Wonderslug

Hopefully this is the last time this will need to be reposted due to forum changes.

A NOTE TO PREVENT CONFUSION: STANDARD, NON-CUSTOM ARCHVILLAINS TYPICALLY APPEAR ONLY IN THE BOSS OBJECTIVE LIST, NOT IN THE CUSTOM GROUP CREATION LIST. If you don't see them in the custom group list, it's because they aren't there.

For reference, and hopefully for devs to confirm/explain/rectify as appropriate, this is a compiled list of all the critters apparently missing from the Mission Architect (specifically, the custom faction creation and boss spawn placement tools) that I've noticed myself or seen reported elsewhere. Also listed are clear bugs with level ranges and other critter-related issues.

Note that some missing foes or factions may be intended as unlockable content that hasn't been added yet. Some things we know have deliberately been omitted, and others have probably been deliberately omitted for mostly easily-guessed reasons, which are noted below.

Also of note is that at some point during beta, the MA began filtering the lists of critters by the "official" level range of their groups. Anything that exists wholly outside that range will not display. For example, Serafina belongs to the Legacy Chain, which caps at 30. However, since her minimum level is 45, she no longer appears in the MA. While this is presumably working as designed it is hopefully not as intended, and I'm classing all such instances as bugs.

This list was to the best of my knowledge accurate as of 4/15, but I'm sure I've missed things since then, so if I have left something out, or included anything that is actually present in the MA, please add to the list.

