Make cage powers a toggle.

[arkieboy72472]

I have noticed that a gravity controller can “cage” bad guys with a big bubble. It may annoy teammates, but it’s cool. You can slip a slow patch inside then detoggle. 
 

Force field and dark miasma also has a time out cage. It’s on a timer. Make it a toggle. 
 

If time bomb can be fixed with a click system, the cages can be fixed. 
 

1) pick the bad guy 2) click you are in time out! 3) click you are out. Ok guys get him!

 

if that makes it too powerful, do one of three things: replace the power, increase recharge, or reduce the mag. Reducing the mag will make it nigh useless. Replacing it gives up something else. Up the recharge forces us to be selective of who to cage. 
 

Thats all. Make cages great for the first time. No need in having powers that everyone skips. Time bomb was made better. No reason not to attempt this.

Edited February 26 by arkieboy72472

[Aracknight]

This prolly goes better in Suggestions & Feedback and may get moved.

 

Before it does, interesting idea!  As a toggle, it simulates the effort (end cost per second) of restraining a foe, the ability for the hold/caster's concentration to be broken if the caster is mezzed, killed, or runs out of end (or other condition that would otherwise cause a hero/villain to drop their toggles).

 

I think it might be best served as a "cloggle" like Sorcery's Enflame, which is a toggle with a duration, but I'm not against this idea in principle.  

 

I think some valid follow up questions include:  is this for all mezzes, or just the cages you mentioned?   What happens if I have more than one of these somehow ability?  How about damaging mez powers like ring of fire?  Does the damage continue while the toggle is up also?

 

I also think some people might be against it because it may not allow for stacking mez from a single caster to overcome a mob's resistance.  How would you modify it to keep this basic theme?

Edited February 26 by Aracknight

[biostem]

13 minutes ago, arkieboy72472 said:

Force field and dark miasma also has a time out cage. It’s on a timer. Make it a toggle. 

From my understanding, the issue here is that the power creates a psuedo-pet which renders things inside it untouchable;  Therefore, you would not be able to maintain a connection/link to said entity in order to have the power function as a toggle.

Edited February 26 by biostem

[arkieboy72472]

6 minutes ago, Aracknight said:

This prolly goes better in Suggestions & Feedback and may get moved.

 

Before it does, interesting idea!  As a toggle, it simulates the effort (end cost per second) of restraining a foe, the ability for the hold/caster's concentration to be broken if the caster is mezzed, killed, or runs out of end (or other condition that would otherwise cause a hero/villain to drop their toggles).

 

I think it might be best served as a "cloggle" like Sorcery's Enflame, which is a toggle with a duration, but I'm not against this idea in principle.  

 

I think some valid follow up questions include:  is this for all mezzes, or just the cages you mentioned?   What happens if I have more than one of these somehow ability?  How about damaging mez powers like ring of fire?  Does the damage continue while the toggle is up also?

 

I also think some people might be against it because it may not allow for stacking mez from a single caster to overcome a mob's resistance.  How would you modify it to keep this basic theme?

I don’t care if they make The power do “only effects self” or intangible. Gravity’s make sense in that if you are in the cage you can still be attacked (I think). With a bubble cage, it should be that nothing gets in or out. Nothing should be able to affect them. It’s a time out cage. With black hole. I can see it more as a power that draws anything around it to a point and maybe makes whatever is inside of it intangible. Either way, I want them on a toggle, not a timer. Thats all.

[Shenanigunner]

No. All powers cannot be made perma. Regardless of the reasoning or justification or lore or backstory, the game is built around powers that have differing levels of application, and to make short-term debuffs perma unbalances the whole concept.

[Mopery]

I know some creatures who live under a bridge that would totally support this...

[Fade]

7 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

No. All powers cannot be made perma. Regardless of the reasoning or justification or lore or backstory, the game is built around powers that have differing levels of application, and to make short-term debuffs perma unbalances the whole concept.

I don't see this as a request to make one of these powers (such as Detention Field) perma, I see it as a request to make the power cancel-able early. There are toggles in the game that can only be active for a maximum duration and then are shut off and put on a cooldown, and I think powers like Detention Field would be an excellent candidate for the same treatment.

[biostem]

What they could do is make the powers duration much shorter, but give it a few charges before it goes on cooldown, kind of like jaunt from speed of sound.  Then, while it wouldn't be a toggle, the player would have a lot more leeway as to how long and where they want the effect to last...

Edited February 26 by biostem

[Shenanigunner]

23 minutes ago, Fade said:

I don't see this as a request to make one of these powers (such as Detention Field) perma, I see it as a request to make the power cancel-able early. There are toggles in the game that can only be active for a maximum duration and then are shut off and put on a cooldown, and I think powers like Detention Field would be an excellent candidate for the same treatment.

 

Okay, maybe. The question is a little clearer with that in mind.

 

Are there any other powers that are both limited duration/with a cooldown, and cancelable?

[Fade]

3 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

Are there any other powers that are both limited duration/with a cooldown, and cancelable?

