Changing how Offensive Phase powers work (IE Dim shift, blackhole, detention field, sonic cage)

I was reading the getting rid of the cottage rule thread and I was recalling all the changes that gravity has undergone, as well as how some other sets were altered. I was also thinking about my current experiences playing multiple archtypes and how things have drastically changed over the years.

The game was hard at one time.. I died 15 or so times today on my blaster (or at least it felt like it cause I died A LOT) but it wasn't that big of a deal. Patrol xp soaked all the debt that I would have earned and I still had plenty of patrol xp to see me into the next level. If I had died 15 or so times back in 2004-2005 I would have been in a perma debt situation.. I would have been so far in the debt hole that I most likely could never have climbed out of it.

So basically situational phases had a purpose.. dying sucked and putting up with a 30 second pause in combat was worth it because dying sucked. Now dying doesn't suck so much, and that phase isn't as needed and is rather annoying. 30 seconds feels like forever in the fast paced gameplay that as evolved over time. Not to meantion that we have temp powers to phase ourselves now. Every character can craft one of these and use it to basically pause combat and recover if needed. You don't need to phase the mobs anymore. Its counter to all other design in the games.. buff/debuff effects, other control effects.. all of those can do what a phase used to do but they don't basically pause the game.

Now onto basis of the idea.

Back in the day.. Fear powers used to cause mobs to run away. It was changed instead into basically a breakable hold. When attacked the mobs would be free to act, and would then go back to become held again. This changed things drastically as fear became a very effective control from a not so effective control.

So why not take a page out of that book and add a little gravity quark to it. That quark is Singularity. Siggy is intangible, but can be attacked. So we know that intangible creatures can be attacked. Intangiblity and phased are two seperate properties basically.

So here is the idea.. Dimension Shift and offensive phase powers in general (all 4 of them) are altered as follows.

First you apply an intangibility effect.. This allows players to move through the mobs as per phased mobs now or singularity. This doesn't make them immune to damage though. Just lets people walk through them, actually handy if they are blocking something and is overall a neat effect for posiitioning.

Second you apply a held effect but like fear its breakable and reapplyable.

When its breaks they are allowed to attack and attack the player that attacked them, and then are reheld.. this continues for the duration of the effect and they always remain intangible. I don't know if dropping the intang inside a player model would do bad things.. if it doesn't I can see the intang effect being removed and then being reapplied when the power is broken.

You're not changing what the power does, but rather changing what the Phased contol type does, this has been done before Ala the old run away fear to cower in terror fear we currently have. We are basically adding a new control type Intangiblity.

I think it could be a neat power effect and I've not seen anyone approach the power by altering Phase itself so I thought it was a unique idea.

The run away fear effects are still around in some powers.. just like how some powers can keep the current phased effects basically powers that effect self as the power is meant to only have an effect self effect applied to it. This also gives intangiblity enhancers a purpose and potentially an IO set designed specifically for them. This allow allows the powers to be changed in how they work.. you could have single targets, cones, pbaoes, targeted aoes, placed aoes.. A lot of options and varity that we currently don't have in regards to offensvie phase powers.

It really does change what the power does. The fact that you can walk through the mobs is largely irrelevant, it's the Only Affecting Self/Unaffected aspects that are the core of the power.

Applying the above modification to it and it in effect it just becomes a Fear.




Still the best change to Dimension Shift/Black Hole I've seen suggested is changing them to patches (like earthquake/quicksand/rain powers) and have the phase (but NOT the immobilize) also apply to players that enter the patch.

Apply the PvP "Phased can attack Phased" rule to PvE and you create a zone where mobs inside it can't attack players outside of it and vice-versa.

Just stay out of the patch and they can't hurt you, then when you're ready to clobber them just step inside.

This keeps the power doing exactly the same thing it does now, but allows a way around one of the biggest annoyance of phases, that you have to wait for it to expire before you can do anything with those mobs.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Simplest solution to the problem with enemy phasing powers: Turn them into toggles.

If you don't want that guy attacking you, phase him out. When everything else is dead, instead of making the rest of the group useless for 3-4 minutes, just drop the toggle.

Agreed. Toggles are the simplest and best solution from a Player Control standpoint. And we already know it's possible for the non-phased to affect the phased, because Hamidon does it (and thus ended the Phased Tanking method).

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Downside of a toggle of course being that if any non-phased mob gets even the tiniest mez on you, suddenly you've got a lot more very pissed off NPCs breathing down your neck.

Unless they flagged it not to suppress when mezzed, which would make it the only offensive toggle not to follow the standard.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Devs have gone on to say, ( i think it was castle) that toggles would be the hardest thing to do with Phase powers, as soon as the target phased, the toggle would drop.

Personally I think the Patches idea adds the most possible tactic and gameplay solutions to phase.

Big fights when you know something painful is coming, drop a patch on you're team, as long as the thing bringing the pain isnt inside it, you're all good, and the team can step out to deal damage to the enemy, and back in for protection.

