Regarding recent changes

The Devs knew how good it was in beta, because lots and lots of people told them how good it was. They were specifically asked if it was going to be changed for retail because it was just that good.

The answer geko gave? "It is 100% working as intended and will not be changed".

And they nerfed the snot out of it barely 2 weeks after that statement. Why? And why no "we farked up, we admit it"? Why no "Here is why we made the changed, despite what we told you"?


I place honesty from the Devs way up the list on what will keep me paying and playing. It didn't even make Geko's list of things he would do. I hope it was an oversight

thanks for the update there geko. im very happy with the dev team working on this game, and thats not something i can say for many other mmo's.

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Many rants about Hasten hit the boards before most people even tried out the changes. Also, many of the upgrades and improvements to other powers were not even considered. So, for now, I am simply asking you to try things out for a while, and we will do the same. I promise things will ebb and flow until we hit a sweet spot. My guess is Hasten will not be reverted, but the pendulum will probably swing back the other way a little bit. The same may hold true for Accelerate Metabolism.

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Look, I admit that I haven't gotten all the way back up to level 36 since the nerf or anything, but that's not necessary here. Yes, you did make things better too, but NONE of those sthings had any impact whatsoever on how Hasten was nerfed. For example, the patch notes did not say:

* The timers on Dark Melee:Soul Drain, Dark Meleeark Consumption, and Super Reflexes:Practiced Brawler have been reduced so that by default they can be activated at least once per fight, given average fight durations.

Had you also made that vital change, I wouldn't have batted an eye over the Hasten change, but as NO changes weere made that in any way positively effected either the Dark Melee powerset, or the Super Reflexes powerset, and the Hasten changes DID in no uncertain terms negatively effect both those sets (not as much as some, but plenty), I feel fully justified in trying to come up with a more mutually agreeable solution than the one that you came up with.

I really want to hear what, exactly, you guys intend todo about this. This is not a change that should stay for wekks or months. A basic, if not permanent solution should be worked out within the next week or so, something that willl at least make Hasten an always on ability for a more reasonable cost, without making it as unbalacing as some think it was before the change.

Ok first, Not all the changes affect everyone, except hasten. The reason the other buffs did not get mentioned is because they affected less people. Still, it does not matter how many "happy" things you add to a patch, they never outweigh the "unhappy" MAJOR nerfs cause.

With that being said, Geko and the rest of the dev team, I apologize! I was overly harsh. I still believe the things I posted about hasten, and I am still not happy with its current incarnation for my build, BUT I did not need to be so "on the offensive"

I want to thank you for this post, it is big of you.

I would also like to propose that many people are overly critical of this game because they love it, and they don't want to see anything tarnish it.

Thanks agian.

I have great respect for you and your fellow Superdevelopers Geko. You gained that through about 6 weeks of beta and now through retail.

You have been right about many things - and you are most probably right about many things in this last big patch. The changes to Telekinesis are justified (and I HAVE that) - likewise the changes in some form to Hasten (didn't have that btw). You were right about the changes at around end of beta to Enervating Field as well.

However with regards to AM - I am sorry but on this one you're wrong in your adjustment. In short ... this power was and never were overpowered. Players that took the powerset that has this AM power - give up on quite a few other choices to get this buff. Why? Overpowered? Nope - simply because it provides a little less downtime especially if your character depends on END hungry powers like the rest of the powerset.

You ask us to focus on other changes also. Well I play mostly 2 controllers - Mind/Rad and Ice/Rad. My Ice controller is certainly happy with the Confuse addition to ArcAir effects - but as I have said elsewhere - I have no idea why you added it - that power was plenty powerful as it were. My Mind controller is also happy about the extended sleeps he can now make - but again I didn't really need it - it was fine as it was. Telekinesis changes are fine - though this comment measured on "what's to come" not as the power is now (i.e. pretty much useless).

That AM nerf made both of those chars harder to play. Controllers are not exactly the fastest killers on the planet - so having to play 80% of their time without the addition of some END recovery from AM is very very tough.

Arguments like "well with 6 SO END recov" you will only have XXX min downtime with AM is ... umm pure bad taste Geko. My chars are 19 and 15 - started in 3 day headstart - so I am not exactly a powerleveler. A 19 and a 15 cannot have 6 SO's in that one power - not even one SO actually. Was it really your intention to make AM only interesting and useful to level 30-35+ characters? - i.e. players that COULD have 6 slots allocated to one power and put SO's in all of them?

Arguments? Well you haven't really argued about the AM nerf. There has been NO explanation about this change to AM. Why was it nerfed? We are a lot of people that simply don't understand this one - and don't understand why you will not talk about it. There are explanations of Hasten - but not about AM. You claim you aim to communicate Geko - please do so about AM. Why?

