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

[biostem]

4 hours ago, Voltak said:

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. 

Way to strawman me, there.  If animation times are factored into how strong powers are, then the other components of the power should be adjusted if said animations were to be shortened - it's called balance, and it isn't a bad thing to try and maintain it.  I never said there was some unbreakable rule across the gaming industry, but it is a good idea to try and maintain some semblance of giving a damn when it comes to what changes you make and their ramifications.  You do not get to say that you basically want to throw out game balance in one breath, then claim that it will not hurt anything.  You may not care if things are unbalanced and changed willy-nilly because you like said changes, but in the long run, it can be detrimental to the game's longevity.

Edited June 16, 2022 by biostem

[Voltak]

51 minutes ago, biostem said:

Way to strawman me, there.  If animation times are factored into how strong powers are, then the other components of the power should be adjusted if said animations were to be shortened - it's called balance, and it isn't a bad thing to try and maintain it.  I never said there was some unbreakable rule across the gaming industry, but it is a good idea to try and maintain some semblance of giving a damn when it comes to what changes you make and their ramifications.  You do not get to say that you basically want to throw out game balance in one breath, then claim that it will not hurt anything.  You may not care if things are unbalanced and changed willy-nilly because you like said changes, but in the long run, it can be detrimental to the game's longevity.

There is no rule, nothing set in stone saying that the power needs a nerf anywhere in order to shorten animations of powers that buff or debuff or even rez. 
There is no breaking balance in shortening the animation of a mower that is 3.17 secs long animation when buffing or debuffing. 
Activating, say, 3 powers, taking about 9 seconds to do so... then waiting to move or attack...  
Shortening the wait time for you to buff or debuff is not going to break CoH in the least, certainly not even close to what AE or incarnates have done.  Even then I do welcome AE and I welcome incarnates. 
The game is always ready to receive new challenges in other ways. 
This is certainly a practice in place across the gaming industry --  Improvements done and new challenges presented to players. 
That is a fun way to proceed, and it beats swinging nerf bats all over the place or  refusing to improve some quality of life to some sets. 
I don't mean to straw man.  But it seems to me that your argument is a straw already. 

To care is good. 
To make things more fun is good. 

There is no need in bringing a more negative aspect to these powers across various sets by giving them such long animations. 

Shortening the casting times will not affect in the least the life longevity of CoH.  
The improvements to tanks did nothing to hurt CoH. I dont even play tanks, or have not played them since Live.  
Improvements to electricity blasts did not hurt the game either. 



 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Voltak

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Voltak said:

There's no rule for that across the gaming industry. 

There really isn't much of a rule system across the gaming industry. Expectations? Sure. Rules? Not so much. Every company or enterprise develops their own rules and philosophies for their own products. And in some cases, those rules and philosophies change between products. So yeah, there is no rule for the arguments being made in the industry. Because the only rule in the industry seems to boil down to "make a product people will pay for".

 

Now as to how such a product is made, that is up to each agency or team. And our team has said they want to keep the game as much like it was on Live as they can while still making new content and making required changes.

 

See https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/2411-the-future-an-open-letter-from-the-homecoming-team/ for the statement of intent.

 

See also https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/3199-design-formulas/ for statement of power design and editing philosophy. Let me point out "While these formulas can be broken with enough justification, they should definitely be followed as a starting point in order to make sure your power "feels right" when compared to other powers in COH." from that post. Powers are subject to change, as needed and in keeping with other powers in the game.

 

So make your case as to why you think this change should happen. Expect push back, pretty much every suggestion faces that, but give your justification for the suggested change. And as was discussed earlier in the thread, you don't know any better than the rest of us what specifics the devs use to gauge power balance. So maybe just shortening the animations with no trade offs will not unbalance anything. Or maybe shortening the animations with no trade offs will make the powers mechanically unbalanced in contrast to the other powers. Unless you are a dev, you do not know. And if you are a dev, then just do it. No one other than another dev can stop you.

[Voltak]

6 minutes ago, Rudra said:

 

And our team has said they want to keep the game as much like it was on Live as they can while still making new content and making required changes.

 

 

 

 

THis statement will not impede nor stop improvements. 

For you to try to dare to define in detail what this means is impossible, and I am not saying you are, but you do come across as you knowing that somehow this is relevant to making these changes requested as something that goes against the above statement. 

