-
Posts
1285 -
Joined
-
Quote:Right now, you can use several emotes while in flight but not moving. Some of them have additional bobbing specifically when in flight, yoga is one of these. You can even float downward without breaking the pose, which allows you to combine tilting back and floating down to fly about butt-first. However, if you fly in any other direction, you will break out of the pose.Can't you already do that? I remember having a male character that was meant to be in a wheelchair, so I used Hover and one of the male sitting emotes. Not sure if it'd work on female versions of the emotes...
What is being asked for, I think, is that something like /em sit or /em yoga be added as flyposes, which you can activate while flying forward. Considering that the animation for a bobbing yoga hover is already in the game, allowing it to be used as a forward flypose would probably require less work than anything requiring an entirely new set of animations.
For what it's worth, I'm for it. I was for it about a year ago when I suggested it, too, and when I PM'd BAB asking whether it was possible. I got no response then, but I wish you better luck. -
To quibble pedantically, a straight up or down vote rating system would be less subjective than a star system. When you ask people to assign meaning to stars, and then assign stars to arcs, that's two subjective decisions being made, and the effect of the first is to obscure the meaning of the second. When you ask people to say whether they liked or disliked an arc, you will find out in unambiguous terms whether they liked or disliked the arc!
-
Well, actually, it's for the devs to decide. And it has been mentioned here and there that at least part of the incipient endgame system will involve new zone events, so there's some good news for you.
I have mixed feelings about street-sweeping. I've done it from time to time - there are certain builds that are particularly apt at it, and certain locales that make it particularly rewarding - but part of what made it enjoyable for me was the distinct lack of competition for street spawns. If I had to try to avoid accidentally killstealing in a zone with a few dozen other players, it might become less pleasant for me. That's purely my own selfishness talking, though; if I want to streetsweep without interruption, I can set to x8 and run To Save A Thousand Worlds. :P -
-
Quote:Nailed it.You and I arrived at an impasse long ago: you stalwartly refuse to accept any design for the power that does not allow it to be able to be used at all times, regardless of the reductions that need to be made to balance that out; I have a gross dislike of turning the capstone of the set into little more than just another armor toggle. This difference in opinion is probably why we haven't been able to agree on virtually anything about this.
As for my arguments, in my defense the set of powers that have survivability benefits balanced by something other than endurance costs or limited uptime is a poorly explored set in terms of powers currently available, which is why I've had to venture far afield. Granite is weird, and really what I'm most interested in is preserving some of that weirdness rather than making it a conventional limited-duration survivability spike. More precedent does not a better power make. Safer, from a design perspective, to be sure. But not better. And it's not good for a game design team to always be making safe choices over interesting ones. -
Actually, if I recall correctly, it's just the opposite. I believe the formula for final tohit chance is:
constrain(acc*constrain(base+tohit-def))
where acc is accuracy, base is your base chance to hit (generally 0.75 for evencon NPCs), tohit is your total tohit bonus (or penalty), def is the enemy's total defense bonus (or penalty), and constrain is a function that keeps values between .05 and .95. There are other factors for level difference and so on but I'm trying to keep it simple. So your chance to hit is calculated by adding tohit to your base chance, then multiplying by accuracy. In the absence of strong defense or tohit modifiers, accuracy is generally the dominant factor, but it has the effect of magnifying the effect of changes to the tohit factor.
On topic, Focused Acc is highly situational now, but not useless. -
-
-
Quote:Yeah, I realized that pretty soon after I proposed it. It's fun conceptually, but somewhat impractical mechanically. Maybe slightly less impractical than you might think, though; through practice, I've gotten good enough at gauging Rooted's (non-rooting) activation time that I can start running toward a spawn, activate it along the way, and have the effects of the power kick in just as I hit the group. The same thing could be done with a power that has a spin-up time, but it'd be a delicate balancing act and probably more trouble than it's worth.I forgot to mention this the first time around, but there is a problem with this design...
As for your suggestion, I think the difference between a constant movement debuff and one that accumulates as you attack is that the former encourages you to turn the toggle off as soon as the fight is over, and once it's off it has to stay off until it recharges. Of course, if the accumulating movement debuff were persistent enough that it dramatically increased the time it takes to get to the next fight, it'd likewise encourage leaving the toggle off unless you absolutely needed it, because you know that once you turn it on you're going to have to waste some time at the end of the fight getting unstuck. It'd have the effect of a full crash in terms of retarding progress, but not in terms of wrecking survivability.
