Update to test (05/17/11)

In the context of what passes for balance in this game none of it is silly. The only thing that is silly is changing how things work without providing a respec so players can adjust.

Well balance in this game and the idea that there was adequate communication.

Yikes, not this false argument that because you paid for an extra perq, that said perq must never be subject to bugs or any game-mechanics limitation.

But anyway, while I wasn't able to test with the iTrials, Beast/Ninja Run and other temp travel powers are now working in PvP zones on Test (while they aren't on Live), so, it's a good bet they're working in iTrials on Test and soon, on Live.

I am sure this is a change to Interface as a whole. I only tested Reactive and Diamagnetic, but I see no reason why the others would be excluded.

Reactive was simply the most visible problem. I am sure it was never the intent for people to be able to cast one power and then saturate all targets in an AoE with the debuffs. Pressing Freezing Rain, debuffing every target's to-hit by 20% and regen by 60% after just a second is not as immediately ridiculous as killing them all like Reactive was doing, but still way more than I would ever expect from Interface with one power activation.

Oops there's another. I am shocked indeed shocked, that people buy things expecting they work

oh how bad of me to wanting something i paid for to actually work *gasp* a customer wanting money back for a broke item who woulda thought it. I asked them to fix it and am willing to wait but not for months like is known to be the case is some circumstances. And it's good to hear that it's fixed on test but if people like me don't bring it up constantly it will be sluffed into the pile of non-important bugs.

I've been told that the damage is CancelOnMiss, like the Fire DoTs, which would make the average damage only ~30.615. Do we have any confirmation either way? My personal testing in RWZ says that it isn't (I've hit all of them with Dark Obliteration and watched some of them flare up, then die down, then flare up again).

Your expectations of everything working 100% in an MMO and bugs being fixed in a matter of days and not weeks or months is wildly unrealistic.

You will forever be raging against whatever MMO you play with that attitude.

Even if it's a technical limitation this is still a better idea. Rains represent a small number of powers. It's better to have a couple powers suffer and be underpowered than have a few powers so unimaginably overpowered that they can wipe +4/x8 spawns by themselves.

It's not cancel on miss. I did a lot of testing. The average damage to even cons is around 50 per target per attack.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Really? REALLY? This is exactly the wrong way to think in regards to THIS game. THIS IS A SUPER HERO MMO. If you want to be gimped and a roleplay a weak little dude that relies on 25 other weak little dudes to kill a pack of 5 undead horrors GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. People don't play this game to fulfill some sheeple fantasy where you can only get things done extremely slowly or need a whole gaggle of people.

God, I just want to bang my head every time when people argue against stuff like this. It's a text book knee-jerk reaction and if you can't see that or recognize it in some way then there is no hope. My thought process to stuff like this making a few powers really strong in only certain situations which don't affect ANYTHING about the end game in its current state is....GOOD FOR THOSE PEOPLE AND THEIR NEW FOUND FUN.

Sorry YOU aren't having fun being over powered to those wee baby minions and LTs but someone else sure is.

*My favorite character is a Ele/Shi brute with no rain powers.

I'm sorry you believe I can only have fun in this game if things are dramatically overpowered. If you'd really like to have "fun," you can play in AE where there's a button that just instantly kills enemies. You can go play in there while I play in the actually balanced part of the game. Or you can petition the devs to give you the [I Win Button], and see how far you get.

"Someone has fun with this" is not in itself an argument for existence. People can have fun with all sorts of things that could be a determent to the game. That doesn't mean they should exist. I'm sure someone would have fun if you gave them the ability to delete someone else's characters. The fact that someone has fun throwing game balance to the wind by defeating +4/x8 enemies with a Defender using one power that isn't even designed to do damage is not good for the game. I don't think you understand the concept of balance.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

While I'm not a fan of the rule, it bothers me less in inventions than it does in this case. I know the point was to prevent the game from becoming too difficult to play without IOs, but that's a dead discussion. It's an opinion thing.

Maybe other options were more difficult to code, who knows, but I'm just dissapointed in the solution chosen. Heck, I would have settled for reducing the damage per tick if that solved the problem. Maybe it's that delightful color of orange all over the screen that I simply must see.

Previous brevity aside, allow me to clarify; I am in agreement with you on this portion, never denied it or thought it was truely WAI. In totaly honesty, I don't even have any of the powers you just listed above, or caltrops, or even Burn. Closest I have are dmg auras, which had significantly less output. Probably still mildly nerf worthy, but I think it went too far. What I am looking for here is a middle ground with a slant towards iPowers being truely epic.

This is where I'll respectfully disagree as it is a matter of opinion on degrees of power. IMHO, Incarnates should be able to roll standard content at trivial difficulty settings without breaking so much as a bead of sweat, simply because they are Incarnates. We have those diff sliders for a reason. Level Shift? Run everything at +1. Not hard enough? Start adding multipliers. Got yourself a couple T4 powers slotted? Start ramping higher. It just doesn't make sense to me that one minute I am standing toe to toe with Marauder trading punches for hammerblows, and the next minute I should have trouble defeating group of low ranking goons from the Council with little pee-shooter pistols and night vision goggles. It has nothing to do with an iWin button. No matter how powerful I can make something in this game (relatively speaking, not very considering some of the builds people use), there's always something out there that presents an awesome challenge.

