Is it time to reimagine the Flight Pool?

[Scarlet Shocker]

Given the aggravation in a different thread regarding Group Fly from the Flight pool, it seems to me there's an argument that the issue is not just about user behaviour but also about how some of the powers work.

 

This post will be largely centred around Group Fly but the rest of the Flight pool is somewhat underwhelming - perhaps because it's one of the original pool sets, designed for travelling and largely filler elsewise.

 

Hover is almost always a viable power, ask any Blaster - but even that has limitations given some powers need a player to be actually on the ground  to activate and so precluded by Hover unless complex macros or binds for turning Hover off, activating the actual power you want to use and then reactivating Hover. It's a bugbear that seems largely unnecessary but aside from that, Hover is probably the 2nd most popular early power pick in game after Combat Jumping. (I don't have actual numbers here so guestimating here. Open to correction as always.)

 

Air Superiority seems like an emimently skippable power there as a filler and little else and there are many better options that would work for anyone using Hover. The only interesting ability of note is that it does -Fly but so does an Immob and most characters interested in using Hover would likely have access to such a power, so it's pretty redundant, if we want to be charitable about it.

 

I've personally never used Group Fly - I'm aware how annoying it can be to other players and I rarely play Masterminds. Those I have played (Beasts, Demons & Thugs) tend to have sufficient mobility when travelling over distance to not need it. The big Caveat here is that I've never taken an MM on an MSR and I'm quite unlikely to.

 

But if my understanding is correct, Group Fly is considered invaluable to MMs because it allows easy transport of pets over hazardous areas. Of itself that seems quite useful. You and your pets fly high in the sky and the bad guys don't get one over on you. But the issue is you're dragging the rest of the team around with you, whether they want it or not! That's the nub of it. The other players on your team or league have to be aware of Null the Gull and his ability to turn Fly off and to have visited them. Frankly, that is an untenable position for this power. It affects other players regardless of their own desire. It might once in the dim and distant past have had some utility but with the ability to get around our city so easily for everyone, there is no reason for it to impact other players at all. Hell, Jet Packs are now 10 an inf in game now. They literally give them away in some situations.

 

So why isn't Group Fly now modified into affecting only the PC and her pets? I doubt that's a difficult fix. In fact it should be added to Fly, so that the PC and Pets are automatically given the power of flight and go where they want to go and nobody else has their agency affected. That makes Group Fly redundant as it should be, and we can replace it with a power somebody actually might use.

 

In the past I advocated for a power I called Air Supremacy - a hand-clap PBAoE that did -Fly, KnockDown and Stun. Woudln't necessarily have to be high Mag but would annoy the fuck out of Skyraiders and those buggers in the Shadow Shard. You, dearest reader, may have a different idea of how to replace GF but surely a power that causes that much angst in game is way past its Best Before date and needs to go!

 

[GM Impervium]

This sounds more like a thread for suggestions and feedback, so, moved there =)

[Uun]

The Flight Pool was tweaked in i27p2 when Evasive Maneuvers was added and Afterburner was made a sub-power of Fly. While I'm not a fan of Hover or Air Superiority, I think both are fine as is and don't need to be changed or replaced. My suggestion for Group Fly would be to move the prompt to disable it from Null the Gull to the Options Window. It could work like the option requiring a prompt for teleports.

[Andreah]

If the toggle is moved to settings (and maybe even if it isn't) I'd like there to be a slash command option to set/change it too.

[FDR's Think Tank]

I feel like Group Fly could be similar to other travel only Powers that have special modifier abilities: only it gives that modifier ability to anyone affected by Group Fly... a Toggle to turn flying off.

 

Null the Gull seems nice, but the the problem is that it's one way or the other. You can't turn flying off when you don't need it and turn it on when you need it.... and that is the core problem people have. Having Null the Gull turn off Group Fly means you can't catch a ride without turning it back on.

 

What is the point of Group Fly? Is it to share flight with teammates? Or is it to create an obnoxious gameplay condition that people have to play around? A toggle that turns it off would be perfect, provided Pets never use it. Of course, you could change it so it's a "Toggle On" ability granted to people in group fly area... but if that's the case, you might want to extend the coverage of the area, so people slow to activate it don't get left behind and fall.

