Travel Powers, themselves, are either just too single-use, or way to multifunctional as they are now. Acrobatics is pretty much always good to use when paired with some sort of flight/vertical movement power without sacrificing much of anything. Here's my suggestion:
NEW POWERS!
Well, perhaps not "new" powers, but what if different TPs had "new" powers/abilities that come with them? Like how choosing the Night Warrior passive instantly gives you Stealth and Shadow Strike, what if choosing Flight instantly gave you a power called, say, "Zoom!" (I know that's not a great name, I can't think of a good one right now). Activating this power of questionable naming would instantly boost the player's speed to the highest tier of their respective Rank, lasts for a short while, and has a cooldown. Meaning a player with Flight can move more quickly in combat where they would normally not move much faster than base walking, if for only a moment to reposition or move out of the way of an attack.
What is Teleportation had a baked in Lunge that basically uses the Void Shift power animation (you know, the Darkness "teleport lunge"?). Teleport into an attack, and suddenly a TP that has limited use for a combat-oriented hero is actually a good choice, since they can now opt not to grab another Lunge as their 18-power limit and choose something else. Granted, this Lunge might not have any of the bonuses other lunges might have (Perhaps it doesn't root/stun/snare, doesn't have other advantages, and can't get NTTG) but it's be an added function to the TP.
And what is Tunnelling had a similar "Lunge" mechanic, where you would hone onto your target and burst out of the ground from underneath and attack? It'd only be able to be used from actively tunnelling, but what if Earthen Embrace lasted longer if you use the power to stop tunnelling? Or, alternatively, what if you can attack someone from Tunnelling? This alone would make this power so much better, as it allows for a starting "sneak attack" (though for balance purposes, you shouldn't be able to actually "sneak" while tunnelling, since a Tunnelling Shadow Strike would be totally unfair and unbalanced).
The potential is basically endless for making you choice of TP actually factor into the ability of your character beyond simply mobility. TPs with more practical mobility upsides, like Acrobatics, might have lesser bonus powers, or none at all. It'd be a way to see people actually use more than just a few TPs and their reskins, and not just on "theme" characters who begrudgingly force themselves to use Ice Slide because it best fits their character.
It makes sense, if you don't think about it.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
If there is nothing that can be done then nothing can be done.
My own experience is that the travel powers make up a very large % of the fun of CO. Their inclusion of combat speed implies that they are meant to be used in combat...and when I get to use them I tend to have a lot more fun. As do others in this thread and the game.
Being an encounter that is well-balanced for all travel powers - not so much.
You can say that about pretty much the whole game. I'm very glad that it's not balanced around making sure 2x Tunneling characters will be ok...just like it's not balanced around pleasing people who want to take 10 passives just because they can. Let's hope it stays that way.
I have a hard time believing that making good content where travel powers don't have to be shut off *the whole time* is impossible because I've already experienced and played that content. And it was more fun than anything else.
While I like your ideas I think that might take a bit more of a redesign. I mean having a travel power and stealth would give more options then we'd have slots for, especially if you didn't slot a block or an energy unlock. I wouldn't mind seeing travel powers more integrated with additional options though, super speed giving you a lunge attack, super jump giving you a stomp attack, but currently the in game limits might be a problem.
I have a Raider in PoE with oodles of movespeed and the game is certainly not make magically easier because of it. But it is a whole lot more fun zipping around than it is with base speed. Unlike in PoE, I never have to suffer with moving around slowly in CO because I get a travel power at level 6.
"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."
So, it's totally fine to make stuff like TA that requires roles with a queue that doesn't support role queues, but you'll be damned if you exclude that one random person using all the tunneling? Pretty sure tunneling doesn't work in the air and Sky Command still exists.
I doubt few would complain if all travel powers were equally fast, had no combat speed penalty, and the game had the needed performance improvements / bug fixes to make that happen.
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.
There is that one mission kinda like this. The one where you have to stop those Hammer and Sickle guys from firing off the missiles. That one doesn't really require fast travel, but it's a lot better with it.
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.
1: This is why I like the idea of using column or sphere effects. 2: The lasers from that one mission give me an idea. Then there's those ADA turrets Viper uses. Maybe have something that applies a Knock Down periodically to any one above a certain height? 4: Warlord HAS that... It's inside a rather small room already. Unless it's was something like a forcefield that makes it so you can't go above 10ft or so? 5: Nightmare invasion had that. you had to interact with the orbs at ground level.
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.