Critters Filtered Out by Level Range:
<ul type="square">[*]Coralax &gt; The high-level version of Calystix the Shaper (AV) used in Mako's arc is 40-54, but Coralax cap at 31.[*]Crey &gt; All 15-29 and 25-29 Crey are unavailable because Crey are listed as 30-54.[*]Legacy Chain &gt; Serafina (AV) is 40-54, but Legacy Chain cap at 30.[*]Rikti &gt; The versions of the Rikti Commander (CoH beta event AV) below 30 do not display, as 30 is the minimum level for Rikti.[*]Scrapyarders &gt; Sea Witch (6-12 boss version) does not appear because Scrapyarders have a minimum level of 20.[*]Trolls &gt; Troll Bodyguard (46-52 EB); not available as Trolls cap at 20. [*]Tsoo &gt; Tub Ci (45-54 AV); not available as Tsoo cap at 40.[*]Warriors &gt; Agamemnon (46-52 EB); Not available as Warriors cap at 29. [/list]
Missing Critters:
<ul type="square">[*]General: Nearly all costumed hero/villain bosses (Paragon City Heroes, Rogue Isles Villains, Civic Squad, Theodora Marcone, Biopulse, etc.) are not available. See Missing Unique Bosses at the end of this document for a full breakdown. [*]Antimatter &gt; He and his whole faction are not present.[*]Cap au Diable Gremlins: Not present.[*]Council &gt; Arakhn: the 24-28 version used on the Moonfire TF is missing after the 3/6 patch. The 45+ version is present.[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Swarms and Devouring Swarms are missing.[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Lattice and Quarry Giant Monsters are present with the appropriate unlock pack, but Thorn and Stropharia are missing as of 3/13.[*]Ghosts: Level 40+ versions are present, but the lower-level ghosts that show up in Croatoa and the Ghost Ship event are not.[*]Halloween critters: The Coven and Unseelie Court groups and the special vampire, werewolf, and spirit mobs are not available.[*]Hydra &gt; Hatched Kraken: AV/Monster in the Sewer trial is missing; however, the Giant Monster Kraken from Perez Park is included.[*]Loyalists &gt; Only Random Lieutenant and Random Boss are available as lieutenants and bosses in the custom group creator and boss objective list.[*]Independent &gt; Radio; Television AV.[*]Malta &gt; Slinger, AV in the LRSF.[*]Red Caps &gt; Snaptooth missing.[*]Tormented Victim &gt; Johnny Sonata's Soul; Johnny Sonata AV, possibly not its real faction.[*]WISDOM &gt; Foreshadow: AV in Scirocco's Hammer of the World arc.[*]WISDOM &gt; Mirror Spirit: AV in Scirocco's Hammer of the World arc.[*]Uncertain &gt; Fusionette's low-level version from the Faultline arcs is not available.[/list]
Level Range Bugs:
<ul type="square">[*]Carnies: Though a 30-54 faction, the default Carnie group will not spawn anything below 40 for hero teams.[*]Crey: The listed faction level range is narrower than the actual range of critters, which cover all levels 15-54.[*]Family: The default Family faction labeled 5-40 behaves erratically against hero players. If the mission ought to spawn foes between 30 and 39, the MA will not spawn the CoV Marcone Family mobs to fit that level range, but will instead spawn standard CoH Family mobs at 29 and/or 40.[*]Freakshow: Standard Freakshow now erroneously cap at 45 in the custom group list; there are multiple Freakshow missions all the way up to 50 from Unai Kemen and others, so this is definitely wrong. All of the following cap at 45 in the MA, but go to 50+ in the "real" world: Juicer Freak, Metal Smasher, Metal Swiper, Stunner Freak, Juicer Chief, Champion Smasher, Champion Swiper, Stunner Chief, Tank Smasher, Tank Swiper. "Random" works correctly all the way to 50 in custom group creation, but assigning a random boss will cap the mission at 45.[*]Snakes: Their listed range is 1-52, but there are no Snake minions or lieutenants between 34 and 46, only a single boss. Suggest these be split into two factions or the gap plugged.[*]Wailers: The listed faction level range is 35-40, but should actually be 30-40.[/list]
Other Critter Bugs
<ul type="square">[*]Longbow: Indigo is missing the Resistance power common to all AVs (and has been since she was introduced).[*]Malta: The Tac Ops Commander has been named "Tac Ops CommanderS" for over four years now. It just bugs me, is all [*]Peacebringer: Sunstorm is missing the Resistance power common to all AVs (and has been since he was introduced).[/list]
Other Issues That Are Not Necessarily Bugs:
<ul type="square">[*]Archvillains: Any archvillain with a single-level level range (e.g., 52-52) will never degrade to Elite Boss rank.[*]Banished Pantheon: There is a level 30-39 availability gap, despite the fact that their powers don't change at all when they reappear at 40. Inability to spawn Lts on demand means you can't have any named human members of the faction.[*]Devouring Earth: The weakened Hamidon Mitochondria are identified correctly as lieutenants in text, but appear in the Boss tab when editing groups.[*]Devouring Earth: Greater Devoured cap at 49. Why?[*]Family: The five-level gap between 40 and 45 is rather silly and needlessly limiting.[*]Peacebringer: Nearly three years after the release of Issue 7, Sunstorm still looks exactly like a generic PPD boss instead of using his own model.[*]Tsoo: Tub Ci has a level range of 45-54 due to his appearance in Viridian's arc. Not a bug, but has the unfortunate side effect that he can never be used in the same mission as his own faction, which caps at 40. This assumes we get him back. Can we please have him back?[*]Nictus: Voids are classified internally as Nictus, but in-game spawn with the faction name "Void Hunters"; possible source of confusion.[*]General: The few available Giant Monsters spawn at their natural level, despite GM level scaling, which may artificially constrain the level range of missions. I'm guessing there's no easy solution to this.[/list]
Confirmed deliberately omited, for the time being:
<ul type="square">[*]Cimerorans &gt; Surgeons (defenseless)[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Hamidon (size)[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Weakened Hamidon (size)[*]Malta &gt; Kronos Titan (size)[*]Nictus &gt; Shadow Cyst (exploitability?)[*]Rikti &gt; All mothership raid versions (exploitability)[*]Soldiers of Rularuu &gt; Lanaruu the Mad (size)[*]Soldiers of Rularuu &gt; Faathim the Kind (size)[*]Soldiers of Rularuu &gt; Ruladak the Strong (size)[/list]
Probably intentionally omitted:
<ul type="square">[*]Arachnos &gt; Jade Spider: Mender Silos AV; probable size issues. (Also, pure evil.)[*]Bat'Zul &gt; Bat'Zul the Imprisoned: Tarikoss AV; size issues?[*]Circle of Thorns &gt; Thorn Tree: Villain Respec/STF AV; map-specific design issues?[*]Coralax &gt; Eye of the Leviathan gone as of 3/13--probably size and/or map-specific design.[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Crystal Titan: Eden trial AV/Monster; probable size issues and unique damage type.[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Jurassik: Numina AV/Monster; probable size issues.[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Mold Wall: Eden trial AV; probable size issues, plus map-specific design.[*]Devouring Earth &gt; Rock Wall: Eden trial AV; probable size issues, plus map-specific design.[*]Hydra &gt; (Head of the) Hydra: Sewer trial AV, invincible without mission-specific temp powers.[*]Hydra &gt; Tentacle: minion, lieutenant, and boss; possibly left out because they would look awfully silly emerging from, say, a warehouse floor, but apparently they will spawn using the default Hydra faction.[*]Malta &gt; The version of Hercules Titans with the Merge power has been removed, presumably to stop it merging indiscriminately with the player, killing them, when used as an ally.[*]Nictus &gt; All of Romulus's AV kooshes are absent, possibly because only one of them can defend itself conventionally.[*]Nictus &gt; The assorted Unbound Nictus foes are not available independently; they have an auto power that eventually kills them if they are away from a Shadow Cyst for too long, which is obviously problematic if they are spawned alone. Possible to get non-self-destructing versions?[*]Zombie Apocalypse critters: Possibly omitted because they spawn only at level 30, despite GM damage scaling.[/list]
Missing Unique Bosses
Civic Squad (Westin Phipps bosses)
<ul type="square">[*]Decibelle[*]Dr. Psychotron[*]Electrixie[*]Energeist[*]Gravidian[*]Max Action[*]Mechannie[*]The Quest[/list]
Infected
<ul type="square">[*]Biopulse (boss, Dr. Creed)[/list]
Krylov's Creations
<ul type="square">[*]Electroshock (boss, Dmitri Krylov)[*]Experiment 236 (boss, Dmitri Krylov)[/list]
Longbow
<ul type="square">[*]Brikhaus (boss, Efficiency Expert Pither)[*]Dr. Advance (boss, Technician Naylor)[*]Salvo (boss, Mage-Killer Zukhara)[*]Ether (boss, Operative Rutger)[*]The Ranger (boss, Peter Themari)[*]Theadora Marcone (boss, Jezebel Jones)[*]Shockstorm (boss, Operative Renault SF)[*]Ace McKnight (elite boss, Willy Wheeler and Captain Mako)[*]Agent X (elite boss, Archmage Tarixus)[*]Blue Phazer (elite boss, Operative Vargas)[*]Golden Sphinx (elite boss, Operative Vargas)[*]Leoknight (elite boss, Operative Vargas)[/list]
Miscellaneous
<ul type="square">[*]Charlie Biggs (boss, Terrence Dobbs)[*]Dr. Aeon? (lieutenant, Marshal Brass)[*]Kadabra Kill (boss, Darrin Wade)[*]Mender Lazarus (boss (ally), The Pilgrim)[*]Professor Echo (elite boss, Marshal Brass)[*]Sigil (boss, Darrin Wade)[*]Trapdoor (boss, Operative Grillo)[/list]
Paragon City Heroes (mayhem bosses)
<ul type="square">[*]Arc Flash[*]Blast Furnace[*]Cacophony[*]Doc Quantum[*]Flambeaux[*]Holo Man[*]Ms. Shock[*]No Mind[*]Overdrive[*]Polar Shift[*]Rosethorn[*]Sky Dragon[*]Stalwart[/list]
Rogue Isles Villains (safeguard/Statesman TF bosses)
<ul type="square">[*]Ayame Higarashi[*]Bad Penny[*]Blood Thorn[*]Burning Daemon[*]Comatorium[*]Comrade[*]Contemptress[*]Critical Mass[*]Dark Sabaoth[*]Dr. Eva Lone[*]Double Tap[*]Echidna[*]Fallen From Grace[*]Giga Watts[*]Hollow Point[*]Icecap[*]Mangle[*]Martial Gloom[*]Misadventure[*]Miss Thystle[*]Pyra[*]Pyrelord[*]Sardonic[*]Savage Siren[*]Shock Treatment[*]Silent Blade[*]Stardusk[*]Towering Inferno[/list]

