Regarding recent changes
By
AbuliaDon,
Posted on: 2004-05-13 19:13 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I don't post much here, or anywhere else. I didnt even know that AM had been broken officially. I kept wondering why It was seeming to be useless. Well, I guess I have my answer.
An illusion/RAD controller(currently lvl 19) is pretty much useless to a TEAM. Soloing-yeah, sure. I use my RAD debuffs, and flash blind them all, then guess what? Yep, Spectral wounds is so junky that I cannot possibly kill anything with my little remaining END. With AM on, I can sit there with everyone blind, and unable to effectively do damage(I also add defense debuffs to give a chance to hit hi exp enemies), for about 2 minutes. Then I either run or die. Thanks to pathetic illusion damage and total nerfing of AM, coupled with the COSTLY RAD set, I cannot solo. A team is less likely to group with me now, as AM was a big attractor. I don't work numbers on my powers, role-play. I'm sure this PVP is gonna screw with anyrole-play aspects now, as people seek PVP power vs a character theme, but DAMN, leave AM alone. Nerf it on open slots available max. Take waway recharge Time reducer compatibility. I dunno. While this was non- PVP I never considereed another's powerset. I just Role-played Lallendos, an in-yer face controller, who dominates the first round of battle, setting the stage for his team to destroy the enemy.
Thanks for adding PVP, and subsequently screwing my entire game up.
Guess i'd better get a scrapper or blaster, and learn the exploits....
Edit: Although I truly feel as if my char has been totally gimped, this game i s still tons more enjoyable than Lineage 2. At this point. I guess the implementation route for PVP will ultimately determine whether or not I stay. Oh, and I wouldnt really use exploits, although people worrying about "balancing" powers in a totally non-pvp environment seems odd to me.
One thing that will really help with Defenders in making them a viable "Group Defender" is to Unerf the Leadership abilties. Defenders get a supposed 12.5% damage bonus for Assault. But this quantitative bonus only APPLIES to the unmodified unenhanced base damage of the spell. This bonuses does not stack with any sort of debuffs or enhancing damage bonuses.
So.. if you have a XXX spell that deals 100pts of damage (zero buffs, zero enhancers) it will now deal 112.5 points of damage. Now, as with the vast majority of people out there they will have at least one damage enhancer on a spell.
Now, this next example taken to the extreme, just for visualization with enhancers.
100 base damage spell, plus 6 SO enhancers + 200% = 300 damage. Now add on assault and that person deals 312.5 pts of damage. This equates to a 4.2% damage increase for that spell at a continuous drain of 2 End per tick. This is petty to the extreme compared to all other buffs and debuffs out there. Hell, my enervating field debuffs the critter and increases damage output by at least ~25%.
Assault does not stack with any sort of debuff or damage output 
Daegon
Geko, what about making Accelerated Metabolism affect the target only (so it could be used to powerup yourself or one other target) with a time that could be made available every couple of fights (say a base 5 min timer)?
I don't need an area of effect buff, I just want a buff I can count on every battle. If the endurance regen, damage bonus, resistance bonus is too high by all means scale them back but leave the power available more often. Heck dump the power that explodes a fallen ally, for an aura version of it at higher level. Btw all my characters are planning in Stamina now (don't have any regen scrappers).
Also the big griping is because we wasted slots on part time powers, I want to spend those slots on powers I use all the time. Without the ability to spend those slots we're handicapped until... lvl 22 or higher when we can fully slot AM/Hasten with SO's. Sadly I'm not levelling fast enough in one character to get near that mark anytime soon (especially after the AM fix).
So in short last request: please something like a self target or targetable Accelerated Metabolism that is available every battle or so with a few enhancements (say 3-4 DO's).
Or the ability to recreate characters (this will make everyone happy.. well at least most of the people that feel that they were mislead when testing out different characters).
Why not allow character rebuilds?
Hello Geko,
I noticed today that when I did a mission for Juan Jimenez in Kings Row that I got a temporary power that had flash grenades to help disorient the Skulls. I thought this was Totally cool!! 
I wanted to ask, can we see more of this please? Also maybe at some point, could we be able to buy gear like flash grenades with influence?
Thanx, Katye
There are a ton of missions out there that gives some pretty Awesome temporary powers.. limited charges or 1 hour duration. Lots and lots of nifty powers out there.
