Changes to Hamidon Origin Enhancments
By
American_Valor,
Posted on: 2012-01-13 06:56 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
You would think one of the people so concerned about their Widows would copy one over to beta and test it, wouldn't you?
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I'm glad I don't have any arachnos widows or /sd toons to be really hurt by this change, but it still sucks, and it's hilarious that it took them this long to decide to fix it.
For me that makes the only valuable HO Micros, and only by a small margin over run/end IOs.
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I always slot Microfilament Exposure HOs in Swift.
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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
For me that makes the only valuable HO Micros, and only by a small margin over run/end IOs.
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That seems radically overly doomerific.
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Originally Posted by RadioSilence
I wonder if this change will create an exodus of players who don't want to have to respec their characters or retire them... Too bad this fix wasn't made years ago or else the impact would've been far less.
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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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Right. I don't expect Mind Link to be affected.|
Originally Posted by Kyriani
SPECIFIED BY THE ENHANCEMENT is the key phrase here. If the hami says it enhances recharge then mind link will get a recharge boost from it. It's the whole "defense debuff also buffs defense using the defense debuff schedule which is higher" thing that is fixed.
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Based on the wording, this is not like the Alpha Slot, which has no effect if the power doesn't accept that type of enhancer. Spiritual Alpha, for example, does not affect Mind Link because Mind Link does not accept dedicated Recharge/Attack Rate enhancements.
This is not worded like that. This says that HOs no longer enhance things they don't say they enhance. Membranes say they enhance recharge, so if you can slot them (even if only because the power accepts Defense enhancers), and the power has a recharge attribute, Membranes should make it faster.
My Widow is queued for copy, but has not arrived yet.
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
OK, they do not work in Mind Link.
To be specific, I logged in my Widow and fired Mind Link and timed the recharge with an egg timer. My widow has 92.5% global recharge standing around without Hasten. I measured a roughly 125s recharge time. Mind Link has a base 240s recharge time. 240/1.925 = 124.7, which aligns very well with my measurement. My Mind Link is slotted with three Membranes.
If I had to guess (and I do), I'd say they modified HOs to use the same code as the Alpha Slot. This likely means the patch notes are wrong as written. It is not that HOs do not enhance things they don't say they will. Rather it's that they don't enhance things that a power does not accept enhancement for.
The alternative is that Mind Link was changed to ignore recharge, which seems unlikely given that HOs were known to change here. This can be tested by slotting it with Defense/Recharge IOs, which I will do later, possibly tomorrow.
I have /bugged this on beta, not because I think it will change the behavior, but because the patch note likely needs to be reworded.
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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The defense in Active Defense can also be enhanced (it's not flagged Ignores Buffs and Enhancements), but Membranes aren't working there anymore, either.
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Originally Posted by Kyriani
While Mind Link doesn't accept recharge enhancements it's recharge CAN be enhanced. So long as that isn't changing I would imagine that the Hami-O will still work as it currently does for Mind Link. The recharge portions of the to-hit and defense IO sets do enhance the recharge of Mind Link so it is likely that Hami-O will still do so as well.
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Yeah, that pretty much cinches that they did something like the Alpha Slot here. Which kind of sucks, because if the change was to squelch things like DDR boosting and Enzymes buffing defense, it actually went beyond that, and bars HOs from doing something that Set IOs still do.
At least Set IOs still do it as far as I know. That's my next test - slot Def/Recharge IOs in Mind Link and see if they work. If they don't then the patch notes are really wrong.
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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If the playerbase agrees with you that an LotG is just as good but cheaper in all respects, then the cost of HOs will necessarily come down. They are only expensive because they are bid up, because people think they are better in some circumstances. Scarcity is irrelevant if functionality is identical: rare or not people will flock to the cheaper alternative if it is in fact a genuine alternative with identical performance.
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Originally Posted by OneFrigidWitch
I am sorry, but a LotG is VASTLY cheaper than a hamidon enh, and far easier to get.
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The change is intended to make them work as intended. If they could have done this in 2004, they would have. That's not speculation: the devs said so both publicly and privately that if the tech was available to make them work this way at any time in the past, they would have eventually used it.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Yeah, that pretty much cinches that they did something like the Alpha Slot here. Which kind of sucks, because if the change was to squelch things like DDR boosting and Enzymes buffing defense, it actually went beyond that, and bars HOs from doing something that Set IOs still do.
