Why play a Force Field now when there is Time Manipulation?
By
BrandX,
Posted on: 2011-09-22 13:09 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Flipside being that Repulsion Field moves with the person using it. You will note, though, that when I said blocking I mentioned Force Bubble. |
Originally Posted by BurningChick
Hi Bill,
Bonfire is superior to Repulsion Field since it doesn't have an end cost / mob, does damage, and is stationary -- i.e., it's better for blocking. It can even be used to knock mobs towards the caster. |
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Originally Posted by me
I mean, if I told you I used Bonfire to block a door, would you insist you need a video to figure out someone using it that way? I see it a fair amount, personally. Or how about pinning mobs to a corner with Hurricane or (fewer mobs, of course) Repel? You must have seen that, right? So why would you need a video of me using, say, Force Bubble to do the same thing before you believe it?
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| Solo, Force Bubble dropped incoming damage by about 20% / second, but it would take about 33% longer to finish a given mish (Force Bubble pushed mobs out past the standard range of Cosmic Burst, Haze and Irradiate). |
This falls under "You're doing it wrong," to be blunt. You don't leave Force Bubble on 24/7, any more than you do hurricane.
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| It's great that you can make FF work with your toons, Bill. But my defender doesn't have any patches to push mobs into. |
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| And keeping mobs at 50' invalidates some of my secondary. |
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| Defender FF does not play at all the way it should. And some of the parlour tricks people talk of with mob positioning and such just aren't all that important when your teammates are soft-capped to everything for which there even is defense. |
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I'm pretty sure everyone here is tired of the two of us fighting like an old married couple, so I will drop the argument as well. Believe it or not despite everything I actually kind of like you, so no hopefully I haven't said anything too abrasive.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Which, to me, indicates your mind is made up and you will not take ANY evidence that people do use it effectively.
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However, one last nettle: you are dead, dead wrong about Repulsion Field.
And if you want my responses to things you posted about Storm, go back and read what I had already written in this thread, for Bonfire read what I is posted in my guide which calls it a very good power. But I do not subscribe to the idea that all knockback powers are identical for the same reason I wouldn't pay attention if someone said all attack powers are the same. I would gladly trade Force Bolt or Repulsion Field for Bonfire or Hurricane.
Hi Bill,
I love your tone of condescension -- it's charming from someone who didn't know the difference between KB and repel 
Now.
On to brass tacks.
I know how to use KB. On my bubbler, I used hover to limit KB. I know how to pulse Force Bubble (I was one of the first on the forums to suggest that use, BTW) for positioning. I know how to stack Force Bolt and Repulsion Field (it has a duration in PvE) to overcome KB resistant mobs. I know how to push mobs into corners with Force Bubble, I even used to use the old Repulsion Bomb to good effect while dumpster diving.
I know the tricks.
And, when a ff defender can give 45% def (to everything there is defense) to a blaster... those tricks just aren't that great compared to simply firing attacks. And that soft-capped number? My bubbler gives it without IOs or Incarnate powers.
Also ... it's awfully tough to line up Force Bubble and Irradiate. You tend to need a short ceiling and a corner. I mean, it's a neat trick, but walking into melee with Force Bubble on when the mobs would ... you know ... walk into melee on their own seems a little odd.
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I'm curious about why there's so much antagonism though if I'm simply misreading your response since this is the internet I apologize. One of the things I've been saying is that changes may need to be made here and there. I also find it a little humorous that you single out Repulsion Field when it's the very power I don't take and it actually is one of the two powers I'd change/remove if I rebuilt the set from scratch. Personally, I'd also argue that Nemesis Staff/Blackwand do too much damage but that's a long drawn out discussion for another thread.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Actually one of the problems is it leads to arguments like this one where it is claimed that with infinite skill you can accomplish infinite things.
