Diellan_
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Quote:The only issue with is that a lot of Controllers might ask to get Defender buff modifiers in exchange. And what about Corruptors?Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
To Defenders in general:
Change the Defender modifier for Hold, Sleep, Stun, Immobilize, Confusion and Fear to the Controller value. I mainly play Controllers but I still think this is only fair.
Given that mez powers aren't standardized at all, it's probably just easier to modify the powers with mezzes in them than changing the modifier; they're doing the same thing in the end, but people will find it easier to swallow (a lot of what we're doing here is about player perception).
I wish that were possible, but I don't think they can put in variable %chance without using the ModifyEffect thing they use for Dual Pistols and Fiery Embrace. If this experiment goes well and something productive comes out if, we intend to move on to other powerset types (including Ranged).Quote:To knockback:
Apply modifiers to knockback chance not just magnitude. This would somewhat redeem Energy Blast on Defenders in my eyes; still low damage but at least with more predictable knock.
An interesting alternative to upping Acid Arrow's debuff potential would be to grant it more damage of some kind, kind of an inverse to my suggestion regarding Repulsion Bomb. It currently does scale 0.2 toxic damage over a stupidly long 20 seconds; making it do scale 0.2 energy (or fire?) immediately would be kind of nice.Quote:To Trick Arrow:
Acid Arrow gets a few points of Energy damage so that it can be used to trigger Oil Slicks. (I mean come on.) -
Quote:Actually what would happen is that both powers would no longer be selectable and they'd add a new power at level 2 with whatever name (even if it is the same name). People who had their current powers would stay with their current power until they respec'd, at which point they'd swap to the new powers. They've done this before (I know somebody who has refused to respec her Sonic Defender in years because she didn't want to give up the old power order for exemping).Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
It's not really a possibility at all.
You can't combine two powers and replace one of them without breaking a LOT of people's characters?
What would happen to those people who have both powers? (practically everyone who has /Poison has both powers)
When they are combined/replaced would they have a hole in their build? How would that affect the character? Could you even log a character in that has a blank spot where they would have picked a level 2 or 4 power?
Would they automatically get the new power? If so, what happens to any IOs they had in the old power? If their enhancement tray is full they would probably just disappear.
This is the big reason. It skirts the Cottage Rule a bit in that the Poison user still has the same power as before, except now he does it as one click instead of two, and gets something new in addition. This is something I'd rather avoid unless Black Scorpion walks in here and says he wants to do it. :PQuote:Also, this violates rule #1 of the proposal: Not breaking the cottage rule. -
Awesome, Arcanaville has already started to weigh in.
Quote:I've considered that, and I seriously doubt that the Devs are going to smack down Freezing Rain and Sleet after all this time, especially after they just gave Dominators a version of it in their epics without toning it down. Garent and I had a long argument about it, and in the end I agreed with him that we aren't going to be able to get any power as good as Freezing Rain out of this... But I don't see why Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow, combined, can't be as good as Freezing Rain.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I should warn you you're more likely to get Freezing Rain and Sleet nerfed. One of the biggest and not well understood reasons why FR and Sleet are stronger than DA is almost certainly a bug.
The non-alerting thing has been one of the most dangerous and useless aspects of this power, in that the user still winds up on the targets' aggro lists so that when the enemy is alerted for whatever reason (like the scrapper diving in), all the guys who were just hit with the -Perception and aren't subsequently distracted by the Scrapper now start blasting the poor Defender. TA users who don't realize this are some of the most faceplant prone people I've teamed with.Quote:I notice, though, that one thing you don't seem to give credit for on things like Trick Arrow powers is the fact that some of them are autohitting. For example, -18.75% tohit and -perception on an autohitting and non-alerting Flash Arrow seems to have a very low probability of happening.
The autohitting thing might be an issue, but there is a lot of precedence for autohitting debuffs of that strength or much higher, and I think by putting in a higher ToHit component it'll help prevent the issue I mentioned above. -
Quote:We've not asked to increase the recharges and make the unstackable parts stackable specifically because we know that it would change the feel that a lot of people like (as I said in the rules).Originally Posted by Wondering_Fury
I ponder if the developer's will ever change TA, it has been relatively unscathed for a long time, and at the moment I doubt they are doing any power analysis with all the Incarnate content, so I am destined to let him dust really. An interesting point whilst on the subject, the effect of a TA/A at Incarnate level is even more moot in comparison.
