Devs: Any hope for the flight pool?
By
Aaron123,
Posted on: 2006-01-23 09:14 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
A whole thread here and no one has pointed out the obvious. Hmm.
Fly/hover is easily the most powerful travel power for versatility. Any character of mine that isn't a front line fighter has it and I have no complaints at all with it's current 'usefulness' post ED. With three SO's in both Fly and Hover, movement is a non-issue and switching back and forth isn't really that hard, my only complaint is that supression doesn't switch over to hover automatically (meaning you're still taking the end penalty for Flight when suppressed and you don't move at your hover speed).
If you want an example of why Flight/Hover are fine right now try this. Go into a mission and use ANY other travel power to avoid melee entirely. Don't take a single melee hit from any mob while the power is active. It makes you immune to knockdown, resistant to knockback, and immune to ground effects like caltrops and certain stomp attacks. Kinda hard to do all that with superjump, superspeed, and teleport isn't it?
Do you really want the devs to start mucking around with the power that give you all of that in addition to being one of the most reliable travel powers?
I hope this silences the complaints in this thread.
Some people just want a travel power that does everything. Fast and versatile. Fly and Hover have a lot of advantages, which is offset by slower speed and a high endurance cost for Fly. If you make Fly faster, why take Super Jump or Super Speed?
I've noticed a big drop in the number of super speeders, although I still see them here and there. They used to be very much FotM. People liked the speed and the stealth and kept complaining about obstacles. Oddly, I don't remember seeing too many complaints about Super Jump.
I'm not wild about the suppression in Fly, but I don't think it's any worse than the big accuracy penalty it replaced. I can live with the top speed, especially since it's a good speed to zip around inside door missions. Hover is meant to be very slow, and gives me a good ranged firing platform. The endurance cost of Fly isn't really a problem if you slap an endurance reduction enhancemnt or two in it, since it's not meant as a power to be used in combat (switch to Hover or land).
I currently have 23 characters with Fly and another who will be picking it up next level. 
Okay two ideas for you guys to toss around:
New power pool:
(Note on availability to keep it 'fair'. It does not unlock until level 14. However, if you've hit 50 any new toons you take can take it at 1 or 6 as normal akin to the Kheldians. Also it wouldn't have the prerequsite component like the other pools. So you could take the 4th power first if you want.)
Power Pool Travel
-Super Jump
-Super Speed
-Teleport
-Fly
There... now in one pool you've got access to the entire string of travel powers. It's not entirely unreasonable to think a super hero might specialize in 'warping' the universe around them. Look at */grav/* toons.
Any of the travel powers could work in their favor:
Super Speed:
-They modify the gravity around their body so they are 'falling' forward instead of being pulled down.
Super Jump:
-They reduce the gravity around their body to something akin to the moon allowing them to super-jump.
Fly:
-They manipulate the gravity around their body to fly through the air.
Teleport:
-They create a 'personal' wormhole. (Theoretically 'real' wormholes are created when two blackholes collide. They then 'pull' the space between them as they move away from each other creating the 'hole' in space.)
Magic origic:
Nuff said, it's magic.
A seperate pool containing all the travel powers would let someone take any/all of the TP's without having to take other pools.
The second idea: stacking.
If I opt to take SS and Fly, let the SS speed affect my flight speed. I know this wouldn't allow for complete stacking (IE: Flight and SJ are kinda' exclusive) but it would allow people to take the vert/safety of fly with the speed of SS. It would balance itself by the fact that you'd need to take *4* powers to have high-speed flight.
Thoughts?
or 3 to haver damn fast hover with very low endurance cost
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Hover: We might buff it some, at some point. However, it should never be an effective travel power.
Flight: I'll talk to geko about it. No promises. (I got spoiled by the Holiday Jet Pack, too!)
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Hover was never an effective travel power. It was an effective combat mobility power IF you invested 5-6 slots of single origin flight speed enhancements into it. You guys need to get over your fears of overpowering silly stuff.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
on my alt controller I have Hover slotted with speed and I get up to about normal running speed (without sprint) this combined with dispersion bubble and personal force field while singularity is running makes me feel pretty darn invincible (even +3 level mobs hardly touch me and when they do hit they deal pathetic damage). As for flight it really needs a boost to speed, it's so slow that it's convinency is lost, I think that flight should be made faster but hover can stay the same.