Sorry, but I'm in the "make the other ones better" camp. Seriously. Will it still be pretty good, probably - but that's not really the point. Incarnates aren't "pretty good," their "Awesome." The problem here isn't that Reactive is too good (RainNukes and patches aside), it's that the other ones just don't measure up. You've illustrated this with numbers and other knowledgable folks have expressed the same sentiment - even taking into consideration the "stupid 10 second rule" it's still considered the best choice in most cases.

Which means that the other ones need love just as much as (if not moreso) this one needed a (imo less heavy handed) fix. If they were better, there would be less reactive going around.

See? I can do it, too.

Balance is very important in games, and doubly so in MMOs. Just because a small subset of players feel entitled to having their rain damage powers turn into rapid-fire, no-crash nukes doesn't mean it's fair and balanced to the game design and the rest of the players.

There are even several people in this thread who have been using Reactive Interface on their Rain of Fire and Sleet users who have said they knew full-well it was going to come to an end one day. They knew it was breaking balance and would have to be changed.

Interface behaves the same way on regular attacks and damaging toggles as other procs (chance of once per activation or once per 10 seconds, respectively), so why is it that people expect these already massively damaging DoT rain powers to behave differently?

All that's really left to say is that there does seem to be a bug with AoE powers only applying an Interface debuff to a single target, but that's probably going to get lost in the crowd of individuals who are loudly complaining that they don't get more cake than everybody else.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Indeed. I am hopeful it can be changed, but I would not delay moving this patch live for this reason.

Offhand, does anyone know the stacking limit of the Reactive DoT?

Funny, you mention game balance, which is all well and good and something I DEFINITELY agree with, but this isn't a balance issue. If this was any other MMO with an actual PVP component I would sadly have to nod my head and say "ok, I understand why" to this. But alas! This game doesn't do PVP! It's PVE only! So why, when they are introducing this incarnate system to make our SUPER heroes more SUPER, are people pulling the "game balance" card? If you haven't noticed this is only changing things for people on a solo or small team level. Considering it has barely any effect whatsoever with teams greater than four, and how they are pushing trial content which, so far, has up to 24 people attacking things simultaneously, I'd say that is pretty balanced.

I can understand changing how it works from it's current state on live. I don't agree with it based on how few things it affects, how bad the rest of interface is, and the fact we are supposed to be OP, but people arguing that "well if they can't balance it due to technical limitations then so be it if it can only hit one target". That is an amazingly narrow view and should seriously be shouted at and pointed to another game.

Um... Just because you don't like the PVP here (and I feel you on that, it is and always has been awful) doesn't suddenly make it cease to exist.

Now you're just making stuff up. NOBODY has said it should only hit one target. Every post that's mentioned it in this thread assumes that it's a bug, or else is some crazed post about DOOOOOOM from someone (much like yourself) who has no real clue what they're talking about.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

That was my way of pointing out they stopped balancing the game around PVP a LONG time ago. They know it's dead in the water and that the VERY few people who do mess around with it are not their target customers. I honestly thought any vet to this game would understand instantly what mentioning PVP and game balance in this game actually means.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Doing a nerf this harsh in response to people crying on the forums is a real bad indicator where the dev team is going with this game. That's why I'm being vocal about this issue. I enjoy this game a lot, and a lot of that has to do with the fact it isn't like other MMOs, nor do the devs have the mindset of those other MMOs. Ever since Trials/Leagues have hit beta I've been very concerned about where all this is headed. My worries have been at ease so far, and I'm enjoying I20 A LOT, but this is....not a good sign.

This isn't me crying about "wahhhh why can't I have more cake than the other kids!" If this goes live it won't affect my play-style or my favorite characters one bit. I know there are MANY MANY more people it will though, who get real enjoyment out of reactive in its current form, who refuse to participate on these forums due to certain types of people it attracts.

Who here is talking about PvP? It's unbalanced in PvE. I even have a character with a rain power who has Reactive slotted and I can't wait for the change, because it invalidates all my other powers and most of my other characters if I only need one power.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I don't know if your being purposelly illiterate or just enjoy putting words in peoples mouths but I never said anything about days or weeks just months here for you to read a second time and hopefully comprehend



"not willing to wait MONTHS" being the key part of the quoted statement. If you think months(plural meaning more then one) is a reasonable time frame for a fix to a pack that people payed good money for then well i don't know what to tell you other then your expectations of the Paragon team are a whole heck of a lot lower then mine.

Oh well. I was really looking forward to using Paralytic -Damage in my aura (I don't have any rain powers), now it sounds like it's not going to stack nearly as easily. I might still be able to get 4 applications of it going though.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!