For the love of boxing and kick

[Drachenfang]

I would love to see the fighting power pool modulated to have the first two power options be 'Kick' and 'tough.' When you pick one of those then you get to choose 'boxing' and 'weave' with cross punch being the final nugget in there. How many zillions of characters end up taking boxing and kick only to have it left unslotted and not even placed in power trays? Consider rearranging the fighting secondary pool so we can get a chance to take something cool we don't normally build for and saving so many players a power they never think about.

[biostem]

17 minutes ago, Drachenfang said:

How many zillions of characters end up taking boxing and kick only to have it left unslotted and not even placed in power trays?

Opportunity costs;  You WANT tough and weave - gotta invest to get them.  It's like one of the last "tough" choices players have to make in-game.  Don't take it away! 

[FupDup]

This comes up a lot. Basically the two sides are:

 

A. Yes, do it, taking "dead" power picks is annoying game design. 

B. No, don't do it, this is /powercreep that makes players stronger at a time when most of the game isn't very hard anyways. 

 

I kind of agree with both. My attempt at forming a compromise on this would be to allow Tough as a T1 pick, BUT this comes at the cost of making its baseline performance weaker in some way. But then if you decide to pick up either Boxing or Kick, you would get the current performance restored in full. And if you got both, you might even get a little higher performance than current. Same goes for Weave if it got made into a T2 pick.

 

Another alternative would be to add a third T1 power pick, like maybe an enhanceable version of Envenomed Dagger or something, that people might find more useful. Or, just making Boxing and Kick a bit stronger so they become more worthwhile on their own. 

Edited May 18 by FupDup

[Herotu]

Pools are a mess.

Imho the the idea of "investing" in a pool seems rather daft. The restriction of only 5 or so supplementary pools (epic + pools) is more than enough to prevent people from picking loads of great powers.

On the other hand, why would anybody pick the crap powers if they weren't forced to? Why not just pick the 5 best powers from the pools?

If there are pool powers that are crap, why do they even exist? 

 

All this considered, it seems to me that one solution is to;

1. bin the "you must have already got X powers in this pool" restriction,
2. replace the pool powers in question with ones that people might want.

Edited May 18 by Herotu

[kelika2]

I would love it if the pre-power restrictions went away as a whole.

 

Id love the poison vial patch on some alts but a travel power i dont like + another kinda useless ability to get to it makes it not viable.

Fighting pool is the same, sure I have that one brute that uses and slots boxing but still.  Tough and Weave would be great to have

other examples are teleporting, aid self, etc.

[OverkillEngine]

Part of the issue with Boxing and Kick is that both powers are clearly a sub-par pick no matter what AT you are. Even the ones that have the best modifiers for them. Especially for those AT's. To the point that they are meme tier picks. Which makes using them as a power tax extra offensive. Oh and they occupy the same exact niche, so it's also an illusion of choice between them.

If I were allowed to sodomize the Cottage Rule for a day, I'd merge the two attacks into a melee power that has a chance to proc KD or Disorient or both with a kickboxing animation, and the "hole" filled with a more universally applicable but not particularly strong passive. Like maybe a passive that procs a self minor +absorb when you are hit, with some sort of cooldown. Grant it some sort of synergy with the rest of the pool just like before.

Then an evaluation pass on the pool as a whole to see if some power needs shaved from elsewhere within it to compensate. Hand out a freespec and call it done.

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, OverkillEngine said:

Part of the issue with Boxing and Kick is that both powers are clearly a sub-par pick no matter what AT you are. Even the ones that have the best modifiers for them. Especially for those AT's. To the point that they are meme tier picks. Which makes using them as a power tax extra offensive. Oh and they occupy the same exact niche, so it's also an illusion of choice between them.

If I were allowed to sodomize the Cottage Rule for a day, I'd merge the two attacks into a melee power that has a chance to proc KD or Disorient or both with a kickboxing animation, and the "hole" filled with a more universally applicable but not particularly strong passive. Like maybe a passive that procs a self minor +absorb when you are hit, with some sort of cooldown. Grant it some sort of synergy with the rest of the pool just like before.

Then an evaluation pass on the pool as a whole to see if some power needs shaved from elsewhere within it to compensate. Hand out a freespec and call it done.

The more attacks you take from the Fighting pool, the more powerful and effective they all become.

[OverkillEngine]

9 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The more attacks you take from the Fighting pool, the more powerful and effective they all become.

 

I'm aware. Still hot flaming garbage.

[tidge]

I put a thumbs down, pretty much because both Tough and Weave are incredibly potent power choices for muling Enhancement sets, in addition to their inherent powers. I know there is the whole "IOs don't factor into balance", but Resistance and Defense are core elements of the game, they really shouldn't be made (even more) trivial to come by.

