Booper

How does it feel different?

It's not. It was missed during the sweep. Fixed in next build.

Please post bug findings in the Beta Bug Report forum. Thanks for letting us know, but I don't want your findings to get lost before developers can address this issue.

Thanks, please remember to post all bug reports in the Beta Bug Report subforum. It's easier for us to find reports and fix.

We won't do that. But, if you currently have a character with that power, you can keep it slotted with melee AoE sets. Spirit Drain will keep those enhancements when it goes Live. If you respec or unslot those enhancements after Spirit Drain goes to Live, you won't be able to put them back.

New Player Experience (NPE) Improvements - RC3 With everything finally becoming official, we're at the beginning of a new era for the game, and it is time we become better stewards of the core game itself. The first step is to start making some improvements to the new player experience (or NPE, as the cool kids refer to it) to remove some of the small "pain points" experienced by new players (you may have noticed a large influx of them recently!). Character Creation Guidance We cleaned up some of the language and graphics during character creation and tutorial selection to guide new players toward creating their characters in the easier starting areas: Updated text to nudge new players to start in Primal Earth, not Praetoria. Updated text to nudge players towards Breakout or Outbreak, not Galaxy City. RESISTANCE and LOYALIST are now colored blue and gold in the text descriptions (in the same way HERO and VILLAIN are colored blue / red). "City of Heroes: Freedom" and "City of Heroes: Going Rogue" graphics replaced with "Primal Earth" and "Praetorian Earth" graphics. Kheldians now show stats during AT selection (instead of a series of ?s). EAT descriptions updated to state that they are not recommended for new players, cannot access the tutorial, and are locked to (start as) specific alignments. Origin selection guidance text updated to clarify that it's primarily a narrative choice with minimal gameplay significance. Several AT descriptions updated to correct poor grammar and remove needless gendering. Several AT stats updated to better reflect their abilities (also, Kheldians now have stats instead of ?s). Replaced all the ugly dashes (-) with pretty bullets (•). Access to Travel New characters will automatically start with Athletic Run (players can swap this out at S.T.A.R.T, formerly P2W, for another version). Passport (and Long Range Teleporter) is now unlocked by acquiring any 10 exploration badges, instead of one exploration accolade. This doesn't affect characters who already own Long Range Teleporter, and the Pocket D unlock method is still present. Note: For technical reasons, this only counts exploration badges collected after the patch. New characters are given 30 minutes of the LKT-1700 Rocket Pack when training to level 2. The description informs players how to get more. Swapped from Sky Raiders Jet Pack to LKT-1700 Rocket Pack. Origin Attacks Damage is now more consistent during the early levels. It is now scale 1.00 at levels 1 through 10. This damage declines linearly, starting at level 11, and ending at 0.30 at level 17 (previously the damage began dropping off from level 2). Endurance cost removed. Recharge reduced from 4s to 3s. Range increased from 45 feet to 80 feet to match most ranged attacks. Now added to the tray upon character creation. Power icon colors updated to Inherent color scheme. Note: The existing icons still exist with their old file names if you were using them for macro images. User Interface Improvements All three main power trays are expanded by default, and pre-set to tray 1, 2, and 3 rather than all being tray 1. Additional trays added with the + button now default to tray 4, 5, 6, etc. The inspiration tray is in its expanded state by default. To avoid confusion with Sprint, Prestige Power Slide is now no longer added to the tray upon character creation. Fixed a bug which sometimes caused power trays to be completely emptied if a new character zoned or logged off before moving powers in or adding extra powers to the tray. Power trays now default to showing the first associated key binding instead of slot numbers. Options Improvements Power recharge timers now default to on (Center). When centered, the recharge timer slightly increases in size as it approaches 0, and has an extra animation when the power is recharged. Timer text scaling no longer changes based on time remaining and is just a flat size increase for single-digit numbers. The power tray timer defaults to shown for powers with an estimated recharge of longer than 5 seconds. This can be changed in the options menu, or a custom value may be set using the /recharge_timer_threshold command. Icons of recharging powers no longer shrink when the recharge timer is enabled, to make them easier to see behind the number. Veterans used to the old behavior can override this with /tray_always_shrink 1. New settings added to control power tray animations and add more customization options (format options, color coding, opacity) for the recharge timer. Added an alternate color palette for the recharge timer. Adjusted timer to always round up when in whole-number mode, so that it is a proper countdown. Fixed recharge timer color setting not saving correctly. The game's volume levels have been adjusted to make for a more comfortable experience. The volume sliders now range from 0% - 150%. The 150% setting is equivalent to the former 100% setting. The slider range scales along a curve so that more of the slider results in usable volume levels. The "Show Pet Window Option" setting has been removed and is always enabled. This just provides players with the ability to open the Pets window (by clicking "Pets" at the top of the Team window), it doesn't open the window by default. Added an option to control power tray labels: Can be set to Key Bindings, Slot Numbers, or None. The Auto-accept level changes above or below options now default to level 50 instead of 0, preventing pop-ups from appearing when teaming. What was formerly called "Inverted" mouse is now "Normal" and vice-versa. The Villain Name and Villain Health Bar UI options now include "Always" in the list of settings to cycle through. Control Scheme The game's default key bindings and mouse options have been modernized: The default run forward binding now turns the character to face the camera direction. This mostly affects what happens when you press forward after using free look to change the camera angle. Running forward with Left Button + Right Button is now a standard run and does not activate autorun. Left-mouse-button dragging activates Quick Look mode, which is similar to free camera look with the middle mouse button but snaps back to center when the button is released. The default bindings for the top tray (Alt2) changed from Control+# to Shift+# for reduced finger strain on commonly used combinations. The pop-up server tray now has default key bindings of Control+#. Team member selection bindings moved to Shift+F1 - Shift+F8. Default key bindings for collapsing and switching power trays removed. With more trays visible all the time and the extra added trays, having 1 of them change when pressing minus or equals isn't as useful, and it was easy to accidentally press these and cause confusion. The previous bindings are available under the drop-down as the "Classic" preset, and should work just like they always have. These changes only apply to new characters, and overridden by customized bindings that were previously saved. Applying some or all of these settings on existing characters requires either resetting to the default bindings or manually applying the changes. In-Game Guidance When gaining the free Rocket Pack at level 2, you are presented with a pop-up explaining how to get more at the S.T.A.R.T. Vendor. Finding your first exploration badge now gives a pop-up explaining that you'll get LRT if you collect 10 in total. Fixed and updated the missing Invention tutorial pop-up when reaching level 10 (this pop-up will also automatically unlock the Invention tutorial contact relevant to your faction). Rewrote the "You got a Tip!" Pop-up to be more up-to-date and informative. Miscellaneous Pay 2 Win (and Transact 4 Victory) have rebranded as S.T.A.R.T. Fixed several missed P2W strings. Exploration badges now award a tour guide tip. The very first exploration badge you pick up does not award a tip (to avoid getting two pop-ups from one badge). Exploration badges now grant Patrol XP instead of regular XP. The amount of Patrol XP gained is dramatically higher than the previous amount of regular XP previously gained. The amount scales with level, starting with 1.5 bars at level 1, down to 0.25 bars at level 50.

