PirateCrew

I (and I believe many of us) would quite readily discuss ways to create greater variety for mez resist/protection at any time, especially those that don't involve forced thematic choices, or give greater variety (less protection but perma? some sort of mez "absorb" in an auto-refresh toggle? I've heard some creative ideas). I don't think we'd have been halted from that discussion by the mere existence of a halfway decent option buried in a pool, but with prereqs a warshade doesn't need, that has limited uptime, and stacks poorly with builds that can achieve high resist survival without it. And while (as you accurately say) warshades aren't the topic here, this anecdote does illustrate why we should be discussing first, creating build diversity second, and nerfing last. Which is kinda the whole point a lot of posters are trying to make, that is, we need more viable alternatives in making builds...not fewer. Shouldn't it be ok to make a tougher but less damaging corruptor? Or a fairly viable warshade that doesn't have to abandon a human theme against mez-heavy enemies? Or a controller that is...uh...not a pushover against controls, without a big bubble or a rather shabby and specific epic power choice? All it would have taken was a dev post like "Hey, for the next update we're looking at mez system adjustments, describe examples when your characters are undertuned when facing mez" or "What other mez protection options should we consider, and where should we put them among the powersets", and suddenly we'd be eyebrow-deep in posts. I argue that "simultaneously" would be superior to "first", even if you're right about the necessity. Maybe that still has a chance of happening. If anyone used an argument on you to shut down discussion of warshade native mez protection, well... I don't see how that translates into "great argument, I now support the nerf of PoR (or defense amplifiers) to force a debate". For me, it translates into "that's a foolish argument, I'll look for advice from someone else, and the devs should start the debate as soon as they can spare time to adjust the mez system."

Let's assume for a moment that we collectively treat this as the main logical argument behind whether RoP should be nerfed at all. (I understand that some posters don't.) Does this at least point to a reasonable path forward that most of us can support or be swayed to favor, including Jimmy, Powerhouse, and other devs who might not have chimed in yet? That is: Preserve RoP as "overtuned" but "deserves to be, for now"... until some future discussion / readjustments to adjacent* powers? *Not entirely sure how broad this should be. The players have always accepted that we don't control the server's operation. Our best arguments can only have effect here by swaying, or clarifying, dev ideas. Thus, I think the real question is, would the dev team accept that a one-sided RoP adjustment shouldn't occur until the broader intended change can be considered and bundled with it? The current approach, which feels like instantly nerfing it in a vacuum, is really unsatisfying to me - both as a player, and as a human who just likes the world to contain more well-understood outcomes. Tentative mentions of a broader plan are faintly better. Why not go one step further? If we (players) can accept that RoP contains an overconcentration of power within itself, pause the nerf while that excess is spread around, and maybe also consider adjusting competitor powers/sets - sounds far better IMO than the path we've been set on.

Positive: The real reasons are revealed, so even this delayed update deserves a thank you from us all, for resolving confusion. Negative: Prior silence plus this note gives no indication that the slightest alteration to the plan will occur as a result of feedback. This feels like a fine way to demotivate qualitative testing and discussion. How am I to know which elements of an update are worthy of full feedback? Could save us this apparent hassle by marking non-negotiable changes, up front, so that "feedback" on them is renamed to "bug reports only". Or am I supposed to still hold out hope that a compromise is possible? A "small team" just doesn't have time to fix many things that I might actually want fixed (e.g. certain excessively crashy armor T9s, enemy groups with excessive mez / very limited ways to counter it) - yet. Fair. But why should anyone suddenly have time to start breaking one halfway-decent workaround? There was a good recent decision, where a change was slowed until a full solution could be implemented. Ye Olde Favoritte, /enterbasefrompasscode. That approach seemed to work far better than what's happening here - why abandon good practices? Even if RoP is the most unacceptably overpowered thing (and I do find this hard to believe, absent power selection data)... And it cannot be tolerated (as is) until some future revamp (could give hints about it to amooth things over)... Why not at least accept suggestions for an alternate nerf to RoP that preserves its 90 duration? Could get some good will simply by list parameters and % reductions that would be acceptable, or present a few options to see what players would prefer. The current approach leaves me with trepidation over "ok, so what *else* is gonna get the stick, long before any decent fix is available?" A sour taste on what should otherwise be a well-received game update...and future ones, too.

Not seeing strong logic behind the Rune of Protection 33% duration reduction. Increasing the other similar powers' duration or effectiveness is equally valid given what the patch notes state...and has the benefit of making more pools interesting (they are not, for me, right now). If RoP is "too good" according to those with the power to initiate this change and the ability to peer into the stats, just say it - the need for a change would be much easier to understand if "50% of builds have this power now, it's Hasten 2nd edition" or "Look at all the melee players dropping their T9s in favor of RoP" (though maybe that points to a different issue & solution). In my experience, RoP is a reasonably good power as-is, and for some characters it's worth the investment into the prerequisite powers and some slotting. Its duration reduction doesn't really seem to accomplish anything beneficial for the game, unlike most everything else adjusted in this bundle of changes. If we assume that RoP effectiveness *must* be reduced in value, I would prefer to see some alternatives considered first (buffs to other pools, higher end cost, giving up that new when-mezzed effect buff, etc). I'd say that -33% also feels on the extreme end... these top-tier pool powers are supposed to be somewhat desirable, right?

