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Kindly read the rest of my post. The rest of your post completely fails to address any argument I made.
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I did. your arguments don't have any logic behind them. You talk about buildup on autofire - that's a poor comparison since buildup itself has an activation time that would disrupt your attack timing if on its own schedule.
Now if buildup fired for free... kinda like how tactics continually produces a buff without you having to reactivate it, and sometimes it's a better buff...
look, you can still say it's too weak for the use of a slot, but the toggle by its nature doesn't change that. -
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We're departmentalized here. The people who would be responsible for fixing things like game crashes, bugs with text chat, etc are not the same people who do things like tweak powers, change badges, or fiddle with animation/FX. I've said this many times before, but people keep using this "Why did they do X instead of fixing Y" arguement and unless you're a producer here, you cannot know which things are getting addressed in lieu of other things. (I myself only know which animation/FX issues are taking priority of other animation/FX issues)
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Issue 13 created a situation where the Reformed badge was no longer awarding. Thus giving heroes a progress bar that would not fill. This caused people to point out the issue in various threads.
At that point, there are 2 choices:
- Fix the bar so it starts counting again.
- Hide the broken bar so people don't notice it's stopping at 999.
This was not a "X instead of Y" regarding badges vs anything else.
This was, however, an "X instead of Y" from the view of what action that one person fixing the badge decided to take!
THAT is what I think requires a bit of an explanation. After the change in I13 was over and done and finally noticed in the badge forum, why did this patch choose to fix the buggy meter by hiding the meter instead of making it completable? -
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you may view this as a loss of control, but really it's irrelevant to the proc effect.
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While it's irrelevant to the functioning of the proc, it is not irrelevant to gaining maximal benefit from it. Given a 10-second window, one cannot conclude that the proc will simply increase ones average damage by the buff increase times the average percentage uptime of the buff.
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*sigh*. Toggle slotting is still irrelevant.
At any given instant, there is a 5% chance that the proc in a toggle is buffing your upcoming attack. (computed from a 1-in-10 chance it fired on the last check, and it would last half the time to the next check so that's a 50/50 chance the power has not expired yet.) (yeah, this would be easier with a 10 second duration was the effect not bugged, but whatchagonnado?) anyways, a 5% chance that *right now*, as I start to attack something, that attack has a build up effect in place for me thanks to the continual checking of the toggle.
That 5% chance is irrelevant of what I was doing a moment earlier. Did it fire while I was finishing off the prior mob? Did it fire while I was popping insps getting ready to charge? Doesn't matter. Yeah, sure, the 5% chance is a bit streaky, but who cares?
You get times it builds up, wastes 4 seconds and you fire a shot on the last second. You also get times where it builds up, you deal a killing blow on your next shot, and waste the 4 seconds afterwards - does that setup make it useless to you? Neither is really affected by it being in a toggle. It's just the nature of the effect.
With some quick numbers,
The effect is up for 5 out of every 100 seconds on average.
If you take 25 seconds to kill a boss, consider the build-up as benefitting you for 1 boss fight in 4.
Does it matter to you if all 4 bosses are in one room? or if there is 1 in this mission, one in the next, with a trip to the market in between? No.
Now if 1:4 bosses is not useful enough to you to justify the slot, that's a different story. But the toggle doesn't affect that decision. (and honestly, it's the time it takes to kill a boss that I think makes the decision. You really don't need buildup to fight minions no matter what it's slotted in.) -
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I just prefer to have "some" control over "when" it might proc.
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you have complete control over when you are in combat.
whenever you are in combat, the proc does have a chance to roll, under the normal rules.
just because it's *also* rolling when you're not in combat should not be a factor in this decision one way or another.
you may view this as a loss of control, but really it's irrelevant to the proc effect.
It's a 5 second duration, with a 10% chance every 10 seconds. so a 5 second duration on average of 100 seconds. or a buff 5% of the time. it doesn't matter which time. The fact that it's up for 5% of your non-combat time does no in any way modify the fact it's up for 5% of your combat time.
