issue 27 Focused Feedback: Toggle Suspension and Suppression

[Marshal_General]

Can we make it an option in the settings to use it or not? That way everyone pretends they are happy.

 

It would give more time for data collection across a broad spectrum of players.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Marshal_General

[PainX]

problem for me is i agree with the "offensive toggle" change i also disagree because you cant just say offensive toggle means nothing it is just some tag a dev gave it Rad infection has nothing in common with for example lightning field another offensive toggle not to be confused with the more powerful one called Dynamo that somehow ignores the rules interresting infact that on a blaster a damage aura is defensive if only everyone had such luxury

[arthurh35353]

Damage toggles versus Debuff Toggles vs mezz toggles? How far would they need to split this up?

[PainX]

7 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

Damage toggles versus Debuff Toggles vs mezz toggles? How far would they need to split this up?

something like that likely yes oh and you forgot god tier toggles look up ice manipulation frigid protection to see one basicly snowstorm with bigger radius and added -dmg and absorb/recovery you know last bit is what makes it defensive :P

 

jokes aside i get what your saying it will likely be a huge workload yes i imagine so but it is a mish mash of powers infact darkest night even has two versions support version 3.17s cast time vs tanker 2.37 making it better on a tanker then a troller/corr

[dtj714]

Why the insistence on testing data when it (seems clear) the concept, or at least it’s implementation, is flawed from the beginning? 8 seconds because 4 offensive toggles? How many builds run 4 offensive toggles?

 

Beyond that though, both players and devs seem to acknowledge that there are a LOT of variables or factors involved. This is not a one size fits all or even a one average is best overall situation. It NEEDS to be dynamic, and given the stated limitations, it CAN’T be made dynamic. Therefore the only “solution” is to leave agency in the hands of the player - i.e., make no change from live.

[Ironblade]

2 hours ago, dtj714 said:

Therefore the only “solution” is to leave agency in the hands of the player - i.e., make no change from live.

You may be right.

 

The current 8 seconds is absolutely ludicrous and seems punitive to the overwhelming majority of builds.  If it were reduced to 2-3 seconds, it would be basically a wash for characters with one toggle (which is very common) and an improvement to characters with more (the minority).  But if the devs are dead set on having it in the vicinity of 8 seconds, the superior option would be to make no change and leave the system as it is.

[Wavicle]

Do you all not read? CP already said they are lowering it for the next build. Just WAIT.

[Luminara]

Browsing through some of my characters, specifically characters with offensive toggles which are currently shut off by mez...

 

Petless Demons/Time mastermind, one offensive toggle, total cycle time (recharge time + animation time) of 3.584s

Petless Dark/Martial dominator with one offensive toggle, highest cycle time of 6.268s (build uses Cross Punch, time calculated for single foe hit, both prelim attacks in build)

Street/Shield scrapper with one offensive toggle, total cycle time 6.41s

Staff/Willpower brute with one offensive toggle, total cycle time 6.278s

Kinetic/Willpower scrapper with one offensive toggle, total cycle time 5.998s

Ice/Stone brute with one offensive toggle, total cycle time 3.434s

 

Yeah... I won't be playing anything without piles of status protection after this update.  I'm fortunate, in that I don't play with anyone else, so I won't have to explain or apologize when aggro goes haywire after a taunt aura drops.  And that I can afford Defense Amplifiers for leveling squishies.  And that I have a handful of level 50 characters who don't have many veteran levels, so I can quickly acquire Empyreans to immediately craft Clarion Core Epiphany for those squishies.

 

The rub is that all of these toggles would be available almost the same time the mez expired, if not immediately, requiring only the animation time (0.924-3.168s).  And now I'm going to be locked out of access to these toggles for some arbitrarily assigned duration, because Cryptic, who ignored animation times and how they impacted the game and eventually had to admit that they fucked up, ignored how everything was balanced around toggle mutual exclusivity, axed it and eventually had to implement GDN to compensate for that fuck-up, also ignored the way buffs and debuffs interact with caps.  And we're treating that oversight, that mistake, as gospel, despite their own adjustments when they realized they'd failed to account for variables.

 

Anything longer than the animation time of the toggle affected is too long, as far as I'm concerned.  But, as I said two paragraphs ago, I'll just work around it by never playing anything without a truckload of status protection, so whatever.

[arthurh35353]

The melee builds aren't really affected here, as they almost never get mezzed anyway except against weird Incarnate content or Ghost Widow in MLTF. 

 

It's really everyone else that is heavily impacted, with probably Warshades and toggle heavy Dark epics that have the most offensive toggles.