I dunno... maybe a sparkly effect that goes upwards from Hi-Pan's spinning disk? Unless there's a mechanical reason the effect can't be a cylinder?
Warlord.... why care about the stupid flame patches at all? They don't add anything interesting to that fight.... actually there is nothing interesting in that fight other than the size of Warloard's ego.
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.
That's the one thign that really bugs me about knocks.... in the comics you don't have an army pounding on Superman while he's going flying from getting hit by Darkseid.
I doubt few would complain if all travel powers were equally fast, had no combat speed penalty, and the game had the needed performance improvements / bug fixes to make that happen.
Actually, I would. In order for content that doesn't get completely trivialized by rank 3 speeds (especially if combat no longer reduced those speeds!) you'd have to make pretty much everything move at that same speed or faster. This means you pull and everything is in your face immediately. AoE attacks meant to be blocked or prevented by means other than mobility would need to be big enough to ensure that someone couldn't run around in circles to avoid getting hit. Not only would it make the game look even less professional, but how would you explain crappy henchmen-level mooks suddenly zipping around at superhero speeds? Or everything creating colossus-sized AoEs?
Warlord.... why care about the stupid flame patches at all? They don't add anything interesting to that fight.... actually there is nothing interesting in that fight other than the size of Warloard's ego.
To a properly-tuned team (as in, not a bunch of overpowered endgame-gear players) he'll create several flame patches over the course of the encounter. Getting knocked back into one is dangerous, so the proper approach to dealing with them is to be aware of where they are and to make sure you're not in between him and a patch. I'd actually argue that, without them, his only real mechanic is "you may have to block this thing when he uses it on you."
Why give us the option to spend points on travel powers if you're just going to remove them?
Personally, I think advantages for travel powers should exist outside of standard power advantages, but that's just me. Anyway, even if you couldn't use travel powers anywhere but out of combat, ranks are still useful because you can't use vehicles everywhere, not everyone has them on every character, and trying to move from one place to another on foot would be an agonizing waste of time.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
To a properly-tuned team (as in, not a bunch of overpowered endgame-gear players) he'll create several flame patches over the course of the encounter.
Unless the tank just stands in his face; he doesn't create flame patches at melee range. However, I've never noticed them being particularly tactically interesting, it's just "when he uses this power, you need to block and move".
Imagine a mission wherein a bomb must be defused at the end of a long, simple maze. Time is short, and only the speedster can get there quickly enough, but . . . the villain is also fast, and she and her thugs need to be occupied so the speedster can get to the bomb.
A successful team would need a fast hero (R1 superspeed, R2 acrobatics or teleport, R3 flight, even), a tank, and DPS to win. What if no one brings a fast hero? Then you lose, just like if you don't bring a tank, or DPS.
Enh... not sure that's a good example. "simple maze" is really just a long winding hallway...
Not only that, but if you add too many twists and turns, it becomes more about guessing the right directions (possibly at the mercy of RNG) as well as speed. Someone with R1 acrobatics who made all the right turns could finish successfully. Someone with R3 superspeed could end up failing because they took all the wrong turns.
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In general, mechanics like that might seem cool as ideas, but in practice, they would force certain travel powers onto people who wanted to complete content that required them. Does an encounter have the floor crumbling away to reveal nothing but lava? Better have flight. Need to run fast to avoid otherwise-impossible things, or to reach the end of a long hallway to diffuse a bomb? You'll need a speedy power too. While sure, I suspect most people choose a combination similar to this now (I know I do), basing content more heavily on having the "right" travel powers will encourage a dangerous shift from "I chose those powers to be well-rounded" or "I chose these powers to fit my character theme" to "I need to take these powers to complete the content."
Overall, it would be a bad direction to move the game in.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
I would love to see the game reward folks for different choices in travel powers. Don't worry about specifics of my example--the idea is that some aspect of a mission or alert would require a fast toon. Not everyone--it would force the playerbase as a whole to reconsider travel powers, just as the epic content has forced the playerbase as a whole to reconsider tanks and healers.
I like ideas like Red Winter.... You have a timer and you need to hit an interact, you can see exactly where it is but it's not close.
Red winter does make good use of travel powers to a certain extent.
Maybe something analogous to the Nightmare stabilizers? But not campable. Thus you need to go there and deactivate it in order to keep the boss from becoming invincible. But it's a 5-man mission and there are a dozen spots chosen from at random.
I like ideas like Red Winter.... You have a timer and you need to hit an interact, you can see exactly where it is but it's not close.