[ QUOTE ]
Ah, thanks. I knew she had to be in there somewhere. I really hope we get her and other such characters as a "built-in" option later on. I hate spending my precious space on yet another custom character, but it's just so appropriate that she gets a cameo in the arc I'm working on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Serafina is, technically, there. The problem is the MA now filters out anything wholly outside a faction's listed level range, so she's inaccessible: Legacy Chain cap at 30, but Serafina's level range is 45-54, so it pretends she doesn't exist.

This is also why we're missing Tub Ci and all the lowbie CoV Crey that cap at 29 (though the clones from the Silver Mantis SF cap at 30, and thus partially overlap and display).

Actually, while I haven't done exhaustive cross-checking, every custom critter mez power I've examined has had at least slightly lower base strength than the player equivalent. Blind, since you mentioned it, is scale 8 on the ranged immobilize table for custom critters, but scale 10 for players (and Carnies). For Fossilize, it's scale 8 versus scale 12 for players. Confuse got hit super hard (probably justifiably), down to scale 5, compared to players' scale 20.

In any case, in all the time I've spent futzing with custom critters I have never found a minion capable of permaholding anything, at any level. Immobilizes, yes; those last nearly twice as long and recharge in half the time.

[ QUOTE ]
unintended results.


[/ QUOTE ]

You've evidently never paid much attention to the spawning habits of the groups you already fight. Council alway spawn more that usual. Lost spawn bosses easily. So do Tsoo, which also tend to have an extra minion. Vahzilok cadavers and abominations tend to pop up in fours rather than threes, even on the lowest difficulty.

We can't emulate any of that. All custom groups--even those made up entirely of existing critters--use the generic catch-all spawn profile, which is plaid-pajamas boring. There is no excuse for a spawn to ever consist of a single lieutenant, which is what often ends up happening, even on difficulty 2 or 4.

It's credible that abusability is one (but only one) reason we have no control over spawn weight. But it's nothing short of hilarious to suggest that using MA objectives and settings to do exactly what they say they are supposed to do is creating "unintended results," especially given the fact that the number of allowed ambushes just doubled, and the devs themselves touted the ability to theoretically spawn an AV or EB at every spawn point in a map during their live press preview.

[ QUOTE ]

I forget if there's other instances of "The MAGI vault has been broken into!" in CoH lore, but still, those two incidents don't exactly inspire confidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's also the Talisman of Po incident, where she sends you to a Sooper Sekret Safehouse because even the MAGI vaults aren't secure enough to keep it away from Nemesis!

Three guesses what the safehouse is crammed to the rafters with upon your arrival. "I have to tell you, Azuria's feeling a little embarrassed after sending you into that trap," indeed.

And while I'm here I may as well toss this on the pile, since the only feedback I have is from friends, a random "5 for 5," and a commentless 1-star.

