Travel Powers - Some Better, Some Much Worse

[Marshal_General]

I wish all of the invisibility powers had an option to not be faded or invisible. I out a lot of effort into my costumes and I want to see them. I have gotten to where I don't take stealth or sets with stealth powers no matter how useful they are.

[Sovera]

16 hours ago, Marshal_General said:

I wish all of the invisibility powers had an option to not be faded or invisible. I out a lot of effort into my costumes and I want to see them. I have gotten to where I don't take stealth or sets with stealth powers no matter how useful they are.

 

Well, it's in the name. Not being facetious.

 

There are alternatives if just trying to eke a bit more defense.

[vicuna]

On 6/21/2022 at 12:50 PM, Troo said:

Issue 27, Page 2

(that's right I gave it a year)

 

it sounded good..

  Hide contents

Goals

When approaching these changes we had five main goals:

1. Real travel powers should always be a significant step up over the free options
   • Meaning: Temporary jetpacks should not be almost the same speed as Fly at level 50
2. Real travel powers should never cause you to lose something you've already got
   • Meaning: Turning on Super Speed shouldn't cause you to lose Ninja Run's jump buff
3. Classic travel powers should be on even footing with Origin Pool travel powers
   • Meaning: Fly and Mystic Flight should be different but equal options
4. Slotting travel powers for speed should actually matter
   • Meaning: Putting a fly speed enhancement in Fly should make you fly faster
5. Prestige Run and Temporary Jetpacks shouldn't be made any slower than they are currently
   • Meaning: A player who just wants to keep Ninja Run shouldn't lose anything

Note: This pass on the travel pools is primarily focused on the mobility of each set. The other aspects (such as the attacks) were not in the scope of these changes, but may be looked at in the future.

 

specifically with SJ, the numbers were fiddled with.

  Hide contents

 

Leaping Pool

•  Super Jump
  • Now increases your jump speed cap by 30% while toggled on (from 78.2mph to 101.8mph)
    • This increased cap doesn't apply in PvP
  •  Super Jump > Double Jump
    • New free secondary (server tray) power that doesn't require a power pick
    • Timed toggle, 30 second duration (10s in PvP), 30 second cooldown shared with Jump Pack and Steam Jump
    • Allows you to jump to an unlimited height and jump again mid-air
    • Null the Gull will allow you to hide Double Jump's pop-up tray

 

• •  

 

I'm on the phone, quoting the right content is painfully hard to do. Anyway, "Real travel powers should always be a significant step up over the free options"

 

Fly is better than spring+run, but not significant. Having the free powers is significantly faster than not having both.

 

my controversial opinion is that the free powers need to be nerfed.

[Troo]

4 hours ago, vicuna said:

 

I'm on the phone, quoting the right content is painfully hard to do. Anyway, "Real travel powers should always be a significant step up over the free options"

 

Fly is better than spring+run, but not significant. Having the free powers is significantly faster than not having both.

 

my controversial opinion is that the free powers need to be nerfed.

 

Were you making a point to me? Sorry, I think I am missing something.

[Herotu]

5 hours ago, vicuna said:

my controversial opinion is that the free powers need to be nerfed.

Perhaps the free versions should be weaker as you level up - so they encourage you to switch over to actual powers - in a similar way to those prestige enhancements?

[Stormwalker]

6 hours ago, vicuna said:

 

I'm on the phone, quoting the right content is painfully hard to do. Anyway, "Real travel powers should always be a significant step up over the free options"

 

Fly is better than spring+run, but not significant. Having the free powers is significantly faster than not having both.

 

my controversial opinion is that the free powers need to be nerfed.

 

Speaking as somoene who uses both extensively, I have to disagree with your contention that Fly is not significantly faster.

 

Sprint + Ninja/Athletic/Beast Run gets you a running speed of ~70mph

 

Fly with a single Fly Speed enhancement gets you to the Fly speed cap of 87 mph which boosts to 102 mph with Afterburner.  Alternately, you can get that speed without the Fly Speed enhancement (enabling you to put Slow Resist or some other travel power IO in Fly) by taking Evasive Maneuvers.  Additionally, Fly can take direct routes that shorten the distance and isn't hindered by vertical obstacles in zones like Faultline.

 

And that's just blueside.  On redside, it is no contest at all, because of zones like Mercy and Grandville that vastly favor Flight over any kind of running power.

 

This is especially fresh in my mind because last night I was trying to get to a mission door high up on the Tangle in Grandville with my redside DB/WP street samurai scrapper, who uses Infiltration (to reflect her thermo-optical camouflage) and Combat Jumping, and I had to take an incredibly roundabout route when with Fly I would have been there in 20 seconds, tops.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Stormwalker

[Luminara]

55 minutes ago, Herotu said:

Perhaps the free versions should be weaker as you level up - so they encourage you to switch over to actual powers - in a similar way to those prestige enhancements?

 

"Hold on, team, Betty Blast-butt isn't here.  Betty, what's going on?"
"I've got some damn dust in my jet pack's carburetor, it's bogging when I throttle up."

"Come on, you haven't learned to fly yet?"
"Look, last time I 'threw myself at ground and tried to miss', I didn't miss.  I'll stick with the jet pack."

[Stormwalker]

1 hour ago, Herotu said:

Perhaps the free versions should be weaker as you level up - so they encourage you to switch over to actual powers - in a similar way to those prestige enhancements?

