Not another word about Dim Shift and Cottage Rules
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2009-08-06 22:03 in Dominators
I didn't miss it, Weatherby. It's irrelevant to the point.
The devs can change an existing power.
The devs can change the lineup of powers in a set.
The only thing 'stopping' them is... well nothing.
They've set the precedent. I think it's time the dominator community asked for similar treatment in regard to gravity control's dimension shift.
Why do you refuse to acknowledge this? Do you like dimension shift? Do you use dimension shift? Do you play gravity control? How many others like/use/play grav and/or dim shift? How is it fine as is that it shouldn't be changed whether by its nature or its order?
If not now, when is a good time for the devs to address gravity control's lack of early AoE control and the lack of utility of dimension shift?
Would you prefer 5 more years? Would that give you enough time to ***** and complain that grav sux to finally get it out of your system?
There have been plenty of good ideas introduced now and in the past or how DS could be buffed, changed and/or reordered. Meanwhile the best use of the power advocated by its users is to not slot accuracy so you can purposefully miss targets and thereby 'thin the herd', all while constructing a warning bind for your teammates that coaches them how to react to the situation.
Are you friggin kidding me? I seriously cannot believe that a couple of you are even debating this. Is upping your post count that important?
Please buff Ice Control.
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There are a few thousand reasons they can't do any old thing they want, and they all pay their subscription. Players and player reaction influence development policy. That's why, no matter how much I'm sure Castle would love it, you're never going to log in one day and find, without word or warning or rhyme or reason or replacement, Powerboost gone. No matter how much he hates the power. | The only thing 'stopping' them is... well nothing. |
You have to recognise that there is more to the process of change than you're making out there to be. In particular, you're seeing a reordering of a powerset that is not yet live as being tantamount to asking for a swap to a powerset that is live and has been for years on two different archetypes, and you're asserting that adding to and renaming a power is the same thing as completely transforming the power.
Can you not see that this is not done out of disrespect for the goal of fixing gravity, but rather contention with your asserted methodology? The devs don't make changes quickly and easily unless they're changes that can be made quickly and easily, and your assertation that the developers need to be asked to buff Gravity seems slightly disingenuous regarding them.
I can understand in particular the developers' reluctance to pipe up on the topic of Gravity - you can see just how well their efforts to provide us with honest information and feedback over the Dominator revamp went.
I think that just after a major revamp to the dom as an entire AT is a perfectly good time to not make more changes, wait a few months and see how the numbers shake out. It's entirely possible that gravity's slack early game is a design feature, its slot-light nature for powers like Dimension Shift entirely expected and desired by newer players who prefer to focus their early game on the damage powers they have access to. I wouldn't do it, but it's not a behaviour we can easily predict, nor is it behaviour that we should disregard.
Surely, surely you can see we're not being unreasonable here? Do you have to try and demonise us with the 'grav sux' talk?
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Actually, no it isn't. It would be a change to the cottage rule if they changed the set for the ATs that already had it. When given to a different AT then it's a whole new ballgame. For instance, give anything to Stalkers and it has to gain Assassin Strike, Placate, and Hide in some fashion.
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Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
It's irrelevant to the point.
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THEY created the cottage rule, Zamuel. THEY can bend, stretch, or break it.
The Energize power and the reordering of electric armor is proof (they did it for Clobber and Taunt - existing tanker set as well).
I'm asking why not the same kind of treatment for Dim Shift.
Please buff Ice Control.
The Cottage Rule is simple: a power that does one thing shouldn't be replaced with a power that now does something completely different. (In the original example, summoning a small cottage, hence the name).
In the case of Energize and Conserve Power, Energize *doesn't do something completely different*. Energize is simply a reduced-power version of Conserve Power that also provides a self heal and a regen buff.
It's like replacing Coke with Diet Coke. The Cottage Rule covers replacing Coke with a rump steak. That hasn't happened here.
I should also clarify that I'm totally for replacing Dimension Shift with something better; in fact, to break the Cottage Rule completely.
What I dispute is that the Energize/Conserve Power thing has anything to do with the Cottage Rule.
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Originally Posted by MinMin
The Cottage Rule is simple: a power that does one thing shouldn't be replaced with a power that now does something completely different. (In the original example, summoning a small cottage, hence the name).
