Official Thread for Empowerment stations

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* Lowered Empowerment Station recipe requirements. (Known Issue: requirements for recipes on Tech Empowerment Stations were not reduced. This is a bug and will be fixed in a later patch.)

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First off, the recipes for the Empowerment Buffs don't show unless you have the components for them. Not a huge deal, but might be good later on if there are more intricate recipes that require a broader variety. It'd be good to know which things I need.

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I thought that was an option? Has it changed with yesterdays patch?

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it seems bugged with yesterday's patch.
there's still the option to hide/unhide the greyed-out powers you can't create, but when you show them it does not show the *recipe* if you can't complete it.

also, below each power name it says "help" - it's not a hyperlink, there's no right-click, it's just bad text. I think the whole interface got broke'd.

These powers really need unique buff icons where possible. Every resistance power puts up the shield icon. That itself is odd, usually they use the half-circle icons for resistance and shield for Def. There's little point in blinking icons for a power expiring if you can't tell which power is about to expire.

and now, my long-winded analysis of the powers I got when using my level 40 Brute and 40 Corr...

Sleep Resistance is similar to Health. It reduces how long you are asleep (though not by long). This is terrible as you still have all your toggles knocked off. After the cost of Salvage (a finite resource) I expect something better than a power I already have at level 16 or 18 on all my characters.

Confuse and Fear resistance suffer from the same problem as the old Mez Protection inspirations. This just isn't something that I want to use pre-emptively. How much really threatens me with Fear/Confuse anyways? and since most of them do BOTH (I'm looking at those Psi Defender Longbow Wardens and Crey Clones) choosing just one seems pretty much a waste. I'd rather just use a Break Free when I need to.

The same situational reactive vs proactive argument from Confuse/Fear applies to Perception. Perception is also weaker than just using an inpiration because the inpiration counters the -Acc that comes with things like Smoke Bomb.

Run speed boost of 2.5% is just about meaningless on my characters with Swift. At least I'm not at the run speed cap because I see that Sprint is still effective. That low buff will not stop Stone Brutes from pestering every /Kin Corruptor on the server for Speedboost. I can't see this being of any use to lower level characters, either, since it's not going to be anywhere near a travel power. At the very least, the cost needs to come WAY down since someone under level 14 will not have much salvage.

Run speed is also useless if I get Slowed. I think Run and anti-Slow should be a single power. For that matter, this should combine all movement buffs - the way Speed Boost can buff run and fly speeds with one power.

Resistance buffs. 5%. Yay. Hold me back, I may be immortal. This is just as much as a Rugged, but against only 1 type of damage. Most things do many types of damage. If I go with a Thorns mission, I can save myself from a little Lethal with the Guides, but take plenty of Smash from Earth Thorns and Fire from Behemoths. I wouldn't bother with this unless it would let me pretty much ignore one type of enemy. eg, if I could walk into a room and have 50% Fire resist, that would be a tactical change. but at 5% of 1 type, that's almost unnoticable. A 5% Max HP boost would be much more noticable, still not a copy of Rugged, and yet it would still not be worth spending salvage on it.


The only powers I find useful here are Slow Resist, Recharge and Knockback Protection. These share one thing in common - they can be taken to guard against an entire range of tactics throughout a whole mission. For example, heading into a mission with lots of Earth Thorns, get Slow Resist. That is a lot more noticable than a little Damage Resistance against a single type.
THAT should be the model for these powers. Find the things that drive people nuts that we'd want to guard against ahead of time. Things we can't react to very well, but when we die and hit the base we'd want to grab a "fix" for the problem.

