Toril

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Please direct me to the post where there was warning about nerfs to khleds forms and i will retract my statement.

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There was no warning from the dev team at all. However Bill, like I and many others, have been around long enough to see the writing spray painted on my car windows in pink flourescent lettering.

No offense, but if you didn't think they were going to gut those two powers you were only fooling yourself. Look at the track record and be amazed. People laugh and mock some of us when we predict nerfs for upcoming issues. Then when they happen they seem amazed at the accuracy.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Ok, this set is currently undergoing a revision.

The fact was that it was too "Controllery" for a Defender power. There were also a lot of redundant debuffs that made the set VERY powerful.

Here are a list of changes that are currently being made. They are not in a patch yet, so I don't know when they will make it to the Training Room server:

<ul type="square">
Net Arrow: Removed Recharge debuff from Net arrow (Set already has many recharge debuffs)

Ice Arrow: Ice Arrow is now available later (swapped availability of Ice arrow and flash arrow). Increased recharge and decreased duration of Ice Arrow. Reduced Slow debuff. (To bring it in line with similar hold powers like Petrifying Gaze). Reduced base Accuracy of Ice Arrow. It was 120% of normal and should not have been.

Poison Gas Arrow: Increased Recharge of Poison Gas Arrow to 60 seconds from 24 seconds to prevent multiple stacking. Removed Recharge debuff from Poison Gas Arrow. Reduced its duration/lifetime. Reduced its chance to sleep. Fixed Poison Gas Arrow visual f/x.

Acid Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Acid Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack)

Disruption Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Disruption Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack). Increased Recharge rate of Disruption Arrow to 120 for Defender and Controller to prevent multiple stacking

Glue Arrow: Reduced Duration of Glue Arrow from 45 seconds to 30 second and Increased Recharge time from 20 seconds to 120 seconds to prevent multiple stacking. Fixed Glue Arrow visual f/x.

Flash Arrow: Added the ability to add Accuracy Enhancements to Flash Arrow. Fixed Controller version so it no longer AutoHits.[/list]
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Once again..

The power of overnerfing is strong in the devs... Yes.. Yes... Soon the darkside will take over...

Powers that take forever to return to be used are not fun. Please reconsider the recharge times in favor of a flag that says the power will not stack from the same player.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

It's about damned time.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

Craptacular. Blasters get 1 or 2 shotted. How does this power help them?

Don't get me wrong, blasters made out like bandits in this issue, but Defiance isn't going to help them at all in the levels were they were having issues. Ie the 30-50 range. They're either mostly alive or dead or mezzed. Mostly alive the power never activates. Dead the power is obviously useless. Mezzed its useless as well.

How was this supposed to help the blasters again?

The early game that was easier when you couldn't get easily one shotted just got easier for them. This did absolutely nothing to change the problems they have in the late game.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

From what I've seen this is a welcome gameplay change.

Hostage pathing has serious issues however and needs to be fixed before this hits live.

Too bad it pales in comparison to all the horrible changes that came with this issue.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

Entangle Arrow - Will anyone take this power as a defender? Given the choice between it and a single target hold, who in thier right mind is going to take the immobolize?

Ice Arrow - Excellent power. However the reason I like it so much will be explained further down.

Glue Arrow - Excellent power, however something needs to distinguish the anchor of the power from the rest of mob that is being slowed by the glue.

Poision Gas Arrow - Excellent power, seems to be about right.

Flash Arrow - Bugged. Power can miss, but cannot accept Accuracy enhancements. The debuff time is also either extremely short or the graphic isn't lasting as long as the debuff lasts. If the debuff time is indeed as short as it appears to be for the endurance used then this will go the way of Propel from the Gravity set. (Power with awesome looking graphics that is effectively useless in a real playing environment.)

