I wouldn't mind this with an associated END cost increase.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
While it sucks to rebubble 6-8 people every four minutes, I'm not sure I like the sort of cost increase I foresee these powers suffering. Currently, each bubble costs around 10 endurance points, so 20 for both bubbles. At 6-8 people buffed, that's 120-180 points of endurance over the span of 12-16 seconds, which only recovers about 10 endurance points or thereabout. If you make the buffs AoE, then you shouldn't really go higher than about 20 endurance points, which is almost a 10-fold decrease in cost AND simultaneously an increase in cost on small teams and a decrease in usability as it becomes harder to buff everybody. I suppose making it an ally-targeted AoE might mitigate some of the usability problems, but I just can't imagine the developers would be willing to alter the powers' costs by so much.
And here's another problem - both ally- and self-centred AoE can affect the caster, whereas single-target buffs cannot. One of the original reasons for making it like this that I remember was so that Defenders would not end up with Scrapper/Tanker levels of defence.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Gather for bubbles would be more annoying to me as a player than buffing on the fly.
Add the 'would effect the caster' and subsequent rebalancing (ie reducing the effect) and this idea gets a hearty thumbs down from me sorry.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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Personally, I have to agree with the spirit of the thread, though - buffs shouldn't be slow and annoying to apply. I don't even know why things like Recovery Aura and Accelerate Metabolism have to be so short-ranged. As far as bubbles go, a 50-foot-wide targeted AoE would be pretty cool as a means of application. They could even paint them as a once-off expanding bubble that buffs everyone it passes over.|
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Gather for bubbles would be more annoying to me as a player than buffing on the fly.
Add the 'would effect the caster' and subsequent rebalancing (ie reducing the effect) and this idea gets a hearty thumbs down from me sorry. |
I actually remembered something while posting my previous post - there is one power in the game which affects everyone BUT the caster. Grant Cover is a player-centric toggle AoE which affects all team-mates, but does almost nothing for the caster, himself. If this is possible to be done for a large-scale bubbling effort AND the reduction in both cost and buff time is acceptable, then that IS a change I'd like to see.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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/this, many times over (like every other thread it comes up in.) |
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Gather for bubbles would be more annoying to me as a player than buffing on the fly.
Add the 'would effect the caster' and subsequent rebalancing (ie reducing the effect) and this idea gets a hearty thumbs down from me sorry. |
Sorry, it's just *not* that big a deal to cast buffs. I say that having run multiple bubblers of various types, yes, including masterminds. If it's too big a chore for you, pick a different set.
Eh, Speed Boost is annoying to use. The bubbles...not so much.
With Speed Boost you're applying it every 90 seconds or so. The bubbles all last 4 minutes each.
It is also worth considering that if they made them AoE they would probably be nerfed in effectiveness. Otherwise you'd have FF defenders running around with almost 30% defense to everything between the bubbles and Dispersion Field.
I'd rather not have a "gather for bubbles" situation either. Buffing on the fly disrupts a team's combat flow less than stopping to rebubble.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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I absolutely agree with this.|
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Gather for bubbles would be more annoying to me as a player than buffing on the fly.
Add the 'would effect the caster' and subsequent rebalancing (ie reducing the effect) and this idea gets a hearty thumbs down from me sorry. |
Plus, I do not think MM buffs are a fair comparison. The reasons for the implementation of those changes do not really apply to shield buffs. Also, those powers can be balanced to give the correct amount of bang for the buck for a known number of pets while the number of targets for a bubble buff is less easy to predict. Just imagine a team of eight */FF MMs almost effortlessly stacking bubbles on all their pets... I can only speculate how bubble strength, recharge duration and endurance cost had to be adapted to make up for that. And for what? For a few guys who are too lazy to program some keybinds for quick and easy bubbling. Not good.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
I think the original intention is that the bubbles are a strong buff, so a player needs to spend time to maintain the bubbles. While the buffing is not very tedious, it does get repetitive after a while.
The suggestion pops up in the forum quite often. I think the issue is that if the buff becomes an AoE, how should it be done? First, what should be the endurance cost? I think there needs to be a way to control who will get the buffs even if it's AoE. For example, should the pets or people not in a team get the buff as well? In particular, masterminds will be very concerned about their pets. Also, I think there ought to be a way to control whether the buff is an AoE buff or a single-target buff (like click the power to single-target buff, but shift-click to AoE buff). For example, if a teammate misses my AoE bubble buff, I can single-target buff that teammate the old-fashion way. Then there is no need to ask people to gather around me for buffs, I can just throw out an AoE buff, and single-target buff people who don't catch the AoE.
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Absolutely, positively /unsigned.|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
Like mastermind buffs.
FF Sonic Cold Thermal Each of these sets would be far more playable and less annoying if these buffs were AoEs. |
I want full control over who I do or do not buff. I usually only buff the main Tanker, and only buff the entire team under certain circumstances. IMO, the changes proposed here would make those sets far more annoying to play.
