issue 27 Focused Feedback: Toggle Suspension and Suppression

[GM Korvin]

Hid a few posts - as a reminder from our focused feedback guidelines:

 

Quote

5. DON'T GIVE FEEDBACK ON OTHER PEOPLE'S FEEDBACK. You're here to discuss and debate the changes with the devs, not each other. The devs are big people (Huge, even) and can stand up for themselves.

[arthurh35353]

39 minutes ago, Booper said:

Is choking cloud the only toggle you use for Radiation Emission? No Enervating Field nor Radiation Infection?

I know that for my Dark/Dark defender, Darkest Night is usually my only offensive toggle. Of course, with mezzing still suppressing the -To-Hit, I'm probably going to die if I'm mezzed anyways. 😕

[Psi]

26 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

I know that for my Dark/Dark defender, Darkest Night is usually my only offensive toggle. Of course, with mezzing still suppressing the -To-Hit, I'm probably going to die if I'm mezzed anyways. 😕

 

I have to agree with this. It seems that the assumption from the top that most people are running multiple offensive toggles is the justification for such a long suppression window, when there are many powerset combos that only have one.

[Starhammer]

Any chance we could get all forms of Flight to apply Toggle Suspension to Ninja/Beast/Athletic Run (and maybe some other appropriate land movement powers that don't/can't have secondary effects that could be relevant while airborn? (for instance, not including Sprint because it might be used for a Stealth proc)

[Burk]

First of all, for people saying the 8 seconds should include recharge, keep in mind that the recharge of the powers would theoretically take place during the mez. The equivalent of not having toggle suppression should be that the toggles are fully recharged when you come out of the mez and now you just need to turn them on.

 

Next, from what I can tell, there are very few ways to even get 4 enemy-affecting toggles. For non-melee ATs, which would be the most vulnerable to mez, we have:

• Radiation Corruptors and Defenders with Dark or Psychic Mastery. Using World of Confusion (longer activation than Oppressive Gloom), this gives 5.67s total activation time (would have been 7.27s except Radiation Infection is getting an activation time buff). Interestingly Nature's and Sonic's longer activations would beat this at 6.8s or 6.7s using only 3 toggles.
• Controllers have the same World of Confusion option and support sets, but now add in possibilities from the control sets. With this, you can get 5 toggles from (Electric/Fire/Gravity/Ice/Mind) Control + Radiation + Psionic Mastery. The longest activation from the primary would be Conductive Aura or Arctic Air at 2.03, giving a total activation time of 7.7s. Again, Nature and Sonic can beat this with 8.83s or 8.73s using only 4 toggles.

In fact the combinations of (Electric/Fire/Gravity/Ice/Mind) Control + (Nature/Sonic) + Psionic Mastery are the only ones I could find among non-melee ATs that could surpass the 8s. Seems a little excessive to me to balance everyone's experience around these 10 specific combinations. (That's not even getting into the fact that some of these toggles really should get the Radiation Infection treatment and have their activations shortened. Looking at you Darkest Night 3.17s, Spore Cloud 3.1s, and Disruption Field 2.7s)

[Jaguaratron]

20 hours ago, The Curator said:

 

Toggle Suppression

No More Offensive Toggle Drops: Toggles that used to drop when mezzed will instead have their effects suppressed while mezzed and for 8s after breaking out of mezz.

 

 

 

 

Thank the gods

[Carnifax]

From a triform Warshade pov these are great changes. Love popping back into human form with my 5 toggles back up. most are mules but makes the difference between 27% def and 38% def + stealth when popping back into human form. 

 

Wish a little review of powers which could transfer to forms had happened (Pool powers toggles and some clickies with no weird animations along with maybe Orbiting Death for Lobster and that cone stun for Nova) but liking this change. 

