Pet Recharge Inheritance Change
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Again, this wasn't done because they were over preforming. It was done because they were broken.
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Please explain to me how casting Speed Boost on Animate Stone was "broken," and how making Speed Boost do nothing for Animate Stone but raise run speed is "fixed." Because I'm not getting it.
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It wasn't. No one said it was. It was caught in the crossfire. Castle's already said this wasn't really what they wanted. But the only other alternative to fixing what they wanted to would have resulted in a much worse situation.
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Of course the alternative is re-deciding that the "problem" they have known about, wasnt a problem and has been perfectly acceptable for 7 issues still isnt a problem or causing any problems in game except in castles imagination and spreadsheets which are not representative of the game in play
"z0mg voltaic sentinal may be able to pump out MORE than 1500 damage against a mob with zero energy resistence in 60 seconds!!!!!! of course thats dependant on the mob in question not dying for 60 seconds which basically means it has to be an EB/AV but still, cant have that..... oh and as a side effect the players will have their -recharge debuffs worthless against mob summoned pets, Im not sure what problem that fixes but Im sure I can make something up"
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I fully understand "why" this is being jammed through, but that doesn't make it a thematic, logical, and well implemented. It fails on all counts lol I honestly hope the devs hang their heads in shame at how poor of a job they are doing in this case.
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Welcome to i13s PvP and Castle knows best, oh and remember when SOE knew what was best and "fixed" SWG to the tune of getting rid of 90% of its subscribers? All comedy gold
On the plus side DCU is shaping up very nicely unless COH2 is well underway I expect a ton of player benefits to appear in COH to try and claw back the vast amount of players they will inevitably lose to the new kids in the niche
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Sparky accepts them but post nerf gets absolutely no benefit from the "recharge intensive" part of the set or the recharge aspect that's a part of the IOs in these sets.
[/ QUOTE ]As has been said several dozen times already, that recharge will *still* allow you to get the pet out more often. Which was the point of these sets in the first place.
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Um, no it doesn't. Sparky's recharge unslotted is 60 seconds. Sparky's duration is.... 60 seconds. Sparky is set to allow only one pet out at a time. So how does the recharge (post nerf) help in any way shape or form?
The only time the recharge in Sparky would have any benefit is if you are defeated and recast Sparky again after getting back up. You might be able to get him back out again in 30 seconds instead of 60 depending on where you were in the recharge cycle when you got defeated.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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Would you describe the other conditions and results in your test? For example:
Does their behavior on Test match their behavior on Live servers? If not, how is it different?
[/ QUOTE ] Behavior is the same. They still spam darts like on live.
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Which upgrades had you applied to the pets?
[/ QUOTE ] Both upgrades were applied. This toon was a lvl 50 mastermind.
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What enemies were you fighting?
[/ QUOTE ] I was doing a few MA missions with someone else's custom critters.
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What powers (if any) were you using, such as Tar Patch, immobilizes, holds, knockback powers...?
[/ QUOTE ] None from me directly but the oni did a few holds, believe me I tested this well and I know the pet AI very well for ninjas. I have several ninja masterminds. Basically I set them to aggressive stance and just ran into melee, or I did attack my target with the aggressive stance. Only when the ninjas were near the enemies (melee range) did the jounin actually whip out their swords and use them. Even then it still took a minute for both of them to actually do it. It was always one that would stand back and spam darts. If I had no genin in melee then the 2nd jounin would actually draw his sword.
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Were the pets or enemies on any unusual or uneven terrain?
[/ QUOTE ] No, just regular lab map missions, no stairs or inclines.
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Is there else that you think might be influencing the pets' behavior?
[/ QUOTE ] I can tell you right now what the problem is, there is a line of code in the AI that says that if too many things are near the target the AI tells it to stand back and spam range attacks. This is the same AI the regular critter use too. Basically if they got rid of that they would always melee. Alternatively they can just get rid of that worthless dart to begin with and we wouldnt even have this problem.
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...you must use some pretty stupid ninjas, because mine behave just fine.
Or maybe you're so dead-set against this change (like any change to the game...) that you're going to say that it fails no matter what.
