Suggested QoL change - Pool Power Standardization

[Sovera]

56 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

It's weird. It really is. You are so self-righteously myopic that you literally cannot understand and/or relate to the suggestion. 

There's a situation where you have a power that you don't need, and will never even slot in the tray, in order to take something that is necessary for a build to function at a certain level. 

The suggestion is to lift that requirement (or maybe make these prerequisite powers less crappy). I think this is certainly less impactful than making the fitness pool inherent was.

 

You can have rational objections to this change: you're concerned with power creep, you're concerned with build diversity, etc. Or your favorite--"this is what I think they wanted with power pools back in 2004 and it needs to stay that way until the end of time." Regardless, these objections can be debated. Also things could actually be tested on the test server.

 

What can't be debated is these idiotic character aspersions:

"You just want your cake and eat it too."

"Get your cheat codes elsewhere."

"you just don't want to sacrifice and only get the powers you want"

 

Piss off with that. It's lowkey flaming other players for not subscribing to your theory of fun.

 

Just remember not to be baited. Someone calling you a cheater is okay, but you answering calling them an idiot is a no no and gets you a forum ban.

[MsSmart]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:25 AM, TheZag said:

The quality of life change already happened with allowing travel powers at level 4 with no prerequisite.  The suggested format is even more lenient than travel sets currently are.

 

This would free up 2 power picks on my tank and he doesnt need any buffs.  Having all pool sets follow the 'other' category would be more balanced but i dont want the days of travel powers at 14 again.  I think your best bet here is to advocate for origin pools to have their last power available at 14 with 2 prerequisites like the other travel power pools.  Im not aware of anyone going that deep into pool powers by 14 but i suppose they are out there somewhere.

You have a partial point, but its all in the eye of the beholder, a lot has to do with the ole melee vs support designing practices, in general most support types buys this pool for the resistance and defense this pool provide, all other powers are practically unimportant. So from the support side, it makes sense in the case of the fighting pool to avoid kick or boxing, from the melee side, when you get to those that provides AOEs, and ranged attacks, melee types could skip the meaningless chaff powers and get what they need. It is not quite power creep, it is not having to buy trash that is indeed valuable to some arch types and pointless to others. It would be interesting if someone would define what actually or more accurate when power creep occurs, different people, like ice cream flavors, will have diverse opinions

 

Sue

[Rudra]

It is the fact that they would no longer need to bother with any of the prerequisite powers in the pools. Each pool is a separate theme for powers. So consolidating having chosen any pool power to allow you to pick a gated power ignores the pool's theme for the sole purpose of min-maxing your character. The restructuring of the pools to match the travel pools would do the same thing. It does not matter if the prerequisite powers does not benefit some characters. It is a question of progression.

 

Using the Fighting pool as a reference:

As a fighter, you learn to fight first. How to punch and kick. Those are the prerequisite powers.

After you learn to fight, you start fighting and build up endurance and resilience. Enter Tough.

After taking lots of hits, you develop a knack for reading your opponent and avoiding being hit. Enter Weave.

 

Theme: Fighting. Progression established.

 

Current request? I want to be a fighter but I don't want to bother with the basics and just somehow build up the resilience of a fighter and the ability to read and avoid my foes. Without actually learning how.

 

Or in game terms: To access specific powers, you need to take the correct AT. Having taken the correct AT, you need to pick the correct power sets. Having picked the correct power sets, you need to develop your ability to use said power set.

 

So no. The travel powers have already been modified to let players just grab that one power that used to be gated and ignore the rest. I am fervently against violating the various pools any further.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to correct "them" to "theme".

