Flight speed needs a buff

[ShardWarrior]

It'd be nice if you could slot Fly to reach Afterburner-levels of speed.

 

Absolutely.  I've no problem tossing a few slots into fly to make it go faster (that's kind of what fly speed enhancements are for...).  It's needing to take another two powers from the pool in order for flight to reach its full potential.  That's the big problem to me and why the nonsensical "must be a balance" speeches don't work.  I don't need to take any additional powers in the other travel pools in order for them to reach their limit.  You have to with the flight pool.

[biostem]

I like the way Champions Online did "Teleport" (phase out, REALLY OMIGOSH FAST flight, then phase in - on a timer, so you were going to phase back in like it or not.  And when out-of-phase, most graphics were suppressed and "blurry" (read: relatively low-rez), as well as being largely monochrome, they could in fact let you go HELLA fast, without your video card chugging out on you.

 

Anyway, I liked that a lot better than CoX's implementation.  Especially since the "phase out" part was nearly instantaneous, making it a MUCH better "ohcrapI'mabouttodie" escape option.

 

I liked CO's teleport as a kind of "astral jump" power, but it never felt very teleporty to me. I prefer CoH's form of teleportation.

 

Agreed... CO's teleport is more about you phasing out, then moving freely in 3 dimensions, then popping back in.  You don't really disappear then reappear in another spot, at least not from your own perspective.  It would be cool if there was a "combat teleport" power in CoH, where the teleport range was much shorter, so was the end cost, but it applied a minor/brief disorient to nearby enemies and allowed you to reposition/change direction more easily.

[PaxArcana]

I liked CO's teleport as a kind of "astral jump" power, but it never felt very teleporty to me. I prefer CoH's form of teleportation.

 

Yeah, I can see that.  To the person doing the teleporting, it was as you say.

 

To anyone ELSE, though?  You'd disappear from one spot, and a few seconds later, reappear somewhere else.  In about as much time, total, as a CoX teleport, too; CO had you disappear faster, then STAY disappeared longer.

 

Really, it's a matter of interface and control.  In a single player game (e.g. Dishonored) you can have the whole game stop while you pick your target.  In a multiplayer game, that just doesn't work.

[Sunsette]

I liked CO's teleport as a kind of "astral jump" power, but it never felt very teleporty to me. I prefer CoH's form of teleportation.

 

Yeah, I can see that.  To the person doing the teleporting, it was as you say.

 

To anyone ELSE, though?  You'd disappear from one spot, and a few seconds later, reappear somewhere else.  In about as much time, total, as a CoX teleport, too; CO had you disappear faster, then STAY disappeared longer.

 

Really, it's a matter of interface and control.  In a single player game (e.g. Dishonored) you can have the whole game stop while you pick your target.  In a multiplayer game, that just doesn't work.

 

The main issue with the CO teleport, which was indeed thematically quite cool, was that it was very slow for a teleport imo. But in general high speeds is something hard to do because of graphical fidelity and net speed concerns.

[PaxArcana]

It's not just that - I don't think the human brain could handle a true "instantaneous teleport" movement power.

[SwitchFade]

It'd be nice if you could slot Fly to reach Afterburner-levels of speed.

 

Absolutely.  I've no problem tossing a few slots into fly to make it go faster (that's kind of what fly speed enhancements are for...).  It's needing to take another two powers from the pool in order for flight to reach its full potential.  That's the big problem to me and why the nonsensical "must be a balance" speeches don't work.  I don't need to take any additional powers in the other travel pools in order for them to reach their limit.  You have to with the flight pool.

 

Sure. Take away flight's vertical superiority, and give it more speed. Oh wait, you meant, you want it to be as fast as the others AND be superior in all maneuverable aspects

 

Gotcha, so make flight OP.

[justicebeliever]

It'd be nice if you could slot Fly to reach Afterburner-levels of speed.

 

Absolutely.  I've no problem tossing a few slots into fly to make it go faster (that's kind of what fly speed enhancements are for...).  It's needing to take another two powers from the pool in order for flight to reach its full potential.  That's the big problem to me and why the nonsensical "must be a balance" speeches don't work.  I don't need to take any additional powers in the other travel pools in order for them to reach their limit.  You have to with the flight pool.

 

That's not entirely true...Long Range Teleport requires at least 2 other TP power...

 

And I think we've settled on SS needs some love...so feels like it's kinda balanced already...To be clear, I wasn't advocated earlier that you can enhance Fly to Afterburner speeds, just that you could enhance it beyond it's existing speed cap...

