Fitness is dead; long live Fitness.
By
Aaron Islander,
Posted on: 2010-09-04 13:04 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I don't know what to say. That's just awesome news. It just opens so many options with the lesser used power pools now that we're not stuck with the mandatory fitness.
Dark armor lover.
The Claws/DA Scrapper guide.
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Mmmm...same here. I put Numina and Miracle unique in Health. |
Originally Posted by TwilightPhoenix
Wait... what's going to happen to the powers we slotted? A couple of my toons have one more more uniques and/or procs stuck in Health and Stamina and I seriously doubt I'm the only one. Three new pick would be cool, but it'd actually hurt the effectiveness of some toons if they can't slot those IOs anymore. I'm pretty sure my BS/SR would lose his effectively infinite endurance.
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I like that Health passive slot for Numina and Miracle. If we lose that slot, where do I put those two? Weird....
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Another interesting effect of all this is that builds commonly considered 'tight' (e.g. Super Reflexes and other such sets where you REALLY REALLY want all 8 or 9 to be effective, and the skip-able one comes very late) suddenly aren't such a hassle.
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You're not losing those slots. You will still be able to slot the inherent versions of the fitness powers.
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Originally Posted by Jibikao
Mmmm...same here. I put Numina and Miracle unique in Health.
I like that Health passive slot for Numina and Miracle. If we lose that slot, where do I put those two? Weird.... |
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I don't know Bill, aren't you at the softcap now? |
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Yet another open pool to help with soft-capping defense.
Why is it that lately when the devs make a decision that I *should* be happy about I find myself instead wondering just what the hell are they thinking? |
Now you can add in more of those concept powers, which you may already have in now, but I remember at one point you saying you had to remove Fly (which you may have gotten back in)...now...you can have Fly again!
I was going through mids, seeing if I could make a concept Blaster build (DP/EM or DP/MM) with the powers I wanted for the build...SURE ENOUGH! Fighting/Fly/Concealment/Leadership! \o/ The only way to make it better was if I liked any of the Epics (Blasters need a Psi Epic with Indomitable Will!)
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Hey, some of us only used Ninja Run on toons it made since to use Ninja Run on (mind you, for me this was my rooftop jumpers, and fast runners...none of them would stay in the waiting stance for Ninja Run however, and I always clicked it off when standing around, but the running and flipping WHOOT!)|
Originally Posted by Ardrea
I see both good and bad in this. Mostly good. I have to dig deep to find bad.
Sure, it changes the balance in the early levels, but unslotted these powers aren't that huge an effect. Slotted, well slots don't do a lot in the low levels, and even if they do, that's at the expense of something else not slotted. Not having to stop to rest so often, virtually gasping for breath, will improve the low level experience -- especially for new players. I do think something is lost though. The ability to choose to have a character who's noticeably more athletic than the average superhero. Ninja run did this, for a start. Everyone and their grandmother is running and jumping like a ninja; even if it doesn't make much sense for their character as a concept. Now they'll all have swift and hurdle too, automatically. I'd give up other powers for the distinctiveness that swift and hurdle can give a toon. Sure, I can still slot them for effect, and since one or the other was a requirement for health or stamina, pretty much everyone had one of them anyway. It's a design critique I suppose; in practice it didn't work. I think it might have been a better option to just take the prereqs out of the fitness pool -- when level 6 comes up, just take Stamina if you want it, and skip the other three. All in all, I'm 99% happy with this. My criticisms are very, very minor. |
Since they're not granting any new slots (maybe with incarnate levels, but I won't count that...as incarnate levels are suppossed to make you more powerful)...I see this as a means to fit in more concept powers that I couldn't fit in before.
I'm sure there are going to be those who go...Okay what powers to I add in to min/max my performance, and I make my toons concept around that (for example, I don't think Phase Shift is something many would have in their concepts, but if it means min/maxing more...yup, it's going to be used in even more concepts!).
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Oh.. so all the powers under Fitness are becoming Inherent... I see. |
Originally Posted by Emberly
You're not losing those slots. You will still be able to slot the inherent versions of the fitness powers.