 

I'd really rather they didn't.  Natural characters need a way to get around, and Infiltration isn't an option for every Natural (not all people are good at sneaking around!).

 

I already groan every time one of my Naturals gets a mission in Independence Port (which can involve a 1.5 mile+ hike to the mission door if it's in the Northwest corner).  They don't need to be any slower.

[Herotu]

23 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

 

I'd really rather they didn't.  Natural characters need a way to get around, and Infiltration isn't an option for every Natural (not all people are good at sneaking around!).

 

I already groan every time one of my Naturals gets a mission in Independence Port (which can involve a 1.5 mile+ hike to the mission door if it's in the Northwest corner).  They don't need to be any slower.

If it's a natural character... that doesn't stop you taking the Fly power, for example, wearing a jetpack or a wrist-mounted Teleport device etc. Those gadgets don't necessarily turn you into a technology origin, or do they?

[Rahabina]

I'm a fairy so my choices are:

 

Fly

Fly 

Fly

[Stormwalker]

Just now, Herotu said:

If it's a natural character... that doesn't stop you taking the Fly power, for example, wearing a jetpack or a wrist-mounted Teleport device etc. Those gadgets don't necessarily turn you into a technology origin, or do they?

 

They're not in the concepts for the characters, though.

 

I mean, for example, one of these characters is a high-school girl whose concept is derived kinda loosely from Ryouko Mitsurugi of the Real Bout High School manga.  Where's she going to get a jetpack?  She fights crime in her school uniform!  And even if someone gave her one, she wouldn't have the first idea how to use it, how to maintain it, wouldn't have a place to keep it... it's just completely not in concept for her.

 

Comcis and manga are full of characters who operate purely at the street level, who don't have fantastic resources any more than they have fantastic powers.  What they have is skill.  These are the characters for which Ninja Run and Athletic Run exist.

[Herotu]

3 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

 

They're not in the concepts for the characters, though.

 

I mean, for example, one of these characters is a high-school girl whose concept is derived kinda loosely from Ryouko Mitsurugi of the Real Bout High School manga.  Where's she going to get a jetpack?  She fights crime in her school uniform!  And even if someone gave her one, she wouldn't have the first idea how to use it, how to maintain it, wouldn't have a place to keep it... it's just completely not in concept for her.

 

Comcis and manga are full of characters who operate purely at the street level, who don't have fantastic resources any more than they have fantastic powers.  What they have is skill.  These are the characters for which Ninja Run and Athletic Run exist.

That's what walking is for! 🙂

 

How do those characters get around in the manga? School Bus?

[Stormwalker]

26 minutes ago, Herotu said:

That's what walking is for! 🙂

 

How do those characters get around in the manga? School Bus?

 

They're in Japan.  They take the subway like everyone else.  Or get rides from someone who has a car.  But a lot of those sort of characters are also athletic enough to roofrun, which is exactly the thing that Ninja Run approximates.

 

The point is, travel powers are already superior to Ninja Run/Athletic Run/Beast Run across the board.  If my character concept allows me to take a travel power, I take a travel power.  I'm not skipping travel powers to squeeze extra powers into my build, I'm skipping them because I can't justify that character taking one.

 

Probably 70% of my characters take Fly (just to be completely accurate here, by this I mean those characters either have already taken Fly, or it's in their planned build, usually somewhere around level 14 -18.  Many of my characters are still lowbies, because I am relatively new to HC).  The rest of them are a mix of Ninja Run, Super Jump, Infiltration, and Super Speed.  And I can testify that having a travel power beats the Hell out of not having one.  Having a travel power provides a tangible advantage to a character that is worth the power investment, and anyone who says otherwise isn't looking at all the facts.

 

• Fly provides vastly greater vertical mobility, enables "as the crow flies" routes which shorten travel distances, and is still ~15mph faster before Afterburner which adds another 17 mph (and which you get for free).
• Mystic Flight is the same as Fly except instead of Afterburner you get a free teleport.
• SJ provides vastly greater vertical mobility, especially with Double Jump (which you get for free), and is substantially faster.
• Super Speed is vastly faster and gives you Speed Phase for free.
• Infiltration gives you free Stealth
• I've never used Speed of Sound, so I can't speak to it, but if it's not better than Ninja Run it needs to be buffed, because all the other travel powers are.
• Teleport... I don't use it.  It's still the fastest, but it's a pain in the rear end.  But that isn't Ninja Run's fault.

 

In addition, all of these can slot enhancements, either for more speed, or for effects like Stealth, Slow Resist, etc., which Ninja Run/Athletic Run cannot.

 

If you don't take a Travel Power, you are already slower than anyone who does take one.  Travel powers provide a tangible advantage for taking them.  The objectives laid out by the devs for making pool travel powers superior to free travel powers have already been met.  There is no need here for nerfs.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Stormwalker

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Rahabina said:

I'm a fairy so my choices are:

 

Fly

Fly Robin

Fly

 

 

[vicuna]

9 hours ago, Troo said:

 

Were you making a point to me? Sorry, I think I am missing something.

 

I wanted to quote something said, but I couldn't edit/remove the quote while I'm on the phone, so ended up with the messy reply. Apology.

[Rahabina]

20 hours ago, Rahabina said:

I'm a fairy so my choices are:

 

Fly

Fly 

Fly