I like some of your changes to TA, I still would like to retain some of the low rec numbers because I love the speedy-volleying effect I have with mine.
Fury
Well, we didn't ask for them to add in the knockdown effect and damage component that Freezing Rain has, Freezing Rain has an activation period of 0.25 seconds versus 5 seconds on Disruption Arrow, and debuffs that last 30 seconds versus 5 seconds (the combination of which means that mobs in Freezing Rain are basically guaranteed to be debuffed for at least 30 seconds and as much as 45, even if they wander out of the patch, while those in Disruption Arrow are from 5 to 35 seconds). Even if we add -Defense and more -Resist to Disruption Arrow, it's still a significantly worse power than Freezing Rain.Quote:Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
I like most of your changes, but think they go too far in some areas. Disruption Arrow being brought in line with Freezing Rain is too much IMO, I'd give it some -Dam instead probably and up the limit to 16.
Not sure on your Glue Arrow change either, adding a small amount of -ToHit would be alright I guess but not too much.
That being said, I'm not against the idea of putting -Damage here and upping the strength of Acid Arrow's debuff (which can't stack, note).
My main impetus for being strong on Trick Arrow is Garent's analysis here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=262373
For a set that does nothing but debuff, it makes a poor showing, getting regularly eclipsed by other sets, many of which have heals, rezzes, buffs and other things in addition to powerful debuffs. For analogy, Fire Blast does nothing but damage, and it's the king of single target and aoe damage, burst and dps; Trick Arrow does nothing but debuff, and it isn't the king of a single category. -
Quote:Well, the -Resist and recharge reduction were listed as "either-or". Reducing the recharge turns it into an extra aoe attack, while adding debuffs makes it an aoe debuff power that just so happens to deal really good damage. I didn't write it in as such, but I was taking my inspiration from Venom Grenade, a 24 second recharging power that deals 1.0 scale toxic damage and has a scale 2.0 resist debuff to all but toxic (which it has a scale 4.0 resist debuff to) for 16 seconds (non-stackable). Leaving Repulsion Bomb at 30 seconds and putting in a 20 second non-stacking scale 2.0 resist debuff seems fairly reasonable to me.Originally Posted by Draggynn
I suppose my biggest issue is with Force fields. I believe that Force fields should remain predominantly a buff set, and although I'm not opposed to it doing some debuffing, providing 20% -resist on a power with a 20 second recharge means that forcefields is able to rival sets that are intended to be debuffers. (granted that depends on what sort of duration we're talking, if it's just 8 seconds like sonic attacks, then I suppose it isn't really an issue) Not to mention the -dam and -to-hit you're suggesting adding. Any of the changes to FF on their own seem reasonable, taken together though they seem like too much to me.
Force Field and Empathy are the only sets out of the entire suite that do not have any debuffs, and Force Field has several enemy affecting powers anyway (five powers out of nine). And it's been that way from the beginning, well before CoV.Quote:Granted with the advent of CoV and Cold and Thermal, the idea of buffing sets at the exclusion of debuffs was pretty much done away with, so perhaps I'm just too attached to an outdated paradigm. Also, if we were to get any of these changes we certainly wouldn't get all of them, so is it better to aim too high with the assumption that the results will be less? I'm not sure. I'll have to see how I feel about this more after sleeping on it. Perhaps it's just a fear of being rendered obsolete.
I don't really see how adding debuffs to Force Field's enemy affecting powers makes Force Field obsolete, or steps on the toes of Cold, which has fantastic debuff potential in addition good buffs (Sleet alone is a better power than everything we've suggested combined). -
Quote:That is one possibility, but would require more work from the powers team than our suggestion of turning Weaken and Envenom into AoE powers. Admittedly, our suggestion also wound up increasing the recharge, but since the powers don't stack in the first place, if they're AoE a low recharge has very little utility.Originally Posted by Vel_Overload
Poison needs the most love. I'd personally like to see Weaken and Envenom combined with no tohit check and give poison another power to round out the set.
Notice that our "Out there solution" in Trick Arrow was a similar "merge two powers" suggestion, and if we can come up with a new power suggestion that fits Poison thematically, I'd be totally willing to put down "merge Weaken and Envenom and add an extra power" (aoe debuff? aoe heal?) on the list.
