Traps, Devices and the "out of combat" concept

A long time ago, there was a very common balancing practice for powers in this game, which I like to call "balance by annoyance." You had powers like ye olde Elude which made you very hard to hit but unable to attack, powers like ye olde Nova which not only drained you but also stunned you for I believe five seconds ye olde Auto Turret which was an enormously costly, very weak pet which couldn't move and only lasted 60 seconds and so forth. A lot of these have since been fixed, but a specific subset of this balancing ideology seems to have remained: The concept of "out of combat" powers, as expressed by these powers being very slow and interruptible. For some - like Rest - this makes sense. It's both good in balance and good in concept. But for some others, this balancing mechanic is turning into a millstone around the necks of some powersets. Specifically, Traps and Devices, though they're not unique in this.

We're all familiar with Time Bomb and the arguments around it, I trust? Either way, I don't want to discuss changes to that power, or to any other, as that really isn't the point of why I bring this up. More precisely, I want to bring up the very concept of powers which are ostensibly ABOUT combat, but which have still been branded as out-of-combat powers. Trip Mine, Time Bomb, Gun Drone, most Snipes and other fall under this distinction, and the more I play with them, the more I have to wonder... Why?

Why do we need powers which are balanced such that they're next to useless in the heat of battle? Once upon a time when we were expected to play CoH like we played EQ - slowly and methodically - I can definitely see that, but these days? No-one plays the game like this any more. Let me ask you this - when's the last time you got on a team where the primary approach tactic was pulling enemies one at a time? Hell, when's the last time you saw Time Bomb used AT ALL? Have you ever seen the power hit anything at all on a team of more than four people? I've seen it all of once - I used it snag one of the ITF Cyst ambushes, and it was pure blind luck that it went off just as the ambush was running over it.

These are, ostensibly, combat powers, but they are so designed that you can't use them in combat. You have to stop before engaging the enemy and spend a very long time - 8 seconds in the case of Time Bomb, 5 seconds in the case of Trip Mine, I think 6 or 7 for the old Auto Turret - to set these down, then you have to spend even more time to pull enemies over them (and only if there's a corner to pull around) and all this while your team has to sit on their hands and wait. And even THEN, these powers could still fail to do much. It's reminiscent of the old argument about Stalker balance where people espoused "hit and run" tactics, suggesting Stalkers should run away, lose aggro and assassinate again. In both cases, while you COULD do this, it's just a massive, massive waste of time and I've yet to meet people - my friends included - who have the kind of patience it takes to do this spawn after spawn after spawn.

I have to wonder, and I've wondered this many times before, is there really any point in this day and age to give players combat powers that they can't use in combat, because they're intended to be tricky to set up? Now, I know about "toe bombing," I know there are ways to use these, but my question is... Do all of these hoops serve a purpose? Is there a point? Even Stalkers, the AT universally cursed with a "melee snipe" were recognised as slighted and given an "out" of that mechanic, and at least their out-of-combat combat power in question was still useful for what it was. With this in mind, is it not time to review all of the powers we have that are intended to help in combat, but are still made long and interruptible and intentionally awkward to use?

Obviously, interruptibility as a mechanic still has its place. I would never argue for Rest to be any safer to use or easier to start, and ally teleportation makes a strong case for interruptibility. Out-of-combat endurance recovery bonuses count, as well, as do powers to do with hiding. There are exceptions to every rule, but I'm asking about the rule itself:

Should purely combat-relevant powers have to be branded for out-of-combat use only? What do you think?

Quote:

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.

My DP/Dev blaster pretty much only solos because in a team he is a DP/<nothing> blaster. I love me some smoke grenades (and flash arrows in Trick Arrow) but no one else seems interested in that sort of damage mitigation, namely, not pulling something. I *really* love mine fields. Like spend almost four minutes with trip mines, cloaking device, and smoke grenade to clear a good chunk of the map in a few seconds (after setup) without using a single non-Devices (aside from Hasten) power love. The bass-o-matics tend to get bored doing it that way.

As much as I love explosives, I can't bring myself to take time bomb. Way too long of a recharge on top of way to long of an interruptable cast for way too little damage that you have little control of detonating.

The new gun drone I like. No complaints there. Aside from losing the big damage buff as a build up substitute but the usability more than makes up for that.

If trip mines had an animation time equivalent to its current cast time and interruptable time so it could be dropped more easily in combat (or when there are civvies pushing you around), I'd have no problem with that change. As long as I could still do my solo out of combat mine fields.

You can/should have high DPA powers out of combat as long as they have low(er) DPCT to encourage you to use your "in-combat" powers when in combat. Making them interruptable really needs a lot of thought though.