Along those lines, these would make better powers:
- Accuracy Debuff Protection.
- Damage Debuff Protection. Probably combine that with the Acc debuff since alone those are EXTREMELY situational.
- Defense/Resistance Debuff Protection. PLEASE put these together so no one ends up getting the wrong one, and so archtypes with a mix of defenses aren't hurt by a split.
- Resist -Fly/-Jump/Immobilize.
- heck, protection from any other Debuffs, if I've missed any. We have -Recharge counter, and as mentioned above a combined +Move power would counter Slow.
- Resist End Drain. Let me say that again: RESIST END DRAIN. For when you're heading to a Carnie mission. We REALLY need a preventative measure to keep toggles up - the various powers out there that increase Recovery are not counters to End Draining. (and I can't see getting Stamina duplicated on this table anyways, if that was a good idea I suspect we'd have it already on there.)
- Travel Powers, like we get in the arena. Running a little faster is nowhere near as fun as being able to fly for 15 minutes. This will help people get around certain zones that aren't Superspeed Friendly. Or how about the very slow Group Fly - it's not quite Fly, but it's better than nothing for a Speeder.
- going outside the box a little, I doubt you can code this... Clairvoyance. The ability to see mission objectives on the maps. That's something I'd gladly burn salvage on.
- even farther outside the box... Resist Void Hunters, only usable by Kheldians, reduces the damage done by Voids to half what it currently is and counters the stun effect.

The one other thing that would encourage me to use these powers is if they could take more of the salvage that I can't use. Give each power 2 different formulas. Make the second formula include one of the Special Salvage from AVs and PVP missions. Eg, Rechage can be 2 Foci, or 1 Scent of Brimstone. This will also help Supergroups, as they don't need a lot of Scent of Brimstone but may need more normal salvage pieces to make Foci or Glyphs - so they can trade Brimstone to people who would otherwsei hold Foci for powerups. We need salvage OPTIONS.


in short, as things stand now, I just can't see myself BOTHERING to powerup before hitting a mission. I only see a benefit if these would have a noticable boost to me for every last minute of the buff. Remember, people are more hesitant to spend a finite resource such as Salvage, so these have to be a lot more impressive than what we buy in Siren's Call or what we get from Enhancements.

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in short, as things stand now, I just can't see myself BOTHERING to powerup before hitting a mission.

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I don't think this was ever intended. These buffs aren't meant to serve you throughout a mission. They aren't meant to be something to rely upon all the time. Rather, you enter a mission and get to a snag, say three spawns placed inconveniently close together, or an EB, or a Longbow Ballista. You stop (or die), exit the mish, hit your base and buff up, then return and clear out the obstacle. 15 minutes is plenty of time to do that.

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in short, as things stand now, I just can't see myself BOTHERING to powerup before hitting a mission.

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I don't think this was ever intended. These buffs aren't meant to serve you throughout a mission. They aren't meant to be something to rely upon all the time. Rather, you enter a mission and get to a snag, say three spawns placed inconveniently close together, or an EB, or a Longbow Ballista. You stop (or die), exit the mish, hit your base and buff up, then return and clear out the obstacle. 15 minutes is plenty of time to do that.

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before a mission, in the middle of a mission, same thing. It's just not worth the effort for the little boost. 5% smashing resist will not matter against that Ballista.

put it this way: I can pick up Inspirations, use as few or as many as I need against that Ballista, and have the excess still available for later.

These powers really need to list all their numbers in the description.

Yes, powers normally don't give numbers, but Inspirations always do, and enhancements sort of do now. These are more like inspirations. We can see it's 5% Resistance from Rugged, let's see that it's 5% Smashing Resistance from this station.

Salvage is more valuable than Infamy, so it's better to know more about what it's buying. If you buy a temp power in Sirens Call and it turns out to be useless, it's easy to get back 10k Infamy. If you don't like your buff, you may have a hard time assembling the right match of salvage drops to make a better buff, or may deplete a SG's salvage collection while you're correcting your mistake.

Besides, actual numbers are going to be all over the internet within 15 minutes of any patch. It's not like this is really a secret. So let's just share the information openly.

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We can see it's 5% Resistance from Rugged, let's see that it's 5% Smashing Resistance from this station.

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Good grief, is that all it is? And 2.5% run speed? No wonder I noticed no difference at all.

an update on what I said...
I realized I didn't check out the level 2 buff station! There is a Resist End Drain power there. It costs 26 Power, 3 Hardware and 3 Prototype. Which I assume would be 8 Power, 1 Hardware, 1 Proto when the costs are corrected. Still, that's 10 salvage, 2 at medium level, for this resistance. Way too much.

There's also a Disorient Resistance. This just drives home my comments about reactive vs pre-emptive. As was leared from inspiration, players just don't want to protect from these ahead of time. Also learned from inpirations (I thought) was that splitting the types of protection was a bad idea - we should get Mez protection in one place.