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This just means we'll have more other power choices.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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You honestly don't see how this can be transformative and vastly increase the potential and power of even min maxed builds ? Really hard to believe. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
I
Edit: To be clear, there is a difference in there being a major increase in maximum potential for a given build, and the change causing people to find major increases in the potential their builds actually realize. |
Ok lets take your uber scrapper, with 5 lotg uniques, hasten already slotted in and no use for the stealth pool. They can now take the leadership pool, slot a perception unique, a +to hit unique, and have vengeance all for 0 cost to performance. Team wipes for that character have just become a thing of the past.
I don't know that this is going to make already powerful builds more overpowered so much as as it's going to make some of the less popular ones more viable. For example, on Controllers it evens the ground between Illusion/Radiation, Illusion/Cold and the other combos by making perma-army more attainable to less popular secondaries with fewer trade-offs.
Well, depending on how early in levels inherent fitness comes into effect, it might actually make the combat in Praetoria more fun and less of the tedious always out of endurance fighting it is currently.
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Pffft...yeah...if they play on easy mode. |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You honestly don't see how this can be transformative and vastly increase the potential and power of even min maxed builds ? Really hard to believe.
Ok lets take your uber scrapper, with 5 lotg uniques, hasten already slotted in and no use for the stealth pool. They can now take the leadership pool, slot a perception unique, a +to hit unique, and have vengeance all for 0 cost to performance. Team wipes for that character have just become a thing of the past. |
I don't care how uber your toon is, there is a weakness to it somewhere in the game. Yeah, if you keep fighting enemies that lack your weaknesses, suuure, you'll be god.
But, Cims, Raluu (sp?), Nemesis, DE, I find these enemies tend to have a lot of anti uber build options, and tend to be late game enemies too!
I've seen softcapped /SR toons get taken down by Cims. I've seen Softcapped /Shield Toons, get taken down.
Now, that said, the Tanker versions of a few of those sets (they lack SR, but using some of their other options), manage to keep standing, thanks to those additional Hit Points, and possibly even higher resists, but they lack the big damage of the others.
And even then, on being on some "Lets try and speed the ITF" teams I've been on, I've seen those OMG built for defense Tankers, either fall, or come close to it. The different is likely in their use of inspirations, and well...with the right inspirations, a lot of toons can get to the "O.O OMG I can't believe you jsut did that!" moments.
This change without added slots, is yes, going to improve builds, but not to the OMG level. It'll be a few more defense points, or a few more +RCH bonuses that will maybe pick up a bit more added oomph to some combos that we're just a couple recharge bonuses away from perma Hasten, or gapless attack chain.
And even then, it'll be for a few outlier players.
Most players have no intention of soloing Pylons, AVs, GMs, or TFs. Most will use this to tack on a few added concept powers, or possibly eek out a bit more defense points, that while handy, isn't going to break the end game.
Go solo that +4/8 Arachnos mission...it's not easy by any stretch.
If you want to uber the toon and play at 0/0, then yeah, you'll likely desimate it even more now
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You honestly don't see how this can be transformative and vastly increase the potential and power of even min maxed builds ? Really hard to believe.
Ok lets take your uber scrapper, with 5 lotg uniques, hasten already slotted in and no use for the stealth pool. They can now take the leadership pool, slot a perception unique, a +to hit unique, and have vengeance all for 0 cost to performance. Team wipes for that character have just become a thing of the past. |
Surely a maxed out Scrapper already slotted the +ToHit unique somewhere. And I don't know why you'd take the Leadership pool and slot it that way either, because endurance is still a factor, as is the need to slot it to get actual benefits from the powers. Vengeance may be an exception to an extent, but blah 300 second recharge time and dead teammate.
Mmmmm... a lot of my toons may need respec because of this. :P
I wonder what makes them change the mind after 6 years?
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
And even then, on being on some "Lets try and speed the ITF" teams I've been on, I've seen those OMG built for defense Tankers, either fall, or come close to it. The different is likely in their use of inspirations, and well...with the right inspirations, a lot of toons can get to the "O.O OMG I can't believe you jsut did that!" moments.
