Suggestions to improve fun factor or quality of life for some sets

[Voltak]

On paper the following sets are great, numbers and so on.

The problem is the animation times and sometimes recharge too 

Dark Miasma: animation times for powers, some of them, are ridiculous. 

Tar Patch, Darkest Night, Howling Twilight, even the heal.  
Accelerating the animation times for these will NOT break the game at all.  It will make the set a lot more fun to play. 
By the time you finish casting all of the above, the Uber Eats driver was at my door after I had placed the order. 

Radiation Emissions, same thing, animation times could be looked at and improved. 
Other sets may have this problem, but I am not talking about attack powers, like melee or range attack from attacking sets. 
I am talking buffing or debuffing or controls. 

Besides wanting dark affinity for defenders, I could strongly suggest that animation times be improved. 
My Dark Miasma defender is much beloved but I remember why I don't play him nearly so much. 
The animation times are just horrible. 
Tar Patch recharge reduction will be great for mobility.  
Once you finish one group and go to another, to have it ready would be better. 
Sometimes the recharge presents a problem because Tar Patch is not ready for the new mob. 

Keep up the good work, Devs.  CoH is a fantastic game. 
No game is perfect and I believe we will always seek room for improvement. 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Voltak

[GM Impervium]

Moved to suggestions and feedback, where the devs are more likely to see it 🙂

[biostem]

I'm not against shortening the animation times per se, but from my understanding, those are factored into how powerful the healing/buff/debuff values of said powers are, meaning that if the animation times were shortened, the effectiveness of those powers would also have to be lowered...

[Nayru]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

I'm not against shortening the animation times per se, but from my understanding, those are factored into how powerful the healing/buff/debuff values of said powers are, meaning that if the animation times were shortened, the effectiveness of those powers would also have to be lowered...

there's no real such thing as 'have to', vg development whether corporate or not isn't subject to binary spreadsheet design

well, unless it's horrifically mismanaged anyway, but i like to (fatally) assume otherwise as a habit

regardless of that, there's super powerful hyper-fast casting powers and rather weak painfully slow casting powers, i think fluff + animation decided cast time, not power

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, Nayru said:

there's no real such thing as 'have to', vg development whether corporate or not isn't subject to binary spreadsheet design

well, unless it's horrifically mismanaged anyway, but i like to (fatally) assume otherwise as a habit

regardless of that, there's super powerful hyper-fast casting powers and rather weak painfully slow casting powers, i think fluff + animation decided cast time, not power

If the game was founded/relies upon certain design tenets, and you later start throwing them out the window, you can basically throw any notions of balance out the window.  I agree that the devs could certainly change power values however they wanted, but the more important question is whether they *should*...

[Nayru]

30 minutes ago, biostem said:

If the game was founded/relies upon certain design tenets, and you later start throwing them out the window, you can basically throw any notions of balance out the window.  I agree that the devs could certainly change power values however they wanted, but the more important question is whether they *should*...

hc can't replicate the design process of cryptic/paragon and even if they could, it would include their very flawed systems as well

in quite a few ways their approaches to things have been abjectly superior to some of the hangups paragon in particular had

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Voltak said:

On paper the following sets are great, numbers and so on.

The problem is the animation times and sometimes recharge too 

Dark Miasma: animation times for powers, some of them, are ridiculous. 

Tar Patch, Darkest Night, Howling Twilight, even the heal.  
Accelerating the animation times for these will NOT break the game at all.  It will make the set a lot more fun to play. 
By the time you finish casting all of the above, the Uber Eats driver was at my door after I had placed the order. 

Radiation Emissions, same thing, animation times could be looked at and improved. 
Other sets may have this problem, but I am not talking about attack powers, like melee or range attack from attacking sets. 
I am talking buffing or debuffing or controls. 

Besides wanting dark affinity for defenders, I could strongly suggest that animation times be improved. 
My Dark Miasma defender is much beloved but I remember why I don't play him nearly so much. 
The animation times are just horrible. 
Tar Patch recharge reduction will be great for mobility.  
Once you finish one group and go to another, to have it ready would be better. 
Sometimes the recharge presents a problem because Tar Patch is not ready for the new mob. 