I see no point to even test Cold or Energy resist, the tactical problems still exist as I described above.

new bug found: if I right-click the power icon below my HP bar and select info, I just get the power info, no timer. if I instead go to my Powers list on the tray and right-click Info there, I get the standard info PLUS a timer of how much use is left.

moved enough salvage over to one character to get the recipe to show up for the level 3 tech table. 38 Material, 25 Power, 9 Hardware, 6 Prototype. For all that salvage, you only get 2 more powers to choose: Hold Resistance and Psi Damage Resistance, and I can't see the recipies for them.
I'm not sure that's worth the upgrade.

Here's the breakdown of what you get by upgrading:
Level 1, 15000 Prestige gives you access to: Confuse R, Fear R, Fire R, Grant Invis, Inc Attack Speed, Inc Flight Speed, Inc Jump Speed, Inc Perception, Inc Run Speed, KB Inc, KB Protection, Lethal R, Sleep R, Slow R, Smashing R
Level 2, 30000 Prestige, 12 Material and 36 Power gives you access to all of Level 1 plus: Cold R, Disorient R, End Drain R, Energy R, Immobilize R, Inc Recovery, Negative R, Toxic R
Level 3, 60000 Prestige, and a total of 50 Material, 61 Power, 9 Hardware, 6 Prototype, gives you all the above plus: Hold R, Psionic R

25 powers total. sounds like a lot, but consider:
8 of them are damage resists, each duplicating a piece of Rugged's effect.
6 are status resists, duplicating pieces of Break Free.
1 duplicates one of the two effects from Insight.
6 duplicate pool powers (and four of them are 1st tier pool powers) the fitness-duplicates for run and jump speed are quite useless compared to travel powers.
only 4 are more or less unique.


what a salvage sink! Just having the 2 top level tables will burn 222 basic components and 30 advanced components, without even gaining a single buff!

and as soon as you drop the level 1 table, be prepared to have that salvage spent on the other two levels. People in the SG just love building personal items - SOMEONE is going to drop a level 2 table within a day. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see two of the same kind show up at once. So the salvage is going to get burned one way or another. The real reason to upgrade to level 3 may be to cut off people's access to building more stations.

Positron, can we please get a SG Permision on crafting personal items?

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an update on what I said...
I realized I didn't check out the level 2 buff station! There is a Resist End Drain power there. It costs 26 Power, 3 Hardware and 3 Prototype. Which I assume would be 8 Power, 1 Hardware, 1 Proto when the costs are corrected. Still, that's 10 salvage, 2 at medium level, for this resistance. Way too much.

There's also a Disorient Resistance. This just drives home my comments about reactive vs pre-emptive. As was leared from inspiration, players just don't want to protect from these ahead of time. Also learned from inpirations (I thought) was that splitting the types of protection was a bad idea - we should get Mez protection in one place.

I see no point to even test Cold or Energy resist, the tactical problems still exist as I described above.


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On the reactive vs proactive argument, I think you're missing the Devs stated purpose for the stations. It's to give you a temporary buff to help you get by a particularly nasty mission in which you've just been killed. Since presumably you know what just killed you, and will be going right back to face it, it is for all intents a reactive buff.

On the splitting mez protection thing, I think it's really just a way to protect from pvp abuse. If you could get total mez protection from one of these buffs then you can bet that every squishie who ever pvp'd would be hitting their base every 15 mins.

As for the cost thing, Id have to look at the cost of the other buffs to say for sure, but considering how rare Endurance Drain resist is I dont think that sounds too expensive and basically turns any malta mission from a nightmare into a cakewalk.

These stations are completely unattractive to me as they stand. The Run Speed and Jump Speed buffs are practically non-existant, and the other buffs are significantly worse than the 1st level inspirations you can buy from your contacts.

I just don't understand why these buffs are so weak, considering it's absolutely impossible to stack them. You can only have one of a specific temp power at a time, after all.

On top of all that, and I apologize in advance for repeating what I've already said and /bugged, these buffs do not work in Kheldian forms.

I truly hope this is not the strength these stations are released with. I wouldn't want some well-meaning SG member to waste their salvage building one of these things without knowing better.

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On the splitting mez protection thing, I think it's really just a way to protect from pvp abuse. If you could get total mez protection from one of these buffs then you can bet that every squishie who ever pvp'd would be hitting their base every 15 mins.

