Why isn't fly faster than Ninja Run?

Originally Posted by Clouded

Did you bother to read the next sentence in my post?

Originally Posted by Hott_Head

At what point did someone deem it "a must" that characters that have super speed should be able to run up walls, how does the ability to be able to move your legs faster than anyone else make you able to defy gravity?

Originally Posted by KingSnake

It's the slowest, most end expensive

Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper

Comparing Fly to Ninja Run paired with other powers (Swift, Hurdle, Sprint, etc.) is like comparing Fly to Fly+Swift. It's stupid.

Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper

Since when does Fly cost more than Teleport? The only time I've run out of endurance using Fly was when I coupled it with Superior Invisibility (total endurance drain of 2.04 EPS unslotted, compared to base recovery of 1.67 EPS). Teleport at its maximum speed is 6.5 EPS, or 3.25 EPS if you go the minimum speed without falling.

Fly is not slower than Ninja Run. Fly is 45.2 mph unslotted; Ninja Run is 34.4 mph running and 33.9 mph jumping.

Comparing Fly to Ninja Run paired with other powers (Swift, Hurdle, Sprint, etc.) is like comparing Fly to Fly+Swift. It's stupid.

Originally Posted by KingSnake

Got anything for that argument?

Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper

Nope. I don't really care.

Originally Posted by KingSnake

?

Ok then. *shrug*

Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper

I don't really care if Fly is made faster. But Fly is not the most expensive travel power, Fly is not slower than Ninja Run, and comparing NR and two extra powers to Fly alone is not a fair comparison.

Note Ben's point of comparing Fly+Swift to NR+Hurdle; this is much more fair than Fly vs. NR+Swift+Sprint, and puts NR a few mph ahead of Fly. I would say that's still not quite fair, since Hurdle has always been a bigger speed boost than Swift. Fly+Swift is faster than NR+Swift; since Swift adds 1.9mph to fly speed and 5mph to run speed, all that comparison really says is that the difference between Fly and NR's flight speed and running speed is larger than the difference between Swift's flight boost and its run boost. Usefulness or fairness, comparing Fly and NR comboed with other powers doesn't help in the analysis of their relative speeds.

Originally Posted by Zamuel

In a lot of ways, I think the biggest problems are that the ground simply isn't dangerous enough, enemies are slow (and dumb...), and everyone is handed out temp jetpacks. In other words, different zone and map design would make Fly more useful without needing to speed it up. However, I don't see it happening. It's a catch-22 of sorts. Can't make ground spawns more dangerous because it would "punish" other travel powers but as they are now Fly seems to have a false advantage.

Originally Posted by Talionis

2 times negative stealth and slightly increase its endurance usage. Thus you can be seen from farther away.

Originally Posted by Vitality

Would raising the fly speed cap to 60-65 be imbalanced?

Originally Posted by Ethric

Fly would still be slowest travel power, but would at least not be as tedious as it currently is.

Originally Posted by NightErrant

There's also a tech limitation. The Fly Cap isn't just an arbitrary limit. It's "If you go faster than this THE GAME WILL BREAK".

It's like going faster than 66 miles an hour in a DeLorean. You go back to Pre Issue 1 beta.

Or something.

Originally Posted by Hott_Head

At what point did someone deem it "a must" that characters that have super speed should be able to run up walls, how does the ability to be able to move your legs faster than anyone else make you able to defy gravity?

Originally Posted by Warkupo

The argument that Fly has an advantage over other travel powers in that you can take short breaks while your character auto-flies to the mission is invalid due to the fact that with any other travel power I can simply *be* at the mission, use the bathroom, and return before any of the fliers on my team have arrived. I still operate under the same rules of time as the fliers do, after all. In doing this I also avoid embarrassingly returning to see my character has spent the last 2 minutes of his free-will trying desperately to move through a solid object.


The argument that Fly has the advantage of going in a straight line, thus arriving faster has yet to be true during my game-play experience. Save for perhaps Grandville or Terra Volta on a Super Speed character, I have never been beaten to a mission by a flier when we both started from the same point at the same time. I have often beaten the flier even when they had a head start. It is often not even the case for me that fliers can even travel in a straight line. Often a building gets in the way before I can reach a high enough altitude to avoid it, meaning I either have to stop going forward and travel straight up, increasing my travel time, or go around the building at a much slower speed than the others would have gone, and risk hitting another building I will have to go around as well, also increasing my travel time.

Assuming I *did* take the time to go all the way up to the ceiling, I now have to descend as well. If the area is particularly crowded I may not be able to simply descend down to the door. If I decide to just drop down by turning of flight so I can get to the ground quicker I risk taking damage, though I'll admit I do like to suicide drop and turn on hover at the last moment as a thrill so maybe you enjoy this sort of thing. I also risk hitting a spawn I might not have seen from so high up in the clouds when doing this, which, if I just plummeted to the earth like a rock, could wind up in a very embarrassing death.


