Unknown Nerfs & Uberations

Hi... all. I need to ask this because I've been experiencing and noticing extreme changes made to the toons that I play. Plus, I would like to know if anyone else has noticed anomalies with their game character toons.

What I mean by this is have you been use to playing a toon one day a certain way using certain powers then tomorrow you notice that very same method or power isn't working the way it was the day before, w/ no mention by the Devs or anything?

Case in Point: I was on a team a while back with my Stone/Rad troller and all of a sudden I noticed there seemed to be a debuff cap on bosses that never seemed to be there before. I don't know what was going on. There was at least 3 trollers on the team and no one seemed to be able to hold, immobilize, stun, debuff, or hit a few of the bosses. I saw fire cages going off I know; and as for myself I had my 2 radiation toggles going, my lingering radiation, choking cloud, earthquake, and activated stone cages, EMPulse, volcanic gases, stalagmites and all of these including what ever else the other trollers on the team had going... seemed to miss or effect these other bosses.

Of course I haven't figured out all the numbers, but it even sounds statistically impossible for all of these effects to miss NPC's overall. The funny thing also, is about a week earlier I was able to cage and hold considerably well without even using EMPulse or Volcanic gases. Now all of them seem to be capped or nerfed. Either that or NPC's are being Uberized.

Even if there is a cap on the amount of NPC's choking cloud can effect, that cap shouldn't effect volcanic gases, or EMPulse, or anything else. It also seems like from what I saw, that no matter how many powers you have going only two or three will stack and the rest will just show off as graphically pretty within the game.

Next I'm in a mission today and the mission is set to have several AV's that are all the same throughout the mission. Me and the team are moving along pretty well, maybe a little too well. We knock over about maybe 5 or 6 AV's and get to the next one and all of a sudden some of our powers aren't working any more on the team. As a matter of fact we took on 2 AV's at the same time before this next AV and now people are dying like flies. This AV is no different from the previous (mind you). We ended up leaving the mission and breaking up the team cause we spent almost 15 minutes on this one AV.

Also, just to throw this out there and I want somebody to tell me have they noticed any changes to the Fitness pool also, Particularly Health? No matter how it's slotted. If someone knows what issue the Fitness Pool was nerfed... please let me know.

I also have to mention that while playing other people playing the game couldn't figure out what was going on and why some powers were either not working or seemed to be less effective and I also began to ask various veteran players I know about this and they couldn't even figure what the problem might be either.

I also must mention that these anomalies all seem to be occurring in AE. This could be a problem with that game feature all itself, which wouldn't surprise me.

I hate to be this way, but pretty much your entire post is poor observation and if there were a problem, no-one would be able to help you as you miss giving out any details.

There are debuff caps (and buff caps) but I doubt you would be hitting them

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits


the next question is what KIND of foes were you facing, I'm guessing these were MA foes, from the multiple AV comment.

Well the Defence set taken if any has a huge effect on controls.

Its not a nerf or buff to you, its the effect of the foes you are fighting.


Fitness has not been changed significantly since Issue 6, and those minor tweaks were both buffs. (flight speed in swift and a minor mez resistance in health)

Thanks Cat for your reply... No I don't have a lot of details and I'm not disturbed or upset with your comments.

Unfortunately... a tremendous amount of data was not retrieved while playing. I was going against bosses in AE, except for the one incident where I mentioned an issue with AV's. I was also, more concerned with "Ok... I gotta stay alive and figure out what I'm doing different from a few days ago and what has changed about what I'm doing" Well... I'm continuing in my own private investigation into this mystery and this is just part of it. By asking other players have they noticed any changes in how they're characters are performing.

Actually I didn't want to get to far into to much of an in depth or drawn out thread but was wondering if any other players had been noticing any discrepancies in the performance of their character abilities and powers. As apposed to the way or how your character may have previously performed.

I'm glad that you aren't seeing any noticeable changes in how your character is played. That's Great!

I'll also mention this because I almost forgot. I was in the aura of a kins transfusion just yesterday a few times and didn't even get the benefit of it. Like I said weird.

Again I was just wondering if anyone else has been noticing and strange anomalies.

it's hard to get a scientific analysis for what is going on because I can't isolate each scenario and make them all exactly the same. With i16 it'll be a lot easier to make a 8man type mission to isolate and figure out what exactly may be going on.

