Hi, I recently asked this on another post and was encouraged to post it here.
Is CoT going to have its own version of the Rest power?
And if it is, is it going to have any downfalls such as, being more susceptible to damage while in Rest mode?
I feel like this is an obvious question because how else are we going to get our health and end back up without some form of rest, but im curious if its going to be called the same and if the animation will also be the same, dropping down to one knee and all that.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Fireheart meant you should add your question to [url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/city-titans-official-question-thread-may-july]this thread[/url].
Alas, for technical reasons, I can't do it for you.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Man, I'm such a noob sometimes...
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
They better have a Rest power. How else am I going to farm that Immortal badge?
Lol I can sympathize with this. I farmed for many of those top level badges in CoH; I even farmed two 1 billion HP Empath badges.
But when it comes to CoT I'm hoping the badging situation will be different enough that we won't have to exploit using something like Rest to farm for badges that have ridiculous thresholds in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
On this we can agree.
There really is no other way Rest could be done. The animation in COH was spot on. So unless they make something ridiculous like when you toggle Rest, you lay down on the ground, Im confident it will be identical to what COH had.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
I've played games (e.g. Tabula Rasa) where you heal fast as soon as you get out of combat. No rest power. It made out-of-combat healing kind of pointless.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Hmm. I'm not sure I like this for a few different reasons. I'll use COH as an example.
In PVP, it was like winning the lottery when you came across another player who thought they had hidden pretty well, and were resting. Their defenses were down, their attention was unfocused. It made for an easy kill. It rarely happened, most people knew not to do that, but when it did, it was hilarious.
In PvE, there was something about the visual of seeing other players/heroes/villains, needing to rest and take a breather, especially after defeating a boss or a huge mob. It showed the vulnerable side of being a hero/villain. I'm not trying to get all deep with this, but when the team had to rest after a huge fight, it gave us all a chance to crack a joke or enjoy the brief moment of the craziness of the last battle before moving on to the next group.
Sometimes I think going from mob to mob without a break takes some of the fun out of the moment.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Yeah I think that's the real point here. I'm not worried about how the "animation" for a Rest power might look in CoT; I'm more interested in whether or not the game mechanics will even call for needing a Rest power in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Frankly this is an excellent reason NOT to have a Rest power in the game. Sure it might have been relatively stupid for people to try to use Rest while in an open PvP zone and maybe they even "deserved" to be punished for their shortsightedness. On the other hand anything that would "discourage" ganking could only be net-positive for CoT.
I wouldn't be against having a Rest emote that would let you RP this kind of thing all you want. But again if the game mechanics of CoT are such that the idea of having a separate independent Rest power is obsolete I wouldn't be too upset by that. As I mentioned earlier about the only substantial use I ever got out of the Rest power was its use in helping me farm for badges. Even I wouldn't consider that a "meaningful" or "intended" use of the power.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
There is a version of Rest. Having high out of combat health recovery is too much of a leverage in maintaining combat pace. You're only focrced to slow down "just enough" before the next encounter.
Which in turn, makes maintaining Momentum a lot easier. And in case the idea if making Momentum deplete faster out of combat to compensate - would make Reserves restore that much faster.
Hence, we will have a version of Rest in order to offer players a way to recover from time to time.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Awesome, good to know! Thanks!
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Good to know either way. As I mentioned I almost never used it for its "intended purpose" but clearly others did so that's fine.
My main concern vis-à-vis having a Rest power was the fact that it was very helpful while farming for badges. I'm just hopeful that badge farming in CoT will either be less or non-necessary so that people like myself won't use Rest simply as an exploit. Recall that Positron (the Dev in CoH originally in charge of badges) eventually reduced the original requirements for badges like Immortal and Empath because he was finally convinced of how ridiculously too high they were to begin with.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Im showing my noobness again, but how did Rest help you with badges? Do you have a link to the badge it helped you get? :)
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Using Rest by itself didn't give you badges directly. It was primarily used while farming for the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Immortal_Badge]Immortal[/url] damage badge (and by extension the other 5 lesser damage badges) so that you could take more damage per unit time. The net effect could allow you finish off damage farming many weeks (or even months) quicker. Rest was simply a part of the overall damage farming exploit.
But as I said as long as CoT doesn't make the same mistake of making its Immortal-type badge requirement be so high that you're effectively FORCED to resort to farming for it then you won't need to use Rest to help with that. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I agree strongly with having a Rest power instead of using fast regen out of combat. Out-of-combat state is not always correctly detected in games and has - annoyingly - prevented me from properly healing even when safe. CoH's rest power never had this problem, and worked perfectly whenever it was needed. It also allowed a team to take aggro from and defend a resting, injured teammate mid-fight, which was a nice feature.
Plus a solo Controller could even risk using the old Rest mid-fight in desperate situations. I loved attempting crazy things like that.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I'm sure that would be one option but I certainly hope it's not the only one since I can fully see that other animation would be much more appropriate for certain character concepts.
