Jacke

I actually have that downloaded for i26 and i27, primarily for the internal icon and power names. Unfortunate, the JSON display device is me (using Notepad++), so it's tricky working through it. And the capture is lacking for temporary and day job powers, so I had to get some supplemental info that isn't as complete. I can see the linkinfo in there for the powers. And I thought the descriptions in the character creator called from the same sources. So if that was from the internal database for the servers, why are there typos in the creator ?!? Mistakes I can understand, but they should be consistent. Are there field values like damage set to non-zero values but flags that aren't displayed effective quash the damage? I'll have to take a look at that. I'm used to the old City of Data website that had (near) complete powers information displayed from a copy of the backend database copied from the servers. Similar to how CIT has a copy of the Badge and other data. I think it's more than an awful power. I think it's a power that either can't get enough targets effectively during gameplay, has value mistakes (this one least likely), or effective code limitations that curtail its effects. Or some combination of all 3 problems. It's the only way I can see the competent devs we have now producing such a power that should be good but ends up being meh. From what I've heard, I think the same thing could be afflicting Street Justice's Spinning Strike. And because we're in RC1 and close to RC2, we may see this go live. If that happens, both powers will have to have a careful examination to see what's really going on. Perhaps decoding combat logs, if that can be done effectively. I've got a number of Dark Melee toons and have a Street Justice toon planned. At least ToF is a low level power, so I'll be able to experience it myself quite soon. (Damn, Touch of Fear was the Dark Melee power I skipped, this is going to be tricky....)

It was a mistake I made. However, I clearly said I was getting the information from the i26 character creator's power description field. Not from anyone else. Thank you, @modest, for actually checking in-game in i26 on Scrapper Touch of Fear and proving that text is wrong. Upon hearing that the power description is incorrect and not matched by the actual power in i26, I went back and editted all my posts striking out the errant text and adding notes saying that the i26 power description is incorrect and the actual power does not have any damage for any AT in i26. Unfortunately, we don't always have the time to check each piece of information in-game and depend on those descriptions being accurate. (I'm busy with something else for i27p1 and have very limited time for testing.) Even though there's plenty of history of description typos and in-game data mistakes. So we depend on those who do take the time to actual check in-game to provide a sanity test on what the powers actually do. (There is some work on creating a new City of Data that will extract the power data from the game server itself, but we don't have it yet.) But my analysis above still holds, because I'm using real game feedback on i27p1 Touch of Fear: it's underwhelming and much worse than Shadow Maul. While the numbers imply "ToF is 2/3 the DPA and DPE of Shadow Maul but if you pack in the mobs, ToF has 2.2 times the area, so it'll be 1.5 times better." But that implication is wrong because many have tested i27p1 Touch of Fear and it ain't that good. Possible causes: You can't pack in the mobs into a 6ft radius circle within 7ft of the Dark Melee toon (ToF), not as well as into a 120° arc 7ft deep in front (Shadow Maul). The numbers in the descriptions for ToF versus Shadow Maul are wrong versus the in-game numbers, or they aren't effective in-game to give the true AoE area. Or both. And likely Street Justice's Spinning Strike suffers from the same issue. #1 can be somewhat tested by taking record of how many mobs are close enough and who gets hit, as well as getting screenshots. Touch of Fear needs to hit 50% more mobs than Shadow Maul just to match it. #2 can only be tested by a dev plunging into the code to see what the actual server numbers are. And whether the code that calculates the actual AoE is right. If #1 shows that Touch of Fear is hitting those 50% more mobs and better than Shadow Maul, then almost certainly #2 is true. If careful examination shows that #1 shows that some mobs seem to be close enough to be in the ToF AoE but never get struck, then almost certainly #2 is true.

And Talos Island for Blueside. Redside has Cap Au Diable by the north Docks and the University. Goldside is designed to suffer. And I can make a clone of my minimal base in under an hour. Full set of teleporters, vendor NPCs, medbay, and storage and crafting. Already have tested the needed changes for i27p1 and that takes about 5 minutes. If you can master driving a toon in City, you can pick up enough base editting to do so in an aftertoon, for yourself or your Supergroup. Note the Base still has the pieces for power and control, even though power and control were disabled back in i25.

