Westley

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And an impossibility that would be a cool addition to Detention Field: Cold, Fire, Energy, and Neg. Energy attacks directed at it would become small radius AoEs of the same damage type - a splash effect.

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Impossibility is right, no cottages.

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On the other hand, if we don't think outside of the box, I might not bother with the change though. For example, the changes suggested in this thead are sort of minor, I doubt that unpopular powers will become popular after the tweak.

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Seriously, it *is* a good policy -- it provides structure within which to do

things. Without structure, there's chaos. How would you like it if tomorrow you

logged in and, say, Build Up now built a small cottage at your chosen location,

instead of adding to your damage? It's a silly example, admittedly, but it's to

prevent such wholesale changes from happening.

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4) Change Force Bubble from a KB/KD/Repel aura to a -dam, -speed, -rech aura. Make them push their way through like their moving through jello and make their damage suffer for it. It's all win here.

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This... I like.

Especially since the set lacks a debuff. I could even agree with reducing the bubble size to that Dispersion Bubble.

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It's also completely changing the power. Please refer to the OP.

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Force Bubble could probably use to be cheaper in Endurance cost.

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Ummm... it already uses LESS endurance than Dispersion Bubble!

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I would just like -regen. Granted I have no idea how that could fit into the theme of the powerset...

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It couldn't. It just makes no sense thematically. It's a popular request though, that's for sure.

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Not sure about the disorient since it kinda never happens, but maybe lower the MAG of the KB (to make less of a mess) and make it animate faster (so it can actually save someone). Seriously, with 3-4 slots in force bolt, force bolt can do all Rep Bomb can, and faster and more reliable.

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I would DEFINATELY like to see it changed to knockDOWN by reducing the knockback magnitude to less than 1. If they did that, they could change NOTHING ELSE about the power and I guarantee you alot more people would take it. If you had an almost guranteed knockdown power that you can use all the time? Well heck, that's almost like an AoE Hold. Almost.

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Detention Field - Provide a visual warning to the casting player that indicates when the power is going to deactivate. Something like making the power icon flash or pulse would work. In addition, make the subject of the DF unable to be targeted by anyone until 5 seconds before the power deactivates. That could work like a modified placate.


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I reall like this idea, alot. As far as the icon goes, that would be a "nice to have". Currently there IS no icon whatsoever, so all you can do is look at the giant Glass Bottle of Doom itself. An icon right up next to your Dispersion and other status icons would be a nice Quality of Life addition.

All the other ideas are okay, but I think the Repulsion Field "equation" that you suggest might be a little difficult to implement. I'm not sure how hard that would be to put in the power.

Muon_Neutrino, alot of good comments there. The only thing that I would add is that I don't want to see ANY damage added to the set whatsoever. The simple reason being that it is the complete OPPOSITE of the whole set's "theme", which is pure damage mitigation. Adding more damage to it would go completely against the theme of the set. I like all of your other comments though.

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"No major changes" doesn't mean they can't or won't add additional effects to an underperforming power. It just means that the core function of a power will never be changed.

That doesn't rule out the possibility of adding additional secondary effects to powers to make them worthwhile.

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Yup, that's true, and if you had read a little further down, I did implement a few "secondary functions" into my suggestions.

The only one I disagree with is this:

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6. FORCE BUBBLE: Make it the same radius as Dispersion as its frankly too big as it is. This change alone would make it much easier to use. Adding some defense to the defender would be nice too since otherwise you pretty much have to pair it with a purple if you are trying to save the team from anything thats actually threatening. But I honestly could live with just making it smaller as this would make it a more precise tool, less likely to cause unwanted aggro, and less likely to knock things out of attack range if you do not have a corner handy.

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And I'll give you the simple answer. If they were to decrease the size, enemies could EASILY "push" into the field, so it might as well not be there. Use it a few times in your own missions and you'll see what they did there. The power of the Repel effect with the SPECIFIC diameter that they put into the power means that JUST as an enemy gets close enough to you to do one attack, they get pushed back. If you decrease the size, they can get in left and right and the Bubble might as well not be there.

