Issue 4 Changes for Gravity - Official Thread
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2005-03-22 14:26 in Developers' Corner
hello, i wanted to find out what the current stand on wormhole is. i have read numerous posts disliking the new AoE effect it has been given, i am certain that the amount of posts viewing this change negatively far outnumber those who like the change.
I am one who hopes that the AoE effect does go live, that it remains a single target power.
I use this power all the time, I use it to pull single foes, I use it to remove single problem targets from battle. I use it to bring Malta sappers to my team from a mob before they can drain stamina, I use to remove emanators and turrets from battle. When i see a mob with a paragon protector, i will bring the paragon protector first, so my team can swiftly kill it, then kill the mob. With the power being AoE, i will not be able to do that.
I dont see any use for wormhole being AoE. Since a to hit roll is needed for each foe it targets, there will be no way to ever know just how many targets you will bring, but you will most assuradely aggro the whole mob instead.
By making it AoE, you take the "control" out of the power.
It will randomly move targets, then disperse them with knockback and disorient wanderings, when they arrive in its target spot. As a single target power, you have control over what the power does, only if you dont miss 
It will not be able to used for pulling, it will not be able to used to remove single targets in battle, it will be become just another random hard to use power that gravity has already too much of.
Please let me know what the current statis of wormhole is, as im sure issue four will be released soon, and if it becomes an AoE power, i will have to respec it out, as i will have no use for it.
If you want to improve wormhole, there have been many great suggestions given, such as increase the disorient, or create a wormhole travel time, so that when you wormhole a target, it re appears say six seconds later where you target, effectively removing it from battle for a set duration, and there have been many other ideas.
Please keep it a single target power.
thxs for reading my post
After reading the ideas again here are the ones I agree with that need to happen to fix several issues.
Propel:
New damage is good, but make it have the new 12 second AoE disorent that WH 2.0 has. For younger Grav controllers it will help the problem of not being able to lock down large groups until 18. Since Crushing Field is the next power you could a workable lock down by level 8.
Dimensional Shift:
This is a hard one since players basiclly don't like having downtime which DS creates. Without re-thinking the whole intangibility thing, I have one suggestion. Make targets that are intangible not targetable until 2-3 seconds before they come back. This way pets won't keep trying to hit them and miss the guys that are free.
Wormhole:
Go back to the single target, faster recharging version. Increase the disorent base to 12 seconds and try to cut down the activation time (I know other powers in our set need it too).
I sure hope the devs consider our ideas here.
Well obviously the devs consider our ideas. We talked for months about the control gap and the need for a second AoE mezzer that wasn't dimension shift. In the test notes, where they initially talked about wormhole, they specifically said it was changed to give us an additional AoE. They responded to our concerns directly, even if they didn't give us exactly what we were begging for (which was a gathering AoE hold, like a drawing TK). I for one assume they have their reasons. Not hard to imagine, either--another hold in grav would increase our single-target mag building ability yet again. We'd be chain-holding AVs.
If your suggestions do not at least address the control gap, then your suggestions are an attempt to keep us gimped. Not that I mind really--I enjoy the set as it stands on live, and I enjoy the set as it stands on test. At least I know I went on there and tried it out. The new wormhole does lose some functionality--functionality that you can retain by taking teleport foe and by accepting that sometimes you have to send a mob away with a beacon. But it gives us another AoE mez type than just hold, immobilize, and untouchable.
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If your suggestions do not at least address the control gap, then your suggestions are an attempt to keep us gimped. Not that I mind really--I enjoy the set as it stands on live, and I enjoy the set as it stands on test. At least I know I went on there and tried it out. The new wormhole does lose some functionality--functionality that you can retain by taking teleport foe and by accepting that sometimes you have to send a mob away with a beacon. But it gives us another AoE mez type than just hold, immobilize, and untouchable.
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I would prefer that they left Wormhole as a single target villain flinger. I can't test out the new Wormhole because my Grav controller is only level 10, but I'll be picking up TP Foe if the AE change stays. I would prefer the far more flexible Wormhole though.