In the case of Energize and Conserve Power, Energize *doesn't do something completely different*. Energize is simply a reduced-power version of Conserve Power that also provides a self heal and a regen buff. It's like replacing Coke with Diet Coke. The Cottage Rule covers replacing Coke with a rump steak. That hasn't happened here. |
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Originally Posted by MinMin
What I dispute is that the Energize/Conserve Power thing has anything to do with the Cottage Rule.
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I apologize then Talen, when you take the time to articulate your position it becomes much more understandable.|
Originally Posted by Talen_Lee
Irony.
Back when DarkCurrant, CzarBal, Demodand and others whose names escape me were holding up their crusade of GRAVITY IS FINE it was I who was standing up and saying that they were demonising the opposition needlessly and that I figured Gravity needed help. I argued at length with people who claimed that anyone who disliked Gravity was just powerlevelled crybabies (and this is before AE!), with people who claimed that Gravity had as good area control as Earth control, and with people who said my opinion couldn't count because I didn't have a high-level gravity control character (without any proof of that fact, either). Now that DarkCurrent has decided that actually, no Gravity isn't fine and could do with being buffed, and I point out that his reasoning for how it can be buffed is flawed, and that people need to consider play styles other than his own, I'm now the *******. I don't like Dimension Shift either, but it's sure as hell not my place to say that the people who do like it don't matter. I don't like Snipes or Smoke or Wormhole either, but my non-standard operating parameters are not predicates for game balance. There are people out there who like Dimension Shift for its truly unique properties, and weird as the power is, it has its place. Lots of people don't want it, but okay, fine. Look into solutions that don't negatively impact them before you leap to the solutions that do. Besides, the Bible Verse in question grates for another reason. If someone has a plank in their eye, they know how bad having a mote in yours might suck, and how, and they're pointing it out. This argument basically says 'Nobody who isn't perfect can criticize anything,' which is exceptionally retarded and yet another demonstration of why bronze-age philosophy isn't quite as applicable to sophisticated modern dialogue as it'd like to be. But it does let people who can't support their arguments offer up snide commentary written better with an illusion of authority. In essence, what I'm saying is, if the solutions to Gravity's problems were easy, they'd have been done by now. There's more nuance to MMO changes than saying 'Just' before your suggestion and assuming it's easy. |
The reason I get so annoyed about Gravity posts is i) Gravity/Kin was my first ever character and I have an attachment to Gravity. ii) Even back then I posted about Gravity as underperforming, back under my old username KineticKat. Seeing nothing major has been done in the years following is just painful. I can't help but feel that it has been neglected.
Gravity has had some attention mind, the introduction of Singularity as a pet to replace team recall, the addition of a disorient to wormhole back when it was just a teleport power. However these are just patchwork fixes and in my mind, we end up with a set which just about works but is essentially flawed and mismatched. This is why Wormhole still has its knockback feature, a feature which dramatically hinders its use. All because one designer stubbornly refused to remove it due to the description saying "you push them through a wormhole". Make them land on their ***, with a knockdown then!
Also, all these changes happened many moons ago, nothing has been looked at since.I will concede that I alone don't have the right to say Dimension Shift should be yoinked and altered/replaced. My personal view is that if the devs changed it to a sleep, it would still share its current use, but make it much more applicable to the game as a whole.
Really, Wormhole should have been properly updated in the first place all those years ago with matching radius, lower activation time, no scattering knockback. If all that happened, Dimension Shift would be an inconvienience but an afterthought.
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I think I will use this example from now on. |
Originally Posted by MinMin
It's like replacing Coke with Diet Coke. The Cottage Rule covers replacing Coke with a rump steak. That hasn't happened here.
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Just to reflect...
1. A single target hold
2. A single target immobilize
3. A single target knockup
4.An AoE immobilize
5. A long animating ST knockback attack
6. A power that makes foes invinvible
7. An AoE foe teleport
8. An AoE hold
9. A team recall
What were they thinking!?
I want a cottage! Failing that a large cardboard box, then you'd sorry!!!
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Originally Posted by MinMin
The Cottage Rule is simple: a power that does one thing shouldn't be replaced with a power that now does something completely different. (In the original example, summoning a small cottage, hence the name).