I'm fine with Rest if it solves the problems Tannim222 mentioned as per the Momentum and Reserves interaction. As usual, Rest at your own risk. :)
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
There are certainly things that didn't go well with the badge system.
I'm personally not too thrilled with the damage taken metric itself.
Rather, I'd like to see badges for combat related to play style. When it comes to the damage intake area, that would be stuff like Damage Resisted, Attacks Evaded, Health Regenerated and so on.
Gauging thresholds will be a balancing act for lofty goals which are reasonably achievable. I believe the upper healing badge in its original value was once calculated into play time hours of nothing but healing and it required dedicated healing on the scope of something beyond a full time job for months.
Which means that it is not just the threshold values that needs to be considered, but also the median time to earn the achievement. And figuring out what that looks like for a typical player.
Its one of those things where we'll probably have a reasonable educated guess when we get to finalizing the Challenged and Achievements system. But will likely require some adjustment as hard data is gathered.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Actually I was fairly deeply involved with "the original badge thresholds were ridiculously too high" faction on the CoH forums. We were the ones who likely finally convinced Positron to lower the values. At one point we worked up some reasonable estimates which suggested that it would have taken the average healing-oriented character playing "normally" (as in not doing anything overt to specifically farm for the Empath badge) roughly 20 YEARS real time to earn that badge. That's 20 YEARS playing specifically as a healer - imagine how much more time it would've taken a non-healer oriented character. Effectively the 1 billion HP healing badge was not earnable WITHOUT farming. Even active farming for that badge took roughly 8-10 months worth of 10-12 hour back-to-back overnight AFK farming sessions to earn.
Posi eventually admitted that they had randomly picked the original thresholds for those count badges to be "arbitrarily huge" values without really doing any research into what the ramifications would be. He blindly figured that "eventually" someone would stumble over earning those badges without really doing any serious math to see if that was a realistic expectation or not.
Well going by the "hard data" we had from CoH I would humbly suggest that absolutely NO count badge in CoT should require more than perhaps 6 months of solid direct effort to earn. More than that enters squarely into the realm of "unreasonableness" as far as I'm concerned. I have no problem with having badges that take a "long time" to earn - I simply believe 6 months is a good working definition of what a "long time" should be in a game like this.
Please do your best effort during the betas of CoT to collect some actual data as far as how much average people can typically heal, resist, etc. and use those numbers to come up with some educated guesses as to what your top count badges should be set at. Don't do it like Posi did which was to just pick "randomly huge" numbers and assume everything would be fine.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Or as I like to call it, Big McLargeHuge.
Going back to Rest, I think your use or lack of use of Rest should determine how many Reserves or how strong a Reserve you might get after completing a mission. Kind of like a reward. If you were able to complete your mission without having to Rest, then you might get an Awaken Reserve instead of a small Respite for example. It doesn't have to be an exact math per se, it could still have a random chance to happen, but it's just a little idea I think would make sense to implement.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Well to put it into perspective the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Empath_Badge]CoH Empath badge[/url] originally required 1,000,000,000 HPs healed to earn (at Issue 2).
Then during Issue 13 it was reduced to 100,000,000 HPs healed.
Then finally during Issue 16 it was lowered down to 10,000,000 HPs healed.
So if you had a badge that was reduced down to a mere 1% of its original value you know something must have been radically wrong with that original value.
If there was ever a "funny" part to that story there were several years there (between Issues 2 and 13) where Posi categorically claimed there was "absolutely nothing wrong with the original 1 billion HP Empath and that we players should just stop whining about it and earn it like we were supposed to". Then without any fanfare the values started to drop and Posi was never really man enough to even admit he had made any mistakes with his original values. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Wouldn't that only encourage people to NOT use Rest? If Rest is going to exist in CoT I'm not sure there's any reason to dissuade people from using it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yep, but that's the beauty of it. You give choices to the player. It doesn't have to be so black and white. People can ignore this benefit from not using Rest, or they can make it a goal to avoid Rest and give them something to feel proud of. I don't see an issue with it.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Providing "rewards" to avoid using a feature calls into question whether the feature is even needed. It's not an issue about "providing choices to players" it's more like "why even have a Rest if most/all players are encouraged to go without using it".
Like I implied before I almost never used Rest for my characters in CoH. I would have never dreamt of getting any kind of a "bonus" for doing that.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I recall the cery thread you're talking about where the 20 yeat approximation came up. It wasn't entirely accurate as it took a lot of assumptions for granted, but it wasn't entirely unrealistic.
Someone esle did the math of a basic Heal Other power healing a 'tank' which would (per the theory), require the heal everytime it came up, and the heal was fired off once recharged. It was as close to the pure physical amount of hours actually required as compared to typical play. The 20 year figure stood out because, well 20 freaking years! And I may misremember the exact length of time - it may have been an optimized heal / recharge build and took recovery time into account. Either way, it was an entirely unrealistic value to assign.
