Live Feedback: Issue 12: Villain Epic Archtypes
By
0roro,
Posted on: 2008-05-20 11:40 in Developers' Corner
epic fun
To reiterate a point I have made twice before, something should be done about the AT names. The collective name for all the Villain Epics is "Soldiers of Arachnos," while the name for the wolf/bane/crab spider AT is "Arachnos Soldier." THIS IS CONFUSING. Please do something about it. Suggestions:
[*] Change the name of the AT forum to something other than "Soldiers of Arachnos." Also, prevent everyone from calling them that.[*] Change the name of the wolf/bane/crab spider AT to "Arachnos Spider."
The Arachnos Gun C option for Arachnos Soldiers needs to have a bayonet attached to it so that the Bayonet power will make sense when used with that gun equipped.
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
Single Shot on Wolf Spiders is ridiculously slow to fire. It has a 1.67s animation, compared to the 1s it takes to fire Burst. There's a lot of extraneous movements and it annoys the hell out of me.
I feel it should be cut down to a 1 second animation time.
Virtue Server
Red Fox Bravo - DM/Invul Scrapper
Tsynth - DB/WP Stalker
Stalker Dual Blades/Willpower Guide
The Quick and Dirty Guide to Dual Pistols
TLDR version: Swap Tactical Training: Leadership and Foresight so that Foresight is at level 18.
Note: This is feedback posted yesterday on test. It was transplanted to the SoA forum in a guide, but I'd like to repost it here, as it's intended as feedback. I don't believe anything relevant changed since yesterday before this went live. 
I think the early progression of the Widows would be a lot smoother if Foresight came even a bit sooner. My reccomendation would be somthing like level 18. There are a number of factors that contribute to this suggestion.
The transition from lacking Foresight to having it is night and day in terms of survivability. Your ability to stand in melee absolutely transforms, and your abilitiy to fend off ranged attacks improves noticably. The latter is especially important because so many foes in the 15-29 level range use defense debuffing bullets, which can contribute to cascade failure of all your positional defenses.
Moreover, the new "hump" in XP progression after the recent XP "smoothing" feels like it's right around level 20. Now, I'm not complaining. I didn't check the numbers but I'm guessing we're still leveling faster than we did before. However, everything of course becomes relative, and the gains felt noticably slower than at earlier levels right around 20. This combines with the relative weakness of early Widow defenses, the ramp up of foe HP around 20 and having to wait till 22 for Foresight and all makes for a few slogging levels that could probably be eased by moving that power a couple of slots.
My recommendation would be to swap Tactical Training: Leadership with Foresight. One reason is that you already have the +ACC/resToHitDebuff power at available level 2. The +toHit/+perception is certainly nice, but I wouldn't think people would really pine for it at 18 vs. 22. The defense of Foresight, though, was something I definitely pined for.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
still can't slot sets into patron powers for VEATs.
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Single Shot on Wolf Spiders is ridiculously slow to fire. It has a 1.67s animation, compared to the 1s it takes to fire Burst. There's a lot of extraneous movements and it annoys the hell out of me.
I feel it should be cut down to a 1 second animation time.
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I agree with this 100%. The animation is too slow.
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Single Shot on Wolf Spiders is ridiculously slow to fire. It has a 1.67s animation, compared to the 1s it takes to fire Burst. There's a lot of extraneous movements and it annoys the hell out of me.
I feel it should be cut down to a 1 second animation time.
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I agree with this 100%. The animation is too slow.
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Totally agree.
And if I was seeing it correctly (was teamed all day, so lots of graphic distractions), it's actually true animation time and not a delay.
If it was a delay then I could see that being a point of design/unit test oversight, but it's actually just slow animation, which makes me grrrrr everytime I trigger it.
Repeat Offenders
Those poor snakes don't seem to like my dart launcher
I'm running ruthless difficulty, solo, at level 6. Sure I die, but I still kill more
Agreed RE: Single Shot. It does less damage and takes longer than Burst. That doesn't seem right to me.
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Moreover, the new "hump" in XP progression after the recent XP "smoothing" feels like it's right around level 20. Now, I'm not complaining. I didn't check the numbers but I'm guessing we're still leveling faster than we did before. However, everything of course becomes relative, and the gains felt noticably slower than at earlier levels right around 20.
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I like the rest but this I would have to disagree with. Once you get to 20 you are (or should be) much more survivable and should be bumping up the difficulty of the mobs you are facing. 20+ on Heroic starts to slow. 20+ on Sturdy (that is the 3rd level right?) and you go up quite fast. 20+ on Invincible and you shoot straight through the levels incredibly fast.
You do need defenses (Widows) on a melee to do this however unless you are planning to Foe TP everyone lol.
BTW I didn't get on test so I have to say the Crab-Spider uniform is CRAZY good. 
I may never design a second costume for him. 
