Kosmos

[ QUOTE ]

I would argue that the opposite is the case. The longer Ls is up and firing, the larger the disparity in damage done. If you have a cycle time of 3 seconds vs. 5 seconds, if you have enemies in range for 10 seconds, you'll get off 3 shots boostes, and only 2 shots at the normal recharge. If they're in range for 50 seconds, then you get off 16 shots instead of 10. In the first case, you get one extra shot; in the second, you get six.

Either way, LS is not an efficient use of endurance if you don't have it firing for most of its duration. That's an issue that should be looked at independent of this particular change.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ignoring the fact that the first shot occurs at the same time and discrete issues, a 60% increase in firing rate will result in 60% more shots in any given time increment. When you factor in the first shot, the percentage decrease from the nerf is lower the shorter the time. This is a pretty small effect.

However, the issue really is the END cost. If it's not worth casting for a 10s fight now - and it isn't - then the damage reduction due to this nerf is 100% for that case, while in a 30s fight - where it is worth casting - is necessarily less than that.

You need to take into account the opportunity costs. They are the same for a short fight and a long fight, since it takes the same time and costs the same amount of END to cast in either case.

[ QUOTE ]
You points are well taken, but a few things to bear in mind:
[ QUOTE ]
Your character is an extreme edge case.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's the "extreme edge cases" that are hardest hit by this change.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not true, as the extreme edge cases get less of their value from the Lightning Storm. The short duration Global Recharge only buffs LS for a brief period and has no effect on Jack Frost, while it does affect the ability to use APP attacks, Block of Ice, Freezing Rain and other direct damage attacks fully. Which leads to characters with large amounts getting a lesser percentage of their performance from the pets and pseudo-pets (Tornado only has toggles, so it is unaffected by the change). And in the case of an Ice/Storm, the high levels of Recharge self-buff may have been adversely affecting Jack Frost's performance.

The characters hurt the worst are actually apt to be those with long duration Global Recharge buffs such as Hasten to pass to pseudo-pets, IO set Recharge in their pets and pseudo-pets (or even basic Recharge in Gun Drone) and Recharge buffs such as SB, AM or AB to use on their pets.


[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
LS would not have been firing "a little less frequently".

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, the extent to which your pets firing rate is noticeable given everything else that you'd be doing is questionable. As I said, I didn't find a 70% bonus particularly noticeable. I couldn't tell until I got a stopwatch.

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference with just Hasten is 1.65 seconds, how could you not notice that?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Yep, that was kind of my point. You can't look at a nerf to one power in isolation -- it has to be considered in light of the performance of the other 22 powers at your disposal.

[/ QUOTE ]My Perma-Hastened Ice/Storm performs just fine on Test. She's been making mincemeat of MA missions, including getting to round 3 of Arcanaville's Scrapper Challenge. I'm not an obsessive number-cruncher, so I can't tell you the DPS on Test vs Live or any such nonsense...but she didn't seem to be underperforming one bit. Lightning Storm was firing a little less frequently...but I was still killing things at about the same pace. *shrug*


[/ QUOTE ]

Several points:
<ul type="square">[*] Your character is an extreme edge case.[*] Telling us that you have a disdain for objective facts such as DPS doesn't make your subjective opinions more likely to be taken seriously in a discussion of play balance issues.[*] It sounds like you did much of your testing in an environment where the bad guys come to you. That is, in the very case in which the change to LS hurts the least, since it doesn't get left behind with 2/3rds of the damage you paid the END for still unused.[*] LS would not have been firing "a little less frequently". If you have 65% Recharge in it (I'm assuming you have Decimations in it for the +Rech Set bonus), 110% Global Recharge and 70% from Hasten you should get an average of about 270% Recharge (235% plus a bit from the Global Recharge affecting the firing rate at the beginning). That will cause LS to fire about 53% as often as it does on live. Barely over half as often is not "a little less frequently".[/list]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Or maybe just make a recharge cap for pets. BAM! That seems like something that would help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Setting RechargeTime MaxStr to 1 for minion_Pets (the class our summoned pets use) could actually have some uses.


[/ QUOTE ]

That would affect only -Recharge and not +Recharge?

[/ QUOTE ]

It would mean (assuming it works) that their powers could never recharge faster than their base recharge time.

StrMax for the various attributes are the caps on what we often call "enhancement bonuses" (Str - Strength) for those attributes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, that's it, another confusion with the term "bonus", I was thinking it was the maximum bonus and not the maximum of (base+bonus).