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.Driver Sweeper * CohHelper * HijackThis * TweakCoH * CPU-ID
* Defraggler * Program Security Scan * PC Performance Scan *
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Agreed
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Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Gather for bubbles would be more annoying to me as a player than buffing on the fly.
Add the 'would effect the caster' and subsequent rebalancing (ie reducing the effect) and this idea gets a hearty thumbs down from me sorry. |
Grant cover is an AoE buff that can ignore the caster.
The equip powers were not nerfed in any way, other than increased endurance. There would be no need to call people to gather because if any of them are away you can just cast it again.
Deflection Shield
Endurance: 7.8
Recharge: 2s
AoE Deflection Shield
Endurance: 23.4 (equip powers multiplied by 3 or less when they got the AoE buff)
Recharge: 2s
In other words, most of the concerns being expressed here would be irrelevant. No gather calls, no obscene levels of endurance use, no nerfs due to it buffing the caster.
The only thing brought up here that would be an issue would be a case where you don't want to buff some player. Why wouldn't you? Perhaps they don't like the graphics of the buff? That does not make a lot of sense with FF since they get similar graphics just by being in dispersion bubble, which adds a bubble graphic to anybody in it.
There is another issue that has not been brought up: max targets. However, dispersion bubble has no effective max target cap, and it involves far more calculations as a toggle than this would, so I do not think that would come up.
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That is just how the euip powers work. You "single target" by clicking any specific target. Since it does not stack any who already have it ignore it.
| Also, I think there ought to be a way to control whether the buff is an AoE buff or a single-target buff (like click the power to single-target buff, but shift-click to AoE buff). For example, if a teammate misses my AoE bubble buff, I can single-target buff that teammate the old-fashion way. Then there is no need to ask people to gather around me for buffs, I can just throw out an AoE buff, and single-target buff people who don't catch the AoE. |
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
/Unsigned
Unneeded dumbing down of sets. The whole POINT of the Defender AT, amongst the others that have buffs, is to be a support class. This is exactly like saying all empathy powers should be AoE, because 'its to annoying to heal everyone one by one'.
Its balanced, it works fine. Leave it alone, for pity sake.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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It does not do anything to "balance" the set, unlike empathy powers being single target, because buffing away from battle is trivial.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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That is exactly what is not going to happen and why I said MM buffs were not a good comparison. Balancing those equip buffs was a lot easier than balancing a power that affects other players and other players' pets.|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
Deflection Shield
Endurance: 7.8 Recharge: 2s AoE Deflection Shield Endurance: 23.4 (equip powers multiplied by 3 or less when they got the AoE buff) Recharge: 2s |
If you did the balancing along the same lines for bubble buffs those bubbles would be hugely overpowered. Just think about it: Deflection Shield, for example, is balanced around needing just under 30 seconds and 70 endurance to buff the rest of an 8-man-team. With your suggested change in effect you can do the same in 2 seconds and for a third of the originally needed endurance and get to bubble all your friends' pets as a bonus? That is a buff if I have ever seen one. And since bubbles are not underpowered as they are you would need a nerf to balance this buff and a substantial one on top of that.
If I leave bubble strength and your suggested endurance cost untouched and compare that to other AoE buffs in the game I would say that the duration has to be reduced to 90 seconds with a base recharge of 180 seconds. Whooops, we are back at "gather for bubbles".
So, this is still a no.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
What about 8 fire trollers ?
Thats would be 31 entities (bar self buffed)
8 Masterminds, would be 47 entities buffed.
MM buffs are hard capped at a maximum of 6 entities affected, the MMs own pets.
AOE buff bubbles, do not have that hard cap, except if created by via a target hit limit, and that route would lead to immense frustration.
(why did my pet get the buff instead of me, *tries again to same effect*, repeat)
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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How do you figure? 8 Masterminds plus 8 times 6 is 48 plus 8 = 56 entities affected.| 8 Masterminds, would be 47 entities buffed. |
That little detour aside, why is that a problem, actually? Cost aside, the biggest drawback to bubbling everybody is time. And unlike in-combat powers like attacks and even Mastermind upgrades, these bubbles are most often cast during out-of-combat periods. In essance, rebubbling is pure, unadultarated downtime. I don't mind things supposed to be done in combat taking a long time - the longer you spend fighting, the more you get hurt. But things done out of combat taking long is... Just boring. What use does it serve outside of "banace by annoyance?"
To me, having to rebubble every four minutes is like having the game pause for 30 seconds every four minutes. What's the point?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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My Ill/FF bubbles on the fly during combat. Its no big deal.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
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erm pre-coffee math ?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
How do you figure? 8 Masterminds plus 8 times 6 is 48 plus 8 = 56 entities affected.
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Brain shuts down for weekend ?
any/all of the above
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
Neither for nor against. Can see both sides of the argument.