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I was actually thinking about this earlier. While I understand why some think the changes to Fitness may make us overpowered, the elephant in the room is Inspirations. IMO they are way, WAY more influential than getting three additional power picks. The fact that we can gulp 5 or 6 at a time pretty much eliminates arguments about "challenge." In fact, I'd argue Inspirations are the reason so many people find this game easy, in particular the fact that they have no cooldown and when you solo, pour in faster than they expire.
While I'm not advocating a change to the system, if you want to make the game "more challenging" Inspirations are the place to start looking.
Even if you are capped for LoTG, there are still OTHER things you can do to increase your characters performance. Even if you still need to use the slots in Stamina, there are still plenty of powers that give decent benefit without much slotting.
No matter how I look at it, this is a BUFF to everyone, and probably a slightly careless one at that. While I like it, in the way every child enjoys getting a giant lazer cannon for Christmas, I'm not sure I like how this effects certain builds.
I'm reserving final judgment for when it's actually, you know, implemented.
*EDIT*
Just looking at my DP/WP Brute, I am now going to be able to slot Tough/Weave onto my character where as before I substituted those powers with Darkest Night, which was simply numerically superior against everything except AV's, where the To-Hit portion is lowered from a value of 16.5% to a little under 3% (the damage debuff is unaffected however.)
With this change I will now always be at the soft-cap against AV's, and have quite a bit of defense OVER the soft-cap in every other encounter to deal with defense debuffs (And because a lot of my net "defense" is tied into To-Hit Debuffs, that means I'm even better at mitigating enemy DefDebuffs than normal). My S/L resistance will also go up from a value of 53% to about 70%. Add in RttC, High Pain Tolerance, and the ability to spam the Attack Vitals combo back to back, and I have gotten quite ridiculous indeed.
My loss in doing all of this? I took two slots out of Health that where only there because I ran out of a good place to put slots. In other words, about 0.23 less health per second and a bit more endurance per second from the new toggles (-0.42 End/s, but that still leaves me with +2.2 End/s to go bat**** with, and my attacks don't cost much endurance with IO's anyway). I think I'll be able to live with that~
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Solution: Leave Fitness as a pool power choice, call it 'superhuman fitness', and allow it to stack with the inherents. If the devs have decided the old fitness powers are now 'base level' abilities, then why not continue to offer players the choice to spend power slots for above base level ability? Double stamina is not going to allow players to solo the LRSF.
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Originally Posted by Ardrea
I do think something is lost though. The ability to choose to have a character who's noticeably more athletic than the average superhero. Ninja run did this, for a start. Everyone and their grandmother is running and jumping like a ninja; even if it doesn't make much sense for their character as a concept. Now they'll all have swift and hurdle too, automatically. I'd give up other powers for the distinctiveness that swift and hurdle can give a toon. Sure, I can still slot them for effect, and since one or the other was a requirement for health or stamina, pretty much everyone had one of them anyway. It's a design critique I suppose; in practice it didn't work.
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I don't think the change to fitness is designed to make the ultimate min/max people more powerful. I think it's more designed to help the normal average person who doesn't have billions of infamy, actually does the 1-20 mission arcs, uses regular IOs or SOs, etc.
Not everyone has billions of infamy to throw around.
I see this as a positive change, especially for new players or people who just want to play the game and not the market.
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I think when people claim this game is 'easy', they need to state what difficulty they are playing at, and if they are solo, because there are vast differences in 'difficulty' depending upon said situations. When the game can be set to +4/x8, people claiming it's easy sound like BS'rs, and I don't mean they like the broadsword powerset. If you can't find something challenging in this game, you're not trying very hard.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I was actually thinking about this earlier. While I understand why some think the changes to Fitness may make us overpowered, the elephant in the room is Inspirations. IMO they are way, WAY more influential than getting three additional power picks. The fact that we can gulp 5 or 6 at a time pretty much eliminates arguments about "challenge." In fact, I'd argue Inspirations are the reason so many people find this game easy, in particular the fact that they have no cooldown and when you solo, pour in faster than they expire.