I feel I really like this set for all the wrong reasons. The set controls better than my controller did at the same level. It's slows and recharge debuffs are more effective when stacked than controller AoE holds now are. The set is a good set all in and fits in well with the old feel of the game. However it is not very synergistic with Everquest in Spandex, and therefore it needs to be stripped of alot of the things that make it controller like. Especially if that is the direction the game is headed, which it seems to be. Simply put, the set is too fun to play and that must be corrected now before it hits release.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

Debuff from the attacks is too powerful. All in all with the changes to every other powerset this particular primary/secondary is making every other choice but archery look craptastic in comparison.

Don't get me wrong, the set makes me feel somewhat heroic, but that doesn't seem to be the direction the game is going. If you wish to keep the Everquest theme you are headed toward and to continue to divest yourself from what made this game popular in the first place, ie superheroes, then this set needs a good bit of toning down.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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If they weren't listening they'd keep those travel power acc debuffs...

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And the -acc debuff has been on Flight since beta why...

...because they don't listen.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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1) Scrappers complained about not being usefull in groups. The Dev's added Criticals to help turn us into the boss killers.

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Then then nerfed regen to the point it gets killed by AoE damage alone in a 7-8 man team. Glad they listened to us...

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2) Tankers complained about feeling like they HAD to take Provoke, a pool power, to be good Tankers. The Dev's added inherint taunts to many a Tanker power, as well as the Tankers own Taunt powers to help fix this.


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Don't play a tanker so can't comment, however I did notice a nerf to Ice Tankers. We all know how powerful and plentiful they were. Glad they did something to kill that set off entirely and put it out of everyone's misery.

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3) Players complained about the Boss Changes and asked for a difficulty slider. The Dev's rolled back the Boss Changes, added the difficulty slider, AND set it up so that Boss's would not appear on the lowest difficulty setting, thus making missions a bit easier.

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No doubt the inital data was done in a borked scenario as the regen changes were and the changes had to be rolled back because of it.

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4) Players complained about how missions were worthless XP wise compared to Street Hunting. The Dev's bumped up the Mission XP gains.


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The devs didn't bump up the xp because of player complaints. They bumped up the xp because so many people were just completely ignoring their "content". This was easily determined through "datamining".

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5) Players complained about the lack of PvP. Devs added the Arena.


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Far more people are complaining now wanting PvP taken out due to the massive problems it has caused. Will it be removed? Nope. Are the arenas nearly as vacant as the Shadow Shard? Yes, at least on Victory.

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6) Martial Arts scrappers complained about the godawful animation times. The Dev's cut down most of the animation times, and completly changed the animation for Storm Kick (The worst offender of the lot).

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Perhaps they did listen here. It is more likely the result of someone that works at Cryptic actually playing the set themselves and not liking it, rather than the dev team listening to us.

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7) Players complained about Katana animations. The Dev's completly re-worked the entire set of animations of the powerset.

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See #6.

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8) The Dev's added Boomboxes and a "rave" for the heroes.


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Ah yes... The Paragon Cricket Chirping building...

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And many other changes and improvements have been added since the release of live. So they do listen to the players. Just because it's not always what *YOU* want doesen't mean they don't listen.

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They aren't listening. If they were listening then they would at least attempt to listen to the people that calmly and rationally explain things to them with numerical data and hard proof. However they choose to ignore those people as well. They aren't listening. Most of them don't even play the game. They can't be or they would see some of the problems first hand because they are glaring. The posted test demo in the regen thread proved that. No one one the dev team knew the feat that was accomplished in that demo was impossible until it was screamed at them by every player with half a brain that the purple patch alone prevents that from happening.

Faith was lost a long time ago. Thank god Empire Earth II is here to tide me over until they can have their heads surgically removed from their collective derriers. Unfortunately they have been stuck there since the AV/red light-green light nerf to controllers.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Agreed.

We should try NEVER to change a power because of PvP alone (BTW, this is what I've always promised). The changes now aren't solely because of PvP - there's signifcant PvE issues, too.

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Making up a lame excuse to change it in PvE does not constitute keeping good on your promise.

Some of us have been here since beta and remember the first change to to superspeed.

