Disabling Travel Powers: Why is this a thing?

guyhumual

So I can live with knocks, holds, pulls that inexplicably don't give knock resistance, I can live with just about all the bull the game throws at us to disrupt our enjoyment, but disabling travel powers? Why is this a thing?

Now I can accept that on certain special alerts disabling travel powers is part of the design, and it makes sense from a story perspective for a few: Being in cyber space, in an another dimension, I can accept my travel powers don't work here, but not in alerts like the fight with Warlord. There's no in game reason that makes this acceptable.

So why do I bring this up? Well this new event has mobs that can really dick you over, they're meant for larger groups so I don't mind having to suffer if I want to solo these fights, however one of their jerk moves is to disable our travel powers. If a villain has the ability to disable travel powers why not give them the ability to unequip passives, disable forms, disable energy builders? There's no reason some horror can disable one powers but not another. If you can stop me from swinging on a vine why shouldn't you be able to stop me from concentrating in a fight? There's no logical in game reason for this, there's no out of game justification, and it's pointless inconvenience made solely to annoy players. If you want to simulate hobbling players, like you're hit so hard you can't travel, then you need to make a new effect for that. Give it a time down or something. Don't just disable the travel power. There's no reason this should be a thing in a super hero game.

markhawkman

I kinda think you're over thinking it... of course it's a "pointless inconvenience" that what all CC is... Just something to slow you down.

guyhumual

If you want to slow me down and inconvience me, create a condition,

markhawkman said:

I kinda think you're over thinking it... of course it's a "pointless inconvenience" that what all CC is... Just something to slow you down.

It doesn't slow me down, it's 100% completely an annoyance, unless you count the probes in the Cybermind alert that can get knocked to the ceiling when nobody has travel powers or ranged weapons, and then it's a detriment. Holds, knocks, those things stop you from playing the game, those slow you down, having the computer disable your travel power in these situations just means you have to reactivate it later . . . unless you're on a vehicle, in which case you don't need to reactivate your vehicle's travel power at all. Then it's not a big deal. If this effect was like what they do to you on a vehicle I'd be no where near as annoyed by it. There's no reason to disable a player's powers.

guyhumual

gradii said:

Agreed entirely. Content should be designed to make us want to USE our travel powers, not disable and ignore them entirely.

It would be neat if there were missions like that. Something other then that dreaded "fly through the rings" mission from that Superman game.

reaperwithnoname

In the specific case of fighting Warlord, I agree. There is no logical reason for your travel powers to not be working in that battle. The game doesn't even tell you that it's happening.

guyhumual

reaperwithnoname#5949 said:

In the specific case of fighting Warlord, I agree. There is no logical reason for your travel powers to not be working in that battle. The game doesn't even tell you that it's happening.

Now obviously there's an out of game reason for the disabling travel powers, those flames don't punish flyers, but yes, no in game reason for the disable.

supersharks

How dare you fly over the lava. Your wings dont work here. You gotta stand in the lava because thats what we designed for 'difficulty'!

chaosdrgnz43

supersharks said:

How dare you fly over the lava. Your wings dont work here. You gotta stand in the lava because thats what we designed for 'difficulty'!

If they did allow tp in Qwijybo fight, you'll see lava pits mid-air where flying players used to be.

markhawkman

maybe columns of twisted flames? STO does that on some space maps.

kjodell

Actually what annoys me is that a lot of these event fights are in the nooby areas of west side and if your just trying to level up your charater when you run into these guys they disable your travel power so you can't even run away you just get wiped

markhawkman

Um... you know that skull-rank enemies scale to your level?

Well, you're still outnumbered a dozen to one I guess... never mind.

guyhumual

I've noticed, or at least I think I have, that the mobs no longer disable travel powers. If this is the case I salute you Cryptic. This was the single most frustrating element of this nightmare invasion. I still think canceling travel powers is a bad choice, but kudos to you if you took this out of this nightmare event.

maatmons

If an enemy needs a way to bring flyers to the ground, maybe they could have a power that applied a push/pull to targets for some duration, except it always points down?

guyhumual

I don't mind the idea of nailed to the ground applied to my toons, just don't disable my travel power. Surely you can have an effect that makes traveling impossible for a few seconds without disabling travel powers? When an effect like NTTG ends I shouldn't have to reactivate my travel powers.

thebuckeye

markhawkman said:

Um... you know that skull-rank enemies scale to your level?