Author: @Wonderslug
Level Range: I recommend 30-40, but 25-50 works. One mission caps at 45 thanks to a level range bug with Freakshow.
Subject: A business-minded demon offers handy tools of the villainous trade at low, low prices.
Arc #: 4178
Name: Wholesale Soul Sale

The Adamastor you fought is an Archvillain and is available to everyone. Look under Objectives &gt; Fight a Boss &gt; Banished Pantheon (40-54).

GM Adamastor is not available. The only GMs available are the Kraken, the Ghost of Scrapyard, and two of the four DE monsters if you buy the DE monster unlock pack.

Test: 17355
Live: 4178

Had to cut a custom critter to make it fit on live.

For Wholesale Soul Sale (which has a totally serious skeleton despite despite abundant comedy flesh) I started with the assumption that the player has already heard the basic sales pitch (the brief arc description) and has taken the first step of asking for more information.

The initial contact dialog is the timeshare presentation: you provide the labor and snare a few souls for me, and I will secure four basic tools of villainy for you: a maguffin, a patsy in a position of authority, an assortment of goons, and an ace up your sleeve. What the player wants to do with those four things, and why, is left wholly open, since the focus is on the acquisition.

Of course if the sales pitch isn't convincing enough, you can always say "No thanks," but those are such basic Bad Guy Tools they can potentially work for just about any concept.

[ QUOTE ]

As far as I'm aware, Light Form doesn't root you, but I don't recall it specifically blocking all other combat roots. However, I'm not in a position to test that at the moment. If it does have that behavior, its almost certainly due to some weird Kheldian mode bug and not deliberate. I'll certainly take a closer look at it at some point when I have more time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can confirm that Light Form essentially unroots everything.

I'm going off very hazy memories here, but from what I recall the Big Floaty Glowball look of LF is technically a bug, but it proved popular enough with players that the I3-era dev team decided to leave it in in favor of whatever it was really supposed to look like.

I haven't looked in a demo file to see what's happening with Light Form, but I assume it works like dwarf or nova and actually swaps the player model out entirely. I'm guessing, at least originally, the model was missing or misnamed, resulting in a glob of FX hovering around some best-guess node. Either way, my more or less uneducated guess is that when the game says "Hey, play the animation for Incandescent Strike!" the animation system looks at whatever model or lack thereof Light Form uses, says "Uh, dude, there's nothing here to animate," and decides to chuck the whole thing.

Sadly, I can totally imagine certain parties circa I3 seeing nothing wrong with that. We're probably lucky peacebringers don't turn into Col. Burkholder.

(Actually--hazy memory again--wasn't there a problem long ago where kheldians sometimes turned into Mek Men?)

You may also want to look at the Bane power Poisonous Ray, which not only doesn't root but doesn't actually appear to have an animation at all. I may have seen it play an animation once. Once.

The "invalid level range" thing is a validation bug that had several of us ripping our hair out. It's all pohsyb's fault It should be fixed sometime in the next patch or three.

The most common cause is using a battle where the second group restricts the level range of the mission, but currently that check is not being made correctly. Swapping the order of the groups may help. There are, however, other more esoteric things that can cause it.

I've got updates for claws and a few other things, but I've been putting off publishing an update until I13 patch notes are up, mostly because trying to work the claws DPA functions into the damage calculator is resulting in formulas that, viewed from the right angle, will summon Cthulu.

It's not all DoT, no, just the ones listed as "x% chance." The most common is 80%, which covers most relevant fire, spines, and thorn attacks, followed by 90%, and there's at least one 75% (the Jounin's poison dart, I think) and one 99% (Inferno). It's limited to situations where the DoT is "bonus" damage, and I can't think of any examples that are not either fire or toxic. It looks like Plant Control is the only controller set that has to worry about it at all, and all in pet powers: the two vine attacks, plus Bite, Fling Thorns, and Thorny Darts from the Fly Trap.

(Tomax just fixed the selection menu at CoD, by the way.)

I missed your reply to my reply about CC in the other thread because it largely degenerated into a pile of epic failure and I stopped paying attention; I'll respond here since the last thing I want to do is bump it back to the front page

[ QUOTE ]

I don't know how to work with damage scale figures as CoD lists them, but no, the numbers I provided are from the actual damage listing, not the damage scale. Vine Smash @L50 lists:

0.2 Smashing damage
4 * 0.1 Toxic damage over 4.00 seconds (after 0.5 second delay) (90% chance)

The figure I summed up to was: .2 + (4 * 0.1 * 0.9) = 0.56

As for the other business, yes, vine smash and thorns are not listed as auto-hit despite the %chance on the toxic component, and I assume what you mean by cancel-on-miss is that it doesn't go off anyway 90% of the time despite missing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that's not an actual damage listing, though. CoD doesn't handle modifiers for pets. Take another look at the listing for Vine Smash: under power effects, note that the only option in the archetype selector is "Unspecified." "Unspecified" values are always, always, always raw scalar values. You can verify this by looking at the Unspecified values for pretty much any non-pet power: they're going to be far too low to be actual numbers, and more importantly if you change the level you'll note they are identical from 1-50.

