A possible solution to the kheldian revamp

[FlammeFatale]

I read that the devs were looking at the kheldians and afterward would address the changeling trick. I have a solution which kills two birds with one stone.

 

Make it so that the changeling trick becomes part of the kheldian arsenal. Double-clicking any power casts it from any form then drops the caster to human form.  Double-clicking to execute a power is a common mechanic in many games.

 

This solution has a couple advantages:

 

- Revamp is minimal.

No need to change ingrained habits and muscle memory. Veteran combat flow is just made a bit smoother just like with the toggle suppression fix. Beginner game experience is vastly improved. No more need to learn complicated macros.

 

- AT is neither nerfed nor boosted.

Power ceiling of a well played kheldian would be unchanged. No need to worry about balance issues.

 

Actually, kheldians would remain a bit on the weak side. But they do not need to be OP like tankers or VEATS. 

 

I do not know if this change is easy to implement. But the game already recognizes doubleclick in binds and macros. 

 

[Laucianna]

I'm confused on what the fix actually is hun? To me it doesn't sound like anything changing apart from Changeling being an official feature 😄

 

 - Lauci x

[FlammeFatale]

1 hour ago, Laucianna said:

To me it doesn't sound like anything changing apart from Changeling being an official feature

 

You are right. Yet this means some improvement:

 

- Smoother, more fluid game play. To perform the trick, timing must be precise and is not a constant. It varies I guess based on ping/server issues. For me, it fails maybe once in twenty uses. This is mildly annoying. If it was coded into the game, it would (presumably) not fail. 

 

- Friendly to new kheldian players. No need to learn about the changeling tricks, not everybody reads the forum or discord. No need to write binds or macros.

 

- Potentially, but I do not know enough about game coding mechanics to presume so, less work for devs and quicker time to implementation.

 

It is mainly QoL for everybody involved: veterans; newbies, devs. But what would you change about kheldians? I certainly have ideas, but they are probably pipe dreams only relevant to my particular personal build and gameplay.

 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

One useful change from a while back was to allow the lowest level human blasts to be useable in different forms. Another helpful change would be to let certain effects of forms become global, instead of only specific to one form. Possible examples ...

1. When you choose dwarf form you get mez protection in all forms. Yes, this means mez protection being constant, just as for VEATs, after attaining dwarf form. It doesn't close the power gap between HEATs and VEATs, not even close. But, it would make it easier and more fun to play a HEAT.  
2. Add a small-to-moderate amount of across-all-forms debuff resistances once dwarf form has been selected. Resistance to slows and recovery debuffs would really help VEATs. 
3. Slightly improve the melee attack modifiers for human form once dwarf form has been taken. Add one dwarf single target melee attack to the human attack chain. 
4. The better single target blast from the nova form becomes available in human form. 
5. Slightly improve the damage modifiers for human ranged attacks after taking the nova form. 

Given how strong an optimized peacebringer single target attack chain can be, care would probably need to be taken to keep whatever changes are being made from becoming completely off-the-chain. 

Edited January 24 by EnjoyTheJourney

[SeraphimKensai]

As Kheldians are conceptually my favorite addition to the game, they hold a special place in my heart.

 

This post is probably better served in the suggestions/feedback section of the forums, but I'll add that if you are interested in discussing the state of Kheldians and would like to help test potential changes to them, I would strongly suggest joining the Gold Standard Testers discord group (https://discord.gg/DptUBzh).

[FlammeFatale]

Thank you.

 

Is it possible to move this post to the  suggestions/feedback section?

[Laucianna]

1 hour ago, FlammeFatale said:

Thank you.

 

Is it possible to move this post to the  suggestions/feedback section?

Think you'd need to ask a GM on discord or copy and paste the post there ❤️

 

 - Lauci

 

[arcane]

You can’t just make the changeling exploit official… it’s completely broken with animation skipping, and its brokenness yields some of the best DPS in the game. Can’t wait til they nerf the exploit into the ground tbh.

[Laucianna]

11 minutes ago, arcane said:

You can’t just make the changeling exploit official… it’s completely broken with animation skipping, and its brokenness yields some of the best DPS in the game. Can’t wait til they nerf the exploit into the ground tbh.