I think the power that most people were hoping would be changed is Dimension Shift. I know I was. Instead of removing the villains from the fight for a period of time, they could be slept, disoriented, or tossed up and down repeatedly. I'd prefer giving the villains a timeout my team could still attack through, rather than giving them one that makes my team want to attack me.
I'd rather see Wormhole stay as it is on Live and Dimension Shift become the power that fills the control gap.
Zuri
how about this idea in regards to wormhole. if it stays an AoE power, then give it a wormhole travel time effect.
what i mean, is that all the targets that are wormholed, take a set amount of time, six seconds, twelve seconds, whatever is best, to arrive at the target destination.
i think this would make it an improved dimension shift, which would go with the flow of powers, grav dist, then its field, crush, then its field, dimension shift, then wormhole.
i think it would be better than dimension shift because i think the main complaint with it is that you can still see the enemies, so it causes confusion as to who you can attack or not. but if you completely remove the targets from battle, there will be no confusion. it will aslo be more powerful than dimension shift because you can select where the targets re appear.
what does anyone else think?
Something just occurred to me today, and I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it before. You know how a lot of melees don't like us knocking stuff back? Imagine how they're going to react in actual live play when we grab a whole bunch of mobs and port them to another location, even a very close one, in order to utilize our "new AoE control power". Melees are going to hate wormhole users if this goes live.
Given that, I think I'm officially sold on the new wormhole being a bad idea.
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Melees are going to hate wormhole users if this goes live.
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Afterwards dimension shift them. That'll really make em angry.
Hahahah, the first big combo with new wormhole: wormhole and dimension shift. Perfect for those times when you really, really want to get out of this team and never have these people bother you to team with them again. 
yes, i have to agree that in the later stages of the game, most team tactics revolve around a tanker herding foes into a group, then heros using AoE powers on them....
how useless will a gravity controller be with wormhole in that team?
"hey guys, i know you just grouped all those guys into a big mob, but im going to wormhole a bunch away for you, cuz im a controller...."
i dont think that will go over well.....
i think what no one has said so far, is what use wormhole will have as an AoE power
The idea appears to be that we can use it as an AoE disorient. Which is true, with the longer duration.... but the teleport and the knockback are both severe liabilities (God, I can't believe I just said the teleport on wormhole is a liability) and the existing weakness of disorient (the fact that it tends to scatter mobs) exacerbates all that scattering even further.
Note BTW that I almost never mess around with herding teams, and I still think this power sucks.
If you are that stupid, then not just melees will hate you.
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I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it before.
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What you should be kicking yourself for is you haven't realized that you don't have to move them at all to get the disorient. You haven't realized that you can pull a mob into the burn batch or the Invincibility aura. You can drop the mob in between the crates/railroad cars/in the dumpster/that corner near the lunchroom at the end of many warhouse missions in order to limit the spread.
You can send them far away, where they will stagger for a bit if you need more time and your group is in trouble. You can also just disorient them where they are so they can be killed with less risk.
The knockback is the only issue I have now, but I can work around that easily enough anyway.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Maybe I need to play with the new power more on test, but I still see a great deal of room for the targetting to become imprecise during an actual gaming situation. And it won't take much to get this power off target and screw up melee targeting.
As for porting stuff into burn patches and invincibility auras, most tanks I know are competent enough to get mobs into their burn patches and invincibility auras without me tossing mobs all over the place to "help" them.
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You can drop the mob in between the crates/railroad cars/in the dumpster/that corner near the lunchroom at the end of many warhouse missions in order to limit the spread.
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I shouldn't have to go to the trouble of dropping the mobs in between objects that may or may not be there when I need them just to bring this power up to par with other controller primaries.
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You can send them far away, where they will stagger for a bit if you need more time and your group is in trouble. You can also just disorient them where they are so they can be killed with less risk. ller primaries.