My dark/dark corr uses his snipe a lot when soloing. It adds to his burst damage at the start of battle.

All powers are situational. Dumbing down the game to only one assumed situation is not a good idea.

Some of my favorite toons are Traps toons. I have a Traps/Sonic defender and a BR/Traps Corruptor. Although I find the traps portion the best part of those combos, I rarely use them while teamed. Why wait around until I setup traps when the team can steamroll through a mob in a third of the time?

Thank goodness there are occasions when mobs won't go down quickly such as iTrials. However using traps is still a pain, onLambda/Keyes the AV's move too much to set traps on TPN the constant pulse damage outside make setting mines difficult. The BaF is actually one trial that using traps is a real help, from the prisoners to the ambushes. I've only run the other two trials once each and I was too busy trying not to die to pay attention to what else was going on.

If I could only throw mines like Director 11...

I agree with Sam. Most of these powers should be modified to fit the new game reality. Especially Devices which is by far the weakest Blaster secondary. I would even go farther and say that Rest should have its recharge, debuff and activation time removed entirely. Leave the interrupt. Having spent the last couple of weeks in a galaxy far, far way, I have really come to an even stronger belief that balancing around downtime is a dumb mechanic.

I too agree. With the rapid-fire of Incarnate abilities, faster overall gameplay, and the ability for those abilities to be interrupted even I use them, I've use them less and less, even while soloing with those characters. There's a couple instances where Traps still shine, while in other situations they're absolutely worthless. A good case in point are the BAF and Lamda trials. Traps are wonderful for one phase of the Trial (and are fairly useful throughout the rest of it), but in Lambda Sector, Traps are completely worthless and trying to plant a Mine will at best be an exercise in futility.

As I was leveling a new Fire/Therm Corruptor, I was told by several different people to avoid the Sniper attack in general. These days many folks consider them worthless in terms of their DPS and usability. I still like my Sniper attacks (especially on my AR/Dev Blaster), but I certainly understand the rationale, and will likely get rid of it on my L50 Defender whenever I get around to respecing her.

Also recently I was looking for a new Defender /DP build, and briefly considered Traps as a primary. As a whole, the entire set is nearly worthless for a Defender, but the ultimate kicker for me was the extreme recharge time on Time Bomb - and it did even less damage than the Corruptor version (side note: this is the only instance I've seen where a Primary Skill Power is outperformed by a Secondary Skill power).

A new item for the Paragon market! An Interrupt De-Hancer! Lowers your interrupt time on all powers with interrupt by 50%! Purchasable twice, unless you're really desperate.

Umm... after writing this as a joke, I realized I was only half-way joking.

Interrupt IO's (and Sniper IO Sets) mostly do that. They doesn't lower the power's actual activation time, just the time it can be interrupted (letting you rifle-off a sniper shot even after taking a hit).

If you have a DoT on you, however, they're worthless. Also, Trip Mine/Time Bomb can't take these IO's. AFAIK, only Sniper powers can use even the regular IO

I almost want to say that removing the interrupt on Trip Mine would immediately make it overpowered.

Okay, maybe not, but as it is it's a fast, half-powered, crashless nuke, particularly in Traps. Poison Trap + Trip Mine is beautifully strong and will break a spawn, and if there was no interrupt I'd probably just mow through spawns without even needing my pets. As it is, if I get interrupted more than twice when trying to place a Trip Mine midcombat, that's a signal to me that I need to switch tactics. Otherwise 90% of my approach to combat would be "blow it up until it goes away."

But if the interrupt does go away I certainly won't object.

I haven't ever heard of time bomb. Is that something that would be useful when trying to catch straggler mindwashed prisoners?

*sigh*

There are times I think nobody on the forum would be happy unless everyone got a "Blow up everything within 500 yards" button at level 1, and it recharged instantly.

There are some (few) powers that are problematic, yes, like time bomb. But they're fairly few and far between. (No, not snipes.)

There is nothing wrong conceptually with 'only as a way to start a fight' or 'pull the enemy into an ambush' type combat powers, so long as those powers are strong enough to balance the interrupt/animation times, which may no longer be the case (if it ever was).

Not all powers or powersets have to be designed or intended to be used in a situation where 30 minions are taking potshots at you.

Variety in character design and playstyles uber alles.

I'm genuinely surprised to see that most people agree. Did not expect that.

I realise that Trip Mine is good DESPITE its interrupt and slowness, especially if you want to toe-bomb, but that's just one power out of several which irk me, and I may well become convinced that Time Bomb is indeed the worst-designed power I've ever had the misfortune to 6-slot and try to use. I tried arguing the case for Snipes many times before, but it seems like the rest of the game has finally overtaken them to where their irritating design is becoming evident. And again - those are just examples that depict a broader design decision.

