Issue 4 Changes for Gravity - Official Thread
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2005-03-22 14:26 in Developers' Corner
Well, since this is now the official Gravity changes thread, I'll try to summarize my thoughts again here.
Most of the Gravity changes I'm fairly content with. I still think the activation times on most of the single target powers are excessive, but the improvements to Propel and Singularity are nice and a step in the right direction.
Most of my comments will deal with Wormhole, though. My big problem with the new Wormhole isn't so much what it's being turned into, but the loss of the current Wormhole. Wormhole as it is now is one of my staple powers.
<ul type="square">[*] I use it to pull key villians out of groups, whether to pull or after a GDF. With the new version, you now get a clump of villians, there's no precision.[*]I use it to get rid of villian 'pets' (DE eminators, Malta auto-turrets, ect). Try to do that now and it throws a clump of villians away, which can be annoying for the same reason Dimension Shift is so frequently annoying. [*]I use it to position a villian I've GDed next to an ally to heal with a Transfusion or Transference. Blasters won't be happy when you try that with the new version and there's suddenly 10 angry villians next to them. [*]Wormhole + Crush is excellent control vs Bosses. Use Crush on a troublesome boss and then Wormhole it far away and it's out of your hair until the Crush wears off, or you Wormhole it back. This is especially helpful in multi-boss encounters and vs Carnies. With the new Wormhole, all the allies around the boss are teleported as well, creating a scatter effect. Precision control is lost.[/list]I could keep going, but I don't want to make this post into a novel. 
The point is, Wormhole as it is now is much too good a power to effectively eliminate. There are alternatives that could be implemented that retain 'classic' Wormhole and still add an AoE Disorient to Gravity.
<ul type="square">[*]Retain the proposed Wormhole under a new name and replace Dimension Shift with the current Wormhole (My favorite suggestion). [*]Replace Dimension Shift with an AoE Lift + Disorient.[*]Replace Dimension Shift with some other AoE Disorient (seeing a theme? ). [*]Change the current Lift into an AoE Disorient (Lift is a popular power though).[/list]Or any other idea that retains the current Wormhole but adds an AoE Disorient. No other power in the game can duplicate what Wormhole currently does, not even Teleport Foe. The change to Wormhole eliminates the precision of the power and effectivily removes a large part of my gameplay strategy and makes Gravity much less fun for me to play. This I feel quite strongly. I'd rather have no change to Wormhole and retain the 'control gap' for another few months until Issue 5 than have my Gravity Controller lessened by this change.
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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Gravity STILL suffers from extremely long animation times.
Gravity STILL has a control gap.
Gravity STILL has subpar secondary effects.
Gravity STILL gets a Pet that is a crutch to make up for the control gap while other controlers get pets that add damage to their already superior control.
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Gravity Pets STILL use a damage pet's AI even though they are control pets.
Gravity powers STILL do smashing damage, meaning that all our puny damage calculations are only accurate against mobs without the most common damage resistance/defense in the game.
Gravity STILL has to wait 26 levels to have their control gap "fixed". Kind of like when someone has a broken window on their car and they "fix" it by duct-taping a piece of plastic over it--it's ugly, it doesn't always work, and a lot of people would rather just have the broken window.
--Ariel
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Gravity STILL gets a Pet that is a crutch to make up for the control gap while other controlers get pets that add damage to their already superior control.
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What kind of Singularities are you using? Mine were virtually indestructable, and are in the process of getting a boost to their damage reduction. Sure, other pets do more damage. Other pets die when archvillains hit them, too. Mine don't.
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Gravity STILL has a control gap.
Gravity STILL has subpar secondary effects.
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I don't feel that I need secondary effects on my powers. I don't feel like I have a control gap either. Probably just a difference in play style.
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Gravity STILL suffers from extremely long animation times.
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Well, yeah, that's true.
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That's the problem. We are no more viable than we were before.
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People, don't let the eye candy fool you. Falling for these weak "changes" could undo all the petitioning and work we have done to get our powerset some attention.
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I didn't feel that Gravity needed to be improved. I see some improvements in the new changes, and some things that have been weakened. It will take me some time to decide whether they add up to be a net loss or gain of power.