[/ QUOTE ] Also, and to you Tricia, WHAT REASON DO I HAVE TO LIE ABOUT THE RESULTS? That helps no one at all. I will be honest I am against the changes but I wouldnt lie about the results, I could have just as easily not tested or posted anything if I really wanted sabotage this. And no my ninjas arent stupid. I have played ninjas probably more than most people so I know how they work, what makes them tick, what their quirks are and how to get around and deal with the AI issues. In the test I didnt use my binds and macros at first just to see if they can be played just normally without all that extra stuff. It flatout doesnt work, you need binds/macors or they will spam darts majority of the time.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!

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Recharge intensive pet sets. I understood that these were created to increase the firing rate of the pets that they were accepted into. What exactly is their purpose now?
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That was never my understanding of what these sets were created to do. They are to increase the recharge rate of the summon power for the pet.
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Then why does Sparky accept these sets since they do absolutely nothing for this pet?
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
damage, end reduction?
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Ok fine I see your point in this. Its just like how back in the day we were never meant to have more than one instance of a pet but yet it went on for more than a year before it was addressed. I understand what you are doing from the developer side but as the players how are we supposed to know what you all intended as the limits for certain powers? There is just no way for us to know this. All I can say is if this decision is final then it truely makes me sad because doing things like this with IOs was to me building a part of who my character was as a whole. But if we have to go back to plain on vanilla slotting again because the IOs dont give as much benefit then I might as well not even play that toon anymore and/or ever create toons that have those powersets. To me the buffed up lightning storm was the difference between choosing storm summoning over cold domination for my defender.
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Not trying to single you out, but simply making an observance based on this type of argument.
It seems to me that IOs have caused more problems than they are worth. I mean, everyone survived just fine for 8 issues before they existed, but now it seems people just can't live without them. Everytime a change is made that corrects some level of damage that IOs have wrought, people QQ all over the place.
Maybe, and I am half-serious here, IOs should all be removed from the game at this point. Wouldn't that free up some of the time spent on coding fixes... not to mention explaining said fixes?
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Why all the hub bub about this? Doesn't the lack of pet recharge buffing pretty much even out considering they can no longer be slowed? Given that and the fact that at least thugs have better AI now this is clearly a buff and not a nerf at all.
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tell that to the people trying to slow the mm pets that are attacking them. Is that ice tank getting a buff? I think not.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
Wow, you all are surprised with this. They have been doing this for almost 5 years. This is playing out just like every other nerf, including blaming the person writing the patch notes (haven't they fixed the patch note problems numerous times). This isn't the first time and it won't be the last. Sure they might throw you all a small bone to placate some of the more vocal posters, and then they will go back to ignoring actual broken powers and under performing power sets.
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The only time the recharge in Sparky would have any benefit is if you are defeated and recast Sparky again after getting back up. You might be able to get him back out again in 30 seconds instead of 60 depending on where you were in the recharge cycle when you got defeated.
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Recharge debuffs cast on you, perhaps? It does happen. Quite a bit. I've been in plenty of fights where I've had my global recharge below -30. Fun times.
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Again, this wasn't done because they were over preforming. It was done because they were broken.
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Please explain to me how casting Speed Boost on Animate Stone was "broken," and how making Speed Boost do nothing for Animate Stone but raise run speed is "fixed." Because I'm not getting it.
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It wasn't. No one said it was. It was caught in the crossfire. Castle's already said this wasn't really what they wanted. But the only other alternative to fixing what they wanted to would have resulted in a much worse situation.
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Also, insert standard rant about using "broken" as a rationale for game changes, since it's purely subjective and unverifiable, logically equivalent to "because the game bible says so."
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Er, what is and isn't broken isn't really subjective OR unverifiable.
Does it work X way: Y/N?
Is it suppose to work Y way: Y/N?
If Y to both. Is broken.
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For example, if Castle says the PvE damage levels on Flares and Blaze are going to be switched because the game bible says Flares is intended to do more damage than Blaze, would you just accept the fact that they're "broken?"
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The argument is illogical. The "Game Bible" as you describe it doesn't exist. If you mean the one I outlined above. Well, that one wouldn't encounter a situation like this. For the most part, the Devs have provided adequate explanation and reasoning behind all of the changes I've questioned. The change you've suggest above doesn't follow any logic.
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was the pain of the fix appropriate to the amount of "broken". IE, you have an ingrown toenail, do we amputate your foot? If the original broken was of minimal impact and the fix has major negative impact, do you still fix it? or do you wait for something better to come along?
