balor

I agree, the selective adjust path or the low hanging fruit method they took here is not that ideal. There was a good amount of time and honestly there is no rush on any of these changes at this point. There is no money on the line or real deadlines with CoX Homecoming. On the other side we don't have any investment here beyond the joy we get out of the game and the fact we are nerds and like talking about games. I saw a joke about end of life regrets of a man on his death bed surrounded by his family. He said something to the line of "I should have argued more about X edition rules off DnD was better than Y edition." This hits close to home for many of use spending way to much time on thinking of ways to resolve issues in our hobbies that are outside our control. If this has come to the point of causing you frustration it is time to walk away. Because your time is more valuable than giving it away to others. Spend it with friends or loved ones or jumping in game and taking on some foes. It comes down to what you can control and in this case it feels like a closed system so lets go do something else. Are your insights invalid, absolutely not but don't give others your most valuable resource if they don't want your gift of time. But that is up to you on how you spend your time and know that I do agree with you.

I don't think they are going to change anything here. Several of us have given feedback but I think they were locked in at the release of the test build cycle. They have to many thing rolling at once for a volunteer team. It is awesome that they are working on CoX homecoming but they are doing that on top of their normal jobs and regular life. It is very different than thinking of homecoming as a studio making a profit where they pay people to completely focus on the game. That honestly was my mistake on spending the time to do testing and feedback. I do agree with you that the Bane mace powers do not synergize currently with a balance of either damage or a focus on support/control. I understand the problem of power creep but the choices should by grey and not a clear bad or auto include. I do hope in the future the homecoming team slows down when reviewing a specs/classes/archetypes vs just good enough patching them. As frustrating as it might be we at least have good team of volunteers keeping the game going with boot straps and bubble gum. At least we know these guys are just overworked and not just a heartless corporation.

I'm with you my friend but they answered that on the last page. Maybe one day.... maybe

The taunt change is spot on and well done. Tried it on a +3 x8 and pulled two groups adding in damage rotation before and while deployment of the Omega bomb and it taunt change worked like a charm. It would still be great if you could get with your internal team tested for Solider and have them take a second look the power and it still could use some adjustments. Besides that Booper you did your part on the fix to taunt. 👍

Thanks for looking into this. I have been playing more of an Omega bomber over the last few days, testing at various difficulties with both damage-focused sets and stun-focused. This one could still use some tuning besides the taunt oddities. Also, can you give a suggested "How to" for the Omega Maneuver from the test character that you all had to use to tune this skill in? The reason I'm asking is that I don't see much use for it in the current state. It requires being heavily slotted to either boost the stun duration (near 23s ish) or damage output to +101.4%. I also have my cooldown around 71s with Hasten rolling. A few observations: 1. At the current cooldown of 240s, I don't get to use it enough with control or damage to make it a worthy investment. I suggest that the cooldown value be reconsidered so that it can be part of the rotation. 2. Even at a +101.4% damage increase, it still does not kill +0 level white minions for such a large investment. Again, the cycle time for a damage-focused tool makes this the least valuable power out of the Crab power set by a large margin. 3. Using it as a stun power works the best between the options of damaging vs stuns. The downside is the number of missed or resisted mods and the cycle time of the power. 4. The taunt being addressed will make this power technically work but will not put this power in the grey zone or on par with any of the other choices. When the taunt is fixed, I will test it more mid-combat.

Thanks Viridian! I will just deal with the redraws for now and maybe one day there might be a fix for it. 🙂

Can someone reach out to the devs and ask if it possible to get power customization of the appearance for Pummel and Bayonet for Mace and Crab claw attacks? It looks like they are trying to treat huntsman as part of the tool kit with offering animation for several of the ranged attacks. It would be a great if there is an animation option that would fit with those attacks for Banes and Crabs. It maybe outside what is possible but those two melee powers are worth it and at least a internal chat to see if it is possible.

So the taunt triggers seems to be halfway through the animation at about 2.5s. I turned it down to a +2 and just ran around the mobs to get agro. Then drop it through the large group as they pathed to me. I tried it another time landing a few AOEs and only 1 mob out of about 6 that should have been in range agroed it. If seems like if you drop the bomb out of agro it counts as an pet so an enemy to the mobs when it spawns. At that point they turn and attack it right away but that is not the taunt it seems. The stun un-modified does seem to work correctly at the 12 ish seconds and modded it also worked up to the low 20s When should the taunt be triggering and does it trigger more than once?

