General Feedback: Page 5 Build 4

[Jimmy]

Please use this thread to discuss any changes not covered by the focused feedback threads:

• Focused Feedback: Costume Editor Updates
• Focused Feedback: Electrical Affinity - Powers
• Focused Feedback: Electrical Affinity - Name
• Focused Feedback: Experimentation
• Focused Feedback: New IO Sets

[Keen]

Any chance we could get an AE sync so we can more easily test the AE changes?

[Telephone]

I have resynchronized AE on Beta from a recent live backup.

[Keen]

Much appreciated!

[Keen]

Getting an "MADoorInvalid" error when I try entering an AE mission.

[ROBOKiTTY]

The AE damage change seems misguided, The damage was deliberately tuned this way for balance reasons.

 

It's always been the case that custom AE critters are overpowered relative to standard critters, especially the higher in rank you go. Powersets in AE were based on player versions but use NPC modifiers, so they scale to absurd values in cases where the numbers differ significantly from NPC versions. This was known on live and deliberately adjusted for. The XP curve means at higher ranks, every custom critter has more attacks than their standard counterparts, giving them more fluid attack chains with less downtime. The change to AVs is going to make them do too much damage. People already use AE to build challenges beyond anything seen in game. This is going to invalidate those overnight and also make existing AE arcs with custom enemies much harder than designed.

 

Some numbers from quick testing using level 50 AVs on a solo stone tanker running nothing but rooted for mez protection. Resistance is 19% S/L, 7.5% fire/cold, 6% energy/negative, 29% psi, 6% toxic.

 

Custom AV:

(Damage aura)

[12:42:49] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Death Shroud for 147.98 points of Negative Energy damage.

 

[12:42:36] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Barrage for 318.71 points of Smashing damage over time.
[12:42:36] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Barrage for 118.38 points of Energy damage over time.

 

[12:42:29] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Energy Punch for 446.19 points of Smashing damage.
[12:42:29] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Energy Punch for 221.98 points of Energy damage.

[12:50:21] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Bone Smasher for 637.42 points of Smashing damage.
[12:50:21] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Bone Smasher for 473.56 points of Energy damage.

 

[12:42:46] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Total Focus for 637.42 points of Smashing damage.
[12:42:46] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Total Focus for 1894.28 points of Energy damage.

 

[12:43:05] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Energy Transfer for 994.38 points of Smashing damage.
[12:43:05] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Energy Transfer for 2219.86 points of Energy damage.

 

[13:07:12] Corrupted Positron hits you with their Knockout Blow for 2269.25 points of Smashing damage.

 

Standard AVs for reference at equal level:

[12:44:39] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Punch for 733.04 points of Smashing damage.

[12:44:43] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Hurl for 721.31 points of Smashing damage.

 
[12:45:09] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Bone Smasher for 733.04 points of Smashing damage.
[12:45:09] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Bone Smasher for 544.6 points of Energy damage.

[12:43:57] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Total Focus for 703.72 points of Smashing damage.
[12:43:57] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Total Focus for 850.94 points of Energy damage.

 

(Back Alley Power Punch is BAB's version of energy transfer)

[12:45:13] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Back Alley Power Punch for 469.14 points of Smashing damage.
[12:45:13] Back Alley Brawler hits you with their Back Alley Power Punch for 850.94 points of Energy damage.

 

[13:06:10] Statesman hits you with their Knockout Blow for 1249.36 points of Smashing damage.

Edited March 8, 2020 by ROBOKiTTY

[Charler]

Could we get some more context on the nerfs to Darkness Affinity Fade? It loses a bit over 10% defense from this change with power boost, which is pretty significant. Other clicky +def powers like Farsight seem to be unchanged. If it's because Fade gives some resistance, I'd rather lose the resistance than the extra defense

Edited March 8, 2020 by Charler

[Wavicle]

34 minutes ago, Charler said:

Could we get some more context on the nerfs to Darkness Affinity Fade? It loses a bit over 10% defense from this change with power boost, which is pretty significant. Other clicky +def powers like Farsight seem to be unchanged. If it's because Fade gives some resistance, I'd rather lose the resistance than the extra defense

It's not a nerf, it's a bug fix.

[Wavicle]

Love the Leadership activation time change, thanks!

[Gulbasaur]

@Jimmy do the VEAT Leadership equivalents use the new or old cast times? 

[Draeth Darkstar]

While you guys are tweaking the Leadership visuals, a NoFX version of the toggles would be a godsend. I hate those little spinning icons.

 

Tangentially related, taking the little spinning icons FX away from the Pet Aura IOs would also be amazing, especially since there's no way to get rid of them short of having a second build for aesthetics.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Charler]

33 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

It's not a nerf, it's a bug fix.

I see what you're saying, I just didn't realize it was a bug and built a toon around that interaction. Power boost doesn't really mention "but it doesn't work if the power also gives resistance". So it feels like a nerf 

[VileTerror]

I missed the reason why, but could someone let me know the reasoning behind the removal of certain Powers in the Arena?  Jump/Steam Pack in particular seems like a very odd thing to remove access to there.

[csr]

3 hours ago, Charler said:

I see what you're saying, I just didn't realize it was a bug and built a toon around that interaction. Power boost doesn't really mention "but it doesn't work if the power also gives resistance". So it feels like a nerf 

To get an idea of why it's a bug, go on Live and eat a red pill before casting Fade and see what it does to your +Res from the power.  Now imagine what Fulcrum Shift does to it.