I know it's a really popular suggestion to decrease the size, but I don't think it's practical. I think it would actually "gimp" the power. Now if there was some way that they could increase the power of the Repel effect so that enemies COULDN'T "push" in as easily, then we might be able to make it smaller, but I just honestly don't know how hard that would be to do, if it even was possible.

I love all the other ideas though.

Keep in mind that the devs also follow the alchemical rule of "equivalent exchange". You can't get something without giving something up. Here is what I think. The whole idea that Defenders Buff and DeBuff and Controllers "control" more is proven as pure BS with two simple words: Dark Miasma. It's basically a CONTROL set with a few buffs and debuffs. But Controllers don't have access to it! With that said, I'd love to see ForceFields move more in that direction. We are already more "controllery" with our massive knockback, repel and phasing powers. I say that we add a few tweaks here and there to make it moreso.

These changes are all for the Defender version of the set, I think the rest are fine as-is. I LIKE seeing a little more differentiation between the sets for different archetypes.

Personal Force Field, Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield, and Dispersion Bubble - Either leave alone or *gasp!* reduce their defense SLIGHTY to help "compensate" for the other changes I will suggest.

Force Bolt - Add a low percentage chance (10-20%) to disorient knockback resistant mobs. If Force Bolt can't knock back an AV, at least getting hit in the FACE with a Force Bolt, should have a CHANCE to stun them for a few seconds. It makes us more viable as an asset against AVs, a common FF gripe.

Detention Field - It already work just fine for what it does, but what WOULD be nice is adding a type of "placate" effect to anyone that tries to attack the enemy that's Detained. My macro can only do so much to tell my dumber teammates to not attack it, and my Force-Bolt trick doesn't stop them from attacking the enemy if they REALLY want to chase it down. If the Field emitted a short term (5 second) Placate effect on anyone attacking it, it would cause the next attempted attack to target a different enemy automatically. I think saving alot of time and aggravation. It's more of a "red flag" for the power.

Repulsion Field - Increase the endurance cost per hit SUBSTANTIALLY (to prevent abuse of the power) but increase the "pulse" rate of the knockback pulses so that an FF Defender can choose to NEVER be hit by an enemy that's not knockback resistant. I love the power, but if the enemy can one-shot you with that single swipe he can get off, it makes the field useless in some cases. Let it be our "ultimate personal defense" power so that we're not totally the LEAST defended member of the team.

Repulsion Bomb - SHORTEN the animation time back to what it used to be so it's FAST, increase the chance to disorient and increase the recharge time ALOT. As a tier 8 power, this should be a power that we can use ALL the time to Bomb things with a HARD hit. I think if we can only use it once every 2 or 3 minutes, it is worth that to make it REALLY useful when we can use it to really change things around, or to save a teammates life, which was the original POINT of the power. Increasing the recharge rate to a ridiculous amount would still be worth it if everyone that skipped this power in the past could use it fast and be GUARANTEED a good stun.

Force Bubble - Either leave as-is, or if you don't want to give us the changes to Repulsion Field, at least give us a 5-10% Defense bonus just to US while we're using the Force Bubble. That way the person aggro-ing the entire map at least gets a LITTLE bit more defense to protect him.

If the devs were to make all of these changes, sure, our Defense giving powers might be reduced a little, but it would make up for it in the sheer UTILITY that we get in exchange.

Please refer to my new sig. It will answer all of your questions.

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Posting here so I can save it to my favs :-D

Thanks for all the HARD work. I know this had to take a LONG time to do lol.

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Thanks.

However, you don't have to post to a thread to save it to favorites. At the bottom of each thread is a toggle link to add/remove a thread from your favorites list.

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I'm too fast for the Zombie... BOO-YAH!

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Posting here so I can save it to my favs :-D

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Under Extra Information at the bottom of your screen:
Favorite Topic! (toggle)

No need to post to everything you want to save as a favorite.

Ultimus Started a New Thread! Good For Him!™

SHAMEFUL BUMP TO SAVE THE THREAD FROM THE VOID!

Here is my response to the non-technical aspects of the thread.

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and Rikti Invasion notices being sent to the System channel where they are extremely easy to miss

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They were actually moved to the System channel BECAUSE people complained when they were in the Admin channel and appeared in every tab. Funny that. I guess it's true that you sure can't please EVERYBODY.