[Edit: Of course, "bonus" is not the term usually used - "buff" is more common. I'd been told that that attribute was the maximum buff allowed.]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Or maybe just make a recharge cap for pets. BAM! That seems like something that would help.

[/ QUOTE ]

Setting RechargeTime MaxStr to 1 for minion_Pets (the class our summoned pets use) could actually have some uses.


[/ QUOTE ]

That would affect only -Recharge and not +Recharge?

[ QUOTE ]

As for pet ai, from what I'm hearing this change was fail for the problem pets other than bruiser. (heard so far that plant pet and ninjas still either suck, or need excessive micromanaging just like in i13. ime those are the two most complained about other than bruiser).

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't believe that the improved behavior for the Bruiser or the Giant Fly Trap is reasonably attributable to this change. On live, both of those pets suffered the same AI problems exhibited at high levels of Recharge even if no Recharge was involved at all.

I find it more probable that the new behavior is due to other changes implemented by the powers team. The alternative is to assume that ignoring non-existent buffs causes the AI to behave better. That's certainly not impossible, but given that Castle has been posting about his trials with the Bruiser for months, and he has explicitly stated that the +Recharge was only one of the AI issues, I think it more likely that the fix comes from something else.

[ QUOTE ]
One day, while discussing this, another programmer who was looking at AI issues came over and began talking to me about the fact that one of the issues causing aberrant AI behavior was the powers recharging too quickly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Emphasis in the original.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I am just saying now that you take away something that some MMs been enjoying (-recharge in pet's attack chain), are there gonna be some adjustments to make up for it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Fixing their pets' attack cycling generally makes up for it...

[/ QUOTE ]

You're assuming that the change really did that. From what I've seen only the Bruiser is behaving better.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Because that goes against other people's reports in this thread...

[/ QUOTE ]

Really.

There are several vague claims of improvement, but I view any reports that don't give details with skepticism. And so should everyone else. If you can't tell me in what way a pet is better (or worse) now than before, then the claim that it is can't be given much weight.

First, it makes me doubt that the claim is based on observation: Are there no details because there are none to report?

Second, it makes me doubt the reporter's ability to make detailed observations: Are there no details because the reporter is unable to distinguish them?

Third, it only tells me the reporter's opinion of whether the behavior is better or not: the notion of "better" is left vague.

So to me, someone saying "they behave better now" is an untrustworthy claim (and I use the word "untrustworthy" advisedly here). I need the facts regarding the behavior of the pet so that I can decide for myself whether that is better than what the pet is doing now or not. Even if it's not better or worse, any change may still be of interest to some.

[Edit: Removed a redundancy.]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I am just saying now that you take away something that some MMs been enjoying (-recharge in pet's attack chain), are there gonna be some adjustments to make up for it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Fixing their pets' attack cycling generally makes up for it...

[/ QUOTE ]

You're assuming that the change really did that. From what I've seen only the Bruiser is behaving better.

It's sort of ironic that what is probably the best overall MM set is the biggest beneficiary of the change. Sort of like Gun Drone getting smacked the hardest (it took regular Recharge enhancements, so while you can say that was a bug, you can't say increasing its rate-of-fire was an exploit). That has to make you smile, even if ruefully.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How long did it take for Castle to buff Hover after BABs nerfed it by fixing the bug regarding KB? I wonder if the buff was because data-mining said the number of people using it dropped off, or just because Castle decided it needed it? I hope the latter, because I'd rather not wait for data mining to confirm the obvious.

[/ QUOTE ]

Completed unrelated. The two things had absolutely nothing to do with one another.

[/ QUOTE ]

I assume that's the KB change and the buff that are unrelated, not the buff and whether or not you thought it needed it. Though I suppose one of the other power guys might have been allowed to make that call.

My assumption was, and still is, that Hover was buffed because of PvP movement issues. But that's irrelevant. The point I was trying to make - but chose a bad example for - is that someone looked at the power and decided it needed a buff for whatever reason. You didn't wait for data mining to tell you that. Or maybe you did. I just hope not. I'd much rather have you looking at powers you suspect need balancing than have you wait for a statistical report to make you question a power's balance.

I think this particularly sweeping change should have you questioning the balance of at least a few powers.