It had -Acc and +Def back then in case you've intentionally filed it away under things never to remember.

It blew the lower part of an animals extremities at that point because it meant that making a superfast hero was just a pipedream. All the components were there, but someone was hit over the head with a mallet and designed it badly.

Then SS was changed to what it was up until now. Stealth component with no -acc and no +def so you could have an SSing hero.

Now you're changing it back to being really crappy. Glad to you guys have pulled the guy who was wacked in the head with the mallet many many months ago back out of mothballs so he can once again begin implementing things to ruin this relatively decent game.

Superspeed is just one example of many. All these horrible changes that are being made make me happy that I started the game with something that was extremely difficult to play and moved on to something that was broken and even more difficult to play. It's a game. Games are supposed to be fun. If we didn't want to have fun there are many other cheaper MMOs out there to bang our heads against the wall over. Or perhaps we can all watch paint dry.

Balance may be important, but its not important enough to ruin the reason for the game being there in the first place. To have fun. If you can't change a power in PvE and not change it in PvP then just say it. You actually came out and said, "Hey. We screwed up." in the regen changes thread and people appreciated it. More likely than not they're willing to let you back out of this PvP snafu as well, but if you continue just flat out lying to them they'll eventually just leave.

PvP is turning out to be a huge waste of resources, both in manpower and in alienating your customer base.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Why thank you. All I can say is....

Thank you for not releasing I4 to Live and nerfing us all on our anniversary. Bad enough we can't go near test without being nerfed, thank goodness we still have Live, eh?

Kudos.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here! Here!

Happy Anniversary!

Hope you like crap!

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Uhhh... Why are we even going through all this? I'm with the people who suggest tightening the level restrictions on xp now. Have characters beyond a 6 level difference that are not SK'd or Exemp'd get either minimal or even no xp. Problem solved. All this seems to be really overcomplicating the issue.

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They already get a "pittance" of xp.

Not my word. It was Positron's I swear, and this was months back.

Actually if you take a look at it, they get more or damn near the same xp if they are sk'd to the median level of the team and not to the lowest.

In the bridging scenario that is being used, the bridge is getting better xp relative to their level than the person being bridged because the sk brings the median down closer to them. That is why people beg to bridge now.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Based on data from the Training Room and feedback on the forums, we will be making the following changes to how XP, Influence and other drops are divided:

If a player is in a zone, did NO damage in a combat and has dead for more than a minute, he receives no XP. If a player is more than 300 ft. away (an increase of 100 ft.) from the mob when it’s defeated and did NO damage, he receives no XP. Otherwise, the player receives his full share of XP.

If players are on a mission map, they always receive their full shares. There’s no distance limitation. Teams can split up in maps – players can be separated by elevators – everyone receives their XP.

This system does not affect Mission rewards.



We’ll be putting the distance and mission map changes up on the Training Room soon (week or so) to see how it plays out.

Now, let me clarify the situation with Badges and Defeat tasks. As long as you or any of your teammates are within 200 ft. of the defeated mob, EVERYONE on the team gets credit. This is not a change in Issue 4; this is the way that it currently works.

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Much better than the previous suggestion and limitations and it should cut down on lag in city zones. However, the controller/defender not getting credit for holds or buffs to teammates or debuffs to mobs is considered a "bug" to me, and not a "feature" of the new system. Please revise that and expand the death timer to around 3 minutes to account for hazard zones and you may have a more viable solution.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Does that include outdoor mission maps, Mr. Statesman sir?


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Outdoor mission maps are considered just plain ole mission maps.

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this doesnt fix the current plevelling trend boss.


the current trend is a level 50 fire tank/regen scrapper/whatever herds dreck's mission. they have a 43-44 sk'ng whomever. this is called bridging.

you then invite random people to anchor the misson to make it harder (hint guys: you only need 4 people set at unyielding to fill the mission with +1's, but it wont be as many bosses).



none of my low 40's toons can go 30 seconds without being asked to bridge. no one legit teams anymore.

if it's possible from a code standpoint, make this change apply to outdoor instance missions. that's the only way you'll ever truly make it more difficult to do this.


so far all you've done is prevent people form herding and kiling in hazard zones and pi for friends. not a major change.

