Biosphere

Arc ID: 58490 I wanted more hard mode content earlier than level 50 so I have created this architect arc as a trial to simulate 4 Star. A true victory is considered completion at +4, but players can run it at a lower setting to get a grasp of the bosses. Since all the Arch-Villains have custom edited powers, this is not something you should do for XP. The Exalted XII will provide suitable challenge for a well-organized team looking to see how well they perform when the game's difficulty is cranked up. None of the enemies in this mission are impossible to defeat. Good luck!

People would like to see their stats on how much they did in the TF, or AE, whatever content it is. Just for fun or otherwise. If you make the screen of the person's stats only visible to them I think it solves the issue of any perceived elitism. Nobody else knows my numbers except me. This is basically the same thing as the monitor from the city zones that tracks your damage dealt etc just more specific to the missions you ran. And that terminal is only accessible by you (for your stats).

Exactly, like how it shows up in SMITE once a game is done. Damage Done, Damage Taken, Damage Mitigated, Player Healing. Even if you stuck to those 4 metrics it'd be great. That's easy. If you complete a TF and you see that your damage taken and damage mitigated is a lot lower than normal, and you had an Ice Control or other slow debuffer on the team as your primary support, then it's very clear the slows helped by a lot.

Yes you can use the link in my first post to join. Here it is again. Just click on it and it should take you to the server. If you have problems private message me and I'll help you out. https://discord.gg/ujjQrA4A27

Huge support and yes for this change! For the people who complain it will create elitism, I hate to break it to you but that already exists in this community. Go to any build channel and you'll see people who will argue about how their style of play is superior and the "right way." Or even in game, I've had a friend who would get whispers from random people telling her how she should be playing and what powers are useless, in arrogant kind of elitist way. Forming for 4 Star as well, people who say X is required or that you can't come if you don't match what they think is best. Easy solution for everyone complaining: make the screen only visible to you, and make the stats shown only apply to you. Example: I do an Aeon 4 Star on my Blaster. TF completes and the stats window that pops up shows all the stats for my Blaster that TF, and I'm the only one who can see it. That way if someone wants to be snobby to me and ask me how much damage I dealt, I don't have to answer them. And I'm the only one who knows. We need stuff like this in the game, especially for people who really care about trying to tweak and optimize their builds. How amazing would it be to be shown stats for your current respec, see maybe you're dealing less, and then adjust your powers to get more out of it? Please implement this change it has more backing from players in game than anyone is representing on the forums.

City of Debt Discord Server I've created a discord server for teaming up and discussing AE content which is intended to be more challenging than the regular game. There's plenty of difficulty levels from easy to hard with the current Arc IDs we have listed, so anyone is welcome to join and either share their wisdom or learn. Why? The Mission Architect is a special tool for this game that turns everyone into a content creator. Using this tool we can make missions that push the extent of the game's potential. This is especially true with the new settings that allow creators to tailor custom enemy powersets per power. Which server? We predominantly play on Excelsior, but anyone is welcome in City of Debt. With how easy it is to server transfer there isn't much of an issue if people need to swap. Can I talk about the base game too? Sure you can. The knowledge of what makes a character or power strong in the architect also applies in the regular game as well. We have channels for discussion on City as a whole, but then specific ones per our known challenge Arc IDs. How do I join? Click on the link provided here to get started: https://discord.gg/ujjQrA4A27

As was explained by a few people the team is in all in different time zones so we couldn't do it all in one sitting. That meant there was sometimes a whole day with only an hour or two that maybe we could group up. The timer for the taskforce is real time rather than actual time spent playing. In this case it's meant to increase the challenge, not for additional rewards. Although you can run the setting during things like flashback arcs or the taskforce to get a badge. As far as I understand it the only setting which affects the number of Aether you get is the star setting that you choose. It would be awesome if you could get more depending on how many additional settings you use though.

We used voice chat. The links in my first post are the twitch highlights of the Romulus fight, and you can hear us in them. If it's low you might have to turn up the volume. Voice chat was essential for being able to coordinate things like purposeful deaths, vengeance refresh, Traps summon locations, and power drops like Unstoppable.

I forgot to mention but shout outs to @Cobalt Arachne and the rest of the team who worked on ITF Hard Mode. The Romulus fight I thought was a big step up from the Vanguard Bonus Boss. It felt rewarding to strategize around the new mechanics and his added power level with our comp. Looking forward to future boss fights and TFs along this variety.

Romulus First Phase Romulus Second Phase The timer was long because we couldn't complete it in all one sitting due to time schedules. Traps was absolutely essential in order to stop the regeneration for the final phase. Personally satisfied with this victory as a testament to the strength of Martial Arts. Team Comp: Invuln/Ice Tanker Emp/Sonic Defender Ice/Traps Corruptor Martial Arts/Dark Scrapper GG! #NoWakes

This is the single most important concept that has been said in this entire thread to justify a more strategic design of not only Sonic Blast, but all powersets, across archetypes.

I can verify that I checked it out myself and that's around the level of debuff you get now, so there's some quoted numbers. You might not think it's a big deal, but it is. Taking a trade where your sonic blast itself might do something like 150 more damage is nowhere near as beneficial to having 50% stronger debuff which lets your entire team deal more damage. Carnifax and others have brought this up specifically for Defender because it is not seen as a good trade for the set.

