@Ghost

Some further testing with Water/Bio via some random +4x8 Devouring Earth missions: I got my butt beat, repeatedly. Damage, though, never felt like it was really lacking. I had some more time to get used to the Vulnerability clickie and it's still not gelling with me in particular, even though I was using it much more readily than before. Trapdoor times improved slightly from a ~6m5s to a ~5m50s, but I think that's more up to variance than it is to me making better use of the clickie. The opportunity cost here of tabbing through a group to find a boss to apply vulnerability to makes things feel frenetic. Trapdoor runs highlighted this in a way that I think simulates the typical group experience, where to make your best time you're firing off AOEs trying to maximize efficiency. I'm better served doing the same for DPS than I am playing 'find the boss in this mess,' and the instant nature of it makes it almost feel like something you could macro into powers... but can't. I think the rate of acquisition for vulnerability is smooth and frequent, but the ways for spending it feel limiting. Some potential suggestions for the current implementation: Make vulnerability a toggle. Each attack then spends meter (20/target, as opposed to the current 50/target). This allows AOE usage to apply widely at the cost of your entire meter, allowing more team-and-speed friendly 'dump and forget' styles. A toggle is less frenetic than utilizing a clickie repeatedly, and could auto-off when the meter reaches 0. Split the debuff. Rather than -15% to various attributes in a single application, I'd propose something like the recent Sonic Attacks changes. A non-stacking -10% that only refreshes duration, and a -2.5% that stacks with multiple applications even from other Sentinels. An attack would then apply an immediate -12.5% for 20 meter, and back to the original -15% for 40 meter. Only a slight increase, but it also allows wider application of -12.5% to 5 targets for 100 meter if the player chooses. I think this would enhance team-play, especially with multiple Sentinels, but keep Sentstacking from being too dominant. And a side note, since I think I saw questions about both earlier: the Vulnerability reticle isn't controlled by any colors in the primary set, and there's no option in the tailor specifically for it. Also, applying Vulnerability doesn't alert targets.

This reminds me some of the recent GW2 drama, where they held a private invite-only Discord for content creators and other contributors from the community to discuss balance and changes in a way that was more filtered and focused. Turns out it's not a particularly uncommon decision, and other games like WoW have attempted similar formats in the past. In each case I've heard of though, there's a core misconception that having a direct line to devs means they care at all what you have to say -- feedback was regularly ignored and voices never felt heard, and both game's special secret forums were closed in favor of public discourse and having the developers communicate more earlier and more openly so they could respond faster. GW2 in particular replaced the previous lead who organized the Discord, and started doing livestreams demoing the changes and thoughts behind them, which I think has been very well received. So I think the moral of the story is that developers hate everyone equally.

Small thing, but from the 09/13/22 patch notes And then on live currently,

There's a lot of points here but this makes the least sense to me. Nothing is owed to anyone, ever, and we all know the staff are volunteers, but none of that's a defense for "hey they should not intentionally leave out information, provide clear documentation and state the goals behind changes." Knowing what's trying to be accomplished shapes the feedback people can give. Having clear documentation lets me look at discrepancies and bugs for what is and isn't intended. I'm volunteering my time by logging into beta and testing too, and making that process more difficult helps nobody.

I understand the frustration from time to time with people armchair-arguing over changes for pages on end but imo that's the job of moderation to cull when it elevates to a disruptive level. Feedback is feedback, whether it's simple "I like its" or "I'm not a fan of this." Qualified feedback from real game experience is *better* but not always 100% necessary. I don't need to log into beta to think taking the emp>reward merit conversion away was a mistake, but getting a feel of the full scope of Battle Axe changes is difficult to do without. Obfuscating the patch notes to try and coerce people into logging in is, imo, a very large mistake. If anything the patch notes should be *further* detailed with reasoning from the devs about why changes are happening; it's a bizarre state of affairs when you're left to guess or read the tea leaves on stuff when there's no explanation given as for why each one is happening, and dev commentary on patch notes is something that's becoming industry standard from professional studios. Further elaboration for the Emp merit changes were said to be coming, postponed, and now seemingly just off the table. There were 0 dev responses in the last feedback thread about attack typing. imo, communication is key whether it's intent through notes or actively engaging.

