City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Ask Anything: Ranged Blast and Blaster Manipulation Changes

Abysmalyxia

By Abysmalyxia,
Posted on: 2012-06-21 13:45 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xprom View Post
QFT and I like the idea of Blaster T9s being targeted AOEs or Cones over PBAOEs
Look I am not saiyan that Energy Blasts tier 9 needs to be a Massive cone energy blast...but it need to be a Massive cone energy blast...


just saiyan.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Starsman View Post
*cough* tesla cage *cough* give it damage *cough*
Yeah, many of us have stated this for a long while.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
They probably won't all be normalized, but AR, Archery, and Beam Rifle may change since right now they look kinda funky if you have to draw the weapon.
Please be careful with AR. Unless paired with Devices it has the least ability to leverage FastSnipe and at the moment it's insanely fast FastSnipe activation is sort of compensating for that (or at least Arcana says it is and while I'm unconvinced I still don't want to see it get worse).

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
It's true that To-Hit is somewhat arcane, but this mechanic actually boils down pretty simply:

-"Hit Aim, Snipe becomes instant."
-"Pop 3 small yellows, Snipe becomes instant."
-"Get a big team with people running leadership, Snipe becomes instant."

Or, most simply, "If you get a yellow ring around your Snipe attack, you can click it and use it in combat."
Right, but for those of us who read the forums it will mean:
-"Stack 22% +hit, or lose your best attack."

And I predict that people who end up in large parties that DO NOT provide them the necessary buffs for +22% hit to get surly in short order. Are you concerned that this (and the self-buff to snipes for Corruptors and Defenders) might push Tactics into must-have, Fitness Pool territory?

 

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I guess I really am on everyones ignore list. Oh well

 

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Will the sustain effect continue to work while mezzed?

And if so, does that place users of /Dark Manipulation ToF (or whatever the new power name is) at a higher risk if they get mezzed prior being able to fire off the attack, or if at the opening of the fight, the use it, missed, and get attacked then mezzed?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo_G View Post
I guess I really am on everyones ignore list. Oh well
Nah, we love big furry wolves.

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In an SO only world: what is your goal with the sustain powers?

How survivable do you expect the average blaster to become compared to... lets say the average stalker?

 

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How much tweaking to Dual Pistol's animations did you do? Does it continue to have the same feel it currently has? was it an animation tweak to juse ES?

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo_G View Post
I guess I really am on everyones ignore list. Oh well
Right.

Because so far he's answered EVERYONE'S question except yours.




















Oh wait, no he hasn't.

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Posted

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Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
These may see changes. They should be high damage and good power picks but they are also ranged attacks in PPPs on Melee ATs. They should not be as awesome as the Ranged Blast snipes.
Sounds fair. You mentioned maybe giving Dominators in Domination fast snipes all the time. Maybe Stalkers have to be in Hide to utilize it, and Scrappers get a more vanilla tohit requirement?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
Interestingly, due to Blaze's insanely fast activation time, Fire Blast doesn't gain that much relative to other powersets if both Blaze and Blazing Bolt are off cooldown and the 22% To Hit threshold has been reached. Fire Blast was designed with the notion of its secondary effect being "Moar Damage". Is that fair? It does give up some utility for damage, and the amount of "Moar Damage" is not huge due to how DoTs work in our game, but on top of having extra damage, it also has some of the highest DPA of any ranged set, which is not a controlled balancing factor in our powers system (though Synapse and I both take DPA into account when making changes these days, it is not expressly limited by our damage formula).
I think it's fair when you look at what the other sets gain from fast snipes, but it doesn't do much to help close the gap between other sets. I think a lot of it has to do with the secondary effects being lackluster or a set's mechanics not having enough of an impact to warrant the hits it has to take elsewhere. I think a lot of people point to Electric Blast and the meager end drain, and Dual Pistols and the minuscule secondary effects from the ammo swaps (to the point where it's not a choice, and just incendiary all the time) as examples.

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Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
Changing Drain Psyche at all would necessitate drastically reducing the amount of Recovery it grants, flagging the Regeneration debuff to ignore enhancements and outside buffs, and dropping the Regen buff per target but frontloading a more significant amount of its overall Regen buff. Would this be a worthwhile trade for greater ease of use and higher accessability for lower-end and non-IO builds?
The recovery and regen debuff could probably stand to take hits. I don't think any other regen debuffs are enhanceable at all, so that's fair, and it's main usage is on large groups, not single hard targets that need regen debuffing. I do think the buff duration should match the power's recharge - it feels like a penalty to players not in the know that their survivability tool doesn't have equal uptime with other secondaries. If the per target portion takes a hit, maybe you could keep the per target buff and the frontloaded buff separate, and allow the per target buff to be stackable? That way high recharge builds can still benefit, but not by an enormous margin.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
My pleasure. I love this community, and talking about powers is probably my favorite thing ever. XD
Trust me, we love the open communication too. I'll admit it's not quite as awesome as the time I realized I could call anyone at Valve on the phone and talk to them, but it's certainly up there in terms of "this company rocks."


edit: Oh, and one last minor change that's been bugging me forever: could you standardize the power pool Leadership toggles' activation times to match the VEAT ones?

 

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Originally Posted by Xprom View Post
Can you give us a clear answer why T9 Blaster powers that crash weren't addressed with these other nuggets your giving us. A Brute Scrapper, or Tank never question taking their T9 attacks and neither should Blasters.
<-------- Doesn't have Greater Fire Sword on his /fire tank. Jus' say'n.

