Updated Quills: How to make a good set worse.
By
BackAlleyBrawler,
Posted on: 2009-10-09 04:04 in Scrappers
Quote:
Quills never negated the redraw of your spines to begin with.| Will the fact that Quills no longer negates redraw make me stop playing Spines Scrappers? |
Yes, you always saw your spines, buit your character still went through the "I'm redrawing animationm".
Another thing, Spines never got the treatment of the other sets. So redraw shouldn't be hurting your dps, like it does the other sets. (if memory serves me correctly).
That all said and done. One of the reasons I was happy to make my Spines/WP. I was thinking which set (it was between Regen and WP), and WP won out due to no clickiness of WP's part.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Quote:
This. Admittedly, the visuals lead to a perceptually feeling the redraw more, but it has always been there.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
Quills never negated the redraw of your spines to begin with.
Yes, you always saw your spines, buit your character still went through the "I'm redrawing animationm". Another thing, Spines never got the treatment of the other sets. So redraw shouldn't be hurting your dps, like it does the other sets. (if memory serves me correctly). That all said and done. One of the reasons I was happy to make my Spines/WP. I was thinking which set (it was between Regen and WP), and WP won out due to no clickiness of WP's part. |
BrandX is exactly right that redraw plays no role on your dps output for spines as each power still retains the baked in draw time. Again, it was a bit easier to overlook with the way quills used to operate, but it really hasn't changed.
I haven't been following that closely, but I thought BaB's said this is the way it is going to be from now on.
Ehh, there is no change...
@Possible
A couple of this, a couple of that.
Join Liberty
Quote:
There is, unfortunately, not that I can do about this. Spines has always been a hybrid set set of sorts and with power customization, a lot of things had to be re-wired under the hood.|
Originally Posted by Deft_Bow
This turned out long and in some respects drawn out, the bottom of the post contains a summary of what I'm trying to say for those who are too lazy to read through my "rantings"
Issue 16, the dawn of the resurrection of a multitude of characters for me. I spent hours customizing powers and recreating costumes in order to fit with their new amazing themes, paying specific attention to powers and how their visuals would make this character look. I happen upon my old Spines/Regen scrapper and lo and behold! There is an option other than: ridiculous looking tree things! I immediately get to redesigning him, spending time and effort doing what I love: making him prettyful. Now, I don't go out and play him immediately, as I take this opportunity to get a few thoughts from my head into action, creating Spines scrapper after Spines scrapper, relishing in the new wealth of concepts I can make. All is not well and good, however, as I spend time leveling these notoriously hard early-level powersets, and finally get to the crown jewel: Quills. Now, from what I remember from previous spines scrappers, Quills has always been an amazing power, letting me dish out damage without even clicking, and having that debuffing effect? Great. What I was really looking forward to, however, was not having my attack times take forever and a day whenever I decide to use Healing Flames, or for that matter most of my secondary powers on my Regen scrapper, because of the redraw. And yet, I look after using healing flames, and the spines are gone? I quickly log out and log back in as my Spines/Regen, click on Spines and then click on one of my numerous click powers, and yes, they were gone again. Quills was still running, but my porcupine-esque visage was not to be had. The spines were not there. Wrest away from my form in their prime. O why has thou forsaken me, Quills? All joking aside, I have no idea why such a terrible thing would happen to what I remember being a set-defining power. Does this change its role as such? Slightly. Does this seriously affect the viability of Spines when looking at a set like Regen? Yes. Now, I have seen this topic on the forums before, but never in this section unless it was a small footnote on a thread about Spines, and never to my knowledge have we received word from this on the Devs as to whether or not this is "working as intended". Guessing by the fact that I can use Quills, then turn on a toggle and not be forced to redraw, and the redraw only happening on click powers not in the primary, I would guess yes. My only question is why? Was Quills' non-redraw contingency allowing the performance of spines as a whole to be too much in terms of the balance of the game? Was the movement of Fire Armor and the planned movement of electric armor as secondaries to Scrappers too much in terms of the scrapper that could not only have a secondary damage aura but keep its endurance above almost zero (unlike Dark Armor)? I plead someone of authority to answer these questions, as it just doesn't seem to add up to me. Looking at Spines' animation times, and then looking at literally any other power set in the game, it's pretty clear that Spines has the short end of the stick on animation times, coming in slowest among all the sets I've played (or at least seemingly so). Does the set make up for it with incredible area of affect attacks? Yes. And an exotic damage type? Gads yes. And a great secondary effect? Yes indeed. But do all these pros mean that every time I redraw and am killed by an enemy because of that milisecond of timing that I didn't have to click a green or heal or something else that I don't curse the very concept of redraw? Of course not. My point being that does an already undeniably abysmally slow set really need something that made it just a little more user-friendly taken away from it? This is where the people who skipped ahead can join in =P Will the fact that Quills no longer negates redraw make me stop playing Spines Scrappers? Goodness no. I enjoy spines as a set because of the wealth of new concepts that have been introduced as of Issue 16 and revamping my previous Spines scrappers to be fitted with all the brand spanking new shineyness that comes with power customization. What I would really really like, though, is an explanation as to whether or not this new aspect, or lack of an old aspect, was intentional. If so: What is the reasoning behind it? If not: Is it fairly high on your lengthy list of "things to do"? Another thing I would enjoy is to basically hear some opinions on what other people think of this change, whether or not you are a spines scrapper, or if you have some spines scrappers on the shelf that you haven't dusted off for a while. I am very aware that there is a chance that this will not be changed, but it would be really awesome to get a state of address on this issue on one of my new/old favorite sets. |
I can't make Quills remain always visible without doubling up the geometry for the spines. Not much of a problem with the old, low poly, boney spines but some of the new custom spines have quite a bit more geometry and are translucent.