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You have a rough time in a Lost mission. They do both Sleep and Hold. Which do you get? Or both?
Tsoo do Holds and Slows and Disorients all from LTs. How much salvage does it take to overcome a room with too many mobs? Or to simply make your Tsoo kill-all mission a little less annoying?
Council will give you a mix of Hold, Sleep, Disorient, Immobilize.
I could keep going down the list of opponents. I don't see this as a PvP issue.

Oy veigh. Even after the costs were adjusted, these Empowerment buffs are a complete waste of time and Salvage. 2% movement buffs and 5% resistance buffs vs. 1 type of damage? That's not even noticeable. Maybe if they affected the entire SG there would be tactical uses for them, but come on, this is for 1 person. The buffs need a massive boost in power to be at all worthwhile.

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Oy veigh. Even after the costs were adjusted, these Empowerment buffs are a complete waste of time and Salvage. 2% movement buffs and 5% resistance buffs vs. 1 type of damage? That's not even noticeable. Maybe if they affected the entire SG there would be tactical uses for them, but come on, this is for 1 person. The buffs need a massive boost in power to be at all worthwhile.

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Everything is based on this (time investment = reward).

Simply put, from a PVP VG perspective base enhancements are not anywhere near rewarding enough to justify the time and expense needed to obtain and retain base buffs.

To take over Siren's Call can sometimes take hours, and the same methodology applies to Recluse's Victory. Leaving every 15 minutes to rebuff effectively blows away your entire effort at trying to control the zone, and then you come back to start over at 0.

To make it worth it and to jive with PVP, these base buffs need to be a minimum of 60 minutes but preferably 90 minutes. That way we could cycle team members in and out of the zones while keeping the momentum we have in the zone.

The same thing applies to the high end PVE missions. These things can take 2+ hours, and what good to 15, 30, or 60 minute buffs do you then? Its just not worth the effort.

I'm a firm believer in being honest to the devs in the most respectful manner possible. I believe if a dev puts the hard work and time into creating a new game feature, then they truly intend for that feature to be useful to us. I, along with others on this thread, have provided that feedback.

To accomodate PVP and PVE playstyles at the high end these buffs need to last 90-120 minutes. These buffs really aren't needed for the quicker, easier missions and should be designed for the longer, harder high end missions/PVP goals.

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Oy veigh. Even after the costs were adjusted, these Empowerment buffs are a complete waste of time and Salvage. 2% movement buffs and 5% resistance buffs vs. 1 type of damage? That's not even noticeable. Maybe if they affected the entire SG there would be tactical uses for them, but come on, this is for 1 person. The buffs need a massive boost in power to be at all worthwhile.

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Everything is based on this (time investment = reward).

Simply put, from a PVP VG perspective base enhancements are not anywhere near rewarding enough to justify the time and expense needed to obtain and retain base buffs.

To take over Siren's Call can sometimes take hours, and the same methodology applies to Recluse's Victory. Leaving every 15 minutes to rebuff effectively blows away your entire effort at trying to control the zone, and then you come back to start over at 0.

To make it worth it and to jive with PVP, these base buffs need to be a minimum of 60 minutes but preferably 90 minutes. That way we could cycle team members in and out of the zones while keeping the momentum we have in the zone.

The same thing applies to the high end PVE missions. These things can take 2+ hours, and what good to 15, 30, or 60 minute buffs do you then? Its just not worth the effort.

I'm a firm believer in being honest to the devs in the most respectful manner possible. I believe if a dev puts the hard work and time into creating a new game feature, then they truly intend for that feature to be useful to us. I, along with others on this thread, have provided that feedback.

To accomodate PVP and PVE playstyles at the high end these buffs need to last 90-120 minutes. These buffs really aren't needed for the quicker, easier missions and should be designed for the longer, harder high end missions/PVP goals.

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Part of the reason the buffs are so short is that they *dont* want them to be used in PvP. That is the whole reason for the 15 min. timer according to Positron's earlier comments.

As for PvE you may have a point but I dont think Ive ever been on a single mission that was 2+ hours (well Atta maybe but that's not really high-end). A Task Force sure, but not a single mission.