 

As of page 7, Telekinesis in Mind Control. And I believe either Spirit Ward or Enflame (or both) from the Sorcery pool may work that way as well.

[arkieboy72472]

9 hours ago, Fade said:

I don't see this as a request to make one of these powers (such as Detention Field) perma, I see it as a request to make the power cancel-able early. There are toggles in the game that can only be active for a maximum duration and then are shut off and put on a cooldown, and I think powers like Detention Field would be an excellent candidate for the same treatment.

Yes. I am not saying make it perma. I am saying if I want to cancel at 15 seconds instead of 30, I want that ability. The power can still have a max duration, a recharge speed etc. I gave examples. How does anyone get perma from that?

[arkieboy72472]

8 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Okay, maybe. The question is a little clearer with that in mind.

 

Are there any other powers that are both limited duration/with a cooldown, and cancelable?

Time bomb is now click to detonate. Trip mine stays for a while or until it gets tripped. Ok, those are bad examples.
 

Gravity’s intangible power is an example of what I want. click: it works. Click: it stops. It has a set time it will work for otherwise. Now it recharges. After a while, it’s available again. It has a heavy end cost as a drawback but has a strong immobile mag. It doesn’t effect melee players, but it does ranged. 
 

 

Edited February 27 by arkieboy72472

[arkieboy72472]

If I could my fix would be this: for force field detention: obviously it only works on one bad guy at a time. Nothing goes in or out. All effects on the critter are null. Make max duration 30 seconds. Make recharge a minute or two. Make the mag scale so at lvl 50 it can maybe handle an AV, at least an EB. This power would likely never work on an AV, Hero, or GM. Make it a toggle. Make it auto-hit. Make the endurance heavy enough to where you don’t want to run it too long. The endurance would probably be the only thing you could modify, or the recharge. Now it’s a strong power with a drawback and plenty usable. Now it’s useful.

 

as for black hole. Make it attract all bad guys in the area. Only one foe is caged. Pretty much same as above. The devs can choose to make the attract part cancel with the toggle or persist. So now the catch is, you can leave it going longer as it herds a little, but you can’t touch the focal point of the power until it stops or is untoggled. It also helps herding when the team is lacking a tank, but draws aggro on the player. Now it’s useful.
 

the reason: teammates are forced to sit and wait for Joe heroes power to shut off before they can beat up the bad guy. This makes people want to not take the power. Powers can be situational, but no power should be bad. As they are, they are bad. 
 

these are just ideas. At the end of the day they can leave everything the same and just make them a toggle. They fixed time bomb. Now it is an awesome addition. Even the other versions of it are good. They are all even better than that poor omega weapon or rocket launcher. Maybe in time they will revisit these seldom used powers.

[Uun]

Gravity Control/Dimension Shift is an AoE phase shift/intangible. It does exactly what you're looking for and should be the model for the other phase shift/intangible powers. It used to work just like Black Hole and Detention Field. In I22 it was changed to a toggle with a 20s duration and a 60s recharge. Moreover, you can enter the AoE and fight the phased foes. There's no reason Black Hole or Detention couldn't work the same way. Obviously the combat part would be unnecessary for the ST phase shift powers like Sonic Cage, but they could also be made into timed toggles.

[megaericzero]

20 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

Are there any other powers that are both limited duration/with a cooldown, and cancelable?

Jump Pack / Steam Jump / Double Jump come to mind.

[Shenanigunner]

8 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

Jump Pack / Steam Jump / Double Jump come to mind.

 

Ah, good ones. All pretty trivial START powers, though. Have I overlooked any primary/secondary powers — attacks, buffs, debuffs, shields — that have that combination of control? (My general thinking is that any such change would need to be very, very carefully evaluated for balance etc.)

[Uun]

Just now, Shenanigunner said:

 

Ah, good ones. All pretty trivial START powers, though. Have I overlooked any primary/secondary powers — attacks, buffs, debuffs, shields — that have that combination of control? (My general thinking is that any such change would need to be very, very carefully evaluated for balance etc.)

Gravity/Dimension Shift is a cancellable toggle with a 20s duration and 60s recharge.

[megaericzero]

42 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Ah, good ones. All pretty trivial START powers, though. Have I overlooked any primary/secondary powers — attacks, buffs, debuffs, shields — that have that combination of control? (My general thinking is that any such change would need to be very, very carefully evaluated for balance etc.)

Hrm, not sure about primary/secondary powers. The hybrid slot acts like that, if you want something that sees combat use. It's still a buff rather than a CC, though.

[macskull]

If I can't have more than one target not in the same area caged at once, I don't want it. /unsigned

[Uun]

41 minutes ago, macskull said:

If I can't have more than one target not in the same area caged at once, I don't want it. /unsigned

I don't think you can do this now (not easily anyway). Sonic Cage and Detention Field have a 30s duration and 60s recharge. Black Hole has a 30s duration and a 120s recharge.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

I don't think you can do this now (not easily anyway). Sonic Cage and Detention Field have a 30s duration and 60s recharge. Black Hole has a 30s duration and a 120s recharge.

Burnout, for the specific situations where you want something like this.