[Zepp]

For those of you who are saying "this would just allow people to skip boxing so power creep" out there, please read beyond the first post. I addressed this concern in an amendment to the proposal:

 

On 7/6/2022 at 8:51 AM, Zepp said:

I understand the concerns about power creep, and might suggest that maybe some power shuffling might help with those concerns:

Fighting:

T_1a Lvl 4, no Prerequisites: Boxing

T_1b Lvl 4, no Prerequisites: Kick
T_1c Lvl 4, no Prerequisites: Cross Punch

T₂ Lvl 14, 1 Prerequisites: Tough

T_2.5 Lvl 14, 2 Prerequisites: Weave

 

That will mean that people are still forced to waste a power pick on boxing/kick (or have the option of Cross Punch) and since Cross Punch is only really good if you already have B&K it is not a big issue.

 

Medicine:

T_1a Lvl 4, no Prerequisites: Aid Other

T_1b Lvl 4, no Prerequisites: Injection
T_1c Lvl 4, no Prerequisites: Resuscitate

T₂ Lvl 14, 1 Prerequisites: Aid Self

T_2.5 Lvl 14, 2 Prerequisites: Field Medic

 

Still have to take an aid-ally power or injection to get Aid Self and Field Medic...

 

These two power sets seem to be the most controversial as they are the ones that people commonly take powers that they don't use to get the first power that they want. Since the final tier powers in these sets are both lackluster, shifting the order would be an easy fix.

The two most common "wasted slot" sets would still require "wasted slots" but with slightly more choice on what to waste the slot on.

[Rudra]

It still ignores the thematic progression of the sets.

 

For Fighting: You can now learn how to successfully punch a group of people before you learn to punch.

 

For Medicine: You learn how to raise the dead before you learn how to treat an injury.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Current request? I want to be a fighter but I don't want to bother with the basics and just somehow build up the resilience of a fighter and the ability to read and avoid my foes. Without actually learning how.

 

The request to skip worthless prerequisite powers could reflect a lot of scenarios. Hate to break it to you, but scrappers, tanks, brutes, blasters, etc. already have hitting things in their primaries or secondaries. And we're talking about superpowers here. Someone that has invincibility goes into the fighting pool for some more resistance--so they need to learn how to throw a jab in order to get it? Whaaaat? 

 

You do realize that punching and kicking irl doesn't make you tougher right? And you also don't need to punch or kick to train defensive movement?

What you're fervently demanding here is that people treat the label on the box as literally and restrictively as you are for thematic reasons that make no sense in a comic book environment. They needed a description for these powers, there's no indication that these power choices are some sort of thematic baggage that gets added along with the backstory of your character. 

[Akisan]

7 hours ago, battlewraith said:

"Willingness to make a sacrifice", if we're going to be righteous about it, is the ultimate answer to the specter of power creep. Think something's OP? Don't play it. Don't like meta builds? Don't play them. Play the game you want to play. Digging your heels in about the status quo is the opposite of making any kind of sacrifice, so you probably shouldn't call out other players for requesting pretty minor changes.

 

Ideally, this would be nice to be able to do, but there's a pretty big problem with this argument - if someone does just what you're asking, and skips the powers/bonuses that are making everyone else OP, they're suddenly less powerful than their peers, sometimes significantly.  Case in point here would be my main (Archery/Ice/Fire blaster) - back on Live, before Incarnate content was released, I was pretty high on the power curve at +2x6.  Now?  Between a more knowledgeable & specced out playerbase, and general power creep, that number's looking kinda low.  If I restore that build, I'll struggle to make a meaningful contribution to any random PuG running at +4x8, which is a pretty common preference at 50.

 

I don't know about you, but I'd like to be able to team PuG's from time to time without looking for slower, less powerful groups or having a dedicated secondary build.

[Rudra]

It's battlewraith. You can drive a super tanker through the holes in his arguments. Like thinking that a general power pool that does not take into consideration the AT taking it should let the AT ignore its prerequisites because of the AT. As opposed to an epic power pool that is very much designed with the AT in mind. Just don't respond to him. Your life will be much less aggravating that way.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

If I restore that build, I'll struggle to make a meaningful contribution to any random PuG running at +4x8, which is a pretty common preference at 50.