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And if I were an ice controller I could just ice slick them. If I were a fire controller I could just flashfire them and not worry about whether I'd targetted the exit point correctly to keep them from winding up out of range of my teams' melees. If I were an illusion controller, I could drop PA and draw some mob aggro onto the pets. Getting some dev attention is a fine thing, but we shouldn't be settling for second rate "improvements" that remove the utility of our existing powers. We should be asking for real improvements that bring us up to par with the other existing controller primary sets.
I agree, having to have specific terrain around you to make a power useful is pretty weak in itself give them either their original wormhole or a new power like grav. version of ice slick or somthing give the people what they want. But then again even ice has a power that people rarely take, anyone heard of flash freeze talk about sucky once you get it everyone has aoe's so its useless.
about the suggestion to use wormhole as a disorient power, by selecting the destination the same as its start, placing the mob exacly where it was. If you use it for that, whats the point in having the option of selecting the destination, you may as well just call the power gravity sickness. a power that causes mass disorientation.
if you are going to give gravity another AoE power, you may as well come up with something completely different.
gravity already has a hold power, a immobolize power, and whatever you would classify dimension shift as.
why not give gravity another new status effect, such as you increase the gravity around your targets, making them more heavy and harder to move. sort of like a ranged caltrops.
you could stop a mob from charging the group, allowing the team to dispatch of the mob before it gets to them.
giving a AoE slow power to gravity would also be good for herding, when a group is formed, its not going anywhere fast.
you could even through in a debuff effect for it, all targets get minues to hit or damage.
im sure there are other possibilites...
but im sure that this is all pipedream stuff, maybe issue six
so for now, please leave wormhole a single target power, and work on either a new power altogether, or just anything else....
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about the suggestion to use wormhole as a disorient power, by selecting the destination the same as its start, placing the mob exacly where it was. If you use it for that, whats the point in having the option of selecting the destination, you may as well just call the power gravity sickness.
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Also, bear in mind that just because you have a mob targeted does not mean you'll necessarily have the point on the ground where the mob is standing targeted. You more likely have some point behind the mob targeted, and that's where it'll go when it ports (not that it'll stay there or anything, of course). To target a mob, then target the point on the ground where the mob is currently standing, not only defeats the purpose of the teleport effect (which is starting to look more and more like a liability instead of a useful effect), it also eats up valuable time in a game whose combat is very fast paced. The time you spend making sure you don't send the mob out of melee range of your scrappers or tankers (time another controller with another power wouldn't need to spend) could be the difference between a teammate being knocked out or not. We need to be able to cast our powers reasonably quickly in combat, and dithering around making sure our targeting is right doesn't do that.
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about the suggestion to use wormhole as a disorient power, by selecting the destination the same as its start, placing the mob exacly where it was. If you use it for that, whats the point in having the option of selecting the destination, you may as well just call the power gravity sickness.
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Also, bear in mind that just because you have a mob targeted does not mean you'll necessarily have the point on the ground where the mob is standing targeted. You more likely have some point behind the mob targeted, and that's where it'll go when it ports (not that it'll stay there or anything, of course). To target a mob, then target the point on the ground where the mob is currently standing, not only defeats the purpose of the teleport effect (which is starting to look more and more like a liability instead of a useful effect), it also eats up valuable time in a game whose combat is very fast paced. The time you spend making sure you don't send the mob out of melee range of your scrappers or tankers (time another controller with another power wouldn't need to spend) could be the difference between a teammate being knocked out or not. We need to be able to cast our powers reasonably quickly in combat, and dithering around making sure our targeting is right doesn't do that.
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There's also the issue that the targets are still subject to Knockback from the Wormhole even if the destination point is in the same spot as where the targets originated. So even if all you want to do is use Wormhole strictly for the Disorient, the Knockback will fling targets away from melees even if you try to target the destination point right next to the melee.