Of course that may make this type of ability then too powerful...but still. would be fun, although it also doesnt cover the "what to do with single target phases" where really toggle is the best option, although technically difficult to put in

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

The ideas being thrown around:

-Toggles, yeah...I heard it was rather difficult to do since you're either coded to affect phased targets (like Hamidon I guess) to keep the toggle going or the instant you toggle phase something, you won't be able to affect it and the toggle turns off. If you're coded to affect phased targets, it's a tag that affects all like powers.

-Phased attacking phased, a must, IMO. And remove (or lower) the NoPhase effect in PvE so that people can actually *USE* the effect. Although if this was to come about, I'd like 2 types of phase effects. 'Phase Shifted' and 'Caged/Walled'. Extend pool powers to grant consealment with a 'phase shift' ability where if phased, only another phaser can attack you/unphase you. 'Caged/Walled' would be *current* PvE phase shift/FF&Sonic cages where *nothing* affect you and you affect nothing. Then, you can make enemy groups that exploit the tactic of phasing you or themselves, you can create powersets that are built around using this tactic, varied encounters and so on.

-Intangible Patches, yes, this is something I suggested myself. I also think it'd work *very* well tactically, as has been explained. Besides that, I think it'd be easier to code since you can just make it so the Pseudo Pet can affect phased and unphased targets while casting a non-stacking effect that will keep a target in one plane or the other. It just makes a battle more exciting thinking of the possibilities...

*you're fighting a Sky Raider*
*he decides to phase*
Oh no you don't!
*lay down Dimension Shift*
*jump back while Sky Raider shifts back*
HA! *cast crush (immobilize)* Gotcha!
*Sky Raider turns off phase* *hold has no effect*
Darn! *jump back into Dimension Shift and fling a car at him*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oathbound It really does change what the power does. The fact that you can walk through the mobs is largely irrelevant, it's the Only Affecting Self/Unaffected aspects that are the core of the power. Applying the above modification to it and it in effect it just becomes a Fear.

Just thinking out loud here...

And not that I'm suggesting this be the change for the effect but...

What about a reverse-Fear? The unstable matter effect. All of the victim's abilities are diminished (because he's only half there) and any actions taken by the target may scatter its existance, if only for a moment. Basically, every time the target acts, moves or attacks, there's a chance he'll 'fear' himself(doesn't have to be fear...could be a 'hard fear' resembling a hold or a 'sleeping fear' in that if you attack, they resume their normal existance...lots of possibilities).

All in all, I think we *could* use more, varied and mixed mezzes to make the game spicier. It's kind of cool how Electric Control has that nifty debuff/sleep patch...we've got 2 types of fear (Terrorized and Afraid) with different effects, for some reason we have 2 names for one type of mez (stun and disorientation) which could easily be differentiated, there are some holds that are combined with immobilization and some that aren't...hmm, maybe I should make a thread about this...

It should be fairly simple to code any sort of Target AoE Location Pseudopet with a set of powers that use the following toggles:

1. Mag 50 Immobilize Foes inside the AoE for 9.875s
2. Phase Foes inside the AoE for 9.875s
3. Phase Allies inside the AoE for 3.875s
4. Activation Time on all powers: 2s
5. Pseudopet Duration: 20.5s

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

You never want to put players into situations where they can phase out other players. I played with Dim Shift back when it was an Ally Phase power, I am one of the reasons that it was changed to a Mob phase power for what I was doing with the power during the greif phase of the testing and that was with a single ally being phased out.

A field phase that is just asking for all kinds of trouble. Its a clunky effect that makes phases actually harder to use then they currently are and increases the potental for intentional and unintentional greif. Imagine dropping that on a BAF.. or on a foe you couldn't phase.. but your allies still get phased.. like a Hami raid.

Phases are interesting, but they are so limited in scope and use that they should only be used in very specific situations, but not as player control tools. Phasing is useful as a Self Phase, or for NPCs to Phase out players like the Rularuu Wisp bosses do.

Offensive phases as the mechanic stands do not have a real purpose. Look at PvP and PvE as its a great example of this. When you phase someone you are giving them a chance to heal, rest, recharge. You have to phase yourself to then attack them. So why would you phase them in the first place if you yourself needed to phase to attack them. The attack phased, while phased was intended to be used by self phasers each phasing out and attacking each other. So that you could chase someone that phased out to avoid a defeat. But if they were already phased no power exists to bring them out of it and such a mechanic while useful in pvp would be so rarely used in PvE that it would be largely useless.

This is why I suggested going after the phase mechanic itself. Fear was largely a useless effect, it wasn't all that fun to cause the mobs to run away in terror, heck it even got removed from burn, I'm wondering if/when it will get removed from Rain Powers. When they changed fear powers they vastly improved the mechanic. Altering offensive phases into a mechanic that works is exactly like altering run away fear into the fear we know today. Its not breaking the cottage rule, but changing the underlying mechanics to improve gameplay.

I actually like the idea that Leo had..

Except that they can just step out of the phase field if they don't want to be phased....?

The main issue here is that the Cottage Rule exists, and while there may be a bit of question about it's continued enforcement after the departure of Castle, it's FAR more likely that we'll get an adjustment to the current AoE Phases than it is getting them removed.

Suggesting nifty new powers or whatever to replace them is very likely a waste of time.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too