Plus in the detail column it says "PvE damage scale 0.56000."

And if you're still not convinced, just type [Creeper Vine.Vine Smash] in game, set level to 50, set archetype to Blaster, Stalker, or SoA; pets share a 1.0 melee modifier with them.

As for cancel-on-miss, that's a DoT property that says "if a tick misses, cancel the rest of the DoT." That means 4 ticks, 90% chance, cancel-on-miss, means a 10% chance of no bonus damage, a 65.61% chance of four ticks of damage, and an average of 3.1 ticks per application. CoD doesn't handle cancel-on-miss correctly; it treats the whole thing as all or nothing.

In other words, you're seriously underestimating the damage output of the vines. The spreadsheet in my sig handles damage scale conversion and cancel-on-miss averaging automatically, which was why I pointed to it originally.

New version is now available from the link in the original post.

Version 1.2

*Energy Transfer activation time changed to 2.67. Affected sets:
Brute &gt; Energy Melee
Stalker &gt; Energy Melee
Tanker &gt; Energy Melee

*Activation time for all powers using the Brawl animation changed to 0.83. Affected sets:
Blaster &gt; Electricity Manipulation &gt; Charged Brawl
Blaster &gt; Energy Manipulation &gt; Energy Punch
Brute &gt; Dark Melee &gt; Shadow Punch
Brute &gt; Energy Melee &gt; Energy Punch
Brute &gt; Electric Melee &gt; Charged Brawl
Scrapper &gt; Dark Melee &gt; Shadow Punch
Stalker &gt; Dark Melee &gt; Shadow Punch
Stalker &gt; Energy Melee &gt; Energy Punch
Stalker &gt; Electric Melee &gt; Charged Brawl
Tanker &gt; Dark Melee &gt; Shadow Punch
Tanker &gt; Energy Melee &gt; Energy Punch

*Fixed a problem with some Scrapper Fire Melee powers that incorrectly doubled their critical damage
*Fixed a problem with Blaster/Corruptor &gt; Assault Rifle &gt; Flamethrower that caused it to display 0 damage

*Added support for real-world cast time estimations in the DPA section, per Arcanaville's formula

Version 1.1 is now available from the link in the original post.

Changes:
* Fixed an error that caused some sets to spazz out in OpenOffice.
* Controller &gt; Stone Mastery &gt; Hurl Boulder cast time corrected.
* Martial Arts cast times updated according to the current test patch.
* One Thousand Cuts cast time corrected.
* Missing DPA formulas in the Sandbox section added.
* Fixed missing text in the Critical/Containment/Scourge box comments.
* Damage/Endurance/Recharge estimator now handles AoE attacks and can be set to use either the "classic" formula or the experimental formulas that factor in cast time.
* Damage slotting is now a free-entry box. Values over 95 (the ED soft cap) are supported but not recommended.
* Rearranged the configuration options. Hopefully they flow more logically.

[ QUOTE ]
So I upgraded to OpenOffice 2.4 and it mostly works. For some reason the scrapper, stalker and SoA sets don't seem to work right. It gives Err:502 for the damage scale for the powers.


[/ QUOTE ]

...huh. So it does. That is really peculiar and I have no idea why. If it were doing it for *all* sets that would at least make some degree of sense. I'll see if I can figure it out and upload a new version. I've got cast time updates and some other changes made and waiting to be posted as well.

Edit: Found it! I got lazy and left a bunch of fields blank for things like bonus DoT and fire damage crits for sets that lack them. Excel either ignores blank fields or treats them as zero if they get referenced in a lookup table, but OpenOffice coughs up an error. I'll get that fixed in the next day or two.

It won't do resistance or resistance debuffs. It'd be fairly easy to add, I think, with one caveat: the spreadsheet doesn't track separate damage types except for fire (because Fiery Embrace is weird), so it'd have to be a blanket resistance.

The enemy resistance spreadsheet (most recent update) is Culex's and seems to be updated fairly regularly.

This started out, about a month ago, as a quick little tool to let me see what would happen to one powerset with some modifier tweaks. Partially inspired by Arcanaville's Every Armorset etc. spreadsheet, it quickly went from a simple "What if I..." to "Let's learn about the intricacies of Excel by leaping head-first into shark-infested waters." Specifically, it turned into a tool to look at every damaging powerset across all archetypes, with options to muck around with modifiers and damage buffs. No doubt Excel gurus can find things I could have done more simply or more elegantly, but considering the most complex thing I've done with a spreadsheet in the past was a gradebook with weighted averages, I think it turned out okay.

As for what you might want to use it for, well, there's always poking around with likely powerset proliferation candidates. It's a good way to get a general overview of several powersets in rapid succession, compared to trawling through City of Data or futzing around with builds in Mids. And, if you're inclined to ponder suggestions like "Increase the damage modifiers for Archetype X from foo to bar, well, here's an easy way to tell roughly what that suggestion will actually do, which is what started me down this path of madness in the first place.

