Super Booster V - Secondary Mutation Power: Feedback
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-06-10 14:18 in The Global Training Room Test Server
Objective Feedback: If you're 'lucky' enough to get hit with a recharge bug, the buff can be stacked via the walk bug.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Subjective: so far I've not gotten any negative powers from this, and the once I have gotten appear to be functioning as they should. Also as Back Blast has stated if you do get a recharge bug, using walk can stack these.
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Problem is, the rest of this set is such utter garbage that the ONLY way they're going to sell it in significant numbers is to include a slightly OP bonus power. Very few people are going to buy this for those weak *** costume sets.
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Originally Posted by WarronPeace
That's better than [Quickness], [Lightning Reflexes], and [Mental Training], all primary/secondary powerset powers. Seems a bit extreme, especially when combined with those powersets. Granted, it doesn't have the resistance to -speed and -recharge that the above powers have, but still, it seems a bit much. Perhaps cut it in half and add *minor* resistance to those effects? Or a minor Travel buff, or at least a Run buff, so that it does more than practically nothing, but isn't more powerful than primary/secondary powers?
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Overall, I like the power (as well as everything the pack has to offer).
I dont really care for how the SMP keeps playing the buff animation on a loop, but can tolerate it. I'm concerned about the potential for rooting and other interference. The aura is good enough for me.
Miss Arc #147491: Rise of Bedlam
AKA Iron Smoke @Champion Server
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Honestly, this sounds like a design bug in the combat attributes display to me - global recharge, which works the same way as end reduction displays the actual recharge modifier bestowed by active powers or IO bonuses and since these numbers match the values in the power descriptions/IO set benefit lists AND tend to be the numbers folks are used to working with it makes far more sense to display this, instead of some intermediate value that is no good if you have OTHER sources of end reduction (such as slotting in the power). It also makes a lot more sense to have all the 'divisor' enhancement benefits display in the same fashion, instead of recharge reduction displaying one way and end reduction another.|
Originally Posted by Stargazer
Both. Sort of.
The effect Mez Resistance have on Mez duration is: Effective_Duration = Base_Duration/(1+Mez_Resistance) So, 50% Mez Resistance gives an effective duration of 100%/(1+50%) = 100%/1.5 = 66.67%, or a 33.33% decrease in duration. Often it's better to look at the Resistance values than the duration changes, since the values for duration changes essentially assumes that there is only *one* Resistance in effect. If you have two powers giving 50% Resistance, you have a total of 100% Resistance, cutting duration in half. However, if you attempt to add together the duration changes for both Resistance sources, you end up with 2*33.33% = 66.67%, and this is wrong. This leads to some apparent weirdness in the Combat Attributes, since the per-power descriptions show the duration changes that would result if you *only* had that power, and the totals show the *actual* duration change (it takes the total Resistance value, and calculates the duration change from this). This means that if you sum together all sub-entries, it won't match what the totals say. In those cases, the total is the one that's correct. (looking at per-power values is usually the source of people claiming the Combat Numbers are "wrong") |
I consider myself to be reasonably adept at manipulating the in game numbers and the funky display of the end reduction power confused ME until Arcana pointed out that it was a calculated reduction.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
Values in powers seem too high, nerf now before anyone pays actual money for it.
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I don't know. Tough Hide goes with the idea that things are deflecting off you, while Acute Senses is more of defense based off reacting/reflexes.|
Originally Posted by Liquid
I agree with this. There aren't any RES bonuses from what I've seen so far, so having Tough Hide be +7.5% (or whatever) RES (all) and Acute Senses be +3% DEF (all) would remove the situation where all powers are useful to some powersets but not others.
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Much like /SR and /INV are different (RP a side).
I don't see the problem keeping them the way they are now. What they may do instead though, is give Tough Hide a 3% Defense All (Typed) and 3% Resist (All) Benefit instead however.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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Sounds like you know how to repro this bug reliably. Care to PM me the instructions?
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Originally Posted by Back_Blast
Objective Feedback: If you're 'lucky' enough to get hit with a recharge bug, the buff can be stacked via the walk bug.