The specific reason I want a video is I want to see what happens for true believers. If they do a grand slam, that's motivation for me to learn how to do it. If, as I suspect, what they produce is as paltry as "sometimes you can knock a boss backwards twice in a row which is faster than a temp power even though it does one eighth as much damage" then my point has been illustrated that these powers are costume accessories. I have no problem with costume accessory powers, only with preposterous claims backed by insults about other players skill level, mind set, or dedication. I also can't help but wonder why, if Repulsion Field is indeed a worthy power, an exact clone of it is allowed to exist in a travel pool. Maybe almost everyone is a terrible player and only a select few can unlock the magic. :P |
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Originally Posted by BurningChick
Howdy folks,
Pressed for time, so I'll just toss some things up ... errr ... out. One of the design problems with FF is that, the more def it provides, the less good the rest of the set seems. I.e., a blaster bubbled by a defender running maneuvers has, IME, more survivability than my WP scrapper. The same buffs used by a controller or MM have less than HALF the effectiveness. When I see mention of how effective FF's non-buffs are, the comments disproportionately come from non-defenders, in part, IME, because they have to look elsewhere to provide survivability to their pets and teammates. The way FF's buffs work for a defender allows her blaster pets to become borderline unkillable blappers -- and blappers have some of the best raw DPS in the game. Anything to disrupt the blappy goodness is ... unfortunate. One of the best things in the game is teaming my bubbler with a nub blaster ... and watching him slowly realize that he can get scrapperlock and just run around punching mobs in the face without consequence. Further, I've seen mention of bots / FF as an effective combination. My rejoinder? Bots are ranged. They have additional (de)buffs to fill in FF's gaps. The two were designed to work together, thematically AND from a min / max perspective. That kind of synergy is completely lacking between FF and any defender secondary. FWIW, the classic bots / FF combination is one of ... what ... 20 different possible FF combinations? Again, it points to the idiosyncrasies of the FF that the set FF works best with is one designed to work with it. Some other things ... Force Bubble was designed to be an always on power. No, seriously, it was. It was NEVER intended to be situational. FF, as far as I can tell, was supposed to go from a buff set to a distance / buff hybrid, the way Empathy evolves from heals to general purpose buffing. In this view, the squishies would huddle around the bubbler, protected by distance and Dispersion Bubble. The original 3 ST buffs (fire / cold and NRG / neg would collapsed into Insulation at release) were on 2 minute timers -- i.e., it was the BUFFS that were supposed to be situational. My guess? Just the melee toons were supposed to get the ST buffs once Force Bubble was out -- they honestly didn't need much more to be unkillable at release. Further, mobs tend to get spread out by Force Bubble. Remember me saying that Taunt was single target also? I'm going to say that the design was for the tanker to hunt down and taunt the boss in the spawn, everyone else would focus on taking out the mobs at the perimeter, sharing the non-boss aggro. Anyone, at the time, under Dispersion Bubble could take hits from a ranged mob and survive. Anyone. And, FWIW, an overachieving tanker with Provoke could grab /ranged/ aggro from other mobs, leveraging the game's innate 20% non-lieut damage debuff from distance. This game was single target, tactical, and would require some degree of understanding and cooperation. Much of this isn't really speculation -- it comes straight from Castle and Jack, with sides of info from people who did beta. By about 2 hours after release, the game had become an AoE-fuelled zergfest. And one of the first tanker buffs nearly eliminated high mag tanker KB. And the devs have never, AFAIK, increased a power's KB mag. And Issue 5? When the devs capped AoE targets, Jack came onto the forums and pitched FF's non-buffs. Interestingly, he didn't mention positioning mobs -- that was never a design feature of FF. Instead, he talked up distance as defense. Caging a problematic boss. Saving a squishie from melee with the old, ally-targetted Repulsion Bomb. The devs got FF wrong because they got their game wrong. If the game were about small numbers of strong mobs (say, 2 or 3 at a time), FF would make more sense. But it isn't -- it's about mowing down huge numbers of ridiculously weak mobs. And then devs went for theme over performance (what does FF do? it shields and keeps stuff away!) ... and FF went along for the i7 def buff ride. What should the devs have done? When the I5 feedback was in, the devs should've had a long look at the set and tweaked the set to better fit in with the game the players were enjoying. But, instead, they crossed their fingers and hoped that they had created the tactical game they had intended. And, with all that said and done ... FF has a lot of cool powers -- Force Bubble is spectacular. But "cool" and "useful for how most people play" are sometimes different. |
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Except she misses one thing - and I don't just mean the "FF is supposed to be on constantly," which I do not agree with, any more than having hurricane on constantly. |
Originally Posted by Zamuel
As someone newer than most, this is actually pretty interesting and eye opening. I do wonder how the game could have went if a few things were designed differently.
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Yes, the game has turned into AOE-smash-a-thon. But Force Bubble, which she points out as "spreading things out," is also better than hurricane (thanks to its wider "catch" area) at compressing mobs into corners and the like to *prepare* them for AOE. Plus, being a repel (not KB,) it will even work on AOE-immob'd mobs. Have a bunch spread out in a line because the controller hit that too soon? Get over and mop them up, shove them together, and enjoy.