[Snarky]

When i started i fell in love with fly.  One of the many reasons, and in the top ten, why i play here instead of WoW is fly.  I use Fly or Sorcery Fly on 99% of my toons.  The others are quickly dropped anyways

 

on my early melee i would pick aor superiority to get to fly as a travel power.  
 

now i take Fly only.  I rarely take hover.  I turn fly on.  I leave fly on.  Unless my end bar is just horrid i am flying. 
 

i like fly with the speed boost. I am learning to use sorcery fly with TP, but do not like as much.  
 

Fly is slow.  My only complaint. Why does it need to be slower than every other travel power?  What balance is achieved by that?

[Andreah]

I think it (group fly) may have been useful occasionally, back in the early days of the game when there were fewer flight options. But even then, it was a bear -- I was on live a few times when people tried to use it for that and it was hard to stay inside the group flight bubble, and if you dropped out, you fell, almost to your death. No one wanted to use it like that mechanically. It was and still is useful in some narrow RP instances, but I would happily give that up for the trolling and complaining with it to go away.

 

There are so many good, cheap, and persistent flight options now it serves no purpose apart from flying pets. Just make it a flying pets power.

Edited September 18 by Andreah

[PeregrineFalcon]

The Flight Pool is probably the only travel power pool that I do not want to see the developers touch at all. Ever.

 

Look at the other pools first. Look at making their attacks worth taking. Please leave the Flight Pool alone. You all just made a weird nonsensicle change to all of the travel pools awhile back, it's fine now. Please don't add another stupid yellow ring combo system to the Flight Pool.

[mistagoat]

Heh, I said the same thing in a recent thread! Yes, wholeheartedly agree! This has been a nuisance since live, time to turn the page!

 

On 8/27/2024 at 8:07 AM, mistagoat said:

Regular fly should just extend to the owners pets and Group Fly should be eliminated in favor of anything else. MMs are the only folks who get any use out of it so lets not increase the end consumption and just give them a freebee here. Every toon in the game gets a free jet pack just for hitting level 2 so if the MM ever has a need for just themselves to fly but not their pets they can use that free jetpack.

 

Speaking for myself, I have never and will never need, want or benefit from another player bestowing flight upon me. It's an antiquated power that doesn't fit in the modern game.

 

Yes, yes, turn it off at Null, I know, but that doesn't help at all when you're on a TF with an old toon that didn't select that option and now you're a hover tank with no control and it's gonna be a miserable TF. It's a troll power with an awful opt out mechanic. I understand the game limitations and why it's done at Null but that sure doesn't make it convenient.  The never ending stream of posts that are all variations of "how to make group fly not the most obnoxious power in the game" is proof that there is a real issue. 

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

2 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

This sounds more like a thread for suggestions and feedback, so, moved there 😃

It's not a suggestion it's an idea open to discussions and opinions. Sorry to disappoint. I put it in GD for a reason.

[Andreah]

Here's another option.

 

Make Fly and Hover make the caster's pets fly or hover, too. Automatically, no group fly required. MM's basically get a freebie, and will spec out of group fly in short order, and we'll see it relegated to the rare RP instances where people use it to mimic zero gravity for a roleplay scene.

[The Trouble]

33 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Here's another option.

 

Make Fly and Hover make the caster's pets fly or hover, too. Automatically, no group fly required. MM's basically get a freebie, and will spec out of group fly in short order, and we'll see it relegated to the rare RP instances where people use it to mimic zero gravity for a roleplay scene.

I like this! Maybe just add this effect on to Supremacy, as in whatever travel power you use gets applied to your pets.

 

Granted, I don't know his internal workings as an NPC, but another idea would be to just grant everyone Null's phone number like a trusted Contact.  It would be nice to access his options without having to zone twice.

[AlwaysAPrice]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Why does it need to be slower than every other travel power?  What balance is achieved by that?

 

It's the trade-off for the freedom of movement it provides versus faster modes of movement that have to contend more with the environment. Fly can pretty much always get from A to B in a straight line, everything else has to navigate. Though the new implementation of Afterburner offsets that considerably.