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IMO, some more significant penalties are warranted, such as actual debuffs (preferably with comedic effects). A 1% or similar chance of monkey is not much since you get a buff arguably better than mystic fortune, even before considering that it is a self buff.
There's something of a power creep going on with these boosters. Self Destruct was amusing but relatively useless, or extremely situational at most. Then Mystic Fortune was a decent minor team buff. Ninja Run was an arguably sufficient replacement for travel powers. Now this buff provides a random effect that is about half as good as the best self buff pool powers (hasten, tough), and arguably better than some moderate powers (weave), for no endurance. Personally, I would prefer keeping these strong buff numbers, but adding debuff powers on keeping with the concept of a random, unpredictable mutation. It should be a real gamble. That would increase the amount of fun involved, and would prevent this booster from becoming pay for performance.
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Or Monkey Gas? :P|
Originally Posted by Glowworm_Nexus
I think it would be great if all your powers were out of commission while you are a Rikti monkey EXCEPT for Psionic Dart, which would be added as a temp power. You would still suck, but you could do something and it would be a great flavor effect.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You know what would be cool is if you draw this mutation, it unlocks a toggle that lets you do it voluntarily from that point onward. I don't see the harm in it, and it makes the act of getting that mutation actually somewhat rewarding in an odd way.
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A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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I'm not sure if he's talking about this "recharge bug", but...|
Originally Posted by Castle
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When two mapservers are running on different times, moving from an instance on the mapserver with the earlier time to an instance on the mapserver with the later time will cause the following:
1) Toggles will drop, buffs will expire, and Recharges will be reset
2) Patrol XP will be awarded based on the time difference between the two mapservers
3) Any applicable Day Job progress and/or bonuses will be awarded based on the time difference between the two mapservers
This isn't *really* a bug (though I would have preferred it if Day Jobs used one authoritative time server instead of relying on the individual mapservers, but that's probably more complicated than needed), since this is exactly what is expected to happen when a mapserver "notices" that you haven't been online for an extended period of time. You're supposed to log in without toggles and buffs, your powers are supposed to be recharged, and you're supposed to be given PXP/Day Job progress.
The problem happens when one (or more) server(s) is misconfigured, running on the wrong time. For a while now, *all* mapservers are supposed to run on UTC. However, occasionally some mapservers will end up running on another time (usually ET or PT - corresponding to where the server is located), which will mean that the effects described above will occur.
So, how does this affect Secondary Mutation?
Well, when you move "forward in time", the SM power will be recharged. However, since the SM buff itself only counts down during *in-game* time, it will still remain at the same remaining duration as it had before zoning. This way, you can use SM again, and (if the rolls favor you), get another buff. This doesn't even require using Walk, you just have to roll a buff that you didn't previously have.
If you really want to prevent this from your end, you should be able to change the buff from having an in-game duration to a plain old duration.
However, this shouldn't really be a problem on the live servers, since misconfigured mapservers tend to be rather rare (at least on some servers.........). If there are no misconfigured mapservers, this issue won't pop up.
The overall most effective "fix" however would involve finding a newspaper, rolling it up, tracking down whoever is in charge of the servers, and repeatedly smacking them on the head until they set the time right on the errant mapservers.
(I'm currently on a misconfigured mapserver on Test, so if you send me a tell "soon", I can show you)
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Since the buffs are random, characters who would abuse them (min-maxers eking that last 3% to softcap all defense, for example) won't use them because they cannot be depended on. Game play for the rest of the player base won't be unbalanced by these relatively minor buffs, so I don't think it's really necessary for there to be negative consequences. I, for example, won't get the Mutation Pack if the power has any negative buffs because I'm one of those notorious min-maxers who'd rather be in control of my fate. I'll accept a random positive buff, but would never put up with a random debuff (yeah, I never blow up those machines in the Crey labs).|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
Now this buff provides a random effect that is about half as good as the best self buff pool powers (hasten, tough), and arguably better than some moderate powers (weave), for no endurance.