If you are not inferring this, cool, and carry on. 

But that statement there has no weight as to why the changes requested should not happen. 

Elec blast being improve, tanks being improved, energy melee being improved after the nerf to ET, the inclusion of incarnates , the invention of AE... lots of things have changed the game or improves significantly... CoH still the same game we love.  

IOs, changed the game a lot, a whole lot, and so did the market system. 

So there is no way to define the above statement in any detail. 

That statement could still be honored even if the changes I am requesting are done. 

Shake hands ?


** Now, the rule across the industry is "give players/customers what they want" so we keep them or gain more, and in the vast majority of cases, the motive is to make a profit.  Profit is not so much the issue with CoH, but providing the fun to the players is.   **

Edited June 16, 2022 by Voltak

[arcane]

I definitely don’t share the “constant buffs = more fun = always good” vision because I know of no examples in which “meh, ignore balance and give everyone everything” has yielded an interesting game for me to play.

 

That said, I don’t think anyone here is calling for nerfs. “Hey let’s buff things that actually need it” =/= “NO FUN ALLOWED NERF EVERYTHING”.

 

Honestly I could probably get behind some slight tweaks to the Dark Miasma animation times though I hesitate because Darkness Affinity definitely needs zero buffing. Would rather buff nothing than buff Darkness Affinity. And yeah, think it’s obvious Radiation Emission is already top tier stuff.

Edited June 16, 2022 by arcane

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Voltak said:

THis statement will not impede nor stop improvements. 

For you to try to dare to define in detail what this means is impossible, and I am not saying you are, but you do come across as you knowing that somehow this is relevant to making these changes requested as something that goes against the above statement. 

If you are not inferring this, cool, and carry on. 

But that statement there has no weight as to why the changes requested should not happen. 

Elec blast being improve, tanks being improved, energy melee being improved after the nerf to ET, the inclusion of incarnates , the invention of AE... lots of things have changed the game or improves significantly... CoH still the same game we love.  

IOs, changed the game a lot, a whole lot, and so did the market system. 

So there is no way to define the above statement in any detail. 

That statement could still be honored even if the changes I am requesting are done. 

Shake hands ?


** Now, the rule across the industry is "give players/customers what they want" so we keep them or gain more, and in the vast majority of cases, the motive is to make a profit.  Profit is not so much the issue with CoH, but providing the fun to the players is.   **

*sigh* Let me try this from another angle.

 

I do not care if this change is implemented. Like, at all. If it is? Okay, don't care. It is already my favorite support set and the set I use on over half my corruptors and MMs. If it is not? Oh well, don't care. Will still use the set, it is still my favorite support set.

 

My post with the links is to ask you to keep in mind what the current dev team has said they are trying to do. Push for the change. I am not opposing it. I am asking you to not ignore what the devs have said in your comments.

 

I am also not saying that your suggestion violates what the devs said. I do not know what specifics they use for balance. I am leaving that up to them. I am simply pointing out that none of us know what they look at for balance. So we cannot say that a suggested change to a power will not affect the balance. What we can say is we have an idea we think will improve the game and here is our reasoning. Let the devs deal with whether or not it unbalances anything. Unless the proposed change is flagrantly unbalancing if implemented or if the change would make the power not the same. (Neither of which I am saying yours does.)

 

So sure, let's shake hands and bury this between us.

[Voltak]

14 minutes ago, arcane said:

I definitely don’t share the “constant buffs = more fun = always good” vision because I know of no examples in which “meh, ignore balance and give everyone everything” has yielded an interesting game for me to play.

 

That said, I don’t think anyone here is calling for nerfs. “Hey let’s buff things that actually need it” =/= “NO FUN ALLOWED NERF EVERYTHING”.

 

Honestly I could probably get behind some slight tweaks to the Dark Miasma animation times though I hesitate because Darkness Affinity definitely needs zero buffing. Would rather buff nothing than buff Darkness Affinity. And yeah, think it’s obvious Radiation Emission is already top tier stuff.

Improvements done, better the performance of some powers or sets, along with bringing new challenges, more difficult challenges, and so on... 

That's a great system, a proven system that works across the game industry. 

We move forward. 

