Instant Power: Virtual Power Cap

Based on the way Instant Power works, it has a virtual power cap. Either this is in game purposefully by the devs or it is a glitch. Either way I wanted to bring this power cap to the attention of the community and the devs. By virtual power cap I mean that there is a cap on when Instant Power can return power to people based on the 3 players with the lowest power bars in the group.

Instant Power
Description: Restores power to the three most fatigued people in the group.

Meaning: When a Controller uses an Instant Power Heal it will restore power to the three players with the lowest amount of power numerically. Currently this includes players who's power bar is full. For example: if a player has a max power pool of 2000 and his bar is full while every other player has 2001 power or more but max power pools, he will count as one of the people with the lowest power bars and it would distribute power to him and 2 other people even though only 2 of the players are actually getting power. The amount of power given out will be the same for each person as if it were being given to 3 people. I have tested this and will post the test in the second post so that anyone can repeat it and see the same results.

Problems: This virtual power cap causes 3 major problems that I have been able to think of and they are as follows:

1. In a group of 5 or more people, at a given instant when the person with the lowest power bar is full and everyone else has higher power than him, only two people that actually need power will receive it and each person would receive the amount they would as if the IPH is being distributed to three people.

2. If there are three people in a group whose power bars are full but lower numerically than other people in the group they will be considered as the three people with the lowest power numerically and they will be given the Instant Power over the rest of the group even though they can't accept it. This is most visible when people are using the Reserve Tank but is applicable to everyone with a larger power bar. Although the have room to accept more power, the will be considered as having more power numerically than at least 3 people in the group and they won't receive Instant Power even though they are the ones that need it.

3. People with larger power bars are limited by the amount of power they can receive by Instant Power. Once their power bar goes above the amount of 3 players with smaller power bars, he will no longer be able to receive Instant Power. This represents a large problem when Controllers that are in T4 or lower run with T5 players. For example, if a T5 player goes into an FoS run with T3 and T4 players, he will no longer receive Instant Power once they have more power than 3 of the T3 or T4 players power bars even if they are full. The Instant Power they can receive is limited to the size of the 3 people with the lowest power pools. This is very noticeable. This contributes to players that are 103 CR thinking that T4 or lower Controllers aren't pulling their weight. It is physically impossible for Controllers to give Instant Power above the level of the players with the 3 smallest power pools.

Solution: The best solution that I have come up with is that once a player has a full power bar at any moment, they do not get considered for receiving Instant Power. This way Instant Power will actually restore power to the 3 most fatigued players and not get falsely distributed to players with small power pools that have full power bars. Also, people with Reserve Tank and larger power bars in general will be able to receive Instant Power until their bars are full. And finally, players that are T5 and above will receive Instant Power when their power is higher than the level of the players with the 3 smallest power pools when they are full. My solution addresses all the problems.

Conclusion: In no way is this virtual power cap raid breaking. All content can be run with this in play. But, this does cause an inconsistency with the description of Instant Power. There is no reason that people with small power bars should be considered as fatigued when their bar is full. If my fix is put in the threads about Reserve Tank being glitched will stop and less geared Controllers will be able to keep power flowing better for higher geared players. This fix should be easy to do and be extremely valuable for the whole community. The test I did to verify my theory will be posted bellow.

I like your observations and ideas. Personally, I would love it if they changed it to all 7 players instead of the lowest 3. I'm very interested in everyone's thoughts though, can't wait to read more tomorrow.

Hmmmm

The Instant Power Virtual Power Cap test:

This test was done with 5 players.
Player # 1: Power pool size of 1050 (smallest power pool)
Player # 2: Power pool size of 2847
Player # 3: Power pool size of 2944
Player # 4: Power pool size of 3311
Player # 5: Controller that is distributing Instant Power (1722 Vit => base Instant Power Heal of 273 to 3 players)

Steps:
1. Instruct all player to attack the sparring target to go into combat mode.
2. Player #1 is instructed to keep his power bar full while Player #2, #3 and #4 are instructed to empty their power bar as much as possible.
3. Players 1-4 line up so that they are clearly visible. This should be done away from the sparring target so that they do not get power from them.
4. Player # 5 gives Instant Power to the group. After each IPH he must take note of how many players receive Instant Power.
5. Repeat step 4 until power bars are full.

Results:
1st IPH: Players 2, 3 and 4 received the IPH of 273
2nd IPH: Players 2, 3 and 4 received the IPH of 273
3rd IPH: Player 2, 3 and 4 received the IPH of 273
*4th IPH: Only players 2 and 4 received the IPH of 273
*5th IPH: Only players 2 and 3 received the IPH of 273
*6th IPH: Only players 3 and 4 received the IPH of 273
etc.

This test verifies the theory I described in the OP and is completely repeatable .
(I took of my Chest, Legs, Necklace, Shoulders and Head to minimize my crit power heals)

Outstanding thread.

ok so now we have proof i think its safe to say...fix please !!!!!

You should put a link to your Arkham bug version of this thread

Thank you. I figured it out on Friday and have been itching to get the testing done and post this. Hopefully it gets the traction it deserves and the devs put this fix in.

Good idea. Here is the link to the bug report. Please go there and upvote it so that the devs have more chance of seeing this issue and fixing it.

Sounds precisely how I would have tackled this, darth. Good work.

Seems your results reflect what I predicted as well.


A good note for the community out the there is although this bug does exist, the number of times it actually occurs and robs the group of power is very low. In order for this test to even take place, the low power bar (player 1) is pretty much a naked toon. Furthermore, the problem only occurs when less than 3 players have less power than the person with the lowest power stat AND that player has full power.

