What kind of reaction time do you think City of Heroes should demand?

In an effort to make this less of a binary choice (this time around), I'd like to pose to you an open question: If you had a choice in the matter, what kind of reaction time would you like the game to demand from you? I'm sure no-one likes a game that's far too fast to react to, and I'm equally sure no-one likes a game that's so static it puts you to sleep, so there has to be a golden middle. Where that is is, I'm sure, different for all of us. So where's yours?

Feel free to measure reaction time in any manner whatsoever that you're comfortable with. Seconds, real world reference points, existing animations, whatever you like.

Now, I don't like leaving questions bare, so let me elaborate a little bit. We all know that City of Heroes is not a fast action games that relies on twitch reflex and split-second timing. Even at the best of times, it's just not designed to do that. However, as MMO goes, it's also by FAR not one of the slower ones. Without a constant auto-attack and with so many of our powers needing positioning or situational awareness to use properly, there's still a lot in the game to keep track of in real time.

I'm also aware that the reaction time needed to play well varies from character to character. Take a Bots/Traps Mastermind, for instance, and you can lay down you traps, go have lunch and the game will have pretty much played itself while you were gone. The reaction time of that character can sometimes be minutes. By contrast, hop on a Fire/Fire Blaster and take on something dangerous. You can usually sneeze long enough for you to get killed in the meantime.

Personally, from experience, I think the best fit for City of Heroes is reaction time which never gives you less leeway than about 2 or 3 seconds, and usually gives you a good 5 or 6 to react. Think your typical Energy Syphon from our friendly neighbourhood Protean. There currently are a few spots in the game that giver rather less of a time window than this, however. Most notably, we have the added critical chance that Eagle's Claw gives to the other Martial Arts attacks, which only extends to a little under half a second after the end of the animation, and with a ping time of 250-300ms like I have, that's really not a whole lot of time to react unless you've already queued up an attack.

Stalker Placate has a similar problem - because its Hidden status is so easy to interrupt, even with good timing you'll rarely have more than about half a second to a second in order to capitalise on the Hidden critical. If you need to swap targets (so you don't break your own Placate effect) or find better positioning... Well, you better have quick fingers because you'll most likely lose that effect entirely.

On the other end of the scale are standard issue AV fights, especially the fight against Reichsman. I'm not sure these even require reactions at all, much less a measurable reaction time, as I usually fight Reichsman with one hand on the keyboard and the other head supporting my giant head in a vision of absolute boredom. These kinds of fights occasionally require you to react to changing circumstances, but those reactions usually occur on preset triggers that most players know about hours ahead of time.

But, of course, that's just me. What kind of reaction time are YOU comfortable with and why do you feel that way?

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Interesting topic. I share your feelings during AV fights, where I'm basically standing there, going "click.... click.. click..." and watching their HP dwindle. They're mixing it up with things like Anti-Matter and Col. Duray with the "Avoid the marks on the ground" idea, and those require both knowledge of what the hell is happening and reaction time, but it still really doesn't feel exciting. It's a pretty fine line, and I doubt there's a way to mix together "exciting fast reactions" and "Everyone knows what they're doing" very well. I, personally, prefer things that require you to pay attention and react to a changing environment. Like, at certain points during the fight the floor sinks into lava and you have to get to higher ground while fighting the AV. I'd prefer even that to be somewhat random though, to mix up encounters, and that's tech that goes beyond the average MMO, even with all our new shiny updates.

On the flip side, I think missions should be faster paced. Even in a huge group of foes, there's very little urgency. You may need to click Hibernate quickly to avoid death, but that's about it. I personally fight minions like I was actually in a movie- I leap over guys and hit one to stun him, then spin and kick another and leap over the third to hit the fourth who was about to shoot me. I'm constantly moving around and usually take most of the enemies out at about the same time, because that's more exciting to me. I don't get hit less or do more damage, but it helps immersion and it helps me not feel like I'm standing there getting shot while beating the stunned guy for five minutes. Perhaps I was spoiled by Batman: Arkham Asylum, where a slow reaction time could have a fatal consequence. I really, *really* liked the fighting in that game.

I think my stance on the ski slope badges (yes, all six of them) being some of the dumbest badges ever implemented speaks for itself.

Personally, a reaction time of *around* 1 second is what i think is suitable for "MMO" game play, at the high end, with more leeway in the early stage of a game

That takes into consideration the typical lag of around 250ms, occasional "hunt and peck" with fingers or mouse for abilities (if reactionary), and the occasional time it takes for powers to activate.

Past the one second delay though (ie 2 to 3 seconds) it then starts to feel more turn based to me, and the fun starts to go away.

Now, saying that, I have been involved (in another MMO) in fights that had 1500 people involved. Depending on how much notice we (and the developers had), it has been "smooth as butter play", which really made it dynamic, and also 60 second lag times, where you had to plan way in advance what you were going to do. Both versions were fun for me (and i wasn't on the winning side in all cases)... but when you can spend 10+ seconds before you do anything (ie large ship combat) I dont find that enjoyable, the smaller ship classes (ie the around 1 second reaction time) i have a lot more fun

I prefer pen and paper/turn based RPGs, so reaction time is not something I really care about. It needs to be fast enough to make the animations continue to run smoothly, but other than that, I don't value it. The longer the better.

Honestly, if I want a game with reaction time I'll play a console game or a shooter. I don't look for that in my MMO's with the possible exception of outer space ship-to-ship combat, which pretty intrinsically falls into the "shooter" category anyway.

This game, to me, is relaxation, so I do not want to deal with fast reaction time. As SlickRiptide said, if I want a game with reaction time I'll play a shooter. Those don't relax me, and I while they are fun when I'm in the mood, I can't play multi-hour marathon sessions like I can here.

So, to me, CoH's current reaction time is almost perfect.

Interesting question. My answer is: roughly the timescale of the average cast time of the average attack, which at the moment is approximately one to one and a half seconds.

Right where it is. Faster and I can't eat lunch while playing. Slower and I'd get bored standing around.

Curious what class your girlfriend plays and whether she does dungon runs and high end raiding or not?

As the 'ranged DPS/Pet class' in that game doing raiding I was constantly watching things like shot timers to make sure I was doing good DPS, seeing which buffs have just procced to fire off what ability etc. All that along with watching for boss abilities etc. I would say that CoH is far LESS frantic than the big Gorilla of the MMO world especially during the raiding scene.

For me, any reaction time really. I play all sorts of games on all kinds of systems and I'm very comfortable with anything from Counter-Strike to Final Fantasy Tactics.

The game should require you to react by your third move.

A pace that requires the player to react during their current power animation is bad: the game simply won't let you do it. Requiring you to react for your next power activation is also problematic: you've probably already got that power queued up, and you can't always change it. Your third move, however, is completely free: you can't queue it up, and even if you've got an autofire power ready to go, you can override it.