 

Even though it is rare that I lean into 4+ powers from the Fighting pool, I think it is one of the better "legacy" power pools, considering everything it offers and how the powers compliment each other. It has far less of an opportunity cost IMO than Presence, and the way Fighting's attacks boost each other is more natural IMO than the Flight pool's toggles or even the Medicine pool's progression.

 

[Herotu]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

Tough and Weave are incredibly potent power choices

 

Perhaps Tough and Weave should be made into Epic Powers for non-melee classes, instead of pool powers for everybody.

 

As I understand the pool powers they are supposed to be either;

1. something you can't get from any regular archetype powersets (Fly, Assault, Maneouvers) or
2. something you can't get from YOUR archetype's powersets - e.g. Defense on a Controller.

Why should melee classes be able to beef up in an "incredibly potent" manner (your words) something that's key to their class using pool powers?

 

It's not like there is something that can significantly boost control or blasting in the pool powers, or is it?

 

Out of interest;

were you against Villain archetypes being available to Heroes and Hero Archetypes available to villains?

Were you against making Fitness pool inherent?

Were you against the S.T.A.R.T. vendor items being available to everybody?

Were you against the locked costume parts (witches hat, cape, aura etc) being available in the costume creator?

 

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Herotu said:

Out of interest;

were you against Villain archetypes being available to Heroes and Hero Archetypes available to villains?

Were you against making Fitness pool inherent?

Were you against the S.T.A.R.T. vendor items being available to everybody?

Were you against the locked costume parts (witches hat, cape, aura etc) being available in the costume creator?

This has no relevance to the discussion.

[megaericzero]

14 minutes ago, Herotu said:

It's not like there is something that can significantly boost control or blasting in the pool powers, or is it?

Ranged damage was lacking before origin pools but those have since added them. Presence's fear, placate, and (technically) taunt are forms of control. Air Superiority is also an incredible constant knockdown, especially good for low-level characters.

 

EDIT:  

14 minutes ago, Herotu said:

As I understand the pool powers they are supposed to be either;

1. something you can't get from any regular archetype powersets (Fly, Assault, Maneouvers) or
2. something you can't get from YOUR archetype's powersets - e.g. Defense on a Controller.

3. double-up on your strengths - eg: Taunts on a tank, melee attacks on a scrapper, etc.

Edited May 18 by megaericzero

[tidge]

So many questions, and presented in such a disorganized way!

 

2 minutes ago, Herotu said:

Why should melee classes be able to beef up in an "incredibly potent" manner (your words) something that's key to their class using pool powers?

 

Are you referring to the Melee attacks, S/L Resistance, and/or +Def (All)? The pools are more than just travel powers, they offer all sorts of different things.

• Players can lean into different types of attacks/animations, or pick up a type of attack they normally don't have access to. Fitness happens to offer melee, including a PBAoE cone.
• Self resistance/Defense powers come in some primary/secondaries, and not at all in others. If a character with such a power from their AT already has some, getting more does offer utility. The scaling upwards of defenses and resistances is part of the game.  "Incredibly potent" manifests itself through Enhancements... even if Enhancements to don't factor into "balance" thinking, it would be silly to ignore the many game pieces that could be added on top of what Tough and Weave provide without enhancements.

As a practical matter, whenever I take Tough and/or Weave I rarely even toggle them on, no matter the AT.

 

11 minutes ago, Herotu said:

Out of interest;

were you against Villain archetypes being available to Heroes and Hero Archetypes available to villains?

Were you against making Fitness pool inherent?

Were you against the S.T.A.R.T. vendor items being available to everybody?

Were you against the locked costume parts (witches hat, cape, aura etc) being available in the costume creator?

 

I'm against gish-galloping, does that bring any sunshine to your day?

[PhotriusPyrelus]

21 minutes ago, Herotu said:

Out of interest;

were you against Villain archetypes being available to Heroes and Hero Archetypes available to villains?

Were you against making Fitness pool inherent?

Were you against the S.T.A.R.T. vendor items being available to everybody?

Were you against the locked costume parts (witches hat, cape, aura etc) being available in the costume creator?

 

1) Absolutely.  Lame as crap change.  How do you have a hero "Corruptor"?!  Corruptors and Brutes - regardless their popularity - were made basically superfluous by this.  Scrappers do more damage than Brutes, Tankers have better survivability and threat control.  Brutes are a a middle ground which tend to mean they're worse (specialization is king in group-based play).  Corruptors are in a similar spot competing with Defenders (better buffs/debuffs for the team), Blasters (better RDPS), but they also have to contend with Sentinels who are better at soloing.