Cutting the animation times for, let's say, three powers that if you cast them one after the other, could take you about 10 seconds, before you engaging in moving around or attacking or evading.  

It's a quality of life issue, fun issue, and so on.   This won't break the game in the least, and it won't make the sets mentioned OP, not even. 

No one is saying Rad is not top tier , especially for what it does. 

I am saying some powers in many sets could use some cut in the animation times, and I am not talking about assault sets.  

Listen, the game, no game is, but the game is not perfect.  
We can keep improving. 
No need to be conservative here. 
The game works well with progress and movement forward. 

These changes will still keep the CoH flavor.  

@Rudra -- my proposition still keeps in mind what we all want, not just the devs.  We want CoH , we want the flavor of CoH, and we want this game to go on for as long as possible.   My proposition does not go counter to that in the least. 

I agree, let's bury that. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Voltak

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Voltak said:

There is no rule, nothing set in stone saying that the power needs a nerf anywhere in order to shorten animations of powers that buff or debuff or even rez. 
There is no breaking balance in shortening the animation of a mower that is 3.17 secs long animation when buffing or debuffing. 
Activating, say, 3 powers, taking about 9 seconds to do so... then waiting to move or attack...  
Shortening the wait time for you to buff or debuff is not going to break CoH in the least, certainly not even close to what AE or incarnates have done.  Even then I do welcome AE and I welcome incarnates. 
The game is always ready to receive new challenges in other ways. 
This is certainly a practice in place across the gaming industry --  Improvements done and new challenges presented to players. 
That is a fun way to proceed, and it beats swinging nerf bats all over the place or  refusing to improve some quality of life to some sets. 
I don't mean to straw man.  But it seems to me that your argument is a straw already. 

To care is good. 
To make things more fun is good. 

There is no need in bringing a more negative aspect to these powers across various sets by giving them such long animations. 

Shortening the casting times will not affect in the least the life longevity of CoH.  
The improvements to tanks did nothing to hurt CoH. I dont even play tanks, or have not played them since Live.  
Improvements to electricity blasts did not hurt the game either. 

So you strawman me too?  I never said there was anything set in stone.  There is balance, and balance is important.  As I've said multiple times, now, there is a design philosophy behind how powers behave and how their values are calculated.  I've also stated that there is room for wiggle room within those calculations.  I neither said I was against shortening the animation time(s), only that if they are part of how the powers are balanced, then the other aspects of the powers would have to be adjusted as well.  Can you compare the cast times and all the aspects of the darkness powers and compare them against similar ones?  Maybe a change is actually warranted, or maybe it's just the perception of some people who want to see a buff, but it is not actually justified...

[Voltak]

19 hours ago, biostem said:

So you strawman me too?  I never said there was anything set in stone.  There is balance, and balance is important.  As I've said multiple times, now, there is a design philosophy behind how powers behave and how their values are calculated.  I've also stated that there is room for wiggle room within those calculations.  I neither said I was against shortening the animation time(s), only that if they are part of how the powers are balanced, then the other aspects of the powers would have to be adjusted as well.  Can you compare the cast times and all the aspects of the darkness powers and compare them against similar ones?  Maybe a change is actually warranted, or maybe it's just the perception of some people who want to see a buff, but it is not actually justified...

Are you saying that the animation times for those specific powers I listed of Dark Miasma, and some powers of radiation emissions, or any other powers buffing or debuffing are exactly that long because if they were shorter or they would break the game or cause it to be unbalanced ?  
If you are saying this you are kind of inferring something is set on stone here. 

If so, where is this stated or written ?  
I want to know why we need 3 second animation or 2.37 seconds or otherwise the set is broken. Where is this stated?

Are you coming up with this on your own ?
If you are not saying any of this, then I can't even understand why are you even discussing or what direction you are going. 

Remember, I am not talking about assault sets

The change is warranted because the animations are just way too long, they don't need to be this long for Dark Miasma and other sets to be just fine, with nothing to worry about. .  
It would be much funner to have a shorter animation. 
IT's a quality of life issue for many powers like these. 

In no way is it going to break the game. 
Dark Miasma is no where near being OP. 

You worried about game balance if they shortened the animation times for some of these things?