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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Ok fine I see your point in this. Its just like how back in the day we were never meant to have more than one instance of a pet but yet it went on for more than a year before it was addressed. I understand what you are doing from the developer side but as the players how are we supposed to know what you all intended as the limits for certain powers? There is just no way for us to know this. All I can say is if this decision is final then it truely makes me sad because doing things like this with IOs was to me building a part of who my character was as a whole. But if we have to go back to plain on vanilla slotting again because the IOs dont give as much benefit then I might as well not even play that toon anymore and/or ever create toons that have those powersets. To me the buffed up lightning storm was the difference between choosing storm summoning over cold domination for my defender.
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Not trying to single you out, but simply making an observance based on this type of argument.
It seems to me that IOs have caused more problems than they are worth. I mean, everyone survived just fine for 8 issues before they existed, but now it seems people just can't live without them. Everytime a change is made that corrects some level of damage that IOs have wrought, people QQ all over the place.
Maybe, and I am half-serious here, IOs should all be removed from the game at this point. Wouldn't that free up some of the time spent on coding fixes... not to mention explaining said fixes?
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yes.
but for better or worse they are going to stay and we all have to hope that at some point the devs figure out how to implement loot into a game originally designed around the concept of no loot. It might not be so bad if they had acquired some people experienced in adding in-game rewards, but they didn't and we were stuck effectively getting the work of rookies/noobs.
Everytime a change like this goes through and everytime beta testers clearly point out things that aren't functioning correctly and they ignore it for years the player base is left feeling the pain of their inexperience, lack of knowledge, and lack of foresight.
Despite all that, I believe they have done a pretty good job with IO's. Nowhere near as good as it could have been with the right staff, but pretty good still for a first attempt. C or a C+ at any rate. That is good enough for some people and probably good enough for this team. Might need to step it up 10 or so notches if they plan to prosper in the next year or so, but good enough when you are the only option available.
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damage, end reduction?
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Blood Mandate and Sovereign Right have better numbers than Expedient Enforcement in Acc, Dam, and End. Expedient Enforcement has slightly better set bonuses than Blood Mandate (unless you are specifically looking for +positional Def bonuses in which case Blood Mandate blows it totally away) but IMO aren't worth giving up the Acc, Dam, and End values to get.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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Again, this wasn't done because they were over preforming. It was done because they were broken.
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Please explain to me how casting Speed Boost on Animate Stone was "broken," and how making Speed Boost do nothing for Animate Stone but raise run speed is "fixed." Because I'm not getting it.
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It wasn't. No one said it was. It was caught in the crossfire. Castle's already said this wasn't really what they wanted. But the only other alternative to fixing what they wanted to would have resulted in a much worse situation.
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Also, insert standard rant about using "broken" as a rationale for game changes, since it's purely subjective and unverifiable, logically equivalent to "because the game bible says so."
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Er, what is and isn't broken isn't really subjective OR unverifiable.
Does it work X way: Y/N?
Is it suppose to work Y way: Y/N?
If Y to both. Is broken.
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For example, if Castle says the PvE damage levels on Flares and Blaze are going to be switched because the game bible says Flares is intended to do more damage than Blaze, would you just accept the fact that they're "broken?"
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The argument is illogical. The "Game Bible" as you describe it doesn't exist. If you mean the one I outlined above. Well, that one wouldn't encounter a situation like this. For the most part, the Devs have provided adequate explanation and reasoning behind all of the changes I've questioned. The change you've suggest above doesn't follow any logic.
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was the pain of the fix appropriate to the amount of "broken". IE, you have an ingrown toenail, do we amputate your foot? If the original broken was of minimal impact and the fix has major negative impact, do you still fix it? or do you wait for something better to come along?
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you of course wait until a better fix. EXCEPT when you are just about to launch the biggest shiny they have ever come up with and the only thing likely to keep this game doing well and this "fix" is integral to that launch.
Considering they have already delayed it an entire issue and are now dedicating a whole issue to that shiny. Don't think for a second they won't take both your legs off at the knees if they have to and if it happens to fix your ingrown toenail then great, but that wasn't even a consideration.
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They added this nifty feature called detailed power information.
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Not everyone uses that feature.