Quills should remain visible for as long as the toggle is active, and I believe that they will as long as you don't use another spine power (yeah, I know). But as soon as you do use another spine power, that takes control of that shared FX script and it starts adhering to the same rules that govern when all visible weapons appear and disappear. This is out of my hands.
As for redraw, again...nothing I can do about this. This would fall squarely in the same camp as every other weapon powerset. Activating Quills does not put you into "Spine Combat" mode, it just plays an animation and makes the spines visible (if they aren't already visible). This is how it's always worked though, nothing new there. Changing this would require building full modes for every power that could potentially be used, ala what we did for Shields. Only for every weapon combat mode, which is simply not feasible.
I might figure out a workaround at some point, but right now that's just how it works and it's as close to how it used to work as I could make it.
I would like to see the animation times decrease in the future. Overall I can't really complain.
Friends don't let friends buy an ncsoft controlled project.
Quote:
thanks for the info BaB's. I could have used you a couple weeks ago in a heated spines discussion on the scrapper boards.
|
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
There is, unfortunately, not that I can do about this. Spines has always been a hybrid set set of sorts and with power customization, a lot of things had to be re-wired under the hood.
I can't make Quills remain always visible without doubling up the geometry for the spines. Not much of a problem with the old, low poly, boney spines but some of the new custom spines have quite a bit more geometry and are translucent. Quills should remain visible for as long as the toggle is active, and I believe that they will as long as you don't use another spine power (yeah, I know). But as soon as you do use another spine power, that takes control of that shared FX script and it starts adhering to the same rules that govern when all visible weapons appear and disappear. This is out of my hands. As for redraw, again...nothing I can do about this. This would fall squarely in the same camp as every other weapon powerset. Activating Quills does not put you into "Spine Combat" mode, it just plays an animation and makes the spines visible (if they aren't already visible). This is how it's always worked though, nothing new there. Changing this would require building full modes for every power that could potentially be used, ala what we did for Shields. Only for every weapon combat mode, which is simply not feasible. I might figure out a workaround at some point, but right now that's just how it works and it's as close to how it used to work as I could make it. |
Is there any reason why quills could not just be a graphical effect similar to how dark armor or any other toggle power works?
The truth is the solution from an equation of lies. ~Maileah Kirel
Quote:
Which is exactly why I made the thread. =D|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
thanks for the info BaB's. I could have used you a couple weeks ago in a heated spines discussion on the scrapper boards.
|
Now that clarification on the issue has been made, even with my misnomer on how the old quills work, I'm fairly certain that this thread has served its purpose...unless people want to move the "makes spines better" discussion to a thread with a redname in it =P.
Quote:
He told you.|
Originally Posted by Neparos
Is there any reason why quills could not just be a graphical effect similar to how dark armor or any other toggle power works?
|
Spines, as is, is a lot more graphical intensive then it used to be, at least if you use non-original spines. And some are even translucent. The only way for the spines on the body to stay even after using another spine power would be to duplicate the FX script that calls up the body spines, copy it, and have it on/renamed so it runs constantly when the toggle is on. This would double the FX whenever an attack power. Which would not play nice if with either translucency effects OR polygon counts.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
"it was only heated becasue of you"
but I was right, sorry for turning up the heat.
I appreciate the rant of the OP. It's bad when the visual concept goes south.
Funny thing is, I would pay good money to get rid of the quills effect. Hated it, and have only one spines alt, a Spines/Dark, so I could use the dark stealth to get rid of quills and the banana spines.
This is why BABs is damned if does/damned if he doesn't.....
Rend this space....
Quote:
Well, half of your problem is solved because of power customization. Banana spikes are a thing of the past by choosing metal, slate, or crystal.
|
Originally Posted by Rocket_Bob
I appreciate the rant of the OP. It's bad when the visual concept goes south.
Funny thing is, I would pay good money to get rid of the quills effect. Hated it, and have only one spines alt, a Spines/Dark, so I could use the dark stealth to get rid of quills and the banana spines. This is why BABs is damned if does/damned if he doesn't..... |
Quote:
Thanks for that info Babs. I wish there was something that could be done for it, but I appreciate that you don't really have any realistic options.
|
Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
There is, unfortunately, not that I can do about this. Spines has always been a hybrid set set of sorts and with power customization, a lot of things had to be re-wired under the hood.