[Sunsette]

There's nothing wrong with wanting a game where travel powers are basically irrelevant cosmetic conveniences to get to the combat, but there are a lot of games already where the only control players realistically have on their movement speeds is cosmetic; I don't want CoH to be one of them. I appreciate the idea of being able to sacrifice a little bit of something and getting a bit more speed in return, even if I think some of the travel pools could be tweaked upwards to improve them a bit.

[PaxArcana]

I appreciate the idea of being able to sacrifice a little bit of something and getting a bit more speed in return, [...]

 

THIS.  This, right here.

[ShardWarrior]

There's nothing wrong with wanting a game where travel powers are basically irrelevant cosmetic conveniences to get to the combat, but there are a lot of games already where the only control players realistically have on their movement speeds is cosmetic; I don't want CoH to be one of them. I appreciate the idea of being able to sacrifice a little bit of something and getting a bit more speed in return, even if I think some of the travel pools could be tweaked upwards to improve them a bit.

 

Your "little bit" is another mans "whole lot" or "too much".

[ShardWarrior]

Sure. Take away flight's vertical superiority, and give it more speed. Oh wait, you meant, you want it to be as fast as the others AND be superior in all maneuverable aspects

 

Gotcha, so make flight OP.

 

Allowing flight speed enhancement to actually work on fly is not making it OP, especially in a time where travel powers are becoming more and more irrelevant.

[ShardWarrior]

That's not entirely true...Long Range Teleport requires at least 2 other TP power...

 

And I think we've settled on SS needs some love...so feels like it's kinda balanced already...To be clear, I wasn't advocated earlier that you can enhance Fly to Afterburner speeds, just that you could enhance it beyond it's existing speed cap...

 

Indeed correct about Teleport.  My bad, I forgot about that one.

 

I would be happy if you could enhance it at all without needing to take another power to get afterburner.  Something is better than nothing.

[justicebeliever]

That's not entirely true...Long Range Teleport requires at least 2 other TP power...

 

And I think we've settled on SS needs some love...so feels like it's kinda balanced already...To be clear, I wasn't advocated earlier that you can enhance Fly to Afterburner speeds, just that you could enhance it beyond it's existing speed cap...

 

Indeed correct about Teleport.  My bad, I forgot about that one.

 

I would be happy if you could enhance it at all without needing to take another power to get afterburner.  Something is better than nothing.

 

I was thinking Fly+Enhancements < Afterburner

But still faster than Fly unenhanced.  Are we thinking the same?

[EggKookoo]

Allowing flight speed enhancement to actually work on fly is not making it OP, especially in a time where travel powers are becoming more and more irrelevant.

 

It's largely moot, as I doubt the HC devs are going to put much time into it, but this is what I'd like to see.

 

• Raise the Fly speed cap for everyone. Or just remove it and rely on ED (same could be done for Super Speed).
  
• Allow Flight Speed enhancements to increase Fly speed. At higher levels, I believe this should get fly up to roughly SS speed.
  
• Replace Afterburner with something thematic that provides some new play feature. Maybe some kind of knockback/down-based "bowl them over" attack similar to how Cannonball works (from New Mutants or X-Force). Could even still call it Afterburner. But ideas abound for that.
  
• Replace Burnout with some form of "overwhelming rapid attack" power for the Speed pool. As I mentioned before, a kind of one-person Gang War might be a place to start. And even here, we could still call it Burnout.
  

[PaxArcana]

• Replace Afterburner with something thematic that provides some new play feature. Maybe some kind of knockback/down-based "bowl them over" attack similar to how Cannonball works (from New Mutants or X-Force). Could even still call it Afterburner. But ideas abound for that.
  
• Replace Burnout with some form of "overwhelming rapid attack" power for the Speed pool. As I mentioned before, a kind of one-person Gang War might be a place to start. And even here, we could still call it Burnout.
  

 

Take a page from Long Range Teleport.

 

Fly - works like long range teleport, with an animation of zooming up into the sky, then the loading screen, then zooming down to a hard stop fifty feet up over whatever point is chosen for arrivals.

 

SJ and SS - works only in-zone, you get to choose between the Trainer and any exits/transit points in the zone you're currently in.  (IOW, no, it won't let you go directly to a new zone, BUT, you get to pick "my current zone's trainer" as an option, in compensation.)

[EggKookoo]

Take a page from Long Range Teleport.

 

Fly - works like long range teleport, with an animation of zooming up into the sky, then the loading screen, then zooming down to a hard stop fifty feet up over whatever point is chosen for arrivals.