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder how many things we don't see as bugs the Devs have left alone because they don't have that big effect yet. I'd imagine every time they tracked something back down to an old small bug that would need a big fix they go "Ohhh crap...they are going to hate this...NOT IT!"

[/ QUOTE ]

The policy of not advertising exploits tends to give the impression that the devs don't think a particular matter is a problem, when in fact they are busily trying to find a solution to it.

I can live with that. What I dislike is when they play balance a bugged power, then fix the bug and don't re-balance the power. Poison Gas Trap is a recent example. The list of such powers just expanded dramatically.

How long did it take for Castle to buff Hover after BABs nerfed it by fixing the bug regarding KB? I wonder if the buff was because data-mining said the number of people using it dropped off, or just because Castle decided it needed it? I hope the latter, because I'd rather not wait for data mining to confirm the obvious.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Here is simple example (maybe too simple). Assuming Blaster does 1500 dmg during 20s. With good Global Recharge, he now hits 2000 dmg under 20s. Merc MM does 1500 dmg (with debuffs like /Poison) too and with -recharge, Merc could reach 1800 dmg (that's a stretch I know!) but with the new change, Merc MM is stuck at 1500 dmg since no sets can increase debuff value (or MM needs to sacrifice support with personal attacks to make up the loss of -recharge). Do you get my point?

[/ QUOTE ]

I certainly don't. Your example sounds pretty much in line with the way I'd expect things SHOULD be. Note that the MM is more durable and has a MUCH wider range of utility powers at his disposal, including heals. If he's doing the same DPS as a blaster, then something is seriously out of whack.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess he was right that the example was too simple. The point was not that an MM should match a Blaster's damage output, but that an MM should benefit from enhancement (and buffs) in the same proportion as a Blaster.

[Edit:]

I thought I should add here that MMs do benefit from Recharge in their pet powers - in that those pets are balanced around being defeatable and being able to recharge them faster does help.

MMs have a lot of thorny balance issues like that though. For example: Having a red pill in the tray is worth less as it will only buff the damage of one of your pets if you use it, not all of the damage you are doing.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Opp. I forgot about. I thought VS wasn't grouped with them.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's wierd about VS is that even though according to CoD it is perma out of the box (60s recharge, 60s duration) I constantly see it disappear a short time before it recharges. And I might even have a Recharge enhancement in it, I'm not sure whether I do or not.

Clearly it should not take Recharge if it does take longer to recharge than its duration, can't have multiples, AND can't have its own recharge buffed. Hopefully that's something that will be looked at.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Duration starts ticking down as soon as you click the power, the Recharge doesn't start till you have finished the cast. So there is a bit over a 3s gap in VS.

Recharge is not useless in it, as VS does inherit some buffs, so re-summoning it can be used to refresh the buffs on it to get more out of it.

[Edit for grammar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Based on discussions at the time, I was pretty sure they gave them "buff" inheritance. Primarily they were interested in damage and toHit, for things like Ice Storm or RoF. Doing that by letting everything through was probably just the shortest path to the goal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Makes me wonder if psuedo-pets inherit the defense and resistance of their parent as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

They don't (unless what buffs are inherited can be specified on a pet by pet basis).

If a Warshade uses an Enrage or an Insight before using Dark Extraction the insp buffs will carry over to the pet, but if you instead use a Luck or a Sturdy, they will not carry over.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or Eclipse vs Sunless Mire.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Don't know why people keep missing this post from Castle...

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know why it isn't being considered that when Lightning Storm happened to inherit Recharge in issue 7 that it was a bug, much like it not getting the new immune to +recharge code which was just introduced right now. There were not as many players like Arcanaville looking over the dev's changes and making sure that individual powers and typos were not being missed. And there are pets that DON'T inherit recharge from their parents, (and do inherit, like, damage) right?

Of course, that makes me wonder why Recharge CAN'T be made so that it isn't inherited at all. But maybe this is where the difference between a Recharge Enhancement and a Dam/Recharge Enhancement comes in again. Maybe the inheritance code can't drop the second one, so pets that aren't inheriting recharge buffs from their parents are still inheriting Dam/Rech IOs.

Man, this is complicated...

[/ QUOTE ]

There are actually two types of inheritance here:

(1) Pets inheriting buffs from the caster. This was what was added in I7 to allow pseudo-pet powers such as Blizzard and Rain of Fire (the true pet Extracted Essence also seems to use this feature) to inherit Accuracy and Damage buffs from Aim, inspirations and the like. This is the function Castle referred to in his post. It apparently can't be practically modified so that it doesn't pass Recharge buffs.