[FDR's Think Tank]

It would be interesting if Group Fly became "Anti Gravity" and was indiscriminate about who was affected in range of the ability. Then powers like "Air Superiority" make more of a difference with less modification. For instance... it could gain the ability to target allies, sending them back to the ground safely and disabling the Anti-Gravity effect on them for a duration.

 

If Anti-Gravity made foes fly, then blasting them back to the earth with bonus damage is pretty nice.... while you give Air Superiority that dual targeting like some other powers that has a friendly effect on allies. It would make the "Group Fly" ability fun again... rather than this weird artifact of gameplay that is a liability. Flight is too easy for characters to access these days. It makes Group Fly very weird.

 

Of course, this suggestion is mostly predicated on the idea that Fly/Hover are shared with pets.

 

If you go this "Anti Gravity" route, you could actually have strategies where the team focuses on Air Superiority and using strategies related to it. You might also have specific powers that allow characters to ground themselves, even in Anti-Gravity. (Perhaps Freerunning from the Utility Belt set could be "Mag Boots"....)

Edited September 18 by FDR's Think Tank
Clarification.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

Fly is slow.  My only complaint. Why does it need to be slower than every other travel power?  What balance is achieved by that?

The reasons for this are because Fly gives you the ability to bee-line anywhere without having to navigate terrain like in Skyway City or Grandville, and because flying lets you avoid being attacked by enemies whereas running and jumping both leave you susceptible to enemy attacks while traveling. Teleport has the nuisance of having to constantly target where you want to go every 350 feet and briefly locks you into hover at the end (so players no longer just plummet to their deaths if they start dropping while teleporting like I was told some characters did). (Edit: Why they didn't just aim their teleport higher to compensate when they started dropping through teleport or just teleport to the ground/water to stop and reset it? No clue.)

 

Edited September 18 by Rudra

[megaericzero]

5 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Air Superiority seems like an emimently skippable power there as a filler and little else and there are many better options that would work for anyone using Hover. The only interesting ability of note is that it does -Fly but so does an Immob and most characters interested in using Hover would likely have access to such a power, so it's pretty redundant, if we want to be charitable about it.

Don't go hating on my boy Air Superiority. It's very useful to have a free "sit the [heck] down" power with high uptime, especially in the early levels. Plus, everyone has access to AS but not everyone has an immobilize.

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, megaericzero said:

Don't go hating on my boy Air Superiority. It's very useful to have a free "sit the [heck] down" power with high uptime, especially in the early levels. Plus, everyone has access to AS but not everyone has an immobilize.

Good point. I had a Controller back on Live (that I swear eventually will be remade on HC like all my other Live characters I still need to remake) that used both Air Superiority and Flurry. Those were my Controller's primary damaging attacks. (Without them, it took me over an hour to clear even tiny mission maps. With them, I could finally clear maps at what I considered to be an acceptable pace.) The -Fly component of Air Superiority was  also part of the PvP meta back on Live for knocking flying Blasters and Controllers to the ground where the rest of your team was waiting to tear them apart. So there are more uses for Air Superiority than what the author claims.

[Apogee]

Air Superiority is the best single target defense power in the game, and it does damage.  Now, if it only took Force Feedback...

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Uun said:

The Flight Pool was tweaked in i27p2 when Evasive Maneuvers was added and Afterburner was made a sub-power of Fly. While I'm not a fan of Hover or Air Superiority, I think both are fine as is and don't need to be changed or replaced. My suggestion for Group Fly would be to move the prompt to disable it from Null the Gull to the Options Window. It could work like the option requiring a prompt for teleports.

I rarely take “extra” powers.  Mule powers, situational powers etc.  most of these may as well never exist for me.  I go deep into primary and secondary and epic. 1 travel power and some leadership. Sometimes maneuvers tactics and assault.  But only because they add a alot and i am slotting the powers i took as much as possible.  
 