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Screwing outdoor instanced gets us right back to the whole issue of Fing teams over for divide and conquer.

PLERS DO NOT GIVE A RATS BEHIND ABOUT ANY OF THE PREVIOUS PROPOSITIONS!

Get it through your skulls.

A herder can drag a herd anywhere they want. It's freaking herd! A level 1 sk'd to a 43 can sit and watch L52 mobs 50 feet away while they are being slaughtered at NO RISK AT ALL!

Stop making suggestions that hurt legitimate game play.

Jeebus!

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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How often do you lie dead for longer than a minute? That almost never happens with me. Is this a common occurance among the majority of the playerbase?

If the answer is no then your complaint is moot.

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Street hunting not usually. I would extend the timer in hazard zones to 3-5 minutes though. This would give the mentor more incentive to stay with his sidekick than to immediately bail and go to the hospital a zone or two away.

Missions, yes, this was a big issue, but that's been fixed.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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OK, as I continue to follow this...

I like the suggestion that holds do 1 pt of damage. Or 0.01 pt. I don't care. As a scrapper and tank enthusiast, I like my targets still. The hold that stopped them is as valuable as my hit.

Make debuffs do 0.01 pt of damage per tick of time. See above.

Figure out a way to add that 0.01 pt damage to any mob hit by a buffed teammate. That's the hard code...tell me, though, that there aren't a thousand guys waiting to get a crack at coding something like that and get paid for it.

If what controllers and defenders are designed to do does not reap rewards, then 1) I will not play those ATs and 2) they will lose their effectiveness.

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If you are close enough to hold the mob, you're within 300 feet and will get your XP share, why the need for 0.01 dmg?

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Blaster is impatient and aggros group too soon with Fireball.
Blaster immediately dies.
Controller/Empath holds mob.
Remaining team continues fighting held mob.
Controller/Empath runs back to tp and rez Blaster.
(300 feet still isn't that far of a distance when a travel power is concerned.)
Controller/Empath rezzes Blaster.
Mob is killed off while controller is doing his thing.
Blaster gets xp due to his initial volley.
Controller gets jack for saving parties [censored] and rezzing teammate.

Fair? Absolutely not.

I have seen the above scenario happen so many times its insane. Though I didn't calculate distance, the general rez rule was out of visual range.

Put a tiny damage to controller holds and a tiny damage component from any buff that can be done in the game to credit the buffer and I think we have a viable solution.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Suggestion: How about you get full XP if you're doing a mission? In other words, Leader A sets kill 10 Council mission. Leader A and Teamie B spilt up and still get full XP because it's for a mission.

Personal Opinion: I have to give a huge "Meh." to the entire system, really. My particular irk is the fact that you made it so you get full XP on a mission...the thing is that missions were what most PLers were using in the first place (Wolves, Dreck, blah blah blah)! What I'm saying is that the system at its core focus, to stop powerleveling, is really weak. You're only really cutting down about (*made up statistic*) maybe 1/4-1/3 of powerleveling, and then hurting the sub-group of those who prefer to street hunt.

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In the end the xp range thing is a bad idea period, but this revision isn't as bad as the first.

This revision will cut down on lag and push people toward missions which is what the devs have attempted to do all along.

I do expect to see the following though.

1.) More blatant herding.
2.) Smaller teams hunting in zones.
3.) Controllers and Defenders getting shafted if this goes live without an adjustment.

A smaller number of people get shafted, but people still get shafted for playing legit. The only real way to solve the problem and not cause issues for legit players would be to have in game policing of it. You will never prevent powerleveling by game mechanics alone without hurting the feel of the game itself. If they do manage to come up with a system by using game mechanics then the game will be so different that most of the people that enjoy the game and play it now won't be playing it then.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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u realize that this really doesnt stop the power levelers.??

most power levelers heard the wolves into a single area its not hard to move the others to an area within the 300ft area.

seems like a lot of work for not.