Keep up the good work, Devs.  CoH is a fantastic game. 
No game is perfect and I believe we will always seek room for improvement. 

I don't really care if the animation times for Tar Patch, Darkest Night, or Twilight Grasp are changed. I love the Dark Miasma set. It is the support set I use most often and I've never had any problems with the animation times for those powers. Though Twilight Grasp sometimes rezzing me instead of healing me is always funny to watch. Howling Twilight? Yeah, that could definitely use a better animation time, but it is not imperative.

 

As for Tar Patch, after I slot a recharge reduction or two in it until I can get my sets going, I pretty much always have it available for the next fight. Unless I'm on a team. In which case forget having it for every group and just use it for big fights because the team typically eats everything too fast.

 

So if the animation times are sped up? I won't complain. If they aren't? I won't care. I already enjoy the set.

 

Edit: As for rad's animation times? Haven't used the set. No comment/opinion.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Rudra

[biostem]

14 minutes ago, Nayru said:

hc can't replicate the design process of cryptic/paragon and even if they could, it would include their very flawed systems as well

in quite a few ways their approaches to things have been abjectly superior to some of the hangups paragon in particular had

I'm not clear on what you mean by your 1st sentence;  Homecoming took the very code/architecture/systems of CoH, brought it back to life, and added/changed some things, but the core is the original CoH we know and love.  They didn't have to replicate anything, but the newer stuff they added is most certainly following the basic design tenets of other such powers/powersets.

 

Can you give me an example of a "hangup" that the HC devs have ignored or implemented, that the original Cryptic/Paragon devs had?

[Nayru]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

I'm not clear on what you mean by your 1st sentence;  Homecoming took the very code/architecture/systems of CoH, brought it back to life, and added/changed some things, but the core is the original CoH we know and love.  They didn't have to replicate anything, but the newer stuff they added is most certainly following the basic design tenets of other such powers/powersets.

 

Can you give me an example of a "hangup" that the HC devs have ignored or implemented, that the original Cryptic/Paragon devs had?

..it's a bit straightforward in meaning, while hc is the inheritor of what cryptic and paragon left behind, they are not cryptic and paragon and cannot do their exact methodology on designing the game as they have both different mentalities and different developers - nor should they, nor have they if prior issues is any indication

the most obvious example of that is the splitting of the fly pool, most of the end result of that looks pretty alien to most of what the game was over its history and by and large the live developers (and players from what i could tell when that patch went through) were perfectly content with where the pool was design-wise

the design of it was quite substantially changed in a less coh-y way but it happened regardless of anyone's hangups because hc != cryptagon, for better or worse

[biostem]

8 minutes ago, Nayru said:

..it's a bit straightforward in meaning, while hc is the inheritor of what cryptic and paragon left behind, they are not cryptic and paragon and cannot do their exact methodology on designing the game as they have both different mentalities and different developers - nor should they, nor have they if prior issues is any indication

I mean, it's basically a mathematic formula that you follow;  animation time A + end cost B + recharge time C = power effect D.  They generally stick to it, but I'll freely admit that there's some wiggle room.

 

9 minutes ago, Nayru said:

the most obvious example of that is the splitting of the fly pool, most of the end result of that looks pretty alien to most of what the game was over its history and by and large the live developers (and players from what i could tell when that patch went through) were perfectly content with where the pool was design-wise

They added evasive maneuvers and made afterburner a "freebie" when you take fly.  I don't think they split anything.  Evasive maneuvers is pretty innovative, but I don't think its "alien"...

 

11 minutes ago, Nayru said:

the design of it was quite substantially changed in a less coh-y way but it happened regardless of anyone's hangups because hc != cryptagon, for better or worse

I suppose it's a matter of opinion, then, because I find Homecoming to be very true to the spirit and intent of CoH...