 

In my experience on Homecoming the biggest obstacle to making a meaningful contribution, especially on pugs, is the fact that things melt so fast that it's sometimes hard to get your shots in. You've got incarnates, IO set bonuses, procs, additional bonuses from other sources, etc. My old builds that were great on live wouldn't do well now either. But I don't see the logic in upholding this one restriction, which is a holdover from an earlier era of development, and saying that you have waste a power slot on something that you don't want and won't use so that.......things won't be OP? Someone's thematic foibles won't be rankled? 

 

I don't see it mattering. If you have a strong build now, lifting this restriction won't make it godlike. If you're build is more mid tier, maybe it will improve somewhat. People are arguing power creep on principle. I'm not seeing any particular instance where this is going to be hugely impactful--you have the same number of pools, same number of slots, etc. You could put it on test and let people play with it and see if anything crazy comes out. I just object to the idea of planned waste being part of having a competitive build. If you're not worried about having a competitive build, then none of this should matter to you.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

It's battlewraith. You can drive a super tanker through the holes in his arguments. Like thinking that a general power pool that does not take into consideration the AT taking it should let the AT ignore its prerequisites because of the AT. As opposed to an epic power pool that is very much designed with the AT in mind. Just don't respond to him. Your life will be much less aggravating that way.

It's Rudra. He's got real strong opinions about how you should play. Fervent thematic opinions. He can't really support them, so he's going to complain about me instead of actually answering objections. Coddle him and tell him what he wants to hear and his life will be much less aggravating. Maybe. 

 

This is a typical Rudra sidestep btw:

1. Rudra--argues for the current progression on thematic grounds.

2. BW--points to thematic overlap with other sets and that the current progression is unrealistic, both in real life terms and comic book fantasy.

3. Rudra--misinterprets/misrepresents the objection as saying that certain builds should be able to skip these prerequisites based on AT (wtf?!?)

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:06 AM, kelika2 said:

I know its in the name, but if something is that small, are power creeps really bad?

 

When we're all ridiculously OP already compared to the PvE environment? I'm gonna go with yes.

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

It is the fact that they would no longer need to bother with any of the prerequisite powers in the pools. Each pool is a separate theme for powers. So consolidating having chosen any pool power to allow you to pick a gated power ignores the pool's theme for the sole purpose of min-maxing your character. The restructuring of the pools to match the travel pools would do the same thing. It does not matter if the prerequisite powers does not benefit some characters. It is a question of progression.

 

Using the Fighting pool as a reference:

As a fighter, you learn to fight first. How to punch and kick. Those are the prerequisite powers.

After you learn to fight, you start fighting and build up endurance and resilience. Enter Tough.

After taking lots of hits, you develop a knack for reading your opponent and avoiding being hit. Enter Weave.

 

Theme: Fighting. Progression established.

 

Current request? I want to be a fighter but I don't want to bother with the basics and just somehow build up the resilience of a fighter and the ability to read and avoid my foes. Without actually learning how.

 

Or in game terms: To access specific powers, you need to take the correct AT. Having taken the correct AT, you need to pick the correct power sets. Having picked the correct power sets, you need to develop your ability to use said power set.

 

So no. The travel powers have already been modified to let players just grab that one power that used to be gated and ignore the rest. I am fervently against violating the various pools any further.

 

Then I should have to hover before I can learn to fly. The travel power modification to lvl 4... didn't that happen on the SSPS after the shutdown by those that obviously didn't give a shit about game balance? It should be rolled back.

 

Edit: And for the OP, /jranger. I'm sick to death of the power creep. It's time for some wholesale nerfage. Edit2: And, no, not another global defense nerf for fuck's sake.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Zepp]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

It still ignores the thematic progression of the sets.

 

For Fighting: You can now learn how to successfully punch a group of people before you learn to punch.

 

For Medicine: You learn how to raise the dead before you learn how to treat an injury.

So you don't know anyone who is CPR certified, but can't bandage a wound? And since fighting one v one and one v many are separate skills, I don't see why you would have to learn one before the other. That's like saying, "How can you learn French before you learn German?"