The cost and strength of the buffs may need adjusting (5% seems ridiculously low), but adjusting the time for pvp concern is the exact opposite of the Devs stated intentions for this device.

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Part of the reason the buffs are so short is that they *dont* want them to be used in PvP. That is the whole reason for the 15 min. timer according to Positron's earlier comments.

As for PvE you may have a point but I dont think Ive ever been on a single mission that was 2+ hours (well Atta maybe but that's not really high-end). A Task Force sure, but not a single mission.

The cost and strength of the buffs may need adjusting (5% seems ridiculously low), but adjusting the time for pvp concern is the exact opposite of the Devs stated intentions for this device.

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Unless they specifically state that base buffs are not intended for PVP then the case LotD will present will try to establish the need for extended buff timers for high end play in both PVE and PVP. Afterall, there's little point to them in the low end of the game.

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Unless they specifically state that base buffs are not intended for PVP then the case LotD will present will try to establish the need for extended buff timers for high end play in both PVE and PVP. Afterall, there's little point to them in the low end of the game.

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Positron
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empowerment station buffs are currently set at 15 minute durations (far longer than any other non-toggle buff in the game). They are bestowed on you as soon as you craft them, and last 15 minutes from there. The idea is to have enough time to get you past that sticky part of a mission that was giving you trouble.

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That's the quote I was basing my comments on. Does it specifically rule out pvp? Well no. But it says right there the idea of empowerment stations is to help with missions and missions are pve content.

I don't read anything that screams PvE only, its not like he made an exclusionary statement.

Quite honestly I don't see much value in that statement from a PvE pov either. The current implementation gives buffs that are so minor that I don't see them helping teams very much. I suppose they'll be useful for protecting solo characters from a specific mez type but even that seems iffy to me. On the PvP front, any buff that takes effect from the time of crafting is pretty much useless, even beyond the fact that the buffs are so minor in magnitude.

Hmm. Speaking for myself, I was really interested in this - but I was thinking they would be more like a temp power that was clickable when you needed it. So if you running up against an Elite Boss you can give yourself a boost, or for a big fight in a Task Force or something. I suppose it might be useful on that TF if the enire team dies and skips through their bases on the way to use the stations before going back..

A bit disappointing, but survivable. Just means we don't have to worry about them and can save salvage for other stuff, I guess.

I have a couple questions for those who are testing this. I'd like to get some info down.

1. Is there only one "level" of empowerment station? Which is to say, there are three levels of workshop (basic, advanced, expert). Are there three levels of empowerment station, or just the two flavors, (tech/arcane)?

2. What kinds of salvage can the empowerment station convert? Which is to say, can one empowerment station convert any kind of raw salvage in the game into components, or only certain kinds? (I suppose this ties into question 1, since if there are 'tiers' of station, then I'd imagine each would only convert salvage into the corresponding tier of components.)

Thanks for the time.

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1. Is there only one "level" of empowerment station? Which is to say, there are three levels of workshop (basic, advanced, expert). Are there three levels of empowerment station, or just the two flavors, (tech/arcane)?

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Here's a link that answers your question: Empowerment Station Types

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2. What kinds of salvage can the empowerment station convert? Which is to say, can one empowerment station convert any kind of raw salvage in the game into components, or only certain kinds? (I suppose this ties into question 1, since if there are 'tiers' of station, then I'd imagine each would only convert salvage into the corresponding tier of components.)

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Any level empowerment station can convert salvage to any available type component from my testing.

Thank you very much for the information!

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Hmm. Speaking for myself, I was really interested in this - but I was thinking they would be more like a temp power that was clickable when you needed it. So if you running up against an Elite Boss you can give yourself a boost, or for a big fight in a Task Force or something. I suppose it might be useful on that TF if the enire team dies and skips through their bases on the way to use the stations before going back..

A bit disappointing, but survivable. Just means we don't have to worry about them and can save salvage for other stuff, I guess.

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that's what i thought too, that they'd craft either a temp power or a custom inspiration, and actually be useful

from the sounds of it they're just a waste of programming and playing time

Even from a PvE PoV who wants something you have to die to make use of? In lots of missions there isn't any easy way to get to that tough boss without first plowing through most of the map. Do they really want to encourage people to stealth to the boss and then use Recall Friend to get everyone else there?