Should Siphon Speed (kinetics) be AoE?
By
Akuma_Hellkite,
Posted on: 2006-10-16 11:25 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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The problem with Transfusion/Transference/Fulcrum Shift not working if the target dies is well known. The devs have acknowledged it's a problem with the game engine, but apparently it's a design shortcoming, not a simple bug fix. So while this would be FAR AND AWAY my biggest desire to see fixed, I'm not holding my breath. My guess is it won't ever change, sadly.
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The dev chatter on that has changed. There has been talk of fixing this from the devs. I will try to dig up some redname posts on it.
-Teklord
The real change in Kinetics should be to add it as a MasterMind Secondary. Tankermind heaven!
Heck no! It's fine as is. Any boost like you would want would make kin a FOTM again and we'd have a bunch of folks with no real clue how to play a kin properly running around.
You mean like the guys who PL'd up in Issue-1 for the "hour glass" FulcrumShift?
Or the ones that PL'd up in Issue-4 before Targets were limited to 10 on PbAoE's?
Sorry, just wannted a little clarification on which era of 'n00bs' we're talking about here.
-ilr... (who's admittedly sick of all the Fire/Kins taking up space in PinballWizards, and even more sick of having to leave missions mid-way through to pick up more BF's b/c none of these "tank mage" builds ever include I.D. or Stimulant).
I'm admittedly sick of all the people who WHINE about the "bugs" of Transfusion, Transference, and Fulcrum Shift! Regardless of whether they were intended to work as they currently work or not in this regard, I posit it's a damn good reason none of these powers has been downgraded.
Furthermore, kinetics is a skillset. Part of why it's my favorite is because it requires the practitioner to PAY ATTENTION. This means NOT targeting the almost-dead minion with these powers. This means ACTIVELY keeping tabs on the battle and using positional powers to ensure effectiveness. Given the speed and recharge bonuses the set provides, and the resultant accelerated rate of battle, the requirement for the user to exhibit these attributes is further magnified.
So no, don't change it. Keep all the lazy and inept people off my set. You are not welcome.
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I believe the "mob can't die during the activation" issue is well known, but was determined to be very difficult to fix given the limitations of the game engine. In other words, I think it's been looked at, and was given a "ouch, sorry, can't help ya" 
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Huh... Twilight Grasp works while the target is Dying. But I Also see this as a Bonus of using a power of the Netherworld.
But I wouldn't cry either if it where changed, because the Mob Dying before your Heal got off is really annoying.
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I believe the "mob can't die during the activation" issue is well known, but was determined to be very difficult to fix given the limitations of the game engine. In other words, I think it's been looked at, and was given a "ouch, sorry, can't help ya"
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Huh... Twilight Grasp works while the target is Dying.
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Twilight Grasp is not foe-centered. And Kinetics is not the only set with a foe-centered AoE that has this problem. I suspect that all foe-centered AoE's have this problem, but I won't say that I have a complete list.
I do know that ILL>Blind (small cone "sleep" in addition to ST hold) suffers from it. It's much harder to catch because of the faster animation of Blind, and the far more subtle effect of sleep (as well as the fact that it's easily broken by an AoE'ing team mate). But it is there, I've seen it.
Check out the Repeat Offenders network of SGs! You'll be glad you did.
Transference and Fulcrum Shift also suffer from the "dying target" problem.
My main hero was a Fire/Kinetics Controller. The failure on dying targets was annoying, but aside from that I don't think the Kinetics set is really in need of any modifications. Accuracy was a pain, but understandable given the incredible power the successful hits actually grant.
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I believe the "mob can't die during the activation" issue is well known, but was determined to be very difficult to fix given the limitations of the game engine. In other words, I think it's been looked at, and was given a "ouch, sorry, can't help ya"
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Huh... Twilight Grasp works while the target is Dying.
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Twilight Grasp is not foe-centered. And Kinetics is not the only set with a foe-centered AoE that has this problem. I suspect that all foe-centered AoE's have this problem, but I won't say that I have a complete list.
I do know that ILL>Blind (small cone "sleep" in addition to ST hold) suffers from it. It's much harder to catch because of the faster animation of Blind, and the far more subtle effect of sleep (as well as the fact that it's easily broken by an AoE'ing team mate). But it is there, I've seen it.
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The Thug Mastermind power Gang War also suffers from this problem.