[Rudra]

That claim discounts the devs' own claim that though they are not going to maintain a museum piece, they are doing their best to adhere to the original CoX. So yes, they have done somethings that are different, but they are doing so while trying to abide by what was done on Live.

 

Yes, they are introducing new content and new features. The game needs to grow if they want to maintain, let alone grow, the game population. They do not seem to be inclined towards the undeveloped/unreleased content the Live devs were working on, but we have no way of knowing since we have no way of knowing what incomplete projects the HC team may have managed to get. Regardless, that is untested, unreleased, incomplete content, so it does not matter if the HC devs bother with it or not. (Though I would like to see it.)

 

And some powers were modified on Live, like finally being able to use all our armors at once instead of praying that we're not fighting Tsoo or similar who have attacks that require all our armors to face. So we can't be sure the Live devs would have been as opposed to the current changes as you are implying.

 

If changes need to be made, the HC team has shown they are willing to make those changes. They seem to prefer not making unnecessary changes though and have already declared they do not wish to violate the vision of the previous developers.

 

(As an aside, since the HC team is in negotiations with the company that shall remain unnamed, it makes sense for them to not make too many changes.)

 

Edit: Dang it, @biostem! You couldn't have delayed your response a minute or two for me to finish and keep my comment lined up? 😄

Edited June 16, 2022 by Rudra

[Nayru]

14 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Edit: Dang it, @biostem! You couldn't have delayed your response a minute or two for me to finish and keep my comment lined up? 😄

to be honest it's wasted effort, if i didn't have good reasonings to say what i've said then i wouldn't've in the first place - i'm unlikely to be convinced otherwise of what i've personally seen

but it's just as well as way too many threads get spammed up by 'could/should/would you cottage', this will be my last reply on this subject and to throw a bone to the thread itself, dark's support set does have some otherworldly (heh) cast times alongside some very fast ones, beyond tar patch their effects aren't superb and horrid slow casts that feel bad to use don't justify them, tar patch is just really good because standard -res (30 for defender) en masse is just good and wouldn't suddenly be busted if it wasn't a 3.3 arcanacast, that's all there is to it

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, Nayru said:

to be honest it's wasted effort, if i didn't have good reasonings to say what i've said then i wouldn't've in the first place - i'm unlikely to be convinced otherwise of what i've personally seen

It's a given that each person would think that their own reasons are good ones.  That doesn't make such opinions objective, however.  An unwillingness to be convinced otherwise is dangerous;  You become set in your ways and unwilling to look beyond that.  I admit I may not have done a good enough job of convincing you otherwise, but don't you think that your very reasoning could be used by me towards your suggestion in the first place?  Have you compared the actual animation times of dark against other support sets?  I'm pretty sure that you aren't taking other factors into consideration, such as the strength of the heal compared to others, the other secondary effects, and so on.  Regardless, do what you like...

[Nayru]

6 minutes ago, biostem said:

It's a given that each person would think that their own reasons are good ones.  That doesn't make such opinions objective, however.  An unwillingness to be convinced otherwise is dangerous;  You become set in your ways and unwilling to look beyond that.  I admit I may not have done a good enough job of convincing you otherwise, but don't you think that your very reasoning could be used by me towards your suggestion in the first place?  Have you compared the actual animation times of dark against other support sets?  I'm pretty sure that you aren't taking other factors into consideration, such as the strength of the heal compared to others, the other secondary effects, and so on.  Regardless, do what you like...

why are you intercepting my response to a completely unrelated post? is a question i could ask, here's more
why are you asserting that my observations of the hc server's workings can't be objective
why are you talking personal philosophy to me in regards to gamedesign
why are you assuming i didn't spend a few minutes going over the support sets again to see what thread poster was going on about before commenting on it

this really is not a good way to discuss these things, but you got an extra completely off-topic post from me as i found this so egregious it was impossible to ignore

[biostem]

8 minutes ago, Nayru said:

why are you intercepting my response to a completely unrelated post? is a question i could ask, here's more

You replied to my post first.  I then continued to respond to your responses.