In fact, you could combine the effects. While the power is on, you have lowered movement speed, so you can't move on until you turn it off - but when you turn it off, you lose all endurance, so you get another speed penalty while you rest and reactivate toggles and so on. -
But... if you don't want to buy things off the market, you don't need 100 million influence. As I said, "rich" is being able to get whatever you want whenever you want it. By that definition, if you ignore the market entirely, a full set of level 50 SOs with enough inf left over to lend the odd million to a new alt is plenty wealthy.
-
Quote:Then adjust the strength down until the end point is satisfactory.The strength of the power itself doesn't matter so much as the end point of the power when the power is active.
Quote:First off, it's not actually between 0 and 90 seconds. It could be anywhere in a larger range because the power has a duration of 90 seconds (which you can choose to leave early) and a base recharge of 200 seconds (which can be reduced up to 40 seconds at cap recharge).
Quote:And I would tell you that Tree of Life and Triage Beacon are not valid precedent to be using because they're not the equivalent of god mode powers, which are both intended to have limited uptime and a substantial drawback. The powers you are attempting to draw likeness to are intended to be buffs (which are actually weaker over time than Regen Aura), which are not intended to have any drawbacks, whereas god modes are intended to have drawbacks, as evidenced by every single one having a drawback.
(By the way, you should try plugging in the SO'd numbers for a Traps user running Tough, Weave, a patron armor, the shield drone, and Triage Beacon in the mitigation calculator. Then consider that a Traps character also benefits from Seeker Drones' -damage effect and Acid Mortar's -res effect, and that -res boosts -dam. Then consider that many of these effects benefit not only the Trapper but also all allies. It may prove enlightening in terms of what is allowable for damage mitigation in a standing fight, even when you account for the fact that the Trapper has at most half of a Tanker's HP...)
I find this discussion more tiring and arduous than necessary, because you're being extremely ungenerous in your interpretation of my statements. All of the clarifications above are things you could have allowed for and didn't. If your goal here is to "win" rather than to have a productive discussion, then I will bow out; I've made my case as best I can, and winning ultimately inconsequential arguments on the internet is not a good use of my time. -
-
I would like to lend my observations to support the statement that custom pet names are being assigned to different types of pets at different times. This is particularly annoying for Demon Summoning - the Ember Demon and the Hellfire Gargoyle are most definitely not interchangeable.
-
-
Quote:I have two answers to this one; take your pick.Go back to the cottage rule Arcanaville outlined. Granite can teleport because it makes sense conceptually. Granite can move slowly because it makes sense conceptually, its not even considered a balance penalty, at least not in the original design. The designer that came up with the power just figured something so big and heavy would not be able to jump or fly and be very slow moving, but teleportation would not be hindered.
Preventing teleport would infringe on how the set plays already (use of two powers together as noted in Arcanaville's outline) and a disruption in the conceptual reasoning for it to teleport.
First, if I were going to defend conceptual -teleport, I'd say that it's too much stuff to take with you through a hole in time and space. Then again, anything can be explained with sufficient handwaving. The mechanical issue is more serious, but it's not like every other contender mentioned so far doesn't also break the rules as laid out.
Second, at this point I'm working toward an existential proof rather than a constructive proof. I'm not trying to lay out a specific set of bonuses and penalties that I want as a change to Granite; I'm trying to prove by example that there exist a set of bonuses and penalties that make a toggle tier 9 useful, situational, and balanced. Once I've established that the set of such powers exists - by proving the existence of one element within it - then it's all down to horse-trading about which specific tradeoffs provide the most suitable element within that set.
And of course there's always the bottom line in any such discussion: it's not like I get to make the decision anyway. -
Quote:I am not talking about retaining Granite Armor's current values and I haven't been for some time now. Should I go back and quote the three or four times I've already stated that? In fact, let me just start using a new name for the power that I am working toward as a replacement for the current Granite Armor.The very fact that Triage Beacon and the Tree of Life don't increase your survivability to the exact same extent as Granite Armor makes the comparison inaccurate.
Calcify. There, that's a good name. It's a non-mutually-exclusive toggle providing a moderate resistance and defense buff to all damage types except Psionic - hell, just plug in your proposed numbers if you want. It has a 2 to 3 minute nonenhanceable recharge time, and an endurance cost comparable to the other Stone Armor mitigation toggles (around .20 EPS). It also applies large amounts of -fly, -jump, -teleport, and -speed, and it decreases the maximum run speed to around 5 to 10 feet per second. Clear?
