Focused Feedback: Power Level Availability Changes

[Mr Pierce]

Initial reaction is simple. You can keep the level smoothing of powers, or revert it back. I'm fine with either. I can see both sides of the argument. HOWEVER, the best change here is the option to choose a power on all secondary sets. So if nothing else changes, I beg that you please leave that in no matter what. It's amazing and opens up so many of my builds.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Mr Pierce

[Wavicle]

Love these changes, but it would still be nice if some those powers that people can now skip (say Mental Blast, Call Swarm, or Jab) were made good enough that people didn't WANT to skip them...

[Frostbiter]

[Greycat]

13 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

If TFs become faster, is that not a good result?

 

Because they all need to be run in 5 minutes or less?

Do we really need *more* speed runs on yet more content? 

 

 

Also, as general feedback - quite frankly, even as a longtime player who's well aware of power pool availability and the like, while making other characters to test other things, this... let's call it "compressed availability tree" of powers has felt rather like being told "NO! LOOK HERE, YOU MUST TAKE THESE POWERS NAO!"

 

The lack of breaks in that leveling progression feels to me like it's going to dissuade people from looking at pools and diversifying builds earlier on. (No, not everyone uses MIDS and pre-plans every half-second of their character's life.) I don't see that as a positive.

I really don't like the direction this is pointing.

 

 

Edit:

I should also add the point I made elsewhere. Our legacy content - IE, *most of the game* - was built with the expectation of certain power availability at certain levels. Yes, the +5 from exemping breaks it a little. But this runs over it even more, frankly. Are we going to see low level mobs "boosted" in difficulty, damage, HP, resists, etc? Or is there just going to be no reason to do more than PL past the old, "might as well all be grey to me" content?  Should we drop XP for defeats thanks to the much lesser challenge?

 

Example:

I *like* the content in the 20s-mid 30s. Running Keith Nance, Jenny Adair, Croatoa - they all have challenges that feel fully appropriate to the level I'm at. I don't tend to ouro back so I'm at max-level-plus-five-powers-and-slots to them because it eases that challenge too much.

 

With this change? I'll be running (say) the "Prevent FIr Bolg from escaping" mission with all my T9s available to me. I've been able to keep this at 0 escapes for some time, and felt like that was a (minor, granted) accomplishment because of what I've had to work with. With these? It would be far less satisfying. Might as well be a 50 punting Hellions in Atlas.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Greycat

[Marbing]

I, frankly, don’t see any of this as a problem in any way. You get the powers earlier but don’t have the slots to make them useful, yet. Please remember, the levels in which you get slots are just as important as the levels in which you get a new power. This gives powers earlier at the cost of slots and I think the trade off is fair, given you can now SKIP the secondary t1 if you wish. More build flexibility is a good thing. 
 

 

EDIT: Again my only concern is the diminished difference between a primary and secondary set. 

Edited October 6, 2022 by Marbing

[Ruin Mage]

54 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Because they all need to be run in 5 minutes or less?

Do we really need *more* speed runs on yet more content? 

Well, maybe not five but 1hr (or less) TFs is always pretty good in my eyes.

Time will tell if this does anything towards that.

[Doc_Scorpion]

37 minutes ago, Marbing said:

I, frankly, don’t see any of this as a problem in any way. You get the powers earlier but don’t have the slots to make them useful, yet. Please remember, the levels in which you get slots are just as important as the levels in which you get a new power.

Please, remember, exemping is a thing.  And you also have to consider 'trollers and Masterminds - which, especially the latter, don't need slots do be significantly useful.  (And honestly, in my experience, most T9's provide some level of usefulness even with the default single slot.)

[Marbing]

14 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Please, remember, exemping is a thing.  And you also have to consider 'trollers and Masterminds - which, especially the latter, don't need slots do be significantly useful.  (And honestly, in my experience, most T9's provide some level of usefulness even with the default single slot.)

I am fully aware exemping is a thing. I just am not convinced it will cause the level of power creep or overpoweredness that others do. If I am wrong, show me the numbers that prove this is a big issue. A couple mins shaved off a TF isn't a big deal. 