----------------------------
You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
The VEATS seem pretty fun. Decent powers etc and idea. My only complaint is no costume variety or real options. It kinda sucks. I look like the NPCs and all other VEATS. Running around Mercy was a gong show last night...we all looked the same! :P
Anyway, hopefully new pieces are added next issue.
a single shot from an automatic weapons houldn't take so long (unless you're aiming for a potential critical shot *hint hint*)
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
allow widows to slot slow set plz
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
Copying this from my Last thread that was probably ignored by the Devs as well:
In order to achieve their Full survival and Damage potential against mobs that have Unnaturally high ToHit/-DEF or Lethal/Smashing resist Attributes in excess of 20% to 30% (which is literally HALF the mob spawns you can encounter any given day)... I proposed the following suggestions:
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Add a small Enhanceable +REC bonus to Tactical-Assault...
an enhanceable Bonus of 3.5% (or 0.035) that affects all Teammates.
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This is Very important to Fortunatas especially: who currently; Do have some DPS potential ... but are receiving very poor D.P.E. and D.P.A. returns on those Astronomical Endurance Costs required to achieve them. It would also help Banes loosen up their Team builds in the 20-30 Range which is IMO way too tight to leave them with the Flexibility they really require (and then further Hamstrings them on Survival after 41).
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Reduce the current DMG Modifier for this AT. 1.00 may actually feel low to Some people, but that's because most of our Damage is Lethal which is heavily resisted in this game. This is a UNIVERSAL game imbalance but all other Powersets that apply Lethal damage are already Pre-Balanced. VEAT damage however is about 10% too high for when that day finally arrives
[/ QUOTE ] ...Yes I'm aware this one won't go over well given current situations, but it's still necessary for long-term balance.
And Lastly:
Replace Mask of Presence on Fortunatas with a 15 second "Containment" buff(5 extra seconds thrown in to allow for multiple Redraws). Call it "Moment of Fortune" and put it on a 120 second timer. Allow it to grant 90% -DEF Resistance if Castle is feeling Generous enough 
Wolf Spider Feedback: I've played a Wolf up to 43 so far without branching into any Bane/Crab powers, without taking any powers from Travel Pools, and even so, they're still quite enjoyable from a functionality standpoint. I did not feel underpowered in any way compared to the other branched VEATs I was playing with. Furthermore, While they are significantly more fun to play in groups (preferably grouped with other VEATs), they are perfectly capable of handling most missions solo (EBs are problematic at best, but that's usually the case for most ATs). They are a bit squishy, but no more than blasters, though since they lack a blaster's potential damage output, it would be nice if they were a little less squishy.
I'd really like to see the Wolf Spider Armor's damage resistance increased to a high enough base that putting a damres SO on it would not feel like such a waste. if the resistance were increased to maybe 7% it would start to feel a little more functional (2 SOs could raise it to 10% then), rather than just being token resistance levels to justify the access to damres sets. Of course then the Bane's armor would need to be increased to maybe 15% to keep it scaled appropriately. I don't think there's any fear of those levels of resistance turning us into uberl33t tank mages or anything, it would just give us the means to get some mitigation without having to dip into the Fighting Pool (Which is kinda a pain for wolves because 1- Tough is one more toggle to maintain end for, we're already running a bunch of those, and 2- we have to take Boxing or Kick as a prerequisite to Tough, and we have a pretty tight build already. One could certainly be taken in place of Pummel, but that just pulls us further from our core powersets.)
All in all, I'm very satisfied with Wolf Spider performance.
That said, the costuming debacle regarding VEATs has cut significantly into my high opinion of some of the developers, as well as my enthusiasm for the game in general. I could have accepted that with all the other things (like really great Roman costumes that are only available to level 35+ who beat a very difficult TF, making them non-viable tools for developing a Roman themed character at creation...) that had to be done for this issue, it wasn't a functional priority to make Arachnos uniform parts interchangeable with regular costume parts. I recognize that Wolf pants/boots and many other pieces would have to be rebuilt to be compatible. What really irked me is Jay's stance on the whole issue. "and never the two shall merge" was probably not the best phrase to use when dealing with a customer base that is expecting the game to continue improving and evolving. His remarks about not allowing any non Arachnos pieces to be available on Arachnos uniforms or vice versa even those some already work without clipping, because it would be "sloppy and unprofessional" strike me as high-handed and totalitarian, and completely contrary to the core idea of playing my character the way I want to play my character. It probably would have been better accepted and appreciated by most of us subscribers if Jay had said something to the effect of "This is what we can give you for now. I understand you guys want to be able to mix and match parts to bring your own unique view to the game that we (as developers) appreciate you playing. I'll look into seeing what I can make available as we move forward, and thanks again for caring so much about the parts of this game that I'm responsible for. You're all sexy!" Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be his take on the issue.
Some people think I'm making too big a deal out of appearance. That whether I can make a character look the way I want is completely irrelevant compared to game statistics like activation time and DPS. I happen to see it the other way around. The ability to make my box of attributes kill another box of attributes is available in almost every videogame ever made. What this game offers that most others do not is the chance to make a super hero (or villain) the way I want to make them, that then goes about killing other boxes of attributes. In this game, appearance is of paramount importance.