Antidote gives 7.5% resistance to cold, 15% resistance to toxic, and 50% resistance to run speed and recharge debuffs. I think it's probably the best of the single target mez protection powers available.Quote:Also, Antidote is 99% useless considering you can pick up a similar power from the Medicine pool. Antidote is a good place to add something unique to Poison. -
*Reserved for follow up
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Hot on the heels of Garent’s Debuff Set Comparison thread, he and I have sat down and hammered out a list of power changes that we hope can fix some of the disparity between the sets. Previous attempts to rally for buffs to weaker sets have been bogged down by bickering in the community, lack of focus, and a reluctance on the part of the Devs to make unpopular decisions and possibly imbalance the game. And so, we came to this problem with complete pragmatism in mind - we want something to be done, and we want it to be done sooner rather than later - and came up with a set of ground rules that we hope will avoid the previous problems and allow for this to happen.
Rule 1: The Cottage Rule. Don’t change a power into something completely different than it currently is; somebody, somewhere, likes the power as is, even the intangibles.
Rule 2: Stick to things that need buffing, ignore things that probably need nerfing. The player base is allergic to nerfs, even when something really needs it and even when they get something good in return. We want the player base to be as united as possible so that the Devs will be willing to use these suggested.
Rule 3: Stick to aspects of things needing buffing. Even if it is an overall buff to a power to have its recharge increased in exchange for being given the ability to stack, somebody is going to be upset that they now need to slot the power for recharge when they could ignore it before.
Rule 4: Avoid animation changes. We want to focus on changes that are able to be implemented using only the time and resources of the powers team. If these can be done just by Black Scorpion going and editing a single line in a single Excel file, that’s fantastic.
Rule 5: Keep the buffs small and incremental. The Devs are very cautious about upsetting game balance (rightfully so), and we’d rather they agree to give something a scale 0.5 increase now than hesitate and give something a scale 1.0 increase in three years.
We have made a couple of design decisions, namely that there is little reason for the single target hold powers that exist in these sets to be so poor compared to other ones available (why is Ice Arrow in a Defender primary worse than Freeze Ray in a Defender secondary?). We’ve also suggested that all rez powers should have something special about them (this is currently the case for most of them, with Resurrect being left in the lurch), and that status protection powers should all have some kind of additional effect (like Thaw does) and this effect should be applied in an area as of Issue 20.5, in order to keep the powers relevant when teamed up with other sources of status protection.
We want the community's feedback here, of course. We want as wide an acceptance of the final list as possible, so if there is any controversy on a given point when all is said and done, we'll drop it from the list. -
Quote:Garent and I have been putting these results to work and are coming up with a large list of tweaks and suggestions to give to Black Scorpion for the underperforming sets. I think that if we can keep the changes within certain restrictions, and if we can get enough community support, we might be able to get him to put in some of them in his spare time.Originally Posted by Garent
I'm going back to school in the fall. I'll get back to you in 6-8 years.
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Quote:There isn't much point arguing and nitpicking over single word choices used by people. Especially since she explicitly gave the restriction of post-I13, which most of the "non-skimpy" outfits wind up having to utilize (shirt over top to fake a non-crazy neckline, pencil skirt, etc... and I can't think of many "superhero tights" pieces being given since I13). We'd also have to give the restriction about the "non-clothing" things like power armor, Mutant Pack pieces, and Praetorian stuff, because they've been pretty good about seeing that all body types share the same pieces for those.Originally Posted by Jophiel
I don't see much value in just going back and forth on it so I'll say that my main point was regarding the "lingerie" statements from several people in the thread. Claiming that women are stuck with lingerie or have all this sexy stuff thrust upon them or can't create non-sexy costumes does a great disservice to the argument because it's so easily proven wrong. Making a "fully dressed" female character in all manner of styles (civilian, superhero tights, power armor, magical garb, etc) is trivial. Arguments that imply that it's not just make the person look uninformed.
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Quote:Actually, Arcanaville was the one talking about model types, how there are three of them, how there's no difference between making the same thing for each model and making a different thing for each model, and how that is the reason for them making the decisions they do. Other people who didn't specify the breakdowns of the model also made the argument regarding the issue of porting things from models. I am simply pointing out that the model thing isn't a sufficiently valid response because it is obvious the issue is purely one of gender, and the fact that they keep Male and Huge step-in-step - even though that requires them to do the exact thing Arcanaville and others were talking about - is a key indicator that the issue is not one of model types but one of a conscious gender-based decision.Originally Posted by Jophiel
Erm... yeah. I don't know who was arguing anything different. Females get different parts because they want variety between the two genders and porting pieces so each side gets the same exact stuff means less variety overall. The only one who seemed hung up on "Huge" as a separate type was you. Sure, it might mean that each male part takes twice as long to do (since you have to do it twice) but it doesn't change the fact that they need to make the decision for the female part as to whether they're going to copy the male part again or come up with something new.