[Akisan]

4 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

In my experience on Homecoming the biggest obstacle to making a meaningful contribution, especially on pugs, is the fact that things melt so fast that it's sometimes hard to get your shots in

 

That would indeed be the difficulty I was referring to.  Seeing as that's at the maximum difficulty too, we should be looking to either reign in the power creep, or find ways to raise the difficulty.  And since it's substantially harder to raise the difficulty without also locking weaker builds out in the cold, my vote's for stopping as much creep as possible.  So, I'd prefer to have the restrictions on pools reinforced, and the level requirements put back to be a consistant 6/6/14/14*/20 (travel powers included).

 

As far as "wasted power picks", there's a couple of ways I'd be fine going about fixing that: 

• Buff the mule picks.  The oft-mentioned fighting pool did get some love in that regard, but still suffers from the same problem that, in my experience, all pools suffer from - uncompetitive base damage.  Can't speak for anyone else, but any Pool attacks I take are either for CC or as filler in my attack chain.  They just don't do enough damage to justify using them as a straight attack if one of my AT powers is ready.  At base values, Kick does about the same damage as my T1 and T2 attacks - with an animation that's 50-80% longer, *and* is melee instead of ranged. 
• Weaken builds in general, especially with regards to global recharge.  Boxing and Kick are valuable for their short recharge (2.5 and 3 seconds, respectively), and high global recharge removes pretty much all of that value. 

[Zepp]

Also, @Rudra & @battlewraith, please keep your attacks on topic and avoid personal attacks. If you would like to take personal attacks you will need to take the per-requisites of "Rational Thought", "Logical Argument Structure", or "Occam's Razor" to unlock "Identifying Fallacies" and then either a remaining Tier 1 or the Tier 2 to unlock "Personal Attacks Subtle Enough to Avoid Mods Locking the Thread"...

Oh, and the last tier requires level 20 as well...

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 minutes ago, Akisan said:

Buff the mule picks.  The oft-mentioned fighting pool did get some love in that regard, but still suffers from the same problem that, in my experience, all pools suffer from - uncompetitive base damage.  Can't speak for anyone else, but any Pool attacks I take are either for CC or as filler in my attack chain.  They just don't do enough damage to justify using them as a straight attack if one of my AT powers is ready.  At base values, Kick does about the same damage as my T1 and T2 attacks - with an animation that's 50-80% longer, *and* is melee instead of ranged. 

 

Arcane bolt on a controller often does 3x damage. And since they have pets, hitting them with spirit ward and enflame greatly increases their base abilities. You'd think power pools shouldn't be so ridiculously one-sided for some ATs but there it is.

 

10 minutes ago, Akisan said:

Weaken builds in general, especially with regards to global recharge.  Boxing and Kick are valuable for their short recharge (2.5 and 3 seconds, respectively), and high global recharge removes pretty much all of that value. 

 

You'd have to nerf hasten. A power far too many of us abuse heavily, myself definitely included. I don't see the devs doing that.

 

Regardless, I, of course, agree with you that more power creep is absolutely a bad thing. Tank buffs proved that beyond any doubt.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

Seeing as that's at the maximum difficulty too, we should be looking to either reign in the power creep, or find ways to raise the difficulty.

 

There are ways to raise the difficulty isn't there? I thought that was the whole point of that recent TF they added. But the impression I get on the forums is that the general reaction to the new content is lukewarm. 

 

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

As far as "wasted power picks", there's a couple of ways I'd be fine going about fixing that: 

• Buff the mule picks.  The oft-mentioned fighting pool did get some love in that regard, but still suffers from the same problem that, in my experience, all pools suffer from - uncompetitive base damage.  Can't speak for anyone else, but any Pool attacks I take are either for CC or as filler in my attack chain.  They just don't do enough damage to justify using them as a straight attack if one of my AT powers is ready.  At base values, Kick does about the same damage as my T1 and T2 attacks - with an animation that's 50-80% longer, *and* is melee instead of ranged. 
• Weaken builds in general, especially with regards to global recharge.  Boxing and Kick are valuable for their short recharge (2.5 and 3 seconds, respectively), and high global recharge removes pretty much all of that value. 