 

Havent tried offensive toggles yet but 8 seconds does seem very long (especially considering if you're just getting out of a mez you'd really like your hold / debuff aura back quickly). I'd halve it to 4 (~time to cast 2 powers)

Edited July 13, 2022 by Carnifax

[arcane]

10 hours ago, Shocktacular said:

I just want to add my name to the list of people saying "8 seconds is too long".  To give an example, my rad/elec defender already lives on the edge, which is usually quite thrilling, and I've been having a lot of fun playing her lately.  However, having to wait 8 seconds after mez wears off for Choking Cloud to work again would basically ruin this character for me, since that's her main damage mitigation.  She usually survives by a slim margin as-is, but this change would be disastrous for her.

If this change “ruins” your character then it must be an even worse build on live where the toggles drop completely and have to be reactivated. I recommend hopping over to the archetype forums for build assistance.

[Dungeoness Eloora]

Toggle suppression for a hard 8 seconds after a mez wears off, no matter the character or power sets, is just arbitrarily harsh and punishing.

 

Why can't the suppression fit the number of offensive toggles the character was actually using? The game should know this value if it's applying the suppression mechanic. Something like 2 seconds per toggle suppressed would still be in the ballpark of a reasonable tradeoff, IMHO, without punishing the vast majority of characters running only 1 or 2 at most.

[SeraphimKensai]

Why suppress pool power toggles while a Kheldian is shape shifted? I don't see how having combat jumping, maneuvers, weave, tactics, and assault running while shape shifted would be game breaking.

 

Otherwise I like what the other aspects of suppression; maybe with the one other reservation regarding 8 seconds, as popping a break free and reactivating a toggle is quicker than that. Maybe some kind of compromise to 3-5 seconds?

 

Thanks. Still hopefully for further Kheldian changes down the road,and well more Kheldian content in general.

[WindDemon21]

Keep in mind this is also not accounting for the fact that when you finally get unmezzed the target that is toggled, can likely either be dead, or BECAUSE you were mezzed, and unable to control your movement/battlefield powers, they aren't where you want them anyway and you may want the toggle on a new target. It may be more management and annoying when toggles drop when mezzed, but vs a *too* long suppression it's actually more effective having them do so.

 

There are a lot of things to be considered for how this QoL affects the gameplay, but however you look at it, the suppression shouldn't be longer than 3ish seconds because of all these factors without resulting in MORE micromanagement to personally detoggle, or less effectiveness because the suppression lasts too long. A fire/ice/elec troller with rad emission would probably be the biggest proponent of offensive toggles, but when most sets only have just one, or two that often activate faster as well, this is also where the averaged 3s suppression makes the most sense, rad would be a bit better which honestly it can use given how important it's toggles are, while many others this would still be a nerf, but can be nice resulting in less management. (again, at 3s, not 8 )

Edited July 13, 2022 by WindDemon21

[zuggo1]

I believe the  toggle suppression after mezzed should actually only be 2 - 3 seconds max as well.  It makes sense given the average offensive toggles.

Edited July 13, 2022 by zuggo1

[brass_eagle]

I think this is a fantastic step forward for squishy ATs. Let’s be honest, this change is for them. Non-squishies won't be mezzed in an overwhelming majority of scenarios. Regardless of what is decided for this specific change, I’m going to love it right up there with the “Anchors will remain active on defeated targets.”

However, I would like to throw my name into the “8-seconds is too long / punishing” hat for a few reasons:

1. The player is locked out of potentially important survival tools for 8-seconds in addition to the time spent mezzed (while the time spent mezzed may be even shorter than that).
2. The length of the suspension window assumes I will re-toggle all offensive toggles with activation times adding up to around 8-seconds despite the re-toggling time will often be much lower on a large portion of squishy builds (@Burk did some examples).
3. The suspension window is long enough that it will hinder player agency from choosing which toggled effects may be immediately important after being freed from mez.

 

Let me give you an example from one of my mains, a Nature defender:

My character only has two offensive toggles: Entangling Aura and Spore Cloud (2.03 and 3.10 activation times respectively. I play them at a wide range of levels, solo and team. This is what happens when I am freed from mez, whether I wait it out or use a break free.

• If I am mezzed while at range of enemies, I’ll want to immediately toggle Spore Cloud if there is still a decent amount of danger.
• If I am mezzed while near melee taking advantage of Entangling Aura’s hold, two different things will happen. If there is a boss or a dangerous LT, I will hit Spore Cloud and decide best course of action from there. If it’s just a handful of minions and LTs, I’ll hit Entangling Aura.

