Replace buttons with toggles

[DrRocket]

Just a quality of life suggestion...

 

In the old days the choice of buttons versus toggles where actually quite a big deal.

 

In the old days tankers got toggles and scrappers got buttons, why did this matter?

 

See if the those days, the tanker got say held, his toggles dropped and he was basically fodder. For the Scrapper, if held, the toggles remained. Huge difference in those days.

 

Now that being Status Attack affected does not drop toggles, the point or difference is now moot.

 

So why not turn the buttons such as mez protect into toggles?

 

As always, please provide feedback but let this be a learning opportunity

 

V/R 

[megaericzero]

Erm, I'm not quite sure what you mean.

 

Super Reflexes, Ninjitsu, and Shield Defense have click-based mez protection whereas other sets are toggles, regardless of archetype. (With the exception of Sentinel which has an either-or option for SR that the current devs don't want to do again.)

 

If those are what you're referring to, I believe you'll get push-back from the people who like click mez protection for:

• the ability to stack
• not suppressing
• not detoggling if your endurance runs out

Edited September 10 by megaericzero

[Rudra]

"In the old days", Scrappers and Tankers both got click powers and toggles. It depended on the power set. So what are you talking about?

 

Also:

26 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

See if the those days, the tanker got say held, his toggles dropped and he was basically fodder. For the Scrapper, if held, the toggles remained. Huge difference in those days.

Tankers toggles got dropped but Scrapper toggles didn't? Toggles are toggles regardless of what AT may be using it. So again, what are you talking about?

 

26 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

So why not turn the buttons such as mez protect into toggles?

The advantage of a click defensive power over a toggle defensive power is that you can stack them. You can't stack your toggles because they are either on or off. Click powers have their duration and if you can trigger it again during that duration, you get double the effect. (Edit: Except for those powers that replace their effect rather than stack....)

 

Edited September 10 by Rudra

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, megaericzero said:

Erm, I'm not quite sure what you mean.

 

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

"In the old days", Scrappers and Tankers both got click powers and toggles. It depended on the power set. So what are you talking about?

 

He's probably conflating the way the game was at launch, when toggles were mutually exclusive, and the comparatively sparse number of sets available.  Tankers only had... what, 5 primaries then, none of which had click status protection, and scrappers only had 5 or 6 secondaries, with at least one of them having click status protection.

 

2 hours ago, DrRocket said:

So why not turn the buttons such as mez protect into toggles?

 

Because click status protection can be used like a Break Free, so the player can conserve endurance; or it can be set to auto-fire and overlap, which may grant additional benefits, like extra debuff resistance, neither of which is true of toggle status protection.  This approach gives players more flexibility and variety to work with than they would have if every status protection power were a toggle.

[DrRocket]

Apologies for the confusion...

 

I was referring to mez protection powers, during live days...

 

In live days tankers had toggles to provide their status effect protection and scrappers had to click buttons to keep their status effect protections.

 

In the old days... if a tanker happened to get held, all their toggles wend down, which left them helpless, Scrappers had many powers are inherent or in buttons, whose effects were unaffected by the status effect,

 

Very sorry for the confusion, my apologies

[Psi-bolt]

3 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

Apologies for the confusion...

 

I was referring to mez protection powers, during live days...

 

In live days tankers had toggles to provide their status effect protection and scrappers had to click buttons to keep their status effect protections.

 

In the old days... if a tanker happened to get held, all their toggles wend down, which left them helpless, Scrappers had many powers are inherent or in buttons, whose effects were unaffected by the status effect,

 

Very sorry for the confusion, my apologies

On Live or Homecoming, the majority of status protection powers are and were toggles for both Tankers and Scrappers (And Brutes, Stalkers).  Only SR, Shield and Ninjitsu have click based status protection powers.

 

It sounds like you are asking for those powers in those power sets to be toggles.  Please note that there is an end cost issue to doing that besides all the other issues that other have brought up.

[biostem]

On 9/10/2024 at 6:10 PM, DrRocket said:

In the old days tankers got toggles and scrappers got buttons, why did this matter?

Most melee AT armor powers are toggles, with only a few having click-powers, (if we're actually talking about the core DEF/RES and status protection powers).  I'm not sure where you're getting this tanker/scrapper thing, though - that's never been the case...

[SeraphimKensai]

On 9/10/2024 at 6:22 PM, megaericzero said:

I believe you'll get push-back from the people who like click mez protection for:

• the ability to stack
• not suppressing
• not detoggling if your endurance runs out

I'm in this camp. I double stack my mez protection when playing anything that has click based mez protection. C'est la belle vie.