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Uhhh, that was the design intention. Bubblers could also, in beta, shoot through PFF with what was then called an "accuracy" (probably ToHit) debuff. Squishies in the middle under Dispersion Bubble, melee 50' out. FF was supposed to be, primarily, a set that guaranteed range against most content with Dispersion Bubble being the only always on buff.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Except she misses one thing - and I don't just mean the "FF is supposed to be on constantly," which I do not agree with, any more than having hurricane on constantly.
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The game changed.
The buffs changed.
But Force Bubble, Repulsion Field, and Detention Field didn't.
Force Bubble wasn't intended as a mob position tool -- Statesman in a PM to me called it "squishy protection". To reduce it to a tool for pushing mobs around is funny ... since it was supposed to be one of the most spectacular powers in the game. Statesman gushed about it in his comparison of Sonic and FF (thread long since deleted), something to the effect of, "But what an effect! All ranged characters will only have to deal with reduced incoming damage from ranged attacks!"
You know what's funny?
I don't actually think FF needs a buff (see my earlier comment about it being mediocre). I think the buffs are awfully good ... and the rest of the set is mostly just filler that seems thematically appropriate to a FF set, but out of place in a defender primary.
And, again, there's a reason the devs haven't added a single repel power since release.
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And armors were meant to be on one at a time, with (IIRC) Rooted actually *rooting* you. Does that mean that's how we should run them now, and that people running more than one are "doing it wrong?" |
Originally Posted by BurningChick
Uhhh, that was the design intention.
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"Design intention" 7 years ago doesnt' really mean much. Especially when, as you say:
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| The game changed. |
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| But Force Bubble, Repulsion Field, and Detention Field didn't. |
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| Statesman in a PM to me called it "squishy protection". To reduce it to a tool for pushing mobs around is funny ... since it was supposed to be one of the most spectacular powers in the game. Statesman gushed about it in his comparison of Sonic and FF (thread long since deleted), something to the effect of, "But what an effect! All ranged characters will only have to deal with reduced incoming damage from ranged attacks!" |
For example, "Range is defense." And "Hey, blasters now have Defiance 1.0. Tell the team not to heal you!"
Jack's been gone several years now. It's time to move on to how it's best used NOW, not what someone might have thought 7-10 years ago.
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Yeah, give us back unyielding stance! |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
And armors were meant to be on one at a time, with (IIRC) Rooted actually *rooting* you.
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Just PVP. Anything will root you there. Making an attack. Getting hit with an attack. So fun.
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Originally Posted by Brawlnstein
Yeah, give us back unyielding stance!
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Erm, Bill, before you keep going off on BurningChick about the particular subject of always-on FB, you might want to take a step back and look at her history post again.
Unless I'm severely misreading things, as far as I can tell she's not intending to advocate actually *playing* that way, or indeed that it was *ever* a good idea to play that way. She's simply talking about history and how the original designers apparently *thought* the power should be used (I think intended as an aside to the discussion).
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
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Then she shouldn't be phrasing it as "This is how it was then, and how it should be used through the end of time," which is how it's coming across. And seems to continue doing so with statements like:|
Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
Erm, Bill, before you keep going off on BurningChick about the particular subject of always-on FB, you might want to take a step back and look at her history post again.
Unless I'm severely misreading things, as far as I can tell she's not intending to advocate actually *playing* that way, or indeed that it was *ever* a good idea to play that way. She's simply talking about history and how the original designers apparently *thought* the power should be used (I think intended as an aside to the discussion). |
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| Force Bubble pushed mobs out past the standard range of Cosmic Burst, Haze and Irradiate |
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| I mean, it's a neat trick, but walking into melee with Force Bubble on when the mobs would ... you know ... walk into melee on their own seems a little odd. |
And that she seems to want to make some point about repel vs kb, when she seems to be mistaking the powers I talk about pulsing (Repulsion Field vs Force Bubble) is just *cute.*
She's sure indicating that she *plays* that way, after all. Because - or at least this is how I read it - Statesman, years ago, said so. Because "That's the design intention."
Like that's ever stopped anyone.
An underrated use for Force Bubble is to draw aggro to the bubbler and away from the team , especially when you lack a (live) tanker. This used to be real tricky since drawing aggro to yourself meant you needed to PFF quickly or die valiantly trying to save the team, who usually watched in fascination as you used a power they'd never seen before and couldn't quite comprehend before dying themselves soon after the bubbler bit it.
