[Time to allow ally shield on self?]

1 hour ago, PaxArcana said:

No, it isn't.

 

Because to balance the game around IOs and sets, several things would need to happen.

(a) you would have to re-examine the balance of every single power set, power pool, and individual power in the entire game;

 

(b) you would have to re-evaluate the difficulty and XP curves for every character level, from 1-50 and beyond;

 

(c) you would absolutely cheese off a lot of players as either their high-level characters got nerfed, or, the challenge level rose further than they could handle with their low- and mid-level characters.

 

... past 45%, you're just buying insurance against -Defense debuffs.

 

Also, please post that build.  I'm doubtful that those numbers are "just SOs", and not including set bonusses - I just can't see how you can achieve that much.

You don't need to balance it around 50th level IOs. You balance it around 25's, which is where they first come into play. Which is roughly the same level as SO's, which frankly nobody uses anymore anyway to my knowledge. Nothing needs to be nerfed. You can call the current state of the game, with current builds at 50th with just standard IO's "the balance point". People already complain the game is a walk in the park at 50th with incarnate and full set bonuses, that's why you see people farming +4/8 content, or doing +4 PI runs and inviting anyone to come join them, because they can solo the entire map. I just find it silly to claim to be balancing the game around an enhancement that nobody uses.

 

Given that /FF for Masterminds doesn't have any -def resist, buffing past 45% is a good way to prevent the occasional cascade fail. Not to mention it means you can solo into incarnate content, as the soft cap is higher, without having to constantly be chewing on defense inspirations.

 

I'm at work right now so I can't post the build, but I can give you a breakdown of where it's all coming from, using Mastermind values:

Dispersion Bubble: 7.5% base defense

Maneuvers: 2.65% base defense

Weave: 3.5% base defense

Protector Bot: 7% base defense

Hover: 2.25% base defense

Scorpion Shield: 12.5%(?) base defense S/L, slightly less against energy

 

Before any slotting at all,  you're looking at ~22% positional defense. Adding +50% from SOs,  you bump that up to ~33% positional. I don't remember the values for scorp shield off the top of my head, as I haven't touched my masterminds for a few months, but I THINK it's around 12.5% base against S/L, and 9%ish against energy, or 19%/14.5%ish after SO's, bringing your smash/lethal up to ~52% and energy to 46%ish. 

 

Pretty much exactly what I quoted, which was read straight from mids. Trust me, if I had set bonuses in there, it'd be MUCH higher. Which is where the numbers I quoted originally were from, with her sitting at ~50% to positionals. 

 

I'm pretty sure you have mids, Pax. You could very easily toss some SO's onto a bot/FF build in 30 seconds or so and check for yourself if you still think I'm trying to be deceptive. I have a feeling you didn't remember that the prot bot can bubble the Mastermind as well (though only one bubble, rather than the double stack on the other minions), which is probably why you were questioning the numbers.

[Time to allow ally shield on self?]

2 hours ago, PaxArcana said:

.... but you do have Sets at all, right?

 

As pointed out previously: the game is balanced around SOs, not IOs, and especially not Sets.  Put together an Alternate Build, slot with all SOs, and see what you're like then.

 

Also, look at my comparison of what SR brings to the table, and what FF does.  An /SR Sentinel is still going to be better protected than an /FF Corruptor or Mastermind, and at least comparably so to a FF/ Defender (and will have much more DPS than the Defender).

To be honest, the argument that "the game is balanced around SOs, not sets" is a bit outdated at this point. It's kind of akin to arguing "well, the rules for racing were made back when we used cars that couldn't go more than 40mph, there's no need to update them to reflect the current state of things". At the very least, you have to balance things around basic IOs, which provide a lot more bang for the buck than SOs do. 

 

Also, with my FF MM using just SOs and her current build (which includes weave, maneuvers, and scorp shield -- because remember, MMs get access to defenses in the patron/epic pools, something that Sents don't get) is sitting at 56% S/L def, 49% NRG def, and 35% to all positionals/other typed damage (except for psi, which she's only at 23% against). If you allow her to cast her bubbles on herself, that cranks her S/L def up to well over 70%, and her positionals to 53%. 