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Furthermore, kinetics is a skillset. Part of why it's my favorite is because it requires the practitioner to PAY ATTENTION. This means NOT targeting the almost-dead minion with these powers. This means ACTIVELY keeping tabs on the battle and using positional powers to ensure effectiveness. Given the speed and recharge bonuses the set provides, and the resultant accelerated rate of battle, the requirement for the user to exhibit these attributes is further magnified.
So no, don't change it. Keep all the lazy and inept people off my set. You are not welcome.
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Uh... I tend to con the third or fourth villain in the mob. But there's not much you can do when you're on a high-level team that mows through everything, particularly after a good application of Fulcrum Shift. Then again, this is why I picked up the Medicine pool for when someone's still hurting after the battle.
"Lazy and inept" isn't entirely accurate. Maybe "rigid and unadaptable" might work better.
-- Lady T
I don't have an alt problem. I like trying new things.
VirtueVerse ♦ City Info Tracker ♦ ParagonWiki
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I'm admittedly sick of all the people who WHINE about the "bugs" of Transfusion, Transference, and Fulcrum Shift!
{snip..snip}
Furthermore, kinetics is a skillset. Part of why it's my favorite is because it requires the practitioner to PAY ATTENTION. {snip...snip}
So no, don't change it. Keep all the lazy and inept people off my set. You are not welcome.
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Bravo, well said.
Yes there is an 'art' to playing a Kin, both in terms of target selection, character position, etc. We are IMHO the ultimate force multiplier when used correctly.
We are NOT the class for someone who just wants to float outside of melee range (or run into the middle of melee) and cycle through their attack keys over and over.. and frankly I like it that way. The only class that IMHO requires more heads-up play is the Dominator, the play of which is a bit like those plate-spinning acts in the circus..
I actually originally selected Medicine since my Kinetics Controller needed a revive power for canonical purposes. However, I'm very glad I did from a gameplay stance as well. It grants me the opportunity to heal out of combat, when there are no enemies available for Transfusion, and with the Interupt Time enhancements, it also allows me to heal in combat in the case of an emergency. I'm referring to both Aid Other and Aid Self. Resuscitate has also been a great boon, but not nearly as much as the two Aid powers.
Oh yeah, the Medicine rez comes in handy. It's good for combat situations if you time it right. Resuscitate + target accept + Transference = ready to rock! If there's nothing left to Transference off of... well, an early application of SB does the trick too.
-- Lady T
I don't have an alt problem. I like trying new things.
VirtueVerse ♦ City Info Tracker ♦ ParagonWiki
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I believe the "mob can't die during the activation" issue is well known, but was determined to be very difficult to fix given the limitations of the game engine. In other words, I think it's been looked at, and was given a "ouch, sorry, can't help ya"
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Here is the redname post that contradicts this long held belief. There is a fix that requires animation time.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....rue#Post4675148
Here is the quote
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* Bug: When Transfusion is fired off on an enemy that is defeated before the power activates, there is no heal, though the animation fires. However, if Twilight Grasp goes off on a dying enemy, it heals the recipients. There are also reports of the same issue occuring if the enemy moves out of Line of Sight during Tranfusion's animation time. (Rigel_Kent adds: To be more technical, this seems to be a problem with all AoE effects generated around the single target of a power. Illusion Control->Blind's AoE mez effect also has this problem; if the Blind damage defeats the target, the AoE mez will not happen. AoE's generated around the user don't have this problem.)
* Bug: When Transference is fired off on an enemy that is defeated before the power activates, there is no endurance regained for those in the AOE, though the animation fires. (Dark Pyroblast)
* Bug: If Fulcrum Shift is fired off on an enemy that is defeated before the power activates, you get the single 50% caster buff, but NOT the 25% effect from the dying mob OR any mobs around him. (Quason)
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I'll put this on the bug list. I think it takes animation time. See above for problems with that.
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Interesting. I was under the impression, and I'll have to search this evening, that a previous post had said that it was possible but prohibitively difficult to fix. Apparently, they've found another way...although the fact that it's 9 months later without the change going through makes me wonder.
The possibility of an increased animation time for Transfusion is kind of meh, but we'll have to see what happens.
Animation time means they need to have the Animators create a new animation for the new power. It doesn't mean the animation time of the power will change.
-Teklord
You'll notice in that quote I said "I think" -- turns out I was wrong. It's a timing issue in code and would need some serious work to address. It's still on the list, but it's low priority due to the difficulty involved.