The damage really isn't that crazy but yeah personally I would rather it be removed then them just make it official and call it a day 🙂

[arcane]

Just now, Laucianna said:

The damage really isn't that crazy but yeah personally I would rather it be removed then them just make it official and call it a day 🙂

The pylon times I have seen from Changeling Peacebringers are better than what you can achieve with 95% of Blaster builds. Fire/Fire or Ice/Fire might be able to *tie* with it. That’s not right.

[kelika2]

on one hand i have a thousand or so posts about minor things that i would like changed

on the other hand the kheld vanity posts are getting to me

[Laucianna]

Just now, arcane said:

The pylon times I have seen from Changeling Peacebringers are better than what you can achieve with 95% of Blaster builds. Fire/Fire or Ice/Fire might be able to *tie* with it. That’s not right.

That was a build made just for that and tweaked just for that, outside of that in normal situations they still come below blasters/scrappers etc

[UltraAlt]

15 hours ago, FlammeFatale said:

I read that the devs were looking at the kheldians and afterward would address the changeling trick.

 

I say leave the Kheldians alone.

They were created to be intentionally difficult to play for those players that think the game is too easy.

 

Why does everything have to get dummied down?

Some people are always complaining that the game isn't difficult enough.

Other people always seem to complain that power are too weak.

People keep recruiting for Council police scanner missions in PI (they are probably going to be in for a surprise when the BETA goes live) because people are apparently scared of Malta.

 

Two-form Kheldians are pretty simple to play.

Tri-form ones are more complicated, but do-able.

 

I miss the old Nictus Crystals myself.

They were challenging.

[FlammeFatale]

I would be 100% happy with the devs leaving the kheldians alone. In fact, as Laucianna pointed out, this is what my solution more or less leads to.

 

I do not think kheldians need a power boost or a nerf. They are a mid-tier AT right now. There are more powerful archetypes primary/secondary combos, but there are weaker ones too.

 

However, I feel they could use some improvement in "combat flow", for lack of a better term. Believe me, I love kheldians, more precisely warshades. My main back on live was a warshade. 

But their gameplay is very clicky. It is more akin to playing the piano than a MMO. And without animation cancel, there are a lot of combat flow interruptions. It feels not only clicky but also jagged.

 

We could use some kind of small change which makes the gameplay smoother and less click intensive. The devs already went in the right direction with their change to toggle suppression. 

 

 

[Wispur]

I *really* want to see Changeling nuked from orbit.
The whole point of Changeling is to glitch the forms so fast that you effectively don't even use the forms.
And that destroys the entire point of Kheldians being the shapeshifter AT.

Kheldians *should* be using their forms, as forms.
And to be clear, I'm perfectly fine with switching between forms constantly, every few powers or so. (this is my preference)
I'm also perfectly fine with having us stay in forms for a bit longer for specific tasks.
Whatever they choose, I can roll with it.

I'm just *really* not ok with the "best" way to play the AT being to basically ignore the forms and glitch through them.
Even if they made that "glitch" a doubleclick feature, I'd be opposed to it.
It destroys the whole point of being a shapeshifter in the first place.

So... nuke Changeling, and don't look back.

(And yes, it prob goes without saying, but if they're gonna get rid of Changeling (and they should) we'll need buffs to compensate.)

Edited January 25 by Wispur

[FlammeFatale]

Wispur, no one obliges you to double click. You can play the way you like. E.G. If you single click instead of double click a nova power in human form, nothing happens. You have a choice. Everybody is happy, players who like the changeling playstyle and players who do not.

 

Edit:

You are not losing much.

 

The changeling playstyle does not add as much power as some people pretend. Pylon times are a fringe activity and irrelevant to the main game, which is about fighting a variety of enemies with a variety of damage types, resistance types, mezzes, debuffs etc... in a variety of missions.

Due to slot vs enhancement limitations, a kheldian can only slot effectively 2 forms, and maybe one power in the third form. This is not like you can make good use of every power in every form. Personnaly, I only use the changeling macro for double mire on the warshade and dwarf heal on the PB.

