Update to test (05/17/11)

And you guys beta tested this crap for months and months its now been live for about a month and it just now occurred to you that it was a bug. Sorry but I don't buy that. I think you figured people wouldn't use it as much as the other powers and when it became a flavor of the month you decided to nerf it.

Then believe what you want to fit in with your preconceived notions. It's your right as an American to do so. And if you're not, you're one of us now!

Actually the bug wasn't there in Beta. When the content originally went live Interface did not work in pet powers at all. They fixed that but unfortunately missed the bug that it wasn't obeying the 10 second rule in patches/auras. This patch fixes that bug but unfortunately introduces a new bug.

So to summarize:
Initial Release: Interface does not work with Pets at all
1st Patch: Interface works properly with regular pet attacks but is overpowered with Auras and aura-like pseudo-pets (no 10 second rule)
2nd patch (on test): Interface works properly with regular pet attacks and aura powers but is underpowered with aura-like pseudo-pets (only affects one target)

Hopefully in the future we will see a 3rd patch that fixes the 1 target problem with aura-like pseudo-pets.

Yes, it's not perfect. Ideally all three of these patches would have occurred before the trials went live however in the current situation I think the devs have done a reasonable job. Fixing Interface to work with Pets was clearly a high-priority requirement (since MMs got almost no benefit from it). Now ideally this second patch should change all powers to work as intended however given the choice between leaving them overpowered and over-nerfing them now with the intent to fix it later I agree with the devs that over-nerfing now is the better choice.

The current bug is a MAJOR power shift and the longer it's left in place the more it'll become accepted as WAI (we've already seen people respeccing or rerolling to take advantage of it). The over-nerf here is rather annoying but since it brings those powers closer to the desired power level than the current bug I think it's the best option.

Although I would like to see the fix to the fix to the fix implemented soon.

It just means that in rain powers and DoT toggles only (no effect on other powers, they still continue to function as they have been), there's a 10s refire rate between applications. In a rain power, it's allowed to tic once every 10s, instead of every single attack the rain does (which is like 75 tics per target).

It won't be as effective in rains, but it was too effective before. To the point it could triple the damage of damage toggles and make Rain of Fire do more than Inferno.

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

Interface will not be as effective in some powers, specifically auras and pseudo-pet powers that work as auras. In regular click powers it will function exactly as it currently does on live. Eventually the devs will (hopefully) implement another patch to slightly improve how Interface works in pseudo-pet powers to make them function as intended (proc on all targets once every 10 seconds).

Interface acts as before in clicks. In toggles and pseudo-pets such as Rains it will check only once every 10 seconds. The chance to proc remains the same. So my 100/50 Diamagnetic should apply -ToHit with a 100% chance and -Regen with a 50% chance when Freezing Rain is cast and then again after 10s. Right now, in this build on test, that's broken however, and it will only be applied to one target in each instance.

Not entirely true. In beta there was a different bug, where enemies were hitting themselves and thus generating gray numbers that weren't attributed to you, and stealing inf/XP rewards. When they fixed that, they introduced "not working with pets at all," which actually was present for a couple weeks in beta. I know because I tested it every patch and reported it numerous times.

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

This isn't precisely true, any pet/pseudo-pet that runs a toggle that does damage appears to be affected. [Edit: I didn't test them all, but all those in this class that I did test were affected.]

Would it be possible to add a way to break down, even if it was a downgrade of existing incarnate powers into the isalvage needed to change to a different incarnate? Not just because of this but for future changes. This has been one of my biggest fears with crafting a power.

Ah ok, I was only aware of the "not working with pets" portion of the Beta.

Why did you push this update live when you knew that it completely broke a huge number of powers in the game? I understand the need to fix the bug, but doesn't breaking stuff in the process kind of defeat the purpose?

The test server isn't "live." It's "test."

While that is true, I expect this will get moved live as is. I would push it live if it were my call.

Me to. I think fixing the overpowered rain powers even at the cost of almost making interface no longer work with them needs to go live ASAP.

If one were to compare the average damage of broken rain with procs going off continuously and the average damage of broken rain with procs going off only once against one target, I'm pretty sure the latter is closer to the amount of average damage it should be doing when finally fixed.

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

More than likely either:

1) no one realy beta tested and checked the precise effects with rain powers (but did likely do melee AoE's).

or 2) The code did something weird on live or something else was changed since that made it act strangely.

but, you'll believe whatever you want to. Using terminology such as "FotM" tells me you are or were a PvPer, which tells me all I need to know...

edit: and reading the rest of the thread tells me it was exactly as I figured, #2.

I would bet it'll be on live by Tuesday, given how nasty this bug is, if not, by Thursday next week.

It just looks like another case of not advertising exploitable bugs to me.

Because pvpers are the only ones that use terminology like "FotM" right? If you're going to resort to ad hominem you could at least try to base it in something less ludicrous.

Yeah there should be some sort of respec system available, especially when there is no reason to have any faith in their beta testing procedures.

Well the fix to the fix will almost certainly go live on Tuesday but the fix to the fix to the fix might be a bit longer since if it were simple I'd have expected it to be included in the fix to the fix.

I can't see why you'd need a "respec" for Incarnate powers, since you can simply make others and switch them out at will, and still retain access to the other ones.

Forming an opinion about me when you don't even know me. Nice! How friendly of you.

More "friendly" than your rude and rediculous comments to Black Scorpion; basically flat out calling him a liar because you "don't buy" his explanation of events. It was beta tested, and the bug never came up in beta, it didn't arise until the pet proc issue was fixed on live, some detail of which caused the fire rain issue (because powers like that are so-called "pseduopets" and the coding is likely intertwined). Given that the forums for an MMO contain many "armchair developers" and "armchair coders" who think they know how programming works and have either never programmed anything in their lives, or haven't done anything more complex than a "Hello World" Perl script or Counter Strike Mod and yet think they know exactly what's going on behind the scenes, I think I was downright polite, actually :P but I guess it all depends on your point of view...considering you seem to have formed an opinion about Black Scorpion, and I'd wager you don't know him either.