Red winter does make good use of travel powers to a certain extent.
Maybe something analogous to the Nightmare stabilizers? But not campable. Thus you need to go there and deactivate it in order to keep the boss from becoming invincible. But it's a 5-man mission and there are a dozen spots chosen from at random.
I liked the nightmare colossus fight a lot as well, you could have a slightly similar set up, four mcguffins, only place them at far ends of the alert map, and have one or more heroes running around to toggle them and the rest to fight the villain. Dozens of spots might be doable as well, but making the villain invincible is a bad idea IMO, but just giving him regeneration powers with the Mcguffin active might be a better choice.
There wouldn't be a dozen active at once, but a dozen spots they could spawn. Maybe only one or two objects would actually be present at once if the team is shutting them down. The idea behind having a dozen locations is to force the players to move to where they are. I'd put a visible marker so it's easy to find, you just have to get there.
"Actually, I would. In order for content that doesn't get completely trivialized by rank 3 speeds (especially if combat no longer reduced those speeds!) you'd have to make pretty much everything move at that same speed or faster. This means you pull and everything is in your face immediately. AoE attacks meant to be blocked or prevented by means other than mobility would need to be big enough to ensure that someone couldn't run around in circles to avoid getting hit. Not only would it make the game look even less professional, but how would you explain crappy henchmen-level mooks suddenly zipping around at superhero speeds? Or everything creating colossus-sized AoEs?"
No. CO's combat is artificially slow. Performance improvements would mean that characters going faster wouldn't be a big deal because the game could handle much, much, much better mob control. That .5 second activation delay is hellaslow. If you've ever played an actual action game online at just 200ms of lag, you'd notice a lot of mob twitching to different spots, hinky animation / hit register mismatching, "phantom" damage, and more. When you could have two travel powers on at once, CO was crapping itself. Vehicle speed was nerfed because the extra speed of vehicles was killing the game. Had nothing to do with combat or trivializing it.
With performance improvement, which was part of my requirements for faster speed, CO would not be limited to such basic means of enemies attacks as single, big-**** AoEs on slow mobs. Henchmen wouldn't need to move around super fast. Having them move around more than the practically nothing most of them do now would be a massive improvement. I specifically talked about my speedy Raider in PoE to highlight what is possible. If movespeed was trivializing the challenge of that game (a game with very few autohit skills), builds using the unique chest that gives oodles of speed would be the most popular instead a freaking level nothing, zero stat chest with 6-links. Because metric boatloads of damage trivializes the game, not movespeed... Which is the same thing that trivializes CO now, incidentally. High movespeed makes PoE more fun, not less challenging.
And common, CO doesn't have a whole lot of skillshot abilities on mobs. Stuff hits you from stationary enemies no matter how fast you move as it is. Dumb mob AI hurts combat more than characters being too fast.
TBH, flying over lava you'd quickly die anyway as the air is superheated and toxic to boot. So unless you're a flying fire rat, you're screwed no matter what.
So, I thought of this while fighting the Takofanes boss.
I like the way that fight interacts with TPs. No matter what your TP is you need to pay attention to the fight. But TPs are still useful to keep you away from those rifts.
yep, imagine Warlord doing a long wide spray off fire, following someone flying, so it gets everyone from floor to ceiling
crypt, I've already found a ranged character with flight has a lot less problems with the wilful spirit, str of tako, harbinger
I just flew up and shot them from range
Ranged characters have always had it a little easier then melee, ranged characters with flight even easier, the design shouldn't be on making things harder for ground fights, it should be for making things harder for air fights. Is it impossible to have air hazards? What if warlord, instead of inexplicably being able to remove travel powers, just started the fight out with clusters of partial mines in the air around him? Flying characters would need to worry about flying into mines as well as dodging his flame attack.
I think that we should have access to a special "travel power aura" - something that retains travel power animations even when the powers(and functionality that comes with them) get disabled.
This kind of thing bothers me for some of my characters, for whom their travel power IS their power. A speedster character, based on Flash or Quicksilver, would immediately lose his appeal and the whole point of the character if his Super Speed is turned off. A character with wings, based on Angel or Hawkman, would have the same kind of problem.
It's especially galling that NPCs are granted lengthy and highly effective controls and power disruptions when OURS are nerfed through the floor.
Once, I was simply called Mojo. Now, I'm forced into a new name, but don't be fooled, I'm the original STO Mojo!
yeah.... even worse when enemies can stack CCs to disable you endlessly. The whole "knock resist" buff only seems to work on player knocks. When applied by an NPC knock it is such a short duration it might as well not be there. Seriously... 2-3 secs.... that's less time than it takes me to recover from being knocked.