But with the advent of inherent fitness, it becomes much easier to fit Weave into a FF build and put yourself at or above the defense cap to all positions. This is of course SITUATIONAL, but I have used it to great effect against ambushes and other bad situations. Toggle on FB and fly around the room launching repulsion bombs. Then toggle it off and nuke the incoming horde. Then pop a blue, PFF, conserve power and you're back in the game.
The ability to protect yourself almost as much as your teammates also means that FINALLY the bubbler can survive melee and actually grant meleers the defense from Dispersion without relying on a constant stream of purples to survive.
But Force Fields is boring, underrated, and full of weird powers in search of situations. Right?
I DON'T CARE. I LOVE IT. And with i21, pair it with the potent combo of regen debuffs (225%), res debuffs (20%), and an all important toggle saving, crashless nuke from Beam Rifle and you get an unlikely Tank Mage from 1-50+. FF/Beam - the new FOTM.
PRTECTR4EVR
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I think I got Bill so riled up that he skimmed my posts |
Originally Posted by Muon_Neutrino
Erm, Bill, before you keep going off on BurningChick about the particular subject of always-on FB, you might want to take a step back and look at her history post again.
Unless I'm severely misreading things, as far as I can tell she's not intending to advocate actually *playing* that way, or indeed that it was *ever* a good idea to play that way. She's simply talking about history and how the original designers apparently *thought* the power should be used (I think intended as an aside to the discussion). |
And, hey, play the set as you like, Bill. I've never said you shouldn't -- I merely implied you're overstating the use of some marginal powers, and, here's the important bit, for defenders because that's where my experience is.
What I'm saying is that the devs should've changed FF years ago to better make the powers better fit what their intentions were. If Force Bubble were intended to be always on, they should've made it less disruptive to the game their subs were playing. Instead, they rolled the dice with the GDR and AoE caps.
I am not opposed to buffs to FF or Sonic Resonance, but to change FF because some people don't like how it plays baffles me given you can play now Time Manipulation if you don't like FF playstyle. *shrugs*
I'm running a FF/Ice Defender and have my team mates jumping into the centre of mobs killing things like crazy. They almost never get hit and I just turned level 22. My first 50 was an Ill/FF controller years ago and I think to this days FF is a better secondary in many cases but so far the teams/TF's we've done have had people saying wow I almost didn't take any dmg. Primarily that was Due to FF, and it's basically easy mode. IO's should make the set Shine (easy to slot LOTG) and lots of ice storm/Blizzards in relative safety to come.
Don't worry about what "could be better" just enjoy what you've got. Lately I've been trying to find combo's I never see, like Ice control/Poison etc..
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Theme, I'd say.|
Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
I am not opposed to buffs to FF or Sonic Resonance, but to change FF because some people don't like how it plays baffles me given you can play now Time Manipulation if you don't like FF playstyle. *shrugs*
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Force fields are pervasive in comics and SF. They are, in fact, iconic. Star Wars. Star Trek. The Incredibles. Dune. You name it -- it's trivially easy to find SF and comics that feature shields and people using blasts to move objects.
Tangent: I think FF is so iconic that the devs didn't really bother thinking about how effective FF's powers would be in their designed roles in part because it's so freakin' obvious what FF does. And what FF does is tied into one of the stated design goals of distance = mitigation. FF is probably the easiest (de)buff set the devs have ever designed.
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Originally Posted by BurningChick
Theme, I'd say.
Force fields are pervasive in comics and SF. They are, in fact, iconic. Star Wars. Star Trek. The Incredibles. Dune. You name it -- it's trivially easy to find SF and comics that feature shields and people using blasts to move objects. Tangent: I think FF is so iconic that the devs didn't really bother thinking about how effective FF's powers would be in their designed roles in part because it's so freakin' obvious what FF does. And what FF does is tied into one of the stated design goals of distance = mitigation. FF is probably the easiest (de)buff set the devs have ever designed. |
I'm actually going to disagree slightly here: I think Force Field is one of the biggest design hurdles in the game precisely because it is so iconic. Force Field presents a challenge because it's a support role mostly defined by it's ability to cast a specific type of Mage Armor. In most games, those sorts of powers are secondary or tertiary functions of a character and not a prime ability. I think that if the genre enabled it, CoX designers would likely have bypassed attempting to create a Force Field powerset at all, simply because it's a set that enforces a rule that shield-other type powers need to be very strong in order to justify existence of the set.