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If you come across a quote that is either bad with grammar, punctuation, or spelling, you can use [sic], which notes to the reader the quote is "as found". Like I said....make one for a FF Fender please!
-peace out!

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I don't think he'd want to step on my toes, medic_brietz, just like I wouldn't want to step on his.

I'm playing a Sonic/Sonic now. Once I get him to 50 I'll pop my head in this thread and make a few comments about my differences of opinion on the set and also where I agree. Unless I see things ENTIRELY differently, which I *HIGHLY* doubt looking at the quality of this guide.

Even more notes from another thread on ForceFields, saved for posterity.

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Force Bubbles pushes enemies back and knocks them down. This power is great if you can squeeze enemies into a corner. Too many times you can't. Also it's radius is larger than Dispersion Field so your meleers have to leave your dispersion in order to get into melee range.

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FYI, if you didn't notice most melee players already HAVE tons of ways to defend themselves. This is something that most people don't think about. The two single target shields should be just fine for melee players MOST of the time. It's the squishies that need Force Bubble the most, and guess what? Their attacks are ranged! See how well that works out?

Also there's the fact that if melee players DO run into trouble, they can easily hop back 10 feet into the protective safety net of Force Bubble and give themselves a chance to take a breath an recuperate. I see Force Bubble as being a power you could ALWAYS have on... that is, if you'd rather not use knockback. Instead you can just sit in the back with your squishy buddies while you all blast away, and if for some reason the melee players are in trouble and they don't think to step back, guess what? You can just run forward a few feet and the bubble comes with you! It's brilliant!

ForceFields = Win

/PK

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Rad Blast.

Try to play Rad Blast without Irradiate (PBAoE) and Cosmic Burst (20' range), and you're in for a rough ride. Even Electron Haze (40') doesn't get past Force Bubble's AoE without slotting for range. Throw in Atomic Blast, and half of Rad's attacks, out of the box, are nullified by Force Bubble.

Calling sqishie attacks "ranged" is, IME, a bit of a stretch.

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MOST of squishy's attacks are ranged, there are exceptions to every rule. And I'm also not saying that EVERYONE should play like that ALL of the time. As I say in my guide, all defense is situational, and so all powers have their proper place and time. Yes, even Repulsion Bomb. It's just got one or two places and times as opposed to the other powers' 20 places and times.

Besides, if /Rads don't slot for Range, who will? Is ANYONE slotting range these days? Maybe it's time that people started exploring the advantages of slotting more than Accuracy, Damage, Recharge and Endurance Reduction. There are alot more enhancements out there you know... they need love too!

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This is not new information, not really. Even though PhiloticKnight leads a minority of bubblers who believe that all the powers are great, it's been fairly well established for years that common FF play is all about the big three +def bubbles.

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There's the key word right there, minority. I think it's sad, but people are more interested in using the same powers and the same builds over and over again, slotted and maxed out for super duper LEET H4X0RZ style play. I like to make life more interesting.

The few.
The proud.
The FF Primary Lovers.

I think that Arcas and I are the only two, and I think he's retired his bubbler, heh.

The same people that say you only need to take 3 (or maybe 4) powers in the set are also usually the ones that say that it works better as a Controller secondary than a Defender primary. I don't agree to that.

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But yes I do fantasize of a revamp to Force Bubble...

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As to all these changes that everyone is suggesting, the only one that I would suggest is increasing the stun percentage in Repulsion Bomb AND increasing it's recharge to compensate. I bet almost every bubbler would agree to take the Bomb if it guaranteed a stun, even if it took a minute or even two to recharge. Because then we would have a use for it through our entire careers, like all the uses for the other powers in the set.

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That depends more on how good FF's other 6 powers are supposed to be. Statesman implied that the dev intent of The Final Three is "always good, always on"

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Statesman had left active development on the game a long time ago, even before the official NCSoft/Cryptic split. He also said alot of things that were "pie in the sky" executive-type talk. He wasn't quite really "in the know" of the reality of how the game actually works for most people, so anything that he has ever said past 2004 I take with a really big grain of salt.

I honestly think Positron and ESPECIALLY Castle are much more in tune with how WE want the game to work, and it's just a matter of getting their attention and showing them that this is a high-priority issue.