[biostem]

45 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I'm in this camp. I double stack my mez protection when playing anything that has click based mez protection. C'est la belle vie.

It's also ok for powersets to differ somewhat - I don't, not would I want, all powersets to be homogenous...

[UltraAlt]

On 9/10/2024 at 6:10 PM, DrRocket said:

In the old days tankers got toggles and scrappers got buttons

 

Not true.

 

On 9/10/2024 at 6:10 PM, DrRocket said:

See if the those days, the tanker got say held, his toggles dropped and he was basically fodder. For the Scrapper, if held, the toggles remained. Huge difference in those days.

 

er, what?

 

On 9/10/2024 at 6:10 PM, DrRocket said:

So why not turn the buttons such as mez protect into toggles?

 

I don't see why it needs to be changed.

 

Honestly, if you put 2 recharges enhancements in a scrapper mez protection power it will recharge faster than it wears off.

I always put it one recharge enhancement in it and put it on auto-fire and then add a 2nd recharge enhancement in it as soon as I level up and get slots.

 

But you have to give it time to go off, you can very likely loose mez protection if you are in combat when it wears off and you keep queueing up new powers and not letting the autofire go off.

 

From an archetype design standpoint, you hit on why it is a toggle for tanks and a click for scrappers.

 

On 9/10/2024 at 6:10 PM, DrRocket said:

the tanker got say held, his toggles dropped and he was basically fodder.

 

The Tank needs an anti-mez constantly going like that because they are supposed to taunting/holding the agro for the rest of the team.

It seems most of the time now that Tanks just want to "Hulk smash!" and don't really care about their teammates - especially as levels progress.

 

Scrappers on the other hand really technically don't need anti-mez running all the time if they aren't trying to "Hulk smash!" everything.

As a scrapper, you weren't expected to "tank" enemies but out damage them.

 

You look into a room and see which enemies are in here.

Can some of them mez? click the anti-mez power before going in.

Maybe even Challenge (single target taunt) or pull minions around the corner and jump them until you have whittled down the group to a number that you feel you can take all at one time and hit the anti-mez before running in to attack them.

 

The different archetypes and power sets are intentionally built to play differently so that players can try different things and experience the game differently which increases replayability.

That is to say, all characters shouldn't be played the same if they have different archetypes/power sets/power picks. You base how you play with a character that character's own powers, strengths, and weaknesses.

 

To sum up your question "Why do Tanks have toggle anti-mez, and Scrappers have click anti-mez?" with the simplest reply.

They are different archetypes.

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, DrRocket said:

Very sorry for the confusion, my apologies

 

I still think you are confused.

 

3 hours ago, DrRocket said:

I was referring to mez protection powers, during live days...

 

I'm not 100% sure, but I think everyone that replied to you played before the Sunset.

 

I started playing about a week before Issue 2 dropped.

 

 

Edited September 12 by UltraAlt
type "paying" instead of "playing" .... but it was subscription then ... well, I think the box came with one month free ... but still ... even so...

[Psyonico]

The only mez protection that was a click at release was Super Reflexes, all other mez protection powers were toggles, for both scrappers and tanks.

 

When CoV came out Ninjitsu was given a click power for mez protection, but that was limited to stalkers at the time.

 

Finally, later, Shield was given a click mez protection when it came out.

 

To my knowledge no power sets had mez protection powers that were changed from clicks to toggles.

[lemming]

I think at one point, you could only have one toggle, but heck, that may have gone away in beta.  There were a lot of changes early on.

 

Found this tidbit in issue 2

Super Reflexes/Elude has been modified to a Click Power that lasts 100 seconds. It still offers the same buffs, but you now CAN attack. However, after the power wears, it will drain your Endurance and leave you unable to recover Endurance for 20 seconds.

 

[Rudra]

7 minutes ago, lemming said:

I think at one point, you could only have one toggle, but heck, that may have gone away in beta. 

Nope. That existed for entirely too long. (I can't remember, but I think the reason given was that Jack said no character should need more than 1 armor toggle at a time.) I know this did not go away in Beta because I was never in Beta and when my Dark/Dark Scrapper started fighting Tsoo at level 20, I screamed at having to decide about whether to use Murkty Cloud to defend against the Green Ink Men, Obsidian Shield to defend against the Yellow Ink Men, or Dark Embrace to defend against the Dragon, Eagle, Serpent, and other minions that always spawned with each other.