You are correct I shared at a +4. But I'm attaching the data from a +0 with AIM active down below. I tested late last night and at 5am today and the power was hitting, so that would be build 3. The frag grenade was also at +4 but the two images from earlier I can not remember if I had AIM active or not. It looks like I might have been pulling more agro than the bomb's taunt when it was used mid combat. I seem to be having a user error as this version of mids is not giving a friendly clean way to post the build as a text wall. I must be missing the correct option here. I added a screen shot my build if it is at good enough ppi to see. I also posted the other day about a range of suggestions there from the new powers to idea about the Bane.

I get your point here. It can feel like they have their mind set and don't really want input. But on the other side they are the ones in control and doing the work. It is not how I would like to run things but I'm not getting paid for this and they likely are taking on to much at a time with not enough people.

Even that feedback is good to put on here. They need more points of view than what they currently have. We are 7 pages of discussion on a archetype that is a little bit of a mess and you look over at the arsenal control thread and they have 10 more pages of activity over there. But that is feedback. 🙂 Thank you for adding to it.

Omega Maneuver feedback! Well, 7 pages into the thread, and this is the only feedback post on this power from someone taking the time to test it. Yikes! Can someone who used/uses Omega Maneuver jump on here and explain when you use it, how to best use it, and what are you giving up to take this power or slots with it? I'm looking for an analytical breakdown, not justification, as that is basically useless. The current Omega Maneuver on the live server is very bad, and even a twelve-year-old has enough math skills to work that out. I'm glad it is being addressed, but I'm a bit stumped after trying it out on the beta server. I was able to get the cooldown to 71s from the 240s default, so you can use it once or twice in a fight depending on what you are up against. The range of deployment is fine as you can place it without being aggroed. When deployed, it does an AOE taunt with a short duration until it explodes (5 seconds timer). But the cycle time here is about the same as if you knocked back a target, and they stood back up or firing venom and frag grenade as another point of reference (tested it). It has a 3 mag stun for 11.92 seconds for me, enough to cycle a few attacks. But it is only a Mag three, so you will have enemies moving in on you as only part will be stunned. This is very similar to Pummel with Mag 3 and 12s on my Bane/Huntsman. I get the concept on paper, but this is poorly executed by NCSoft. Now, the Homecoming page 7 update, at first, I was excited about this, but now after trying it out, leaves me very concerned. Who else has tested this? Even with the base time change from 360s to 240s and down to 71s for me, the damage is a joke of a skill that is 6 slotted. The Omega bomb's taunt works if you have not attacked, but if you land a few hits, I still have most of the enemies on me vs the bomb. Again, the stun is only Mag 3, so some will resist. BUT if everything works perfectly like on paper along with the buff, I would have about an 18s window of control/disrupting the enemy. Sadly, that is the theory on paper and not the reality happening in the game. I understand the NCSoft likely overvalued a combo AOE, control, stun and damage power but even after the Homecoming team's update in the beta it is still very bad. I see two three options of addressing this. 1: Get more people to test these changes please. 2: Make it a major Nuke for the extreme timer as it will be competing against good powers. 3: Alter the recharge reductions of this power. In the current state of damage and control it should have a recharge between 20s to 30s after bonuses. Please make some changes you have at least one person testing here and giving feedback. Attached below is the build I used to test but it is in the version for page 6. I'm also adding my numbers from my combat log for +4 x8 for the Omega Bomb and Frag grenade as reference. Arachnos Soldier Solo Crab (Crab Spider Soldier - Crab Spider Training).mbd

Like I said above Pummel is a very good support power. Bayonet is the second strongest melee attack in the full set of powers and even has a better damage per activation than Shatter. If they were able to work out an animation swap for the crab legs that would be cool. I still want to see Pummel have a mace animation.

That is the big win by the Dev team they are still sticking to the fact that VEATs are also a support class.