There are worse examples though. Namely pull effects. I don't know of ANYTHING you can do to stop them from affecting you. And the simple fact an enemy used one near you prevents you from blocking.... which in the case of Qliphotic horrors often leads to that chain disable at which point you might live long enough to get knocked again....
And then there's the fact that the enemies you really WANT to use disables on are utterly immune. Yes, I get that the devs don't want players to be able to stack CC effects to incapacitate the boss for the entire fight. But total immunity seems like overkill.
If flight is a problem then they just need to add more air defense. Missile batteries, mobile aerial hazards, the occasional murdercopter...
The mobile aerial hazards could be things like:
1) Ball lightning that slowly moves around and if it hits a flyer then it stuns and deals them damage before dissipating or moving on. There would be multiple balls at a time. Could be something like "Four at all times" or "One ball spawns every X many seconds, and the longer the fight lasts the harder it will be to fly".
2) Anti-flight drones that simply take flight away from you for a time if they get too close. One or two of these buzzing around with clear FX showing the hazard zone will keep flyers moving. Make them destructible but replacements should appear.
3) Flying troops that appear if anyone flies too high. Basically just adds that make the fight tougher.
In some cases it's just the flight stuff that is taken away. They can call it gravity if they want to but it makes no sense that I can not fly but I can still leap incredible heights and distances.
Why doesn't Eidolon just summon some Imps to handle air defense? Why not just buff up the Strength of Takofanes so his rock throwing does more damage? He can still have a pull to use occasionally without it dealing so much extra damage to flyers.
As far as interactables go, it's okay but just spreading them out favors horizontal movement. In-combat flight is slow. A flyer could not handle that sort of thing any more than a speedster could handle an elevated object without a ladder of some sort.
And the ladder would be the way, I think. Do not spread them out so far, just elevate them. The vertical movers could go directly from interactable to interactable. The horizontal movers would have to take the stairs, but they are faster so it sort of evens out.
Of course, this isn't the sort of thing that would fit every challenge without starting to seem contrived, but it is something that could be fit into some fights.
And while yeah, it would be nice to have different movement types have their value, it's still a game that needs to account for different players. I would not want to see some new lair appear but grouping require that one person flies, one person has super-speed, one person has acrobatics, and so on.
They want to penalize ground movement they can do so with ground obstacles. They want to penalize aerial movement they can do so in the same ways. Just taking travel powers away should be done sparingly.
Yeah, I did some testing last week and noticed something interesting. Some TPs take less fall damage than others. Namely acrobatics/athletics. probably superjump too, but not tested yet. I tested by flying up to the map ceiling in Rencen and dropping. No TP did close to 100% damage, much like what happens with the gravity yank. But Distortion Acrobatics was 50%.
Anyways, for L40 content, each player has 2 TP options, more if they have a TP device. Sure you could have a team with peeps who either have no TPs(because some people like to fight like that) or duplicate TPs, but.... seems a bit unlikely.
It's a superhero game. Flying should be a thing. Adjusting the genre to match the mechanics is bass-ackwards.
Please devs, the next time flying will wreck your enemy design, think of alternative ways to deal with the situation. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd play WoW.
There are other ways to give characters with TP on a little trouble. One example is creatures or placed stationary pets that floor movement speed and reverse repel towards, demanding that players stop attacking and focus on moving away. Another is a cloud of placed hazards that appear in the air and across the floor. Chase encounters with air and ground hazards that you must dodge to keep up with the boss and damage it can also be a great way to showcase 3d superhero combat.
Comments
NEW POWERS!
Well, perhaps not "new" powers, but what if different TPs had "new" powers/abilities that come with them? Like how choosing the Night Warrior passive instantly gives you Stealth and Shadow Strike, what if choosing Flight instantly gave you a power called, say, "Zoom!" (I know that's not a great name, I can't think of a good one right now). Activating this power of questionable naming would instantly boost the player's speed to the highest tier of their respective Rank, lasts for a short while, and has a cooldown. Meaning a player with Flight can move more quickly in combat where they would normally not move much faster than base walking, if for only a moment to reposition or move out of the way of an attack.