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The Devs knew how good it was in beta, because lots and lots of people told them how good it was. They were specifically asked if it was going to be changed for retail because it was just that good.

The answer geko gave? "It is 100% working as intended and will not be changed".

And they nerfed the snot out of it barely 2 weeks after that statement. Why? And why no "we farked up, we admit it"? Why no "Here is why we made the changed, despite what we told you"?

I place honesty from the Devs way up the list on what will keep me paying and playing. It didn't even make Geko's list of things he would do. I hope it was an oversight

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There seems to be a lot of rumors and conjecture about what was said in Beta. To be honest, I dont know what was said, but I remember the train of events. Hasten used to be a Toggle with NO END cost. The Beta testers proved this to be too powerful. I THINK at that point, it was changed to a click, with a standard up front END cost. The duration may have been 60 seconds. In any event, it soon was changed into the way it was when the game shipped (120 sec dur, wiht an END drain at the end). The funny thing was everyone screamed "NERF" and said we ruined Hasten and it was now worthless. They demanded we change it back. It was probably at that point that I said we were happy the way it was and we were not going to change it back b/c it was too powerful. So we let it ride, and we assumed that incarnation of Hasten would ge well balanced. Mind you, there were a FEW (sarcasm) other things on our mind, and lots to balance and lots to do. We moved on the the next thing.

Soon after launch, it quickly became clear that it was still too good. We neglected to consider that Hasten Hated itself, which was allowing players to keep it on all the time. I dont have a problem with it being on all the time, but I do have a problem with it being on all the time with only a handful of DO Enhancements. So we were wrong. It was not working as intended. Accelerate Metabolism was only adding to the problem. So we made a change. If needed, we will be happy to make another change.

Nobody lied, and no promisses were broken. Anything in the game is subject to change at any time. More changes will come. I appologize if I didnt put it in writing that I will not lie, but if that will somehow help, then ok:

I will not lie.
I will not kill (sorry forgot that one too)
I will not commit adultry.
I will not steal.
I will honer my mother and father.
I will not take Statemans name in vain.
I will eat my veggies.

I am not sure what you are looking for, or what can be said that was not already said. Valaie, do you promise to:

*Not to lie
*Not fly off the handle
*To be polite
*To not say someting is teh suck before trying it out
*Admit when something is overpowered
*Not to theaten to hold your account hostage or hold your breath until you turn blue unless we give in to your demands
*Follow the rules of the boards
*Not to scream "stealth nerf" when you miss 4 times in a row
*Not to Grief
*Dont talk to strangers
*Smite evil and fight injustice
*Eat your veggies
*Wash my car


About AM. I hope it has not gone unnoticed that AM is a good buff. It buffs your attack speed AND your run speed AND your fly speed AND your damage output AND protects you from sleep, hold and immobilize. 2 rad defenders could keep this buff on the team permanently. Even 1 could do the same thing wiht a few recharge enhancements. That really is too much buff time for an AoE buff that is this powerful. Again, I negelcted to account for the fact that AM hasted itself, so that added to the problem. We will probably reduce the RT time on it a bit. I am not happy with how long it is now, but it was too fast before.

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For example, the patch notes did not say:

* The timers on Dark Melee:Soul Drain, Dark Meleeark Consumption, and Super Reflexes:Practiced Brawler have been reduced so that by default they can be activated at least once per fight, given average fight durations.

Had you also made that vital change, I wouldn't have batted an eye over the Hasten change,

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Soul Drain RT is 120 seconds
Dark Consumption RT is 180 seconds
Practice Brawler RT is 200 seconds (w/ a 120 dur, thats 80 seconds downtime.

These are all very poweful, yet even w/o Hasten, the longest recharge is 3 minutes. I dont see how you couldnt use each of these pretty much every battle.

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Soon after launch, it quickly became clear that it was still too good. We neglected to consider that Hasten Hated itself, which was allowing players to keep it on all the time. I dont have a problem with it being on all the time, but I do have a problem with it being on all the time with only a handful of DO Enhancements. So we were wrong. It was not working as intended. Accelerate Metabolism was only adding to the problem. So we made a change. If needed, we will be happy to make another change.

Nobody lied, and no promisses were broken. Anything in the game is subject to change at any time. More changes will come. I appologize if I didnt put it in writing that I will not lie, but if that will somehow help, then ok:

I will not lie.


I am not sure what you are looking for, or what can be said that was not already said.



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That is what I was looking for. An explanation (you gave it), an admission that you farked up/were wrong (regarding earlier statements, not your current position), and a statement that you aren't gonna come to these boards and feed us a bunch of crap.

If that was there from the day the patch was first propped, I wouldn't have had much to say about the whole deal aside from the respec issue.