But Afterburner?  I really tried to get Afterburner as much as possible. It is bittersweet that it is “free” but on cooldown now

[Scarlet Shocker]

2 hours ago, Andreah said:

I think it (group fly) may have been useful occasionally, back in the early days of the game when there were fewer flight options. But even then, it was a bear -- I was on live a few times when people tried to use it for that and it was hard to stay inside the group flight bubble, and if you dropped out, you fell, almost to your death. No one wanted to use it like that mechanically. It was and still is useful in some narrow RP instances, but I would happily give that up for the trolling and complaining with it to go away.

 

There are so many good, cheap, and persistent flight options now it serves no purpose apart from flying pets. Just make it a flying pets power.

 

This was rather my point.

 

Fly itself is rather overshadowed by Mystic Flighty which does that job much better - the only downside with the latter is the funky gfx that go with it that jar when playing a non-magical character.

 

Every power in the Flight Pool is sub-par IMO but the pool itself is invaluable so my question is; how do we make it worthy of the game of this venerability?

[shortguy on indom]

• ONLY THING FLIGHT POOL IS LACKING IS A MOTH FLY ANIMATION VISUAL....
• AND MORE NIGHT TIME MAPS WITH A STREETLIGHT.

[lemming]

48 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Teleport has the nuisance of having to constantly target where you want to go every 350 feet and briefly locks you into hover at the end (so players no longer just plummet to their deaths if they start dropping while teleporting like I was told some characters did). (Edit: Why they didn't just aim their teleport higher to compensate when they started dropping through teleport or just teleport to the ground/water to stop and reset it? No clue.)

Back when Invulnerability didn't let you move if you turned on Unyielding (?), teleport was the only way to move.   And you would instantly start falling.

Other users would fall after a brief pause and this was lengthened considerably by HC recently.   You can still cause yourself to fall by hitting a power or movement key to land quickly.

Teleport and Fly are my main travel powers now, with Superleap often enough.    Teleport is the fastest, but takes more attention and you can overshoot.

It's also great for stealthing.   Great for just popping past drones & other high perception mobs.  (And sometimes into one that hadn't rendered for you. 😄 )

[lemming]

I tend to get Hover, Flight, and Evasive Maneuvers.   It's a pity the def doesn't work in combat at all.  Group fly on a couple MMs.  I don't think any of my chars took Air Superiority.

[lyra]

hover+Fly= my nr.1 choice for movment.set direction, auto-move and lean back.

(nr.2 is Superjump+Speed.)

 

i like Air Superiority for its KD.very helpful against bosses.

the cooldown on Afterburner can be filled with free jetpack(jumppack?) from startvendor (+gives flyspeed)

 

the other 2 powers are not important to me.

 

 

[Rudra]

37 minutes ago, lemming said:

Back when Invulnerability didn't let you move if you turned on Unyielding (?), teleport was the only way to move.   And you would instantly start falling.

Other users would fall after a brief pause and this was lengthened considerably by HC recently.   You can still cause yourself to fall by hitting a power or movement key to land quickly.

Teleport and Fly are my main travel powers now, with Superleap often enough.    Teleport is the fastest, but takes more attention and you can overshoot.

It's also great for stealthing.   Great for just popping past drones & other high perception mobs.  (And sometimes into one that hadn't rendered for you. 😄 )

Yeah, back when Unyielding was Unyielding Stance, Invul' characters took Teleport to get around. So did some Stone Armor characters for Granite. My comment wasn't in reference to those though. Back on Live, before they added Hover to Teleport, and then extended the duration of Hover after teleporting, characters would routinely wind up falling faster and faster during/after teleporting because those players weren't fast enough at teleporting to avoid it. On the occasions that Teleport glitched and just started dropping my characters at the end of teleporting as well, I would either aim my teleports higher to keep going or teleport to the ground/water to stop the momentum. However, I would occasionally hear players complaining that Teleport killed their characters because they were falling during/after their teleports and slamming into the ground. Which is why Hover got added to Teleport by the devs.

 

And yes, I know we can end Teleport's hover effect if we attempt any movement, I've used that to jump up from where I was hanging in mid-air to reach a platform I was trying to reach but couldn't directly see to teleport to on several occasions. However, just hitting the W key, you still find yourself moving at Hover's speed for a second or two until you break out of the effect.

 

Edited September 18 by Rudra
Edited to correct mispelled "reference".