Now let me address the rest, but for heaven's sake, at least keep the above in mind!
Quote:[...] the Triage Beacon and Tree of Life don't allow you to turn them off whenever you feel like it.
Quote:A toggle that does that would simply be up for as long as you need it without every threatening to crash (which, is, once again, something you're ignoring about the fundamental balance concerning god modes). -
Quote:And a Traps can choose to stop casting Triage Beacon when the fight is over. I'm not seeing the problem. Particularly as I'm not talking about a version of Granite that has the kind of survivability granted by a crashing tier 9.Having it be a toggle, even one with significant drawbacks, still doesn't equate to the same level of risk that is generated by using a classic god mode, even if it had a crash afterwards: you're essentially giving the player the ability to choose to end it when they are safe rather than risking the loss of all of their survivability in the middle of combat.
Consider OWTS and SoW. They last two minutes. That could be part of one fight, or exactly one fight, or three fights. Conversely, a moderate-buff, severe-movement-penalty, long-recharge toggle Granite lasts exactly one fight - neither more nor less. That's an advantage, but it's also a disadvantage. Furthermore, OWTS and SoW impose no penalties while they're active, while proposed-Granite hinders combat positioning, making it harder to chase down runners, maximize AoE powers, and generally respond to developments. If that's not enough, drop OWTS and SoW's recovery bonus and instead apply a recovery penalty.
Now, what, exactly, is unbalanced about this that isn't also unbalanced about, say, Triage Beacon, or Tree of Life, both substantial survival bonuses that can be made permanent but cannot be carried over between fights? -
Stars: did you throw IOs at the WP survivability numbers, or does that not have as much of an effect? I know that attacks get more of a benefit from frankenslotting with four aspects to enhance, as opposed to most defensive toggles' two (and Granite's 3).
Also, I'm still not seeing how a massive uncircumventable movement penalty won't prevent people from living in Granite. Add an unmodifiable 2 or 3 minute recharge time on the power, and it ends up being tactically equivalent to, say, Triage Beacon: a great power to use if you expect to be fighting in one spot for a good long time, and one that you can keep active in a given spot for as long as necessary, but not something you use just because it's up. At that point you can give it whatever buff numbers you need to get it between "useful" and "breaks encounters". The advantage over click powers is that you can run it for as long as you need it within a given encounter; the disadvantage is that you can't carry over the remainder of the duration into another encounter.
Not everyone would want to take such a power. It's pretty situational. Not everyone takes the other tier 9s, either, so no problem there.
Edited to add: The Huge body type Walk animation would be great for the movement animation while in Granite - it'd prevent the Baywatch Run effect when your movement speed is low. Just saying.
Edit 2: It's also worth noting that, for whatever benefit it may give, the WP can drop some attacks for Tough, Weave, Aid Self, Physical Perfection, Darkest Night (well, come GR...) etcetera. I'm not sure how a WP with additional survival powers compares to a Stone with additional attacks, either. Probably still unfavorably, but that'd be an interesting idea for a tradeoff target. -
I'd like to see the man patient enough to permanently run a toggle that prevents flight, jumping, and teleportation, and caps run speed at 5 feet per second.
-
I have a theory regarding the perceived presence or absence of this problem. I'd appreciate if those posting to report seeing or not seeing this issue would provide the following information:
- Your difficulty settings
- Whether you have the tier 1 and tier 2 upgrades
- Any powers that add damage to pets or reduce enemy resistance
My guess is that those not seeing the issue are killing enemies before their pets run out of ranged attacks. Pets that have been upgraded tend to have more ranged attacks, and thus won't run out as quickly, and if the fight is short due to lower difficulty and more damage, pets may not have time to run out. -
Regarding the emanator, I did say that my objections are more on conceptual grounds. But they're still worth considering. Remember that, while trying to make Stone more popular with the folks who don't like it now is a chancy proposition, making it less popular with the folks who do like it now is a near-certainty. When taking Granite performance away, it might not be that great an idea to also take Granite mechanics and Granite visuals away. Not that I'm particularly in love with the rock monster myself - if I had my druthers, Granite and Stone Armor in general would be considerably sleeker - but since you're already going to provoke /ragequits among the performance freaks, do you really have to annoy the concept-uber-alles players while you're at it?