nthing the idea of a frequent, AT-level quickie that can't functionally be "set it and forget it" being an odd choice. It's not so much that it's a clickie, but rather one you're expected to utilize repeatedly over and over in combat. It's not that one ability ever breaks the bank, but for the record, my beta character's bars are jam packed: I can *comfortably* hit 1-5 and alt 1-5 (the second bar) and I'm cheating a bit with a MMO mouse where the lower-right-most 6 abilities I have on mouse buttons. The rest I'm clicking. So rather than something like Domination, which is still awkward and really warrants a 2nd auto-fire option, I'm giving up a spot for a combat ability I have to hit repeatedly. I didn't get the chance to test in a group but the bit about it not working in tandem with other Sentinels seems extremely counterintuitive to CoH's team oriented gameplay and I can't think of any other power that behave that way. It also really flies against the current draft of Sentinel where "multiple Sentinels can work together to enhance the effect." Generally speaking, the extra damage felt good but nothing really that imo is gamebreaking or wild. I got a 4m10s with Water/Bio on a pylon, even using degenerate APP powers procced to the gills. Trapdoor time was about 6m 5s. Nothing crazy or exceptional and certainly room for improvement on my part, but I wouldn't really call it substantial power creep. Water may be the outlier here with its wild amounts of AOE that made the gameplay actually feel pretty good. Also, seeing "Opportunity Strikes" as special proc text can probably go away now, I think. Feels very redundant to see it firing so often when it's just filling up a bar slightly.

Enjoyed it for the quick spin I took on beta, absolutely love the vacuum PBAOE. No real math-heavy feedback to share right atm. One thing I noticed is that Cyclone Axe only allows for *partial* color customization which is enabled by default if you pick No Redraw (and normally does nothing for weapon sets.) Here I set it to red/red and it still has the white upper cyclone, but a red effect around the character. (sorry for the poor quality, plucked this from a gif I took.)

Quick less helpful addendum: after logging out for a while I've noticed the pistols (but not the sheathed katana) have reset to the default models yet again. No guess for the underlying cause, nothing obvious stands out. edit: in case it's relevant, the custom models in question are both the semi-auto with silencer & scope, and the sheathed weapon is the impervium katana. Even when the pistols are reset, they still keep their color settings.

On a new page 4 character (dual pistols/ninja training blaster), the weapons have a tendency to reset. The sheathed katana and custom pistol selection reset after changing alignment via Null the Gull and had to be manually reset. The custom pistol selection (but not the katana) reset after picking Teleport and attempting to recolor the power. Confirming the results at a trainer didn't change the FX color, and the pistols had been reset to their default.

I think there's a significant difference in one being an item which you already know will have a fluctuating value, and one being a currency with multiple purchasing options. I've run pretty casual Hamis where you do 2 back to back and would always take the Emps option when it's available and bank them up for alts, because hey, what's the harm? Running it twice would give you 40 reward merits, which is the same as taking the 4 Emps -- except those just give you more options. The conversion's meant it's an equivalent reward currency and I don't think I've seen any acknowledgement from devs about nullifying stockpiles of resources for people not paying attention to the beta notes.

Catching back up, I'd still say it feels pretty mean if people were still sitting on piles of Emps for their flexibility (send em to alts for incarnate progress, convert to merits as needed for cash) to come back to the game later on and find their stockpile doesn't have a cash value anymore. But maybe I'm alone in how I used them and the damage is way less than I'm thinking? I guess I just gotta go back and convert them while I still can, and anyone who doesn't pay attention to beta notes is just outta luck.

That's also a really valid point and something I hadn't thought about, and I'm glad people are exploring all the angles of it. Turning off XP and offering an alternate route for salvage through AE specifically (like Vanden's suggestion about tickets) could sidestep the issue, but I think it goes right back to the original problem where people would just farm specific contact missions if it's truly that lucrative -- in which case it feels like a really senseless nerf to convenience. I didn't read through that feedback too intensively so I'm not sure what conclusions people came to there.

Yeah, but the conversion's been live as long as HC has, and dashing years of potential accumulated wealth is less than ideal. If the friction point is farmers getting cash from veteran levels, changing veteran levels to give 'Veteran Merits' (or whatever you want to call them) which can only be exchanged for incarnate salvage seems like the path of least resistance.

Technically, yeah. I meant changing veteran level rewards to something else that can just reward incarnate salvage, and keeping Emps as they are.

Oh, that is a pretty good point I hadn't thought about. Even account bound salvage would be a PITA to move around. Not quite sure then. The issue apparently comes from vet levels and farming, so changing the vet level reward to something that can't convert into money but still gives incarnate rewards seems like the move to keep everyone happy.

I don't think the change I was suggesting (consolidate iSalvage, reward it on vet levels, keep Emps/conversion as-is) would make DA arcs any less attractive, unless I'm missing something.