 

I thought about something like that. "Sub-Orbital Flight" or something. I didn't want to steal Long Range Teleport's thunder.

[justicebeliever]

Take a page from Long Range Teleport.

 

Fly - works like long range teleport, with an animation of zooming up into the sky, then the loading screen, then zooming down to a hard stop fifty feet up over whatever point is chosen for arrivals.

 

I thought about something like that. "Sub-Orbital Flight" or something. I didn't want to steal Long Range Teleport's thunder.

 

Long Range Teleport is a sharing kind of power...He's humble...  ;)

[jack_nomind]

There's nothing wrong with wanting a game where travel powers are basically irrelevant cosmetic conveniences to get to the combat, but there are a lot of games already where the only control players realistically have on their movement speeds is cosmetic; I don't want CoH to be one of them. I appreciate the idea of being able to sacrifice a little bit of something and getting a bit more speed in return, even if I think some of the travel pools could be tweaked upwards to improve them a bit.

 

Your "little bit" is another mans "whole lot" or "too much".

 

One man's "little bit" being given up "in exchange for speed" is mobility when SS is taken instead of Fly.  In that case, it's not a second speed power that needs to be taken to make the power usable; it's a pick from entire second power pool, Leaping, to provide a measure of the 3d mobility Fly has innately.  (I suppose a more literal parity would be giving Fly speeds like SS's ground speed on the vertical axis, and speeds like SS's vertical mobility on the horizontal plane.  Glad we don't have that.)

 

It seems like all of the anti-Afterburner arguments in this thread would be resolved just as well by returning the Fly pool to its i17 state (as base Fly speeds were buffed in i18 and Afterburner was added in i20): at that point, Fly needed enhancements to reach its speed cap and did not need (could not take) a second power to improve its effectiveness.  It'd be a great April Fool's prank from the HC devs but I think it mostly just suggests that the argument is weak and a different approach is needed.

[SwitchFade]

Sure. Take away flight's vertical superiority, and give it more speed. Oh wait, you meant, you want it to be as fast as the others AND be superior in all maneuverable aspects

 

Gotcha, so make flight OP.

 

Allowing flight speed enhancement to actually work on fly is not making it OP, especially in a time where travel powers are becoming more and more irrelevant.

 

Your original post eluded to a desire far something far different than what this post indicates.

 

To wit, leap and SS may be faster, but they lack the vertical maneuverability of flight. This is a fair idea.

 

Should flight be enhaceable to be faster? NOT just made at its cap out of the box?

 

You want flight to equal leap speed? Fine, cap the Y axis at leap height, and make flight drop out of the sky at roughly the same time over distance ratio as maax leap.

 

You want flight to be as fast as SS? Ok, then make flight as fast as SS, and anchor you to the ground, save for small "jumps."

 

You want fly to be maneuverable? Then it's not as fast as the other two.

 

Not everything needs to be a carbon copy, really. Maybe, flight got a base speed buff because people cried for it for 7 years. But MAYBE the speed cap was retained because ..

 

Superior y, z axis maneuverability.

[Obitus]

 

One man's "little bit" being given up "in exchange for speed" is mobility when SS is taken instead of Fly.  In that case, it's not a second speed power that needs to be taken to make the power usable; it's a pick from entire second power pool, Leaping, to provide a measure of the 3d mobility Fly has innately.  (I suppose a more literal parity would be giving Fly speeds like SS's ground speed on the vertical axis, and speeds like SS's vertical mobility on the horizontal plane.  Glad we don't have that.)

 

It seems like all of the anti-Afterburner arguments in this thread would be resolved just as well by returning the Fly pool to its i17 state (as base Fly speeds were buffed in i18 and Afterburner was added in i20): at that point, Fly needed enhancements to reach its speed cap and did not need (could not take) a second power to improve its effectiveness.  It'd be a great April Fool's prank from the HC devs but I think it mostly just suggests that the argument is weak and a different approach is needed.

 

 

I don't think the substance of your position is entirely unreasonable, but acting like Super Speed has oh-so-major downsides seems a little out of place at this stage of the game.  SS provides stealth; it's in the most attractive power pool in the entire game, and vertical movement is cheap.  You've managed to flip the build-investment calculus on its head - actually arguing that SS is less build efficient than Fly, which strikes me as a bizarre claim in the general case.

 

Fly, by contrast, is an easier travel power to use.  That's its advantage, which was super relevant back before temp powers started raining from the sky, but seems far less so now.