I've noticed that the skull groups, in the open world at any rate, seem to scale to the level of the last person/group to actually defeat them.

supersharks

[nevermind, delete this.]

markhawkman

guyhumual said:

I've noticed, or at least I think I have, that the mobs no longer disable travel powers. If this is the case I salute you Cryptic. This was the single most frustrating element of this nightmare invasion. I still think canceling travel powers is a bad choice, but kudos to you if you took this out of this nightmare event.

I'm wondering if it was a bugged knock.... the enemies in Lemuria have a knock that turns off your TP too. It doesn't disable it outright, it just turns it off....

aesica

I'm actually okay with enemies using Nailed to the Ground in comparison the absurd amount of stun and knockback cancer they put out. NttG doesn't lock me out of using my powers or prevent me from blocking, and that's what I really despise about this content.

spinnytop

It's a thing because it changes up the situation on the player and forces them to think up alternate strategies. That's how you keep things interesting in a game.

guyhumual

spinnytop said:

It's a thing because it changes up the situation on the player and forces them to think up alternate strategies. That's how you keep things interesting in a game.

Wouldn't disabling your forms or unequipping your passive also change the situation? Imagine if a big monster attack unequipped your Invulnerability, or disabled your concentration, wouldn't that make things "interesting"?

spinnytop

guyhumual said:

Wouldn't disabling your forms or unequipping your passive also change the situation? Imagine if a big monster attack unequipped your Invulnerability, or disabled your concentration, wouldn't that make things "interesting"?

Disabling your form no, because all that would do is just lower your relevant numbers until you turned your form back on. It wouldn't really make the player do anything differently, just output lower numbers for a bit.

Disabling a character's passive largely suffers from the same problem - the end result is that you either output lower numbers, or enemies output larger numbers on you. It doesn't really make you do anything different and could be accomplished in other ways much more simply - for example if you wanted tanks to have to hold block due to taking large amounts of damage suddenly, you can just make them actually take large amounts of damage suddenly.

Turning off travel powers on the other hand forces you to deal with area denial effects that would otherwise be trivialized by travel powers, meaning it forces the player to behave differently rather than just altering the numbers that the player is outputting or receiving. Temporary TP removal also gives the player something new to pay attention to and excel at - players who notice when their powers come back, turn them on, and then utilize them in the window they have, can potentially see performance gains that slower, less attentive players will not. Turning off forms or passives temporarily would not have this effect.

guyhumual

If something is a ground hazard then all removing flight does is increase the numbers that you'd be able to avoid, like when I take a damage resisting passive, removing flight just causes more damage for flying characters. But that doesn't really answer the question how they can remove travel powers but not other powers. You want to ground someone use stun or nailed to the ground effects, don't just remove my powers.

chaelk

warlord- all his attacks are ground level. if a flier tanks him. NO chance of getting other players in the crossfire.
all on the ground. they have other hazards.

Hipan- same thing- the circles are on the ground, dragon spit targets are on the ground. They wouldn't be a problem if people could fly.

---

in hero games terms
Power drain- Movement -20"(or a number) , aoe, megascale 1'= 1km, affects all movements except base walk
or


something like that​​

guyhumual

Hi-Pan or cybermind don't bother me as much as there's a suitable in game reason for our travel powers to be disabled.

markhawkman

Warlord's screwy because of the sheer randomness. There's no in-game reason.

Hi-Pan has the excuse of being an extradimensional realm.

Then there's Lemuria.... some of the enemies there use a bugged knock that turns off TP.

guyhumual

markhawkman said:

Warlord's screwy because of the sheer randomness. There's no in-game reason.

Hi-Pan has the excuse of being an extradimensional realm.

Then there's Lemuria.... some of the enemies there use a bugged knock that turns off TP.