Quoting myself from the other thread with a proposed suggestion Though I'd also like to add that it might be a nice incentive for people to run itrials over farming if the salvage rewards were guaranteed to be useful for crafting.

re: Astrals/Emps, I think the change as it stands has a lot of pressure points. People with stockpiled merits across lots of alts, people who prefer to take Astrals/Emp rewards while they're still building a character for flexibility, etc. For the same result, could you consider changing how incarnate salvage/crafting works? Rather than rewarding Empyrean Merits with veteran levels, reward an appropriate amount of incarnate salvage instead. Consolidate the various salvage items down to a simple form named after its rarity, ie, "common incarnate salvage," "uncommon incarnate salvage," and so on, since the salvage items themselves are functionally identical. It's possibly a lot more work, but I think it's a better option than invalidating whatever stockpiles of merits people have stored up, and it stops a flood of wealth from farming, while still letting farmers craft incarnate powers for their characters by leveling.

Yeah, that's true, though I don't think the intent behind the changes was to nerf any of the defense armor sets. A few sets got additional toxic/psionic defense and resistance to likely ensure they're still strong after the changes, and as mentioned -- none of it impacts positional sets. That leaves resist sets and squishies building out s/l/e def, where all of the changes are centered around making that strategy less all encompassing. Melee defense isn't quite as convenient for those resist sets, especially with the aggro changes making it more likely than ever you'll get peppered with ranged attacks a lot of the time. But ranged defense and hoverblasting I think would be the predominant strat going forward (until someone decides that's also a problem.)

I think positionals are still sort of the elephant behind the curtain, since it's basically just as viable to shift a squishy's typed def build to a hoverblaster. It's something I usually avoid on characters either for concepts or mechanics (hi, Seismic) but if the intent is to design more dangerous enemies checking rare typed defenses, it's also the safest route.

Just curious (and not to suggest it's a good idea) but what was defense only mitigating the appropriate damage type ever considered/tested/possible in the game engine? ie, a grenade hits 50 fire damage and 50 lethal damage. You have high lethal defense, so you dodge that component, and only take the 50 fire.

I think I asked this before and it got glossed over, but I'm genuinely curious what exactly is the "valid" baseline for travel as you're envisioning it? How's that being measured? x minutes between missions? x teleports per minute? I've seen a few ideas shot down as being "imbalanced" but never any guidelines for what exactly constitutes balance in this case, which would probably go a long ways to getting people on a compatible page for discussing this. Is giving a slow, free option to start with imbalanced? Is paying or earning your way to greater convenience than what's currently on offer imbalanced?

An earnest question to throw out since I didn't really see it brought up here or in the feedback thread: what was the philosophy and thought process behind looking at the current slate of powers that now has a half-dozen components vs trying to engineer something at least closer to par in terms of simplicity with what already was there? Like, in terms of the sheer quantity of things you have to engage with, the universal access of /ebfp simplified inter-zone travel down to a one button solution that does it all. Now this system is engaging with unlocking 6+ powers through multiple means, and the future plans are to then add salvage components and special tip missions just to keep adding on to this design. Not to be rude or leading, but it does feel like it's... a lot. Like, bugs and inf sink concerns aside, what's the philosophy behind travel having limitations to begin with? Clearly limitations are meant to be there, but most of the commentary I've seen about the changes is downplaying those restrictions or comparing them favorably to the unlimited option, so I'm curious about why you'd go to these lengths to begin with. edit: for clarity, I should probably add that I mean this in a broad sense as well. We're playing a free version of a dead game on a private server. There's no subscription fees, engagement metrics, etc., to encourage "travel needs to take x minutes between missions" so I sort of wonder where the bar is at without those.

Phew, I'm glad they finally did something about Force Bubble!

And why did you go to those lengths to pick up those badges? Bragging rights? A neat side system to engage with? Whatever the answer is, I guarantee it's not "to unlock travel functionality." Maybe it was to unlock base beacons at some point, but hey, those are unlocked and free by default on HC! Isn't that easier, convenient, and respectful of your time? 🙂 There's no way polite way to put it, but this game as a whole is pretty jank and poorly tutorialized. I speak from the experience of trying to intro so many people over the years who're used to modern videogames and having them bounce off because so much stuff gets to be obtuse and needs a wiki to help. There's nothing wrong with having things be simple and accessible. This current iteration of travel options is overdesigned and inelegant, but people like you and me have been playing this game for 15ish years and can deal with it - I'm just trying to look out for the people who don't have that luxury of experience.