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Some people just want a travel power that does everything. Fast and versatile. Fly and Hover have a lot of advantages, which is offset by slower speed and a high endurance cost for Fly. If you make Fly faster, why take Super Jump or Super Speed?
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I'm not advocating for Fly to become a Mach 3 screamer. I'd just like for once to NOT be the positivly last person to arrive at a mission with a fully slotted fly.
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I've noticed a big drop in the number of super speeders, although I still see them here and there. They used to be very much FotM. People liked the speed and the stealth and kept complaining about obstacles. Oddly, I don't remember seeing too many complaints about Super Jump.
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One of my mains was a 'speeder and I would consistantly beat flyers in zones I had traversed before. Hurdle with one jump enh and sprint with a jump enh do wonders. SS is so fast that it makes up for the lack of verticle imo. Fly gets full verticle but even maxed out has no way to compete on the speed scale barring speedboost.
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I'm not wild about the suppression in Fly, but I don't think it's any worse than the big accuracy penalty it replaced. I can live with the top speed, especially since it's a good speed to zip around inside door missions. Hover is meant to be very slow, and gives me a good ranged firing platform. The endurance cost of Fly isn't really a problem if you slap an endurance reduction enhancemnt or two in it, since it's not meant as a power to be used in combat (switch to Hover or land).
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Hover should be the power with the speed tuned for inside door missions. If hover were tweaked to be just slower than walking unslotted and caps out slightly higher than sprint I think this would be ideal for that role.
Fly should get juiced up a bit to compete in speed with the others taking into account it's direct line of travel advantages. (Which SJ has as well for the most part btw.)
The End usage can be slotted agains, you are correct. Currently tele is the only other that you have to slot End rdx for. It's a burden on the lower lvl chars where slots are scarce, just to make your travel power get you across a zone with end left.
Cut the current 2.0something end usage to 1.0something so you don't have to sink so much into it in the beginning. Later on the end usage drops by the wayside with SO's and stamina anyways.
And yes, I'm not a fan of suppression in general. Takes quite a bit away from the superhero feel when movement enhanced combat becomes rather comical to watch and annoying to play. But, it was never a big tactic of mine so I can deal with it.
I'm not looking for a One Travel Power. I'm looking for a Fly I don't groan about when I take. One where my team of SS SJ and TP users are grouseing at me to hurry up, or better yet, tell me to stay put so the TP'er can just port me.
The 4th tier power on fly and Tp both need some help. TP could use a decrease in end usage as well.
okies, 'nuff rambeling for now.
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Some people just want a travel power that does everything. Fast and versatile. Fly and Hover have a lot of advantages, which is offset by slower speed and a high endurance cost for Fly. If you make Fly faster, why take Super Jump or Super Speed?
I've noticed a big drop in the number of super speeders, although I still see them here and there. They used to be very much FotM. People liked the speed and the stealth and kept complaining about obstacles. Oddly, I don't remember seeing too many complaints about Super Jump.
I'm not wild about the suppression in Fly, but I don't think it's any worse than the big accuracy penalty it replaced. I can live with the top speed, especially since it's a good speed to zip around inside door missions. Hover is meant to be very slow, and gives me a good ranged firing platform. The endurance cost of Fly isn't really a problem if you slap an endurance reduction enhancemnt or two in it, since it's not meant as a power to be used in combat (switch to Hover or land).
I currently have 23 characters with Fly and another who will be picking it up next level.
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Hover also has a small Defensive bonus. And to point out the obvious again the name is HOVER not fly. Hover means float in one place not fly around. If you want to Fly use Fly, if you want to Hover use Hover. You aren't supposed to get everything in one package.
Using Hover means sacrificing some mobility for the many other benefits you gain. Without trade-offs the game is a lot less interesting. This is the same arguement that escapes people wanting to give Super Speed vertical movement. The trade-off for the fastest movement power is that you don't have vertical movement. That is the whole point.
If you don't like the trade-off, don't take the power. That is the nature of trade-offs and what makes them interesting.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
I can see the justification for fly being somewhat slow, especially compared to the other travel powers.
Super Speed - the fastest travel power where you need to actually inhabit all the locations in between. It's extreme speed is traded off by it's 2D limitation. One can also attack while moving (although suppression will kick in then). This power also benefits by allowing one to get hasten without using up a powerset.