And we will be gathering data in all stages of development to fine tune the game, including badges. The educated guesses will probably be developed prior to Beta and refined during Beta and even post launch. We certainly aren't going to 'slap another zero' on there because it looks good.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
It was based on the "average healing oriented player" healing X amount of damage during a typical 8 hour play session. The 20 years (the actual number was more like 18.9 years) was based on that player playing 8 hours a day EVERY SINGLE DAY of those 18.9 years. When was the last time you played a game for 8 hours a day every day for 18.9 years?
Even if the estimate was only say a few years to earn one badge that would have still been overly ridiculous. Let's not get too hung up on this. Besides the math we used for our Empath estimates was actually at one point validated by Arcanaville. Feel free to discount that validation if you wish. *shrugs*
As my recent post above points out Empath was finally adjusted down to 1% of its original value. Please try to not make the kind of error that would require that much of a "correction" in CoT.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If you get bonuses for using your powers, why not get bonuses for not using them? Maybe this is a bit farfetched but thinking in terms of RP if you made it through your whole mission without needing to rest, it should be something players can be proud of and encourage them that maybe what they are doing with their build is on the right track. So, hey! Here's a stronger respite! Good job! I know ive been pushing for Rest because I found it useful in many ways as I pointed out in an earlier post, but the fact that Rest is so simple (and maybe it needs to stay that way) but I was just thinking of a different component to Rest that could tie in as to what Reserve you get after completing a mission.
Maybe the lack of Rest is not the best way to determine that, but it was an interesting thought.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
I wouldn't be against the more generic idea of "if you do or don't do certain things throughout an entire mission then maybe you get some kind of bonus/reward for that". It's actually a fairly interesting idea. I'm just not sure that dissuading people from using Rest (when they might otherwise actually need it) is the best way to express your idea.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I know. I had the 1B Immortal badge. I was making a MST3k reference, that's all.
No worries. Just wanted to put some actual numbers against what was originally considered "Big McLargeHuge" in CoH. :)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The problem I see with this is that it assumes everyone will agree that avoiding rest is a good thing. Some players might say that barrelling through a mission without resting isn't cautious enough. Or claim that if you don't need to rest after a fight you haven't given 100%. Still others might make the argument that if a character needs to rest a lot during a mission, s/he is in more need of an extra reward than a character that doesn't. Rewarding one particular playstyle over others is a rabbit hole I'd recommend avoiding.
Spurn all ye kindle.
That explanation makes a lot more sense. I agree.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
I think both Cinnder and I made good points that rewarding the use (or disuse) of a particular power is not something we should encourage for two completely different but equally legitimate reasons but if Cinnder's words made "more sense" to you then at least the message got across. :)
Again I'm not against the idea of having extra rewards for doing certain special things in missions. For example many of the "Master of X" badges were based on the idea that if no one died in a TF/Trial you could get that extra special badge. I just don't think that one of those "special things" ought to be the avoidance of using a specific basic power like Rest because again if the Devs gave us a scenario where it's better NOT to use such a power you could logically ask the question why the power should even be in the game in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Whether or not you might get rewarded for not using Rest, the question in my mind currently is this:
Should Rest cause you to lose or burn off Reserves in order to reset your HP and Endo to full (while simultaneously draining your Momentum into refilling Reserves, presumably)?
I'm assuming that normal use of Reserves will be able to heal you and/or recover endo, so if you have any Reserves, just burning Reserves might get you more bang for the buck than stopping to Rest. As such, maybe Rest ought to give you the ability to reset your green and blue bars to full without it costing you any Reserves. But then what is the opportunity cost of using Rest instead of burning Recerves? There has to be a trade-off. Is it that Rest has a long recharge, can be interrupted, makes you vulnerable while Resting, etc? If so, what happens when you get interrupted, you just get defeated outright, presumably? Assuming you choose to Rest like we did in CoX, after the mob is defeated but before we go to aggro the next mob, then Rest is slowing you down, which in itself is reason to try to make a build that doesn't need to Rest like ever, if you can avoid it. Rewarding people MORE for doing something they're already trying to do in this sense doesn't seem necessary. That's like giving the winner of the superbowl a free cookie as a reward for not having to punt or something.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
[b]Radiac[/b], bringing momentum into the discussion was a good call. As I understand it, momentum naturally bleeds away; turning into reserves as it does.
So what if we had a way of diverting that bleed into a rest instead. I suppose this would basically just be a momentum-fueled ability that everyone gets regardless of powerset.
So you would in effect be exchanging reserves for a quicker recovery, but rather than actually using reserves you are tapping into momentum directly.
I would prefer this because what if you had used up your reserves in battle and now had to wait for your momentum to bleed into more reserves to use them to rest? That seems too convoluted and would take too long to be useful. Using momentum directly would bypass all that and bring you back up faster.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
It does seem to logically follow that you'll probably only WANT a Rest power for use when you need to recover HP and endo, but have no Reserves left with which to do that the fast way. Thus, the price you pay for squandering all of your Reserves on buffs while fighting is that you now have none for healing and catching a breath when you need it. Unless, of course, you're playing on a team and you've got a friend who can give you healz and so forth. Thus the support class DOES add DPS to the party, by allowing the DPS person to waste more Reserves on Damage buffs or whatever.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising