Super Booster V - Secondary Mutation Power: Feedback
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-06-10 14:18 in The Global Training Room Test Server
Gradually these booster pack powers are getting more and more powerful and I for one am becoming a bit worried.
Why has this pack included a self buff when Mystic Fortune was so obviously made to only buff other people and not yourself?
Why are the buffs that it grants so powerful instead of just being a random tiny perk?
As someone mentioned, people will pay millions of influence for a +3% defence enhancement. I think someone in the dev teams need a bit of a wakeup call and a reality check.
There is a fine line between paying for cosmetic features and actual substantial ingame advantages. Ninja Run was pushing it as far as I was concerned, but its such a cool power and fits the theme so well I let it go. However a random self buff? Please. It is both unnecessary and unwarrented.
P.S: I speak as someone who owns every booster pack going.
The thing is, for a squishie, +3 def is effectively meaningless. Not a waste, but you're not going to see too many people paying the same price for +3 def if they have none to begin with - it's only for it's value in capping that it becomes worth the money. Price is driven by the value to those who want it most, not those who want it least.
If it were as easy to have the effect be a flat 6% miss chance for everyone, the power would be nice, but reasonable. But I'm guessing that would be a coding nightmare.
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I disagree. 3% Defense is quite nice for just about any character, but the thing is that if you're willing to spend 2+ Billion to get 3%, you are generally also willing to spend the far less that is required to get far more through set bonuses and other IOs. Thus, people who get the +3% Def IO in question generally also already have significant Defense from other sources.|
Originally Posted by rsclark
The thing is, for a squishie, +3 def is effectively meaningless. Not a waste, but you're not going to see too many people paying the same price for +3 def if they have none to begin with - it's only for it's value in capping that it becomes worth the money. Price is driven by the value to those who want it most, not those who want it least.
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Also, you should probably make a distinction between "squishies" and "characters with little other Defense". Squishies generally tend to benefit *a lot* from Defense, so there are quite a few squishies with quite a bit of Defense. If you have quite a bit of Defense from other sources, an extra 3% can be rather significant.
Well it's been announced that people can win this pack by the 23rd, so it must be reasonably close to launch.
The thing is, with booster powers there is an obvious disincentive to rebalancing them later. If it launches like this, it will probably not be adjusted unless it becomes ridiculously obviously overpowered.
The logical conclusion to this booster power creep is eventual NCSoft RMT. Obviously that's not what is being done, but... I think this power is not far off from it.
Ninja Run was pushing it, but at least that was only a convenience. It could let you skip a travel power and add something else, but you could do that with temps or vet rewards anyway. It provides no major combat advantages except maybe in zone PVP (which means it should probably be suppressed there).
I think that it is literally telling people that if they want peak performance they should pay 10 bucks over the usual fee for a supposed costume pack.
Again, the devs need to look back at self destruct. Why is nobody complaining that people aren't willing to use it in normal combat? I think that if this power had SIGNIFICANT gambling it would still be a better combat power than the other boosters, and if people think twice about using it in combat, that is how a booster power should be.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
Subjective Feedback: Just seems rather specific to a certain type of subgenre of Mutant. an Unstable mutant of something. Not realyl a problem withe the mechanics or teh power itself. It just seems like you would have to intentionally design a character around this concept as opposed to Mutants generally being able to do this stuff.
I know it wouldn't make any sense on any of my Current Mutant characters. *shrugs*
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Throwing out magic cards only makes sense on one of my characters, but I use it on all of them.
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Originally Posted by Inquizitor
Subjective Feedback: Just seems rather specific to a certain type of subgenre of Mutant. an Unstable mutant of something. Not realyl a problem withe the mechanics or teh power itself. It just seems like you would have to intentionally design a character around this concept as opposed to Mutants generally being able to do this stuff.
I know it wouldn't make any sense on any of my Current Mutant characters. *shrugs* |
Subjective, and about what I read in this thread :
The "people are paying 2 billions for a +3% def IO so this temp power is overpowered" argument is a bit flawed in my opinion.
First of all, it's random. You cannot reliably get this bonus, but maybe only 1/5th of the time. So it's not at all the same as if you could get it perma all the time, not even close.
Secondarily, when some people are willing to pay for 2 billions for this kind of IO, it's generally for toons with a build that would be at 42% defense without it (3% short from the soft cap), and for them it means alot. The 3% defense bonus you'll get 1/5th of the time will mean much less for the big majority of toons that will be either at low defense, or already at 45% if they're soft capped.
The 30% recharge is certainly more generous, but once again it's fine because it's random : you cant reliably count on it to fill a gap in your build. On the other hand 15% run speed is not much, especially if it applies to the base.
And I agree with what several players posted already. Make accute senses a +3% def all (positionnal + typed), and tough hide a +7.5% resist to all. As it is now, there are 2 defense buffs for only 5 buffs, it's a bit redundant.
I like the idea behind this temp power, even the 1% chance to get nerfed as a Rikti Monkey. It will certainly add some fun during gameplay. I'm looking forward to buying this pack now, it wasnt the case before as I wasnt much interested by the costumes.
The defense numbers are now 2.5 and 3.5, respectively.