If this does occur, it means the group is aleady very adequately powered anyways. Although the fix would be great, the playerbase does need to keep in mind how small this affects a group, and not go overboard on the exaggerations. The proof is clearly here, just do not try to make outlandish remarks or observations stretching the truth.

Quite a bit to ask from some forumgoers, but once in awhile, a very effective experiment is carried out and a great writeup is presented here. Hopefully people do not ruin this one.

Thanks Gunny. It was nice to get the test done and see that my theory was accurate. Although this isn't game/raid breaking, I believe the fix could help a lot of the community.

I read this and am still..

The only time I see this particular problem affect a group is when a controller is not aware of how the power mechanics work. I have seen controllers say, "Why can't I give the healer power?" when the healer has less than 100% power but more than 80%. Those same controllers will often continue to spam instant trying to give the healer power and thus reducing their own power bar sometimes at the expense of the other controller(s) in the group. That can result in power problems for the group due to the controllers being depleted.

Most controllers are aware of the bug presented in this thread. It is usually only new controllers or players who have switched powers with a respec token and become controllers late in the game that make mistakes trying to fill power bars that are essentially full. For those players, the change proposed here would help prevent those players from hurting the group.

Great post Darth. What throws a lot of people off (especially controllers) is that the power bar below your name is a reflection of the percentage of power left, not a numerical value, but the instant recharge only looks at numerical values. Most of us don't go into raids knowing what everyone's numerical value is, so maybe the devs could implement something where the UI also shows a number near the power bar. A half power bar of someone with a power pool of 4000 is not the same as someone with a power pool of 2000 - the person with 4000 wouldn't see a recharge until they went below 2000 (and this is assuming there were more than 3 with only 2000 power) , and that is also assuming the 2000 guys never used any power, which is unlikely. This is why sometimes it appears that upwards of 30% of someone's power bar cannot be refilled because their power pool is so much higher than the others (especially with reserve tank).

The devs should definitely investigate this, or at least change the wording of instant recharge - someone who has a full power bar is not fatigued.

*Wipes single tear*

Thank you

Indeed, the only cases this appears is when a recharge is applied when power is already adequate (everyone but two people already have more power than the lowest power bar's value in the group), OR if you are carrying an individual and their gear is absolutely terrible - in which I would advise them to simply sit out of Line of Sight of the group if they are not contributing at all.

Walk-ins, and poor trolling decisions cause the issue more than 99% of the time, the test done here being an example of an absolute extreme case of a walk-in.

However, many controllers are actually NOT aware of this issue. Here is why:

The problem this test addresses was actually developed in a thread questioning the reserve tank chest mod for controllers. A few people argued that the mod itself is not glitched even though it does not receive power transfers. This test both confirms that this bug exists AND that the reserve tank mod - the mod people widely regard as a poor decision for anyone to use - is actually a very viable option for controlling, and the problem lies with the power transfer moves themselves.

This test provides solid evidence now that proves the reserve tank mod has no issues.

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For those looking to minimize the effect this has in regular gameplay, simply realize that assuming all players in a group have similar levels of gear, your tanks will have the lowest power bar max, DPS and trolls can be pretty similar (though trolls will probably have higher values because they are more likely to spend SP in power, mod for power, and the reserve tank mod), and healers will have the highest power bar max.

Therefore, it is most likely that if this problem occurs, it will always happen because either your tank or one of your DPS are fully powered and everyone else has more power than they do. If that point occurs, it will mean that only two, one, or perhaps even zero people will receive your power transfer and it will still have the same power amount as if it was split between 3 people. Use judgement with your power transfers instead of simply spamming, and you'll never encounter this.

Sadly, the best system for blue bars is what they have now.

To convert blue bars to represent numerical values would mean they would need to reflect them by adjusting the lengths of that blue bar on every player.

Considering that blue bar can vary quite a bit from player to player (i think the range is somewhere around 1000 power to as high as around 6000 max), doing such an adjustment will make the game much more awkward to play to relieve such a small problem with power transfers.

Yeah I definitely would not want to see them change the length of the blue bars, just have a small number next to the bar, so I could monitor numerical values rather than a falsified percentage. Would also be great to have a numerical value next to health bars - a lot of healers get thrown off when they see a rage or fire tank drop to 50% health and start panicking, but not realize that their health pool is now double what it originally started as.

Not sure about that either :X

Having to look at 7 other numerical values in the thousands (what you would be looking at to gauge other player's power or health in this case), would prove to work far too slow for how fast you will need to react in this game :/

Obviously numbers are absolutely essential in mechanism calculations, but keeping as many numbers off the screen as possible during gameplay is always a good thing.


I am not trying to sit and shoot down ideas, just there really is not a visual fix to this problem. Either the modification in the transfer mechanism to omit full power bars in dictating who is needy will fix the problem, or educating the populace to mitigate the effects the problem causes is all we can do :l

Fair enough. I guess we'll agree to disagree then. Other games pull this off quite nicely, and perhaps they could add it as something that is toggle-able.

Toggle-able isnt bad.

Putting in those numbers is likely going to result in the game being too complex for the type of gamers DCUO caters to.


Me individually, I would have no problems with your suggestion at all. The average joe playing the game though does not really look much more into numbers in this game past a stat-sheet, how fast damage happens visually (not even a numerical value of Damage/second, just how fast a boss/NPC's die), and a PoT tick.

Most do not even attempt to learn what all of the numbers mean, find mathematical relations to optimize performance, or anything involving those numbers. To put them on the screen, although useful to you, myself, and a few others running around, is something that would not go over well with the other 98% of the playerbase :S