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Those missions are timed now.

Howeve I really don't understand why the blinky hunt gives you more time than the one to kill Shadowhunter and blinky hunt. That makes no sense.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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What about the group holds that do no damage whatsoever.

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Currently - stay within 300 ft.

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This will be fixed before this goes live, right?

Or at the very least give every hold a single 1 point of damage.

Most Controllers and Defenders already get forced into teaming to get xp, don't shaft them more.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

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Still confused about one point: if (for example) you've got a three person team, each person on the team is 400' away from each other person, and person X defeats a bad guy -- does person X get "solo XP" or XP for being on a 3 person team?



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He'd get XP with the 3 person team multiplier...BUT that XP would still be divided appropriately between each teammate. The others, however, wouldn't receive their shares.

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Wouldn't that be considered a bug then?

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

Just replying in general to the thread to add my 2 cents after playing around on test this weekend.

Dimension Shift : Still wouldn't take this power. In PvP I can see where it would be an extremely useful tool, but if you're mainly a PvE person who travels with a good fast moving team its still not worth wasting a power slot on.

Propel : All I can do is chuckle that they think this will make the power more viable. Before the change it did less damage on average than a 6 slotted brawl. Now it does slightly more. This change is essentially a slap to the face. If you liked propel before then you actually got an improvement. If you had respec'd it out you still have absolutely no reason to add it back in. DPE and DPS are still horrible.

Wormhole : Mixed feelings on this one. It was amusing to rain mobs down onto my companions so they didn't have to go anywhere for their next group. It would be a perfect tool for any griefer since you can now yank entire spawns into places they have no business being. Summation : It would be good tool for street sweeping or outdoor missions, but limited in use for anything else. If you liked the old wormhole then this change will probably make you angry as it completely changes the power's uses. If you didn't like the old wormhole you probably still won't bother with the new one. The disorient is laughable at best. If the new wormhole actually disoriented for an extended period of time then it would become a useful tool to me. As it stands I still have no reason to waste a power choice on it.

I think they missed the mark on all the gravity changes with the exception of Dimesion Shift, and that change should have only been made for PvP, not PvE.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

Eclipse works regardless of form. It probably would turn the nova form into a death machine, but what the op fails to mention is that without any shields you're gonna get mutilated before you get both Sunless Mire and Eclipse off.

In the end your DPS takes a serious hit due to constant form shifts (Sunless lasts 30 secs. Eclipse lasts 90 secs. Then you must renew each. IF you don't drop form every 30 seconds to renew Sunless then you're wasting the benefits of Eclipse.) and xp debt and you end up getting back down to the level of a human form WS.

However this setup would be effective if you always travel with a good tank, but then again, you wouldn't even need Eclipse then for anything except end recovery.

To top all this off. Eclipse offers absolutely no protection vs Stuns, Mezes, Holds, etc so don't be attempting to hunt anything that does that without a team. So... That's every villian group post 40 save Praetorians off the solo friendly menu.

All in all this guide could be effective in a teamed environment, but so could every other AoE blaster out there.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

&lt;Clap&gt; &lt;Clap&gt; &lt;Clap&gt;

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

Lol. They better get that Warshade PL'd to at least 32 as well or they're gonna hate it.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"

Actually Shadow, the majority of the people have already bailed from the Kheldians, at least this is the case on Victory anyway. You can do a server wide search at any time during the day and see the numbers are down signifigantly from where they were in mid-January.

Friday nights being the typical high time for server load there are roughly half (slightly less than half actually) the number of PBs and WSs that there were a month ago when the AT was exciting, fresh, and people had hope that the problems would be quickly fixed.

The number of PBs to WSs at any given time is also at least 4:1 and at times 10:1.

Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"