Hello, and thanks for asking. I won't have much to add, as Koopak has already provided you with an excellent answer. Koopak has been involved with the beta testing for these changes and has tracked the discussions quite well in giving you their response. In short, this effort was a collaboration between multiple developers with a vested interest in VEATs. Between bug fixes, customization, and low-performing powers, we wanted to bring an update that is across-the-board performance buffs that raise the floor of VEAT performance without raising the ceiling too much. We also wanted to separate some of the branches' identities to better diversify play-styles and build options. This goal is why Night Widows received buffs that improved their survival stats (increased resistance, health, and placate dancing) and their stalking play-style (stronger hide, stronger crits, and again placate dancing). Fortunatas already were strong in all forms of DPS, with single-target nearly on par with Night Widows while having superior AoE options. They also did this with similar survival stats and plenty of control options that didn't sacrifice their DPS (Psi Wail, Dominate). For this reason, damage improvements were minimal for Fortunatas; instead, we improved upon their controller play-style to offer viable and different options. Total Domination and Scramble Thoughts were made more potent for this reason, and it is why Fate Sealed buffs those types of powers with very little investment (acts as a free S.O. for all your mezz powers, without the concern of enhancement diversification). As for Banes and Crabs, much of the player's complaints stemmed from their branch of attacks being worse than the default attacks. However, those default attacks are still available for use by each branch, so even if we buffed the branch of attacks, they had to be tempered because they would still be paired up with the default options. Considering that, we improved many branch powers to be viable options via increased damage and/or cast time reductions. Finally, we wanted to improve on some of the play-style options, so Banes received the same "hidden" buffs that Night Widows received, offering up the old-school stalker play-style that players wanted. Crabs received a considerable, but not meta-making, buff to Omega Maneuvers allowing it to be more reliable and usable in typical gameplay. But don't take my word for it, nor take the patch notes' word for it. Please test it out; try different build styles for each AT and let us know how it performs and compares with Live.

