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summers

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Posts posted by summers

    Focused Feedback: Other Powers Changes

    in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Maxzero said:

     

    Honestly most AoE 'rotations' consist of only 2-3 attacks anyway. The only reason you don't notice the animations and 'spaminess' is that there is a usually a several second wait between each rotation.

     

    I would rather be spamming an AoE then doing nothing (or using ST attacks) waiting for CDs to come up.

     

    I'd encourage you to try the powers out and see for yourself. Yes - a lot of AOE chains are just a few powers, but they have noteable gaps.

     

    Dark Melee won't play that way:

     

    TLDR: 45% of the attack chain is your one attack

    Focused Feedback: Other Powers Changes

    in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Maxzero said:

     

    I mean is the AoE ToF THAT bad?

     

    With procs I am looking a mid 200s Aoe for my Tanker with a high target cap and a 2.88 sec recharge. Unlike PPP AoEs I will still have it when I exemp down.

     

    A procced out PPP AoE is looking at 350+ damage but on a 12 sec CD (the AoE Immo is about 250 damage on a 6-7 sec CD).

     

    Seems to be one of the better lower level AoEs.

    I'm not who you quoted but my disappointment is just how spammy the attack is. It's on a lightning fast recharge and I will get very bored watching the same animation over and over again.

     

    As s soon as you are hitting two enemies you are getting value out of it so... you'll do that a lot.

    Focused Feedback: Energy Melee Revamp

    in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Troo said:

    Cottage Rule isn't a rule. It's like power creep, something to be mindful of.

     

    85% of the game is pre level 50. That some people skip that content is no reason to ignore it exists and to break things there. Shorthand = Balance around SOs

    • Should that be shifted to balance around regular IOs.. sure I'm on board. Just know that may have the opposite effect.
    • Example: Two +5 rech / dmg / heal doing essentially the same work as three is a shift and has power creep that might need to be addressed.

     

    I think it serves a very practical purpose which reduces the likelihood of requiring respecifications with changes, as well as not upsetting paying customers who are positively inclined towards that particular power.

     

    My point however is more in the 'mantra' part, since you'll regularly find people who are vehemently opposed to any and all changes and become quite outraged by it.

     

    It's something to think about, but it should not stifle change where change is good.

    • Like 1

    Focused Feedback: Other Powers Changes

    in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback

    Posted

    25 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

     

    This is overall intentional. See above quote. Overall, it is intentionally spammable but the DPA per target of this power is not the best a DM character will have access to.

     

    Thanks for considering my feedback, even if I may not like the outcome 😄

     

    Is there any chance it could get a more 'melee' focussed animation as an alternative?

    Focused Feedback: Trick Arrow Revamp

    in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback

    Posted

    Call me naive but I think this looks like a whole lot of improvements. I've seen a lot of negativity around it but I think the headline advantages are getting a little lost in the static/noise - and there's a lot of static (for example, -maxend and other minor effects that are meaningless except for possible procability).

     

    With that positive spin out there, in todays day and age of incarnate content, I think any debuff set is going to struggle for relevancy at 50+, and that means you want to bring -resistance as the key power. Onto the highlights!

     

    The headline advantages as I see it are:

     

    1) Very fast activation times

    2) Much stronger and wider radius effects

     

    The best change is:

     

    Disruption Arrow does -40% resistance with a 1.32 second cast. For comparison, Tar Patch does -30% resistance with a 3.1 second cast. If you wanted the slow, you can do both Disruption Arrow and Glue Arrow and still be up by about half a second in activation times, and have more and better effects. Yes - you can't stack Disruption Arrows, but I'd take the quick activation in 90% of the content over the stacking in the 10% (which is just an AV fight). For most content I feel I'm racing from spawn to spawn, and this power now delivers up front on a fast recharge for every spawn.

     

    For everything else? It's situational, but strong, and I'm okay with that. What more can you say about debuff sets? The meta is against them, but for <50 content this set looks very good.

    Focused Feedback: Energy Melee Revamp

    in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback

    Posted

    11 minutes ago, Xanatos said:

    Having actually playtested the powerset, my overall feedback is positive. I like it. But have one slight concern. I feel like only being able to get Energy Focus from Total Focus is a bit limiting. It makes the set feel like a one-trick pony whilst playing it. It's good on paper, but it feels a bit railroaded in practice.

     

    My feedback would be to take a leaf out of Rad Melee's book. Specifically: give the other powers in the set a small chance to generate Energy Focus.

     

    Here is Rad Melee's powers, plus a list of the "percentage change to make the enemy irradiated"

     

    Contaminated Strike - 12%
    Radioactive Smash - 23%
    Proton Sweep - 21%
    Fusion - 100%
    Radiation Siphon - 32%
    Irradiated Ground - ??%
    Devastating Blow - 100%
    Atom Smasher - 35%

     

    Based on these numbers, I suggest the following Energy Melee powers be given the percentage chances to generate 1 unit of Energy Focus:


    Barrage - 12%
    Energy Punch - 23%
    Bone Smasher - 21%
    Build Up - 100%
    Whirling Hands - 35%
    Total Focus - 100%
    Power Crash - 21%

     

    This change would help  make the set feel less of a one-trick pony. Curious to hear what @Bill Z Bubba @Troo @Vanden @ScarySai @Super Atom @AerialAssault and everyone else currently playtesting Energy Melee on beta think of the above. (Sorry for tagging. Thread is super busy and don't want this to vanish in the stampede of posts.)