Good catch. Confirmed. EDIT: damage in the i26 Scrapper Dark Melee Touch of Fear power description is typo. Touch of Fear has no damage in i26 for any AT. And another excellent point. I'm assuming what's in the character creators both i26p5 and i27p1 descriptions is correct. My experience with the powers besides the old and the new Touch of Fear jive with what the numbers say. I don't think I've ever hit more than 5 with Shadow Maul and certainly at most very rarely, so its target cap reduction shouldn't change that.

Me too. Last night I got the numbers from the character creators for both i26p5 and i27p1 and though "When did Touch of Fear become so awesome ?!? And now....". And still went back to the character creator today to confirm. ToF has damage on i26p5 and Midnight Grasp is only better for alpha strike and immobilize. EDIT: damage in the i26 Scrapper Dark Melee Touch of Fear power description is typo. Touch of Fear has no damage in i26 for any AT.

Oh, I know. Playing Dark Melee since 2006. 🙂 Thanks for pointing that out because others may not have known it. I'd manage to miss that ToF had damage added, sometime after Siphon Life received damage I'd think.... Okay, I can't find when either power gained damage. But on i26p5, it has the damage I posted above. And in fact in i26p5 is the best ST attack, better than Midnight Grasp (except for alpha strike and it gives fear as opposed to immobilize). EDIT: damage in the i26 Scrapper Dark Melee Touch of Fear power description is typo. Touch of Fear has no damage in i26 for any AT. That's what I assume is the intent of the change and what the code should implement. However, is that how the power acts? Because based upon the numbers for Scrappers, even though Touch of Fear has about 2/3 of the DPA and DPE of Shadow Maul, it also has about 2.2 times the AoE area (6ft radius circle versus 1/3 of a 7ft radius circle). If there are enough mobs in front of the Dark Melee character, Touch of Fear should be hitting about 2.2 times the number of mobs as Shadow Maul. If Shadow Maul would hit 4 mobs, Touch of Fear should hit 9. And if that was true, Touch of Fear would have about 1.5 times the summed DPA and DPE compared to Shadow Maul in a faster activating power. Even if Touch of Fear was hitting 3 mobs for every 2 that Shadow Maul would hit, it should feel about the same for damage, again in a faster activating power. And with the feedback of all you who've played the new Touch of Fear provided, there's no way that's true. Something is wrong in my analysis's assumptions. A couple of possibilities : Touch of Fear, despite having what appears to be a bigger AoE, is hitting at most about the same number of mobs as Shadow Maul or worse less, due to how mobs group and are encountered. Touch of Fear, despite having what appears to be a bigger AoE, does not have an AoE 2.2 times the size of Shadow Maul, but is less for some strange reason in the code (and I've had to work with all sorts of code, great to non-Euclidean). My example of chopping off all of the circular AoE more than 7ft from the Dark Melee character was just a wild guess. Both separately or worse together would reduce the effective number of mobs Touch of Fear strikes, giving it the meh feeling reported. There must be something that's killing the new Touch of Fear's feel.

Interesting idea. I don't think the players will object to more speed, but it's a complex mess of equations that were made that way for balance. The speeds of some powers and all the caps rise as the level goes up to 50. And the actual speeds short of the cap are made of components that add together. For historical reasons, that for fly speed is very complex, especially to give an appropriate speed for hover. Layered on top of that are special speed powers like what the Kheldians have, all the teleport powers, etc. It's a big set of interconnected design. And somewhere above the Superspeed cap there was a limit to how fast the server and client code could properly handle a character or a mob moving, which may have changed. I think revisions to speeds will be considered, but it would be best to put in a suggestion and get support for it. I can't see anything happening until after i27p1 is released. Then would have to be carefully examined and tested.

You can actually have a few buff pets at a time. I've got the Red and Blue Wisp Pets on a toon or two, just to test this out. If you use '/execpowtoggleon' in your chain of commands, the right-most one will execute to turn on that pet. Not quite sure here, but I think next use of the macro, the next-to-rightmost command will execute, which will force off the last pet as well. And so on.