[lemming]

15 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Nope. That existed for entirely too long. (I can't remember, but I think the reason given was that Jack said no character should need more than 1 armor toggle at a time.) I know this did not go away in Beta because I was never in Beta and when my Dark/Dark Scrapper started fighting Tsoo at level 20, I screamed at having to decide about whether to use Murkty Cloud to defend against the Green Ink Men, Obsidian Shield to defend against the Yellow Ink Men, or Dark Embrace to defend against the Dragon, Eagle, Serpent, and other minions that always spawned with each other.

I think you're right.  Based on the PvP note in issue 4 where powers could drop a toggle, it must have been before that.

 

Going thru the patch notes, I'm really glad a lot of changes happened.   "Oh yea, that royally sucked before the changed it"

I mean there are some changes I still scratch my head over, but those are much fewer.

[Luminara]

13 minutes ago, lemming said:

I think at one point, you could only have one toggle, but heck, that may have gone away in beta.

 

Toggle mutual exclusivity was removed before Issue 1.  Defense wasn't working the way they hoped it would (meaning, Defense-based mitigation was crap at launch).  It was also impossible for new players to figure out which toggle to have active at any given time, since a spawn could have 3-5 different damage types and mez, so characters reliant on Resistance weren't surviving much longer than those using Defense.  Removing toggle mutual exclusivity was one of the earliest attempts to fix these problems.

[lemming]

27 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Toggle mutual exclusivity was removed before Issue 1.  Defense wasn't working the way they hoped it would (meaning, Defense-based mitigation was crap at launch).  It was also impossible for new players to figure out which toggle to have active at any given time, since a spawn could have 3-5 different damage types and mez, so characters reliant on Resistance weren't surviving much longer than those using Defense.  Removing toggle mutual exclusivity was one of the earliest attempts to fix these problems.

I think Rudra and you are both correct.   I did find this in the 2005-01-04 patch.

I think most toggles were made non-exclusive, but there were still some powers that you had to choose.   I didn't remember the Invunerable choice, but I did remember having to use teleport because you couldn't move otherwise.

 

• Invulnerability/Unyielding Stance has been renamed to "Unyielding". It no longer makes you Immobile and offers resistance to Immobilization. It is no longer Mutually Exclusive with Temp Invulnerability, however, it comes with a Defense debuff. Slightly increased its End Cost.
• The powers Ice Armor/Frozen Armor, Wet Ice, and Glacial Armor are no longer mutually exclusive and can stack.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Patch_Notes/2005-01-04

[Jacke]

On 9/11/2024 at 12:38 AM, Luminara said:

...at launch, when ... scrappers only had 5 or 6 secondaries, with at least one of them having click status protection.

 

At launch there were the original 4 Scrapper Secondaries:

• Dark Armor
• Invulnerability
• Regeneration
• Super Reflexes

Which were the 4 Arcanaville did a detailed comparison on in Issue 7:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120905195532/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115310

 

On 9/11/2024 at 12:38 AM, Luminara said:

Because click status protection can be used like a Break Free, so the player can conserve endurance; or it can be set to auto-fire and overlap, which may grant additional benefits, like extra debuff resistance, neither of which is true of toggle status protection.

 

I never realised that.  The Click Status Protection Powers for Ninjitsu, Shield Defense, and Super Reflexes all have "Can Cast Through Hold Sleep Stun Terror", so indeed they can be used reactively.  Also, Super Reflexes' Practice Brawler doesn't provide protection against Terror and Confuse, which the Ninjitsu and Shield Defense do.

[Ukase]

For me, while I knew the status protection for shield could be used reactively, I kept it on auto fire. I recognize why some folks prefer that to be a click, but man, it is super annoying to have to click it. The whole point of having status protection is so you don't have to worry about it. For me, it is the single biggest reason to not play a shield armor character, unless I can find a way to get my build going without hasten, so I can leave it on auto-fire. 

On auto-fire, I can still get it to stack, although it's hardly ever necessary, except maybe in an MSR or a UGT. (but with a 30 mag stun, even that doesn't really cover it) 

If I had my way - every toggle we have would be an auto power. I detest toggling on after getting defeated, or worse, when some gimmick in the game decides to put me in a disguise, and when I come out, I'm de-toggled completely. Like that completely unnecessary detective that gives the needless mission to get you to Heather Townsend. So grateful I can go directly to her for the story arc and skip that nonsense completely.  

I do see a potential for headaches - like when going for those Ouro challenge badges. It would be a nightmare for a dark armor character to do anything with the no enhancements challenge. This is the only reason why I'm willing to accept it would never happen. But, I can dream!