The above scenario is my usual play on live and was my experience running +1 x4 against some mobs on test. In either scenario, I am locked out of these toggles for an additional 5-6 seconds. That’s another 5-6 seconds to get hit with another mez without my -ToHit barrier. Spore Cloud is one of my most important survival tools as a Nature defender that often tips the balance between having to heal and having time to do some damage. I didn’t test extensively, but that was just my experience. The re-toggling was a boon and I had time for other actions, but I lost out on a few important moments of debuffing and got remezzed a couple of times / had to heal. It’s strange to think we can be talking about a few seconds here sometimes!

While all points still technically stand if the window was shortened, the importance of the discrepancies / problems become less of a negative aspect and more of a positive one. CoH has always been binary about mez, and it can be frustrating on squishy builds that rely on toggles (rather than long duration clicks). Personal opinion here – I’d rather more positive be gained from this specific change to an archaic design than it turn into “trade-offs”.

 

Powersets like Radiation, Nature, Storm, etc… may already have to re-toggle multiple times a fight and that can end up hindering the fun / value playing those sets. They already have to cast some of their offensive anchors (non-player-based) every fight anyway, and most of these anchors range between 2 and-a-whopping 3.17 seconds (that being said, not to having to re-toggle them is great). That’s one of the reasons that makes Trick Arrow so great and less frustrating. Long duration, click, wide-area, for a similar if not better effect. Time as well even though it has Time’s Juncture. That cast is only .67 of a second though.

The set that will benefit the most here would probably be Radiation Emission. And I’m okay with that. It’s been famously strong since the game’s inception, but it is kind-of a clunky set compared to modern standards. And it can be not-so-fun to play having to constantly re-toggle. On my rad’s I even have to re-toggle when the darn anchor runs away from the group!

 

Suspension Window Scaling

Someone mentioned the idea of making the suspension window the sum of the cast times of all offensive toggles. I am not on board with this idea. I do not want a reason to skip or not use a slightly-underperforming offensive toggle in fear of being mezzed and extending the suspension window of something else. As a Storm, I would not want to hesitate to use Snow Storm just because I’m afraid Hurricane will be suppressed that much longer. And I would never, ever take World of Confusion on a controller again (even though it looks neat)!

I don’t know if this is possible code-wise, but if so I humbly ask that devs don’t go this route. Toggle suspension window scaling seems to be a silly thing that would instill negative experience for struggling sets/powers.

I don’t have a suggestion on the length of the suspension window, these are just my thoughts! I'll probably be happy with any improvement really.

Edited July 13, 2022 by brass_eagle
clarification

[Luminara]

17 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

No technical ways around it. The suppression is based on event timers. The power simply constantly asks the game "how many seconds since I was last held/stunned/sleeped?"

 

The timer can be adjusted, but not that aspect. Any adjustment is dependent on testing testing testing.

 

 

A few lines of code to divide the power's recharge time by animation time and pass that value to the suppression timer as scale X duration expression?

 

Just a thought.

[Harakh]

Tested TS on my peacebringer, wow!

 

I didn't know exactly how much I'd love it but now other desirable changes are just extra cherries on top cause... Zipping between forms while maintaining flight is so amusing and fun. Of course can now make a triform defence toggle build that utilizes human for tougher moments. Eagerly awaiting live!

 

Thank you for making this happen 😃

[Marbing]

As a Psi/Rad/Dark main I welcome this change, thank you! 8 seconds seems high but I will take it. Because, being held is going to be a killer anyways, but the annoying ones are the 0.4 second sleeps (for example) that sneak in and you end up with all your toggles off for like 10 seconds before you even notice to turn them back on because you never saw the status effect hit you. 

[WindDemon21]

1 minute ago, Marbing said:

As a Psi/Rad/Dark main I welcome this change, thank you! 8 seconds seems high but I will take it. Because, being held is going to be a killer anyways, but the annoying ones are the 0.4 second sleeps (for example) that sneak in and you end up with all your toggles off for like 10 seconds before you even notice to turn them back on because you never saw the status effect hit you. 

