Snipe? Dunno about anyone else, but I'd have to think long and hard about about refusing some of these, just to pick up.... Provoke/Intimidate/Unyielding.  Or Combat Teleport + Fold Space, etc.

[Alchemystic]

20 minutes ago, Gobbledygook said:

 

Great idea! Let's send our community to a different server, instead of comprimising!!

/e endsarcasm

 

 

Nobody said anything about sending people to Thunderspy, and I already said I'm partial to the idea of swapping your ancillary for a 5th power pool.

 

And I dunno what having an RP server has anything to do with this kinda change, why should an RP server receive exclusive updates?

[Gobbledygook]

10 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

 

Nobody said anything about sending people to Thunderspy, and I already said I'm partial to the idea of swapping your ancillary for a 5th power pool.

 

And I dunno what having an RP server has anything to do with this kinda change, why should an RP server receive exclusive updates?

 

Well, like I said, it was sarcasm, so that should indicate that that wasn't what I truly meant.

The sarcastic remark was in regards to you bringing up another Shard (Thunderspy), where people could go where the "break the game for creativity sake".

I was simply pointing out that this isn't a game breaking request, and that some of us, me included, have never even heard of Thunderspy. I thought it was in poor taste to direct any of our community to a different shard, that's all.

 

As far as our RP server here on HC, I wasn't advocating for a single server to get exclusive content. I was trying to point out that keeping people from choosing from a 5th power pool, seperate from the epics, is actually limiting creativity for some of us. Not all of us play as power gamers, Thare's a whole server dedicated to that. That allowing this small, non-game breaking change, would make quite a few ppl happy. 

 

Hell, I have more than one toon myself that I built to solo AV's, but would be even more fun if I could grab a 5th power pool instead of being locked out and being forced to choose powers I don't want and will never use just so I can continue lvl'ing past 38.

 

By giving people more choices, instead of less, you actually make creating a satifying build a little more challenging.

 

All these options, what do I pick!?!?

 

Oh, I can only pick from these four epics. Don't like them, pass!

[arcane]

14 minutes ago, Gobbledygook said:

By giving people more choices, instead of less, you actually make creating a satifying build a little more challenging.

Fewer choices = higher cost / tradeoff per choice = more challenging building. So disagree.

[Alchemystic]

The unfortunate truth is that making changes that rely on good faith that people won't abuse it isn't a feasible development practice.

 

People, mostly power-gamers as you said, will abuse the system if it is possible to do so, which will in turn harm the overall balance and game health.

 

Besides, the only limitation on your creativity is the one you impose upon yourself.

[Apparition]

8 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

The unfortunate truth is that making changes that rely on good faith that people won't abuse it isn't a feasible development practice.

 

People, mostly power-gamers as you said, will abuse the system if it is possible to do so, which will in turn harm the overall balance and game health.

 

Besides, the only limitation on your creativity is the one you impose upon yourself.

 

Paragon Studios (Matt Miller specifically), relied on good faith that people would not abuse the Mission Architect.

 

Bwahahaha.

[Alchemystic]

Just now, Apparition said:

 

Paragon Studios (Matt Miller specifically), relied on good faith that people would not abuse the Mission Architect.

 

Bwahahaha.

 

Or adding the 'yellow' color palette to water blast

[AerialAssault]

6 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

 

Or adding the 'yellow' color palette to water blast

 

 

 

[Gobbledygook]

28 minutes ago, arcane said:

Fewer choices = higher cost / tradeoff per choice = more challenging building. So disagree.

 

Disagree

 

More choices, same power slots, same enhancement slots, more challenging

[arcane]

3 minutes ago, Gobbledygook said:

 

Disagree

 

More choices, same power slots, same enhancement slots, more challenging

If you insist on picking up Hasten on every build, and:

 

- in one universe, that costs you a power slot and a couple of enhancement slots, and, 

 

- meanwhile, in another universe, that costs you a power slot, a couple of enhancement slots, AND the opportunity to pick another pool,

 

the latter set of challenges is objectively greater. You are confusing number of options with cost, and cost is what yields the challenge.