The information in this spreadsheet is current and correct (I hope) as of the time of this writing. The bulk of the data came from City of Data, last updated with the release of I12. In some cases the information available from City of Data has already been rendered out of date by patches or impending patches, and I have included the most current data, based on patch notes, dev posts, the in-game "real numbers," or reliable testing, to the best of my knowledge. That being said, there's gotta be at least a few errors in this thing, so feel free to point 'em out.

What this spreadsheet does

• Calculates the damage of every damage-dealing power in every player powerset (unless I missed some), for any archetype (including henchmen and pets), for levels 1-50.
  
• Calculates DPA for each attack (excluding rain/location AoE powers). Toggle powers and effects that don't really have an activation time per se are assumed to have an activation time of 1--that is, DPA = Damage. That makes sense to me, but if there's a better option I'd be glad to hear it.
  
• Calculates the effect of nearly every self-affecting damage buff in the game. I may have missed some, and there's no specific handling for Fury, inspirations, IO set bonuses, Kheldian link bonuses, or veteran kamikaze--I mean, buff pets. There is, however, a box you can plug extra damage buff numbers into, so knock yourself out.
  
• Handles pets and henchmen.
  
• Provides options for dealing with bonus DoT: none, average, or maximum. This applies to "cancel on miss" DoT that may or may not occur; guaranteed DoT is rolled into the base damage of powers.
  
• Provides a sandbox for hypothetical powers or comparing values plugged in from different powersets.
  
• Calculates damage/endurance/recharge, given any one of those three, based on the standard damage formula.

What this spreadsheet does, but not especially elegantly

• Critical hit/containment/scourge damage. This is an on-or-off setting, because the conditions required are so widely varied between archetypes and/or difficult to average realistically.
  
• Powers that use "pseudo-pets" to deal damage. Powers that apply a single shot of damage, like Fallout, Lightning Rod, or Trip Mine, are grouped together in the "Petlike Summons" category. Because these powers use pet damage modifiers, there's no way to include them in the normal AT powerset display without a ton of ugly kludges and/or hardcoding, both of which I want to avoid (and believe me, some of those formulas are very ugly already). Powers that create a persistent entity that deals damage at specified intervals, like Burn or Blizzard, function so differently from normal powers that the only real way to deal with them was to give them their own section. (Technically, some of the "single shot" powers I listed above function this way too, but that way madness lies. Just pretend the division is nice and neat and we'll gloss over it because the end result is the same, but with less gibbering along the way.)

What this spreadsheet does not do (yet)

• Damage procs. Should be relatively easy to add if people want it.
  
• Temporary powers. Ditto.
  
• Scale with multiple targets for AoE powers. May involve some gibbering on my part, but doable.
  
• Attack chains. You're on your own for that.
  
• Resistance or resistance debuffs. Unlikely to change.

Using the spreadsheet

To use the basic functionality of the spreadsheet the only things you actually need to bother with are the three big pulldown menus along the top. The first one is for archetype, which determines the modifiers that are used. The second is for archetype powerset groups (blaster sets, dominator sets, etc.), and the third selects individual powersets within those groups. Pets and mastermind henchmen are all found in the "Pets" category of the second menu, and should use the Pet or various Henchman archetypes if you want to see how much damage they'll actually do in game.

Green boxes will accept any number typed into them; as a general rule these should probably be sane numbers, but if you feel pathologically compelled to see what happens to Energy Transfer with a melee damage modifier of 6,537, don't let me stop you.

Most of the sheet should be self explanatory, and it's fairly liberally commented, so check the comment boxes for additional guidance.

Where the heck is it?

Right here.

Other notes

The spreadsheet appears to be fully functional in Open Office, although it's rather ugly and some of the conditional formatting goes something something. It also seems to insist on being opened in read-only mode, which is a bit of a problem since the sheet won't actually work in read-only mode so far as I can tell; you'll have to flip it to edit mode to, say, use the pulldown menus.

Some of the formulas used in this sheet are spectacularly ugly. They all appear to work properly, but it's always possible there's some corner case somewhere that makes everything go wonky. That would be good to know about, if it happens.

Aside from data provided by Red Tomax via City of Data, this spreadsheet makes use of information and formulas posted by iakona, Arcanaville, Stupid_Fanboy, BackAlleyBrawler, and probably several other people I'm forgetting about. And also pohsyb, after a fashion, what with the in-game numbers and all. So, thanks.

Eh, I found myself typing out a lot of quotes to a friend on IM anyway, and didn't see any discussion or dev quotes floating around the other boards yet, so I figured I may as well copy/paste and and post. I'd done half the work already, so.

And part 2:

On inspiration conversion:
"So how about just let me change three into any other one, and so [pohsyb] was like, 'Yeah, it should take me about an hour.' Next thing I know, an hour later I've got the ability to cash in three of my inspirations for one other thing. Of course, you know, there were ten bugs associated with it, but we got those fixed in good time." (Castle: Greatest feature ever.)

On the power number displays:
"That's a feature I was kind of scared to put in, because a lot of players don't want to see all those number, and it's very intimidating for a lot of players. But on the other hand, more hardcore players live and die by those numbers, and they absolutely want to see them, so ultimately we just decided to go ahead and put it out there so if players don't want to see it, they don't have to look at it, but it is there for those who do want it."