 

I wouldn't be against a general reassessment of the power pools in general. But again, naysayers are going to be against that on the grounds that it's power creep. I don't think anyone is going to be in favor of weakening builds. 

[Rudra]

22 minutes ago, Zepp said:

So you don't know anyone who is CPR certified, but can't bandage a wound? And since fighting one v one and one v many are separate skills, I don't see why you would have to learn one before the other. That's like saying, "How can you learn French before you learn German?"

Nope. Everyone I know that is CPR certified also knows how to treat basic injuries too.

 

Fighting against one opponent is the basic skill you have to learn in order to fight against many opponents. As opposed to learning a language which has no correlation. The better comparison using language would be learning how to say hello in French or German before learning to hold a fluent conversation.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Regardless, I, of course, agree with you that more power creep is absolutely a bad thing. Tank buffs proved that beyond any doubt.

Ok humor me. Explain the nature of this bad thing. I had the impression that people like these tank buffs.

[Rudra]

32 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Then I should have to hover before I can learn to fly. The travel power modification to lvl 4... didn't that happen on the SSPS after the shutdown by those that obviously didn't give a shit about game balance? It should be rolled back.

 

Edit: And for the OP, /jranger. I'm sick to death of the power creep. It's time for some wholesale nerfage. Edit2: And, no, not another global defense nerf for fuck's sake.

Yep. And I'm perfectly fine with going back to needing Hover or Air Superiority to pick up Flight. However, the current changes to travel pools absolutely should not be copied over to the other pools.

 

Edit: And no, the changes to the travel pools happened back on Live because players were upset their winged characters had to wait to level 14 to fly. Just an example.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Rudra

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, battlewraith said:

Ok humor me. Explain the nature of this bad thing. I had the impression that people like these tank buffs.

 

The damage buff/aoe buff was completely unwarranted considering their vast mitigation. Of course people enjoy being unkillable while also being able to defeat everything.

[Rudra]

17 minutes ago, Zepp said:

Also, @Rudra & @battlewraith, please keep your attacks on topic and avoid personal attacks. If you would like to take personal attacks you will need to take the per-requisites of "Rational Thought", "Logical Argument Structure", or "Occam's Razor" to unlock "Identifying Fallacies" and then either a remaining Tier 1 or the Tier 2 to unlock "Personal Attacks Subtle Enough to Avoid Mods Locking the Thread"...

Oh, and the last tier requires level 20 as well...

Didn't think my comments were personal attacks. Apologies. Was simply trying to warn others to avoid the troll bait.

[Akisan]

6 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Arcane bolt on a controller often does 3x damage. And since they have pets, hitting them with spirit ward and enflame greatly increases their base abilities. You'd think power pools shouldn't be so ridiculously one-sided for some ATs but there it is.

 

There's enough in the Origin power pools that I feel that they probably should have been Epic pools, and tailored to each AT, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

There are ways to raise the difficulty isn't there?

 

There are ways to raise difficulty, yes, but all of that's optional, and I almost never see those run except on teams that are looking for a challenge instead of the usual PuG steamroll.  In this case, I was talking about general buffs to the enemies - more varied powers & damage types (like what happened with Crey).  Not that Crey needed a buff, from my perspective - they're still all 50% resistant to Lethal damage at level 45+, and take forever to kill.

[battlewraith]

58 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

The damage buff/aoe buff was completely unwarranted considering their vast mitigation. Of course people enjoy being unkillable while also being able to defeat everything.

But there are other characters that are essentially unkillable while plowing through content aren't there? When you say this is unwarranted, by what standard? When you say it's bad--in what way that is detrimental to how people are playing the game?

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Didn't think my comments were personal attacks. Apologies. Was simply trying to warn others to avoid the troll bait.

Yeah I think openly calling me a troll and telling other to treat me as such is probably a violation of the code of conduct.