Yes, Lemuria, there's a couple of enemies that do that. Including Bloodfin

kallethen

aesica wrote: »

I'm actually okay with enemies using Nailed to the Ground in comparison the absurd amount of stun and knockback cancer they put out. NttG doesn't lock me out of using my powers or prevent me from blocking, and that's what I really despise about this content.

I very much feel the same way with this. Suddenly losing my TP isn't the death sentence that knock-spam is.​​

guyhumual

Make no mistake, I'm not a fan of knocks or holds, but they are apparently a standard part of the game and so something I've come to live with. Getting your travel power deactivated is still fairly rare and something I find very annoying. It's not a huge hindrance in most situations and so it feels like a something designed to annoy people rather then hinder them.

aesica

reaperwithnoname#5949 said:

In the specific case of fighting Warlord, I agree. There is no logical reason for your travel powers to not be working in that battle. The game doesn't even tell you that it's happening.

In the specific case of warlord, the fire patches he leaves on the ground would be completely trivialized if you can just hover in the air.

This may be something most people here disagree with, but I actually think travel powers should be disabled for most queued content above the grab/smash/burst level. Mechanics involving things like damage zones on the ground or moving to a certain location within a short period of time aren't really something the devs can meaningfully explore as long as people can just hover or zip around as they please.

I'm perfectly fine with things that disable my travel powers because I can still use my other abilities to (hopefully) stay alive. It's when I'm constantly getting knocked around or stunned that I draw the line. Mashing F to break out of otherwise massively long stuns or not being able to do anything while my character flies back then struggles to get up are two of the worst mechanics I've ever seen in a game.

roughbearmattach

aesica said:

Mechanics involving things like damage zones on the ground or moving to a certain location within a short period of time aren't really something the devs can meaningfully explore as long as people can just hover or zip around as they please.

Gravitar, especially the version of her in Teleios Ascendant, actually *requires* use of travel powers to play the battle well.
I'd like to see more of this.

I am reminded of a game design piece I read for D&D (by Monte Cook, I believe). Basically, it said that instead of disabling more and more abilities/spells/items/etc of high level characters, devise mechanics that require characters to use those powers in creative ways.

For instance, imaging a mission where there a great distance to travel in a short time, and only things like R3 flight, R2 acrobatics, or R1 superspeed will do. Imagine it!

guyhumual

aesica said:

In the specific case of warlord, the fire patches he leaves on the ground would be completely trivialized if you can just hover in the air.

My point here is that's no in game reason to disable powers. How is warlord stopping us from flying?

aesica said:

This may be something most people here disagree with, but I actually think travel powers should be disabled for most queued content above the grab/smash/burst level. Mechanics involving things like damage zones on the ground or moving to a certain location within a short period of time aren't really something the devs can meaningfully explore as long as people can just hover or zip around as they please.

So if you had your way putting points into travel powers would be pointless. Why waste two points on the swinging advantage because they'd be wasted points.

aesica said:

I'm perfectly fine with things that disable my travel powers because I can still use my other abilities to (hopefully) stay alive. It's when I'm constantly getting knocked around or stunned that I draw the line. Mashing F to break out of otherwise massively long stuns or not being able to do anything while my character flies back then struggles to get up are two of the worst mechanics I've ever seen in a game.

Being stunned or knocked gives you knock resistance, get bumped three times and you're immune. The same can't be said about getting your power removed.

Why give us the option to spend points on travel powers if you're just going to remove them?

guyhumual

roughbearmattach said:

I am reminded of a game design piece I read for D&D (by Monty Cook, I believe). Basically, it said that instead of disabling more and more abilities/spells/items/etc of high level characters, devise mechanics that require characters to use those powers in creative ways.

For instance, imaging a mission where there a great distance to travel in a short time, and only things like R3 flight, R2 acrobatics, or R1 superspeed will do. Imagine it!

Yes, I'd love if the game had more of this.

kamokami

aesica said:

Gravitar, especially the version of her in Teleios Ascendant, actually *requires* use of travel powers to play the battle well. I'd like to see more of this.

Yeah I'd like to see more of this as well. That fight is particularly fun because of it. And actually it was one of my favorite things that I miss from pvp, where your movement and use of the environment can make a huge difference.