Thanks for the reply and insight into what was going on. Yes, Koopak has been great at helping us work out the current objectives. He has also been solid at bouncing around ideas on Discord. I've been testing moreover the last few days to see the changes and still have some other ideas I want to check out, namely a non-pet crab Omega Maneuver build, and I'll try to force it to work. Also, a big thank you to the Devs, City Council (not the villains' Council), and the testers. I have experience in game development in the past, specifically for a tabletop game, and I have a deep appreciation for how challenging game development can be. It involves long hours, numerous discussions, an absurd amount of testing, and feedback. Working through the feedback and determining what is valid and what is false or flawed data can be daunting. In companies, dealing with politics, from Devs to "in groups," to management, is no small task. From someone who has navigated this in a different field, I can genuinely say thank you, and I understand the complexity and effort involved. The great thing is that we can all have different opinions and still be friends, even if we disagree. My philosophy in game design is, "A rising tide lifts all boats," meaning as you address issues in the game, it improves it as a whole. This creates momentum to take on new challenges and learn from the process. Now, my opinion of HEATs and VEATs from a game design standpoint is a mixed bag with the highlight of NCSoft nailing the themes. However, the Epic Archetypes do not feel organic and cohesive like the rest of the CoX archetypes. It seems like the EATs originated from a marketing/upper management directive to create a gimmick to keep people playing more. Very rarely do game developers want to create a hybrid class that expands beyond the normal scope and game design tenets laid out for the rest of the player characters. On top of that, hybrid classes are the hardest in any game format to get right (video game, tabletop, or RPG). It generally takes way too long to tune them to hit that right chord of balance, not being too strong or weak, as well as resonating with the audience to reach the Goldilocks zone. The VEATs are suffering from wearing too many hats, with a wide mix of group support, tanking, damage dealing, and pets. Personally, I would have loved to have seen them as a series of focused micro-classes in the Arachnos theme. I want to share my opinions on what else I have observed after testing and discuss some concerns as well as what has worked. What's worked? -The crit 100% / placate dance for Widow, Bane, and even my Huntsman (Bane-Pummel/Bayonet) feels great, and you all addressed an issue that goes back to the release of the VEATs. I remember being on the forums discussing this problem with gamers years ago. -Web Grenade - Wow, this was a shock but welcome. It does help fulfill the role of support. -Animation clean-up and alt weapon animation are great, but we are missing one that I really want to see done. ->The time is right to be creative, test, and experiment on a test server. It does not need to go live if it fails to meet expectations.<- Concerns: 1.The Devs and City Council are locked in and are at a state of "good enough," with this feedback forum just in a state of cleanup and going through the motions. If that is the case, that is fine, but I do believe there is more room for some TLC here. I hope there is room for further development here or in future updates as there are still ongoing issues. I’m still going to provide feedback even if that is the case. 2. New Powers As nice as it is to get new powers, it also creates bloat and raises the question of what I am taking in place of this power. Or was something made irrelevant in my build, and is that justified? I find my VEATs not having a lot of extra slots, as I don't even take travel powers on VEAT builds. I'm not going to speak on Fate Sealed, as I don't play Fort, besides it being an extra power. But Pain Tolerance is okay. It is a similar but slightly weaker version of the Bane Spider Armor Upgrade, giving what seems to be less %HP and less resistance (5% vs. 7.5% Bane). With a full set of Unbreakable Guard, besides the IO's bonuses, it only boosts it up to 7.88%, making it not worth the investment. Four-slotting it with Preventative Medicine gets it a 91.8% boost from 160.63HP to 308.06HP, but you need the three slots to burn on this ability. As much as I like more tanky elements for my Widow, I'm not sold on it. Widows are Def tanks, and this is a small Res boost and a scalable HP booster that you could skip, as it will need to kick something else to the side. At best for me, it can replace Assault for my build with zero slots added. Dump one of the proc healing enhancements and forget about it, or if I feel it is a waste, just respec out later. On the flip side, my team lost out on the assault buff, and would that extra DSP be better than a few extra hits I can take? These would be great if they were passive, included powers when you picked your branching path archetype. Hit 24, move to Night Widow, and gain Pain Tolerance or pick Fortunata and gain Fate Sealed. It would almost help resolve some of the issues with the goofy inherent. If you want to go this route and are worried about people complaining that Soldiers don't get anything, there is an easy pick in the Soldier power set that everyone who has two cents always takes and normally never adds any slots to it. 3. Missing customization animation needed for a power! Also, the lowest hanging fruit right here! The most underrated power for the Soldiers is Pummel; it is an S-tier power when it comes to support/control with a 66% chance to Stun at mag3. Pummel needs a Mace animation customization for the Banes. Why? Because the Banes Mace stun chances are low, and NCSoft did not port over Clobber from War Mace, so the build does not have on-demand Stun. The Bane powerset, as we know, has a mostly copied and pasted power set from War Mace. The two primary "stun" attacks NCSoft moved over were the power 1 and 2 from War Mace, which had the lowest chance to stun out of that power set. I spent time clearing a number of missions using mostly Bash and Pulverize to see how often I could get them to proc. I was a little disappointed with their performance and concerned enough that someone might want to check if the stun chance listed