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The only time the recharge in Sparky would have any benefit is if you are defeated and recast Sparky again after getting back up. You might be able to get him back out again in 30 seconds instead of 60 depending on where you were in the recharge cycle when you got defeated.
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Recharge debuffs cast on you, perhaps? It does happen. Quite a bit. I've been in plenty of fights where I've had my global recharge below -30. Fun times.
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You can easily get that much +global rech with sets, base empowerments, hasten. I personally have never been recharged debuffed so far for so long that I couldn't recast Sparky again before he expired. If I get recharge debuffed that much I'm usually defeated rather than merely unable to recast Sparky.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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damage, end reduction?
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Blood Mandate and Sovereign Right have better numbers than Expedient Enforcement in Acc, Dam, and End. Expedient Enforcement has slightly better set bonuses than Blood Mandate (unless you are specifically looking for +positional Def bonuses in which case Blood Mandate blows it totally away) but IMO aren't worth giving up the Acc, Dam, and End values to get.
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it's a cheaper perma-dom
Expedient Reinforcement
2.5% +recov
1.5% +hp
6.25% +rech
lolz 1.89% resistance buff for S/L
2.5% AoE Def, 1.5% Def Fire/Cold
imo the first 3 bonuses are more than "slightly" better
going for +global defense? hell yeah go w/ Blood Mandate
me personally, I always though Soverign Right was rather lolzy by itself outside of the unique or frankenslotting.
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One day, while discussing this, another programmer who was looking at AI issues came over and began talking to me about the fact that one of the issues causing aberrant AI behavior was the powers recharging too quickly.
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Emphasis in the original.
Kosmos
Global: @Calorie
MA Arcs in 4-star purgatory: Four in a Row (#2198) - Hostile Takeover (#69714) - Red Harvest (#268305)
As toward my other post on page 49-50 or so, i wanted to add that a person can get through much of the game on radio missions, like i personally do, all the way to 50 and not have to face much slows to begin with. Enemy types (trying to get them in order of level) that have little or no slows:
Hellions, Skulls, Trolls, Clockwork (barring high level psy), Family, Freaks, Warriors, High level Council (lots of bots and wolves), Rikti, Cimemorans (not including Nictus missions), and possibly Carnies.
So giving my pets -recharge immunity to counter any buffs i could have given them, especially ones that were used every mission, is why i think their compensation is not high enough to justify what they have taken away.
I think the players should make a list of the pets that benefitted or possibly benefitted from this change, the pets that got nerfed by this change, and then make a separate section that states the pets that got affected in large ways by this change, and how incredibly it has impacted them. Lets see how much of a net gain/loss this is having on us. Maybe give a look at what the slow immunity might add as well. Though we could also add that without -runspeed resist, melee pets are still not getting many attacks in anyway, heh.
I was informed of this discussion on live and I've just read the entire thread.
I'm pretty much aligned with Frosticus on most of what he/she has said. Having an ice/storm as my primary badge toon, the nerf to LS pretty much feels like a slap in the face*, especially since there has been no mention of a rebalance to address concerns of what happens to these already non-overpowered pets. Macskull's suggestions aren't bad for suggested 'fixes'.
As to suggestions for making the the activation time long and the recharge nil, that would cause more problems than its worth, since most targets would be defeated by the time any attack went off, especially in a team situation. Look at /psi defenders to see what that's like.
While I am heavily invested in my ice/storm, my bots/dark MM will get nerfed even harder.
MMs are pretty much easily capped in the damage they do already since there is only so much you can slot to enhance your pets, and any further buffs to damage generally are via personal attack powers. Using personal attack powers are the antithesis of a Mastermind's raison d'etre, so taking away the +recharge ability of MM pets really hurts the AT hard.
FWIW I have FF +rchg proc in my assault bot, so now that will be toast, but I specifically team with good kinetics to extract the most out of my pets as well. So now you are basically stating that the damage output of Masterminds cannot be increased through recharge, yet all other ATs can.
I suppose I should be grateful that pacing of the turtle procs won't affect my pets.
However, I don't understand what the logic is behind the 'fix'.
Original post:
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This change was made to allow pets to correctly cycle through their attacks instead of getting locked on using the same attack over and over and neglecting to use other available powers.
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Further down:
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Powers like Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel and Auto Turret are precisely the powers that were targeted by this fix. Making exemptions for them would defeat the purpose, don't you think?