 

Now, a comparable SR Sent would have around 42% to melee/ranged and 46% to aoe. This is including, just like the MM, maneuvers, weave and hover, but also adding in CJ on top of it. The def of scorp shield doesn't factor in since they're positional rather than typed, but even then the MM pulls far ahead once you allow them to cast their bubbles on themselves.

 

So with personally-castable bubbles, the /FF MM has superior defenses to the /SR Sentinel, can buff teammates as well, and has several other options that the /SR character doesn't have, such as force bolt, repulsion bomb, etc. All SR brings to the table is personal defenses. FF brings defenses and other tools. And all its defenses would require fewer slots to achieve. The two bubbles and dispersion bubble. That gives you all your defense and status protection. SR requires 3 toggles, two passives, and either a clicky or master brawler to give you status protection. So 6 power picks compared to 3, AND would provide LESS defense.

 

And that's for Corruptors/MMs/Trollers, who have lower values than Defenders. A Defender with SOs could have almost 40% positional defense at 22nd level. They'd have around 30% at TWELFTH, if they use DOs. Sure, they do a lot less damage, but their buffs and debuffs are far stronger. And if you're just soloing, you get +30% damage, which isn't anything to sneeze at.

 

Like I said, I'm willing to try it, but I have a feeling that allowing "support" sets to self-buff would make Sentinels nothing more than a novelty AT, as both Corruptors and Defenders could ALSO do the "tankmage" thing, and do it better since they'd be providing much more use to a group. And once you DO start factoring in sets, they'd blow Sentinels out of the water defensively. And be damned close offensively. Sure, they might do a bit less damage solo, but that would be the slight tradeoff for better defenses and better utility, right? 

 

<edit> I think you could balance it if you made the self-castable buffs weaker than the buffs you cast on other players. After all, it's a SUPPORT set, not a tanking set. You could play with the numbers and make it more balanced. But I think just saying "you can now cast ally-only buffs on yourself" would be a bit much.

[Anyone have a workaround for the "base edit failed: can't fit" error?]

1 hour ago, Diroc said:

Have you tried toggling placement type with F5?

Of course. Trust me, I've tried everything that I can think of. I'm not a novice at building bases. 🙂

 

Like I said, I'm going to start noting down where it happens, and see if I can figure out a pattern, so I can submit a properly reproduceable bug report.

[Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance]

On 9/10/2019 at 11:49 AM, Haijinx said:

I think we have to be really careful to use things like Pylon times or popular opinions to determine outliers.

 

This was my thought too. While pylon timers can be amusing to look at in terms of "look at what this can do under specific, idealized circumstances", it's not even remotely close to what 99.9% of the rest of the game is like. It's kind of like saying "yes, but psi damage does a bunch of extra damage against clockwork, therefore psi hits too hard and needs to be nerfed". 

[Time to allow ally shield on self?]

Part of me thinks "yeah, that'd be cool,  you could buff yourself with the defense sets and have a bit more flexibility and defense", but on the other hand, it feels like it might be a bit of overkill for some sets. Masterminds in particular. My bot/ff MM has ~50% def in all positionals, and that's WITHOUT using either of the (currently) ally-only shields. And she doesn't even have her alpha incarnate ability slotted  yet. Nor does she have any super-expensive sets.

 

I suppose my main fear would be stepping too much on the Sentinel AT's toes. If support sets can suddenly have massive defense, resists, status protection, etc, AND still offer a lot of benefits to teammates, it makes the Sentinel AT a bit more of a "why is this here?" stepchild. Especially for masterminds. It would make being a tankermind VASTLY easier, and FAR more powerful. 

 

So I dunno.

[Anyone have a workaround for the "base edit failed: can't fit" error?]

4 minutes ago, Diroc said:

Chances are, unless you have room clipping disabled (Did you tap F3 after entering build mode?), you are running through a section that doesn't have a room or door in it.  The important location in the model that the object uses as it's location may be falling in a section of the map that does not have a room or door in it.  If the object is large and symmetrical, try rotating it around and placing it may solve your problems.  I had an issue with the new large structural blocks.  I rotated it and the tracked location fell outside the unused pillar  The object looked the same but the tracked location was in and bound to a room after the object was rotated.

There are surface textures that can span  4 pillars worth of floor space.  Covering up the unusable pillars in the corners between rooms where you can not put doors.