Would be great to have more of that introduced into pve.

kaiserin

The unfortunate bit about designing fights around travel powers is travel powers not being equal in speed and maneuverability. Because of this movement based encounters need to be balanced with the slowest travel in mind as it's entirely possible someone is using 2x tunneling travel powers.

If a movement specific mechanic is to be introduced that requires actual speed, then all those travel powers that are lacking in speed would need to be reviewed and rebalanced first. And flight can never be considered as not all travel powers are or will be flight capable.

Travel suppression has been used in recent fights as it prevents players from avoiding the intended mechanics. Area denial mechanics for example only function if players can't fly above them. Creating visual pillars to catch flyers isn't practical and would be resource intensive.

kamokami

kaizerin said:

The unfortunate bit about designing fights around travel powers is travel powers not being equal in speed and maneuverability. Because of this movement based encounters need to be balanced with the slowest travel in mind as it's entirely possible someone is using 2x tunneling travel powers.

Ok but the fights already exist. Like Gravitar in TA. If you're using 2x tunneling during that fight then you will die. And rightly so. Not sure how much consideration that use case requires given the opportunity cost of not making super fun fights like that one for everyone else.

kallethen

guyhumual wrote: »

My point here is that's no in game reason to disable powers. How is warlord stopping us from flying?

It is completely an OOC reason. Sure, it'd be nice if there was an IG reason, but in a way I'd rather have no reason than a silly nonsense reason.

guyhumual wrote: »

So if you had your way putting points into travel powers would be pointless. Why waste two points on the swinging advantage because they'd be wasted points.

No, they'd be useful for traveling from place to place. Though personally, I do disagree with the idea of disabling TPs for all queued content. Many have advantages purposely with combat in mind. Now THOSE points would be worthless if we instituted that.

guyhumual wrote: »

Being stunned or knocked gives you knock resistance, get bumped three times and you're immune. The same can't be said about getting your power removed.

Why give us the option to spend points on travel powers if you're just going to remove them?

I honestly don't see much TP canceling by NPCs outside of dev-intended scenarios (Warlord, Hi-Pan's special alert, Cybermind, issue 2 of Aftershock). The Nightmare Horror event was a huge blip on the radar.

You are right that Knocks build knock resistance, and then you're immune. but if you are getting chain-knocked and pounded on while that's happening, squishy DPS guys can be dead before immune.​​

guyhumual

kaizerin said:

The unfortunate bit about designing fights around travel powers is travel powers not being equal in speed and maneuverability. Because of this movement based encounters need to be balanced with the slowest travel in mind as it's entirely possible someone is using 2x tunneling travel powers.

If a movement specific mechanic is to be introduced that requires actual speed, then all those travel powers that are lacking in speed would need to be reviewed and rebalanced first. And flight can never be considered as not all travel powers are or will be flight capable.

Travel suppression has been used in recent fights as it prevents players from avoiding the intended mechanics. Area denial mechanics for example only function if players can't fly above them. Creating visual pillars to catch flyers isn't practical and would be resource intensive.

If you were to do something where there were like 5 targets that had to be stopped within a set time, and they scattered, with a couple flying and the rest on the ground, maybe have the flyers going over roof tops so super jumpers or acrobatics guys had a shot at them, that would likely have something for most groups. I mean it's possible that you'd have a team of nothing but tunneling powers, or those flight powers that inexplicably can't attack, but regular old flight is really popular. Have the bad guys traveling at just below rank 1 flight speeds and have their locations visible on the map. Maybe they could be VIPER transports or something.

guyhumual

kallethen said:

It is completely an OOC reason. Sure, it'd be nice if there was an IG reason, but in a way I'd rather have no reason than a silly nonsense reason.

I understand why they did it, and I do understand the difficulties with designing encounters like this, but wouldn't it have made more sense to let players have their travel powers but take constant damage if they fly too high because of some anti air attacks from Warlord's suit?

kallethen said:

No, they'd be useful for traveling from place to place. Though personally, I do disagree with the idea of disabling TPs for all queued content. Many have advantages purposely with combat in mind. Now THOSE points would be worthless if we instituted that.