This pretty much encapsulates everything about this thread. Everything in favor of nerfing the AE in this way are normative statements. Some people use the AE as their preferred way to get the rewards they want, and the suggestion is that they should not. Because it is deemed that the AE shouldn't be used in that way, and they should use other content. And that limitations should be put on the AE such as only Dev's Choice lets you get vet levels. But there's nothing stopping anyone right now from choosing whatever content they want to do. You're basically saying that you deem the AE to be too good at what it does, and so because of that it comes at the detriment of everything else, because of course nobody else would ever choose to do something like trials or taskforces when they can just farm in the AE. You're making a supposition on someone's choices because you yourself have made a personal analysis, and then came to a conclusion. The problem with making normative statements and value judgements is that you're removing choice and telling people the way you want to play isn't how I want you to play or what I want you to play, and that's why everyone who has a problem with this change is speaking up.

This is exactly what it's all about. The AE is considered to be too useful for getting those rewards, so it must be nerfed because other content has to be promoted. When you can't use one way to get items, you inevitably have to go somewhere else if you want it. Coercion rather than choice.

I'm not sure what you're asking. The entire architect is my example. You can take a 50 in there and play whatever mission you want, right now, and get your vet levels with all the emps or threads that come with them, without the mission having to be Dev's Choice. With these changes that won't be possible. Which is the reason why every single person who enjoys farming, that has posted in this thread, has cited that as their problem with these changes.

While that would be an awesome honor, that's not the point. People right now can make any mission they want, and if they bring their friends along, they can get possible veteran rewards and other goodies. The core of your argument is that it shouldn't be viewed as a negative because you can just get Dev's Choice. While we currently have a system where you don't need Dev's Choice at all, and you can make your mission, and then go. It still falls back to what I already said. People like more choice, not less. You're saying they should be satisfied with less because if they get a handout they can get what they used to have for free given back to them. I disagree with that position.

Mr. Apocalypse has eloquently expressed everyone's grievance in this single post. You can't expect to remove choice from a game which is known for its creativity and its options and expect people to be thrilled about it. Imagine you have designed your very own architect mission as a big battle, a raid even, and you get together with your group to run it. A brand new mission nobody has seen before, and you bring your fresh 50. You struggle and get the victory and you feel awesome about it. In the current system, your reward for that can be several veteran levels, and some merits. Perhaps some threads. The system has a mechanic that promotes gameplay and gives you a reward for running content you yourself make. I really don't think it's being understood just how much it sucks that if you remove this reward system it really puts a damper on the mood, because for some people what I just described is a huge reason to love playing. People like more options and more ways to earn rewards, not less.

These changes should have been specialized to the archetype, like the difference between Dark Miasma on a Defender and Dark Affinity on a Controller. Giving Screech the Clobber treatment seems nice, and we got some more damage. Great, Blasters love it. But people also loved the strong debuff potential the set had if you played in on Defender. CC powers are also great support sometimes. So ideally if you ask me, we should have let Defenders have them, with the strong debuff, and then gone full damage mode for Blaster. Why couldn't we have modified Sonic Blast to give it a snipe, and replace some of the CC powers? There's no reason you can't specialize it that way. I mean Psionic Blast is like that between plenty of archetypes. Then maybe make some kind of in between for Corruptor, whatever's clever. Then you could nerf the -res values on the Blaster because it's obviously going to deal more damage. Making general sweeping changes for a set that is played on multiple archetypes I think will only cause problems. Dark Affinity is great for Controller because it's Dark but it was given special powers and specified to the archetype it was put on. We should be doing more of that.

I raised a similar critique and the explanation given was that the Defender secondaries are meant to allow them to solo, so the current version of our Sonic Blast is underperforming because it's bad for solo. Buffing that is being used to justify the nerf to the support aspect of the blast so they can kill things by themselves. I still fundamentally disagree with it. Glad to see that echoed here. Defenders are support and this is a team game.

4-Man LRSF Old School Challenge with Players Debuffed, Enemies Buffed, No Inspirations, No Temp Powers Team Comp: Invuln/Dark Melee Tanker Psi/Fire Blaster Ice/Dark Controller Empathy/Sonic Defender GG!

I have the Achilles Heel proc in Infridgate and even though the chance is high I can't know for certain whenever it's applied to the enemy. There's enough time in the attack chain that I can throw it out for free before tossing more Ice Blasts, so it's a matter of convenience to keep the -DEF debuff alive while ensuring I get the Heel proc on by just using it whenever I'm cycling attacks. Hope this helps you understand.

Aeon Strike Force BONUS BOSS CLEAR, Enemies Buffed, No Inspirations 4 Man - Twitch Well done by the team, feel a little bad it took me so long to use Assault. GG!

The strawpoll has been up almost a day and we have a 62% in favor of making the damage instant on snipes again with 21 votes. Can we have a statement on whether or not this change would be implemented?

I realized I could make a strawpoll. I'll add it as a link in this post and then edit the first one too. http://www.strawpoll.me/20524970

Yes and I'm asking for this because it's not just about DPA. It's about burst too. Here's a situation where it matters. Let's say you have an enemy that has some move they're going to pop like MoG or PFF or Hibernate. With the old instant damage you could bypass that if you were good enough. Here's an example where using old snipe I burst down an enemy in the AE which only has Hibernate and Wet Ice, and Wet Ice is only there to prevent it from being KBed by TK Blast so it will have every chance to use Hibernate at the fastest speed. Now this is the exact same setup but I delay it by a very small amount like how it would work with our new snipe. The enemy can't be bursted down anymore, it will get Hibernate to activate. I can't stop this when I used to be able to.