People call them many things. "Out of combat" powers, "situational" powers, powers "balanced by annoyance" and so forth, but their unifying characteristic is... Not only are they next to useless the majority of the time, but they're infuriating to use even when they're appropriate to be used. And even at the best of times, their benefit isn't all that great. Again, Trip Mine may be an exception, but most of these powers are cumbersome and still not worth the hassle.

It's interesting to stop and think about how the developers envisioned us playing the game way back before even Beta sometimes. For instance, my old paper manual for City of Heroes lists a "slotting example" where an attack is 5-slotted with all different enhancements, as though we weren't expected to want to slot 1 accuracy and 5 damage. "Situational" powers are a lot like this. They seem to be designed for a much slower, much more methodical game where the direct approach doesn't always work, so sometimes you need to pull, sometimes you to set traps, sometimes you need to avoid confrontation and so forth.

While an interesting idea, that's not how the game ended up being played, and not how most people play it. And there's a reason for that - it's slow, unwieldy and uncomfortable, especially when it's pretty obvious there are better alternatives. Yes, a Devices Blaster's arsenal is mighty and amazing. I know - I got one to 50. It's impressive when it works, but it is SUCH a chore to pull off that I found myself much more drawn to my Fire/Fire Blaster who could hit Aim, Build Up and open with Fireball and Fire Breath. It's a lot of work, and you'd think it's for a lot of return... But most of the time it just isn't. And that's my big problem - when I spend so long fiddling and sweating over fickle powers only to have one errant minion run off and detonate all 12 Trip Mines before the elite boss got to them... I start to wonder why I even bother at all.

I've said a lot of mean things about the Incarnate System content, but for all of this, I still feel that the Incarnate System powers are the first real recognition of how people opt to play this game in a long, long time. Relatively fast, relatively strong crashless nukes, large-scale buffs and controllable pets - all powers that are strong AND convenient. Because that's what you need in a fast-paced game.

I ran an ITF with my Bots/Traps Mastermind just now, not half an hour ago, and the lesson was pretty clear - while I faffed about setting down a Triage Beacon that no-one really needed, the team had already wiped the spawn out and were moving to the next, leaving my beacon exposed. Expecting a Cyst ambush, I'd go back to set up a single mine, only for the ambush to spawn around me mid-way through my set-up animation and instakill me. I'd set up an Acid Mortar only for the fight to move around the corner and leave it useless. Powers with unwieldy balance mechanics are a lot like WW2 rail guns - they're immensely powerful, but SO difficult to move around you're just hurting your war effort for trying to deploy one.

I'm not saying I have a solution to any particular problem powers, nor even that I can name all the powers that have this problem. I'm just wondering if we really shouldn't look at moving past the concept of powers balanced by being uncomfortable to use. Yes, I'm aware of the old "Use Tictacs!" retort, and to some extent it's true. But if we want to be realistic, this game has moved beyond the kind of tactics you sit down to plan and execute while staring down your enemy from across the room. That's not what people seem to enjoy when I team with them.

Quote:

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.

As far as Trip Mine goes, it has a 4 second interrupt and a 5 second cast time, maybe I don't see the big picture but if it takes 5 seconds to plant it, why have the interrupt time? I recall way long ago something being said about the longer a power takes to cast, generally the stronger the power.

Specifically with Beam Rifle I don't understand why it even has a snipe power since snipes are considered "out of combat". The mechanics of Disintegration work with Penetrating Ray by spreading disintegration to up to 3 enemies that are already effected. That almost seems backwards with Disintegrate at 80 ft and Penetrating Ray at 150 ft...

City of was apparently designed to have teams occaisionally encounter spawns that were so dangerous, you were supposed to puzzle your way around or through them, rather than just power through.

This makes sense; even James Bond, Han Solo, and Superman occaisionally encounter things that make them use their brains rather than just charging in shooting, or use stealth and trickery.

Most players just avoid such situations entirely; if the team wipes, they lower their rep or drop the mission.

But there should still be tools for the minority that enjoys doing things 'the hard way' or 'the long way'.

The entire point of a powerset named Traps is that you set up traps for your enemy to blunder into. Although Bear Trap melee would be a fun powerset, that's a different powerset from Traps

Gadgets and Devices are similar concepts; you have a large variety of very different abilities, so that when you run into an outlier situation that you can't power through, you have something "for just such an occaision". That something should not always be a fast-charging crashless nuke.