The swinging advantage, I believe is called Flippin', is two points and gives you a bonus to dodge and avoidance. Not much use if your travel powers are disabled.

kallethen said:

I honestly don't see much TP canceling by NPCs outside of dev-intended scenarios (Warlord, Hi-Pan's special alert, Cybermind, issue 2 of Aftershock). The Nightmare Horror event was a huge blip on the radar.



You are right that Knocks build knock resistance, and then you're immune. but if you are getting chain-knocked and pounded on while that's happening, squishy DPS guys can be dead before immune.​​

Well there's also Lemuria, Transformation priests and Bloodfin cancel travel powers, but I'm sure there's more.

Also, knock spam destroys archetypes, but if you're a gold you should have active defenses, this is what they should be used for. If you're fighting a hoard of knock spaming horrors, you should be activating your active defense before engaging.

pantagruel01

kaizerin said:

The unfortunate bit about designing fights around travel powers is travel powers not being equal in speed and maneuverability. Because of this movement based encounters need to be balanced with the slowest travel in mind as it's entirely possible someone is using 2x tunneling travel powers.

While I understand the problems with travel power balancing, there are always ways you can make life hard for yourself in a freeform system, and I'm not sure why "you chose your travel powers poorly" needs to be more privileged than any other sort of poorly optimized build.

kaizerin said:

If a movement specific mechanic is to be introduced that requires actual speed, then all those travel powers that are lacking in speed would need to be reviewed and rebalanced first. And flight can never be considered as not all travel powers are or will be flight capable.

Not really true; you can balance separately for 3d movement. The easiest choice is "you can evade this problem in several ways; flight-based options require moving a shorter distance". As for reviewing and rebalancing slow travel powers, that should be done anyway, using superjump, swinging, or tunneling in combat is something of an exercise in masochism.

kaizerin said:

Travel suppression has been used in recent fights as it prevents players from avoiding the intended mechanics. Area denial mechanics for example only function if players can't fly above them. Creating visual pillars to catch flyers isn't practical and would be resource intensive.

It's not really worse than the issue of melee vs range; about all area denial does to ranged attackers is force them to move a little bit and continue firing, and something like the Bleak Harbinger's black bubbles do that to fliers.

ninjapiff

See, I never actually noticed this happen, probably because I main Melee DPS whose 2 TPs are Teleportation and Acrobatics. I have no real means of hovering in combat aside from a device or two and my vehicle. That being said, as a melee character, if my target tries to start flying away from me you bet your bottom dollar that I would want to keep them on my level, which is why I almost always put NttG on a lunge for melee characters.

Being able to simply fly over anything you fight and be untouched by the melee foes below is totally unbalanced. Sure, the side getting the shaft may not actually be "players" or "human", but NPCs are People Too!

Bot Lives Matter.

guyhumual

Teleport and acrobatics are probably my two most used travel powers.

pantagruel01

There are three basic issues:

1. Movement in 3d trivializes ground-bound hazards. Possible ways around this:
   1. Not using ground-bound hazards.
      
   2. Adding hazards that only affect fliers.
      
   3. Adding effects that remove flight/remove travel powers.
      
   4. Applying a low ceiling (tends to be claustrophic).
      
   5. Apply effects that require you to be near the ground even if you can fly.
      
2. Travel powers vary enormously in combat speed. If you're using rank 3 superspeed to evade a hazard, you can get out of a 50' bubble in about 0.9 seconds. To do the same with rank 3 flight requires about 1.7 seconds, to do it with tunneling requires about 2.5 seconds. Possible ways around this:
   1. Normalizing movement speed by removing travel powers.
      
   2. Modifying hazards so different speeds are required for different travel types.
      
   3. Using small, fast hazards, so reacting in time matters more than how fast you can move.
      
   4. Not using area hazards that at all.
      
3. Some travel powers are not reliably usable in combat. Tunneling can't be used in combat at all; swinging and superjump are extremely difficult. Ice slide actively wants to kill you. Teleport can be but only once per 10s or so. Possible ways around this: redesign those travel powers. For example:
   • Ice Slide: mostly, give it higher traction and friction.
     