Yeah, that's an Issue of seperate entities After-Death ... It's the same thing as trying to use a -DMG power on a WarHulk to keep it from blowing up so hard, or using Hurricane on a Subelturn thinking that it might reduce the Radius of its Vengeance (or Holding them right before they die thinking it will prevent it from going off entirely). Thus it only shows up Client-Side and the Server was never instructed to actually initiate the heal.
Neither is the case, and the Same is true for any PbAoE "drop" spawned on any Mob's location. IE: the entity has it's own stats independant from those of the Targets they're spawned from. While the Debuff on the Target, and the Buff given to the player may last exactly the same duration, it is infact NOT linked to eachother except that the the Drop needs the Entity that was targeted in order to be Spawned. If that Target is {voided} and replaced with a Corpse, then the "Drop" has no where to go and attempting tofixing it by linking the AI to the Corpse at the instant of death could seriously compramise game-performance.
The challenge the Programmers face in this issue, if effectively in making "on demmand corpse recognition". ...To that end, the only stable solution I can think of, would be a Double-Check routine in the "Drop" that activated upon the request of the Animation itself.... IE: if the Animation was queued, then a subrutine would check to see if anyone in range was effect/buffed.... If no one in range was hit by it, then a second function would be queued that would select the nearest corpse and attempt a second PbAoE. Would this be exploitable?.... probably, and it could even result in "double heals" at times or mis-placed PbAoE's. But atleast it could potentially "fix" the timing failure between Client and Server.
Kinetics is already a very good and useful set. You also have speed boost, so an AoE Siphon Speed is just redudant.
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I believe the "mob can't die during the activation" issue is well known, but was determined to be very difficult to fix given the limitations of the game engine. In other words, I think it's been looked at, and was given a "ouch, sorry, can't help ya"
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Huh... Twilight Grasp works while the target is Dying.
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Twilight Grasp is not foe-centered. And Kinetics is not the only set with a foe-centered AoE that has this problem. I suspect that all foe-centered AoE's have this problem, but I won't say that I have a complete list.
I do know that ILL>Blind (small cone "sleep" in addition to ST hold) suffers from it. It's much harder to catch because of the faster animation of Blind, and the far more subtle effect of sleep (as well as the fact that it's easily broken by an AoE'ing team mate). But it is there, I've seen it.
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It happens with Glue Arrow, and Poison Gas Arrow, certainly.
Heroes on Infinity, Virtue, Freedom and Pinnacle.
Villains on Virtue.
Over 5000 hours of playtime
49 or so characters; average level 30; 25 levels of PL total across these characters
I'm surprised at some of the things you have on your list. Are you calling for nerfs for some of these things? Because, if so, I can't agree. For instance, I'd be pissed if someone touched will domination. I built a kin/psy character for that power alone.
What I wish the devs would do is open up the target based AoEs such as transfusion and transference to flip flop to caster based AoEs with the placement of a certain enhancement in an enhancement slot. This would cost something (a slot) but would allow people the option to make the powers caster based AoEs. Something similar was done for axe tankers at one time (changed knockback to knockdown), so perhaps it could be done for these powers as well.
Maybe an idea for inventions?
I was hoping Siphon Speed would be an AOE when I started out, so I wasn't leaving my duo partner in the dust at level 8 but alas.
That said now that I'm about to hit 32 I feel the Kin set is one of the most well rounded I've played and I've had altitis since issue 4!
Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!
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I'm surprised at some of the things you have on your list. Are you calling for nerfs...
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Nope not at all... was simply making the point that all of these things (usually in combination with eachother) would logically preceed or accompany Kinetics in order if Nerfs started being handed out again.
Overall Kinetics rocks, and I would be fine with no changes. That said, if I was king for a day, I'd make the duration of Increase Density equal that of Speed Boost, and I'd make Repel into a true repel power rather than knockdown. Per the suggestion above, I would love to see Inertial Reduction give knockdown/knockback resistance. I would love to see these changes, but not at the cost of any nerfs to offset the new goodness, however.
The problem with Transfusion/Transference/Fulcrum Shift not working if the target dies is well known. The devs have acknowledged it's a problem with the game engine, but apparently it's a design shortcoming, not a simple bug fix. So while this would be FAR AND AWAY my biggest desire to see fixed, I'm not holding my breath. My guess is it won't ever change, sadly.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.