It's not a macro, but I can share how I use a bind-within-a-bind for this. The idea is to make a "setup" bind so that one keypress does most of the work of creating another "on-the-fly" bind (for the key to perform the actual name-targeting command). To create the "setup" bind, type the following in the chat window: /bind SHIFT+tilde "beginchat /bind tilde targetcustomnext " then press enter. This is done once (per character). To actually use the "setup" bind to create the "on-the-fly" targeting bind: 1) press shift+tilde (shift and the ~ key) which prints the first part of the "on-the-fly" rebinding command into the chat window and puts the typing cursor down there too, 2) type the name (or part of the name) of the thing you want to search for, 3) press enter. 4) pan your camera or move around the map and press the tilde key (by itself) occasionally until the thing is found. You can use the keys you prefer by changing what I used in the setup bind. Note that the on-the-fly bind will remain bound until the setup bind is used to rebind it.

Got to donate for the first time, thank goodness for the in-game notification!

The last-5 data is being commingled for a recipe (Tempered Readiness: Dam/Slow) and an attuned enhancement (Trap of the Hunter: Immobilize/Accuracy). This problem appears when looking at either item.

I would definitely use an option like this. Have gotten so accustomed to camera-cone-prioritized targeting in other games that it's one of the few things I truly "miss" when playing CoH, even though I've abandoned those other games for CoH's return.

Thanks for quickly communicating its status with us. I like the much more open comms channel for bug reports here than most other forums/games. This one was grinding my gears on a Manticore TF last evening, but at least I had /Storms to keep them busy...

The "crash if you stack Rage, but no crash otherwise" solution would be fine for me.

I support that sentiment. The ability to change overall knock- strategy depending on the mission or enemies would be better to me than only the individual-power slotting options we have now. The "oh just put KB2KD IOs everywhere" option isn't much of one, for my energy blaster, without ruining way too many set bonuses and giving up enhancement values to get control over KB. For now, I compromised by getting the KB out of energy torrent and nova, but leaving it alone in the single target attacks and taking hover to have an additional measure of KB reduction. I'm holding off on remaking a peacebringer from Live until either KB control or new costuming options are available. While I don't know if there is any existing lever in the code that would allow applying a character-wide -X% knockback magnitude (or add invisible 7th KB2KD enhancements to powers, or ????), I'd rather enjoy a discussion of possible approaches and feasibility, which I saw hints of in this thread, and not speculation over social pressure from pro/anti-KB cultures. Every existing - and proposal for - choice that we get in game (costumes included) could be stifled in this manner over fears that someone sometime might pressure us to not wear such things, or not color our powers like that. Only we as individuals can decide if a complaint is reasonable (I make my forcefield bubbles as mild as possible, for example) or not, and say "no" or /leaveteam to keep our own level of fun in balance with that of others in game.

I would support any adjustment of Rage (or equivalent power - even better) that removes or greatly reduces the two features of current Rage that make it a poor fit for the game as it is today. Please make any crash armor-agnostic, so that freedom of powerset choice is improved. Several techniques could work here and I'd support any of them, from making the Def crash smaller and resistable by sets with DDR, to simply removing it in exchange for a single stacking limit. Please make any crash not involve as severe of a damage debuff, and its timing less binary-bad/good (just jumped into a spawn group or ambush spawned, vs. clicking elevator to next floor). Again, I see many valid options such as a reduced %, shorter debuff, or elimination, so that a greater feeling of contribution and super strength is maintained during any crash. Again, it's completely fair to limit the stacking to make this happen. The Captain's proposed version addresses both of my concerns and maintains a mechanical uniqueness, especially as an equivalent power. I would even be ok with "Might" having slightly lesser buffs if its endurance costs require that for balance. At this point I'd rather have build-up than Rage in it current form, and that's disappointing to me - I want the set to have unique features, but current Rage sits unclicked on my power bar way too much due to its downsides especially when exemplared. Dropping it wasn't the choice I thought I'd be considering when I came home to CoH, yet here I am... Sources: experience playing 3 SS tanks [WP|Invuln|Shield]/SS and 3 SS brutes SS/[WP|Fire|Energy]. All of these except SS/Energy were also played on live in incarnate content.

I would prefer a way for players to reach level 22 quickly, if they choose, without resorting to what would typically be considered "PL services" or "multiboxing". Various solutions would be pleasing to me. Examples would include anything in the range from: Re-adjust the DFB XP curve to only degrade from level 20-22, rather than from 10-20. This seems the easiest to implement, and still preserves the idea of requiring some gameplay to initialize an alt to the point where real testing and slotting can begin. to... Create a badge for having a certain number of alts above level 22 (perhaps 10 or 20), which then enables a free "boost character to 22" option in the P2W vendor. If this badge was per-archetype, that's fine too, with a reasonably-lowered number to match it (perhaps 2 or 3). If some alternative to the early levels is being worked (but not yet public), I wish the DFB XP change would have been delayed until that solution was ready.

Absolutely, OP. To those at work on our new home(s), shout if y'all need anything from us.

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