As for Gravity's viability as a powerset, you seem to have done okay with it up to level 50.
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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<ul type="square">[*]Replace Dimension Shift with an AoE Lift + Disorient.[*]Replace Dimension Shift with some other AoE Disorient (seeing a theme? ).[/list]
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Dimension Shift is going to be massive in PvP, imo. It would be a genuine tragedy to get rid of it so that we can have some disorient effect. There are plenty of heroes out there who simply can't be disoriented. They phase out just fine... 
I'm not just thinking of the Arena here. Don't forget that the Arena is just an elaborate beta test for the PvP combat that CoV will bring. Let's not beg one of the most powerful PvP tools in the game out of our powerset!
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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Dimension Shift is going to be massive in PvP, imo.
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Possibly. I would be more inclined to agree if it were a single target power rather than an AoE. Like Wormhole, I think Dimension Shift would work better as a precision power rather than a sledgehammer.
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
I think that the animation times should be lowered for certain powers of the set: Lift, propel, crush, and worm hole.
The damange for propel should be increased a slight bit more, if the animation time is lowered. If it isn't lowered, then the damage should be increased a bit more.
The disorientation time of worm hole needs an increased - significantly! 9 seconds with 5 SOs is horrible. The stringing effect of placement should be looked into. Is it a collision issue, a drop pint issue, or something else? I think it should drop the mobs off in nearly the same placement as the pick up.
Get rid of the knock back with worm hole. Having to use cheap work arouds to decrease the knock back effect is simply annoying.
I refrain from commenting on DS at this moment because of the possible PVP applications. Once they are determined, then grav trollers should comment on it more. Currently in PVE it is a nearly worthless power, for which reason can easily be located by searching the forum for.
I strongly prefer the old wormhole. What i would like is either...
1. change d-shift, lift, or propel (cone) into an aoe disorient and change wormhole back.
2. increase the disorient duration and replace d-shift or propel with wormhole "classic".
This leaves the problem of long animations on many of the powers, but that can be fixed another day (we hope). The damage increase to propel and strength of sings... eh, don't really care much, i won't think of propel as worth getting until it has a shoter animation time, Massive damage (which i don't think it should have), or good control applications. I very much doubt you could force me to take an aoe foe intangibility power, even if... well, i'm to tired right now to think of what, but it would be very difficult to get me to take it.
But, to repeat the main point, please give us back a single target wormhole.
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But, to repeat the main point, please give us back a single target wormhole.
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Adding my voice to the chorus. I like Wormhole as it is now, for reasons already well elaborated in this thread. If an AOE disorient needs to be added to the set add it to something else.
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<ul type="square">[*]Retain the proposed Wormhole under a new name and replace Dimension Shift with the current Wormhole (My favorite suggestion). [*]Replace Dimension Shift with an AoE Lift + Disorient.[*]Replace Dimension Shift with some other AoE Disorient (seeing a theme? ). [*]Change the current Lift into an AoE Disorient (Lift is a popular power though).[/list]Or any other idea that retains the current Wormhole but adds an AoE Disorient. No other power in the game can duplicate what Wormhole currently does, not even Teleport Foe. The change to Wormhole eliminates the precision of the power and effectivily removes a large part of my gameplay strategy and makes Gravity much less fun for me to play. This I feel quite strongly. I'd rather have no change to Wormhole and retain the 'control gap' for another few months until Issue 5 than have my Gravity Controller lessened by this change.
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I would like to see Dimension Shift changed into the new wormhole too... but if the dev team really wants to keep DimShift the way it is...
Here is a less drastic suggestion that would return the precision control to wormhole but would incorporate the new AOE disorient -
Have the wormhole teleport only ONE enemy, but have the destination area qualify for an AOE disorient.
It could be described as the re-appearance of the 1 foe causes a disorienting thunderclap. That causes everyone in the targeted area to possibly become disoriented. (and we could use a nice big "BAM!" sound effect too 8)
While it would create aggro at the wormhole exit point, it would be much better than wormholing away half or all of the enemies all of a sudden.
Upsen.
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I think that the animation times should be lowered for certain powers of the set: Lift, propel, crush, and worm hole.