On the empath badge:
"I put one too many zeroes on the thing, and by the time I realized that it was really absurdly hard to get, it was too late because people had already tried to get it and I didn't want to invalidate their play experience or the achievement they had earned. (Castle: That's the first time I've heard that story.) [...] Ten thousand Rikti monkeys changed when we changed the way--a core mechanic of the game changed, which was herding. Ten thousand Rikti monkeys was literally put in because you could herd a hundred Rikti monkeys at a time and kill them all."

On new power trays:
"I asked for a fourth power tray, and pohsyb turned around and said, 'Here's eight more.' [...] We use them a lot here internally in development because we have a lot of binds and macros to execute a bunch of slash commands that we have access to, and now with all the power trays we can have all our binds up at all times."

On the possibility of more than five costume slots:
"Yeah, there are thoughts behind that, [but] every slot we add, though, is tech, so we need to schedule the tech time to add the extra slots. And of course how you're going to get them, 'cause it can't just all be Halloween salvage."
"As our tech director keeps telling us, anything's possible with tech, it's just, you know, how long it's going to take to get done. So anything's possible. The sky's the limit. It's just the timeframes may not allow for things to happen."

On the Roman costumes:
"I was very happy with the Roman costumes. They were so well done that I didn't want them to just be given out in the normal costume creator--this had to be a reward of some sort. So since we were planning on doing the Roman zone, I held off releasing them for the longest time. They've been in the game for a long time, but I wanted to make sure they were actually given out in a memorable way."

On favorite I12 features:
Castle: "The villain epic archetypes. No question. I like how flexible they are, I like that you can basically do a respec and completely change the way your character plays. None of the other archetypes in the game really have that much flexibility."
Positron: "My favorite part of issue 12 would have to be 'the surprise' in the Timesaver(?) task force, and that's all I'm going to say."

On unlocking Rularuu weapons for villains:
"There's more than just Rularuu Overseers that will unlock that. Any story arc that you get a souvenir clue for that even touches the Shadow Shard will unlock those weapons."

[ QUOTE ]
can someone post the main points of the interview?

[/ QUOTE ]

Here are the main standout quotes that struck me from part 1. I'll get to part 2 after lunch.

On the subject of stalker PvE love:
"Funny, we actually just got out of a meeting discussing that exact topic. We've got some great ideas, I can't really talk about them here since we haven't even tested them yet, but we've definitely got some things that should probably be showing up on the training room fairly soon I hope [after issue 12 goes live]."

On the subject of continuing powerset proliferation:
"The first batch that we did is going to be the largest single batch that we do, but it's going to be an ongoing sort of process."
"It'll never be two issues in a row where we didn't proliferate something."

On the subject of empathy and villains:
"Villains, you know, we have a solution for them and their empathy problem that'll be coming in the next issue, but let's just say that the word 'empathy' is far, far, far away from that set."

On the subject of new IOs:
"IOs are like proliferated powersets; there may be an issue that goes by where we don't do any, but there won't be two issues in a row where there are none."

On the subject of plans to add purple sets to categories lacking them:
"Specific plans, right now, no. But there definitely is an opening there for us to add them, and it's a logical place for us to add more purple sets, so I wouldn't be very surprised if that's what ended up happening."

On player-created content:
"I actually can't say anything about it right now, but I have a feeling that at some point this summer I'll be able to talk all about it."

On the subject of how not to get the bug hunter badge:
"I've actually had to deny the bug hunter badge to a few people, simply because, you know, the bug they found was great, and when we did the logs we saw, wow, you tested that 800 times over two weeks and *then* you reported it."

On the subject of more SFs and the agony of Positron:
"I'm debating whether we should do more strike forces for the villains or we should fix the Positron task force first, so that's still up in the air. (DJ Jules: I've run that task force maybe three times, and I've been playing for three years. Positron: Wow, I didn't even run it three times when I was testing it.)[...] That task force was actually supposed to be two separate story arcs, and I was basically implementing it off of a story line, or two story lines that was written for the game, and, you know, just breaking down the story line into missions [...] and then it was like, oh, we can't actually put two different story lines on this one contact, you're going to have to make it one giant one. So, that's what I did, and now you all have to live with it. For now."

Some table somewhere seems to have gone horribly awry. For a lot ATs that I've looked at, damage is showing at a tenth of the unenhanced level 50 value. Stalker damage is displaying as 10 times the raw damage scalar value. A lot of mez durations are showing up far, far longer than they should--Brute &gt; Dark Melee &gt; Touch of Fear, for instance, says it lasts 135 seconds--probably that should be 13.5? Blaster Build Up is displaying 400% tohit and 1600% damage. Stalker Build Up is displaying 2000% tohit and 8000% damage.

[ QUOTE ]
I know there's number crunchers, and they're gonna love it (probably...some might not like having their stat-geek status lowered when anyone can get their own info), but doesn't making this game more mechanical or mathematical by showing numbers all the time kind of demystify things too much?