While I'm not advocating a change to the system, if you want to make the game "more challenging" Inspirations are the place to start looking. |
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Originally Posted by Ponytail
I don't think the change to fitness is designed to make the ultimate min/max people more powerful. I think it's more designed to help the normal average person who doesn't have billions of infamy, actually does the 1-20 mission arcs, uses regular IOs or SOs, etc.
Not everyone has billions of infamy to throw around. I see this as a positive change, especially for new players or people who just want to play the game and not the market. |
I don't care how rich or 'good' you are, lvl 1-20 is a pita on endurance, and would continue to be if not for the fact everyone and their grandmother takes fitness and stamina, usually by level 20. That's why they're making this change and it's a great move, imo. The endurance requirements are ridiculously too high, especially at those levels, where slotting and enhancement is very limited.
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it doesn't seem to be aimed at any particular player demographic, more at correcting an old design choice that's become more and more of an anachronism over the years.|
Originally Posted by Ponytail
I don't think the change to fitness is designed to make the ultimate min/max people more powerful. I think it's more designed to help the normal average person who doesn't have billions of infamy, actually does the 1-20 mission arcs, uses regular IOs or SOs, etc.
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As far as the playerbase goes it's a win for everybody, casual and min-maxer alike.
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Which is exactly what I was saying.
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Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
I don't care how rich or 'good' you are, lvl 1-20 is a pita on endurance, and would continue to be if not for the fact everyone and their grandmother takes fitness and stamina, usually by level 20. That's why they're making this change and it's a great move, imo. The endurance requirements are ridiculously too high, especially at those levels, where slotting and enhancement is very limited.
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In nearly every case I can think of, this is going to lead to me adding flavor powers to toons that otherwise couldn't have them, or spending less time resting on toons where I went ahead and took the flavor powers anyway. I don't think it'll make a huge difference up at the top end -- the marginal effect is much lower there.
Mostly it means more people will have recall friend, more demons MMs will have a whip attack they only occasionally use for RP purposes, and so on. I think this'll be just enough to break the tightness of a lot of 1-20 builds, since suddenly three "mandatory" picks went away.
Three of your ten powers matters a lot more than three of twenty-four.
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I'd say it's because they're going after allow people to diversify their builds.|
Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Solution: Leave Fitness as a pool power choice, call it 'superhuman fitness', and allow it to stack with the inherents. If the devs have decided the old fitness powers are now 'base level' abilities, then why not continue to offer players the choice to spend power slots for above base level ability? Double stamina is not going to allow players to solo the LRSF.
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If they put Fitness as Inherent, and kept Fitness in as Superhuman Fitness, then people would still say "Have to grab Stamina at 20".
This is a great buff to everyone, without really OPing anything. People will still want to slot Stamina the way they've been slotting it.
Those who didn't have Stamina in their build before, now get it, and leave it at the one slot.
And really, that's how I see this change. Power diversity. All those INV builds that wanted those Passives will be able to fit them in for sure if they couldn't before.
People can get that travel power, they wanted, but made due with Ninja Run.
People can just add a few more defensive points or +RCH bonuses for a bit more min/maxing.
It's all win/win!
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It's not about difficulty slider IMO, it's about cherry picking enemy groups, which most players do when they claim this game is too easy even when solo at +4x8.|
Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
I think when people claim this game is 'easy', they need to state what difficulty they are playing at, and if they are solo, because there are vast differences in 'difficulty' depending upon said situations. When the game can be set to +4/x8, people claiming it's easy sound like BS'rs, and I don't mean they like the broadsword powerset. If you can't find something challenging in this game, you're not trying very hard.
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Are they fighting Malta and Carnies as anything other than an ELA? Probably not. Are they fighting Devouring Earth or Rularuu if they are Super Reflexes? Definitely not. Is any one soling the Rogue Vanguard at +4x8?
Edit: To be clear, there is a difference in there being a major increase in maximum potential for a given build, and the change causing people to find major increases in the potential their builds actually realize.
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