   • Super-Jump: I would probably just give it a +50/+100/+150% bonus to combat run speed, with no out of combat bonus. That makes it slightly slower than acrobatics in combat, and out of combat you would want to jump rather than run.
     
   • Swinging: Again, a +50/+100/+150% bonus to combat run speed works. Note that most comic book heroes with swinging effectively mix it with acrobatics anyway.
     
   • Tunneling: Requires a bit more design work. I'd probably make it so in combat it gives you a run speed bonus and allows power use, but does not make you immune to attack, and after 4s out of combat (the same time as other travel powers hit second gear) it causes you to go underground. Full charge to go underground immediately.
     

legendarylycan

pantagruel01 wrote: »

There are three basic issues:

Movement in 3d trivializes ground-bound hazards. Possible ways around this:

Not using ground-bound hazards.
Adding hazards that only affect fliers.
Adding effects that remove flight/remove travel powers.
Applying a low ceiling (tends to be claustrophic).
Apply effects that require you to be near the ground even if you can fly.

Travel powers vary enormously in combat speed. If you're using rank 3 superspeed to evade a hazard, you can get out of a 50' bubble in about 0.9 seconds. To do the same with rank 3 flight requires about 1.7 seconds, to do it with tunneling requires about 2.5 seconds. Possible ways around this:

Normalizing movement speed by removing travel powers.
Modifying hazards so different speeds are required for different travel types.
Using small, fast hazards, so reacting in time matters more than how fast you can move.
Not using area hazards that at all.

Some travel powers are not reliably usable in combat. Tunneling can't be used in combat at all; swinging and superjump are extremely difficult. Ice slide actively wants to kill you. Teleport can be but only once per 10s or so. Possible ways around this: redesign those travel powers. For example:

Ice Slide: mostly, give it higher traction and friction.
Super-Jump: I would probably just give it a +50/+100/+150% bonus to combat run speed, with no out of combat bonus. That makes it slightly slower than acrobatics in combat, and out of combat you would want to jump rather than run.
Swinging: Again, a +50/+100/+150% bonus to combat run speed works. Note that most comic book heroes with swinging effectively mix it with acrobatics anyway.
Tunneling: Requires a bit more design work. I'd probably make it so in combat it gives you a run speed bonus and allows power use, but does not make you immune to attack, and after 4s out of combat (the same time as other travel powers hit second gear) it causes you to go underground. Full charge to go underground immediately.

and adding on to that, turn every travel power that disallows use of other powers into one that does...seriously, i can fling out all manner of toxic powers and summon all kinds of creatures as a swarm of locusts, but i can't use ANY ice powers as a giant snowball?

how the **** does that make any sense?​​

guyhumual

A few times I've had a bug that let me have swinging and acrobatics active, it was so great.

guyhumual

pantagruel01 said:

There are three basic issues:

1. Movement in 3d trivializes ground-bound hazards. Possible ways around this:
   1. Not using ground-bound hazards.
      
   2. Adding hazards that only affect fliers.
      
   3. Adding effects that remove flight/remove travel powers.
      
   4. Applying a low ceiling (tends to be claustrophic).
      
   5. Apply effects that require you to be near the ground even if you can fly.
      
2. Travel powers vary enormously in combat speed. If you're using rank 3 superspeed to evade a hazard, you can get out of a 50' bubble in about 0.9 seconds. To do the same with rank 3 flight requires about 1.7 seconds, to do it with tunneling requires about 2.5 seconds. Possible ways around this:
   1. Normalizing movement speed by removing travel powers.
      
   2. Modifying hazards so different speeds are required for different travel types.
      
   3. Using small, fast hazards, so reacting in time matters more than how fast you can move.
      
   4. Not using area hazards that at all.
      
3. Some travel powers are not reliably usable in combat. Tunneling can't be used in combat at all; swinging and superjump are extremely difficult. Ice slide actively wants to kill you. Teleport can be but only once per 10s or so. Possible ways around this: redesign those travel powers. For example:
   • Ice Slide: mostly, give it higher traction and friction.
     