2) Yes, this was also dumb and power-creepy.  I don't *want* my hero to be able to jump a full story into the sky (literally increases jump height by >150%).  Now I don't have a choice in the matter.  It's nice to not have to "waste" a power slot on Stamina, but we get so many power picks - especially with the level cap increase from 40 to 50, I really don't see why this was necessary.  "But everyone always takes them".  Maybe, so?  Pretty much everyone takes Hasten too, should that be made baseline?

3) Eh, I don't really mind it.  I just don't use most of the options.  I do like the ability to revoke powers.  A shame it doesn't include the Fitness powers.

4)  Don't really see the relevance; we're talking about power/powercreep, not cosmetics.  I would tend to prefer it be as it was, but I can accept the way it is has a value.  It's very convenient for low levels to participate in the weekly costume contests.  Or to make alts you don't have to level for the costume contests.

Why didn't you ask about travel powers being lowered from level 14 and not requiring 2 previous powers (this is probably the most directly-related to the OP's proposal)?  Or the proliferation of fast travel options with practically no CD?  Or the combining of the yellow and green tram lines?

Half the point of an MMO is to feel like you're in another world.  When you shrink that world to nothing because you can get from A to B in the blink of an eye, you rob an MMO of one of its greatest features.  I've been leveling a character very slowly and respecting the green/yellow line restrictions, and not using teleporters, and it makes the city feel so much bigger, like an MMO is supposed to...  It's almost like this is how the game was meant to be played.  Weird.

 

18 minutes ago, Rudra said:

This has no relevance to the discussion.

Sure it does.  They're all things that improved convenience or advanced power creep.  Why not just answer the questions if you have no fear from the answers?

 

5 minutes ago, tidge said:

I'm against gish-galloping, does that bring any sunshine to your day?

Learned a new word, eh?  Too bad it doesn't apply to text-based arguments where time isn't a factor.

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

56 minutes ago, Rudra said:

This has no relevance to the discussion.

Sure it does.  They're all things that improved convenience or advanced power creep.  Why not just answer the questions if you have no fear from the answers?

It has no relevance to the discussion because it shifts the topic from the OP to a person posting on the OP. Where I am from, we call that a transition to personal attack from topic discussion. As for why didn't I answer the questions? They weren't posed to me.

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

especially with the level cap increase from 40 to 50

The level cap increase from 40 to 50 was a red side thing. Blue side was always level 50. Red side was capped at level 40 when released, though I don't remember the specific reason why and it was announced as a temporary level cap.

[Frozen Burn]

Seriously?  We're having another 'revamp the Fighting Pool' thread AGAIN??  Ugh.  No.  Just no.  Leave the set alone and quit asking to make the game easier.  Sheesh.

 

 

[megaericzero]

10 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Red side was capped at level 40 when released, though I don't remember the specific reason why and it was announced as a temporary level cap.

If I had to guess, Grandville wasn't done yet since it was a big marquee addition for Issue 7 (the issue after COV's release). Paragonwiki lists that Issue 1: Through the Looking Glass (which added Peregrine Island and the Rikti Crash Site) raised the hero level cap from 40 to 50 as well.

[Frozen Burn]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The level cap increase from 40 to 50 was a red side thing. Blue side was always level 50. Red side was capped at level 40 when released, though I don't remember the specific reason why and it was announced as a temporary level cap.

 

They didn't have the lvl 41-50 content ready by the time they had to release, if i recall correctly. 

 

Looking at the timeline, i6 "Along Came a Spider" (CoV) was released on Oct 27, 2005.  It was June 6, 2006 (~7 mos later) that i7 "Destiny Manifest" was released - which gave us Grandville and the Patron Pool powers, mayhem missions, and Recluse's Victory (a 4th PVP zone).

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

If I had to guess, Grandville wasn't done yet since it was a big marquee addition for Issue 7 (the issue after COV's release). Paragonwiki lists that Issue 1: Through the Looking Glass (which added Peregrine Island and the Rikti Crash Site) raised the hero level cap from 40 to 50 as well.

 

22 minutes ago, Frozen Burn said:

 

They didn't have the lvl 41-50 content ready by the time they had to release, if i recall correctly. 

 

Looking at the timeline, i6 "Along Came a Spider" (CoV) was released on Oct 27, 2005.  It was June 6, 2006 (~7 mos later) that i7 "Destiny Manifest" was released - which gave us Grandville and the Patron Pool powers, mayhem missions, and Recluse's Victory (a 4th PVP zone).

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot about that.