I've also noticed that even when you try to use the environment to try to contol the Knockback effect, the targets will frequently just rebound off the objects and land some distance away. This happens to me frequently when trying to use corners to control the Knockback, the villians just bounce backwards into the wall and rebound in some random direction.
Bottom line is the new Wormhole stinks. I'm glad the devs are trying to come up with creative ways to help Gravity, but this isn't the solution. Sometimes that just happens, something that looks like a good idea just doesn't work out. I hope the devs are looking at the feedback they're being provided with and realise that perhaps it's time to go back to the drawing board. There's been some excellent suggestions in this thread for other powers that could be adjusted instead of Wormhole to try to address the control gap, my favorite still being the idea of a Disorient effect added to Propel that radiates from the impact point. Regardless, I'd rather wait another issue for the devs to go back and come up with something else than have Wormhole changed for the worse.
Gothika (Grav/Kin) Marionette (Ill/Rad) Terra Firma (Earth/Storm) Alana Dale (Arch/Nrg)
Iceblink (Ice/Dark) Fantasia (Mind/Fire) Shadow Minx (Claws/Nin)
--Virtue
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We talked for months about the control gap and the need for a second AoE mezzer that wasn't dimension shift. In the test notes, where they initially talked about wormhole, they specifically said it was changed to give us an additional AoE.
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I regret that I wasn't paying more attention to the forums during those months. Now Wormhole is being changed for the worse, and it may be too late to stop that change. I'd have argued against the existance of the purported control gap, and against turning Gravity into a vanilla controller primary. I should have been here defending the status quo rather than playing the game, I guess.
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If your suggestions do not at least address the control gap, then your suggestions are an attempt to keep us gimped.
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Honestly, Gravity isn't gimped. Gravity doesn't play like other controller powersets. If all the powersets are the same then the game is lessened. It's important that people choose their powersets based on what they want their hero to be able to do. If you discover that your hero can't do X, because X isn't in your powersets, but it's in another one, then the correct response is to make a hero with that other powerset - not to lobby the devs to change your current powerset so that it can do X. That will eventually lead to a flat, uninteresting game.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
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Bottom line is the new Wormhole stinks. I'm glad the devs are trying to come up with creative ways to help Gravity, but this isn't the solution. Sometimes that just happens, something that looks like a good idea just doesn't work out. I hope the devs are looking at the feedback they're being provided with and realise that perhaps it's time to go back to the drawing board. There's been some excellent suggestions in this thread for other powers that could be adjusted instead of Wormhole to try to address the control gap, my favorite still being the idea of a Disorient effect added to Propel that radiates from the impact point. Regardless, I'd rather wait another issue for the devs to go back and come up with something else than have Wormhole changed for the worse.
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What she said.
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Honestly, Gravity isn't gimped. Gravity doesn't play like other controller powersets.
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I agree. The "control gap" should be called the "AE hold control gap" which doesn't mean the set itself is gimped. Although it's darn close to being gimped pre-32 if you want to solo.
Given the power of AE control, and the fact that gravity recieves nothing in return to compensate it for the lack of AE control, I really can't imagine how it is anyone doesn't think this is a problem for the set. You could argue whether or not it's truly "gimped" since it is still playable and functional, but it's clearly below par compared to other controller primaries. I just don't see what it is that grav gets in return for it's disadvantages.
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And if I were an ice controller I could just ice slick them. If I were a fire controller I could just flashfire them and not worry about whether I'd targetted the exit point correctly to keep them from winding up out of range of my teams' melees. If I were an illusion controller, I could drop PA and draw some mob aggro onto the pets. Getting some dev attention is a fine thing, but we shouldn't be settling for second rate "improvements" that remove the utility of our existing powers. We should be asking for real improvements that bring us up to par with the other existing controller primary sets.
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Ice Slick rules, and I have stated my preference for a Reverse Gravity Field that operates mechanically similiar to Ice Slick many times. However, even Ice Slick cannot be said to keep mobs together, some mobs flop on it, others run off it, some see it and don't enter its area ; all of these conditions are at least as much scatter as wormhole is normally going to cause.