   • Super-Jump: I would probably just give it a +50/+100/+150% bonus to combat run speed, with no out of combat bonus. That makes it slightly slower than acrobatics in combat, and out of combat you would want to jump rather than run.
     
   • Swinging: Again, a +50/+100/+150% bonus to combat run speed works. Note that most comic book heroes with swinging effectively mix it with acrobatics anyway.
     
   • Tunneling: Requires a bit more design work. I'd probably make it so in combat it gives you a run speed bonus and allows power use, but does not make you immune to attack, and after 4s out of combat (the same time as other travel powers hit second gear) it causes you to go underground. Full charge to go underground immediately.
     

Nice breakdown Pantagruel01, personally I like the travel powers the way they are, I wouldn't want them changed too much but I like the idea of air hazards to go with ground hazards. Travel powers are great and having them disabled seem counter productive in a super hero game.

roughbearmattach

kaizerin said:

The unfortunate bit about designing fights around travel powers is travel powers not being equal in speed and maneuverability. Because of this movement based encounters need to be balanced with the slowest travel in mind as it's entirely possible someone is using 2x tunneling travel powers.

If a movement specific mechanic is to be introduced that requires actual speed, then all those travel powers that are lacking in speed would need to be reviewed and rebalanced first. And flight can never be considered as not all travel powers are or will be flight capable.

Right now, the new, challenging content requires heroes to have Tanks, Healers, Controllers, and DPS. It would be cool if some mission required that at least one hero had a means to fly/teleport or to move very fast. Just as the new content and powers changes are pushing people away from cookie-cutter builds, new content that required a diversity of travel powers would push more players out of always using Dark Speed and R3 acrobatics.

decorumfriends

pantagruel01 said:

Ice slide actively wants to kill you.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

zamuelpwe

I think the biggest problem with disabling travel powers is just overall NPC concerns. Outside of Cosmics and special Alerts, it should be blockable, have a tell, and be on specific enemies. Some enemies are better behaved about this than others. Granted, I'd argue that there are melee Alert bosses who actually should have NTTG on lunges.

spinnytop

While we're all super happy to point out how great Gravitar is due to allowing people to use their travel powers, let's all remember one simple fact: this fight is heavily trivialized for anyone who has any of the run travel powers, or any flight, and possibly super jump and swinging as well, and can move while attacking. For these folks, the fight strategy literally consists of moving in a circle around Gravitar, because this effectively automatically makes you avoid the various targeted hazards that target you. The only challenge is not accidentally moving into a hazard that has spawned on someone else and remembering to block the stun. For melee or folks with self-rooting attacks, the fight is a bit harder than that.

Really what Gravitar does well is being a fight that is about movement. However, it would actually do that better if travel powers were turned off, so that everyone was moving at the same speed, and hence facing the same challenges ( obviously with sphere sizes scaled to account for movement speed ) As is, it is actually a perfect example of what Kaizerin is talking about regarding the difficulties of designing content that both has movement-based challenges, and allows players to use their travel powers: the challenge of the fight increases or decreases dramatically depending on which travel power you're using, to the degree that those with one travel power get an experience that qualifies as trivialized, while a player with certain other travel powers is just going to have to accept the fact that no matter how fast their reflexes are they're going to be eating some deaths.

The one thing that Gravitar definitely does well is to give validity to the utility of powers that allow you to move while using them, and being efficient in making all threats be able to effect any player regardless of airborne status by having them be target on players rather than on locations ( pbaoe ones being the exception, but for a valid reason ). Being an encounter that is well-balanced for all travel powers - not so much.

roughbearmattach

If there was a Rampage/Cosmic/Mission that didn't revolve around fighting a single villain in a small area, then one could design something that required travel powers to be successful. A high point might require fly/teleport/swinging/jump. A speed challenge might need superspeed, acrobatics, or R3 flight. A stealth/avoidance challenge might require teleport, burrowing, or even crappy ol'ninja vanish.

That would mean a party composed entirely of toons with the same travel powers might be boned . . . just like a group of samey DPS toons gets boned in TA. That would encourage and reward some diversity.