Now if you think being up for 5% of your combat time is not worth it (either you can get a higher frequency from using it in a power you click more often than every 10 seconds, or you feel that the buff itself is too weak compared to a plain ToHit Buff) then that's a different story. But worrying about wasting a proc that's not costing you anything to keep firing is irrelevant. -
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....meaning...mostly when your not in battle.
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THAT is a flawed piece of logic.
Do you turn off Tactics when not in combat? Because you're also wasting the Tactics buff itself for all that time.
The only reason you don't waste a click power is cause you're not constantly firing the click power when not in combat. It's an illusion of a distinction.
Consider if the proc was not actually a power unto itself, but was a buff to the effectiveness of the Tactics you're running. -
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Also missing from the patch notes:
The ability to delete empowerment buffs has been removed.
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as I said elsewhere, I have a general problem with this change. It makes Empowerment a lot less convenient.
If I'm between missions and near my base, I could delete and renew a temp power. With this change, I'll have to wait around for the power to expire first, or start the mission, which then means coping without the buff after a while, or returning to base mid-mission. -
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Actually I can think of:
- Prevent people from getting teleported to a VIP area, (AKA VIP lounge). Perhaps (and this is pure speculation) there will be a special area with the magic booster. This sort of fits as the Midnighter Club is a magic based group, and would be a possible perk for buying the booster pack.
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in which case they could apply the field only to the lounge itself and achieve all the protection they need. (Assuming they don't have some sort of hole in the wall somewhere people could port themselves thru.)
That'd be easier to argue as a fix if we had a patch note explaining what they're attempting to achieve with this change. It'd also be easier to argue it when it was still pending on Test, but oh well.
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Also the Ouroboros Zone is not a co-op zone (separate instances for heroes and villains). The Pocket D, Cimerora, Midnighter Club Rikti War Zones are all co-op.
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I didn't claim otherwise, just pointed out a zone transit that was not locked out by the change. -
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I assume you mean the Midnight Club.
I just checked and am (fortunately) able to still TP around in Cim. I can breathe now. I'd have a very... strong reaction if they ever disabled TP in a large zone like that.
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Ah, good. That is ... less nonsensical. Still don't get it, though.
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Yeah, I can't figure out why.
There are 4 reasons to block teleport function:
- Prevent using teleport-self powers. No reason to do that in a tiny zone, and other travel powers are unaffected. And why teleport-specific if they could turn off all powers? (eg, dont' tell me Shield Charge was broken if I can still drop Rain of Fire if I want to.)
- Prevent you from teleporting others. Unlike Pocket D, where there were hero-only and villain-only areas, there's no exploit in the MC where pulling your friends somewhere would be an exploit.
- Prevent you from getting teleported by others. We have teleport prompts. And again, there are no hero-only or villain-only spots like pocket D, so I can't see a place where it'd annoy someone if they got brought there.
- Pevent using the zone teleport powers. Base-, Market-, PocketD- and Mission- Porters. There's already code to stop people from using such powers to go to the wrong faction places. There's no limit on Obos portals. I can't fathom a reason to limit this, especially with the desire to use these with a contact in the MC giving a mission.
So yeah, at a loss here. If there's a general exploit, would it not be equally a problem in Cim and RWZ? -
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Mad Stop giveing them ideas,jezzes.
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What idea did you fear me giving them?
If it's about the issue with losing your TF team if you try to use the base features, that's something I've been complaining about for a while. (I almost said "that's something they've heard me complain about before" but I backspaced over that assuredness.) of course, I've been mentioning it under the perspective of "let us use these bases we've earned" and not "keep people out of bases for the integrity of TF teams". -
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- Teleport dampening field added to Cimerora. (Related to the Mac pac mission teleporter issue, most likely.)
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Can't be related. The mission teleporter fix sounded very generic - it also took away exploits to get into every hazard zone and Oroboros. If Cim needed an anti-TP field to block arrival there, why didn't Crey's Folley? If both solutions really are options, then why fix Cim in this annoying manner and Crey's in another?