 

Animation cancel? Sure, it adds speed. I have been playing changeling as far back as live. When was it, 15 years ago? But beforehand I just used a programmable mouse to trigger chains: form change/power execute/form change. It only required one key press, not a double click. 

It took a bit longer with animations, but who cares if it took me 10 seconds longer to clear a spawn? Certainly not me. 

 

Edited January 26 by FlammeFatale

[Wispur]

You're correct that nobody obliges a player to play optimally.

But what I'm saying is that optimal play for an AT should (in good game design) play to the unique strengths of that AT.

In this case, that uniqueness is very much the alternate forms.
So optimal gameplay *should* utilize the forms.

 

Ignoring the forms by glitching (or doubleclicking) so that you're never *really* in them to play optimally means the forms may as well not exist at all, and that's a bad thing.
At that point, it's not really any different than if the optimal way to play were Human-only.
That's really bad for a shape shifting AT.

There are plenty of other AT's in the game that can be played optimally without using alternate forms (as in all of them, lol)
I don't see how making this another AT that doesn't use forms (when played optimally) does anything but hurt the AT and remove what makes it unique.

In my opinion, when played optimally, we should be flowing through the forms as needed for the moment, shifting as the situation dictates.
Optimal play should not be staying in one form and double clicking to steal the powers of the other forms without ever utilizing those forms.

At that point, we're basically just monoform sentinels.  😅

And don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you're looking for solutions!
I just think this one would hurt what makes the AT special and unique.

Edited January 26 by Wispur

[JasperStone]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:45 AM, FlammeFatale said:

Actually, kheldians would remain a bit on the weak side. But they do not need to be OP like tankers or VEATS.

Ummmmm....

What?

Explain.

[JasperStone]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:45 AM, FlammeFatale said:

No need to change ingrained habits and muscle memory. Veteran combat flow is just made a bit smoother just like with the toggle suppression fix. Beginner game experience is vastly improved. No more need to learn complicated macros.

I prefer people stop using this as an excuse. 

I have used the keymapping available in game since Live.

It is not hard.

 

I have powers/ plus forms in three trays.

A few are rarely used, but nice to have powers, in another that I can click. But I can keymap if I want

 

The keymapping in the game is beyond simple.

I have everything mapped through my numpad.

AND it saved and used on ALL my characters.

 

[Laucianna]

4 hours ago, Wispur said:

At that point, we're basically just monoform sentinels.  😅

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth 😞 But in all seriousness yeah changing forms should be our main thing, personally I like the idea of quickly changing between all forms spending only about a second in it as in my head it feels like 3 separate beings tag teaming out to beat the crap out of people, however due to the massive ass lightbulb that goes off which each form it ends up looking more like a random ball of light, similar to how those stick animations of different fighting styles used to look, where you have 1 character able to fight in multiple different ways and switching in a moment between them. 

 

[FlammeFatale]

8 hours ago, JasperStone said:

On 1/24/2024 at 9:45 AM, FlammeFatale said:

kheldians would remain a bit on the weak side. But they do not need to be OP like tankers or VEATS.

Ummmmm....

What?

Explain.

 

Do you mean the mention of tankers and VEATS? I should not have written that, for three reasons. First, it is off-topic. Second, everybody's definition of OP is different. It depends on what they focus on in game. And third, I have only 20 level 50 characters (I play my characters to all T4 and mostly level them in missions, not fire farms). Therefore my sample is small.

 

And now that I think about it, my most powerful character is neither a tanker nor a VEAT, but a blaster.

 

When I say OP, I am only talking about the relative rankings of my levels 50s. I rank their performance solo against 4/8 arachnos/carnies/rularuu. That's about it.

 

What are my ranking criterias?

 

- time to finish the missions. 

- frequency of faceplants.

- required skill. Do I need to press only 3 buttons or do I need to make use of all the powers available? Do I need to resort to tactics like corner pulling, kiting, or can I just facetank?

- cost of build. Can I perform with only standard sets or do I need purples/winter enhancements?