If you are building on a rooftop tiled by large textures, it may look like a continuous rooftop that you are building on.  The location of objects will not be placeable in the spaces above the pillars that are not part of a room or door.  (Not part of your base)

ALL items have a location.  the location MUST fall above, in, or below a room or door.  The point in the object that corresponds to the object's location is the only point that matters for this determination and it can only exist in these bounds.  Large objects can pass through these un-used areas so long as the point that determines their location falls within valid bounds.

Small items will not be able to span the gap and will not be placeable above, below or in the column.

I don't know if this is the problem you are having but it's easy to lose track of these unusable sections of base.  Particularly if you are building on the roof of your base and it's nicely tiled over with textures.

Hope it helps.

As I said above, I'm not building outside the base area with this one. Which is why it was baffling. And yes, I know all about toggling clipping. 

 

Everything I was building was inside the base, and the item in question was one of the praetorian power cables (a very small object), and was being attached TO ANOTHER OBJECT that had already been placed in that location to create a wall. So obviously the game knew enough to allow SOME items to be placed there, but when I went to place an object on THOSE objects it said "um, no, won't fit!" That's why I found it so odd.

 

I've run into it here and there in other parts of the base (and in other bases, as well). When it happens again I'm going to start noting down positional information within the base and see if I can figure out some pattern that might be causing it.

[Focused Feedback: Pineapple vs. Pizza]

On 9/10/2019 at 5:07 PM, Rikmach said:

When it comes to the *concept* of Pineapple on Pizza, I have no problem.  People eat weird things all the time, and more power to them.

 

The problem I have is that Pizza is usually a *social* food, often bought for a family or a gathering, and anyone insisting on pineapple almost always means people who don't like pineapple always lose out.

 

To explain what I mean, let me give you an example:   Say there's a small party with four people, and they order two Pizzas:  One Hawaiian, and one Pepperoni.   Two of the party goers don't like Pineapple, but the other two are fine with both pizzas.

 

What happens if one of the Pineapple-eaters decide that they want a slice of Pepperoni?

 

Now it means that's there's less pizza for Pineapple-haters to eat overall- they can't eat any of the hawaiian, and they now have one less slice of Pepperoni they could eat.

 

In short, people who order Pineapple pizzas, and eat *any other* kind o pizza before theirs is all gone are unfairly taking food away from other people- and they do this all the time, often without even thinking about it or realizing what they're doing to the other people there.

 

Like... be decent.   Just stick to the pineapple pizza until it's gone, okay?  It's just polite.

Well, the same can be said for ANY pizza topping.

 

"You order two pizzas, one pepperoni, one mushroom, but two people don't like mushrooms. There's now less pizza for those two people."

"You order two pizzas, one supreme and one pepperoni, but two people don't like olives or onions. There's now less pizza for those two people."

Etc, etc.

 

Personally, I despise mushrooms on pizza. I think they're disgusting. But like any rational adult, of someone orders one with mushrooms on it, I'll either not eat it or pick them off. You can do the same thing with pineapple, if your sensibilities are so horrified by the prospect of pineapple on pizza. Unless you think it's somehow "tainted" the entire pizza. But the same can, again, be said for any topping.

[Anyone have a workaround for the "base edit failed: can't fit" error?]

Nope, I'm building inside the base this time. Hence why I used a bunch of doors to make fully open areas. I've noticed it crop up here and there, but I've never really looked to see if it was something happening in a "doorway" or not. This one was, but I don't remember about the others. There've been a lot of strange bugs and glitches in the base builder lately.

[Anyone have a workaround for the "base edit failed: can't fit" error?]

5 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

The steel wall comes to mind in the Dividers tab - I tried using it a bunch of times and always got "can't fit" errors with them even when there was plenty of space available.  It's a weird bug to be sure.

Yeah. The odd thing is, when I just decided "screw it, I'll see if I can just cover up the wall area" and dropped a huge mainframe terminal down, in almost the same spot, and it went in with no trouble. But for some reason tiny cables wouldn't fit. It's baffling.

[Base Request Items]

5 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Would be fun to try it for sure!

Given that all the defensive turrets and things are things are free, imagine the insanely lethal danger room you could make. Glass walls (so people can watch) and a porter to step in, with so many debuff fields, force fields protecting the turrets, slow fields, sappers, etc, you could even start making a contest out of it!