Well, that's disappointing. Going back to the article by The_Gamemaster from 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904194137/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114804 Over the years as I used Shadow Maul and the Vet/P2W/temp power Sands of Mu, I'd always try to really position my toon every time to get more targets in its arc. Which really helped offset missing if I'd at least had a chance at 2 or 3. Then joy of joys, Shadow Maul got buffed really well. More arc, more max targets. The expanded arc was what really improved it, as I could see the difference between the buffed Shadow Maul and the unchanged Sands of Mu. Now Shadow Maul's been nerfed a bit and Touch of Fear transformed. Let's get some numbers out of the character creators for i26p5 and i27p1: L50 Scrapper Damage Cast (AT) Rge AoE Tgts End Rech DPA DPE Expected AoE Shadow Punch both 52.55 1.056 7ft ST 1 4.37 3.00 49.8 12.0 Smite both 82.58 1.188 7ft ST 1 6.86 6.00 69.5 12.0 Shadow Maul i26p5 146.82 2.508 7ft 120° cone 10 11.02 11.00 58.5 13.3 i27p1 146.82 2.508 7ft 120° cone 5 11.02 11.00 58.5 13.3 51.3ft² Touch of Fear i26p5 121.89 1.32 7ft ST 1 8.53 8.00 92.3 14.2 ^^^ Damage is a typo in the power description for Scrapper Dark Melee Touch of Fear ^^^ Touch of Fear for all ATs in i26 has no damage i27p6 81.48 2.112 7ft 6ft radius 10 8.53 8.00 38.6 9.6 113.1ft² Siphon Life both 122.62 2.112 7ft ST 1 10.19 10.00 58.1 12.0 Midnight Grasp both 186.75 2.244 7ft ST 1 11.96 15.00 83.2 15.6 Shadow Maul compares well with the ST attacks even hitting only 1 target. Hit 2 and it's phenomenal. With that arc and mobs even loosely clumped, I know I can hit 3 or more. But to get the same performance out of i27p1's Touch of Fear, it needs to hit 3 targets when Shadow Maul hits 2. From the raw AoE, Touch of Fear should have over twice the area to pack in its targets. But from what everyone who tested it is saying, it still feels underwhelming. Is Touch of Fear's AoE truly a full circle of 6ft radius? Or does a mob not fall in the effective AoE if it's more than 7ft away from the Dark Melee toon? If that's the case, then it could lose up to just over half its expected AoE. And as Touch of Fear's fear is still only on the selected target, it's now a slower fear power. It also went from being the best Single Target Attack to now being the worst AoE attack. EDIT: damage in the i26 Scrapper Dark Melee Touch of Fear power description is typo. Touch of Fear has no damage in i26 for any AT.

Agreed. I wouldn't want a power designed to be a leveling crutch, expecting it to be thrown away at a higher level. I still remembered reading a article early in my playing City that went into a lot of detail on leveling a Dark/Dark Scrapper, with build for levels 1 to 12 with TO slotting, then levels 13 to 22 with DOs, then to level 40 with SOs, then a respec, then a level 50 respec build, then some alternate builds. But with all those builds, the powers respec'ed out of were good powers, like Air Superiority, the melee attack in the Flight Pool, to give another attack before others unlocked in Dark Melee. That was well before other powers were added to do this, like the Origin Inherent Attacks and the Veteran Attacks (now P2W) Sands of Mu, Ghost Slaying Axe, Blackwand, and Nemesis Staff. I like to design a build that I can both level and later play at 50, with a bit of accommodation to respecing. Eventually I'll revise the build as I get more knowledge about its power and how they work together. But I'll never plan to respec just to change things at a later level. Link to that article in the spoiler.

I've had this concern as well. I started a few new heroes on Homecoming Live in the past few weeks. As a test, I decided instead of bankrolling them with an initial draft of Influence, I'd just have them use what they earn themselves. I didn't use XP return rate boosters from P2W that lowered Influence rewards. I also stuck to traditional low level City play. Even buying TOs and eventually DOs, I see them barely able to fill the slots with enhancements as they level, from drops and what they can purchase. If SOs dropped, that would be grand. But I wondered if the toons could afford to buy enough. I think the shift to low-level SOs is a good idea, but the rewards in XP, Influence, and SO drops low level toons normally gain may not be enough for them to keep their slots enhanced. It feels similar to the issue that used to be encountered in the early Issues of the game in a toon's 30's and the 40's, before changes to levelling rewards were adjusted.