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I find the animation / cast times for the actual holds to be far too long. Gravity Distortion and Gravity Distortion Field have a casting time of 3. No other controller hold I know of has such a long time except Flash (also 3). Everyone else has 2 for the cast time for the most part, and Fire has a cast time of 1 for most stuff.
Also to the poster who said he felt gravity was fine and didnt have a control gap or he didnt notice or care .... others clearly notice it and care. It is not for no reason at all that KingSnake has the quote that he is a level 50 Grav/Kin and "Trust Me ... I know what I'm doing." You HAVE to with gravity, you don't have the luxury of control that most other controllers have. I don't have pets now on my level 24 Grav controller and neither did my highest former gravity controller (level 26 or 27 before I deleted her) but I've teamed with a couple of gravity controllers and they can't handle the extreme amounts of foes I can with my fire or ice controllers (who are 33 and 37). Believe me, while playing my various Gravity Control incarnations (5 of them I think), I REALLY had to hoof it big time to measure up. The control gap is there. I don't see how a brief disorient from Wormhole helps the attribute I'm missing. I do see how what I liked wormhole for is now gone from the set.
Dimension Shift. It doesn't matter WHAT they do to this power, as long as it is an AOE intangible, it will interfere with gameplay in 99% of encounters. That's a panic button at best, not the bread and butter control a controller needs. I havent tested the new one and I'm confused on the wording of the patch notes but it seems the rechartge is higher. I dont know if that means it recharges sooner or longer (turn the Air up! Do you mean hotter or colder?) but in either case, its lose / lose. Make the phase longer and it makes people wait more. Make the phase last shorter and it no longer lasts long enough to be a panic (HIGHLY situational) or divide and conquer (extremely slow) button, but you get to irritate people more frequently. Modifying its other attributes seems, on paper, to give similar non-helpful results (nerfs even depending on your PoV).
About the only thing that can be done for it and still have it be an intangibility effect would be make it single target. Maybe. Dimension Shift is not bread and butter control. I can't wait until I get my new grav to 26 so I can copy a couple of instances to test and test it and wormhole again.
As for wormhole, it is a situational power in the old form but MAN talk about fun! Talk about precision. From the descriptions I've read, that tool is gone. Teleport Foe won't help because you can't drop the target far enough away to get the use from Wormhole you used to get. The new wormhole is powerful, but quirky in a way that removes precision. Until the disorient time equals that of other controllers, or darned close, on the base time, the new (test server) wormhole becomes yet another funky power that, sure, you can use, but using it or not using it wouldnt seem to be the reliable bread and butter control power we are missing.
Also, I know some people say the singularities are additional control but I'd say that balances their lousy damage. Despite the sings, I don't see how 2 or 3 of them are going to help you with getting swamped by a new pack of 30-40 guys bursting from a portal suddenly. My Fire controller would whip out the Cinders I had in my back pocket while perma-cycling Flash Fires, and for most foes my Ice controller would drop another Ice Slick or two, or since I'm probably already using the slick, drop the Glacier I'm holding in my back pocket. Gravity, if it just used its only real hold (GDF), isn't going to be able to handle 40 adds with 3 singularities. Also if a team is mowing through groups quickly or efficiently, Gravity only has a good group control power every 2-3 fights, depending on your slotting and power selection (Hasten). Last night when teamed with a friend, I had my GDF available about every other fight, and I have perma hasten and 1 recharge in my GDF.
So, the control gap is still there. Wormhole and singularities don't give what we need. And again, the nice single target control on the Singularities (they tend to lock down only a hand-full of foes and sings share some targets, minimizing that number more) is balanced by their low damage. Nothing balances the control gap.
I'm sure there are more things but I'm tired. Need a nap.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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There might be a need. If we were going to have one thread for all the gravity testing and threads, this one has the most useful general title. Maybe we could put our likes, dislikes, agreements, disagreements, tests, etc in this thread.
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My initial reaction is very similar to other people's, and I've more or less said it elsewhere, but I'll put it down here for the sake of officiality.
The new Wormhole is intriguing. It would be a good power if the mobs at the "output end" were clumped or at least stayed in their original configuration. (And it would be possibly a great power if, on top of that fix, the disorient time was lengthened and/or the knockback was changed into knockup, enhanceable to knockback.)