But the truth is that most of the subscriber base is playing melee players or blasters (I'm not counting the "farming" or "PL-ing" builds), just because those are the ones that require the least thought (no offense guys) and are the most "instantly rewarding", meaning, you click the power and BAM! Damage. That's much easier to understand than the intricacies of advanced knockback control and enemy positioning using the game's physics.

And among Defenders, Force Fields is just barely above Trick Arrow in number of them out there. I think we're one of the smallest populations in the game. And that doesn't bode well for getting the devs' attention...

I would LOVE to see the Force Field set start to look more like Sonics, where we have 3 pretty good mitigation powers and 6 awesome utility powers. But I doubt that most other players would agree with me.

This is what I would like to see:

1) A reduction in the Defense of Defender Shields to that of Controller levels. And no change at all in Controller and Mastermind levels.

And once you've done that, ALL of the following would ONLY be changed for ForceField Defenders. Controller and Mastermind versions of the powers would remain the same to prevent abuse and them being overpowered. With as much as the devs have used pieces of other sets and changed them around to make the villain powersets, I don't think it's too much to ask to only have Defenders changed and leave the rest as they are. So here it goes:

2) Change the recharge time of Repulsion Bomb to a flat minute OR even as long as 90 seconds, speeding up the animation time so we CAN use it FAST when we need it, and increasing the chance to stun. Honestly even if I could only use it every TWO minutes, that would still be worth it if it worked fast and was RELIABLE.
3) Some SELF DEFENSE in Force Bubble to account for all the aggro it gives us. I don't think our allies should get any extra Defense from it, just us. They get plenty of "defense" from the nature of the power itself and the fact that they can run into the bubble for relative safety if they get into trouble.
4) Increase the "pulse" speed of Repulsion Field by double AND double or even triple the endurance per enemy hit to compensate. If it came back more often we could keep those enemies away from us. I think we should be able to use the Field to protect ourselves at all times, rather than letting over half of the attacks get in.
5) Force Bolt and Personal Force Field - no touchie! Working perfectly. I don't buy into the whole "attack through the shield" idea. I like the "turtling" and I think it's very balanced. And Force Bolt IMHO is the game's most perfect and elegant power.

If *I* could "redesign" the set, that is exactly what I would do. It maintains the flavor of the set and it gives us much more to do.

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I, for one, would like to take you up on that. I have a FF Def and I confess to having a more typical "Buff then Blast" playstyle. For one thing, it's MORE than good enough, for another, yes, it's simpler.

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Honestly at the high end game, level 45+, there really IS almost no reason to use most of your other powers except in one circumstance: you have a crappy team so you have to keep them alive because they don't know how to keep themselves alive without an empath (these are mostly PLers).

At level 45+ ALL of the archetypes (well all those that took APPs) have access to some heavy duty defensive powers of their own, and on top of that, they know by that time how to handle their characters (noting the exception above). So at that level "fire and forget" works.

IMHO it's at the lower levels that the set REALLY shines. When all blasters are glass cannons and the controllers can't keep the WHOLE mob held, that's when all of our other powers do the most good. So I'd say anything below level 40.

If you've got a toon lower than that level on Freedom, go ahead and send a /tell to @Philotix after 6 pm Central and I'd love to team with you. I'll exemplar down to any level.

EDIT: WOOOOO! Post #777 is in an FF thread, what are the odds? Heh.

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2 is certainly what ff-style knockback looks like it will accomplish if you don't care to work at exploring it. But for those who understand it very well the choices should look more like:

1) Incoming attacks have an extra 20-50% chance of missing me. I don't even have to think about it.

2) Enemies are wasting 50% or more of their time dealing with knockback recovery to launch attacks at me. (and occasionally I'm wasting 5-10% of my time trying to catch up to where the enemies are getting knocked)

(Hmm... Thinking about it some, maybe 50% is an optimistic guess on my part. I don't really have data to back that up.)