Also, the last known change to fitness was in maybe i6. Well that's why I was wondering about any changes in its effectiveness that you may have noticed. If you notice something isn't the way it use to be, then it's definitely has changed whether we were told about it or not.

Additionally, if this testing was in the MA, many custom enemies with an attack set from Blasters would receive the Defiance bonus, letting them fire even while mezzed.

First off thanks for your reply

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight If the target dies in the middle of casting, it'll still animate but give no benifit.

Yea... it was weird cause neither I, the caster, or the target was dead. about 5 to 8 seconds I was dead though. (also I was experiencing no lag)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight Use the Real Numbers (Combat Monitor, combat log, and power analyzer/survelliance).

I wish I had thought to use the real numbers at the time. but I was frantically at time trying to stay alive. But believe me... as I continue my investigation I'll go into combat with certain characters expecting something like this to happen and will document it. At the time though... I believe you can understand that frustration may cause you to simply log onto another toon or just log out all together, until a cool head can allow you to use such handy tools (Combat Monitor, combat log, etc). Thank you, again. I'll definitely look to using those.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight Also, remember that AE enemies, ESPECIALLY ArchVillains, get optional access to VERY strong powers, including powers that resist debuffs, as well as debuff you (including your ability to debuff). Testing against variable, arbitrary AE enemies to determine if you're staying effective is simply futile.

Yes... and this is why it becomes so hard to isolate the problem or recreate the exact same scenario. Although when they aren't custom critters and you're dealing with Paragon Protectors, Maniacs, or Demons it should be easier to isolate what may be going on, I would think. idk.

Well, the thing about AE, is that the enemies can get access to a MASSIVE array of powers (often around 20... when a standard NPC with 6 powers is a LOT), including ones that grant a huge amount of protection. When playing in AE, you shouldn't expect to know what any arbitrary custom critter will do, or what'll take them down.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Yea... custom critters do make it hard to keep tabs on what's going on. Although... I always take that into account when I came across the situations that I did.

I'm going to try to go back and get some better case studies done w/ the Maniac Slammer bosses.

But it'll probably end up being like "trying to get your car mechanic to hear that noise". I won't be able to recreate the issues I've experienced. But I'm sure as hell gonna try!

Yeah the big ones you come across in the AE

Blaster foes get defiance, and can shoot through holds, sleeps stuns etc just the same way blaster players can.

Melee defense sets (scrapper/tank/brute etc) provide significant amounts of mez protection ontop of the mobs natural.

If a Boss takes 2 holds normally, then you need 4 more to break through integration. Controllers really have problems.

The absolute best way to find some of these things is make a few 'simple' mob types and fiddle with them in a short mission, just so you know what the mobs are and see how they react.

I noticed that I SEEM to be hitting fewer folks with soul drain then normal, but that could just be an illousion.

I just want to point that there tends to be observation bias, in that you tend to notice when things go badly over when things go well.

That is to say, if you're chugging along through a mission and don't have any problems with any of the mobs, you're never going to really notice it. Yeah, you might think "hey, that mission was easy", but that's about it.

When a mission goes badly, however, you remember it. You remember the string of six misses in a row, or the fight where you couldn't lock down the AV at all.

Also, most people don't take into account that they're not collecting enough data. Sure, if you miss a few times in a row with your long recharge power, you remember that, but it's only a couple of points of data. Collect a couple hundred points of data and then you can see if your powers are missing more often then they should be.

What Kierthos says. The best way to know for certain is (if you can) to run HeroStats while you play and look at the accuracy stats on the powers as you use them over time. If the numbers correspond to the (enhanced) accuracy values for your powers, everything's fine, you're just hitting the streakbreaker more then you'd like, or you're experiencing some sort of psychological effect (I always feel like my War Mace Brute's accuracy has been nerfed despite the high base accuracy values, because when she misses I really feel it).

The first possibility that springs to mind, is that you may be experiencing the effects of the Purple Triangles of Doom.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Purple_Triangles

As a contoller facing AVs, these are something you should be familiar with. When these are up around an AV they add 50 magnitude of protection vs. Hold, Knockback, Confuse, Repel, Disorient, and Fear effects, making most of your status affecting powers almost useless for a period of time.