I would rather the VEATs hadn't been introduced at all rather than be introduced with these limitations placed on them. Now if/when I play a VEAT, my play experience is going to be tainted by the knowledge that the developers, who were aware that many people (I'm not the only one who feels this way, though some have tried to marginalize my opinions on this matter as being irrelevant) share this view, knowingly chose to give us something new, but insist that we can only use it in a way that lines up with their themes. It makes me feel as if Positron is saying "It's our sandbox, and you should be happy we let you play in it at all, now play our game the way we want you to play it or go away!" He may not think he's saying that, but it's what I'm hearing. You can throw all the blame you want to at me for "not getting it" or misinterpreting, or just being too nitpicky and unsatisfied and unappreciative, but that isn't going to change the fact that this is going to change my view of the game as a whole from this point forward.
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
http://xx-starhammer-xx.deviantart.com/
Really want customizable Widow claws at level 10.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?
I have a 50 dominator on my account yet I cannot start an epic villian AT. Why is this?
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I like the rest but this I would have to disagree with. Once you get to 20 you are (or should be) much more survivable and should be bumping up the difficulty of the mobs you are facing. 20+ on Heroic starts to slow. 20+ on Sturdy (that is the 3rd level right?) and you go up quite fast. 20+ on Invincible and you shoot straight through the levels incredibly fast.
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I disagree with your disagreement.
I played on Vicous (the middle setting) from level 1 to 25.
I slowed down at 20. Read my post. I didn't make a judgement about how fast 20 was in absolute terms. I said it was noticably slower than the levels before it.
Anything more than Vicious difficulty (the middle setting) is, IMO, a poor choice at level 20 unless you invest early in Tactics. The reason? You miss too much. +2 foes in particular are very hard to hit for a low-level character, and they hit very hard in return. I also consider Stamina require in order to be able to sustain fights against foes in spawns of the size you find on the "even" difficulty settings, or of the tougher foes on the highest settings
These are soloing concerns. If you are on a team where you can obtain toHit and/or +recovery buffs then these concerns are absent.
Note that the toHit concern is ameliorated at low levels thanks to the new "beginner's luck" bonus we get. This is why I was able to run on Vicious at level 1. However, at level 20, this bonus is gone. In my opinion, it's too small to be really effective starting at level 15.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I have a 50 dominator on my account yet I cannot start an epic villain AT. Why is this?
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Log onto your level 50 villain, then quit to the login screen. Log back in and you should be able to create a VEAT.
Enjoy.
"I used to make diddly squat, but I've been with the company for 16 years and have had plenty of great raises. Now I just make squat" -- Me
Pediatric brain tumors are the #1 cause of cancer related deaths in children.
Just wanted to take a minute to give my quick opinion of the VEAT's. For the record I was very skeptical of the VEAT's when I first saw the power sets for them, really just rehashed powers. I wasn't exited at all about playing one.
After jumping right into a fire/fire scrapper and playing for an entire day I figured what the heck, I will give the VEAT's a spin, I earned the right. So yesterday I made one of each and played them both up to lvl 14, now I know that isn't far enough along for a detailed opinion, but so far they are a blast. Yes, I still think all of the powers are rehashed versions of others, but they are changed enough to make them more valuable. I also like the idea of branching power sets, I hope to see more of this in the future.
Like I said earlier, this is by no means a detailed review based on 50 levels of game play, but my gut reaction is fun fun fun! If they play this well all the way through I will be more than happy. Thanks for all the hard work on the game and please keep it up!
I don't have anything major to add, just want to be able to color the claws like the guns, and a little speed on the recharge of powers at lower lvls.
That is all.
While widows are pretty fun at low levels, Wolf Spiders are a nightmare. It is an absolute miserable grind to get to 24 so you can drop the wolf set like a bad habit. It takes all 3 ranaged attacks plus pummel to take out an even con minion.....wtf? Heavy Burst has been completely castrated. Our first power in the secondary which we are forced to take is a pointless 3% resistance to Sm/Le, while widows is a nice 7.5% defense to melee.....something worth taking.
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While widows are pretty fun at low levels, Wolf Spiders are a nightmare. It is an absolute miserable grind to get to 24 so you can drop the wolf set like a bad habit. It takes all 3 ranaged attacks plus pummel to take out an even con minion.....wtf? Heavy Burst has been completely castrated. Our first power in the secondary which we are forced to take is a pointless 3% resistance to Sm/Le, while widows is a nice 7.5% defense to melee.....something worth taking.
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I would have to respectfully disagree. Wolf Spiders are much fun for me. Especially when teamed with a full VEAT squad (hardly ever NOT the case), it's a hell of a good time. Multiple venom grenades + multiple heavy bursts = joygasm. That's not to mention that their maneuvers' defensive value is twice as high as that of a widow, so when stacked it makes for huge team buffs.
With Issue 12: Midnight Hour, six new archetypes were released Villain side. We'd love to hear your feedback about the following archetypes, the lore, missions, and game play experience you have with your Soldier of Arachnos.
Issue 12: "Villain Epic Archetype" movie
Let us hear your thoughts on the following Villain Epic Archtypes:
<ul type="square">[*] Bane Spiders
[*] Crab Spiders
[*] Wolf Spiders
[*] Blood Widows
[*] Night Widows
[*] Fortunatas [/list]