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About AM. I hope it has not gone unnoticed that AM is a good buff. It buffs your attack speed AND your run speed AND your fly speed AND your damage output AND protects you from sleep, hold and immobilize. . That really is too much buff time for an AoE buff that is this powerful.

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Defenders and controllers rely on AM for the one attribute you failed to mention, endurance regen. How bout removing the run speed, flight speed, damage add, and then reduce the time recharge back some ?

Read thru the 30 posts on people complaining about the AM adjustment, i dont see a single one complaining about loss of run speed, flight speed, or damage increase. Pretty much every thread is the loss of endurance regen for normal fighting, ans some for the haste effect . Its now used only for a boss fight.

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That is what I was looking for. An explanation (you gave it), an admission that you farked up/were wrong

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I am not too proud to admit when I am wrong. The fact is, every time any game makes a patch, it is becasue a mistake was made, or somthing is just not as perfect as we want it. Maybe its a typo, or something was not anticipated. OR maybe simply a loophole was found. In any event, I dont recall feeding anyone crap.

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Defenders and controllers rely on AM for the one attribute you failed to mention, endurance regen. How bout removing the run speed, flight speed, damage add, and then reduce the time recharge back some ?

Read thru the 30 posts on people complaining about the AM adjustment, i dont see a single one complaining about loss of run speed, flight speed, or damage increase. Pretty much every thread is the loss of endurance regen for normal fighting, ans some for the haste effect . Its now used only for a boss fight.

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Yes, I actualy had that, and accidently edited it out. But that is a very significant part of the power. But that sorta is my point. AoE END REcovery is very powerfull. Only Emapthy has another AoE Recovery boost, and its the second to last power and has a 500 second recahrge. Nothing is more powerful than END. It is probably more important than HP. That is what makes AM so powerfull, and why its recharge was increased. Other defenders dont have that advantage. It was unbalanced. But again, the RT tie will be reduced, but not to the way to used to be.

Sheez, finally, some recognition about what Ive been trying
to say... I might have said it wrong in many ways but my
message was the same...

Try things out before you [censored] about it...

Allso, geko can u read my thread called "The truth about the hasten "nerf""?
Yeah yeah, so you will ban me when you read it but can you
atleast answer my questions before you do?

and this is why geko is the man.

Which is why I now think stamina is a better power than accelerate metabolism. Stamina is on 100% of the time and costs no endurance to cast. I don't, and most other users don't, care that much about anything except the endurance buff.

I know I'd sure like an up front answer whether or not stamina is being looked at for "balancing." Otherwise I'll skip the rad powerset entirely and just pick up stamina like 90% of the rest of the population.

The two cents that I would like to add here at this point is that, while I don't disagree that the powers that were nerfed in the 5/11 patch were unbalanced, I feel that there are several powers that are even more unbalanced, yet they were not fixed.

Have you noticed that nearly every character that's 35+ is a devices blaster? That's because Targeting Drone allows Snipe to do a whole damage to deep purple bosses (in particular things like Totems who can't get to you if you're hovering), and because Caltrops + Ignite / Rain of Fire / other AoEs + running around corners allows blasters to kill large groups (by large I mean danger zone size) of high level enemies at relatively low risk.

Also I want to mention the brokenness of the Fire/Ice tanker, who can take provoke and use that to get really high enemies to run into Burn that then proceed to trip on the Ice Patch, both of which always hit. We were using that technique the other day when a group of 25/26s were killing everything that moved in Brickstown, including large spawns of level 35 Vampyrs and Nightwolves.

So basically what I'm saying is, can you please try to fix the most serious balance issues (the ones that truly are causing people to powerlevel), or at the very least say that the power is difficult to come up with a good solution to how to balance it effectively, but that the problem is being worked on?

Thanks for reading my rant.

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I know I'd sure like an up front answer whether or not stamina is being looked at for "balancing." Otherwise I'll skip the rad powerset entirely and just pick up stamina like 90% of the rest of the population.


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There is not present plan to modify Stamina. It takes 14 levels, and 2 powers to unlock stamina. Then it takes 2 DO enhancements for Staminas END Recovery buff to be as effective for one player as AM gives to your whole team. Yes it is Auto, but it stil does not give all the other buffs AM does.

Geko is officially my new hero.

He tells the truth. Stamina is almost useless unenhanced, and even ONE DO doesnt make it ALL that much better, 2 makes it so I ALMOST dont run out of End every single fight.

I think instead of wondering whats so good about stamina that makes people take it, you might think about what is so bad about the rest of the powers... like END COST!!!

I have a friend who has said he will stop using fireball because of the end cost. He took the power, and now wont use it. That to me is VERY wrong. I know part of the game is to ration your endurance, but yikes, the end cost of most powers is a bit much.