[jack_nomind]

I don't think the substance of your position is entirely unreasonable, but acting like Super Speed has oh-so-major downsides seems a little out of place at this stage of the game.  SS provides stealth; it's in the most attractive power pool in the entire game, and vertical movement is cheap.  You've managed to flip the build-investment calculus on its head - actually arguing that SS is less build efficient than Fly, which strikes me as a bizarre claim in the general case.

 

Fly, by contrast, is an easier travel power to use.  That's its advantage, which was super relevant back before temp powers started raining from the sky, but seems far less so now.

 

Speed absolutely is the most attractive pool in the game... but that doesn't transitively make Super Speed the most attractive travel power in the game.  And all of the powers you show exchange SS's speed for vertical mobility -- you'd have an equivalent argument by somehow getting SS-like ground speeds from a temp power as an augmentation for Fly.  Well.

 

If you're making the argument that travel powers are entirely obsolete in this stage of the game, fine; but it applies equally to every one of them (except i guess Teleport?), not selectively to one particular mode of speed.

[Obitus]

You've managed to flip the build-investment calculus on its head - actually arguing that SS is less build efficient than Fly, which strikes me as a bizarre claim in the general case.

 

Let me give you a tangible example:  years ago, when I originally mocked up my proof-of-concept INV/SS Tanker with soft-capped Psi Defense, I used the Flight pool, because Fly was an important part of my Tanker's character concept.  But it was abundantly obvious to me from the beginning that the build was only a curiosity in that state; very few, if any, players would actually want to play it.

 

Why?  Because, among other things, perma-Hover isn't workable for a Super Strength build (Footstomp), and arguably isn't really workable for melee builds generally (among other things, auto-follow does weird things when you're in Hover).  So you lose a crucial amount of DEF, and a significant amount of melee-relevant combat maneuverability, by picking the Flying pool instead of Combat Jumping (or you take Jumping too, and skip Hasten).  You also lose a couple of power picks, basically a concept-build tax.  Therefore for my own Tanker, I compromised, bringing the Psi DEF down to 32% to make room for Hasten, more attacks, etc.

 

When I quickly threw together the updated version for Call Me Awesome's guide, I just ditched Fly for the jumping pool.  Voila, it works.  These days, if I didn't care about concept, it'd be a no-brainer for most builds - either skip travel entirely, or pick up Super Speed for the stealth, treating the speed as a bonus. 

 

Of course I recognize that not everyone cares about the min/max perspective, and that's fine, but it does seem a little anachronistic to argue as if travel powers must be mechanically balanced against each other as if in a vacuum, when travel qua travel is at its lowest value ever, easy to arrange with zero power picks at all.  Even if we didn't have temp/prestige powers raining from the sky, I think it'd be inappropriate to measure travel powers against each other on a one-to-one basis, because pool choices matter too.  You only get four of them.  The existence of Hasten therefore gives SS an enormous advantage before you even start talking about vertical movement or MPH.

 

Take a page from Long Range Teleport.

 

Fly - works like long range teleport, with an animation of zooming up into the sky, then the loading screen, then zooming down to a hard stop fifty feet up over whatever point is chosen for arrivals.

 

SJ and SS - works only in-zone, you get to choose between the Trainer and any exits/transit points in the zone you're currently in.  (IOW, no, it won't let you go directly to a new zone, BUT, you get to pick "my current zone's trainer" as an option, in compensation.)

 

This is a very cool idea.

[Obitus]

Speed absolutely is the most attractive pool in the game... but that doesn't transitively make Super Speed the most attractive travel power in the game.

 

I never said it did.  Is your position that power-pool choices don't affect the opportunity cost of selecting a given travel power?

 

And all of the powers you show exchange SS's speed for vertical mobility

 

Correct, but you can run really really fast most of the time and use the temp powers to get over unusually inconvenient obstacles.

 

If you're making the argument that travel powers are entirely obsolete in this stage of the game, fine; but it applies equally to every one of them (except i guess Teleport?), not selectively to one particular mode of speed.

 

I'm making the argument that travel powers are largely a concept tax on high-end builds - except for Super Speed, which has a great deal of utility inside missions.  By extension, I'm also making the argument that you can't compare travel powers on a 1-to-1 mechanical basis as if it were 2007.  Super Speed was actually given its stealth as a result of this sort of comparison, way back when; the stealth was designed to facilitate safer travel, but of course now it's turned into an end in itself.  Things have changed, a lot.

 

Anyway, no, it doesn't follow that if all travel powers qua travel powers are obsolete, they're all equally bad.  That's why I keep talking about the appeal of the Speed pool and SS's stealth.