[ADDENDUM: I'll add that, while we're generally discouraged from talking about other games, the "force field" like powers used in a few other RPGs that prevent all damage until a certain number of HP run out is a model that is sadly absent from CoX but would make FF a lot easier to implement.]
Unrelated to the post quoted above, IMO this is a pretty easy game and excessive min/maxing is likely to dissappoint you. However I think that this is different from saying that set balance completely doesn't matter. The reason I asked for (and still want to see) videos of people using Force Field's specific knockback powers effectively is not because I don't believe its possible to, say, knock something back into an Earthquake, but because I doubt in the majority of cases that doing that is the best action the character could take. The very first question I have is where is this Controller's hold power in this equation? Because a Controller using Force Bolt instead of a Hold is on anything but a boss is wasting time. And why throw an enemy back into Earthquake if you could have held it? That is something a video will show that a board conversation never will.
If we want to argue that Force Field's powers are "fun" I don't disagree with that, but then so is applying tactics that make sense. And when it comes down to Force Field's powers versus Aid Self or Assault or Recall Friend, Force Field comes up wanting. Especially when the argument turns, as it always does, into a statement that FF's knockback actually IS as good as these powers if only people take the time to learn how to use them or stop min/maxing so much. While excessive min/maxing will leave you disappointed, IMO avoiding min/maxing should not mean completely jettisoning any kind of strategy.
I still do play Force Field. But does it need a buff? Hell yes.
Until then, the enemy-affecting powers on my FF characters exist on alternate "costume" builds and my "real" builds take something that is actually effective. As infrequently as I use these powers no one would likely notice a difference.
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Players that play a character concept for the theme don't care about min/max.
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Originally Posted by BurningChick
Theme, I'd say.
Force fields are pervasive in comics and SF. They are, in fact, iconic. Star Wars. Star Trek. The Incredibles. Dune. You name it -- it's trivially easy to find SF and comics that feature shields and people using blasts to move objects. Tangent: I think FF is so iconic that the devs didn't really bother thinking about how effective FF's powers would be in their designed roles in part because it's so freakin' obvious what FF does. And what FF does is tied into one of the stated design goals of distance = mitigation. FF is probably the easiest (de)buff set the devs have ever designed. |
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Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
Players that play a character concept for the theme don't care about min/max.
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I'm not sure what definition of min/max you are using, but if you are assuming the characters in my sig are SS/Fire Brutes I'd say you are wrong.
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I agree, it would be even better if we moved on from old, bad design that makes no sense in the modern game.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
And armors were meant to be on one at a time, with (IIRC) Rooted actually *rooting* you. Does that mean that's how we should run them now, and that people running more than one are "doing it wrong?"
"Design intention" 7 years ago doesnt' really mean much. Especially when, as you say: And yet their use CAN, regardless of "Design Intent." Hell, "Design intent" had SOs being rare, with stores hidden, "Power 10" in contacts, forcing us to trade. Jack also "gushed" over losing repeatedly to a boss on his Nintendo Gameboy or DS or whatever it was and wanted COH to give that same experience. Jack said several things that were multi-facepalm-buy-stock-in-Tylenol stupid, *even at the time they were said.* For example, "Range is defense." And "Hey, blasters now have Defiance 1.0. Tell the team not to heal you!" Jack's been gone several years now. It's time to move on to how it's best used NOW, not what someone might have thought 7-10 years ago. |
The only thing stopping us is a handful of players that have made a dedicated white-knuckle campaign to keeping powers as is when they should have been overhauled ages ago.
As an avid Force Fields player, I wouldn't be opposed to them totally replacing... most of the set, honestly. As long as my shields stay, I couldn't care less what they remove from the rest of the set, I barely if ever use the rest of it anyway.
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
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I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
Not least because it requires investment in another pool people may not be interested in.
I note you don't bother to answer anything I asked. Again. And choose to ignore the examples given. Again.
Which, to me, indicates your mind is made up and you will not take ANY evidence that people do use it effectively. I could waste my time setting up a video and I'd probably get the same BS arguments back about "Oh, look, that's SO SITUATIONAL it doesn't matter, I never see that" and what not.
So, y'know what, you go on hating and sticking your fingers in your ears, I'm not wasting my time on you any more with this.