The power is still rather strong for a booster. I think what might work would be adding more buffs so that, like mystic, there are so many that a few strong buffs are not that overpowered.
There is an approximately 60% chance of getting a very strong effect:
1. 30% recharge
2. Endurance discount and regen
3. Defense (which type you want more would be determined by build)
For example, what if pain tolerance were converted into 2 powers, 1 for endurance and another for mez resistance and regen?
Add a few more, like a 5% resistance, or a small power boost style effect, and you would make it work with a greater variety of powersets (resistance armors, buffers), while also preventing it from becoming a predictably large buff to defense builds.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
It would sure be nice if we could just select one of those secoundary Mutation powers to be part of our build instead of getting random ones.
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That would be unimaginably overpowered.
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Originally Posted by HydroPonics
It would sure be nice if we could just select one of those secoundary Mutation powers to be part of our build instead of getting random ones.
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You seem to be mistaken. Unless this was changed since the post date.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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.
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. |
I finally drew heightened speed,
reading from the real numbers
Code:
Running speed 16.45 MPH 14.32 Base 2.15 Heightened speed
Edit all the other attributes fly, jump, jump height are either showing the same or a proportionally correct amount.
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This was changed in the patch on the 18th: the Strength buffs were converted into Cur buffs for Mutation: Heightened Speed. They now buff movement speed directly rather than movement buffing powers. I don't think this was noted in the patch notes.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You seem to be mistaken. Unless this was changed since the post date.
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Like others I'm concerned about the power creep this booster pack introduces. The power is nice enough, but this, Ninja Run, and the Magic Cards are a better fit to me as actual selectable powers than as boosters. The problem is not just the numbers but that this game has always done a good job of sticking to theme. Increasingly I feel like that part of the art direction is being lost. Because the packs are all "themed" when I see players using these powers it comes across rather jarringly as "that's a person that bought the booster pack because this power was useful" than "that's a really great costume." Since the origin of the booster packs was more about flare and costume than powerful abilities I think is unfortunate. I think that if we're going to continue to get powers from Booster Packs that aesthetically I'd rather have more "generic" looking abilities so we don't all end up playing mutant ninja magicians.
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Well Tex. Its pretty clear that you play the game for the RP factor and to play with dolls in the costume creator. Thats great, more power to you. Many others chose to play the game for other reasons. |
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Like others I'm concerned about the power creep this booster pack introduces. The power is nice enough, but this, Ninja Run, and the Magic Cards are a better fit to me as actual selectable powers than as boosters. The problem is not just the numbers but that this game has always done a good job of sticking to theme. Increasingly I feel like that part of the art direction is being lost. Because the packs are all "themed" when I see players using these powers it comes across rather jarringly as "that's a person that bought the booster pack because this power was useful" than "that's a really great costume." Since the origin of the booster packs was more about flare and costume than powerful abilities I think is unfortunate. I think that if we're going to continue to get powers from Booster Packs that aesthetically I'd rather have more "generic" looking abilities so we don't all end up playing mutant ninja magicians.
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Some want to feel like a super hero instead of just looking like one. Others love the idea of number crunching and how they can maximize their potential regardless of any theme at all. Still others just play for the fun of playing and socializing with other players.
The booster packs try and give everyone a little something to enjoy regardless of how or why they play. So far they have been fun and I look forward to more of them in the future. They are the kind of microtransaction I don't mind. Totally optional but worth the price.
Now if they would just give us glows patterns on the other kinds of armor I might just be in heaven.
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That's actually the biggest of any reason not to accept booster power creep.|
Originally Posted by James_Donner
Some want to feel like a super hero instead of just looking like one. Others love the idea of number crunching and how they can maximize their potential regardless of any theme at all. Still others just play for the fun of playing and socializing with other players.
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If booster powers are often strong, anybody who wants to maximize their power has to buy every pack that comes out, which adds up to a ton and sends us down the path of pay for performance. It can also make data mining of certain powersets weird if the power especially favors a particular type of set, as this booster does.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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Who does this favor?|
Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
That's actually the biggest of any reason not to accept booster power creep.
If booster powers are often strong, anybody who wants to maximize their power has to buy every pack that comes out, which adds up to a ton and sends us down the path of pay for performance. It can also make data mining of certain powersets weird if the power especially favors a particular type of set, as this booster does. |
I know you are going for "def based builds", but it's just flat not true. For a positional defense build, the typed defense power is completely worthless (except for a little psy def), and once they cap, both defense powers are worthless. So, for all the speed TF running stuff that they are really data mining for to make changes, it's far more likely that the defense aspects of this power will have little to no effect. And since it's unreliable, no one will be able to alter their build to focus on something other than def with the assumption that it will always be there.
Add to that the fact that I have plenty of builds - ie all of them - that will benefit more from added end recovery or recharge speed. The power may be too strong, but it really isn't strongly biased towards any particular build or powerset.
I really think COV/COH needs to represent the powers a little more effectively. Over state the idea of random potential, I would not have purchased this otherwise. I will definitely start reading the forms for everyone's opinion, instead of being so purchase happy about the next power they try to sell.
This thread has been dead for a year. Probably not the best place to post feedback.
@Demobot
Also on Steam
Just a thought.
Also, same icon as Mystic Fortune? That's NO GOOD!
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