In the case of Energize and Conserve Power, Energize *doesn't do something completely different*. Energize is simply a reduced-power version of Conserve Power that also provides a self heal and a regen buff. It's like replacing Coke with Diet Coke. The Cottage Rule covers replacing Coke with a rump steak. That hasn't happened here. |
Okay, we'll play, Min.
How's this for a Modified Dim Shift:
1 sec intangible followed by 20 sec sleep/stun/confuse or whatever.
Didn't break the 'cottage rule' now did it?
Please buff Ice Control.
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I'm reasonably sure Castle is petitioning Babs to change one of the Propel items to a cottage at this very moment.
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Originally Posted by Mechafang
I want a cottage! Failing that a large cardboard box, then you'd sorry!!!
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If I quote #'s, they're from City of Data.
Global: @Kazari
It was either Taunt or Purple Triangles of Doom. I stand by my decision!
-BackAlleyBrawler
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Of course it does. A 1 second intangible would not be perceptible and might as well not be there.|
Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
Okay, we'll play, Min.
How's this for a Modified Dim Shift: 1 sec intangible followed by 20 sec sleep/stun/confuse or whatever. Didn't break the 'cottage rule' now did it? |
OTOH, a 20 second Sleep effect where the targets are intangible for the first 15 seconds and the Sleep duration is enhanceable might do the trick. It's not a fundamental change to the power and it adds some actual utility to it. (Although I still wouldn't take it, Intangibility still sucks as an AoE game mechanic).
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Actually, that makes a lot of sense. The Sleep would be better for holding the foes still than the current Immobilize, and the Intangible would prevent the Sleep from being broken. If you make it, say, half and half, 15 sec Intangible followed by 15 sec Sleep, you could alter the description to say, "The foes will be out of phase with reality for 30 seconds, but after 15 seconds the rift will start to collapse, and if you attack they will be knocked back into normal space." |
Originally Posted by MinMin
OTOH, a 20 second Sleep effect where the targets are intangible for the first 15 seconds and the Sleep duration is enhanceable might do the trick. It's not a fundamental change to the power and it adds some actual utility to it. (Although I still wouldn't take it, Intangibility still sucks as an AoE game mechanic).
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That way you basically have 15 seconds where your foes are Slept but you absolutely can't hit them, and then 15 seconds where you can pick them off one by one to wake them up. Even better if you could somehow shield targets from AoE splash damage (maybe a huge +Def to AoE?) so you have to target a foe explicitly to "knock him out of the rift".
Even 10/30 seconds would be acceptable, I think, without breaking the spirit of the Cottage Rule.
I said 15/20 because I figured the Sleep duration would be enhancable, and 15/40 when fully enhanced seemed not unrasonable. But even a 20 second sleep is long by the standards of the current AoE Sleeps.
Besides, it's just an example I was throwing up to show how you could modify Dimension Shift in a logical manner and not break the Cottage Rule.
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True, but Dimension Shift's duration is currently 30 seconds. (But unenhanceable, at least in duration) And it's really 15 seconds of Intangible followed by 5-25 seconds of Sleep. So not really all that unusual. |
Originally Posted by MinMin
I said 15/20 because I figured the Sleep duration would be enhancable, and 15/40 when fully enhanced seemed not unrasonable. But even a 20 second sleep is long by the standards of the current AoE Sleeps.
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It wouldn't be too hard to make the portion of the Sleep that corresponds to the Intangible unenhanceable. So 10-15 seconds of Immobilize followed by a 10 second sleep enhancible to 20. (And Mass Hypnosis is 22 seconds at level 50, unenhanced. Maybe I am reading it wrong?)
I tried adding a new walkout deck to my cottage and even a small addition out back, but after awhile I tore down my cottage to build a lake house. Everyone is happier now.
Siren's Song is a 35.76 second sleep, unenhanced, on a Blaster. It's perma out of the box. However, it does minor damage on hit, so it does aggro, and reapplying it will wake up enemies for a moment before they're re-slept, allowing them to get a salvo off. It's not a Controller/Dominator power, but I thought it was worth bringing up as a long duration area sleep power.
For Dim Shift, the drawback of the 15 second phase at the beginning would make a total of 40 seconds of sleep, enhanced, not seem terribly unreasonable. Sure, you could use it to solo spawns safely... one... enemy... at... a time...
TBH, I'm sympathetic to the idea that mass phase just sucks, end of line - but I'm trying to play inside the rules as best we can guess them.