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So the original problem stated was to avoid the cycling powers lock, yet the powers so precisely targeted do NOT have any powers to cycle through. And it is implicit in the response that there is the ability to exempt powers from this patch. As to forgoing exemptions, why not extend such rigidity of thought to say that all powers from any AT cannot have their attack rate increased?
I really don't understand why this AI problem needs to be addressed now, and in this fashion. If it is for AI issues because of Mission Architect pets having issues, it is obvious that those strictures can be placed for NPCs only, since defenders are currently 'exempt' from the patch. I have no idea what amount of work would be required to create such exceptions versus an 'across the board' change.
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There is no other solution that we are currently able to implement at this time.
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There is another solution to this problem. Leave the current state as it is on live. Take your time to find a better solution or compensate the nerfed powers so you don't leave people hanging. There has been some discussion over whether ED was good or bad for the game over the long term. Sure it was compensated by IOs and set bonuses, but that took so long to implement that the ill will generated by ED has never gone away. From what I can see as a player, this fix seems like using a shotgun to kill a fly.
Personally this has sucked all the excitement out of the pending i14 release for me. This feels more like the pending i5 ED and troller nerf to me that made me leave for a good 20 months.
*Frosticus' point on what role storm really brings (especially wrt to endgame content) is something that I'm feeling as well, but that's not germane to this discussion.
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You're assuming that the change really did that. From what I've seen only the Bruiser is behaving better.
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Really? Because that goes against other people's reports in this thread...
[/ QUOTE ]I know Grave Knights and Jack Frost are both acting much better with this change.
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Are you talking about a Grave Knight with -recharge IOs and/or externally buffed with -recharge? I would like these reports to be clear on IOs or buffs used when saying the AI is performing better. Wouldn't you get the same results on Live by using regular IOs and no SB, AM, etc?
Just wondering because I am currently playing Necro with Dark and can't say I have noticed Grave Knights not cycling through their attacks. They may not go into melee as much as I like sometimes but as least the DO move in unlike my Phantasm on my Ill/Emp(which I don't see this fix benefiting his AI any since I do not have -recharge buffs).
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One day, while discussing this, another programmer who was looking at AI issues came over and began talking to me about the fact that one of the issues causing aberrant AI behavior was the powers recharging too quickly.
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In an alternate universe:
"One day, while discussing this, another programmer who was looking at AI issues came over and began talking to me about the fact that one of the issues causing aberrant AI behavior was that the code wasn't written well enough to deal with variable power recharge times."
ELECTRIC BLAST NEEDS BUFFS NOT NERFS
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A lot of people have varying understandings of these sets and the soulbound allegiance set and how they were intended to affect pets.
Does anyone have the dev info when these were implemented. And if that info does indicate that ONLY the summon recharge time was supposed to benefit and never the pet was there any dev followup done to stem the tide of posts indicating the belief that RIP and SA did improve pet performance?
edit: this is all I could find in the patch notes regarding RIP and I could find no dev comments what so ever
dec 2, 2008
Added new IO Sets and new IO Set Categories:
# Recharge Intensive Pets
* Call to Arms, Level 10-30
* Expedient Reinforcement, Level 30-50
So I guess we were completely left to make up our own minds about what they actually did? (anyone find anything else?)
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At least one dev knew about recharge bonuses in MM pets being troublesome in Oct 2005.
Let's Dance!
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Recharge intensive pet sets. I understood that these were created to increase the firing rate of the pets that they were accepted into. What exactly is their purpose now?
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That was never my understanding of what these sets were created to do. They are to increase the recharge rate of the summon power for the pet.
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A lot of people have varying understandings of these sets and the soulbound allegiance set and how they were intended to affect pets.
Does anyone have the dev info when these were implemented. And if that info does indicate that ONLY the summon recharge time was supposed to benefit and never the pet was there any dev followup done to stem the tide of posts indicating the belief that RIP and SA did improve pet performance?
edit: this is all I could find in the patch notes regarding RIP and I could find no dev comments what so ever
dec 2, 2008
Added new IO Sets and new IO Set Categories:
# Recharge Intensive Pets
* Call to Arms, Level 10-30
* Expedient Reinforcement, Level 30-50
So I guess we were completely left to make up our own minds about what they actually did? (anyone find anything else?)