[ForeverLaxx]

45 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

probably Warshades and toggle heavy Dark epics that have the most offensive toggles

Warshades have two (Inky Aspect and Orbiting Debt). "Dark Epics" is nebulous since not all of them have Darkest Night, Death Shroud, or Oppressive Gloom (and of those that do, it's the only toggle in there which makes who that affects reliant on Primary/Secondary to be "offensive toggle heavy").

 

I already explained to you in a previous post that your Dark Miasma + Dark Epic Pool only had 2 Offensive Toggles but you keep repeating this "dark sets are going to suffer the most" mantra and I don't know why. Just because Dark-themed sets tend to have many toggles overall doesn't mean they're all Offensive Toggles. Even Dark Armor, notorious for its heavy use of toggle powers, only has three that affect enemies, one of which costing almost nothing to run and the only set with Cloak of Fear. Dark Armor is moot to think about, though, since it has standard melee character mez protections.

 

This leaves only Darkness Affinity (one offensive toggle), Dark Miasma (one offensive toggle), and various Dark Epics (zero or one offensive toggle, based on AT).

 

You'd have better luck focusing on Nature Affinity or Force Field with their two offensive toggles like Warshades (still dubious, but at least closer to being relevant), or my example from a previous post with Radiation Emission's three offensive toggles. I have no idea why you're so fixated on sets with only a single offensive toggle and pretending it will affect them the most due to having "a lot" of offensive toggles (they don't). Ironically, sets with low offensive toggle count will be affected the most, but not for the reason you seem to think.

Edited July 28, 2022 by ForeverLaxx

[Starhammer]

To aid in testing (if there isn't one in game, I'm not aware of one), could we get a NPC kinda like the target dummies in Vanguard base (that'd be a good place for it, especially if it converts to live at some point) that will target us, set off a single target 20 mag mez like Stun or Hold with about a 10 second unresistable duration, and then after a minute or so, does it again? Or maybe an AOE with a "stand here" zone, to aid in multiple players testing? Actually, thinking it through, a dedicated room/area with one such mezbot and it's own target zone for each type of mez would be nice

[WindDemon21]

50 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Do you all not read? CP already said they are lowering it for the next build. Just WAIT.

Its actually still a slight nerf for those with just one toggle at 3 seconds, (again esp since no toggle should take more than 1-1.5s to cast anwyays), and given that, about even with 2 toggles, and a slight buff to more than that, which is again, like, maybe 3 total combos in the game so not a big factor.

[kingsmidgens]

An important consideration is that not all offensive toggles kick off at the end of the animation.  You're standing there for 1, 2, 3 seconds - however long - but the buff/debuff may have been applied before that.  This means that currently: you may be able to get your first debuff on the mobs almost IMMEDIATELY after the stun ends, and the animation is what you're waiting on now for the second.

[Major_Decoy]

10 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

The melee builds aren't really affected here, as they almost never get mezzed anyway except against weird Incarnate content or Ghost Widow in MLTF.

Or four green ink men. Not an uncommon solo spawn in the late twenties.

[Luminara]

10 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

The melee builds aren't really affected here, as they almost never get mezzed anyway except against weird Incarnate content or Ghost Widow in MLTF. 

 

I'd like you to meet my friends, the Malta group and the Carnival of Shadows.  Well, I say "friends"...

[Wavicle]

In the new build we're at 5 seconds. I'm sure many of us would love it to be less, and there are arguments to be made for 3s or 4s, but I think 5s is tolerable.

 

Keep in mind that during the suppression time you can be attacking, using click powers, hitting inspirations, or MOVING instead of being stuck in toggle animations.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Wavicle

[ZorkNemesis]

18 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

I'd like you to meet my friends, the Malta group and the Carnival of Shadows.  Well, I say "friends"...

 

To be fair, running out of endurance is a bit of a different animal than simply being mezzed.  I assume you're still going to be completely detoggled when you get completely sapped.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

To be fair, running out of endurance is a bit of a different animal than simply being mezzed.  I assume you're still going to be completely detoggled when you get completely sapped.

Multiple Malta Stun grenades or illusionists will mez resist based toons through their armor

[Luminara]

5 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

To be fair, running out of endurance is a bit of a different animal than simply being mezzed.  I assume you're still going to be completely detoggled when you get completely sapped.

 

Carnies: Dark Ring Mistresses (Petrify, mag 3 Hold), Illusionists (Blind, ranged mag 3 Hold, and Flash, PBAoE mag 3 Hold) and the Dark Servant (Petrify, mag 3 Hold) summoned by Master Illusionists (same powers as Illusionists).

 

Malta: Gunslingers (lieutenant and boss both have Liquid Nitrogen Round, mag 3 Hold), Hercules and Zeus Titans (Gas Swarm Missiles summon the pseudo-pet Malta Gas, which applies a mag 3 Hold), and Sappers (Sapp Stick, mag 3 Hold), and that's in addition to the Tazers (mag 3 Stun) carried by minions, and the Stun Grenades (mag 3 Stun) carried by lieutenants who aren't Gunslingers.