Daegon
It is my understanding, the overpowering effects of AM, leading to it's nerfdom, was not the indivdual power itself, but the overwhelming success of stacking 2, 3, or more together. Have you ever seen 4+ of these stacked on a group? Nothing short of immortal basically.
Well, the super extended recast time did NOT resolve this issue in the slightest. A serious Super Team, will work their way to a really nasty high-powered battle, slap on the 4 AMs, slaugther villians, then, back off doing lesser mobs until the AMs are ready to go again.
So, all we really accomplished here, was to "slow" down the slaugther of the high end mobs. If the true issue is, how it stacks with multiple AMs, then that's what should be addressed, not the recast timer.
Lessen the stacking effect, make them not stack at all, weaken the individual effects thus lessening the stacked affects...
If someone goes Hasten+AM, so they can keep their team buffed, so be it. I don't believe the true issue, is that you can build yourself, so that you pretty much always have AM running. That doesn't seem to be the root of the problem IMO.
Look hard at what you think is truly the overwhelming success of AM, and, lessen that effect, not abuse the recast timer as an easy quick fix. This goes for all balancing issues. Please do NOT use the recast timer as a miracle cure-all...
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It is my understanding, the overpowering effects of AM, leading to it's nerfdom, was not the indivdual power itself, but the overwhelming success of stacking 2, 3, or more together. Have you ever seen 4+ of these stacked on a group? Nothing short of immortal basically.
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My only objection to this solution is that, well any power stacked 4 times is freaking god-like. If they don't like stacking in one power then any solution for that sould be accross the board for all stacking.
Good point. Though, that would require a very large look, on everything that multiples of the same skill that stack.
I don't really know the exact numbers/mech behind stacking skills and how the "add" up. But, you would expect to have diminishing returns after so many of them.
The trick is to find the "balance" under that naughty little log curve between the boundaries.
With that being said, it reminds me, that I have yet to actually comment on how well of a release CoH has been. It has been the best release experience of a MMP that I have ever experienced.
Haven't seen Gecko post in a while on this thread, but here's hoping he's still reading.
MY problem with the new AM nerf. Recharge time is insane (yes, I know that's been covered, but here's what I'd like to see.)
With 6 DO's in it, I was able to recast about seconds or so after it wore off, GREAT! Now, with 6 SO's in it, it takes 180 seconds to recharge. That's nuts man. I HAD planned to put the 3-4 SO's for recharge time in it and then put stamina increasers in the other two slots when I was able to purchase SO's. Now, that's not an option.
What I'd like to see is having 3-4 SO recharge reducers in AM and having it be ready 15-30 seconds after it wears off. That's it. Not having to wait 3 min or more for it to recharge. I don't want to tripple quadruple cast it and have my team running around owth 4-5 AM's on at all times, I just want it going once, keeping it up for fights, and maybe getting a little extra umph out of it as well.
I do have Stamina, and I love the effect. I NEED End. We all do, unlike health it doesn't go up with levels, and as far as I can tell, the powers don't cost less End with each level unless you modify them. End is VERY important, as you've said. But let's make it a LITTLE more available, please.
Pollution
25 Rad/Rad Science Defender
Hey, my name if Freddie Prinze and I was at E3 with my production partner Conrad Jackson. We played the beta of CoV and loved it. CoH came out on I think a tuesday, we were both there wednesday to get it. Your team out here in LA were super cool to us and treated with great respect. As do your in game techies. Great job with this game and I can't wait till my little gimp girl gets FLIGHT. Oh yeah if you see my partner Conrad Jackson aka REGGIE in CoH you have my permission to repeatedly destroy him against a hard thick wall. *Jessie Brazen laughs with glory*. Peace guys. Great FOOKIN work. - FP
All this hubub about Hasten and AM is because these powers can't keep up with the fast pace of the game. I say (and most seem to agree with me), no other powers duplicate the effects of either of them, why not make them weaker with a more acceptable recharge?
In fact, do that with most of the long-recharge powers, like focus chi; that thing is too short, too powerful, and has too long a recharge; when I put massive recharge enhancements in it I feel like I'm cheating every time it activates, even though it probably evens out during the downtime. (hey 2 semicolons in 1 sentence, booyah!) :-P
Thanks for the info geko. I'm always pleased to see how the devs are paying attention to the players, and giving feedback on their view on things.