Took a look on live, double hit is flagged to not work on judgment, so yes that is impacted by this bug fix.

Thanks I'll take a look.

It's modeled after the recently revamped mental blast version, which is a 20s cooldown. The 40s is intended for the epic version.

Test it and let us know, but last I recall, that still works off judgment powers.

Thanks, fixed in next build. It was set to ignore, it will now replace.

It's both. The hit roll handles the randomness, the chance to hit handles the range of outcomes.

There was nothing shallow about that feedback. Thank you for the testing and response.

The random damage is based on your chance to hit. So if you had a 95% chance to hit, your damage will be a random value between 0.95-1.00. If your chance to hit is 50%, your damage will be a random value between 0.50-1.00

I think that was a bug and an outdated patch note. Please check it in game, but I believe the end cost might have actually been reduced slightly, to 18.98

That looks like a broken patch note. I would need to look into it when I get the time, but I think itnhad to do with Proton's Cell. It was described as -ToHit, but it actually does -Defense. So I think that note should read, it now takes -def/accurate -def, and no longer takes -tohit/accurate -tohit. When I'm home later at a computer I'll confirm amd correct.

Thanks, that is fixed internally. I am not sure how it missed this release.

This is a good point and should have been stated in the notes for clarity. The +maxHP and +absorb do act as heals. While +maxHP will give back Hit Points proportional to their current health (so if you were at 40% health, you get healed 40% of the maxHP), the absorb acts as a full heal (so if you were at the same 40% health, you effectively are given health equal to the full absorb). So while Frostwork previously was a proactive buff, this change makes it both a proactive and reactive buff. My ally is down to 100 HP, and I grant them 900 absorb, they can now take 1000 damage. Currently, if my ally is down to 100 HP (let's assume 5% health), Frostwork would raise their max HP from 2k to 2.9k, and their health will have gone up to 145 HP. But in the case where the ally was already at full health, the maxHP is more desirable thanks to the impact that has with regeneration. So it's a lose some, win some - hopefully win more, if you value the ability to react with the power.

Interesting catch. Not sure why it shows it that way. Looking at the post, the only thing I could come up with is the 7 months is measuring from the last time the OP was edited, which was late May of 2023.

Thank you everyone for joining. It was very helpful.

I have updated the title. At this time, I am estimating a start time around 8PM EST (0100 UTC). If you wish to participate, please be logged into Brainstorm prior to that start time.

not specific content, but not derping around either. There will be coordination involved. Via a forum message. I (or someone else) may also make an updated post here.

Hello Everybody! With the recent influx of new players (how exciting!), we are in work on a hot-fix for performance issues experienced on our more populated shards. Sometime tomorrow, we plan to update Brainstorm with this hot-fix and will need as many players as possible to test it out. We know we will not be able to come close to the load demands of the Live game, but we would like to do as much as we can to mitigate the risk of introducing unintended issues. Ideally, we will want 25+ testers available for this test. At this time, we do not have a set schedule on when we'll be ready to perform this test. However, if you are interested in being notified to participate in the test, please reply to this post indicating you are interested and I (or someone on the team) will message you when testing is ready. Thank you for the help and consideration, Booper

The bonus XP is additive in the game. So when you get the 2x XP buff, it's giving you +100% XP. This results in Base + Buff = 100% + 100% = 200% XP (2x). With this event, you are getting another +100%. So the base + buff + event = 100% + 100% + 100% = 300% (3x). If you don't have the 2x XP buff, but tlrather the 1.5x XP, you will have base + buff + event = 100% + 50% + 100% = 250% (2.5x)