 

My comment had nothing to do with Endurance Drain or Recovery debuffs.

 

 

[Starhammer]

7 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

To be fair, running out of endurance is a bit of a different animal than simply being mezzed.  I assume you're still going to be completely detoggled when you get completely sapped.

I was just thinking about how nice it would be if I didn't have to manually turn a slew of armor toggles back on after losing all my endurance to a Sapper. Not quite what were talking about here, but related.

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, Starhammer said:

I was just thinking about how nice it would be if I didn't have to manually turn a slew of armor toggles back on after losing all my endurance to a Sapper. Not quite what were talking about here, but related.

 

That's why I have Toggle Turnon Macros for all my toons.  +S (in a tray slot keybound to S) to activate stealth powers and +F (in a tray slot keybound to F) to activate fighting protection powers.  There's just a few different +S macros, but the +F macros are tuned to the powersets (Primary, Secondary, Epic) of the toon and include common Pool powers.  Each press of the macro turns on one power; just press it several times over a few seconds to get them all back.

[vicuna]

26 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

That's why I have Toggle Turnon Macros for all my toons.  +S (in a tray slot keybound to S) to activate stealth powers and +F (in a tray slot keybound to F) to activate fighting protection powers.  There's just a few different +S macros, but the +F macros are tuned to the powersets (Primary, Secondary, Epic) of the toon and include common Pool powers.  Each press of the macro turns on one power; just press it several times over a few seconds to get them all back.

 

My approach is that I have a toolbar dedicate to toggles, and that bar uses numpad 0-9, so it is easy for me to toggle them back on.

[SwitchFade]

Previous math...

 

On Live:

 

I am stunned and notice it I hit BF, 2.5s have elapsed. All off toggles have dropped and I have been without them for 2.5s

 

I retoggle first toggle 1.7s, 4.2s have elapsed and I have been without them for 4.2s

I retoggle second toggle 1.7s, 5.9s have elapsed in total and I have been without 1-2 for 5.9s

I retoggle third toggle 1.7s, 7.6s have elapsed and I have been without 1 for 7.6s

 

New beta

 

Beta:

 

I am stunned and notice it I hit BF, 2.5s have elapsed and I have been without off toggles for 2.5s

 

I wait 5s and all toggles come back up, 7.5s have elapsed and I have been without off toggles for 7.5s

 

They all come back up at 7.5s from stun to run.

 

The improvement from old beta is 3 seconds, as the lockout was reduced from 8 to 5.

 

This seems like a solid balance point to test further and fine tune, because the PERCEIVED difference from live to new beta is significantly smaller. 5 seconds is time enough to launch 1-2 attacks, or 1 attack and an jnsp, or toggle on travel and leap back. This is a small buff to toggle heavy outliers.

 

5 seconds is solid, in nearly every case I can think of and try on a 1 off toggles build, this now makes the change nearly imperceptible for the lockout, and adds the stated QoL.

 

Nice.

[WindDemon21]

11 hours ago, Wavicle said:

In the new build we're at 5 seconds. I'm sure many of us would love it to be less, and there are arguments to be made for 3s or 4s, but I think 5s is tolerable.

 

Keep in mind that during the suppression time you can be attacking, using click powers, hitting inspirations, or MOVING instead of being stuck in toggle animations.

Ugh somehow I just KNEW that was going to be the "new" number. I think 4s would be the absolute max I could concede (though still too long) with but 5 seconds is definitely still too long, again we should be focusing on those "MUST HAVE TOGGLE BACK ON ASAP" powers.

 

Edit: ESPECIALLY for those with only one or two super important toggles. And again, this is very dependent that you actually have a useful click power that doesn't just draw aggro and get you killed as well. Seriously though, 3s or bust.

 

(Note regarding mez and why this also affects more even with this are two things that could factor to this change: 1. Giving a "mez lockout" where you are protected from another mez for those seconds after unnerving. And 2. Toggle debuffs should tic replacing lasting debuffs, so if you get held with a debuff on, it will still last for 15 seconds etc after. The absorb on spirit was kinda works like this)

Edited July 30, 2022 by WindDemon21

[dtj714]

What is the 5 seconds based on? All the “testing data” from the previous 8 seconds, or some new assumption (e.g., 2 toggles instead of 4), or is it just an arbitrary reduction due to all the grousing on this forum?

 

Again, you’re taking agency away from the player in a situation where it should not be. If this is going to be put in, then there should be a way to opt-out (“Null the Gull” it), so those who feel the need and desire to maintain control over it can.