So why is this one zone hit with an anti-travel-power power?
I doubt it's about teleporting into the other side's zones with the mission porter. eg, mixed team takes the villain Cim arc and a hero tries to port to Grandville. There's code to immediately boot people back to their proper side if they try to zone across sides. That code's been there since people were allowed to tour the other side's bases.
Was this a clumsy way to address dropping from a TF team if you use the Base Porter powers? I'm not sure a tradeoff of a travel power for idiot-proofing is a benefit (but that trade wouldn't surprise me.)
Whatever the reason, why doesn't the War Zone have a similar change? It even has a base portal - never mind the powers - if that's at issue here. -
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It takes 453 specific craftings to get the 36 recipe memorization badges required for Field Crafter.
That leaves 547 craftings to grind out to finish off Master Craftsman to get the Accolade.
That was already a large number to start with.
It took a big hit in I13 with Empowerment changes. Pre-I13 the average recipe meant 4 craftings per one buff; 3 components and the buff itself. Now you get 1 crafting per buff, and it demands the same salvage that would be going in to the memorization recipes. You also can't get crafting credit by making components for others to buff with.
Now it's taken another hit with no Brainstorm progress.
I'm just not seeing how this is still possible before level 40.
Perhaps Field Crafter needs to drop the Master Craftsman requirement and just require 47 craftings to finish off Craftsman?
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Not only Master Craftsman, but what about Fabricator (10k crafts)? At this point Fabricator would take the equal of crafting the full set of 10-40 IO Badges for 22 characters.
Seriously doubt anyone would do this, even with an abundance of invention salvage (which at last glance doesn't exist).
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well, I think Empath's change to a still-too-high number is proof that they don't tend to listen to numeric arguments about achievability. we have no idea how many hours they expect one to play to reach Fabricator, we only have one for Master Craftsman, as part of the statement that Field Crafter should be reachable before level 40. -
It takes 453 specific craftings to get the 36 recipe memorization badges required for Field Crafter.
That leaves 547 craftings to grind out to finish off Master Craftsman to get the Accolade.
That was already a large number to start with.
It took a big hit in I13 with Empowerment changes. Pre-I13 the average recipe meant 4 craftings per one buff; 3 components and the buff itself. Now you get 1 crafting per buff, and it demands the same salvage that would be going in to the memorization recipes. You also can't get crafting credit by making components for others to buff with.
Now it's taken another hit with no Brainstorm progress.
I'm just not seeing how this is still possible before level 40.
Perhaps Field Crafter needs to drop the Master Craftsman requirement and just require 47 craftings to finish off Craftsman? -
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1) You are being far too literal in reading the badge text/name.
2) There was a way to fix this without any coding needed: Change the text & name of the badge.
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course, prior to this change, I didn't hear anyone raise issue with the roleplay elements of this badge. Did you? (Snow, you made the last list of badge issues. If anyone can come up with evidence to the contrary, you can.)
People did raise other roleplay issues with badge text. Issues that got fixed.
Ergo, it seems the community was happy with the roleplay text up until now, when people are trying to force it into some justification for an unrelated change. -
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VILLIAN Badge Text on villain side: Longbow now officially considers you a Supervillain.
REFORMED Badge Text on hero side: Once you were considered a villain, but now you walk the path of the straight and Narrow.
See how they are connected.
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Let's take something like Mad Scientist. You've healed over 1,000,000 points of damage during your nefarious adventures.
Now I change to Heroside and I have Doctor instead saying: You have helped your fellow heroes by healing them for two million hit points.
But I haven't. I haven't healed a hero in my career, I have healed other Villains up until now. See how they're *NOT* connected? See how switching is MECHANICAL with badges and not ROLEPLAYED in their text?
Need antother? Master of Olympus on my Villain: You have destroyed the Kronos Titan, showing Malta that you are a force to be reckoned with.
On my side-switched hero you claim it'd have the normal badge text so it'd say: You have destroyed the Kronos Titan, showing Malta that the Heroes of Paragon City defend their turf.