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When the Alpha slot tech was introduced, I told people the HO change was inevitable, and it was only a matter of time, and not to bother speculating on whether it "should" happen or what the devs "motives" would be. There is no need for any motive beyond "they now work as intended." The devs have done so many times in the past, and will do so again in the future.
I can *speculate* completely independently that with this new tech and with the existence of the invention system, after this change goes in there *might* be an opening to negotiate with the devs to return HOs to their original strength, which was also the intended design of HOs that were curtailed prior to ED making that curtailing moot.
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The fact that this was an exploit and the devs Did Not Like it has been well documented. Even the Paragonwiki page warns frequently that this is an exploit and should only be attempted with the understanding that it might get corrected eventually.
Really, be glad they're only fixing it and not taking disciplinary measures against people who knowingly used the exploit.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Seriously? I doubt they would risk losing more players especially when our player base is not what it used to be.
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
Really, be glad they're only fixing it and not taking disciplinary measures against people who knowingly used the exploit.
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Knowingly exploiting bugs is a nontrivial offense in any game. I would never ever want to play on a game that kept exploiters in just because it needed the population numbers. That creates slums.
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Originally Posted by Deathless
Seriously? I doubt they would risk losing more players especially when our player base is not what it used to be.
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De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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It was also stated in the past that while this was an exploit, the devs did not consider it an Exploit with a capital E that warranted punitive action. It was more of a loophole the devs eventually intended to close, but did not believe the consequences of exploiting required any action beyond closing the loophole.
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
Really, be glad they're only fixing it and not taking disciplinary measures against people who knowingly used the exploit.
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Sure. But they could have, and would have been justified in doing so if they chose to.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
It was also stated in the past that while this was an exploit, the devs did not consider it an Exploit with a capital E that warranted punitive action. It was more of a loophole the devs eventually intended to close, but did not believe the consequences of exploiting required any action beyond closing the loophole.
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De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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They could have then, then being some time in 2005. Doing it now, after years of essentially offering amnesty in the past, would have been unethical.|
Originally Posted by Bosstone
Sure. But they could have, and would have been justified in doing so if they chose to.
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Edit: even then, it would have been questionable. The documentation in and out of game is extremely sketchy about what "legal" slotting is, and most players probably assume if a slot takes it, its meant to take it. Its not at all clear that the average player who does not visit the forums would know that slotting those enhancements generated better than intended results.
This is an unusual case where the player isn't obviously getting something for nothing: they are getting more than what they should get, and that's not easy to unilaterally blame on the players especially when the average player is not an expert in the mechanical rules of the game. It would be extremely difficult to segment the player population into those who knew better and those who did not.
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Yep, we're not disagreeing. They could have declared it an exploit back then, saying that if you slot a defense debuff enhancement into a defense buff power you'll be disciplined. Maybe it would have been sketchy, but they could have said so. They didn't, and instead just said the ride will come to an end eventually.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
They could have then, then being some time in 2005. Doing it now, after years of essentially offering amnesty in the past, would have been unethical.
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Given that the reaction to the exploit could have been worse, and plenty of warning has been given, I have no problem laughing at the people who complain now.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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I think the meaning of "as intended" does not seem clear. As evidence I cite that the devs' own patch notes does not match current behavior, and that, moreover, the new behavior does not match the behavior of otherwise functionally similar IOs.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The change is intended to make them work as intended.
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When I said "if the change was to squelch things like DDR boosting and Enzymes buffing defense", those are explicit examples of them not working as intended. This change modified additional behavior above and beyond the elimination of those examples. Given that IOs also work in these ways, and this was never cited as an exploit, I consider it reasonable that this is not making HOs work as originally "intended". If the devs come forth now and say that no enhancers are intended to work in these ways, then that is new information as far as I am aware.
I am not sure I can accept that "as (originally) intended" means "whatever they do in I22".