Even if we were getting a version of the New Wormhole fixed according to my druthers, I'd still be miffed at losing the Old Wormhole, for all the reasons enumerated in previous posts. TP Foe doesn't cut it. I guess my first reaction is similar to those that say I'd like to have both a New Wormhole and an Old Wormhole available, and screw Dimension Shift. It would be kind of a cool analogy to GD and GDF.
Of course, I haven't tried PvP yet, and since I don't have a respec available I won't be trying PvP with Dimension Shift any time soon (if ever), so I can't speak to the usefulness of DS in PvP. And my experiments with the New Wormhole on Test have all been solo. Need to do some teaming now.
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Have the wormhole teleport only ONE enemy, but have the destination area qualify for an AOE disorient.
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Very cool idea! Well so long as the duration of the Disorient is 80% or more of the duration of Flashfires. To balance it some, I would remove the disorient on the ported target. That way, if you are moving a boss or foe or FF gen far away, the disorient wont be hitting anything and you'll still want to have Crush or GDF on the victim before they port off or else they will run back. On the other hand if you use one guy to disorient another pack, odds are you are using one of the guys in the pack so it isnt too powerful and even so that guy (or a foe pulled from elsewhere) will be in the disoriented pack but not disoriented himself and ready to whack ya for porting him.
The cool animation would be to have the disorient go off and THEN have the porter appear.
Anyway cool idea, and it retains the precision for when that is needed since only 1 thing is moved and its the destination thats disoriented. COOL idea!
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
I actually see much more use with Wormhole as an AoE disorient/relo than as a single.. but my SG uses some unorthodox tactics as well, but we work better than most pickup groups do. However, I am in agreement that the animation times are a little too long, but I have lived with them ever since I created my character on Pre-order day. Although it may have good applications in PvP, I am still a bit pensive about adding back in DS after a respec. If anything, there is more precision control with the restraining field in comparison to DS.
It will be a challenge to see how to properly tweak my main out with the two respecs I have saved up.
I will definely give the Devs a well earned kudos for the effort they have done so far. As it is on test and not fully live, I'm glad I've had a chance to participate in the reformation Controller power.
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And my experiments with the New Wormhole on Test have all been solo. Need to do some teaming now.
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My guess would be that on a team it won't be too great for reacting to "need more control now" but it probably will contribute to that form of control known as "making the mobs dead."
I see cool uses for the new version in teams. Got en earth control buddy? Drop some foes in their gasses. Got a /Devices blaster pal? Have him set up a bajillion trip mines, then a time bomb, count a few, and drop a new pack into the trip mine pack safely. Other forms of kill zones come to mind.
In a team I'd say this new Wormhole would be darn fun. The problem is that the actual control issues wont be met and the old uses of wormhole will be gone.
I'm gonna try to get my GC to 26 tonight or saturday or something and then do some testing myself.
I'll say one thing, having these big changes, good or bad, has at least got me looking at the set again and yearning to have a reason to dust off the old gal and really do something with her.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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And my experiments with the New Wormhole on Test have all been solo. Need to do some teaming now.
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My guess would be that on a team it won't be too great for reacting to "need more control now" but it probably will contribute to that form of control known as "making the mobs dead."
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Maybe a little of both. On Live my controller usually duos Unyielding missions with a Spines/DA scrapper. Last night we were doing several Nemesis missions and a room would often have a big main group plus one or two smaller sniper-containing groups at a bit of a distance, but of course well within sniper aggro range. With only 1 area hold that's tricky. New Wormhole could have been used to plop a sniper group into the main group and then hold them all together. (I think... the downside would be a longer wait until firing the hold, which might be bad.)
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Have the wormhole teleport only ONE enemy, but have the destination area qualify for an AOE disorient.
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That's an excellent suggestion and a compromise I could live with, since it doesn't take away from Wormhole's current functionality. Good show! 
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
Teleport foe also has the following disadvantages compared to Wormhole:
Foe appears ready for action near you.
It doens't work, period, on the following enemies:
+9 Minions or higher
+1 Lieutenants or higher
-3 Bosses or higher.
I mean, yuck! 8)
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Have the wormhole teleport only ONE enemy, but have the destination area qualify for an AOE disorient.