When did I, as a hero, defend my turf?
Sorry. Your logic just falls apart beyond that one badge. -
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B) They can't tell us because it involves future content, and the marketing folks are putting the brakes on the info. Also understandable. Just gonna have to swallow the bile and be patient for a bit.
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completely NOT understandable in my opinion. Removing content today because it might have something to do with other content tomorrow is silly.
Why not add the new content in a way that can coexist with the current badge content? It's not like there's been a need to replace content before. -
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I think the devs should at least have the guts to come here and stand up for their own decision. They're welcome to not change it over all the objections, but the silence in the face of all the questions is just rude.
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With all due respect, your $15 per month doesn't give you the right to demand explanations from the management. We were told of the change AND they confirmed it was not an error.
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Where did I mention my $15?
What I think does demand an answer is the overwhelming about of negative feedback on this issue.
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It seems pretty obvious to me that this ties into some future development and their longstanding policy is to tell NOTHING about future developments too far in advance. I really think you should expect only silence on this.
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What does this have to do with future development? The only future-related aspect is speculation by some people. As I said elsewhere, the ability for a villain to get this when they switch sides is just as possible as it always has been - it's not changed, it's not relevant. What's at issue is a hero being told they can't get the badge for the same action as a villian - risk vs reward when killing longbow. -
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Thank you for the response regarding the Reformed Badge, Ex. Though it's not much to go on, it is appreciated that our concerns have at least been heard. Here's hoping that the decision to remove the Reformed Badge is rescinded.
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Aye, seconded. If we're asked to voice our issues & complaints, it's nice to know they're at least being heard, if not responded to.
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I disagree with both of you.
I think the devs should at least have the guts to come here and stand up for their own decision. They're welcome to not change it over all the objections, but the silence in the face of all the questions is just rude. -
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Clearly, the Merit Vendor is not producing a sufficient supply of these new recipes.
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The "problem" is that the newly created difficulty in getting the right sets may be "working as intended".
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Are you saying it's balance that Shield Breaker's Chance for Damage is so much more rare than Lady Grey's? Does this balance carry thru to the effects of that IO? Does the less abundant, more expensive one do more damage?
Why design something no one can get? Didn't they just gut the entire long-term aspects of base buidling in order to make everything easily accessible?? -
There are 25 new IOs from I13 that are TF pool drops. (Per the Wiki.)
That means 25 pieces that can only be earned via the Merit store. I could gather data for other TF drop recipes, but it may include pieces generated before I13, so it may not be an accurate reflection of the Merit Vendor's usage.
I will ignore price for the moment. So no debate if a recipe is "purchasable". I don't care if someone listed one at 1 million or 300 million, I'm looking at what got listed.
This is the current market status of those 25 new recipes.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>None - Eradication Acc/Dam/Rech/End
None - Eradication Chance for Damage
One 50 - Obliteration Acc/Dam/Rech/End
One 50, One 34 - Obliteration Chance for Damage
None - Call to Arms End/Dam/Rech
None - Call to Arms Defense Aura
One 50, One 35 - Expedient Reinforcement End/Dam/Rech
Six 50 - Expedient Reinforcement Resist Aura
None - Thief of Essence Acc/End/Rech
None - Thief of Essence Chance for +End
None - Touch of the Nictus Acc/End/Rech
One 41, three 47, one 49, twenty 50 - Touch of the Nictus Chance for Damage
One 30 - Basilisk's Gaze Acc/End/Rech/Hold
None - Basilisk's Gaze Chance for -Rech
One each 43, 47, 48, 49, Three 50 - Lockdown Acc/End/Rech/Hold
One 40 and 45, Fifteen 50 - Lockdown Chance for Hold
None - Shield Breaker Acc/End/Rech
None - Shield Breaker Chance for Damage
One 38, four 50 Analyze Weakness Acc/End/Rech
One 36, one 49, nine 50 - Analyze Weakness Chance for ToHit
None - Cloud Senses Acc/End/Rech
None - Cloud Senses Chance for Damage
One each 32, 34, 41, Eleven 50 - Siphon Insight Acc/End/Rech
One each 35, 38, 45, 47, 49, Fifteen 50 - Siphon Insight Chance for ToHit
One 50 - Blessing of the Zephyr KB Protection
</pre><hr />
so of the 25 new pieces,
12 can't be found at all.