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This did cause me to think of another way of dealing with the prompt for Mystic Fortune, however. If you target yourself with Mystic Fortune you should get a "no buff" invocation of Mystic Fortune (it marks you as having the power cast on you for the full duration, but does nothing). Then the power should be changed to avoid prompting the player if the character already has a Mystic Fortune buff on them (including the self-invoked null buff).
This would allow you to prevent yourself from getting hit by unwanted invocations of the power, and stop all those annoying prompts completely, without having to make a hash of the options screen.
I'd like the psionic dart and the monkey swipe - that would hit all players and critters - just run amuk for 60sec (along with Arcana's toggle option).
Miss Arc #147491: Rise of Bedlam
AKA Iron Smoke @Champion Server
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The buffs being random won't prevent "min-maxers" from using them. That just alters how often they'll get the "optimal" benefit. Usually, they'll still get *some* benefit, but it just won't always be the one they'd prefer. What could stop "min-maxers" from using them would be negative effects that outweigh the positive effects. As it is, the Monkey "debuff" is quite significant, but it also seems to be fairly rare.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
Since the buffs are random, characters who would abuse them (min-maxers eking that last 3% to softcap all defense, for example) won't use them because they cannot be depended on. Game play for the rest of the player base won't be unbalanced by these relatively minor buffs, so I don't think it's really necessary for there to be negative consequences.
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If, as you suggest, the negative consequences would be removed, there would be no reason for "min-maxers" to not use the buff, and sometimes they'd get the "big" benefits.
Basically, your second sentence negates the reasons you give in your first sentence. (and those reasons don't seem very strong in the first place)
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| I, for example, won't get the Mutation Pack if the power has any negative buffs because I'm one of those notorious min-maxers who'd rather be in control of my fate. I'll accept a random positive buff, but would never put up with a random debuff (yeah, I never blow up those machines in the Crey labs). |
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That's fallacious classification. First, optimizing builds is not an exploit. Second, even if you could call it that, there is no exploiters vs. non-exploiters dichotomy. Everybody who isn't just picking powers at random is optimizing. Third, why would they even WANT to make it useful to some and not others?|
Originally Posted by Rodion
Since the buffs are random, characters who would abuse them (min-maxers eking that last 3% to softcap all defense, for example) won't use them because they cannot be depended on. Game play for the rest of the player base won't be unbalanced by these relatively minor buffs, so I don't think it's really necessary for there to be negative consequences.
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This is not about exploits, but the power being too strong for a booster. I can tell you that any of those buffs would boost the brute IO build I use considerably, more so than many expensive IOs. People pay over the inf cap for that 3% defense PVP IO, and the other effects are just as good.
However, if they made those powers, say, half as strong as they are, they wouldn't even be useful to those who haven't built to take advantage. Thus I suggested making it more of a chance power, which is more interesting IMO than just a buff.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
I think the inclusion of penalties is the most prominent example of why people disliked the Mystic Fortune buff. It went from being an opportunity for non-buffing characters to easily contribute helpful buffs to everyone with minor tradeoffs/penalties and has become a source for a vocal minority to complain about getting a buff they did not want because of the possibility of a minor debuff. I think many players fear debuffs so much that the mere chance of them incurring such a penalty through the use of an optional paid booster is something that steers attention from the benefits such powers can provide otherwise.
I'm a fan of a bit more randomness in our sometimes predictable gameplay. While i'm uncertain of the impact of the Secondary Mutation Buffs' at their current strength, I appreciate their ability to add something to a character in a way that provides minor helpful buffs but doesn't truly hinder gameplay by becoming a mechanic players can reliably build around.
Veridian Dynamics. Mistakes. We all make them. But sometimes mistakes lead to great discoveries. Mistakes are how we learn and grow... so we can do amazing things.
When you think about it, shouldn't you be thanking us for making mistakes? Veridian Dynamics. We're sorry. You're welcome.
Add a 5% chance for a *random* costume to effect you with oscillating body morphs for 20 seconds with a vomit power! And run like a Vahzilok (Robocop Scene: "Dont touch me man!!") Then explode back to normal with toxic DOT.