@SPTrashcan
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Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
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Actually, I think you could make an argument that Gravity could use a big hand in the Control stakes, in which case, having a long duration Sleep would be a good bone to throw.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
For Dim Shift, the drawback of the 15 second phase at the beginning would make a total of 40 seconds of sleep, enhanced, not seem terribly unreasonable. Sure, you could use it to solo spawns safely... one... enemy... at... a time...
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I still think the power is so universally reviled that you could just dump the Cottage Rule on this one though and deal with the fallout from the half dozen or so players that actually like it.
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Exactly.|
Originally Posted by MinMin
Actually, I think you could make an argument that Gravity could use a big hand in the Control stakes, in which case, having a long duration Sleep would be a good bone to throw.
I still think the power is so universally reviled that you could just dump the Cottage Rule on this one though and deal with the fallout from the half dozen or so players that actually like it. |
Whether you agree that the devs' moves on other powers break/bend/stretch the cottage rule or not, I think the vast majority of gravity players wouldn't shed a single tear if Dim Shift were replaced, and even those that did use the power would probably be okay with it so long as the new power is halfway decent. Not to mention, all grav players could be given a free respec (I believe that was done with the tankers when taunt and clobber were swapped).
The more I think about this, the more I like the idea of an aggroless sleep like Mind Control has. You can still call it dim shift, but just describe it as the targets are out of phase unless disturbed. I think you could tack on a debuff as well as they come out of phase. Maybe a -acc or something. That'd make a much more useful level 12 power. Not the greatest, but much better than the current DS is at that position.
Please buff Ice Control.
It doesn't really make sense for Dimension Shift to be aggroless. If I'm standing at a party chatting with my friends, and half of them suddenly fade away into nothingness, I'm going to look around for who did that. Or at least run for the nearest exit.
How about this? Alter the effect of Intangible so it has the current effect, but if you hit an effected foe with another status effect it breaks, like Sleep. The attack must be a status effect, though, normal damage has no effect, and further the attack must be a single target attack, an AoE will have no effect either. So you have to target that foe directly, and won't "awaken" foes accidently with an AoE.
My original thought was knockback to break the effect, since Gravity could use either Propel or Lift to knock foes out of the Dimension Shift, and Force Field could use Force Bolt to break Detention Shield. Sonic doesn't have a single target knockback, though. If we just make it a status effect in general, the Sonic Def or Corr could use Screech from Sonic Attack, or any other status affect power from their other set, while Controllers would pretty much be able to break it with any of their Primaries.
I don't think it would even be that difficult to implement, just make it so that any other status effect overrides Intangible and resets its magnitude to zero. Even teammates would be able to break through, if their attacks have a status effect, although it might take a while for a random effect to hit.
As long as dim shift has an intangibility period that can interfere with my blaster using fireball+firebreath or any other "alpha" from the team it is going to be fail with regard to spawn to spawn control and will likely remain an "oh crap" power.
Whether you phase them for 30 seconds or phase them for 15 seconds+sleep the power will still suck.
Set the cottage on fire, collect the insurance and build something that is better.
I agree and as I suggested earlier in the thread, turning it into an AoE sleep will give Gravity many many more options and still be usable in the way that it was before.
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I think having it as an aggroless power like Mind's would be great. Imagine, you could prep a spawn with Dimension Shift and then Wormhole them without fear of them retaliating! Even with aggro though, it would still be a lovely addition.|
Originally Posted by Peacemoon
If the Devs are really determined on keeping its functionality as a fight pauser, why not change it to an AoE Sleep? It has a similar effect, but gives Gravity more control and utility atleast its something. You could fit it in thematically similar to Flash Freeze and Salt Crystals.
Your mastery of gravity allows you to manipulate dimensions, bringing multiple foes out of sync with reality. Any harmful attack will cause these foes to return to normal space. |
Also as Gravity has a focus on single target attacks, having an AoE sleep and being able to pick them off one by one is incredibly powerful; take it from someone with experience.
Quick question: Is there a move other than Placate (on Stalkers) that has a placate effect? I'm wondering if it would be best to apply a placate, blind, and a -regen on a shifted enemy. This way they stop running around while shifted, they don't heal while phased, and they come out of phase with a small window of unawareness of the player/team due to the length of the blind.
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