And for all of the whiners out there and reflexive [censored] about nerfs (and most of it is just reflexive I'm sure; I know I've felt the urge myself occasionally), IMO the majority of the players do really appreciate that you are all working hard to supply all of us with a fun experience. So far, I've had only a few minor quibbles, and I have gotten an awful lot of funtime out of this game.
Keep up the good work and know that it is appreciated.
I am a Rad/Rad Defender, level 26. Since the AM changes, my toon functions CRITICALLY different than before. I have some very specific issues with the changes.
I have Stamina with 3 DO slots. I hardly EVER run out of endurance, especially with AM up. The only exception is if I use Enervating Field. That power drains so much END that it isn't worth using even with SO end reductions. As soon as trials are functioning properly I will respec that and take Electron Haze instead... assuming that's still available from Terra Volta trial.
Anyway, the specific problem I have is with recharge of powers. Because AM gives boost to recharge of all powers, I could be a reliable healer. Many of my slots are speced out with SOs. With the change, it is going to cost considerable Influence to respec recharges in all my other skills to compensate for the inavailability of AM. And, at this point, the only way for me to have faster recharge in Aura is to sacrifice HP healed.
Another issue is Recharge enhancements in AM. When the change to AM was made, I had 2 DOs, which I promptly upgraded to 2 SOs. I saw a noticable improvement (as I should). Then, I added another SO, so now I have 3 total SOs in AM. According to Geko's post on how recharge enhancements work, the numbers should work out like this without Hasten (which I do not have):
520 second base recharge
520/1.33 = 383.45
383.45/1.33 = 288.31
288.31/1.33 = 216.77
A friend and I timed this today with a stopwatch and with my 3 SOs, I am at 350 seconds not 216.77.
The recharge difference is 5:50 (mine) apx 3:36.
Geko - Could you comment on this issue?
Am I not understanding the calculations? Is the base time off (pulled from Hero Planner)? Is this how recharge is supposed to work with AM?
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520 second base recharge
520/1.33 = 383.45
383.45/1.33 = 288.31
288.31/1.33 = 216.77
A friend and I timed this today with a stopwatch and with my 3 SOs, I am at 350 seconds not 216.77.
The recharge difference is 5:50 (mine) apx 3:36.
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I think you're calculating it incorrectly. The way I understand it is as follows:
Base recharge = 520 sec
Each SO Recharge Reducer has a 33% effect
Default Recharge = 520 / 1 = 520
Recharge with 1 SO = 520 / 1.33 = 391
Recharge with 2 SO = 520 / 1.67 = 312
Recharge with 3 SO = 520 / 2 = 260
This still doesn't jive with your numbers, but these are the calculations that I was lead to believe were accurate. Someone please chime in if I've munged the calculations.
Oh, as a note: This means that any enhancers that REDUCE (endurance, recharge, etc) have a diminishing return on investment.
Your team is by far the best development and customer service team the MMORPG market has ever seen. I have brought my entire Everquest guild over to CoH, and that my friends is one of the highest complements one can receive. REVENUE 
Big Richie Thumbs up to you guys 
The posts I made within 2 threads on this are begining to converge in content, so I am posting a link to that thread and copying the message below.
My SG mate will be posting separately, but he got 8:40 with 2 DOs.
I created a new Rad/Rad Defender and took AM at level 2. She has ZERO enhancements!
The icon refreshed at 8:40, which coinsides with the hero-planner.
However, when I clicked it, it said it was still recharging.
It finally recast at 11:00.
Let's say that 11:00 (a bit excessive IMO) is the base recharge time. That's 660 seconds.
660/(1 + .33 + .33 + .33) = 330
This is still 20 seconds off from the 350 seconds that we counted with my 3 SOs. It may be nit-picky, but it is 20 extra seconds.
Geko - Is the refresh time for AM supposed to be 8:40 with the icon refresh or is it supposed to be 11:00 when the skill itself is available?
If the refresh is supposed to be 11:00, please fix the icon to reflect this. Though, I beg for reconsideration this base value to be in the 8-10 minute range. It would still qualify as very long. However, it would then not over-penalize those of us who do not plan to take hasten.
Perhaps consideration should be given with how hasten works with AM specifically.
If the recharge of AM and recharge enhancements remain as they are, I still have the following issue noted from my original post:
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Anyway, the specific problem I have is with recharge of powers. Because AM gives boost to recharge of all powers, I could be a reliable healer. Many of my slots are speced out with SOs. With the change, it is going to cost considerable Influence to respec recharges in all my other skills to compensate for the inavailability of AM. And, at this point, the only way for me to have faster recharge in Aura is to sacrifice HP healed.