I agree with Chaos. I cant really quantify my arguement using all the numbers, but like fortune (which is given-out much more often than not when asked if wanted) is a nice buff. At worst I say to myself "aww... I got that... oh, well." Having all beneficial powers is pay for performance; this is paying for fun detail - perfectly balanced? No, thats not the point. I can see Fortunes powers as more dramatic because they are given to you. The fact that this is a self-buff, to me it's pro's and con's should be lesser.
Miss Arc #147491: Rise of Bedlam
AKA Iron Smoke @Champion Server
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If you could hit yourself with MF like that, you'd have a significant number of players who'd mistake it for a self-buff and dose themselves with it constantly. With a steady stream of "bug reports" when they notice that it's not doing anything.
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Originally Posted by Rodion
This did cause me to think of another way of dealing with the prompt for Mystic Fortune, however. If you target yourself with Mystic Fortune you should get a "no buff" invocation of Mystic Fortune (it marks you as having the power cast on you for the full duration, but does nothing). Then the power should be changed to avoid prompting the player if the character already has a Mystic Fortune buff on them (including the self-invoked null buff).
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I agree we should avoid pay for performance. However, I'm not fond of balancing strong buffs with a risk of strong debuffs. A strong enough debuff to make people really worry about using the power is going to be viewed in a very poor light when the debuff actually materializes. I predict people viewing it like the "perma debt" of old - they suffer the debuff, consider it crippling, and don't want to play the character until it wears off. But there's a problem - the effects count logged in time, so you can't get rid of the effect without leaving your character logged in.|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
Personally, I would prefer keeping these strong buff numbers, but adding debuff powers on keeping with the concept of a random, unpredictable mutation. It should be a real gamble. That would increase the amount of fun involved, and would prevent this booster from becoming pay for performance.
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There are a few ways to go about avoiding this kind of situation. A very simplistic one is to go for weaker buffs, and then balance them with weaker debuffs. This is much how Mystic Fortune works, though I also think it has weaker debuffs to keep if feeling like someone else screwed you over; a self-buff has different implications. They could also make the effects count "real" time and not logged in time. A less simplistic approach deals with the duration and recasting - I think both this and Mystic Fortune should be dismissible, but you should be stuck with a timer that still won't let you get a replacement buff until the original buff or debuff duration would have ended. This way you could get some obnoxious debuff, potentially rid yourself of it (ideally you'd have to suffer under it for a minute or two), but not replace the effect until you would have been able to even had you kept the original.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Guess I must be unlucky. The few times I tried the power, I got Devolution twice in a row. Sure feels like a long time as a Rikti monkey, but it isn't in the grand scheme of things. I think it is kind of a fun addition.
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But if it is a self buff, there's no issue. It's entirely optional.|
Originally Posted by Mind_Over_Matter
I think the inclusion of penalties is the most prominent example of why people disliked the Mystic Fortune buff.
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That may lead to some not wanting to use it, but that's actually a good thing. I mean, compare it to self destruct, and it becomes an utterly ridiculous dichotomy even with a random debuff effect. Booster powers were supposed to be a minor fun bonus, not the reason to buy the pack.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
I agree we should avoid pay for performance. However, I'm not fond of balancing strong buffs with a risk of strong debuffs.
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A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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I beg to disagree. If the powers were cut in half there would still be those that are significantly beneficial. 15% recharge bonus for 20 minutes, 7.5% movement speed increase, 25% mezz resistance, and 15% endurance discount are all very nice. 59.4% pretty nice, 39.6 % not bad nothing to crow about and 1% "oh look at fred he has devolved again find some bananas" seems very reasonable. Just a fyi even 1.5% defense can be very important |
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
However, if they made those powers, say, half as strong as they are, they wouldn't even be useful to those who haven't built to take advantage. Thus I suggested making it more of a chance power, which is more interesting IMO than just a buff. |
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Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
But if it is a self buff, there's no issue. It's entirely optional.
