City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Increase effective time of Force Field bubbles to 10 minutes

BBQ_Pork

By BBQ_Pork,
Posted on: 2010-09-18 13:17 in Suggestions and Ideas

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Starhammer View Post
Another thought that occurs to me, at least for bubble powersets that consistently include 2 or more single application short term bubbles, would be to change the relevant powers so that if you have both of them, application of one performs like application of both.

Say for instance the Force Field shields... 1st shield provides some smashing/lethal defense, 2nd shield provides energy/fire/etc. (there's more to it, but that's sufficient for this example... for the same reason I'll be using some "simpler than actual" numbers)

Change each power so that if you have just the first shield, it still works the way it does now, same for the second. But if you have both shield powers, each of them provides the buff of both of them combined (smashing/lethal/fire/energy/etc.) and the base endurance cost doubles. Now as long as you have both, you can use just one and get the effects of both. In net effect, it gains some benefit by reducing the total application time for the whole team. (There's also some room for abuse with the need for enhancements, but I'm just posting an idea to consider, not a comprehensive design for total overhaul) The quality of life issues would be simplified significantly though, as it reduces the potential for confusion over who needs which buffs (the icons look the same to me, especially the tiny ones... and not everyone is capable of writing out keybinds that cycle which buff is applied like I do), it gives a "100% reduction to power effects spam" for the selected powers, and provides a little more time before bubblers start suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome.

All in all, even I think this idea is more work to implement in retrofitting existing powers than it would be worth... but I think it would be something to consider the value of if the time comes that they need to overhaul the powers anyway, or create new powers of a similar nature.

Another possibility to consider would be to retrofit the powers as a targeted or point blank Area of Effect, that hits everyone, then charges you a much higher endurance cost, similar to how MM pet buffs were overhauled.

Yet one more option to consider would be enhancements to a power's duration. I know there's a lot of powers I'd like to see that available for.
im just going to say no. buffs do not need to be applied all of the time. it is nice but something that is not needed. as to the bottom part of your suggestion, no. then you will get people whining that they weren't in range of the buff.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Starhammer View Post
Change each power so that if you have just the first shield, it still works the way it does now, same for the second. But if you have both shield powers, each of them provides the buff of both of them combined (smashing/lethal/fire/energy/etc.) and the base endurance cost doubles. Now as long as you have both, you can use just one and get the effects of both. In net effect, it gains some benefit by reducing the total application time for the whole team. (There's also some room for abuse with the need for enhancements, but I'm just posting an idea to consider, not a comprehensive design for total overhaul) The quality of life issues would be simplified significantly though, as it reduces the potential for confusion over who needs which buffs (the icons look the same to me, especially the tiny ones... and not everyone is capable of writing out keybinds that cycle which buff is applied like I do), it gives a "100% reduction to power effects spam" for the selected powers, and provides a little more time before bubblers start suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome.
Not a bad idea. From my experience, I always use both bubbles. I never consider if using just 1 of the bubbles is enough. I think the implementation would take some thought. It would be simple if we could have a macro to execute the two powers consecutively.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Starhammer View Post
Another possibility to consider would be to retrofit the powers as a targeted or point blank Area of Effect, that hits everyone, then charges you a much higher endurance cost, similar to how MM pet buffs were overhauled.
This idea was suggested in this thread. I would love the aoe buffing. There are quite a few issues regarding its implementation though. Mainly, they are about the range and the endurance cost. If the range is short, the buffer will tend to ask the team to gather every 4 minutes, which is quite annoying to the team. If the bubbles could be applied regardless of range, it would be ideal.

The endurance cost can be problematic as well. This thread is actually motivated by masterminds with forcefield, as it is very tedious to buff the whole team and their own pets. Bubbling 7 team mates and all the pets in 1 shot (or 2, if the team mates and pets are done separately) probably takes a lot of endurance.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Starhammer View Post
Yet one more option to consider would be enhancements to a power's duration. I know there's a lot of powers I'd like to see that available for.
This is also mentioned in this thread. I think it's a viable option. However, I'm not a big fan of this suggestion. The motive of the thread is to make bubbling less tedious, and not about making the bubbles better in terms of performance. I'm not sure that I would use slots to make the bubble last longer. I bet different people look at it differently. From this thread, some people consider the suggestion from a balance point of view, so longer duration would mean a nerf or players should invest more slots.