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It's probably 11:00 minutes. My Rad/Rad Defender is at lvl 20. I have 2 DO recharge enhancers in it, and it takes 8.5 minutes for it to recharge for me, 7 min. if I have Hasten active. While I agree that Hasten needed to be toned down, the nerf to Accelerate Metabolism is excessive. It is a highly useful buff that is a major part of a Rad Defenders contribution to a group. As it stands now, I barely use it. I only activate it if my team is getting kicked on, kind of like a "Final Stand" power. While useful in that regard, the nerf has lessened the effectiveness of my character considerably. I hope that you, the Dev's, change this. That being said, I still love this game, and am thoroughly impressed with the commitment you show towards us in responding to our concerns.
I think you guys are doing a great job. I love the game and I enjoy my main toon a 14 level Grav/Emp controller. I was reading through changes and fixes coming up. How come there wasn't more help for the Controller. We have poor hit points, poor damage and trying to hold a Boss is nearly impossible. I'm sure your aware that soloing a Controller is difficult at best. I'm not sure about the high end controller but the mid range 12 to 18 is very week. I see blaster ( I can't believe that!!) and defender getting some help. Controlers need some kind of decent direct damage power they can us in the early teens or more damage and less endo on the existing powers
Ez
I just wanted to say thanks to the devs for being the best. It seems like they actually are serious about listening to us and not only fixing issues but working on rolling out tons of new content as well. You guys are doing a great job but you don't get the manly hanshake and nod just yet. That comes with the capes! 
Oh and am I the only one who noticed Freddie Prinze Jr. posted!? That's just cool. COH is so good even celebrities want to play!
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... Many rants about Hasten hit the boards before most people even tried out the changes. Also, many of the upgrades and improvements to other powers were not even considered. So, for now, I am simply asking you to try things out for a while, and we will do the same. I promise things will ebb and flow until we hit a sweet spot. My guess is Hasten will not be reverted, but the pendulum will probably swing back the other way a little bit. ...
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I'm going to dive in on this as someone who watched, but was not terribly affected by the great turbo nerf of Earth and Beyond. As the saying goes, been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
Very briefly, this arose because turbo in E&B worked like hasten does here, it reduced the reload time of guns. Due to one of the devs misunderstanding this, a collection of devices were created that allowed 84% turbo. Reducing the reload time of guns by 84% had a devastating effect. It meant the player was doing about 500% more DPS.
The Devs realised the mistake, and subsequently fixed Turbo so that 84% turbo meant your net DPS was 184% of non-turbo, not 600%.
Of course, this lead to a HUGE outcry from the 84% turbo gang, who claimed that the game was no longer playable, they were going to quit, the game was doomed, blah blah blah. Anyone here remember Avenicus?
All because they couldn't solo mobs that were designed to be group material.
Well guess what. The change was made and we carried on, business as usual.
I WILL add an editorial comment to the effect that the devs should look into adjusting it so that haste does not decrease recharge time by the specified amount, but instead increases net rate of fire by the specified amount. I know it sounds like a purely semantic change, but as shown with 84% turbo in E&B, it makes a vast difference.
In the current system hasted recharge time = normal recharge time * (1 - haste percentage / 100 ).
OK, so what's the problem? As haste percentage tends towards 100, rate of fire tends towards infinity, which is what caused all the trouble for E&B in the first place.
The formula that E&B settled on was hasted recharge time = normal recharge time / (1 + haste percentage / 100).
Anyway, coming back to the current discussion.
According to Pips hero planner, haste reduces your recharge time by 58.8% right out the gate with no enhancements of any type slotted. If that description is accurate to the letter, that means haste increases your dps to about 240%. Plug 58.8 into the original E&B turbo equation if you don't believe me. Now, if Pips is wrong, I need to know, because that means that this whole argument of mine is null and void. So, could someone who has hasten state exactly what it does?
If you have a power that does 10 points every 10 seconds, that's 1 DPS. Reducing it by 58.8% means it does 1 point every 4 seconds or almost 2.5 DPS.
People, that is one almighty big increase in damage output. And you're complaining that you can't have it turned on 24/7?
I don't think the devs ever intended that this power be on 24/7. It has all the hall marks of a "boss killer" power, something that you turn on to take out that red or purple con mission boss.