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Here is the timing for knockback. You activate the power, the enemy starts flying back. They fly through the air for about 1 to 2 seconds. Add to that animation time for them to get back up again, 2 MORE seconds. Add to that the fact that if the enemy was in "melee" mode, the AI tends to like to STAY in melee mode, so it will take them ANOTHER 1 to 2 seconds for them to run back to you. So if you add it up, you get 4-6 seconds of complete protection from EACH knockback. That's good stuff, and not something that most people think about. If you actually add Knockback Distance modifiers to your KB powers and knock the enemies back through a clear unobstructed path, they fly farther, so they have more "air time" AND take longer to get back to you. It's all gravy.

Meanwhile, if you have Repulsion Field on all the time like I do, any enemy that gets NEAR you gets one hit in, and then they are out of the game for 4-6 seconds, with NO action required on your part. You can be blasting away at another guy at the same time the melee-er is trying to gank you. That's alot of protective power, it's like a free lunch. It means you don't have to worry about your own personal defense as much. Even on enemies that are knockback RESISTANT, with 2 or 3 "pulses" of the Field, they will be knocked back. Everything but AVs and Elite Bosses and a FEW bosses. But (IMHO) sadly, most people don't see the advantage of that, so they don't take or use the Field. I personally think it's awesome, but it could be more so.

It SAYS that it's a PBAoE knockback, but the range is actually 7 feet. It ends up being PBAoE because the knockback "pulses" are so slow that an enemy can get up to you and hit you once before they get knocked back. I'd love to see that sped up so that we can use it to defend ourselves, but honestly I can SEE the exploits that that could cause, that's why I suggest upping the endurance cost per hit by 3 or 4 times what it is now, to reduce these kinds of exploits.

But yes, there is a pretty high learning curve to learning how to use knockback effectively. But once you've mastered it, it will be your best friend.

Knockback = 100% Defense and 100% Damage resistance for 4-6 seconds at a time.

FF = Win! /PK

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Yeah, I'd like to see any team thank you for bubbling a Rikti Mentalist when there is no indication of trouble or that your allies will have problems with his sleep powers. That's sure to make them all start grinning, yeah.

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ALL defense is situational. If my team isn't in trouble and I'm the only one being mezzed, Detention Field stays in my pocket just in case. I'm in it for the team, not just for me. There is a time and a place for everything.

If you're on a team that can rip through mobs in less than 30 seconds, then great, don't use it. If you AREN'T on one of those teams, then you can Force Bolt the mezzer away from the rest of the mob and Detain it right away. By the time your team is done with the rest of the mob, the only thing that's left is the mezzer.

Like I said, there is a time and a place for everything.

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The End of this round of copy and paste jobs... man I talk alot!

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My interpretation.


" During my stay at a previous MMORPG, hackers were dominant. They cheated and schemed, and made the game much worse. The Game Developers tried to cover this fault with a cunning excuse of 'extended maintence', but I knew it was a ploy: they were trying to catch the hackers. Unless this community informs the Game Developers of this issue now, the hackers will take over City of Heroes. The game will be ruined, and no longer avalible for Americans."

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Eloquent. I pictured Mr. Peanut or Rich Uncle Pennybags speaking it.

To concur with a few other posters, you missed a couple of steps. From your #11
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This is what happened in the last game I played. Hackers ruined it for everyone by duping rares, gold and just doing anything to cheat. There is no extended maintenance they're trying to catch the hacker and we pay for it. So unless people let GMs know of wrong-doings in the game it will ruin it and there will not be a COH, IT WILL BE GONE FOR THE AMERICANS!!!!!!!

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In concur with the missing apostrophe, but there are also some extra apostrophes in there. The apostrophe is used in two instances: 1) When you are trying to denote possession of a noun, such as "Jane's dog". 2) When it's used as a part of a contraction meaning that you are combining the original word with the word "is", such as "What's happening?"

In this example, GM is an acronym for "Game Master". GM does not "own" the word "know", and the term wasn't meant to be used to say "GM is", so the only translation here is that it means that there are more than one GM. And the plural of most standard acronyms is just to add a simple "s" at the end of the word, unless the word already ends in an "s". So "GM's" becomes the more appropriate "GMs".

In the next example we have the compound slang term "wrong-doings", which should be hyphenated since it is a compound word; it is also NOT possessive and also NOT a contraction.

Thank you, come again!

Shameless bump to keep it from disappearing!

So many bad images in my head right now....