But before any such change for FF, SB (and other short non-stacking ST buffs) should be addressed first. An AoE SB (that doesn't effect the caster) is far more important/needed than a four minute bubble. A full team with pets (don't generally SB them, but...) by the time you've gone through the list once its almost time to start SBing at the top again.
And yes I do think such a change is dumbing down the game, but doing this for FF which is easy mode anyway with four minute buffs before sorting out those shorter buffs would be bad...
BTW I play a lot of ???/kin & kin/??? and only two ???/FF could you tell?
Hardly dumbing down to remove a mechanic that is pure challengeless click botting.
I'm not seeing any good arguments against this, just against the nerfs or overpoweredness that some assume it would involve. The only increase in power for a defender who usually buffs the whole team would be buffing summons, and that would be trivial in most teams. I could see it being used to send minions to tank, but that can be done anyway if the bubbler simply targets them instead.
Those who buff while the team moves would be getting to attack instead during those 30 seconds, but it is an open question whether the devs consider that offensive downtime part of bubbler balance or not. I suspect that it is considered part of the balance of shorter buffs such as speed boost, which is why I did not mention that power.
The equip buff was a far more drastic cast time and endurance discount than this would be. However, it also acted as a sort of nerf to mastermind endurance during battles, so I could imagine an argument being made that a buff/nerf to equips does not justify a true buff to the bubble powers. To that I'd respond that annoyance is not balance and that it would not dramatically increase buffer power.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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Well, that is your way to apply buffs. Others do not have to take a downtime to buff shields... and it gives me headaches to think of a kinetic who would stall the team every time SB has run out. Ally buffs can and will be applied on the go by any competent support player. If you can not be bothered, there is an easy solution: do not play shield buffers.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That little detour aside, why is that a problem, actually? Cost aside, the biggest drawback to bubbling everybody is time. And unlike in-combat powers like attacks and even Mastermind upgrades, these bubbles are most often cast during out-of-combat periods. In essance, rebubbling is pure, unadultarated downtime. I don't mind things supposed to be done in combat taking a long time - the longer you spend fighting, the more you get hurt. But things done out of combat taking long is... Just boring. What use does it serve outside of "banace by annoyance?"
To me, having to rebubble every four minutes is like having the game pause for 30 seconds every four minutes. What's the point? |
I can see your problem with having to spend time to actually reapply buffs on other team members, but the power is balanced as it is while multi-stacking bubbles with almost no effort at all would not. It might appear balanced to people who are used to AE farming with multiple FF/emp AV allies, but, clearly, it is not even close.
And again, no, the MM equip buff was not more drastic. As a matter of fact it is a double-edged sword that reduces bore-time but can come back to bite you in a tight situation. An identical bubble-buff would have all of its advantages and then some but not the drawback. It is still a very bad comparison.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
My first 50 in CoX was a Fire/Thermal Corrupter, and buffing gets VERY tedious. I'd imagine Thermal is the extreme example of this though. I mean, you have to heal people, keep all shields up, keep track of Forge's cooldown and juggle it on multiple people, try and use Thaw pre-emptively or at least reactively, debuff mobs, as well as play your whole Fire Blast primary. 
I'd be happy if shield buffs lasted longer, and they didn't root you in place while casting them. I don't think I like the idea of AE shields with an increased Endurance cost though. I'd rather not have to rely on "gather for x."
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The idea is good, nobody want to be a mechanical buffing machine, so of coz there won't be any good arguments against it. The issue is more about the implementation of the idea.|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
I'm not seeing any good arguments against this, just against the nerfs or overpoweredness that some assume it would involve. The only increase in power for a defender who usually buffs the whole team would be buffing summons, and that would be trivial in most teams. I could see it being used to send minions to tank, but that can be done anyway if the bubbler simply targets them instead.
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If you're just thinking a defender buffing 7 other people in the team, then I think the suggestion is fine and should be a good QoL improvement. I think there is an issue with a team with a lot of masterminds. Let's say it's a full team with only masterminds. Currently, if you want to buff every pet in the team, you have to buff them individually. I believe that no one want to do this now, except for their own pets. With this suggestion, all pets can be buffed with a click. If there are a couple other people who can bubble or shield, then there will be a large number of pets with capped defense and resistance. You need some kind of max target or an option such that you can't buff everything.
Like others have posted, I'd hate to have a 'gather for bubbles' every 4 minutes.
I'd prefer for the duration to last longer (around 10 minutes), as I don't like having to rebubble all the time.
Still, a bubbler would then no longer need to do any 'defending' if this were the case. Every other defener has to manage thier buffs in an on-going basis.
Malakim
-Playing since COH beta and still love the game!
Like mastermind buffs.
FF
Sonic
Cold
Thermal
Each of these sets would be far more playable and less annoying if these buffs were AoEs.
Deflection Shield
Endurance: 7.8
Recharge: 2s
AoE Deflection Shield (ignores caster the way Grant Cover does)
Endurance: 23.4 (equip powers multiplied by 3 or less when they got the AoE buff)
Recharge: 2s
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!