[Sovera]

@Jimmy, is there a chance of throwing the new DM changes out into live?  Its changes have been finalized and what was to be done with it for now has been done. I've been bidding my time but as I expected the patch to go live suddenly there are -more- things that will now have to be tested, refined, fixed and etc.

[Captain Powerhouse]

24 minutes ago, Sovera said:

@Jimmy, is there a chance of throwing the new DM changes out into live?  Its changes have been finalized and what was to be done with it for now has been done. I've been bidding my time but as I expected the patch to go live suddenly there are -more- things that will now have to be tested, refined, fixed and etc.

 

Unless its an urgent bug fix that gets tested here, all that is being tested right now will be patched live as part of the Page 5 bundle.

 

[Vanden]

20 hours ago, ROBOKiTTY said:

It's always been the case that custom AE critters are overpowered relative to standard critters, especially the higher in rank you go. Powersets in AE were based on player versions but use NPC modifiers, so they scale to absurd values in cases where the numbers differ significantly from NPC versions.

I have to echo this, this seems poorly-thought out. AVs are getting nearly doubled damage at 50? I remember a dev saying when the AE was new that the goal was for the custom critters' powers to be as close to player powers as possible, and back then it seemed myopic, too. One of my big concerns, for example, was that using a custom critter with any sort of electric power would be incredibly unfun for the majority of build because of how much more effective end drain is on players than on NPCs. This change seems like another big blow to anyone trying to use the MA to make good, stories instead of just farms.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Vanden

[Erydanus]

I'm pleasantly surprised to find out Explosive Shuriken has been doing not as much damage as intended all along. The change to regular shuriken from 3 to 6 seconds is probably good balance... I just stuck a set of, I think, Thunderstrike, in mine and found I was spamming shuriken so fast it made doing any other attacks seem like a questionable choice. Like I accidentally put it on auto when targeting a runner and I felt like I was using some kind of auto-fire shuriken launcher on him.

[macskull]

23 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

@Jimmy do the VEAT Leadership equivalents use the new or old cast times? 

VEAT leadership toggles have used the new cast times since VEATs were introduced in Issue 12.

23 hours ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

While you guys are tweaking the Leadership visuals, a NoFX version of the toggles would be a godsend. I hate those little spinning icons.

 

Tangentially related, taking the little spinning icons FX away from the Pet Aura IOs would also be amazing, especially since there's no way to get rid of them short of having a second build for aesthetics.

Every power that buffs or debuffs you has the same VFX you're talking about here.

23 hours ago, VileTerror said:

I missed the reason why, but could someone let me know the reasoning behind the removal of certain Powers in the Arena?  Jump/Steam Pack in particular seems like a very odd thing to remove access to there.

By default non-arena temp powers are disabled in the arena. The powers on this list are non-arena temp powers that have been bugged since time immemorial and have been available for use in the arena.

[Draeth Darkstar]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

Every power that buffs or debuffs you has the same VFX you're talking about here.

No, they don't. Inspirations, Leadership (including VEAT leadership), and IIRC, Aim and Build Up do, but the huge majority of player buff powers do not use the generic Inspiration-style icon VFX. They're annoying, distracting, and ugly when on a toggle and they need to go away. They're the most 2004 looking part of this game and do not need to be a permanent adornment in triplicate on any character.

 

That's also why I hate them on the Pet Auras so much. It's whatever when it's an Inspiration VFX that lasts a few seconds, but it's so annoying to have 6+ pets with 4 sets of purple shields and 3 sets of orange shields all the time.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[VileTerror]

So, they're not completely disabled?  Just disabled in modes which normally disable Temp/Prestige Powers?

[Dan Petro]

30 minutes ago, VileTerror said:

So, they're not completely disabled?  Just disabled in modes which normally disable Temp/Prestige Powers?

There is an option under arena settings to allow non arena temp powers.  I haven't tested it yet, but these temps should now obey the rules that every other PvE temp power does. 🙂

[Doc_Scorpion]

"This means that an account sync is no longer needed; your Live account will work on the Beta and Staging shards by default, and password changes will now be reflected immediately across all shards."

The Sync function on the Beta Account center will be going away then?

Just curious because it's still there.

[Jimmy]

5 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

"This means that an account sync is no longer needed; your Live account will work on the Beta and Staging shards by default, and password changes will now be reflected immediately across all shards."

The Sync function on the Beta Account center will be going away then?

Just curious because it's still there.

Yeah, it will at some point.

[Moka]

On 3/8/2020 at 4:38 PM, ROBOKiTTY said:

The AE damage change seems misguided, The damage was deliberately tuned this way for balance reasons.

 

It's always been the case that custom AE critters are overpowered relative to standard critters, especially the higher in rank you go. Powersets in AE were based on player versions but use NPC modifiers, so they scale to absurd values in cases where the numbers differ significantly from NPC versions. This was known on live and deliberately adjusted for. The XP curve means at higher ranks, every custom critter has more attacks than their standard counterparts, giving them more fluid attack chains with less downtime. The change to AVs is going to make them do too much damage. People already use AE to build challenges beyond anything seen in game. This is going to invalidate those overnight and also make existing AE arcs with custom enemies much harder than designed.

 

Some numbers from quick testing using level 50 AVs on a solo stone tanker running nothing but rooted for mez protection. Resistance is 19% S/L, 7.5% fire/cold, 6% energy/negative, 29% psi, 6% toxic.

 

 

Not to be blind as a bat, but where is it stated we're getting a change to AE critter damage? Did I miss the point of something somewhere? Though I personally think AVs needed to do more damage. A full team of 8 versus an AV is just a health sponge endurance test, not an actual fight.

Edited March 11, 2020 by Moka