The argument that Fly has superiority in certain maps is inaccurate as well. The Shard becomes far faster to navigate if you learn and use the jump points located all over the map. It does require that you map the area out a bit, but once done it is far quicker to use SS, SJ, or TP to quickly move to a jump pad and reach your destination in far less time. The only real advantage Fly has in the Shard is that it can be useful if the jump pad decides to be cute and throw you into the abyss, in which case you can activate Fly and correct your course. However, you can also just activate your temporary Fly power, which you can have indefinitely, so it's a moot point. The only zones where Fly has an advantage is Terra Volta, and Grandville, and only against Super Speeders. Teleporting and Super Jumping work just as well they normally do.


The argument that Fly is safer is due to being out of the sight of anything that could harm it is also in accurate. There are enemies in the sky, but they still travel fairly low to the ground, so I will not include them as a threat. Snipers, however, have proven deadly at times for the slower fliers who can take 2-3 shots before getting out of their range, only to clunk their way into the range of another. This is especially hazardous for squishier characters. Conversely, my Super Speeder is typically unnoticed and out of a sniper's range before the shot even goes off, assuming I am even seen at all. He also has the advantage of slotting the (admittedly expensive) stealth IO for perma-invisibility, thus escaping the attention of nearly every enemy in the game. I have also never died from landing in a bad spot with Super Jump, but then, I have adapted the amazing ability to adjust my camera downward so I can see where I am going before getting there. While on this note, every other travel power has the advantage in that it can move the camera without having to worry that it will ruin its’ path. This is not true for Fly (and teleport to some degree). Teleport has the same vertical advantage Fly does, except that it is also the fastest travel power available, so the snipers are a virtual non-issue. Additionally, a Teleporter can keep moving if it gets immobilized, and can be useful for escaping such a situation in a combat scenario.


Fly has a disadvantage in that you have to slot it to get it to an acceptable level which is, unfortunately, still very low compared to all others. Often I will leave Super Jump and Super Speed with only the initial slot until very late levels, if I slot them at all. Fly, on the other hand, forces you to devote slots to it early so that you can even comprehend getting to a mission in a realistic time, and even then, you will still probably just get teleported by someone faster than you. This problem is alleviated somewhat with IO’s such as Blessing of the Zephyr in that they add benefits from slotting a travel power, however, it isn’t as though the much faster Super Speed and Super Jump can’t also take advantage of these IO bonuses and be made even better than Fly by utilizing them, thus negating any real advantage this might have given Fly.

Fly has a disadvantage in its perquisite powers. Combat Jumping and Hasten often make it into my character builds for their min/maxing potential. Combat Jumping costs nothing, can be slotted for defense and travel, both of which offer very good set bonuses for very few slots, offers the same defense as hover, grants immobilization resistance, and does not disrupt the flow of combat. Hasten makes everything faster, thus allowing me to do everything faster, such as attacking, healing, controlling, whatever, at the cost of a moderate amount of endurance which is typically very easy to get around. It is also essential for perma-Hasten, obviously. Builds which achieve perma-hasten are typically the kinds of creatures that are running around soloing enemies designed to be a challenge for groups of eight and more. Recall Friend is useful for getting the flier to your door, and Teleport Foe is useful for dividing a dangerous spawn, after you've slotted it with some range enhancements to beat the aggro radius of the spawn, of course.

Air Superiority offers limited control for melee characters, but lacks enough power to typically stay on my builds, and becomes less useful as my defenses rise and my need for such gimmicks decreases. Hover is much better after the latest speed boost, and can be slotted similarly to Combat Jumping, however, it's endurance cost is much higher, lacks any res protection of any kind, and leads to Fly, which is still the worst travel power available. Unless your build somehow required both powers, for the interests of reaching the soft cap or fitting in another Luck of the Gambler, or concept, there's no real reason to take Hover over Combat Jumping.


Finally, everyone can Fly now with temporary powers, thus negating any vertical penalties the other travel powers may have had. Not only are they handed out like candy, but you can buy them if you do manage to run out of all the free ones somehow for next to nothing. Actual game play experience has also proven to me that despite the reduced speed of these temp powers compared to Fly, I am still capable of arriving to the mission faster than a flier even if I do have to utilize them. In fact, they made me *faster* than I was before, as I no longer have to go around, thus pretty much *ensuring* that I arrive faster than a flier, where before it might have been close. Additionally, if an enemy flies out of my range, I can just activate my temp power and attack them, thusly negating any advantage Fly or Hover had in a combat scenario as well.


I often feel that arguments against flight getting any sort of buff are based on purely on a conceptual basis, and lack any actual practical analysis. After having practically applied flight in various situations for the better part of three years, I can do nothing but conclude that Flight is the very worst travel power in the game with few, if any, redeeming qualities over other selections which are just as easily available, save, of course, for conceptual reasons.

Originally Posted by Premonitions

Being able to run at near-sonic speeds will increase this to near-sonic levels.