[PeregrineFalcon]

I think the best solution to the Tough/Weave issue that keeps coming up is to make Boxing and Kick worth taking.

 

The real issue is that people don't want to waste a power pick, so make it so they're not wasted power picks. If Boxing does enough damage to actually be worth using in combat that won't be power creep, it'll just be another attack.

 

None of the powers that a player can pick should be utter garbage.

[Drachenfang]

18 hours ago, biostem said:

Opportunity costs;  You WANT tough and weave - gotta invest to get them.  It's like one of the last "tough" choices players have to make in-game.  Don't take it away! 

Perhaps, but it's not exactly a tough choice. It's a boring choice. A dead power not even in a tray isn't fun or engaging in any way. If you want to make it a tough choice then say tough comes with a 10% hp penalty. I respect your opinion though and see both sides of it. 

[Drachenfang]

3 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I think the best solution to the Tough/Weave issue that keeps coming up is to make Boxing and Kick worth taking.

 

The real issue is that people don't want to waste a power pick, so make it so they're not wasted power picks. If Boxing does enough damage to actually be worth using in combat that won't be power creep, it'll just be another attack.

 

None of the powers that a player can pick should be utter garbage.

I agree with this sentiment a lot. There are so many power pool powers that never get picked like air superiority, jump kick, and flurry. If they were all good as attacks then that would really open the field for some new and nuanced builds with a lot more individual flavor than we have now.

[Drachenfang]

1 hour ago, Frozen Burn said:

Seriously?  We're having another 'revamp the Fighting Pool' thread AGAIN??  Ugh.  No.  Just no.  Leave the set alone and quit asking to make the game easier.  Sheesh.

 

 

Sorry, this is my first foray into the mire. Though if it keeps coming up in discussion then perhaps it is a hot topic that needs some addressing even if it is on the test server to see how some changes would affect the larger game.

[Frozen Burn]

17 minutes ago, Drachenfang said:

Sorry, this is my first foray into the mire. Though if it keeps coming up in discussion then perhaps it is a hot topic that needs some addressing even if it is on the test server to see how some changes would affect the larger game.

 

It's not really a hot topic other than people forgetting our history and the purpose of these pools.  Certainly, new members to the game and community may not be aware, which is quite understandable.  However....

 

People need to remember, pools are there to round out what you have and give extra "flavor" to your character.  Devs know that not everyone wants to take all their Primary and Secondary powers, and the Pools/Epics are there for us to give additional / alternate options - and YES, they will not be as good as your primary or secondary powers.  But they do enhance you character.

 

In regards to the Fighting Pool - Yes, most people want Tough and Weave.  And I would argue Weave even more that Tough.  But those 2 are the primary powers people want to help make their toons uber.  And yes, people cringe at having to take 1 "meh" attack before they can get their uberness.  

 

In i24, the Fighting Pool was revamped to make the "Meh" powers of Boxing and Kick (and Brawl) better by giving us Cross Punch and the "Synergy" system with it.  From the Wiki:   

 

Fighting Synergy boosts the three attacks in the Fighting power pool - Boxing, Kick, and Cross Punch - if a character selects more than one of the attacks. Taking all three attacks stacks their effects.

• Kick grants Boxing 15% more damage and 35% chance of mag 3 stun (instead of 10% chance of mag 2).
• Boxing grants Kick 15% more damage and 40% chance of mag .67 knockdown (instead of 15% chance).
• Cross Punch grants Boxing 15% more damage, drains the target of 2% endurance, and debuffs their recovery by 5%.
• Cross Punch grants Kick 15% more damage, drains the target of 3% endurance, and debuffs their recovery by 5%.
• Cross Punch gains 15% more damage and a 5% recharge and 5% tohit buff from both Boxing and Kick.

Fighting Synergy also boosts the effectiveness of Brawl. The debuffs all have a 10% chance of occurrence.

• Brawl gains 10% tohit and 10% recharge rate debuffs from both Boxing and Kick.
• Cross Punch grants Brawl 10% regeneration and 10% recovery debuffs.

 

Taking all these attacks and slotting them up can be quite an effective melee chain and do decent damage.  This can be great for Controllers, MMs, and Defenders that are in melee often and want melee attacks.  It also goes well with Martial Arts, Street Justice, and other melee types.  But most don't take advantage of the Fighting Synergy system.  

 

So, because most people only want Tough and Weave - they complain about having to take an attack power that is just "meh" on its own.  THAT IS THE TRADE OFF.  If you don't want the attack to be "meh" - take the other attacks in the pool and make it good.  Or take just the one and be happy you have Tough and Weave.  

 

The pool as it stands is structured well and fine.