^ This is basically my point.Quote:Originally Posted by Zombie Man
No, the decisions are plainly and obviously gender based and not model based. Imagine if all the really big and heavy armor in the game was reserved to just the Huge model. That would give us ' ' more diversity ' ' because then that would have freed up the art team to give the Male and Female models other and different types of pieces: More suit jackets for Males and more Tops with Skin for Females.
Would you have been OK with that?
If their sole or primary rule was "more diversity > duplicating", then Huge and Male would be different. But they aren't (at least, not in any parts that I can think of), so it isn't. Proof by contradiction. -
Quote:AKA Gender.Originally Posted by Jophiel
It is an issue of variety between types. The "types" being Male/Huge & Female.
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Quote:I did, and it is precisely my point. The artists are thinking in terms of gender at least as much as in terms of "model type". The fact of the matter is that the argument was about model types and how much work it is to make things multiple times, yet they do it every single time with male and huge. They choose to make the items twice for the male and the huge, and they consistently choose to do so. If it was simply an issue of variety between model types, then there would be items that exist only on male and not on huge, and vice versa.Originally Posted by Jophiel
Because the "Huge" model is nominally male and it makes more sense -- and would be more expected -- to have both "Male" models match in costumes than to match the male and female models.
I suspect you knew this already.
So why don't they port some of the female items to the huge, then? :PQuote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Perhaps because they have males and females on the art team, and those people can relate to male and female costumes. There aren't any huges on the art team**, so no one is applying their experience to influence those costume sets.
** Nate is a producer, not an artist -
Quote:I would suggest that it is slightly less work in the sense of "don't have design and storyboard the object before modeling it in the 3d program". I doubt that is a significant portion of time.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration where one isn't justified. I'm all for more cross-over pieces myself in the general case, but the diversity issue really comes down mechanically to something that was stated earlier: there really isn't any such thing as "porting" most costume pieces: they have to be created almost from scratch to fit the appropriate body models and animations. So if you are going to make, say, a jacket for male, female, and huge, you're really making three jackets that just happen to look superficially identical.
Because of this fact, the creation of costume pieces is somewhat independent effort-wise. So suppose you're someone on the art team making costumes for the male rig. You have a list of stuff you'd like to do, but whenever someone makes something for the female rig, you're told you *have* to make a version of this thing yourself. Conversely, whenever you actually find the time to make something original, the person making costumes for the female rig is given the same instruction: no matter what you want to work on, you have to make a comparable analog piece first.
If the issue was that the art people would rather make new than port, then why is it that the male and huge options are exactly the same? We have three different models here, and for two of them, they never differentiate, so it's pretty obvious that the gender of the model as a creative decision (and less a technical decision) is the basis for their choices.
I also find it incredibly weird that, given all the demand for the Baron coat for the Female rig, that the very next time they add a similar long coat to the game, they choose once again not to add it to the female model, and instead add two different coats that cover jack all. So it isn't as much a case of "we don't have time to give women a coat", and more a case of "we want to give them a coat, so we'll give them this". Again, there was a creative decision made somewhere along the line.
That creative decision is the thing we're casting our doubts upon. -
Quote:Yeah, there are a bunch of reasons why Trick Arrow comes up poor. Glue Arrow is basically Tar Patch without the Resistance debuff, Acid Arrow and Disruption Arrow combined are worse than Freezing Rain and Sleet, Entangle Arrow is Web Grenade but with only 1/5th the magnitude slow (-12.5% vs -62.5%)... And on top of it all, virtually none of the Trick Arrow powers can stack on themselves. It's painful.Originally Posted by Redlynne
Yet more proof (as if we needed it) that Trick Arrow is "underpowered" as a Debuff Only powerset. Remarkable how even when every power it has does a Debuff, Trick Arrow manages to be "middling" or worse, and is overshadowed by Dark and Traps, both of which have wider and greater utility.