 

"Come one, come all, to Lethal Arcade's Danger Room. Thing you're tough? Think you can laugh off a full base of Malta, or Carnies? Yeah, so can our danger room. See if you can get through to the pretty girl/handsome lad at the end of the danger room, and win a prize! It might be influence, it might be a rare recipe, it might be catalysts! Who knows! Can  You Survive?"

 

:)

[Spaceships, Space Stations, Moonbases?]

After running into numerous frustrations with having the base builder not store the proper positions of items when I went to build my ship down at the -1600 mark or so, I junked it and started rebuilding within the base confines instead. I'm going to have the interior be within the base area, and "airlocks" leading from inside to the exterior of the ship via portals. I came up with a pretty decent (if I say so myself) airlock combo of an arachnos doorway spun around so the empty back of it is facing outwards, and a portal placed in the circle opening, which fits perfectly. Makes a nice little circular airlock portal.

 

It's a huge project though, and I'm still in the process of laying the foundation of the ship decks. Once I get all that done, then decorated, I'll build the exterior of the ship outside the base confines, so people will have somewhere to port to via the airlocks and be able to float around the ship in 360 degrees. Given the sheer size of the thing it's going to take a while to build, and taking screenshots won't get the proper feel for it, I think, so I'm going to try and make a video walkthrough. Especially since the ship is for my tiny aliens, who are from a low-light world, thus the interior lighting is fairly dim.

 

Hopefully I'll have it done in a couple weeks. :)

[Anyone have a workaround for the "base edit failed: can't fit" error?]

5 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Are you able to put in a doorway temporarily where you are looking to add the pieces?  I've had this happen before and it generally was in between rooms and adding a temporary doorway allowed the pieces to fit. 

 

I notice this more when using certain pieces - like the steel wall in Dividers.  For some strange reason, that seems to need a larger size than it occupies in order for it to "fit".

I think the place that I was trying to build is already in a doorway. The area was two long 2x21 rooms that had the space between them filled in with doorways, to make one larger room.

 

The pieces I was trying to place were small praetorian cables, so it wasn't a size issue at all. And not only that, but I'd already built a wall there with other objects, so it wasn't just "nothing can be built here". It was just extremely odd.

[Base Request Items]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

Not really interested in doing a "destroy your base items" type PvP base - more like an arena map. 

Or hell, you could go full X-Men and design a Danger Room. Turrets, sappers, debuff fields, etc, hop in and see if you can survive!

[Sets you would play but...]

 

I want to play bio armor, but I much prefer to set all my defensive toggles to nofx, and you can't do that with the adaptations. I don't want to be surrounded by an ugly glow to use the powers. 😞

[Anyone have a workaround for the "base edit failed: can't fit" error?]

I'm running into this constantly when I'm trying to build a large base using internal walls (constructed via objects). I'll be running, say, a length of conduit along a wall, and everything is going fine, but a stretch of about 6-10 feet of the wall will suddenly be a non-viable place to place objects, despite there being nothing else in the way. It'll just pop up the error "base edit failed: can't fit". It's frustrating as hell, because it's popping up all over the place, seemingly at random, and prevents a lot of customization.

[Base Request Items]

Probably been mentioned before, but another thing I'd like: Smaller letters. The alphabet right now are HUGE letters, and it'd be nice to have some that are about half that size, or even a third, so you could make more reasonable signage.

[Another bug with base building]

In the last few days when I've been trying to build within a base, whenever I'm using shift-drag to move an object up/down, quite often the game will somehow interpret the sliding as a double-click, and teleport me forward a good distance. It's become INCREDIBLY frustrating, as it happens every 4-5 objects, and when I'm building a large base with a lot of objects I want to reposition, I'm having to crtl-z (since it tends to teleport the object into a random position as well) and try again. 

 

I asked in the help channel and a couple of other people say they've seen the same behavior. I don't have click-to-move turned on, so it's not that. It just seems like there's just some weird overlap with shift-drag and the click-to-move that's inherent with base building that's conflicting, and it's getting confused and teleporting me around.

[Thoughts on ice armor]

On 9/4/2019 at 3:38 PM, oldskool said:

Sentinel Ice Armor is dramatically different from the Tanker version.  Icicles is replaced by Moisture Absorption, there is no Energy Absorption (replaced with Frost Protection), and Hibernate is exchanged for Icy Bastion.  In some ways, Sentinel Ice is more like Stalker Ice Armor.  The sleep toggle isn't available though.  