EDIT: Please, remember, this is the time to test test test. I couldn't care less at this point if this change goes though or not, but if you are passionate that this is a bad idea then test and show us.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Marbing

[Troo]

Question @The Curator: Do the level changes impact just players or mobs as well?

 

credit @Greycat

 

 

11 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Love these changes, but it would still be nice if some those powers that people can now skip (say Mental Blast, Call Swarm, or Jab) were made good enough that people didn't WANT to skip them...

I think many would like this as long as it doesn't bring down the other power. (nearly averaging the two is a likely outcome of such a request being granted)

Edited October 6, 2022 by Troo

[Doc_Scorpion]

32 minutes ago, Marbing said:

A couple mins shaved off a TF isn't a big deal. 

A couple of minutes shaved of a single run of a single TF, no.  That's not that big a deal any more than one raindrop is that big a deal.  When you consider hundreds or thousands of story arcs and task forces over a span of time...  That one raindrop becomes a flood.

Reward merits are based on the time and effort required - and if those averages drops markedly, then the rewards must perforce follow.

[Marbing]

3 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

A couple of minutes shaved of a single run of a single TF, no.  That's not that big a deal any more than one raindrop is that big a deal.  When you consider hundreds or thousands of story arcs and task forces over a span of time...  That one raindrop becomes a flood.

Reward merits are based on the time and effort required - and if those averages drops markedly, then the rewards must perforce follow.

Agreed. But do we have anything measured yet to show how much of an effect this is going to have? Or at least an estimate?

[PeregrineFalcon]

I've been on the test server several times over the last 2 days. This is my focused feedback.

 

I've made several characters now and leveled them up. I've done street sweeping and scanner missions, solo only.

 

I've changed my mind about this being power creep at lower levels. While lower levels do get more of their core powers (primary/secondary as opposed to pool powers), they suffer from a lack of slots until the 40's. I believe this will make mid level range DPS characters slightly weaker as more attacks with less enhancements do less damage but use more endurance.

 

20 hours ago, Number Six said:

...does it improve the flow of power selection when leveling? Does it make the experience at low-medium levels better, worse?

Improve the flow of power selection? I don't know how to answer that. It makes it feel different. I don't have any idea how a new player (if there is such a thing on HC) would feel about it, but as a vet it felt fun to not have to wait until level 32 to get Energy Transfer.

 

It didn't make the lower level experience any different for me at all, but then again I was soloing.

 

As I'm sure you've already read, teams of people should be able to leverage this to do better on mid level range TFs, but won't that just reduce the amount of merits those TFs award? (Are we still doing that?)

 

To me this change just seemed... different. Not better, but also not worse.

[TygerDarkstorm]

15 hours ago, Seed22 said:

I can, but I'm not sure when I'll do it.

 

I'll try for Saturday, but no promises! And yeah that's why I wanna look at that TF(Silver I would do but let's be real, unfortunately no one realizes yet that redside bestside so it's run less often.) those T8 and 9's are like you said; game changers. If I get enough, we'll go through the whole thing, if not? I think doing the first mish then skipping to clamor should suffice.

Depending on the time on Saturday, I could join you guys on Brainstorm for a Yin test as well.

[Brutal Justice]

29 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Depending on the time on Saturday, I could join you guys on Brainstorm for a Yin test as well.

Make sure to have at least 1, probably 2 fully built exemplared blasters or tanks on your team.  Since that is the main concern that has been presented.  

 

You could also try having one blaster for each group of citizens on that first mission and speed run it and just nuke each mob.  Completion time 1 minute. Then nuke the 3 mobs in the second mission.  2 minutes.  You’re longest delay will be waiting on Clamor to respawn.  5-6 minutes for the whole tf.  ITF speed run shenanigans now available at lvl 21.  

[0th Power]

Haven't tested anything yet, but the initial reaction is everything past the option of skipping the T1 secondary seems like too much.

 

Hope to do some testing this weekend.