Teleport - faster than super speed if used to its extreme. Motion is 3D. But very hard to 'aim', no real control over distance, its an endurance hog, and attacking while using it is not possible (without hover, and then the attack is really during hover, not TP).
Super Jump - 3D motion with good manueverability. Almost a cousin to fly, but different in that one must 'touch the ground' and be constantly moving.
Fly - So, the reason fly has to be slow is that it is 3D and has full manueverability control (heck, you can even stay in one location in mid air!).
The point is that every travel power has a balancing factor to it to keep them almost equal choices. Super speed is balanced by the 2D restriction. TP is balanced by the lack of aim and difficulty of use. Super Jump has to touch the ground. So, it does make sense that fly would be the slowest.
And so the problem is this. If you up the fly speed, then every other travel power needs to be 'upped' too to keep the balance. But, if you up those powers, we're back to fly is still holding everyone back.
So, if you want to up the flight speed, you need to come up with some DISAVANTAGE to add to it to compensate. Got any ideas?
Finally, I can see good reasons to allow combo's of travel powers to have some advantage. Like if one could turn on both super speed+ fly to fly very fast. This works because it's balance is that one must use up two powersets, and both powers have an earlier power requirement.
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All of my toons had fly pool, but since ED I'm now disgusted with it, especially for PVP. Hover is so unreasonable at its current speed. To compound this, there is like double the amount of -fly powers out there, compared to -jump, to clip our wings even further. This is another example of the devs backing us into particular pools, like they did pre ED with Hasten, and Stamina. Jump pool FTW........
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Lets also add that a EQUAL level begining travel power (CJ) allows you to go faster and is MUCH more combat friendly. Why not -fly resist for Hover?
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I personally find it ridiculous that Super Leap is faster than Fly. How can someone hop up and down faster from point A to point B than someone flying in a straight line? Sad.
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The real issue in this question is balance. While logistically speaking yes you should be able to get from point A to point B faster when moving in a straight line. However, the balance supposedly comes from flight's safety (I'm not advocating what the devs have done in fact I find it just as deplorable as you, I'm just trying to reasonably explain it.) The risk when taking off from point A using SJ is in the fact that you inevitably must land, occasionally in a group of mobs. Whereas, using flight all mobs (save the high flying longbow versions of sky skiffs etc.,) are avoidable lowering the amount of risk you have. If flight were faster that SJ, SS, or TP, than what would be the point of anyone taking any of the other travel powers if they can get from point A to point B not only faster with flight, but also much, much more safely.
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Balance over the entire game is an issue not just travel powers and why take travel powers that are less desireable then others? For NICE (not lame, near usless) level 20 powers in those pools.
Why is leaping so popular? CJ ok defense + status resist power, good travel power, and Acro is nice for a lot of AT's to pick up. Lets look at fly............, ok now how about Teleport: Recall Friend, Tp Foe, and .... Ok Teleport itself is not all that bad. How about Speed: hasten, not anything like it was (remeber the def boost from back when plus the +70% increase?), and super speed..fast and minor stealth not to bad. The rest of the pool, or even just the level 20...whirlwind! "Oh, look at what you can do and not get sick, I am sure the Villians tremble!" So there we go, without concepts the other pools nearly reek of dung matter compaired to leaping.
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And so the problem is this. If you up the fly speed, then every other travel power needs to be 'upped' too to keep the balance. But, if you up those powers, we're back to fly is still holding everyone back.
So, if you want to up the flight speed, you need to come up with some DISAVANTAGE to add to it to compensate. Got any ideas?
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We're not asking for it to SS fast, just a tad faster.
Disadvantage is already incorporated, end drain! You can't maintain a fight with fly on for long. Excluding TP (because it's NOT a sustained mode of transportation, it's simply instant relocation) the other TP's can remain on in combat. I know very few SS'ers who shut off SS during a fight. Those that do are only doing it to get around the slowdown supression causes.
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We're not asking for it to SS fast, just a tad faster.
Disadvantage is already incorporated, end drain!
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And.. AND... it costs more slots (in endreds and flightspeeds) to make it competitive for what it's supposed to do- get you from point A to point B. Even then, it's still slower.
