balor

This is a suggestion for the Devs that were considering addressing the remaining Crashing powers. The decision is clear not address those powers for some very obvious and less obvious reasons. I'm in of the opinion that crash powers are not good in most games and my dislike of a crash system has nothing to do with what the power do but more the fact by being a crash power it has now reduced the number of creative options to choose from. I consider these powers as blank and a null choice because of the Crash mechanism. I state this up front so those that read this can understand my perspective as I continue with my suggestion. The power of player agency is very important in games and CoX is one the best at that. But games(video, pen and paper and wargames) also need to have balance and relative parity in the value of your choices. Anytime you see something that is termed as an "Auto Include" or "Auto Exclude" scrutiny needs to be given to those items in question. I find the Crash mechanism powers to be an Auto Exclude and a reduction in valid choices. I get that the community is mixed in their opinions and that is the way it should be but I have a possible path forward. The Homecoming team has already shown they can make mutually exclusive powers. Instead of making an equivalent tier 9 Super Nuke/Last stand tier power you have the chance to add a Fantasy appropriate power for that archetype with enough time and flexibility to deal with the issue of it going into both damage and tanks builds. This also allows for those tier 9 crashing power to stay 100% the way they are and keep that group happy. This is just a suggestion and one of many possible solutions that could be developed. It subverts the challenges of directly addressing the Tier 9 "Last Stand" Crashing powers. It keeps those people that enjoys the current Crashing powers happy. It also opens up another active choice for players to pick with a mutually exclusive power. If going that path yes there will be push back just like anytime something changes. It will take the most valuable resource we all have that is time. We know there was interest by the Homecoming team to address the crash system and this is one possible solution that subverts a number of the issues. Thanks for your time and spending your nights and weekends working on the game.

100% and that is one of the big parts of the issue. Sure the majority of us don't like crash powers but it would also creates a huge rabbit hole on needing to redesign or re-imagine each one of those powers and then the even worse part of balancing them. I personally feel it was a lot easier to remove the crash system from the big nukes vs a special protective power.

Hey Devs, I'm glad to see broad sword getting something as it always felt near the bottom of the choices for both brute and tanker. If possible could one of the devs take 2 minutes and provide context goals for the changes for broad sword?

This is very unfortunate and clearly something had a major shift to go from hey we are making one of the least desirable aspects of some of the powers better to completely taking this topic off the table. I still feel finding a way to update the near auto exclude crashing powers would be good for the game. If this is a case of complexity just take your time and do it in stages. The design of crashing powers felt outdated when the game went live well before we were even optimizing builds. I know this a 99.9% waste of time post but the idea had merit even to just make it to the beta update and I know I'm not part of the in-crowd and just a fan.

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.