[Gobbledigook]

2 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

Well, maybe not five but 1hr (or less) TFs is always pretty good in my eyes.

Time will tell if this does anything towards that.

Yes. 5 minutes is bad but so is 3hrs to do content. A lot of us are older now and don't have the time or inclination to commit hours of time.

[Riverdusk]

A change for everyone imo shouldn't be based on whether or not you have a blaster on your team.  As said before if that is what makes the difference the issue is with how a blaster plays, not how this change plays.  Testing should also be done with no blasters.

 

Edit: decided to just emphasize the one point.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Riverdusk

[BrandX]

People seem to be using Yin TF as the example, an already fun but also speedy TF.

 

The idea that if the team has multiple high level, IOed out Blasters to make it faster, just makes me think, that's likely more thought out than what the players will actually do, other than a few friends going "Let's try for speed!"

 

 

[Starhammer]

On 10/4/2022 at 2:38 PM, The Curator said:

Secondary Sets (non-Epic ATs)

 

• Tier 2 powers moved from level 2 to level 1 (character creation)

Thank you so much. There have been so many characters for which the Tier 1 secondary was a bad fit, and just had to be a wasted power selection.

(Though to be fair, if Ki Push repel was affected by KBtKD, and/or had a kick animation, I would use it a lot more instead of just setting it aside)

[WindDemon21]

Yes thank god! But also, please move the primary tier 3 to be available at level 1 as well. Gravity and Mind control demand it! And some others could use it as well too.

[LQT]

7 hours ago, BrandX said:

People seem to be using Yin TF as the example, an already fun but also speedy TF.

Because with these changes the Penny Yin TF, [and Silver Mantis SF although the playerbase doesn't seem to do Redside stuff as much unfortunately], will be the lowest content every AT can bring both their t9 powers to due to the level (20-25) requirements.
Previously the first Blueside TF you could see t9 nukes due to the Exemp+5 rule was Moonfire (23-28/[33]) and the first you would see t9 2' powers was either Katie Hannon (30-34/[39]) or Manticore (30-35/[40]). Note both those examples regarding the t9 2' powers are 10 levels higher than the requirements for Penny Yin/SM.

 

7 hours ago, BrandX said:

The idea that if the team has multiple high level, IOed out Blasters to make it faster, just makes me think, that's likely more thought out than what the players will actually do, other than a few friends going "Let's try for speed!"

Blasters, Corruptors, Sentinels, and Defenders will all be able to use their t9 nukes during Penny Yin with this change because the first 3 ATs all share the same 1' set and power availability while Defenders will benefit from their formerly t9 2' nuke moving from level 38 to level 30.

This change will not only significantly improve damage output but also support output/defence mitigation due to powers such as these being potentially at hand:

• First off the obvious ones: T9 nukes from every AT that can take them at 26 or 30 after this change.
• Dark Servant, Adrenaline Boost/Painbringer, Fulcrum Shift, Overgrowth, Chrono Shift from Defenders (26) and Corrs/Controllers/MMs (30).
• Every possible summonable pet from Controllers, MMs [including things like Dark Servant from their 2' set if taking Dark Miasma] and Dominators.
• T9 2' armours on Tanks/Brutes/Scrappers/Stalkers/Sents for what powersets that actually proves useful in PvE [some are better than others like Bio vs any of the "God Modes" that have an End crash], which specifically will include Granite Form.
• Light Form and Eclipse from PBs and WS respectively. 

That means various ATs will have access to what are often their most powerful abilities for level 20 content the Live Devs likely designed while keeping in mind what powers players would and, probably even more likely, would not be able to use.

Additionally Penny Yin being such a short TF means it sees a lot of attention during the WST for those wanting to farm the "Repeat WST" badge since The Hollows was somewhat nerfed there.

I'm not against these changes entirely but dropping both t9s so low will cause issues throughout content that was designed in ways such powers were never intended to be used. Penny Yin and Silver Mantis are simply on the extreme end of things in terms of what will be the lowest content affected as well as likely the most significantly given what powers players will be able to use during them.