     

    I'm not terribly in favour of randomly adding Energy Focus, and the application is so limited that I doubt it will really matter much either. However, if it did go this way, Barrage is almost twice the activation time of Energy Punch so IMO the numbers are around the wrong way. It should have the greater chance.

     

    Also I just like Barrage's animation

    • Like 1

    Focused Feedback: Other Powers Changes

    in [Open Beta] Focused Feedback

    Posted · Edited by summers

    I just played my Dark Melee Scrapper through a mission after taking the time to respec into Touch of Fear on the beta server. The character is otherwise a copy of my Live one, and is level 46.

     

    For mission clear speed, Touch of Fear is a vast improvement. I found that Shadow Maul is always problematic and changing the target cap didn't feel like a big difference since it's hard to hit 6 or more enemies in a 7' radius.

     

    I do have a complaint about the power though - it is way, way, way too spammy. It's pretty much the best thing to do for AOE in a rotation and it casts slowly and recharges extremely fast. This means the old buzz-saw melee feel of Dark Melee is quickly gone - instead, I found myself simply endlessly casting this short range animation and it was almost immediately monotonous. I really wanted to be doing 'melee' instead of casting (that's why I picked a melee character!), and I found that spending 45% of my time doing just the one casting animation was, well... bleh. It was unfun.

     

    Edit 1:

    Image added so you can see just how spammy this attack is!

    oiPt9Vu.gif

     

    Two seconds of animating, 2.5 seconds of recharge. We're going to see this cast a zillion times for Dark Melee!

     

    Edit 2:

    Where did I get the 45% from?

    2 second cast

    2.5 second recharge

    (okay, it's really 44.44%, but wow... I felt it straight away when I started playing!)

    • Like 9
    • Thanks 1

    Game Balance & The Endgame

    in Developer's Corner

    Posted

    41 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

    Removing Level Shifts would be the most positive move the developers could make IMO.

     

    One big thing here. On end game builds, the shift shouldn't understood in terms of the difference between level 50 and level 51. Instead it should be understood in terms of its inverse. The Level Shift lowers level 54 mobs to level 53 (but gives you level 54 rewards).

     

    Sorry for italics. Just hoping to drive home a point. :)

     

    A Level 54 enemy takes only 48% of all Damage, Debuffs, Mezzes, and so on. In other words it has 52% Resistance to all. A Level 53 enemy takes 65% (Resists all by 35%). That's a 17% difference. Hold on to that number.

     

    The average Corruptor, Mastermind or Controller AoE -Resist power starts at -22.5%. But that's against a +0. Against a +3, that reduces to 65% of strength, so 14%. The Level Shift is better. 

     

    A Level Shift that lowers an enemy from +4 to +3 is better than getting free Sonic Dispersion cast on you at all times. And since you can email Empyrean merits there is no reason you should ever spend more than a brief amount of time as a Level 50 unless you don't play enough to have Empyreans stored up. 

     

     

     

    The big takeaway from this is (other than just Level Shifts being really powerful) that unlike most mechanics in this game, Level Shifts actually get better when your enemy is higher level. 

    While it is absolutely true that Level Shifts are that powerful, I don't know if it fixes the problem we have, although maybe we define the problem differently.

     

    Right now I see the problem at the incarnate level is:

     

    Too much defence

    Too much recharge

    Too much AOE damage

     

    These combine to allow even "glass cannons" getting soft capped defences on their own at 50 and then being able to cycle massive damage, especially nukes, at very high recharge, in relative safety and without needing outside assistance. For a lot of content it's just racing between packs and nuking them in some way, shape or form.

     

    1. Level shift doesn't fix the defence problem; +tohit doesn't come into effect until you're fighting +6s.
    2. It doesn't fix the recharge problem; these are inherent to the character.
    3. Will it fix the AOE damage? It'll certainly make all damage worse, but it also makes all the debuffs and controls worse as well, which I feel are the suffering archetypes at incarnate level.

     

    I do like that the suggestion is bringing damage down, but it also brings down the support that I want to see become more valuable too. Maybe in practice it feels different, but just at a glance I wonder if it'll do what we want?

     

    • Like 1

    Change Mercenary's Serum power

    in Suggestions & Feedback

    Posted

    I wish the cottage rule itself was taken out back behind another cottage to be shot.

     

    It makes sense that, as a general principle, it's nice to keep things at least a little recognisable to their original form to minimise bad feelings from people who are quite attached to those powers. But, as a rule, it's not a good one, and it stifles change where change is good. It is repeated as a mantra against good change. Each change should be taken on their own merits, not some arbitrary rule from someone who no longer develops the game.

     

    And serum has no merit. Dump it.

    • Like 2
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