8 minutes ago, Nayru said:

why are you asserting that my observations of the hc server's workings can't be objective

If they are objective, then provide the evidence.

8 minutes ago, Nayru said:

why are you talking personal philosophy to me in regards to gamedesign

CoH was built with certain formulae and patterns in place.  You either think it's ok to just wildly deviate from those design philosophies or just don't care, and want things a particular way, regardless of any precedents to the contrary.

8 minutes ago, Nayru said:

why are you assuming i didn't spend a few minutes going over the support sets again to see what thread poster was going on about before commenting on it

I didn't.  It seems like you are jumping to conclusions.

8 minutes ago, Nayru said:

this really is not a good way to discuss these things, but you got an extra completely off-topic post from me as i found this so egregious it was impossible to ignore

Your posts are hard to understand and you don't speak in a clear, concise manner.  I don't know if it's a language thing or just a genuine disconnect.  If it's the former, then I apologize for not understanding you.  If it's the latter, then I'm not sure I can convince you otherwise, anyway...

Edited June 16, 2022 by biostem

[Nayru]

sheesh, have it your way

 

9 minutes ago, biostem said:

You replied to my post first.  I then continued to respond to your responses.

i wrote off your reply as it went completely off the rails in regards to what i was talking about and the points i was trying to get across and did a value judgement on replying
 

9 minutes ago, biostem said:

If they are objective, then provide the evidence.

you didn't seem to like the example i gave and that's as far as i was willing to put up with being burden of proofed over something that to me is very obvious, maybe it just comes with having spent two decades associating with and being a part of vg development but that's not what i'm here to do or what this thread's about
 

13 minutes ago, biostem said:

CoH was built with certain formulae and patterns in place.  You either think it's ok to just wildly deviate from those design philosophies or just don't care, and want things a particular way, regardless of any precedents to the contrary.

things like the power damage formula have absolutely nothing to do with what i was talking about and following the literal core game design is nothing special, hc are not cryptic/paragon and you've taken my views wildly out of context to an almost strawman degree - again, VERY bad way to discuss these things + off-topic
 

16 minutes ago, biostem said:

I didn't.  It seems like you are jumping to conclusions.

39 minutes ago, biostem said:

Have you compared the actual animation times of dark against other support sets?  I'm pretty sure that you aren't taking other factors into consideration,

yeah, i must be
 

18 minutes ago, biostem said:

Your posts are hard to understand and you don't speak in a clear, concise manner.  I don't know if it's a language thing or just a genuine disconnect.  If it's the former, then I apologize for not understanding you.  If it's the latter, then I'm not sure I can convince you otherwise, anyway...

i'm not sure what the point of that was aside from wondering aloud if i'm non-natively english speaking, which.. yeah, thanks for that, i doubt most people have any issues comprehending what i'm saying despite the fact i don't capitalize what i say and have a tendency to talk in run-on sentences, but let's go with disconnect

like how i'd love to disconnect from spamming up this innocent thread and not get baited into another embarrassing exchange, so i will

[biostem]

7 minutes ago, Nayru said:

i wrote off your reply as it went completely off the rails in regards to what i was talking about and the points i was trying to get across and did a value judgement on replying

You are welcome to your opinion.

7 minutes ago, Nayru said:

you didn't seem to like the example i gave and that's as far as i was willing to put up with being burden of proofed over something that to me is very obvious, maybe it just comes with having spent two decades associating with and being a part of vg development but that's not what i'm here to do or what this thread's about

Your examples were anecdotal.  Provide the numbers.  Those are the "objective" aspects I'm talking about.  Nice humble brag there as well.

7 minutes ago, Nayru said:

things like the power damage formula have absolutely nothing to do with what i was talking about and following the literal core game design is nothing special, hc are not cryptic/paragon and you've taken my views wildly out of context to an almost strawman degree - again, VERY bad way to discuss these things + off-topic

So give me an example of how, objectively, you'd adjust the powers while keeping within the various design guidelines for powers.  If you aren't willing to give up anything in exchange for quicker animations, then you are being disingenuous.