That's the price. How many drawbacks are needed to make it "fair" to other sets that are faster, almost as safe, and work just the way you want them right out of the box?
All this because of the excuse of safety?? No. My main is a Super Jumper and gets there just as safely and much faster (only suffered one or two defeats moving across zones in his whole carreer, and they were from when I first got it, and then I learned to be careful where I land). The only advantage Fly or TP has over it is when you're in the Shard. With the Stealth component in Super Speed, even that is relatively as "safe" as fly.
Still.. I have Fly on many characters. Not because it's specifically beneficial (since all travel powers ultimately do the same thing) but because it's fitting to the character. I imagine most people are the same way. Those that aren't pick whatever is the easiest and most effective anyway, so that isn't really a viable argument either.
Disclaimer:
By no means am I suggesting to "nerf" SJ or SS!!! ( I specify this, because it seems that's the direction the Dev's go in when seeing arguments comparing better powers to ones we want a boost to)
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
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We're not asking for it to SS fast, just a tad faster.
Disadvantage is already incorporated, end drain!
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And.. AND... it costs more slots (in endreds and flightspeeds) to make it competitive for what it's supposed to do- get you from point A to point B. Even then, it's still slower.
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Duh I wanted to add that too... thanks for posting it since I forgot.
That's true. While you certainly have the option to slot the TP's I usually can find a better use for the slots on toons with SS/SJ. I honestly do not have a single toon with either power that dedicated slots to those powers.
On the contrary on all my toons with flight have tripled slotted hover and triple slotted fly, all slots speed. (Fly will never be a practical enough combat power to even bother wasting end redux on it and with stamina it's not longer a 'drain' on me.)
However, sinle-slotting SS with speed and SJ with jump are normally effective.
I'd even buy the 'safety' of fly for it being slower... that does NOT justify the end drain nor does it explain it.
I also /sign on NOT asking the other travel powers get nerfed either! Aside from just being childish, I have all the tp's spread across my alts so I'd only gimp myself anyway. 
I can understand you missing a 6 slotted hover, (why not just fly? fly suppresses to hover in combat anyway. ) but there's nothing wrong with flight. Best overall travel power in the game. Sure, it'd be nice to make it faster. But, I'd like to be able to control the speed.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
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I can understand you missing a 6 slotted hover, (why not just fly? fly suppresses to hover in combat anyway. ) but there's nothing wrong with flight. Best overall travel power in the game. Sure, it'd be nice to make it faster. But, I'd like to be able to control the speed.
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Because 6-slotted hover didn't surpress to unslotted hover. 
However regarding your oppinion that fly is fine as is... at least you like it. However MANY of us feel, when placed next to the other travel powers it comes up short in too many places.
Heck maybe BY ITSELF it IS fine. However, we have 3 other travel powers to compare it to so unfortunately it can't stand by itself because there are 3 other points of reference.
6 slotted hover trumps fly in combat because of drift, turn radius, endurance cost, and defense bonus. Hover made the toons that had it easier to control, fly makes them harder to control (in a fight).
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
I have Hover with 3 flight SOs in it, and find it rather slow at lvl50. However I have Siphon Speed, and with one siphon I can make it fly. With 3 Siphon Speeds it becomes pretty fast and doesn't suppress. It works great in pvp, it also reminds me to stack Siphon Speed
Just keeping things alive here. Any new word that I have missed?
My baby brute just got his wings and I cry everytime I switch back to my SJ corr. 
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I have Hover with 3 flight SOs in it, and find it rather slow at lvl50. However I have Siphon Speed, and with one siphon I can make it fly. With 3 Siphon Speeds it becomes pretty fast and doesn't suppress. It works great in pvp, it also reminds me to stack Siphon Speed
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Speed up teh Huver.....
>.>
<.<
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) - Whitman
Consistency is the defense of a small mind. - Beldin
Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?
Is it rainin'?
Nope, that's my chars cryin' while flyin'...
Please send help.
I'm still clueless as to what performance scenario is problematic with fly that can't be replicated with SJ fairly easily. High altitude fast movement? Well building hopping with my SJ'rs creates a similar hight profile to most common usage of fly for me, at much higher speeds. What gives?
I'll chime in here and ask for a boost to hover and flyspeed, and at the very least an end reduction for fly. Group fly needs... something.