I haven't played Sentinel Ice Armor though.  I'm trying to think of a theme to go with an Ice Blast/Ice Armor/Ice Mastery character. 

I have one that I'm leveling up. Still a lowbie, though. It's one of a whole slew of characters I've made that follow the same theme: they're all summoned elementals, so they all follow a very tight theme with their powers. Fire/fire/fire, ice/ice/ice, earth/earth/earth, etc. I did try a bunch of thrown-together builds for them on justin, and while they're certainly not optimized in any way and don't use incarnate abilities, they're decent for testing general damage output and durability. My standard test is to throw them up against +1/8/boss malta and see how they do. If they roflstomp their way through malta, then I deem them a success. :)

[How to improve Mercs?]

There are numerous things that could and should be done to bring Mercenaries up to parity with some of the better sets (looking at you, Demons and Bots). The commando needs to be overhauled, Serum needs to be revamped entirely (1000s cooldown? Seriously?). The other mercenaries need their damage and animations tightened up. Etc.

 

The fact that the commando's LRM Rocket has a 240s cooldown is absolutely ridiculous, for one. It should be around a 24s cooldown, comparable to the other tier-3 pets' abilities. Hell, the Assault Bot's two missile swarm attacks have 16s cooldowns. The original devs were just really lazy with mercenaries. And with a lot of mastermind stuff, if we're honest. They just didn't really like masterminds all that much, so never really gave them the attention they needed.

[Blzaing bolt repel]

15 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

Isn't repel a different effect than knockdown/knockback?  I should test that on Justin.

It won't work anyway. Blazing Blast doesn't allow you to slot KB sets into it. So you can't get rid of the repel even if KB->KD worked.

 

<edit> However, it does take universal damage sets. Just tested it with Overwhelming Force. While it doesn't negate the repel, it minimizes it a good bit, so they only go a LITTLE backwards. So it's an option, just not a great one.

[Anyone else having placed base items just randomly shift around?]

4 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Do you have the grid set to 1x1 or disabled?

Like I said in the other thread, it happens to stuff that I've moved on the grid, or disabled, at random.

 

If I'm forced to have to build everything on a 1x1 grid, I may as well not build bases that aren't just giant square blocks, since I won't be able to do any fine tuning.

[Base editor constantly moving objects around]

Just now, ShardWarrior said:

Interesting.  I've never run into this issue myself.  Did you try a /petition?

I haven't tried one yet, no. A couple other people I've talked to say they've seen the same thing, with stuff moving around at random. 

 

I'm wondering if it has to do with building outside the normal base environment. My current project was building stuff down near the "bottom" of the usable area, about -1600 or so. I built the framework for my ship and everything stayed where I put it. But once I started decorating and putting down smaller items, stuff started drifting.

[Base editor constantly moving objects around]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

When placing items are you disabling the grid or do you have it set to 1x1, 2x2 etc?

I usually place things on the grid, using 1/4 x 1/4. Occasionally I'll place things with the grid disabled. But the things that move around are seemingly random. Some of the items I place without the grid stay where they are with no problem. Other things ON the grid move around at random. If it was only stuff I positioned with the grid disabled I could live with it, but at this point ANYTHING I put down seems to have a chance to be shifted around. It makes it impossible to be excited about building projects anymore, because I have to build a single tiny area at a time, and then spend the next 15m double-checking to make sure everything stays where I put it. And half the time it doesn't.

[Base editor constantly moving objects around]

I'm running into this problem more and more lately. I'm trying to build a large base outside the normal base area -- something many of us do all the time -- and the editor refuses to save the actual position of a lot of items. I'll place everything down, then exit the base and come back a bit later to find a dozen or more objects have relocated, moving up or down up to a full unit in either direction. 

 

It's reaching the point where I'm about to give up on base building entirely, since I can't build ANYTHING without it undoing all my work.

 

 

[Anyone else having placed base items just randomly shift around?]

Yeah, at this point I think I'm done trying to build bases. More and more crap is being shifted around by the editor. I can't build even a single room without things drifting out of place. It's too much of a hassle.

 

I give up.