(2) Pet powers inheriting enhancement from their summoning power. This is the issue that cropped up with allowing pets to slot IO Sets other the Pet Damage, as the Recharge components of those sets passed through to the pet powers. Soulbound Allegiance's selling point was that it would do that as well; I believe intentional in that case, unlike the others. Then they made a huge mistake and introduced Recharge Intensive Pet sets thinking there was a way to prevent just the Recharge component of an IO from passing from summon power to pet power. Apparently there wasn't, as the various things they tried left the RIP sets non-functional.

[Edited: Removed irrelevant speculation.]

[ QUOTE ]

It seems to me like illusionists really take it up the [censored] on this one. Are you going to lower the recharge time of PA to compensate, since that is our major form of 'control' since our other aspects of control are lacking to other sets?

If you're going to follow through with this, I would suggest that you lower the recharge times of pet summoning to compensate for the fact that we can no longer slot 3 recharges in them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Recharge enhancements still affect the recharge rate of the caster's summoning power, they just don't affect the recharge rate of the summoned pet's own powers.

So you can still summon PA as often as before, Phanstasm will just shoot and summon his own decoy less often.

[ QUOTE ]
But that right there seems to be the fallacy that is being handed to us Kosmos... (2).

Test right now, Defender LS is exempt from the changes. Obviously it is within the system to make certain powers exempt without causing issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're mistaken, that exemption is still causing the issue.

They consider the ability of pets such as LS to inherit Recharge to be an exploit. That is, it is something players can do to enhance performance through exploiting a hole in their system. They plugged most of the holes, but missed the one in Defender LS. A mistake that has probably already been corrected in a patch we'll see in a week or so.

[ QUOTE ]

The question is, do the devs have ANY clue what is making the exemption for the Def version?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course they do, they didn't tag the pet's power with the flag to ignore Recharge changes. It isn't working because of a quirk that allowed it to escape a global nerf, it's working because someone missed checking a box on a form (in effect).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

It's amusing that the name of this thread is "Recharge Inheritance Change"


[/ QUOTE ]

It can mean the inheritance by the pet's own powers of the recharge slotted in the parent summoning power, as well as inheritance of buffs on the caster by pets.

[/ QUOTE ]

But none of that has been changed. If I'm understanding what is being said, the values are being inherited, but they are just being ignored.

Note that if I'm right, no Mastermind pets or "true" pets should be inheriting recharge from their parent. So the reason they are getting this change is not because they are getting recharge from their parent. It's because they are having AI problems. The two separate problems, though (2) and 3)) are being handled by simply ignoring recharge in both cases.

I suspect that in some cases, though, inherited recharge is "slipping past" to true pets. And recharge buffs are being accidently applied to psuedo-pets. I can't be sure that's what's happening, but I can't be sure it isn't, either.


[/ QUOTE ]

You're right that they're still inheriting it but now ignoring it. But that's because they couldn't figure out any way to stop them from inheriting it that didn't require too much work or cause other problems.

I'll reiterate some surmises I've made earlier:

(1) This was really about a decision that RIP sets had to be fixed.

(2) There was no other fix for RIP sets that didn't exacerbate the problem with Recharge inheritance causing some pets to be over-powered (relative to designed intent).

(3) The idea that the change would have a beneficial side effect on Pet AI was considered a plus.

(4) The patch note didn't mention the issue with Recharge inheritance because that was classified as an exploit - and exploits are explicitly left out of TR patch notes.

(5) The patch note leaving out mention of RIP sets was a mistake, probably due to those sets being so closely linked with the exploit. Castle corrected this oversight fairly quickly, but the idea didn't take and the discussion continued to assume the change was mostly about AI. The devs finally decided to come clean and state that Pet Recharge Inheritance is the reason for the nerf.

[ QUOTE ]

It's amusing that the name of this thread is "Recharge Inheritance Change"


[/ QUOTE ]

It can mean the inheritance by the pet's own powers of the recharge slotted in the parent summoning power, as well as inheritance of buffs on the caster by pets.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe it is just me, but I have never understood the value that so many people place in bringing "work" into what they do for entertainment.