What is Teleportation had a baked in Lunge that basically uses the Void Shift power animation (you know, the Darkness "teleport lunge"?). Teleport into an attack, and suddenly a TP that has limited use for a combat-oriented hero is actually a good choice, since they can now opt not to grab another Lunge as their 18-power limit and choose something else. Granted, this Lunge might not have any of the bonuses other lunges might have (Perhaps it doesn't root/stun/snare, doesn't have other advantages, and can't get NTTG) but it's be an added function to the TP.
And what is Tunnelling had a similar "Lunge" mechanic, where you would hone onto your target and burst out of the ground from underneath and attack? It'd only be able to be used from actively tunnelling, but what if Earthen Embrace lasted longer if you use the power to stop tunnelling? Or, alternatively, what if you can attack someone from Tunnelling? This alone would make this power so much better, as it allows for a starting "sneak attack" (though for balance purposes, you shouldn't be able to actually "sneak" while tunnelling, since a Tunnelling Shadow Strike would be totally unfair and unbalanced).
The potential is basically endless for making you choice of TP actually factor into the ability of your character beyond simply mobility. TPs with more practical mobility upsides, like Acrobatics, might have lesser bonus powers, or none at all. It'd be a way to see people actually use more than just a few TPs and their reskins, and not just on "theme" characters who begrudgingly force themselves to use Ice Slide because it best fits their character.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
My own experience is that the travel powers make up a very large % of the fun of CO. Their inclusion of combat speed implies that they are meant to be used in combat...and when I get to use them I tend to have a lot more fun. As do others in this thread and the game. You can say that about pretty much the whole game. I'm very glad that it's not balanced around making sure 2x Tunneling characters will be ok...just like it's not balanced around pleasing people who want to take 10 passives just because they can. Let's hope it stays that way.
I have a hard time believing that making good content where travel powers don't have to be shut off *the whole time* is impossible because I've already experienced and played that content. And it was more fun than anything else.
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I have a Raider in PoE with oodles of movespeed and the game is certainly not make magically easier because of it. But it is a whole lot more fun zipping around than it is with base speed. Unlike in PoE, I never have to suffer with moving around slowly in CO because I get a travel power at level 6.
"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."
So, it's totally fine to make stuff like TA that requires roles with a queue that doesn't support role queues, but you'll be damned if you exclude that one random person using all the tunneling? Pretty sure tunneling doesn't work in the air and Sky Command still exists.
I doubt few would complain if all travel powers were equally fast, had no combat speed penalty, and the game had the needed performance improvements / bug fixes to make that happen.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
2: The lasers from that one mission give me an idea. Then there's those ADA turrets Viper uses. Maybe have something that applies a Knock Down periodically to any one above a certain height?
4: Warlord HAS that... It's inside a rather small room already. Unless it's was something like a forcefield that makes it so you can't go above 10ft or so?
5: Nightmare invasion had that. you had to interact with the orbs at ground level. I dunno... maybe a sparkly effect that goes upwards from Hi-Pan's spinning disk? Unless there's a mechanical reason the effect can't be a cylinder?
Warlord.... why care about the stupid flame patches at all? They don't add anything interesting to that fight.... actually there is nothing interesting in that fight other than the size of Warloard's ego. That's the one thign that really bugs me about knocks.... in the comics you don't have an army pounding on Superman while he's going flying from getting hit by Darkseid.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
A successful team would need a fast hero (R1 superspeed, R2 acrobatics or teleport, R3 flight, even), a tank, and DPS to win.
What if no one brings a fast hero? Then you lose, just like if you don't bring a tank, or DPS.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
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In general, mechanics like that might seem cool as ideas, but in practice, they would force certain travel powers onto people who wanted to complete content that required them. Does an encounter have the floor crumbling away to reveal nothing but lava? Better have flight. Need to run fast to avoid otherwise-impossible things, or to reach the end of a long hallway to diffuse a bomb? You'll need a speedy power too. While sure, I suspect most people choose a combination similar to this now (I know I do), basing content more heavily on having the "right" travel powers will encourage a dangerous shift from "I chose those powers to be well-rounded" or "I chose these powers to fit my character theme" to "I need to take these powers to complete the content."
Overall, it would be a bad direction to move the game in.
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Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
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My characters
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My characters
No. CO's combat is artificially slow. Performance improvements would mean that characters going faster wouldn't be a big deal because the game could handle much, much, much better mob control. That .5 second activation delay is hellaslow. If you've ever played an actual action game online at just 200ms of lag, you'd notice a lot of mob twitching to different spots, hinky animation / hit register mismatching, "phantom" damage, and more. When you could have two travel powers on at once, CO was crapping itself. Vehicle speed was nerfed because the extra speed of vehicles was killing the game. Had nothing to do with combat or trivializing it.