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Quote:Ditto.Originally Posted by KidCrisis
This. There's a lot in this pack I like, but I'm getting tired of female options that are just new varieties of lingerie. Port some of those jackets over and I'll buy it happily, but until then, I'm going to hold off.
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Quote:Ditto.Originally Posted by KidCrisis
I'll wait to see what changes go in before buying this. There's a lot to like here, but c'mon, how about some new female costume items that don't look like they came from Frederick's of Paragon? My female characters want long coats too.
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Hide, the power, does a bunch of things (stealth, defense, transparency) and also ups your kMeter to 1. Placate applies a placate effect to the target (the thing that forces them to target somebody else) and ups your kMeter to 1. If your kMeter is 1, you get a "Hidden" display under your buffs. When you attack, your powers check to see if your kMeter is 1 and if so, it adds in the crit.
As for how Repulse gets disabled, well, I'm not sure. I suspect that since all Hide powers are flagged as being part of a Hide Group, it checks for that. Placate does not have that group. -
Quote:The pack is on the Test Server now, and no, women don't get either version of the new nice jacket (it has one with and one without a chest part, like the Baron Coat). This makes me annoyed-verging-on-angry.Originally Posted by Fomsie
OK then, important question to go with that... do the female models get to use the new jacket, or is it once again limited to male/huge? Some of us want a long coat option other than the hideous trench coat.
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The new jacket is very nice, and woman don't get it. Again.
And the fake dress thing looks pretty ridiculous. -
Quote:I fixed a bug in our "format number with precision" string, where, if we asked for something with more than 1 decimal, it would give us one more decimal number than we asked for. Returning this to 3 is easy enough.Originally Posted by Caulderone
I could swear that attack's recharge rate was showing calculated out to 3 decimal places. Now, it's only showing 2 decimal places. Arcanna-time does show out to 3 still.
Any chance of getting 3 back on recharges?
edit: Loaded 1.940 in an alternate location, and it does show out to 3 decimal places. So, I'm not crazy! -
Quote:I've been told that the damage is CancelOnMiss, like the Fire DoTs, which would make the average damage only ~30.615. Do we have any confirmation either way? My personal testing in RWZ says that it isn't (I've hit all of them with Dark Obliteration and watched some of them flare up, then die down, then flare up again).Originally Posted by Dispari
Reactive does around 13.38 damage per tic, up to 5 tics of 75% chance. Meaning it adds ~50.175 damage per attack. It's better than a purple damage proc slotted in every one of your powers. And at t4 it can even apply a -RES proc on top of that. Since it technically procs five times per power, at a high rate, it's even much more reliable than other procs. IE, it's almost never going to not proc to some degree on any target you hit.
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Quote:That's an odd one. I'll have to think hard about how to fix that the best way...Originally Posted by Pampl
Dunno if this has already been reported, but there's a small, low-priority bug with an easy workaround: if you bring up a powerset dropdown menu, click on a new powerset then immediately click on a power you'll get the power from the old set even though you've changed to a new set. That's confusingly worded so I'll just describe what happened: I was making a scrapper and decided to change his secondary from dark armor to electric armor, but accidentally double clicked on electric armor, picking up death shroud (which is the power choice at the same position on the screen as the electric armor menu choice) as a power even though I had just changed to electric armor.
The workaround is to just switch back to the old powerset and click on the power (multiple times if necessary) or to alt-click the power.
Here's the data chunk if it helps any:
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Quote:In-game.Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
You want the numbers reported from Mids or in-game?
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Quote:It's on my short list.Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
Thanks for the update!
Is there any way we can get a feature to scale down the Destiny powers that are capable of being permanent (Rebirth Radial, Ageless Core, etc.), so that we can see the how our characters perform when said power is at its most decayed?
Hm... Could you post the Regen% reported in your Real Numbers for each part of the Regeneration? I want to see what each component says and see if I can figure out what's going on. There was a bug earlier where some Incarnate effects were being applied twice and that might be what's going on here (the Alpha enhancement is getting applied twice to the Destiny).Quote:The Regeneration on a Rebirth Radial Epiphany on my HP-capped Scrapper says I would be getting 301 HP/sec, but the in-game number shows 233 HP/sec. Something isn't calculating right there. Is my Spiritual Core Paragon throwing it off? When I toggle that Alpha off I get 178 HP/sec.
Hrm... more testing reveals that in order to get the correct Regen value you must have Rebirth Radial Epiphany already toggled on, then after that toggle on Spiritual Core Paragon.