[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe it is just me, but some people find using the system to maximize their characters as well as they can to be fun.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, it's the monkey in us that likes to solve puzzles - there might be something good to eat in there!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

• Pet Powers Change:
o Recharge times on pet attack powers will no longer be affected by any outside source. This includes buffs and debuffs. What this means is that pets can no longer have the recharge time on their powers increased by player buffs (like Speed Boost) or their recharge time decreased by player or NPC debuffs. This change was made to limit the effectiveness of pets to match our original design; a bug was allowing nearly all pets to exceed intended levels of damage and control. This fix also allows pets with multiple powers to correctly cycle through their attacks instead of getting locked into using a single power, and allows Recharge Intensive Pet IO sets to have the intended effects.


[/ QUOTE ]

A little honest &amp; open communication goes a long way... too bad this discussion with the community didn't start months ago when the RIP set bugs were reported. Most of us can accept a clarification of design intent, as long as it happens when you discover a problem and not after even zombies can tentatively poke at the code changes and realize the truth.

[/ QUOTE ]

The patch notes should definitely be updated, since they will eventually be used to introduce the much larger community to this nerf.

I would change the word "correctly" to "better" and drop "instead of getting locked into using a single power" in the pursuit of honesty.

This fix is NOT a panacea for Pet AI woes. As even my limited tests have shown me; many pets are still dumb as dirt and either ignore powers they should be using or misuse them. As an example of the former, the Oni typically doesn't use Fire Blast when fighting at range. An example of the latter: The Bruiser is probably the greatest beneficiary of the change, yet when in melee he still misuses the 3.83s cast time, counter-productive KB-inducing Hurl in preference to both Jab and Punch.

Hmmm... after pasting the suggested changes and re-reading that note, I think I'd rewrite that suggested note altogether.


<ul type="square">
• Pet Powers Change:
o Recharge times on pet's powers will no longer be affected by any buffs, debuffs or enhancements. Recharge buffs, debuffs and enhancements will still affect the recharge rate of the power that summons the pet, but the recharge rate of the pet's own powers is unalterable. This change was necessary to fix issues with the Recharge Intensive Pet sets which brought to light an exploit allowing many pets to exceed intended levels of performance. This fix also prevents excessive Recharge buffs or debuffs from breaking the pet AI, allowing them to better cycle through their attacks. Pets that are affected: &lt;append the list&gt;[/list]
Anyway, that's my spin on it.

[Edit: I re-wrote that specifically to point out that part of this was to close off something the devs consider to be an exploit, and therefore wouldn't be included in the TR Patch Notes. I somehow managed to delete the paragraph stating that between preview and post.]

[ QUOTE ]

Not an outright lie. The person who wrote the patch note wasn't aware of all the things this was intended to fix. That's one of the main reasons I'm having this discussion: Full disclosure.

[/ QUOTE ]

You guys really need to add a "See Castle" (or whomever) practice to the Patch Notes for particularly dicey issues. I realize that the Patch Notes are essentially out of context (due to the Patch Note process) comments from game designers and not prepared statements from PR. But when the devs repeatedly make unintentionally misleading statements through this process, there are bound to be some who think that those statements are deliberate obfuscation and begin to mistrust dev statements in general.

Especially EvilRyu. I'm sure his level of suspicion towards the devs is such that he curses you every time his car keys go missing.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But what about exemptions to this fix. Thats what most of us want to know about. We already know its possible for some exemptions because there have been reports that the defender lightning storm still behaves the same as on live as on test yet the controller/corrupter/mastermind version of the power is now uneffected by recharge. I do think at the very least if you are making the powers not take recharge any more and if they arent able to be targeted anyways then maybe you can up the damage or change the recharge itself. I just really hate for lightning storm to become worthless outside of boss/av fights.

[/ QUOTE ]

Powers like Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel and Auto Turret are precisely the powers that were targeted by this fix. Making exemptions for them would defeat the purpose, don't you think?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's kind of amusing that what are arguably the worst player pets in the game (Voltaic Sentinel and Gun Drone) were deliberately nerfed.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
New issue, new costume bugs. I fixed the ones I could between issues 12-13. One bug that has bothered everyone was VEAT female and their lovely butt cape. Well it has been added, sound the trumpets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where is it hiding?

[/ QUOTE ]

Behind you. On your butt.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the first place I checked.

[ QUOTE ]
New issue, new costume bugs. I fixed the ones I could between issues 12-13. One bug that has bothered everyone was VEAT female and their lovely butt cape. Well it has been added, sound the trumpets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where is it hiding?