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That's an excellent suggestion and a compromise I could live with, since it doesn't take away from Wormhole's current functionality. Good show!
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Let's see if we can get away with a knockdown effect as the single enemy ports into the targeted area too... it would fit the picture perfectly as well.
Boomf! wormholed enemy appears, knocking enemies in the area off their feet, they all get up disoriented.
It'd be similar to a one-shot version of Ice Slick that's uniquely gravity's.
Upsen.
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Anyway cool idea, and it retains the precision for when that is needed since only 1 thing is moved and its the destination thats disoriented. COOL idea!
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I'm glad you like the idea as much as I do. 8)
Upsen.
I think that if you Wormhole enemies into a corner they will be knocked back in the same place so it could be very effective used that way(like MC's telekinesis)
TW/Elec Optimization
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Let's see if we can get away with a knockdown effect as the single enemy ports into the targeted area too... it would fit the picture perfectly as well.
Boomf! wormholed enemy appears, knocking enemies in the area off their feet, they all get up disoriented.
It'd be similar to a one-shot version of Ice Slick that's uniquely gravity's.
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I'm sold. Now just convince the powers-that-be.
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
Am I the only one not horrified with the changes to wormhole? (Not that I don't like the image of it being a knockdown, but that might be a little too weird to sell the devs on.)
I mean, yes, we all have all come up with strategies for making the old wormhole work. And yes, those strategies no longer work. They changed the power TREMENDOUSLY when they made it AoE instead of single target. It might as well be a new power now.
But are you all sure that it's actually WORSE? Yes, it's clearly DIFFERENT. Yes, we haven't had months to come up with good things to use it for. But remember, there was a time when common forum wisom was "wormhole sux, most controllers say skip it." And then we started coming up with good uses for it, and by golly, it is now the power that I miss the most whenever I play someone other than my grav controller.
Well, now instead of the old wormhole, we have a DIFFERENT weird, unique power that no one knows how to use yet. But you know what? I'm convinced that the new one is at least as powerful as the old one. I don't know how we'll use it (although I have some nasty ideas, especially for PvP) but I'm VERY confident that good uses for it exist.
Before, we used to explain wormhole to people as "it's like TP foe, but I can put them anywhere I want, and it's not interruptable." Well, now it's even FURTHER from TP foe. It is a power like none other in the game, that does weird effects that no other powerset can even pretend to duplicate. Lots of sets have ways of stunning a whole group of people. Only gravity now has a way of making them all be somewhere else. The disorient is merely icing on the cake. Wormhole has never been about the disorient on the end. It's just there for kicks. Don't focus on wormhole's short disorient time. That's not the point of wormhole. The real power of wormhole has always been the control it gives you over that most fundamental aspect of combat: Position. Well, now we have a whole lot MORE control over position, if we just take some time to figure out how to use it. Now we can affect the position of entire GROUPS.
If we can't come up with some kind of use for something like that, then in my opinion, we're not trying.
Just got off test with Wormhole, the Disorient may have been upped. I was getting between 46.5 and 47 seconds on -12 levels and 11 to 11.5 seconds on even level enemies. However both these numbers are from when I saw the mob appear at the teleport target and every single mob I tried it on fired at me at about the time they appeared. So I was getting alphas when using it to pull.
Did a short team to try it out in that setting, they only liked it if I pulled with it. Holing a group into another group and holding the whole set was loved by the blasters and the tank. Use during combat to reposition, disorient (hey, I tried), or thin, was universally considered a bad thing. Actually they threatened to kick me if I kept doing it during fights.
Now that the Gravity changes have their own Official thread, I'll take this opportunity to post a link to my quick and dirty lil test of the new wormhole with proposed suggestions.
Thanks Cuppajo!
Quick 'n Dirty Analysis of Wormhole V2.0
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THe most I could get in a group was 4, and they were all right next to one another
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I was playing around with wormhole in Boomtown just to get a feel for the utility of the changes. I was able to grab the large groups of Council which leads me to believe the AoE is around the same size as GDF.
I know I will see you again on another game somewhere - one game can't hold all us crazies forever.
CuppaJo
Some people just need to be on the cross at all times for the attention, I guess.
Friggin_Taser