OK, If Geko (or any other Dev) gets to the bottom of this rather long diatribe, can you comment on whether this is a correct assessment of the INTENDED use of Hasten?
Thanks.
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So, with that said, let me give you my 10 Commandments of Geko:
*I will always listen to the community (that goes for the boards, in game, and thru mining data and statistics).
*I will not be scared to be wrong.
*I will react as quickly as possible, but not sooner than needed.
*I will not be scared to be unpopular.
*I will not make a change to the game simply because it is popular.
*I will do my best to continue to make this game fun.
*I will not intentionally stealth nerf.
*I will not reduce Accuracy.
*I will try my best to give you detailed information.
*I will make Statesman wash my car.
(well, 9 out of 10 aint bad)
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Rules to "live" by in an MMO! Communication here is better than any other MMO I've ever played
I must say though, that I'm a bit disillusioned with CoH after all the good things Cryptic officials said prior to release. Balance is to a large extent out, I even think you need re-examine your vision on gameplay.
For one thing; there's no real need for two support archtypes when only Blasters (and Scrappers with a Provoke Tanker or a couple of Controllers) has a "viable" damage output.
How about turning Defenders into viable damage dealers by upping their damage slightly and possibly lowering their primary efficiency? This would avoid the "conflict" between Defenders and the Controllers and solidifying what everyone knows; Controllers "defend" better. Likewise Tankers should have their primary slightly lowered (100% unaided damage resistence or even close is unbalancing) and damage slightly upped. Blaster AoE would have to be reduced somewhat and this alone will make Scrappers more viable.
Just my 2 influence worth.
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*I will not intentionally stealth nerf.
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I guess my question to you would be, is the combination of super speed + stealth making you invis, intentional?
I have this combo and so far the only things that can detect me is 5th column ware wolves. I mean im not complaining, I love it, its great for a spiner scrapper so he can get in position ahead of time and start going crazy doing AoE but I just wanna know if this is going to be changed in the future. Will you guys nerf this combo?
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Arguments? Well you haven't really argued about the AM nerf. There has been NO explanation about this change to AM. Why was it nerfed? We are a lot of people that simply don't understand this one - and don't understand why you will not talk about it. There are explanations of Hasten - but not about AM. You claim you aim to communicate Geko - please do so about AM. Why?
Ummmmm....Geko....the man has a point here.
Regards,
Captain Beyond
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I love the game and have no issues with the changes from the last patch,
But this caught my eye 
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*I will not make a change to the game simply because it is popular.
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This statement is rubbing me wrong, Ive been sitting here for about a half hour trying to state my feelings on this one, yet cant find the right words to not offend anyone.
It just feels like your saying, I will listen to what the mass's want, but just because most of the player base "most of the people paying to play' wants something, i wont give it to them. No compromises, Just a flat out Your out of Luck
Then its followed by,
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*I will do my best to continue to make this game fun.
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How can you do this by denying what the magority of the people playing the game want?
Im sure im just reading your post incorrectly and appoligize in advance, just would love some insight into this.
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The reason why Gecko says he won't make changes just because their "popular" is that the majority of gamers almost 100% of the time don't know what's good for their own enjoyment or the game as a whole. Many other devs have made changes to game because it was the popular change to make, to have it backfire. What Gecko says is completely on the mark.
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LMFAO!!!!
What an absurd explanation for such a blatant, obvious, borderline assinine concept!
Ok lemme see now. Lets say I have a business. Most any business will do here. {I am sure there would be a very, very, very rare exception} Ok I have customers. They pay me money for goods or a service. My goal is to make my customers happy, make new customers, and make money.
Sound good so far?
But as time goes on {as it tends to do} I learn that my customers {the POPULAR majority} of my customers request a reasonable type of service or goods which they are willing to pay me their hard earned money for. Still with me?
So..........
I announce to my customers that just because something is popular with them; I and I alone reserve the right to deny them that! {keep in mind I have already included reasonableness in customers' requests in this equation}
Sound like good business practice to you?
Help me.
Regards,
Captain Beyond
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Your solution to the Hasten and Accelerated Metabolism problem (if you agree that there IS a problem especially with AM) takes the wrong approach. The timers are now so long that AM (I do not have hasten) has been changed from a power that I actually use, to one that I only consider in an emergency. I find that I am "saving" it and therefor, I hardly ever use it at all.
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Yes, Exactly! this power should never be just an emergency use only power, and yet it is at this point, especially at the lower levels.