[/ QUOTE ]

Anyone who'd like to continue relying on vague, subjective, contextless, internally inconsistent, frequently outdated descriptors like "Heavy," "Long," "Minor," "Medium Slowish," "Fair-to-Middling," "Longer than Medium Slowish," "Summery Breezish" and "Like the Sound of One Hand Clapping" is perfectly welcome to do so.

As for stat geeks, everyone can get their own data now. City of Data's been around for five issues. (Understanding the data, now...)

Very nice. The costume thing seems like a pretty minor timesaver, but the numbers interface looks good, and the fact that you can scale the thing is wonderful. I just wish one of the screens showed how it deals with a really complicated power (like, say, Fiery Embrace or Carrion Creepers).

Ugh. Well, I'm not going to go off on any doom tangents before I've had a chance to see these in action firsthand, to say nothing of seeing what tweaks have occurred gamewide in I12. But initial reaction? Someone's been spiking the water coolers at NCNC.

[ QUOTE ]
Blaster
New Primary - Psychic Blast
New Secondary - Mental Manipulation

[/ QUOTE ]

Deep, deep reservations here, for the same reasons that have been brought up a zillion times. It's heartening to read Castle will be keeping a "very close eye" on it, but not very much, if only because of the time factor. Datamining takes time, and without datamining there's always the risk of poorly-tested kneejerk changes like we saw in the bad old days. On top of which the place this is most likely to be totally broken is PvP, and PvP-only issues have a long, long, long history of being ignored, backburnered, or casually dismissed. If that were not the case, I feel pretty damn sure EM would not have remained essentially unchanged for four years. My only hope there is the new hires.

[ QUOTE ]
Corruptor
New Primary - Electrical Blast
New Secondary - Storm Summoning

[/ QUOTE ]

Yay Storm. Elec...well, elec is thematically appropriate, I guess...

[ QUOTE ]
Controller
New Primary - Plant Control
New Secondary - Thermal Radiation

[/ QUOTE ]

...except apparently the "thematic pair" thing is totally gone by the wayside. Both fine sets, but I'm getting a very "lol, faction parity" vibe here.

[ QUOTE ]
Dominator
New Primary - Earth Control
New Secondary - Electricity Manipulation

[/ QUOTE ]

I assume that's supposed to be Electric Assault. That...has potential. That has potential to be awesome. That also has potential to suck, like, a lot. Too early to call.

Earth is, at least, an incredibly powerful PvE set.

Defender:
[ QUOTE ]

New Primary - Cold Domination
New Secondary - Ice Blast


[/ QUOTE ]

Called it. Also, "lol, faction parity." At least the slows won't be any stronger than the corruptor version, though pretty much everything else will.

[ QUOTE ]

Mastermind:
New Secondary - Storm Summoning

[/ QUOTE ]
The good MMs are going to be so far beyond indestructible it will pass through "not even funny" and emerge into a new, uncharted realm of hilarity. The bad MMs are going to be so bad they'll make the bad MMs of today look like a fusion of Sun Tzu and Stephen Hawking.

[ QUOTE ]
Brute:
New Primary - Battle Axe
New Primary - War Mace
New Secondary - Super Reflexes

[/ QUOTE ]

Weapon sets, yay. Long, long overdue.

SR...*sigh*. I've done SR once, and will never do it again because I strongly dislike sets that really, really want you to take everything, not because all the powers are compelling but because all the powers are virtually required to achieve something resembling functional parity with every other set.

[ QUOTE ]
Stalker:
New Primary - Electric Melee
New Secondary - Electric Armor

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd love to be proven wrong, but having played an ElM/ElA to 45 I cannot see any way that Elec Melee for stalkers will not utterly Fail It. No matter which two powers get yanked for AS and Placate (please for the love of all that's holy let one of them be Chain Induction), I can't see how the set's not going to end up even weaker than the brute version, which already needs help in my opinion. Single-target damage is really quite disheartening--the biggest ST attack in the set is really an AoE and it's saddled with far, far too long an animation for the damage it does--and AoEs are not guaranteed criticals. In fact, the set has exactly two single-target attacks, strictly speaking. On top of which, the first two powers are too sluggish to go for a chainsaw build, like tends to happen with DM. Lightning Rod is awesome, but the 90 second recharge blunts a lot of its appeal for me.

ElA has a lot of nice points, but being so very, very heavily reliant on pure resistance seems like a poor match for stalkers as an AT. A least it gets respectable psi resists.

[ QUOTE ]
Tank:
New Primary - Dark Armor
New Secondary - Dark Melee

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd rather have had elec, but no complaints.

[ QUOTE ]
Scrapper:
New Primary - Fiery Melee
New Secondary - Fiery Aura


[/ QUOTE ]

Conceptually speaking, this is neat and I approve.

Practically speaking, a fire/fire scrapper, with scrapper-level damage and scrapper-level damage buffs (unless it's changed, Fiery Embrace is going to be a 125% buff to fire damage), is going to melt a hole in the planet.

Overall? Meh. lol, faction parity. C, maybe C+. Now I can't decide if I should get my hopes up for VEATs and risk disappointment, or set my expectations somewhere in the subbasement and hope to be pleasantly surprised.