With performance improvement, which was part of my requirements for faster speed, CO would not be limited to such basic means of enemies attacks as single, big-**** AoEs on slow mobs. Henchmen wouldn't need to move around super fast. Having them move around more than the practically nothing most of them do now would be a massive improvement. I specifically talked about my speedy Raider in PoE to highlight what is possible. If movespeed was trivializing the challenge of that game (a game with very few autohit skills), builds using the unique chest that gives oodles of speed would be the most popular instead a freaking level nothing, zero stat chest with 6-links. Because metric boatloads of damage trivializes the game, not movespeed... Which is the same thing that trivializes CO now, incidentally. High movespeed makes PoE more fun, not less challenging.
And common, CO doesn't have a whole lot of skillshot abilities on mobs. Stuff hits you from stationary enemies no matter how fast you move as it is. Dumb mob AI hurts combat more than characters being too fast.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
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I like the way that fight interacts with TPs. No matter what your TP is you need to pay attention to the fight. But TPs are still useful to keep you away from those rifts.
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crypt, I've already found a ranged character with flight has a lot less problems with the wilful spirit, str of tako, harbinger
I just flew up and shot them from range
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It's especially galling that NPCs are granted lengthy and highly effective controls and power disruptions when OURS are nerfed through the floor.
Crafting, Exploration and Interaction as it should be:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1108521
There are worse examples though. Namely pull effects. I don't know of ANYTHING you can do to stop them from affecting you. And the simple fact an enemy used one near you prevents you from blocking.... which in the case of Qliphotic horrors often leads to that chain disable at which point you might live long enough to get knocked again....
And then there's the fact that the enemies you really WANT to use disables on are utterly immune. Yes, I get that the devs don't want players to be able to stack CC effects to incapacitate the boss for the entire fight. But total immunity seems like overkill.
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Missile batteries, mobile aerial hazards, the occasional murdercopter...
The mobile aerial hazards could be things like:
1) Ball lightning that slowly moves around and if it hits a flyer then it stuns and deals them damage before dissipating or moving on. There would be multiple balls at a time.
Could be something like "Four at all times" or "One ball spawns every X many seconds, and the longer the fight lasts the harder it will be to fly".
2) Anti-flight drones that simply take flight away from you for a time if they get too close. One or two of these buzzing around with clear FX showing the hazard zone will keep flyers moving. Make them destructible but replacements should appear.
3) Flying troops that appear if anyone flies too high. Basically just adds that make the fight tougher.
In some cases it's just the flight stuff that is taken away.
They can call it gravity if they want to but it makes no sense that I can not fly but I can still leap incredible heights and distances.
Why doesn't Eidolon just summon some Imps to handle air defense?
Why not just buff up the Strength of Takofanes so his rock throwing does more damage? He can still have a pull to use occasionally without it dealing so much extra damage to flyers.
As far as interactables go, it's okay but just spreading them out favors horizontal movement.
In-combat flight is slow. A flyer could not handle that sort of thing any more than a speedster could handle an elevated object without a ladder of some sort.
And the ladder would be the way, I think.
Do not spread them out so far, just elevate them.
The vertical movers could go directly from interactable to interactable. The horizontal movers would have to take the stairs, but they are faster so it sort of evens out.
Of course, this isn't the sort of thing that would fit every challenge without starting to seem contrived, but it is something that could be fit into some fights.
And while yeah, it would be nice to have different movement types have their value, it's still a game that needs to account for different players.
I would not want to see some new lair appear but grouping require that one person flies, one person has super-speed, one person has acrobatics, and so on.
They want to penalize ground movement they can do so with ground obstacles. They want to penalize aerial movement they can do so in the same ways. Just taking travel powers away should be done sparingly.
Anyways, for L40 content, each player has 2 TP options, more if they have a TP device. Sure you could have a team with peeps who either have no TPs(because some people like to fight like that) or duplicate TPs, but.... seems a bit unlikely.
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Please devs, the next time flying will wreck your enemy design, think of alternative ways to deal with the situation. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd play WoW.
One example is creatures or placed stationary pets that floor movement speed and reverse repel towards, demanding that players stop attacking and focus on moving away. Another is a cloud of placed hazards that appear in the air and across the floor. Chase encounters with air and ground hazards that you must dodge to keep up with the boss and damage it can also be a great way to showcase 3d superhero combat.