Flashfire has the about the same drawbacks as wormhole, insofar as disorient causes scatter.
PA = knockback = mobs not clumped
If your main gripe is that Wormhole causes scatter, it can situationally cause much less scatter than all the powers you mentioned, due to your ability to drop the baddies into scatter preventing terrain. Scatter is the nature of an AoE disorient (and knockback). I can live with scatter if the mobs stay disoreinted for 12 seconds (if that can be enhanced to be longer). (As a side note, I have now seen conflicting reports of the new disorient time, I have not tested wormhole since the 4/13 increase myself, so I will have to do that. I have trouble believing the post that said it was only 5 or 6 seconds though, as that is what it was pre 4/13, but the 12 seconds is not confirmed by me.)
For reference Arinara said on 4/13 :
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Base disorient is now 12 seconds against an even-con Nemesis LT, but enhancements currently do nothing to increase this.
I made a bug post.
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madmage asked:
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If you use it for that, whats the point in having the option of selecting the destination, you may as well just call the power gravity sickness. a power that causes mass disorientation.
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The fact that you can do both doesn't seem like a strength to you? You whine becuase you have an option?
If the team is barely handling what you are facing, disorienting a group of adds and sending them down a hallway, over the railing downstairs, or way up in the air over there gives some extra time beyond the disorient. If your group is ready to kill the next group of mobs, making them disoriented in about the same place just makes the fight safer (like Flashfire and Stalagmites).
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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The fact that you can do both doesn't seem like a strength to you? You whine becuase you have an option?
If the team is barely handling what you are facing, disorienting a group of adds and sending them down a hallway, over the railing downstairs, or way up in the air over there gives some extra time beyond the disorient. If your group is ready to kill the next group of mobs, making them disoriented in about the same place just makes the fight safer (like Flashfire and Stalagmites).
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OK, so the teleportation offers an enormously situational and still minor benefit, while costing us precious time whenever we want to use the power without making life even more difficult for our teammates than they were already going to be. I can see where you're coming from, but IMO that's a bad tradeoff.
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Flashfire has the about the same drawbacks as wormhole, insofar as disorient causes scatter.
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Disorient +knockback + dodgy teleportation targeting cause a lot more scatter than just disorient alone. More scatter, and much more violent and sudden scatter.
Sorry, but the "benefits" you're seeing in the new wormhole all seem to me to be extremely situational and subject to limitations that other power sets simply don't have to deal with. I'd be OK with that if the payoff were such that it was worth it, but it just isn't.
All that said, I (perhaps obviously) agree with you that an ice slick-style power would be a much better option for gravity.
It's really beginning to trouble me that this thread doesn't have a single dev response, while the regen thread has well over 10 now. Not that I don't want the regens to get feedback as well, but it'd be nice if we at least got some kind of update or feedback from the devs.
My Grav/Kin is only lvl 29, but here's my observations.
- Keep wormhole how it is on live, but increase the disorient. Usually when I pull a mob with it, I immediately hold them anyway. If I miss, I'd like to have the disorient be a little longer.
- Lift is not worthless. What I usually do is a combo of lift/air superiority after most stuff is locked down with GDF and GD. If I don't miss, the mob never gets a shot off. I'm hitting AS as they hit the ground from lift, and when AS hits, it knocks them down and lift is recharged. It's a great combo.
- Another good combo of mine is GD, siphon power, propel, lift. GD prevents knockback so propel and lift keep them there. I'll even throw in some AS shots as well. Once I have it slotted up for dmg, it should do pretty well.
I just think some people are a little impatient. I have a lot of patience which is why I don't mind playing my controllers. We're not damage dealers, we shouldn't be. The dmg to Propel does help us defeat mobs faster, but if you have them held down for awhile, you can just spam GD & propel.
Emerald Sky
@Emerald Sky
@Lava Dome
@Power Chip