That may lead to some not wanting to use it, but that's actually a good thing. I mean, compare it to self destruct, and it becomes an utterly ridiculous dichotomy even with a random debuff effect. Booster powers were supposed to be a minor fun bonus, not the reason to buy the pack. Usually, I would say that random rewards are bad practice, but again, I'm analyzing this as a booster power. To avoid such issues, I'd suggest making these 1 minute powers like the monkey power is, and making it minor, something silly like a small penalty to recharge, or mixing debuffs and buffs as mystic does. |
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Aside from reasons others have stated that this is a bad idea, the biggest problem with this is that it would require anyone who doesn't want mystic fortune to buy the magic booster, just to have the ability to disable the buff. It also would do nothing to appease those who like the buff, but hate the prompt... so in effect, this would be a "pay to fix" for some while doing absolutely nothing for others, not a good thing in either scenario.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
This did cause me to think of another way of dealing with the prompt for Mystic Fortune, however. If you target yourself with Mystic Fortune you should get a "no buff" invocation of Mystic Fortune (it marks you as having the power cast on you for the full duration, but does nothing). Then the power should be changed to avoid prompting the player if the character already has a Mystic Fortune buff on them (including the self-invoked null buff).
This would allow you to prevent yourself from getting hit by unwanted invocations of the power, and stop all those annoying prompts completely, without having to make a hash of the options screen. |
Super Booster v - Secondary Mutation: Subjective Feedback
Overall it seems to be a fun power to play around with. I didn't notice any large benefit during play while I knew the power was active, and when it lapsed I didn't even notice any kind of performance difference, or that it had lapsed in the first place, for that matter.
As a character progresses, I can see this becoming more of an "if I remember" kind of power, like "oh, it ran out... when did that happen? oh well, let's see what it does this time.."
It seems to fall in-line with the other booster powers in that, while it may help you some through the first 20-ish levels of play, It then becomes fairly obsolete as your characters powers develop and come to fruition. At most, pure soloers will see the greatest benefit from having Secondary Mutation, and even then that benefit will become trivial at some point, IMO.
I do really like that it's a self-buff/debuff, and hope that if there are temp powers added to any future booster packs that may come, this is the route they take. I really can't stress that enough...
If i'm going to pay for it, I prefer that I'll be able to use it for myself... IMO, that was the big mistake with Mystic Fortune, If it was a self-buff/debuff, that would have foregone all the problems and complaints currently going on about it, including requests for game options to auto-accept/decline it. Any chance you can change it to target-self instead of target-ally?
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I should point out that the movement speed buff is not a 15% movement speed increase. Its a 15% movement speed increase-increase. It buffs run speed strength, or to put it another way it acts like enhancements in your run speed powers. So you don't run 15% faster, Sprint gets 15% stronger. Sprint increases your run speed by 50% unslotted, with this buff it will increase your run speed by 57.5%, a 7.5% net increase in running speed. Cut in half, it will buff Sprint by 7.5%, increasing your run speed by 3.75%. If you aren't running Sprint, Superspeed, or some other run speed buffing power, the buff will have no effect at all.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
If the powers were cut in half there would still be those that are significantly beneficial. 15% recharge bonus for 20 minutes, 7.5% movement speed increase, 25% mezz resistance, and 15% endurance discount are all very nice.
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Its the one buff that I think is questionable out of the set. The pack is pretty powerful already, but I think it makes more sense if the run speed buff was a direct buff to run speed, and not a buff to run speed strength. Or if it was a tiny bit stronger. Unless that is intended to be the booby prize of the random draw separate from the monkey.
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Aside from what was already pointed out about having to buy the pack, the other problem with this is that the game engine disallows explicitly targeting yourself. For ally buffs it auto-targets the closest ally if you don't have anyone targeted. So, standard code rant applies.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
This did cause me to think of another way of dealing with the prompt for Mystic Fortune, however. If you target yourself with Mystic Fortune you should get a "no buff" invocation of Mystic Fortune (it marks you as having the power cast on you for the full duration, but does nothing). Then the power should be changed to avoid prompting the player if the character already has a Mystic Fortune buff on them (including the self-invoked null buff).
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The only other way to do it without a general way to auto-deny or delete buffs would be to make a completely separate "Don't fortune me, bro" power, which is ugly to say the least.
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