The Exploration Accolades for the Dark Astoria Incarnate Zone and for the Echo: Dark Astoria Zone can be easily confused. Their descriptions in the Badge listings are identical. Dark Astoria Incarnate Zone Free Among the Dead Description: "You've obtained this Accolade by earning every Exploration badge within Dark Astoria." Internal name: DarkAstoriaIncarnateExplorer Echo: Dark Astoria Zone A Light in Dark Astorias Description: "You've obtained this Accolade by earning every Exploration badge within Dark Astoria." Internal name: DarkAstoriaExplorer Suggested solution: Change the description text for DA Incarnate Zone to: "You've obtained this Accolade by earning every Exploration badge within Dark Astoria beset by Mot." Change the description text for DA Ouroboros Echo to: "You've obtained this Accolade by earning every Exploration badge within Echo: Dark Astoria." Unpluralize the name for DA Ouroboros Echo to: A Light in Dark Astoria

And indeed it does work. Gets a bunch of "that didn't work" messages but the one that works engages. /macro "JACKE Homecoming" "enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-673$$enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-83$$enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-439$$enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-673$$enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-459"

The barrier isn't really Inf. It's information on the best practices to play City. Even using some of them make things much easier. Many people, including myself, are working to get that information out to more players. That big post I made on the last page, with all that stuff on Custom Windows, I've got it all saved in a text file on my computer and I'll see about getting a page made on the Homecoming Wiki so I can then point people to that, as opposed to finding bits and pieces and figuring out how to put it together. If you want enough Inf to be able to afford things like most of the best P2W toys on a new toon, the first thing to do is pick the best toon you love to play and get it to 50. Any level 50 toon played in any way easily makes millions of Inf per play session. Right now, when I decide to really kit out a new toon, I like to get about 21 million Inf to kit them out with P2W stuff, a lot free and the rest worth it. With over 0.8 million left. Nearly half of that is 10 million Inf for Team Transporter. For i27p1, Supergroup Portal will add another 10 million for 31 million total. On any level 50, about 10 sessions of play can easily make more than 31 million. And there's ways to make more. And that 31 million Inf isn't necessary. Even a few million, a single play session on a level 50, can kit out a toon with P2W purchases very well. And there's a lot that's free, either from the P2W vendor or elsewhere. You can get the 8 Atlas Park badges in well under 10 minutes of running around. I've done that on so many toons I can do it without looking at the minimap. Then the LTD power unlocks. Or spend an hour in Pocket D to get the time-in-Zone badge and LTD as well. Then it's just 1 badge per zone to add them to the LTD power. I'm currently testing some new toons not spending anything they didn't earn themselves. When i27p1 releases, I'll be making new toons and some of them will just spend what they earn. I want to get a better feel for the i27p1 economy to provide good feedback to the devs. Then we all can consider how things need to be adjusted in the future.

That's an excellent point. But it's a change and it'll have to be reviewed. I think this is something that needs to be considered, by @Captain Powerhouse and others. Probably in an initial pass on addressing enhancements after there some experience and stats from i27p1.