Which with the 8 second suppression, by the time its off you're getting another mez etc. It also doesn't let you choose which most important toggle, like darkest night, to apply on first when it's that long, hence the compromise of the maybe 3s suppression duration, to account for the overall average use/benefit of this change.

[Greycat]

11 minutes ago, brass_eagle said:

Suspension Window Scaling

Someone mentioned the idea of making the suspension window the sum of the cast times of all offensive toggles.

 

 

How about adding a word and making it all "active" suppression toggles? So if you're on a stormy but not currently using Hurricane when you get mezzed, it's not considered in the recharge? (Probably a coding mess, honestly.)
 

I'm still chewing this one over, personally. It's going to be bad for some of my squishies to not be able to use part of their powerset that long after getting mezzed. Rads not being able to debuff? >.< My first reaction was that most of my melee wouldn't care, but... something like Energy Aura (Brute,) where Entropic Aura (the *mez protection* toggle) also does "Foe -rech"  - which should put it under "Offensive Toggles" - would be... er... bad. And I don't know anywhere better to put it.  (Yes, I have to hop onto test and verify this. But it's a first read on it for me.)  Other sets like Fiery Aura, I probably wouldn't care, it's not a major part of what's going on and I have a whole other powerset to rely on But some ... yeah...

 

 

[brass_eagle]

5 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

How about adding a word and making it all "active" suppression toggles? So if you're on a stormy but not currently using Hurricane when you get mezzed, it's not considered in the recharge? (Probably a coding mess, honestly.)
 

<redacted>

 

Yeah, I can imagine it's probably a pita (if it's even possible) to code as Captain Powerhouse alluded to earlier. My fears were more that I would actively avoid using toggles even If they were in my build to avoid a longer suppression time. Being mezzed is a regular occurrence! Scaling suspension makes some sense, but it also means the more toggles you run the longer you are locked out all that was toggled. Seems like a not fun mechanic, but some could argue that it is fair. However, I quickly did some tabulating of cast times and if the above scenario were true, it would not be a big huge deal for most characters. Or at least as I previously thought. It would just instill a negative playstyle with certain set combinations (in my opinion) along with being a pain to code.

 

As I mentioned, I had some extra time so I quickly tabulated cast times from the test server power description forms. I only considered the four categories that do not have access to permanent, broad-spetrum Mez Protection with SOs and did not consider epics (Pool or AT) for now. Google sheets link is below for anyone interested in the full list. It's nothing fancy.

 

What IS interesting is the archetype most affected by this change is a Controller, as they are the only archetype to have offensive toggles in both Primary and Secondary with quite extensive summed cast times as @Burk gave examples of earlier in the thread. Support sets are the only category to have multiple offensive toggles per powerset so they got a special table.

 

 

Important take-aways:

• The average cast time per power out of these categories is 1.8s.
• No other category listed has more than 1 offensive toggle besides support.
• Nature Affinity has the highest total cast time at 5.13s with 2 toggles
  • (It's not Rad? See undocumented changes to Radiation Infection cast time on Brainstorm??)
  • Edit: someone pointed out to me that it is documented in the miscellaneous changes section. See: "Radiation Infection (All, except Crey): Cast time reduced from 3.1s to 1.5s."  TOTALLY missed it -- but I love it.
• The average total cast time per support set is 3.0s.

I think it's fair to say that, unless I've forgotten something major, a suspension window of 8 seconds is a bit long. It would be fair to make some judgements / assumptions for the suspension window like say "assuming 2 toggles at an average 2s cast time (rounding)" -- we assume 4 seconds toggle suspension and if you fall below that it's because of free actions not spent re-toggling... or something like that.

 

Oh also, if I've forgotten powers let me know. Just did this up quickly while making din-din.

 

Linky: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A2Mbxzb9JJqiw_aCT2RlPFXMMgHCro15-SaVBZfZgqo/edit?usp=sharing

Edited July 14, 2022 by brass_eagle
Added RI correction.