Will also say that with these changes, and a possible time bomb change, my fire/traps corr will play very, very differently.

 

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Originally Posted by Texas Justice View Post
Right.

Because so far he's answered EVERYONE'S question except yours.

Oh wait, no he hasn't.
My Questions about Ice manipulation were. I am sad now

NeoSaturn-L50 Kat/Regen Scrapper

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Posted

Errm, not balance, but while you're working on blasters here's a request. Blue lightning field fixed to work like red, in that the annoying sound will fade to nothing shortly after turning on. Hmm, could you do this for ice sword as well? The tools and techniques are already in the engine.

Or, in the form of a question, could you do the above? Thanks

 

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Third, are you going to look at the 'fool' magic buff power? At the moment the 3% tohit debuff it lays on you is essentially ignorable, but if it makes the difference between being able to fast cast your snipe or not, I could see it getting annoying very fast - especially since it lasts 20 minutes and can't be removed. It's likely not a problem if you're getting over the threshold using aim, but could definitely be an issue otherwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
If it's not already flagged as Cancelable, I will flag it as such. For those of you who may not know this, i20 or i21 introduced the ability to cancel many buffs in game by right-clicking their icon and selecting "Cancel" from the drop-down menu.
I don't know how I feel about making that cancelable. The point of MF is to be random. If you can cancel the buff, you can keep cancelling until you get the one you want.

I think being able to cancel it takes some flavor out of the power. (Unless of course you're just saying you would make [The Fool] cancelable and not the other buffs.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
It's certainly worth considering! I'd only seen it brought up once before, but we'll look at it. Mental Manipulation has kind of operated in its own paradigm independent of other Blaster Support sets for years, but a lot of that paradigm contributed to making that secondary both powerful and fun to play.
Awesome, i24 keeps getting better and better

 

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Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
We've considered it, but we would prefer to fix layered and repeated crowd control problems from the NPC side rather than from the player side. I want to add CC suppression to NPC CC powers at some point in the future - maybe i24, more likely i25 or later. This would dramatically lower the performance delta between characters with access to status protection and those without. But it's a massive amount of data to parse and then change, so it's a timely and costly endeavour.


That would go a LONG way towards fixing status-effect-related problems in a very direct way, and it's something I never thought would even be acknowledged. To be blunt, since about Issue 1, I've had zero faith in NPC status control and generally NPC power selection to be under any kind of scrutiny, and this problem has seemed to get worse and worse with every passing Issue, with I18 being one of the worst offenders. It simply seems that as time goes on, NPCs of any level range gain more damage, stronger debuffs and more status effects than what had been seen in previous issues.

I forget at what point I made this decision, but I simply decided to never play anything without status protection for exactly this reason - many enemies are just badly unfair. Malta Spec Ops 45s Stun Grenades come to mind.

My point here is that if you can do this and actually put enemy potency under some kind of standardized control so I'm not forced to overbuild to handle the very frequent outliers, then what constitutes "enough" might drop significantly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood View Post
Dominators: Two secondaries can get it through Aim or Build Up and all doms can get a limited uptime through Soul drain in APP.
Thorns/ might have Aim but it doesn't have a snipe.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk View Post
Changing Drain Psyche at all would necessitate drastically reducing the amount of Recovery it grants, flagging the Regeneration debuff to ignore enhancements and outside buffs, and dropping the Regen buff per target but frontloading a more significant amount of its overall Regen buff. Would this be a worthwhile trade for greater ease of use and higher accessability for lower-end and non-IO builds?
Yes and it should be done both for the QoL help that it gives to most players as well as the reduction it needs to be on the top end. The power of Christ compels you.

Plus you could consider making WoC have a 15 foot or 20 foot radius as well as making Scare's duration ~17 seconds.

Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas Justice View Post
Right.

Because so far he's answered EVERYONE'S question except yours.


Oh wait, no he hasn't.
So someone who put down their question, waited patiently until after time runs out can't make can't make a neutral comment about being skipped over without getting a snarky reply from TJ?

Lol [pancake] you too.

 

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So, regarding the changes to Cloaking Device/Field Operative, is Field Operative going to retain the stealth function of Cloaking Device?

While fighting out of Stealth has never been as much of a benefit to my Blaster as it would be for a Stalker, I have to admit, the sniper changes could make a cloaked Sniper a *lot* more viable, as I'm given to understand the snipes won't have their (highly localized) aggro tendencies changed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
You're right: this whole issue is a money grab. We're going to be grabbing money from impatient people with money to burn and completionist complexes, and using it to make a better game for everyone, including the 99.9% of the rest of the playerbase that isn't going to be buying everything, multiple times, immediately upon release, and spending hundreds of dollars in the process.

 

Posted

What if blasters had a 'bank' of protection that was in some way related to defiance? Perhaps it only regenerates out of combat, but allows a blaster to navigate alphas (and some extended combat) with some reliance on 'damage as mitigation'.

At full charge I have 3 'charges' of mag 3 stun/sleep/hold/confuse protection, after those three are consumed, I have one mag 2 charge, and one mag 1 charge left until I am without any mez avoidance. Kind of like 'absorb' but for ranged_mez only.

Thanks for your work, Sir Arbiter!

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo_G View Post
I guess I really am on everyones ignore list. Oh well
Simpler, more direct questions would help in this specific instance.

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