7 minutes ago, Nayru said:

yeah, i must be

Well, at least you're being a little honest.

7 minutes ago, Nayru said:

i'm not sure what the point of that was aside from wondering aloud if i'm non-natively english speaking, which.. yeah, thanks for that, i doubt most people have any issues comprehending what i'm saying despite the fact i don't capitalize what i say and have a tendency to talk in run-on sentences, but let's go with disconnect

I have no issue understanding most other posts in these forums, so I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.  People from all over the world play CoH, so if you think being  anon-native English speaker is a diss, that's on you.

7 minutes ago, Nayru said:

like how i'd love to disconnect from spamming up this innocent thread and not get baited into another embarrassing exchange, so i will

I won't hold my breath.

Edited June 16, 2022 by biostem

[Rudra]

Parts of your posts are hard to read, but that has no bearing on this thread. Now back to your 1st post on this thread:

 

2 hours ago, Nayru said:

there's no real such thing as 'have to', vg development whether corporate or not isn't subject to binary spreadsheet design

well, unless it's horrifically mismanaged anyway, but i like to (fatally) assume otherwise as a habit

regardless of that, there's super powerful hyper-fast casting powers and rather weak painfully slow casting powers, i think fluff + animation decided cast time, not power

As you admit, you do not know how the devs, current or previous, figured animation times. For all you know, @biostem's depiction that animation times are part of the formula is correct. For all I know, maybe you're correct. The devs know though. So the suggestion about animation times was made. We can debate the necessity or lack of reducing the animation times, but we cannot argue about what the devs can, cannot, will, or will not do.

 

So let's debate the merits of the OP. Most of this thread has had very little to do with it so far. At least in my opinion.

 

Edit: ... "but we cannot argue about what the devs can, cannot, will, or will not do." ... well, we can, and some of us probably have either intentionally or by accident, but it is pointless to do so.... Sorry, felt the need to correct myself there.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Rudra

[Nayru]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

As you admit, you do not know how the devs, current or previous, figured animation times. For all you know, @biostem's depiction that animation times are part of the formula is correct. For all I know, maybe you're correct. The devs know though. So the suggestion about animation times was made. We can debate the necessity or lack of reducing the animation times, but we cannot argue about what the devs can, cannot, will, or will not do.

 

So let's debate the merits of the OP. Most of this thread has had very little to do with it so far. At least in my opinion.

given there's wild inconsistencies in cast times i doubt it had something like leandro's post way back about attack formulas, but sure, nobody really knows

if i had to just make a general statement on dark (very unfamiliar with radiation support set so will sidestep that), it's that it's not an overpowered set and making some of its severe cast times more in line with later-designed sets' nicer ones wouldn't suddenly push it over the line and make it such, and generally qol/play improvements are good + something that's done fairly commonly on this server, so decent shot it could happen at some point
 

 

[golstat2003]

21 minutes ago, Nayru said:

given there's wild inconsistencies in cast times i doubt it had something like leandro's post way back about attack formulas, but sure, nobody really knows

if i had to just make a general statement on dark (very unfamiliar with radiation support set so will sidestep that), it's that it's not an overpowered set and making some of its severe cast times more in line with later-designed sets' nicer ones wouldn't suddenly push it over the line and make it such, and generally qol/play improvements are good + something that's done fairly commonly on this server, so decent shot it could happen at some point
 

 

 

I would not mind if the implemented the OPs' suggestion. Do I think it's needed? Not really.

[Voltak]

12 hours ago, biostem said:

If the game was founded/relies upon certain design tenets, and you later start throwing them out the window, you can basically throw any notions of balance out the window.  I agree that the devs could certainly change power values however they wanted, but the more important question is whether they *should*...

 

There is no way making the animations faster would break the game.  The ones I mentioned will not break the game in any way. 
They are too long.  It would be much funner if they shortened the animation times. 
I don't see anywhere that says or establishes that long animation times for buff or debuff determine how powerful they are and no where does it say that if that were the case, then  it cannot be changed. 