IO's , sets, bonuses, incarnates, AE... those things and others have caused unbalanced or caused toons to be way more overpowered than shortening the animation times of some of these powers  ever will. 
I love IOs, and incarnates.  I have found my ways to engage in greater challenges now that the characters are a lot more powerful. 
Thus the game is rebalanced. 
That's how it works.  

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Voltak

[Rudra]

Dumb question: Last time I was in a PvP zone, I was on my Ninja/Dark MM and ran into a PvP'er who told me that /Dark was the support set most used in PvP. Is that true? And if it is, would this change affect the PvP balance?

[arcane]

11 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Dumb question: Last time I was in a PvP zone, I was on my Ninja/Dark MM and ran into a PvP'er who told me that /Dark was the support set most used in PvP. Is that true? And if it is, would this change affect the PvP balance?

No that’s definitely not true

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Dumb question: Last time I was in a PvP zone, I was on my Ninja/Dark MM and ran into a PvP'er who told me that /Dark was the support set most used in PvP. Is that true? And if it is, would this change affect the PvP balance?

I'll confirm that as inaccurate as well. While the Defender secondary set Dark Blast can be beneficial for set bonuses to achieve higher healing %, (much like Water Blast), it's primary is not a popularly ran build choice. It's not that it's terrible, it's that other primary sets are better at either buffing, debuffing, or disrupting than Dark primary. 

 

On an MM, I'm not as familiar, but the set is nearly identical to the Defender version.

[Rudra]

Thank you for the responses. Much appreciated. (Not a PvP'er, so didn't know.)

[Glacier Peak]

This argument reminds me of Incandescent Strike. It's animation time is longer than its fellow melee equivalent version of Total Focus. At the same time, Incan causes status effects on impact and debuffs. That means it can slot a lot of damage procs. Not that procs should be considered the mainstream play style, but is does make the power much more palatable and easier to forgive it's long animation time. 

[arcane]

54 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

This argument reminds me of Incandescent Strike. It's animation time is longer than its fellow melee equivalent version of Total Focus. At the same time, Incan causes status effects on impact and debuffs. That means it can slot a lot of damage procs. Not that procs should be considered the mainstream play style, but is does make the power much more palatable and easier to forgive it's long animation time. 

It could still fit 6 procs easily firing at 90% proc rates if they gave it the Total Focus treatment. Super fun power when it hits, but once cast times pass 3 seconds on damage powers, the corpse blasting potential deters you from using it in regular fights 😕 

Edited June 17, 2022 by arcane

[Glacier Peak]

48 minutes ago, arcane said:

It could still fit 6 procs easily firing at 90% proc rates if they gave it the Total Focus treatment. Super fun power when it hits, but once cast times pass 3 seconds on damage powers, the corpse blasting potential deters you from using it in regular fights 😕 

Incan coupled with its proc'ability, coupled with the 30 second worth of build up from Inner Light make it chunk hard damage on target. Only problem is, if it's pvp, the target is already 150 ft away or jaunted up to avoid the follow up attack lol

[Voltak]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

This argument reminds me of Incandescent Strike. It's animation time is longer than its fellow melee equivalent version of Total Focus. At the same time, Incan causes status effects on impact and debuffs. That means it can slot a lot of damage procs. Not that procs should be considered the mainstream play style, but is does make the power much more palatable and easier to forgive it's long animation time. 

The animations are just sooo looong, and I love the set, theme, flavor, and so on.  It could benefit from shorter animation times for some things I mentioned specifically.   These are not assault powers I am talking about here at all.  I said that a few times. 
I am talking about the buffing and debuffing or Rez .
I don't want to argue,  but I just want to see if anything is provided that demonstrates to me that the animation needs to stay that way because of game balance issues and it cannot therefore be improved.  
Since I don't think that's the case, I am holding on to the proposal to the Devs to address this. 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Voltak

[Doomrider]

https://youtu.be/MALhIToSlY4

 

Speaking of long animations. There are some like RI from Rad that has a lot of dead air after the animation completes. I've addressed this with the HC team already, they've recognized it as a prime candidate for trimming. I really hope they find time to adjust it.

 

As for dark miasma. Several powers have a 3 sec or longer animation time. I believe there has been talk of considering animation speed increase for similarly long powers. So Im not sure it's so much a matter of if as much as it is when. Doesnt it mean it will happen, but on that note it should and likely will at least be considered.