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| When the Alpha slot tech was introduced, I told people the HO change was inevitable, and it was only a matter of time, and not to bother speculating on whether it "should" happen or what the devs "motives" would be. There is no need for any motive beyond "they now work as intended." The devs have done so many times in the past, and will do so again in the future. |
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| I can *speculate* completely independently that with this new tech and with the existence of the invention system, after this change goes in there *might* be an opening to negotiate with the devs to return HOs to their original strength, which was also the intended design of HOs that were curtailed prior to ED making that curtailing moot. |
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
No longer any reason for me to use HOs in any of my builds.
The outdated enhancements now serve no purpose for me, although I suppose a very limited portion of the playerbase may find use for them.
Edit: Of course, I take no issue with them fixing their usage.
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The intended behavior of an enhancement that claims to boost X buffs is that it does not boost X debuffs. However, the game implementation makes that tricky to actually implement. This was discussed thoroughly when the Hamidon trick was first discussed openly on the forums, and periodically since, and especially when the Alpha slot tech was revealed (particularly by me).|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
I think the meaning of "as intended" does not seem clear. As evidence I cite that the devs' own patch notes does not match current behavior, and that, moreover, the new behavior does not match the behavior of otherwise functionally similar IOs.
When I said "if the change was to squelch things like DDR boosting and Enzymes buffing defense", those are explicit examples of them not working as intended. This change modified additional behavior above and beyond the elimination of those examples. Given that IOs also work in these ways, and this was never cited as an exploit, I consider it reasonable that this is not making HOs work as originally "intended". If the devs come forth now and say that no enhancers are intended to work in these ways, then that is new information as far as I am aware. I am not sure I can accept that "as (originally) intended" means "whatever they do in I22". |
Furthermore, and possibly more importantly, the behavior of a *power* that claims to be only enhanceable by a certain list of strength is that it will not accept enhancement based buffs of any other type. The combination of these two intents was subverted by the multi-type HOs and the limitations of the game engine, but they always existed.
As I mentioned previously, there are huge swaths of player who were never a party to those discussions, and for whom the intended behavior may be unclear. But its not unclear in an absolute sense: I can tell you what the intended behavior is, and I can state that with 100% certainty.
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The problem I have with extending the "intended" functioning of HOs to include this is that IOs also work this way, and continue to do so on Beta. I just tested to confirm that Defense/Recharge IOs still boost the recharge time of Mind Link.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Furthermore, and possibly more importantly, the behavior of a *power* that claims to be only enhanceable by a certain list of strength is that it will not accept enhancement based buffs of any other type. The combination of these two intents was subverted by the multi-type HOs and the limitations of the game engine, but they always existed.
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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
Quote:
I think the issue is that, with IO sets, they can get around slotting Multi-aspect IOs in places they were not meant for because the power won't take sets that don't match what they do (Centrioles in res buffs work because of the range slotting - but any set IOs that have damage won't be tagged "Resistance Set")
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
The problem I have with extending the "intended" functioning of HOs to include this is that IOs also work this way, and continue to do so on Beta. I just tested to confirm that Defense/Recharge IOs still boost the recharge time of Mind Link.
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I understand. This change makes Membranes not enhance recharge in Mind Link, where Defense/Recharge IOs do. Mind Link accepts defense sets, and Mind Link accepts HOs that boost defense. This is not a case where HO's allowed slotting things that weren't supposed to be enhanced with anything. Everything a Membrane enhanced was actually specifically allowed by design, but now this change makes one of them not work.|
Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
I think the issue is that, with IO sets, they can get around slotting Multi-aspect IOs in places they were not meant for because the power won't take sets that don't match what they do (Centrioles in res buffs work because of the range slotting - but any set IOs that have damage won't be tagged "Resistance Set")
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Which means at the very least that the patch note description does not match what the new HOs really do.
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
Frankly, it's really weird that Mind Link doesn't just take recharge enhancements. They clearly don't mind its recharge being buffable, or they would've given it the Strength of Will treatment.
The patch notes specifically say: Hamidon, Synthetic Hamidon, Titan and Hydra Enhancements will no longer incorrectly enhance attributes other than those specified by the enhancement.
SPECIFIED BY THE ENHANCEMENT is the key phrase here. If the hami says it enhances recharge then mind link will get a recharge boost from it. It's the whole "defense debuff also buffs defense using the defense debuff schedule which is higher" thing that is fixed.
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