There's no rule for that across the gaming industry. 
I do know that the funner things are, the more people enjoy them. 
Shorter animation times are or will be an improvement for the set. 

It cannot hurt us the gamers if animation times were shortened.   
I cannot see how anyone's gaming experience will be worse with shorter animation times. 

I frankly do not understand the conservatism that so many players have concerning improvements or positive changes for anything in the game. 
No game is perfect, and every game has improvements to be made or improvements that have been made. 
In no way at all does a suggestion for improvement means there is no love or there is not enough love for the game or for the set. 

Yes, it would be very nice if they shorted the animation times for these powers. 
As an experience gamer, CoH and others, I just can't see how this would break the game in anyway. 
And I am one who goes out of his way to find difficult and challenging things to do in CoH because the easy stuff I just don't care for anymore. 
But these long animation times for what I mentioned are just not fun and so unnecessary. 
 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Voltak

[Voltak]

12 hours ago, Rudra said:

 

 

As for Tar Patch, after I slot a recharge reduction or two in it until I can get my sets going, I pretty much always have it available for the next fight. Unless I'm on a team. In which case forget having it for every group and just use it for big fights because the team typically eats everything too fast.

 

So if the animation times are sped up? I won't complain. If they aren't? I won't care. I already enjoy the set.

 

Edit: As for rad's animation times? Haven't used the set. No comment/opinion.

I have recharge on Tar Patch.  It's not up every mob.  The recharge times are longer than Darkest Night, which is available at every mob, of course, in teams.   
Do you have a problem with the animation times being shortened ?  If not, will you like the animation times shortened?  
As it is now, they are too long.  
There is no need to keep them that long.  There is no game breaking if they were shortened.  

The faster the animation is over with, the sooner you can get on with doing other things, and that will be an improvement. 

[arcane]

I don’t think we need to get rid of long animation times except where sets are genuinely needing buffs. Dark Miasma (moreso Darkness Affinity perhaps) and Radiation Emission don’t really strike me as sets that need buffs. Bitter Freeze Ray is another example of a power that can’t really afford to get better due to the surrounding set’s potency.

 

Multiple powers from Kinetic Melee, Shout, and Incandescent Strike are examples that come to mind where the animation reduction is actually needed to bring performance in line.

Edited June 16, 2022 by arcane

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

I don’t think we need to get rid of long animation times except where sets are genuinely needing buffs. Dark Miasma (moreso Darkness Affinity perhaps) and Radiation Emission don’t really strike me as sets that need buffs. Bitter Freeze Ray is another example of a power that can’t really afford to get better due to the surrounding set’s potency.

 

Multiple powers from Kinetic Melee, Shout, and Incandescent Strike are examples that come to mind where the animation reduction is actually needed to bring performance in line.

I am in total opposition of nerf bats for balance in the general sense, not as a first option. 
I am in favor of improving the others.  There's more than one way to approach some issues. 
Spreading nerfs , moving other things backwards, is not the way. 
Improving others is the better way.  Spreading the fun is my preferred way. Spreading the "blessings" not the  "misfortunes" is my approach. 
This is a much more appealing approach to players. 

Dark Miasma powers I mentioned above need a reduction in animation times. The animation times are just too long. 
By the time you finish the animations of all those powers, it's been a long time passed already.  
Those shortenings will not break the game in the least. 
It will be very nice to reduce the animations and start doing other things, moving or attacking, and so on. 

Again, I am not talking about attacks from assault sets here. 

 

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Voltak said:

I have recharge on Tar Patch.  It's not up every mob.  The recharge times are longer than Darkest Night, which is available at every mob, of course, in teams.   
Do you have a problem with the animation times being shortened ?  If not, will you like the animation times shortened?  
As it is now, they are too long.  
There is no need to keep them that long.  There is no game breaking if they were shortened.  

The faster the animation is over with, the sooner you can get on with doing other things, and that will be an improvement. 

You quote me where I say I don't care either way if the animation times are shortened, and ask me if I have a problem with it or would like it? You lost me on that post.