[jack_nomind]

Anyway, no, it doesn't follow that if all travel powers qua travel powers are obsolete, they're all equally bad.  That's why I keep talking about the appeal of the Speed pool and SS's stealth.

 

SS's Stealth is, itself, also obsolete for highly optimized builds. 

 

But really, your point about travel qua travel isn't well taken to begin with; that's entirely what the anti-Afterburner comments in thread have been about, and it absolutely was the basis of my comparison.  I don't understand what very specific world you're angling for here -- it's not 2007 but it's also not really today, because we're discussing travel powers as concept-necessary picks when you yourself have given a list of reasons they aren't.  It's not a world without temp powers but it's also not a world with all of them.  At the beginning you said we were essentially in agreement, but you're clearly at issue with something and I don't think I understand exactly what.

[Obitus]

 

But really, your point about travel qua travel isn't well taken to begin with; that's entirely what the anti-Afterburner comments in thread have been about, and it absolutely was the basis of my comparison.  I don't understand what very specific world you're angling for here -- it's not 2007 but it's also not really today, because we're discussing travel powers as concept-necessary picks when you yourself have given a list of reasons they aren't.  It's not a world without temp powers but it's also not a world with all of them.  At the beginning you said we were essentially in agreement, but you're clearly at issue with something and I don't think I understand exactly what.

 

At the beginning - by which I mean the first post of yours to which I replied - you acted as if the position contrary to yours was self-evidently dumb.  Or at least that's how it read to me.  I believe that was unfair.

 

But let's back up, because clearly we have a miscommunication.  When I say "concept builds," I'm referring to thematic or aesthetic concerns, not mechanical ones.  Y'know, a character concept, as in, "this guy is super strong, shoots lasers from his eyes, and flies really fast."  Based on the above-quoted paragraph I have no idea what you thought I meant by that term, or why you think that the term somehow contradicts everything else I've said.  Quite frankly, the above-quoted paragraph doesn't parse at all, to me.

 

Yes, ok, you can farm 30 minutes worth of stealth suit at a time by going to a specific Mayhem mission; that's a little different from being able to buy 5 hours worth of Jetpack for a piddly 50k INF from the P2W vendor - not least because you're likely to spend more time in Stealth than you are to spend using a jetpack.  I maintain that spending one pick on SS, when you already likely have Hasten, to complement a +stealth IO and achieve effective invisibility in most missions is a worthwhile investment, irrespective of SS's travel utility (which isn't nothing). 

 

Do you disagree with that?

 

It's pretty simple:  no one needs travel powers anymore.  Given that fact, the main reasons to take a travel power are for a tiny bit of extra convenience and/or because of aesthetic/thematic preferences, or in the case of SS, for a relatively cost-efficient stealth supplement (and some travel utility).  You seem to think it's blindingly obvious that people who want a flying character concept should have to pay 3 power picks and several slots (not to mention a pool pick that may or may not suit their build, mechanically) in return for the privilege of maxing fly speed.  I don't agree with that premise, even though I'm not unsympathetic to the notion that Fly is an inherently superior mode of travel.

 

You might ask, "But if you're only taking Fly for your character concept, then what do you care about its speed?"  And on the surface, I suppose that might sound like a rhetorical kill shot to you, but to me it sounds like willful blindness - because it's perfectly natural for someone who invested in Fly to want to max it out, or at least have an option to improve its speed beyond what anyone can get from a temp power at the P2W Vendor. 

 

In other words, investing in Fly on certain builds is a bit of a catch-22; you either take the one power and feel stifled because you wasted a precious pool and power pick on a slow mode of travel that you could have more-or-less equaled with a temp/prestige power, or you chase bad "money" with good by going whole hog and grabbing up two more powers.  This is basically a build-resource tax for wanting your character to look a certain way.

 

Some people in this thread have suggested that Fly's speed should be improvable via slotting; I don't see anything wrong with that.  In principle, that solution would even satisfy your objection, because SS doesn't require slotting.  Others have suggested that SS's speed should also be enhanceable; I don't have a problem with that either, though I believe that the original devs said that SS already moves as fast as the server allows.

 

Ha, you know what?  I just checked in-game, and it's actually worse than I thought:  The jetpack gives me the same (capped) fly speed as Fly, sans Afterburner (58.63 MPH @ level 50).  And the Rocket Board?  That gives me 69.64 MPH.  Of course, the Rocket Board turns off your toggles, so most people would probably consider it unusable, but still.  Crazy.