Bases are even more important now with Issue 27. A lot of the changes in i27p1 are interlocking to give players a newer better system. To get the Zone Base Beacons and install them in a base to power the Base Teleporters, there's no need to have Exploration Badges and Accolades. They are just available in the Base Editor, all of them that are available for the current City Issue. In Issue 27, every time I use a Base Teleporter, I just don't get dropped off anywhere in a Zone, as has happened in City since it's launch, I now get dropped right near the Zone's own Base Portal, so I can go back into my Base or any other's without using any powers. I unlock the Long Range Teleport power and unlock Zones in it, it doesn't just drop me anywhere in a Zone, it drops me right near the Base Portal. I have a 5-Teleporter system that I am easily adapting to i27p1. Currently it's 2 Pads for the 18 Beacons in Paragon City Hero-only, 1 Pad for the Rogue Isles, 1 Pad for Co-op Zones, and 1 pad for the Ouroboros Echo Zones. The Base Beacons used for Echo:Galaxy City and Echo:Dark Astoria are gone with i27p1, but there's 4 new Beacons for the Shadow Shard zones, so the Ouroboros Pad is now the Shadow Shard Pad. And my Co-op Zone Pad has many more zones. In Issue 26, it has Dark Astoria (the Level 50 Incarnate Zone), First Ward, Night Ward, Rikti War Zone, and Pocket D. Issue 27 has all those and now Kallisti Wharf, Nova Praetoria, Imperial City, and Neutropolis. And the Custom Window feature in City allows you to store and edit Base Macros. The /enterbasefrompasscode command is still usable when close to a Zone or summoned Base Portal. There's limited documentation for Custom Window in the Wiki, but the start of it is in the Paragon Chat article. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Paragon_Chat Out of game, create the folder <install root>/data/customwindows/ In game, enter the command "/customwindow Bases In game, you'll see a little grey box "Bases" in the upper left of your screen. Since "data/customwindows/" exists, that creates the file "custom.window" in it to store the window information between logins. It's text and can be editted by any text editor like Notepad++. But it can be editted in game as well. Because it's in "data/", with the new Homecoming Launcher, it will be available in all Game Profiles, Live, Prerelease, and Beta. And on all Shards of all of them. Back in game, click on the little grey box "Bases", it expands into the Custom Window. Click on "Bases" again, it shrinks to a little grey box. The Custom Window stores Macros. Whether as a little grey box or a window, it cna be dragged anywhere on your screen and it will stay there, even between logins (thanks to data/customwindows/custom.window file). The Custom Window can be resized as well. The Custom Window has wide blue buttons that are Macros. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Macro_(Slash_Command) The Custom Window starts with one "Edit Me" and a button to make new Macros, "New Command". Right-click on a Macro Button and you get "Edit Name", "Edit Command", and "Delete". But you can also make Macros by commands and drag them into the window. /macro "JACKE Torchbearer" "enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-673" /macro "JACKE Excelsior" "enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-83" /macro "JACKE Indomitable" "enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-439" /macro "JACKE Everlasting" "enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-673" /macro "JACKE Reunion" "enterbasefrompasscode JACKE-459" EDIT: Even better, below @jimmy pointed out that these Macros could be combined into one. I did that and reported back it works. The Macros are created as grey button in the first open spot in your trays can be dragged to the Custom Window, where it will be moved and become a new Blue Button. "New Command" is always at the bottom, but the other buttons can be resized. And unlike a Macro in a tray, the name can be editted. So on the respective Shards, get close to a Base Portal, either Zone or summoned, and click the appropriate button. And you'll enter my JACKE SG bases on that Shard. (Only really built up on Torchbearer and Everlasting riught now).

Ranges are something that should be considered across more than just the Blasters. But of course, once you tinker with one thing across a number of powersets, how to keep that tinkering to just that feature. Didn't know PvP and resistance differentials were involved, but it makes sense. Tangentially, I always thought it odd that to work and not have other issues, PvP had to be special cased. It was like having two similar but related games instead of a unified whole. I do understand it's wrapped up in the idecisions made early in the history of City that can't be really changed. Such as the nature of mez, default hit chances, the true equivalences between players and mobs and how that changes to between players, etc. (Always wondered why there wasn't a better design to mez, like making most of it a progression, like from slow to immobilize to hold, with others separate, knockback as a feature in more things and again a progression of balance between the combatants. But that's quickly becomes a far different game.) I look at a game that can make its PvE and PvP virtual the same as usually better, at least easier to comprehend and play across PvE and PvP. But then the games that do succeed there, like SWTOR, have a whole different nature, and a whole other set of problems they tend towards. Thanks, @Captain Powerhouse! I understand about a feature freeze. At least for Blasters and Darkness Manipulation, adding stealth should be relatively easy (balancing though...). Solving the lack of a 35ft stealth power for a Dark/Dark Dominator is more tricky. Especially considering the proposed Guardian AT. Which I don't expect to see any time soon, as there's plenty that should be addressed before another AT is added.