4 can't be found below their maximum level. If you're a level 40 and want an Obliteration A/D/R/E, will it be faster to wait for a low one on the market, or faster to hit level 47?
For the 9 that do show up below their max level, there are a total of 24 listings, compared to 79 listings at level 50. Unless someone wants to make a claim the market is endgame content, this is imbalanced.
Clearly, the Merit Vendor is not producing a sufficient supply of these new recipes.
That is objective feedback, any player can see the lack of market supply.
My opinion on how best to fix that: restore drops at the end of a TF, in addition to Merits, but have TFs drop at the content level not the character level. So Cap farmers generate 20, Shark gives 30, LGTF is "special" since it can give 50s. -
The numbers on the Profiteer bonus are too weak.
A common IO recipe drop from the Chronologist badge is worth over 100,000 (just talking Vendor prices, never mind market value) and I can get multiples of drops from the same charge-up time it takes to score one Profiteer token. So Chronologist is "worth" 200k or more.
The Crafting Token, on the other hand, is worth at most 122k, assuming I have a need to craft a rare level 50 IO, which isn't too frequent.
Profiteer should be significantly better than the direct results of other day jobs since it takes a 42 day prerequisite.
How do you fix this? I'm not sure what's possible. A plain shift in frequency may at least make the numbers look more even, but that's still dependent on the desire to craft 50 rares to maximize the effect, which is ultimately rather limited. What can you do to make the drop more interesting than just an equivalent amount of Inf saved?
Can you make a Wildcard salvage? Similar to how Access Bypass works as a wildcard, can you make an untradeable piece of salvage that replaces any one piece of salvage in a recipe? That would save on crafting, and be significantly different than raw Inf comparisons to other day jobs.
or perhaps a better way to achieve that, require all the salvage to craft a recipe, but the token then generates a salvage rebate when you craft. ie: "Salvage Bonus when Crafting" instead of upon mission completion.
Not sure what else. But the bottom line is this, the effect is currently "Inf Bonus upon Crafting" and it's a bonus that's way smaller than the Inf or Recipe bonuses you can get upon mission completions. Something needs to be improved. -
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Now I wonder if I wouldn't get more mileage out of it by putting it into Focused Accuracy. Since it's bugged and doesn't work while I'm exempted anyway.
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That's what I was saying above about timing.
If you put it in FA, it's checking every 10th second from the time you turn on FA.
If you put it in Invinc, it's checking every 10th second from the time you get your first check, so from the time you enter combat.
Let me illustrate the difference. It's 0 seconds on the counter, and FA checks. You're not in combat yet, so the build up goes off and starts its own timer counting down. Next FA check will be at the 10 second mark.
Now if you're out of combat for the whole 10 seconds, it's irrelevant either way.
But say you entered combat at the 2 second mark.
In the FA slotting, your Build Up has been running for 2 seconds already - that's probably one attack activation less that you'll get a benefit.
Slotted in Invincibility, however, the proc doesn't make it's first check until that T+2seconds when you enter combat. Giving you the full benefit of the 5 seconds of buff.
Yes, the 2nd check in invincibility will be at 12 seconds from time-0, so from there on it's the same for both powers. But the gain is in those situations where you first enter combat having just missed the build up effect.
Is it major? Well... 2 seconds is 40% of the build up duration. A 40% hit to effectiveness is pretty big.
(Note, I do realize it's probably supposed to be 10 seconds and is likely bugged. I'm going with current behavior for the example.)
perhaps a simpler comparison - would you rather put the Build Up power on auto-fire? or would you rather punch it yourself as you are about to aggro a mob? the auto may not be ideal timing, so go with the activation that's connected to when you're ready for your opening volley. -
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<QR>
I have a Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control PROC in Invincibility on my Tanker. I monitor all of the channels with various tabs, but I've never seen in fire off. Finally I sat in my base with Invincibility on for about 2 hours while I surfed the net. I then went back through the chat tabs. Nothing.