 

Based on those criteria, my tanks and VEATS are OP: average time to finish missions, no faceplants, no required skill, low-cost builds.

My warshade is mid-tier: average time to finish missions, rare faceplants, requires skills, 1.5 billion inf build.

My Fire/FF controller and DP/empathy corruptor are weak: long time to finish missions, some faceplants, require skill. Mid-cost (controller) and low cost (corruptor) builds, but spending more inf would not change the results.

 

 

Edited January 26 by FlammeFatale
getting rid of immense blank space at the post bottom

[Wispur]

Laucianna,
I agree with everything you said, and I think that fixing this part in particular would be a HUGE Quality of Life improvement for Kheldians.

 

40 minutes ago, Laucianna said:

however due to the massive ass lightbulb that goes off which each form it ends up looking more like a random ball of light

Seriously, drop the Super Loud Explosion and dramatically decrease the Massive Flash of light that prevents me from seeing the screen. Please.
Do that and we'll be on the way to making this a better AT, lol.
 

Edited January 26 by Wispur

[Laucianna]

2 minutes ago, Wispur said:

Laucianna,
I agree with everything you said, and I think that fixing this part in particular would be a HUGE Quality of Life improvement for Kheldians.

 

Seriously, drop the Super Loud Explosion and dramatically decrease the Massive Flash of light that prevents me from seeing the screen. Please.
Do that and we'll be on the way to making this a better AT, lol.
 

Just want to repeat, I don't want the current version of Changelings to be a thing, but I would like to play something that swiftly switches forms and not just a case of "Well you could try switching to a different form in the middle of combat but it will take a while and everything will already be dead"

[EnjoyTheJourney]

If getting people to use the forms is a goal, then instead of having the forms mostly just co-exist, make them synergize better. 

 

First, eliminate the inherents (cosmic balance, dark sustenance) that focus on providing buffs based on team composition. That was always conceptually odd. The current other-focused inherents are also of limited value because the buffs received will tend to be hard to predict; most teams will not be organized around providing specific buffs to kheldian team members. The current inherents are also essentially passive, allowing for no active management other than teammate selection based on maximizing some aspect of their inherent. 

Regarding conceptual oddness, mez protection benefits can come from outside your kheldian body, but only from teammates, and even more specifically, only from teammates who are into controlling enemies. A powerful level 50 tank could be next to your kheldian and their solid mez protection would not help your kheld's mez protection in any way. Huh? Plus, unless that level 50 tank is on your team you won't get any buff from their presence nearby. But, put a level 1 controller or tank or any other AT on the team who is standing 10 feet further away than the level 50 tank and suddenly your kheld gets a buff from those level 1 teammates. Say what?   

Instead of other-focused buffs for kheldian inherents, provide synergistic benefits across the forms as the kheldian inherents. For example, taking dwarf form provides a small bonus to most resistances in other forms (say 3-5%), low resistance to certain debuffs, and mez protection. Having access to nova form provides a small buff to ranged damage and to recovery across all forms, with the strongest default buff to ranged damage and recovery accruing while in nova form.

As a further layer of synergy, spending time in a specfic form improves the extent of the buffs from that form for a fairly significant period of time. Being in human form for a while moderately strengthens controls, buffs, and debuffs. Being in dwarf form for a while modestly increases melee damage, healing, regeneration, resistance to most damage types, and resistance to certain debuffs. Being in nova form for a while could modestly increase range, recovery, and ranged damage for a while. Alternatively, instead of time it could be a kind of "power usage" mechanic that determines buff levels, meaning that as you use a form more you unlock the buffs associated with that form at a certain point (kind of like domination, perhaps, but maybe less binary in nature). 

Conceptually it makes sense that aspects of each form might provide a measure of help to the other forms, while all have a connection to the same person and the same body. Inherents based on the forms would put new variables under the control of the khelds themselves, something that can be actively managed to help their kheld perform better. In the end that's probably more conducive to having fun playing a kheld than variable and passive buffs provided others.  

Edited January 27 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Captain Fabulous]

OK, I'm just gonna ask, what the hell is Changeling?