I just checked in the character creator. Psychic Blast's Psionic Lance has range 175ft for both Defenders and Blasters. But the Defender has 5 ranged single-target powers with 100ft range. And Psychic Tornado AoE with 100ft as well. True for both i26 and i27p1. But only Energy Manipulation has access to Boost Range, so it's only some Blasters. And I think it's bad to justify other Blasters to have a lesser range because of a powerset they don't have. (Though the ranges of Blaster powers has to decided knowing that that Boost Range exists and could be applied.) And I thought the Defender's advantage was all their many and stronger buffs. I think range is more of a factor for AoEs, especially cones. And because of tight maps, it can be rare that any toon can fight at max range. With all the good PBAoEs, most need to be able to find a way to work at or just outside of melee range. I think once over about 40ft, it's more the range difference affect play as an irritant. AoEs can be worse. Just look at Dark Blast's cone, different max ranges and cone angles. More range is more security, but only marginally. And all depend on good tactical employment of the teammembers. I wonder if range seems to be such an important and unimportant factor is because we adjust other things. At shorter ranges, either go up against fewer mobs at a time, have a Tanker hold the aggro, or be a tough build that can take it. I think range is a factor that goes beyond Blaster secondaries and even primaries. It would need to be addressed over time to find what could likely be adjusted in a new release without making an unintended mistake. And once you tinker with the ranges, what about the rest of the power features? Still, I think a start would be to say "Why should this single-target ranged attack differ from 80ft max range."

Psy attacks on a Blaster only have the snipe with a range over 80ft. On a Defender, many are 100ft. Even Mesmerize on a Controller is 100ft. Why the range differences? Do 2 differences of 20ft each (60 - 80 - 100) make that much of a difference? Should they be different ranges?

Well said. Although I keep coming back,, I have the feeling since RC1 dropped, it's more tracking down bugs than any other changes. Though I really hope my suggestion to rename "Shadow Slip" to "Shadow Fold" is accepted. To have a greater influence, need to be involved earlier in the process. Even before things start rolling on a new release to test. I've got a few things I want to see in i27p2. But the impact of these. I really think the TA range nerfs are just too far. Because increasing some or all of the powers up to 80ft would only give marginal improvements but a lot of QoL. But there's a lot of range difference issues all around. I like playing Defenders. But why do Defender get better ranges than Blasters on so many powers? But all that furball is something that has to hashed out over a while. But it's likely to happen, as range expansions up to 80ft have happened in the past.

That last sentence was a joke. I bring it up because as far as I can remember, my toon always turns about half-way to the right and teleports a tiny bit. So it's actually a jump to the right. 🙂

It's a mathematical problem I've vaguely aware of. Given a 3D space filled with collision surface (buildings, ground, edge of the zone, ie. the map you're on). And a point in that 3D space (where your toon is in that space). You position the mouse on the screen after starting the teleport power. That position is converted into a direction away from the toon's point in space. That direction is project onto the 3D space from the point to the first collision surface in that direction is detected as Point-S. That one is actually tough to do in the general case, but is very common in 3D games. More likely assumptions have been made to simplify the problem. This could be the source of error. It may also be done by a library that is just a black box used by the server code. Along that direction, the maximum range of the teleport is determined as Point-R. As you move the mouse, the last 4 steps are done again; move and the last 5; change map and all bets are off. Which ever is close, Point-R or Point-S, when you click, the toon's position is change to the closer point. At the same time, all the graphic and audio niceties are being done along with everything else. And somehow, rarely, what is calculated as the close of Point-R or Point-S is calculated as right at the toon itself. Or goes wrong and how the glitch is handled is as if teleporting to right beside The reticle jumps in. If teleported, just do a jump to the left....

I can't remember when I first encountered it, but I do remember it's been around a long time. @Wavicle opened a beta bug report on it. Both of us give more detail of what we observed, as well as speculating on what's the factors that affect it happening. It is a bug of long standing and unless there's a eureka moment from one of the devs, I don't expect it to be solved soon.

I get it hovering (thanks to Mystic Flight) in the open air, with the first collision surface under my mouse-click well beyond the range of the teleport. I can't remember for sure if I'd had it when there's nothing in the way before the edge of the map. I'd not thought of geometry beyond the range of the teleport. I'll pay more attention to what's in the line of teleport. May try to fit in some testing to see if I can see the actual reticle jump back while I move my mouse. Considering what I read somewhere about how /interact find the object to interact with, by searching forward on the horizontal, then close but a bit up, etc., I think the teleport powers do the same thing but fixed along the line of sight through where the mouse is. The code has to calculate what that means in the game's 3D-space for the destination. Perhaps the calculation of that location spits out either right at or near the character. Or an illegal value that gets clamped by sanity code to right at the character.

Looking at i27p1 RC1, Darkness Manipulation has also had a range nerf. Current ranges are 60ft on the immobilize Penumbral Grasp, 70ft on the AoE stun Dark Pit, and 80ft on the fear Touch of the Beyond, with TotB not being affected by range enhancements.