Does it actually work? If so, is it just that it doesn't PROC in Invincibility unless there's a target in range?
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Does Invincibility do anything all by itself? It needs a target in range to give you an effect, right?
Try sitting in the RWZ base by the targeting dummies and seeing if it shows up on the channel.
On the up-sides, if it's not actually firing without a target, it won't end up rolling the proc and suppressing a second or two before you dive into combat. If you're in the neutral state (no suppression in effect) it would immediately roll upon you engaging a new group. That might eek out a little better buff result.
Which brings up a question: like the +Rech proc, have we ever really established how a suppressable-yet-AOE proc rolls? Does it roll for every opponent triggereing it and then suppress, or suppress after the first opponent triggers a roll?
THAT should be testable in the RWZ, too, if you can get 2 or more dummies in range and note the proc frequency. -
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But as per my suggestion, I did not take into account spawn rate of what levels, for they are not really of great consequence. All I was seeking a fixed percent chance to get a recipe regardles of what and how you fought. I was seeking the freedom to street hunt, do threads, TFs, and Trials and not be penalized by artificial limitations of what I could get.
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Your table has a doubling of the chance from minion to Lt and Lt to boss.
Let me take some random spawn code and apply your chances to it:
solo - 1 minion, 1 lt => 4 + 8 % chances
2-character team = 2 minion, 1 lt => 4 + 4 + 8 % chances
3-character team = 1 minion, 1 boss -or- 3 minion, 1 lt => 4 + 16 or 4 + 4 + 4 + 8
So if the chance in your table is per teammate independently, you can see that clearing a mission spawned for 3 gives you a better chance of drops.
If the chance is per team as a whole, so you divide the duo chances by 2, divide the trio by 3, then you are going to get better drops as a soloist.
Either way, since the table of odds is not normalized against the spawn code, you have a very noticeable problem: you may not be telling players which content they should run to optimize their loot, but you'll end up telling them how many people they should have on a team! This is the very problem you argue against, just transitioned to a different game mechanic.
(though it's worth pointing out that the current drop rates don't resolve that problem, either. which is one reason I keep looking for hard numbers on the spawn algorithm to better illustrate that....)
(and without hard numbers of drops per mob so we can actually evaluate the recipe-generation system as a whole entity, I'm not sure this theoretical idea has much to do with the merit system itself.) -
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...
The table, suggested, would offer for each type of mob the percent chance to get any colored recipe:
............None.....White..Yellow..Orange..Purple
AV...........0........ 40......30.........20.........10
GM.........20........ 32......24.........16...........8
EB..........40........ 24......18.........12.......... 6
Boss.......60........ 16......12...........8.......... 4
LT..........80...........8........6...........4... ....... 2
Minion....90...........4........3...........2..... ..... 1
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Do you have the mathematics of the spawn code that determines how many minion/lt/boss are in each mob based on the size of the team?
I keep trying to find that and it never seems to be documented anywhere.
I ask because whatever table you make, it needs to balance the same odds regardless of team size (ie: normalized to the spawn distribution formula). -
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1) Rework the TFs/SFs ...
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you can probably stop right there. the devs have never seemed willing to rework TFs no matter what logical reasons are presented. Look at how long people have been intentionally failing the third LGTF mission and they've not done anything to improve that, let alone "fix" it.
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2) Reward Merits based on the number of foes defeated in the TF.
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That sounds like it would lead to a lot of fussing over what the plan is for a TF.
"No, keep killing inside this mission, I need more merits" vs "can we just move on with this? I'd like to wrap up the rest of this TF before bedtime."
TF rewards should remain fixed on a specific goal, not nitpicked based on individual behavior.
That said, they could add bonus rewards for missions that have multiple options. Maybe the fix to that LGTF mission is to award a merit if it's completed, and no merits if its failed.