[Shocktacular]

20 hours ago, Booper said:

Is choking cloud the only toggle you use for Radiation Emission? No Enervating Field nor Radiation Infection?

I use those, too, but I hit choking cloud ASAP once de-mezzed to get enemies Held so they stop hitting me.  I understand that it may take 8 seconds or more to get ALL of my offensive toggles activated, but this change makes it as if I was activating all of them last (at the end of that 8 seconds) rather than letting me get the "omg don't kill me" aura going right away.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Shocktacular

[Wavicle]

If the goal of the change is to actually IMPROVE the performance of sets with offensive toggles in mez heavy situations, then the suppression should probably be on the order of 2 seconds after the mez is ended.

Imagine for a moment a fight where you are getting repeatedly hit with 1 second sleeps, every time there is an 8 second suppression. Let us not have the improvement actually end up buffing enemy mezzes in any situation.

In fact, perhaps even consider diminishing returns on the suppression, that if you get mezzed multiple times in quick succession the suppression period gets shorter each time. Maybe within a 30 second window, the first suppression period is 3 seconds, the second is 2 seconds, the third is 1 second, and after that there is no suppression.

 

But frankly if Defensive Toggles don't have a suppression period after being mezzed, I don't really see why Offensive Toggles should at all, either.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Wavicle

[kingsmidgens]

In practice this feels really bad and I'd rather have the old system back.

I've had a lot of experience playing Support characters and I'd rather click and animate a -ToHit toggle for 2/3 seconds than wait 8 after a stun.

Either reduce the timer greatly across the board or revert the change entirely IMO, this is a nerf to basically every character I play *with an offensive toggle.

Edited July 14, 2022 by kingsmidgens
clarification

[Herotu]

I like the idea of this change, but I can understand how some people think the timer is too long.

Honestly, I think it'd take me a lot longer to reactivate all my toggles on ANY of my characters.

 

But... as an alternative I considered the notion of automatically reactivating your toggles one by one.

But the different ways in which people want to redo their toggles after a mez has worn off (due to bespoke proc setups and suchlike) probably means you couldn't do a single set sequence.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Herotu

[Bopper]

3 hours ago, brass_eagle said:

 

I took your numbers and applied a couple more factors to them. The column worth looking at is CD/2-2, which is the time it would take to get all of your toggles back (for just the set, assuming no offensive toggles outside the set). There are no perfect assumptions, but I picked 200% Total Recharge (100% base and 100% more from any other source). Could I bump that up for end game builds? Yes. But not everybody IOs out there builds, especially those who are leveling up naturally. Personally, I don't slot recharge in toggles, I slot endurance or buff the effects of the toggle. So 100% global recharge fits for my builds in this regard. But again, pick what it true to you.

 

I also assumed 2s average hold time (maybe you can pop an inspiration faster, maybe you are held the whole time...either way, pick whatever the value you think is best - I picked 2).

 

I then factored in the cast time and cooldowns of each toggle in these sets. I should have included Arcanatime, but let's assume a perfect world for now. What you'll find is the average time for each of these (under the variables I set) will average 7 seconds to have all toggles return fully. That's not far off from 8s that we have on Beta, but as you see that's using sets that average only 1.6 toggles. For sets with exactly 2 toggles it ranged from 7-10s.

 

For completeness sake, I added Tornado to Storm Summoning in my notes, but I did not include it in my calculations. I just wanted to highlight that toggles with pets still drop and if they come off cooldown fast enough you might be having to retoggle after mez, which prevents you from retoggling other powers.

 

 

[Wavicle]

I'm thinking of other cases. Like say, those 30 second stuns from the Malta LTs. In those cases the toggles would all have long since recharged. So you would be able to, currently, immediately activate whichever toggle you felt was most important upon the mez ending.

By adding a suppression period those stuns will, in a way, last even LONGER.

I really wish the comparison to Buff toggles would be addressed. Why is it felt that there MUST be a further penalty to getting mezzed (beyond the duration of the mez itself) for debuffing sets? (Keeping in mind that the Purple Patch means debuffing sets advantages are already being compensated for.)

Edited July 14, 2022 by Wavicle