[SableShrike]

Something I’ve not seen mentioned yet, but the power shakeup makes starting as a Praetorian MUCH more enjoyable.

 

You generally wind up grinding arcs 1-20 on Gold before you can portal hop to Red or Blue.

 

As soloing is pretty much mandatory Gold Side, lower DPS Archetypes having access to more of their secondary is a big deal.

[LQT]

15 minutes ago, SableShrike said:

Something I’ve not seen mentioned yet, but the power shakeup makes starting as a Praetorian MUCH more enjoyable.

 

You generally wind up grinding arcs 1-20 on Gold before you can portal hop to Red or Blue.

 

As soloing is pretty much mandatory Gold Side, lower DPS Archetypes having access to more of their secondary is a big deal.

Nothing is changing that affects any of that except being able to take your t2 secondary power at level 1, though. New level availabilities only start at level 22 by which point you will have left the 3 Gold starter zones one way [Rift] or another [First Ward]. The only and most significant secondary changes under level 20 are for PBs and WS which can't be made Goldside.

[Dispari]

14 hours ago, BrandX said:

People seem to be using Yin TF as the example, an already fun but also speedy TF.

 

The idea that if the team has multiple high level, IOed out Blasters to make it faster, just makes me think, that's likely more thought out than what the players will actually do, other than a few friends going "Let's try for speed!"

Right. Yin is already really short even if you aren't doing a "speedrun." Even if you added nukes to this TF, it's still only a 30 minute TF, it's not going to speed up that much.

[BrandX]

6 hours ago, LQT said:

Because with these changes the Penny Yin TF, [and Silver Mantis SF although the playerbase doesn't seem to do Redside stuff as much unfortunately], will be the lowest content every AT can bring both their t9 powers to due to the level (20-25) requirements.
Previously the first Blueside TF you could see t9 nukes due to the Exemp+5 rule was Moonfire (23-28/[33]) and the first you would see t9 2' powers was either Katie Hannon (30-34/[39]) or Manticore (30-35/[40]). Note both those examples regarding the t9 2' powers are 10 levels higher than the requirements for Penny Yin/SM.

 

Blasters, Corruptors, Sentinels, and Defenders will all be able to use their t9 nukes during Penny Yin with this change because the first 3 ATs all share the same 1' set and power availability while Defenders will benefit from their formerly t9 2' nuke moving from level 38 to level 30.

This change will not only significantly improve damage output but also support output/defence mitigation due to powers such as these being potentially at hand:

• First off the obvious ones: T9 nukes from every AT that can take them at 26 or 30 after this change.
• Dark Servant, Adrenaline Boost/Painbringer, Fulcrum Shift, Overgrowth, Chrono Shift from Defenders (26) and Corrs/Controllers/MMs (30).
• Every possible summonable pet from Controllers, MMs [including things like Dark Servant from their 2' set if taking Dark Miasma] and Dominators.
• T9 2' armours on Tanks/Brutes/Scrappers/Stalkers/Sents for what powersets that actually proves useful in PvE [some are better than others like Bio vs any of the "God Modes" that have an End crash], which specifically will include Granite Form.
• Light Form and Eclipse from PBs and WS respectively. 

That means various ATs will have access to what are often their most powerful abilities for level 20 content the Live Devs likely designed while keeping in mind what powers players would and, probably even more likely, would not be able to use.

Additionally Penny Yin being such a short TF means it sees a lot of attention during the WST for those wanting to farm the "Repeat WST" badge since The Hollows was somewhat nerfed there.

I'm not against these changes entirely but dropping both t9s so low will cause issues throughout content that was designed in ways such powers were never intended to be used. Penny Yin and Silver Mantis are simply on the extreme end of things in terms of what will be the lowest content affected as well as likely the most significantly given what powers players will be able to use during them.

 

No.  I get that.

 

But, how many people are actually going to go "Forming Yin TF, must have nuke"?

 

Wait, is there a reason to to repeat WST badge after the first?