I can't make Quills remain always visible without doubling up the geometry for the spines. Not much of a problem with the old, low poly, boney spines but some of the new custom spines have quite a bit more geometry and are translucent. Quills should remain visible for as long as the toggle is active, and I believe that they will as long as you don't use another spine power (yeah, I know). But as soon as you do use another spine power, that takes control of that shared FX script and it starts adhering to the same rules that govern when all visible weapons appear and disappear. This is out of my hands. As for redraw, again...nothing I can do about this. This would fall squarely in the same camp as every other weapon powerset. Activating Quills does not put you into "Spine Combat" mode, it just plays an animation and makes the spines visible (if they aren't already visible). This is how it's always worked though, nothing new there. Changing this would require building full modes for every power that could potentially be used, ala what we did for Shields. Only for every weapon combat mode, which is simply not feasible. I might figure out a workaround at some point, but right now that's just how it works and it's as close to how it used to work as I could make it. |
Stand UP.
FIGHT BACK!
This turned out long and in some respects drawn out, the bottom of the post contains a summary of what I'm trying to say for those who are too lazy to read through my "rantings"
Issue 16, the dawn of the resurrection of a multitude of characters for me. I spent hours customizing powers and recreating costumes in order to fit with their new amazing themes, paying specific attention to powers and how their visuals would make this character look. I happen upon my old Spines/Regen scrapper and lo and behold! There is an option other than: ridiculous looking tree things! I immediately get to redesigning him, spending time and effort doing what I love: making him prettyful. Now, I don't go out and play him immediately, as I take this opportunity to get a few thoughts from my head into action, creating Spines scrapper after Spines scrapper, relishing in the new wealth of concepts I can make. All is not well and good, however, as I spend time leveling these notoriously hard early-level powersets, and finally get to the crown jewel: Quills.
Now, from what I remember from previous spines scrappers, Quills has always been an amazing power, letting me dish out damage without even clicking, and having that debuffing effect? Great. What I was really looking forward to, however, was not having my attack times take forever and a day whenever I decide to use Healing Flames, or for that matter most of my secondary powers on my Regen scrapper, because of the redraw. And yet, I look after using healing flames, and the spines are gone? I quickly log out and log back in as my Spines/Regen, click on Spines and then click on one of my numerous click powers, and yes, they were gone again. Quills was still running, but my porcupine-esque visage was not to be had. The spines were not there. Wrest away from my form in their prime. O why has thou forsaken me, Quills?
All joking aside, I have no idea why such a terrible thing would happen to what I remember being a set-defining power. Does this change its role as such? Slightly. Does this seriously affect the viability of Spines when looking at a set like Regen? Yes. Now, I have seen this topic on the forums before, but never in this section unless it was a small footnote on a thread about Spines, and never to my knowledge have we received word from this on the Devs as to whether or not this is "working as intended". Guessing by the fact that I can use Quills, then turn on a toggle and not be forced to redraw, and the redraw only happening on click powers not in the primary, I would guess yes. My only question is why? Was Quills' non-redraw contingency allowing the performance of spines as a whole to be too much in terms of the balance of the game? Was the movement of Fire Armor and the planned movement of electric armor as secondaries to Scrappers too much in terms of the scrapper that could not only have a secondary damage aura but keep its endurance above almost zero (unlike Dark Armor)? I plead someone of authority to answer these questions, as it just doesn't seem to add up to me.
Looking at Spines' animation times, and then looking at literally any other power set in the game, it's pretty clear that Spines has the short end of the stick on animation times, coming in slowest among all the sets I've played (or at least seemingly so). Does the set make up for it with incredible area of affect attacks? Yes. And an exotic damage type? Gads yes. And a great secondary effect? Yes indeed. But do all these pros mean that every time I redraw and am killed by an enemy because of that milisecond of timing that I didn't have to click a green or heal or something else that I don't curse the very concept of redraw? Of course not. My point being that does an already undeniably abysmally slow set really need something that made it just a little more user-friendly taken away from it?
This is where the people who skipped ahead can join in =P
Will the fact that Quills no longer negates redraw make me stop playing Spines Scrappers? Goodness no. I enjoy spines as a set because of the wealth of new concepts that have been introduced as of Issue 16 and revamping my previous Spines scrappers to be fitted with all the brand spanking new shineyness that comes with power customization. What I would really really like, though, is an explanation as to whether or not this new aspect, or lack of an old aspect, was intentional. If so: What is the reasoning behind it? If not: Is it fairly high on your lengthy list of "things to do"? Another thing I would enjoy is to basically hear some opinions on what other people think of this change, whether or not you are a spines scrapper, or if you have some spines scrappers on the shelf that you haven't dusted off for a while. I am very aware that there is a chance that this will not be changed, but it would be really awesome to get a state of address on this issue on one of my new/old favorite sets.