Seems like geko is online now?
Can you plz look at some of my posts and answer some of my
questions?

I can still read this board even if Im banned right?
or do I have to change to my other account?

Geko, I have no idea where you've been for the last 3 days, but I wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer so many questions regarding the changes to AccMet in this thread. The changes to that buff caused no small amount of distress and the lack of explanation following created even more confusion and angst. This kind of conversation is exactly what people needed.

I look forward to the proposed shortened recharge timer. At this point in time, anything is better than the monolithic one it has now.

Rather than keep pushing for AM to be completely reset, I'd like to urge you to please look carefully at end usage in the Rad set. The reason there is such a clamour about AM no longer being able to be made continuous by around level 20 (or at least to be usable in the majority of battles) is that Rad Primaries have chronic endurance problems, even with AM running constantly, I would have endurance problems, even with 4 level+3 generic end regen enhancements in Accelerate Metabolism, and DOs or SOs end reduction in my toggle powers.

Maybe the adjustment to AM was needed for group balance, but something is wrong with the Rad set, because it was very much dependant on AM's effect on the hero in order to function on an equal level to other Defenders. Now with AM not filling the role it did, Rads are not competitive.

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I have a friend who has said he will stop using fireball because of the end cost. He took the power, and now wont use it.

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Haahahaha, that's hilarious. Fireball is quite possibly the most powerful base AE damage spell in the game. Not using it is like making a controller and refusing to do CC. The end cost on fireball is more than reasonable, and slotting a few end reducers will mitigate it even further.

My main toon is a fire blaster, and fireball is my favorite power. It is, quite litterally, the bomb.

I see nothing wrong with Rad Blast and RAd Emmision END cost. It is comperable to all other sets, and identicle to their counterparts on others sets.

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Soon after launch, it quickly became clear that it was still too good. We neglected to consider that Hasten Hated itself, which was allowing players to keep it on all the time.

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This was not unknown during beta (or at least not unknown to your co-workers). I know I brought it up on an almost constant basis oin the balance boards (although I did not see this as a problem in the least). The comment people are reffering to came at the very tail end of beta, no more than half a week before launch, and was either by you, or perhaps Poz. Not sure which, but the content of it was clear, that even though we had detailed how easy it was to get Hasten running all the toime, in dirrect response to that the developer in questions said that the power was functioning as intended, and would not be changed.

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These are all very poweful, yet even w/o Hasten, the longest recharge is 3 minutes. I dont see how you couldnt use each of these pretty much every battle.

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No offense, but do you play this game?

The average battle solo takes perhaps a minute solo, often much less, and I can reach the next spawn in twenty-some seconds. That's without Hasten active mind you. There's a lot of variance there, but they generally go pretty fast. Group battles vary much more wildly, but here's what I do know:

In beta, at level 35, I had Soul Drain slotted with one SO recharge (due to the screwy slots during beta, I'll have more now), I also had Quickness active, and Hasten active. With all of that, my average was the Soul Drain was ONLY available halfway through the fight after using it at the begining of a fight. That is, I'd run in, use SD, finish off that spawn, move to the next, and SD wouldn't be ready again until halfway through that fight, when several of the enemies had already been killed.

Scrappers move fast. Their abilitis have to keep up with them.

Dark Consumption I can understand the Hastened timer on, it doesn't need to be ready as often as Soul Drain.

Practiced Brawler needs to be on ALL the time. With the above configuration and like three SOs I could get it so that it would recharge right before it went off, so I could keep it going constantly, but without Hasten there will be uncomfortable gaps, especailly at lower levels.

Also bear in mind that not all powers can have 6 SOs in them, you don't give us that many slots to go around, and also that not every slot can go into recharge SOs, ACC SOs are almost a necessity, since we need to hit at least six enemies with SD to get a bonus as large as something like Build Up (at +12% per enemy hit).

Hasten needs to be on ALL the time, and it must do so with few enhancements. If you do not feel it's balanced as is, I have a thread going that lists possible compromises, but Hasten MUST be constantly active, regardless of the performance costs. The power is not useless, nbut it is simply not worth it as it is.

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There is not present plan to modify Stamina. It takes 14 levels, and 2 powers to unlock stamina.

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PLEASE make this the balance on Hasten then. I can deal with that. Make it the last Super Speed power so that you can leave it as is.

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Maybe the adjustment to AM was needed for group balance, but something is wrong with the Rad set, because it was very much dependant on AM's effect on the hero in order to function on an equal level to other Defenders. Now with AM not filling the role it did, Rads are not competitive.

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I completely agree with this assessment. AM may well have been too enhancing to a group, but without it, the Rad defenders are sorely lacking. Radiation emission is already one of the power pools that has many next-to-useless powers.