Regarding defense debuff, the situations that concern me are actually ones where very strong tohit buffs are present, which can be roughly simulated by setting defense debuff to some absurdly high number but is probably best simulated by setting the defense values to -4.5. You may scoff, but I can think of a number of important encounters (and some more common ones) where defense is pretty much negated as a form of mitigation. Ask any SR or Shield or Ice player about crystal emanators, or Overseers, or the Mire Nictus, or tower-buffed Recluse.
Of course, weakening Stone + Granite overall is probably a point in favor of any change, but substantially reducing its prior versatility and creating specific weak points that didn't previously exist might not go down so well. -
The emanator power suggestion would meet most of the design goals on a mechanical level. It does have two drawbacks on a conceptual/aesthetic level.
The first, obviously, is that it flagrantly violates the cottage rule, almost to the extent that the example that gives the cottage rule its name does. Whereas Granite is a toggle that applies a buff and costume change, Emanator is a click power that summons a static entity that buffs the caster. That's a pretty radical departure, and if there's one thing that gets people up in arms it's a change to a power that invalidates their character concept.
The second is a conceptual puzzle. So you've summoned this entity and it's buffing you as long as you stay close to it. Why isn't it buffing anyone else that is similarly nearby? This isn't a tech issue - the Veteran combat pets already have an aura that only buffs the summoner. It is a perceptual issue though. I suppose you could set up some graphics where it's clear that the protective effect is streaming from the emanator directly to the caster, rather than being dispersed in the general area, but then you wouldn't have a visual cue for the boundary of your protection zone. I wouldn't want to be the guy tasked with animating this in a way that makes sense.
Again, it's a good idea for a power. It's even a good idea for a power that would have the advantages and limitations that we want Granite to have. It just isn't very much like Granite conceptually. And when the developers are considering dramatically reducing the effectiveness of an iconic power, they probably want to avoid making people mad for a bunch of other unnecessary reasons in the process.
On a different topic, I've downloaded Arcanaville's spreadsheet and I'm toying with various combinations of power numbers and circumstances. Umbral, you may want to check out what happens to current Stone, current Granite, and your versions of Stone and Granite when you start to increase the Defense Debuff number. Yes, I'm aware that defense usually protects against defense-debuffing attacks, but there are a number of situations where this is not the case and it'd be a nasty surprise to pull on current Stone players to find out that they are now quite weak in situations where they used to be able to fall back on other protections. -
A Granite penalty that worsens the player's endurance situation has the minor advantage of making thematic sense. Everything does take more energy when you're carrying your own weight in slabs of granite!
It's also a penalty that we can observe in the wild right now, and it does appear to be onerous enough to engender a desire to avoid it when possible. Ask anyone who's been hit by it how they feel about the Curse of Weariness. If you have delicate sensibilities, make sure the profanity filter is active first. -
First: I'm not making a metaphor. You stated that two properties were completely mutually exclusive. I demonstrated that they are not. Powers can be available at all times, and still not be worth using at all times. That can happen, and it does happen. Sprint is one extreme - a minor benefit and a minor drawback. PFF is the other extreme - a major benefit and a major drawback. There is a continuum between these powers of possible powers that have some benefits and some drawbacks and are therefore not worth using all the time even though you theoretically could. You could make Granite such a power.
Second: At what point did I say that Granite must be as powerful as it is now? I very specifically conceded that it cannot be as powerful as it is now, regardless of the penalty, for the sake of encounter balance. I conceded this point multiple times. Please stop accusing me of holding an opinion I do not hold.
Instead of trying to shout down the very possibility that Granite could be a toggle, why don't you look at the feedback you're getting and reevaluate your suggestions around the idea of recreating Granite as a balanced toggle that has moderate benefits, moderate drawbacks, and situational utility? Because you still haven't actually proved that this is not possible. -
That a power is available at all times, and that you must gauge when using it is worthwhile, are not mutually exclusive properties. I'm not sure what makes you think that they are, and I'm pretty sure I can prove that they're not.
There is an inherent power that is not only available at all times, but has zero recharge time and zero activation time - yet people definitely do not consider running it worthwhile at all times. Sprint.
Furthermore, there are two whole archetypes built around two toggle powers that are available at any time, have zero recharge time, and grant only buffs to the character, yet are profoundly situational. Khelds. Dwarf Form, Nova Form.
So, Umbral, you can keep pushing a mechanically forced downtime for Granite Armor, but it's not getting much love from the people who actually play Stone Armor now, and there's no reason to believe that the change would make it attractive to people who don't play Stone Armor now, and it's also not actually necessary in order to balance the power or the set.
It's unpopular, unattractive, and unnecessary. It's a bad idea.