on the skills is the same as the code is showing. I tested for a few more days and still found Bash to rarely trigger, but Pulverize was triggering around the correct 20% of the time, depending on the target type. Bane has good melee damage and one fun AOE melee attack but no support melee power. Pummel is already mashed up in this turducken of an archetype. Please make this happen as this is a simple quality of life fix. 4. Banes, these guys still need some more TLC or a support squishmallow. Have you guys played Banes on the test server, and did you try going FULL Bane? I have been. By keeping the common melee combo of powers(those do good damage) but sticking to Bane Mace Beam range attacks to see how it all synergized. Currently, the synergy between Mace melee stuns and Mace Beams knockbacks is very weak. The concept is great on paper, but the stuns and knockbacks don't trigger enough, especially the stuns. The exception is the change to Mace Beam Blast, so it feels like you all were likely already aware that the control/disruption was really not happening enough. The single skill change on control/disruption is not enough. Mace Beam weapons are weaker DPS options than what you get in Huntsman. Taking Venom and Frag grenades stomps the Mace Beam ranged attacks into the ground. I understand not wanting to boost the power of Mace Beams and mostly agree. But they should have a purpose and ideally a synergy with the melee attacks. The Huntsman powers offer more damage and debuffs where Mace Beam, Mace Beam Blast, and Mace Beam Volley don’t. There is hope as the new auto knockback Mace Beam Blast gives you a hint what this class could be and should be. I had a vision of cultivated chaos when playing on the test server with the Bane. I imagined the Mace procs stunning at a reasonable rate and the enemy getting knocked back left and right via knockback effects. It seems like this was the goal via NCSoft with the combo of powers and procs, but it failed to come together, and we never got this havoc-inducing support melee class. Here is a solution with no boost in damage that I can tell. Add a Stun proc to the Mace Beam, Mace Beam Blast, and Mace Beam Volley at a 20% chance for a 2-mag stun for 4s, just like the War Mace attack Pulverize. It will allow for Stun set pieces to be slotted, but I don't see any having a damage proc out of the sets. In theory, you can combine the good melee damage of the Bane with the thematic Mace Beam Range attack that doesn't do a lot of damage but adds chaos and control with knockback and stuns. A 20% chance is at least a starting point to try and test it. If it proves inadequate, change it again, or if it is criticized too harshly, change it in a different way. ->The time is right to be creative, test, and experiment on a test server. It does not need to go live if it fails to meet expectations.<- Banes Part 2 Poisonous Ray This one is disappointing and needs some love. The damage is fine, but it just does not add much to the equation as it is a poison/toxic attack that oddly does not have a -res but only a -def. Because Venom Grenade is an AOE combined with a good -Res and has a Mace animation, it dwarfs the Poisonous Ray power and leaves it in a very sad place. Venom Grenade may even win out versus Poisonous Ray on a single target with the -Res combined with the melee rotation. So Devs/Council, why do I take this? Or better, what can you all do to create an incentive to take it? The goal should be to give everything a reason and purpose. I have two solutions here, and it would be to blend Poisonous Ray with one of two other powers. First, consider a lesser version of Envenom with all those debuffs but at 15s, like Poisonous Ray, versus the 30s for Envenom. You pick the value that seems fair but give it a role in the power set. This creates another layer of taking down those hard-to-kill targets but also boosts the rest of your team. The second option is to have it act like a blinding poison. I'm thinking of the power Mental Scramble from the Tarantula Mistress, as I can’t think of a power like this that players have right now. It has a Foe -Acc, -Def -Perception but have the -Def better than what you can get out of the Huntsman weapons, giving it a role. 5. Endurance issues? Did you all talk about boosting the inherent’s recovery rate? It would be a great time to explore what it would do if it was taken from 5% to 7.5% or even 10% recovery. Even a small quality of life change would go a long way. I wonder how many people stop playing VEATs during leveling before they get a chance to really stack the enhancement sets at end game? Trying out something and exploring what it does does not mean it will stay; that is part of testing. But there needs to be something to test out to see if it works or not. I have been on the test server, and there is still room for TLC. In summary, I played some of these guys when the server was live and in the last few years thanks to Homecoming. Game Dev is a pain in the backside, and you all have a lot coming in this patch. I'm passionate here, not hating or doing the blame game but want things to get better. Here is a good time to test stuff, tinker, try things, or wash your hands of it and move on to more custom power sets or another power set to review. There are mostly positive things you all are working on here, and that is awesome! But it is like having a really good dinner roll when you know Thanksgiving dinner is just in the other room but there are no seats at the table. (Sorry, I’m hungry it seems.) -Customization for Pummel to a Mace animation -New powers ...yay/maybe ... make them auto included free powers -Bane synergize needed to balance the lower damage Mace Beams with a added Stun for cultivated chaos (support roll-no damage boost here) -Poisonous Ray - You're the salesman ... make me want to take it, please -Endurance issue - Do some Quality of Life fixes here, Spin is end is overpriced, drop the costs of other thing maybe in class toggles or look at the recovery rate in the inherent In the end, there is more work to be done here, and maybe we can test some of these together now or in the future. But I'm just a fan, asking for a little more, just like when it was live. There is more hope now with Homecoming. ->The time is right to be creative, test, and experiment on a test server. It does not need to go live if it fails to meet expectations.<-