General Feedback: Page 5 Build 5

[ScarySai]

2 minutes ago, Replacement said:

and you never acknowledge how development actually works: we fix things that are broken, and we balance things the correct way instead of letting poor decision points continue to exist.

As a developer, let me tell you that the best solution to a problem often involves some weird behind the scenes trickery. It's entirely possible Paragon saw no reason to change those powers to be 'correct'. They absolutely had the means to do it, they did it for Burn, which inadvertently nerfed Bots, but they did it.

 

As far as I'm concerned, what Paragon considered to be fine shouldn't be touched, we did come back for their game, after all. 

9 minutes ago, Replacement said:

You steadfastly refuse to acknowledge, for example, that if a Corruptor's Twilight Grasp is just as good as a Defender's, anyone who is playing as Defender is making the objectively wrong choice.

I'm not acknowledging it because that's not going to be as impactful on /dark's performance as the tar patch nerf. Twilight is a great heal and will continue to be a great heal, but it can eat a nerf with relatively little loss in practical performance. Tar patch is insanely important, a slight to nerf to that is a big hit for the set.

Nobody is 'ignoring' it, tar patch simply stands out more.

 

18 minutes ago, Vanden said:

every power in the game can be observed to respect AT mods, except certain powers using pseudopets.

Yet, Paragon had the ability to modify pseuedopets at any time if they felt it wasn't intended. You're jumping to the conclusion that it's simply an accident, I have reason to believe it was left alone by design.

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

Yet, Paragon had the ability to modify pseuedopets at any time if they felt it wasn't intended. You're jumping to the conclusion that it's simply an accident, I have reason to believe it was left alone by design.

What reason is that? 

 

In the days of Paragon Studios, fixing these inconsistencies required creating an entirely new pseudopet entity, manually doing the math so the final effects of the powers using pet mods came out as they should be if they were using AT mods, and having that new pseudopet be summoned by a new version of the power created specifically for every AT that has access to said power. That’s a non-trivial amount of work with lots of opportunities for something to break, and the people in charge of powers always had a lot of work on their plate, including making powers for the new enemy groups that were always being worked on. It’s not surprising it would get backburnered for months or years. Even Homecoming team is only doing it now that they have access to these new tools.

[Caulderone]

38 minutes ago, Bopper said:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has been replaced with "If it's always been broke, why fix it?"

No kidding.  Now that they can ditch the pseudopets, it should all be fixed.

26 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Seriously.  This is the standard process that ruins other video games: a squad of people showing up and screaming about how the sky is falling, all your like-minded overreactors come through and Like each other's posts, and you never acknowledge how development actually works: we fix things that are broken, and we balance things the correct way instead of letting poor decision points continue to exist.

Indeed.  Now that the mechanism to fix this exists, fixes can, will, and should come.

Just because it has always been broken is no reason not to fix things.

[Doomrider]

29 minutes ago, Replacement said:

 

 

And finally, you and @Septipheran  and @Doomrider sure are conveniently ignoring that this is part of a concerted effort to get rid of pseudopets and make the game itself better.  For you!

 

 

Thanks for speaking on my behalf! Not ignoring the effort to eliminate pseudopets... last I checked I was still allowed to dislike a change to a power, regardless of the motive and express my distaste for said change.

Now all finger wagging aside, I would geniunely like to know exactly how this change to pseudopets is supposed to improve the game for me?

So far, rather than address all pseudopets at once in the patch notes which would have made more sense given their presumptive goal, it appears to only Tar Patch has been changed. Maybe it would appear on the surface, that the power is being singled out, regardless if that's true or not. I think if the goal was to make sweeping changes to pseudopets then it would have been better to hold off and roll those out all at once in a later update?

Edited March 14, 2020 by Doomrider

[ScarySai]

I know how it worked, @Vanden. I've spoken with some ex-devs, very interesting stories there, especially with how janky introducing new sets was on the old engine. I also expected someone to bring up the "Well they couldn't do it because of deadlines and priorities" argument eventually, which is normally a good argument for this sort of issue, but it ignores a few other considerations in this context. 

 

My point remains, you have yet to make a convincing case for the change, besides the fact it doesn't follow the AT scaling like most other powers. There are multiple reasons that could be the case, not just strictly that they never got around to it, like the good ol' Cottage Rule, as an example. Hence, why I said you are making an assumption.

 

 

[Caulderone]

2 hours ago, The Curator said:

It makes sense from an internal development point of view: this is part of a general pass to get rid of all pseudopet powers and replace them with native mechanics. Pseudopets are spread all over the game, so there will no clear pattern to the powers unless you connect the dots to a pseudopet cleanup. And the change will be invisible for most powers, increasing the confusion on why so many powers were "untouched": they were, but it resulted in no change from the player's perspective.

 

2 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

So far, rather than address all pseudopets at once in the patch notes which would have made more sense given their presumptive goal, it appears to only Tar Patch has been changed. Maybe it would appear on the surface, that the power is being singled out, regardless if that's true or not. I think if the goal was to make sweeping changes to pseudopets then it would have been better to hold off and roll those out all at once in a later update?

This has already been answered.

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Caulderone said:

 

This has already been answered.

Yet, the change is neither 'invisible' nor insignificant. The patch notes read like DM was singled out for 'testing' before the changes roll out to other powers, hence why FR and Sleet aren't mentioned either.

 

I don't think anyone has a problem with fixing the whole psuedopet issue from a mechanical standpoint, the issue at hand is the consequences, unintended or otherwise, from doing so without consideration for abilities like Tar Patch.

 

[Caulderone]

2 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

My point remains, you have yet to make a convincing case for the change, besides the fact it doesn't follow the AT scaling like most other powers.

The Devs now have a solid tech to fix things in a reliable, repeatable way that was not available previously.  They are using that to fix things.  This is exactly what they should do.

 

You demand that others make a case for fixing things.  Your case against it is "it has always been broken, why fix it?", which is beyond flimsy and you would need to make a better case against the fixes.

[Doomrider]

16 minutes ago, Caulderone said:

 

This has already been answered.

But aside from cleaning up the code, it doesn't directly answer how this change will benefit the player? I can certainly understand the need or desire to clean things up behind the scenes for future development but this still doesn't address how getting rid of pseudopets and replacing them with native mechanics is going to benefit the player?

 If i'm to believe that this change is being done make the game better itself for the players as has been alluded to in the posts above, what is this benefit?

Edited March 14, 2020 by Doomrider

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Caulderone said:

Your case against it is "it has always been broken, why fix it?"

Your case is "It has to be broken because it's different!" Which is about as flimsy as it gets, as well.

 

There's nuance to consider here, I'm choosing to consider all variables and don't see a reason to change it now, of all times.

 

You're looking at it as broken because it doesn't follow a rule most powers do, ignoring other reasons it might have been left alone.

[Vanden]

10 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

There are multiple reasons that could be the case, not just strictly that they never got around to it, like the good ol' Cottage Rule, as an example.

This made me laugh. Even suggesting that this could possibly be covered by the Cottage Rule is absurd. If you want to make the case that these powers not respecting AT mods is deliberate, the other reasons you allude to better be a hell of a lot stronger than that.

[Bopper]

*Edit: This table was generated in 2006. Take it with a huge grain of salt. I'm editing whatever I do find wrong and correcting it in red*

 

Not sure if this helps anyone, but I took the Power Data Standardization v2.0 and reformat it into tables (below). I did make one tweak, which are the recent Tanker damage modifiers (I marked the changes in red, I know there are more that I missed, please point them out and I'll update).

 

Feel free to refer to this when discussing intended AT modifiers and their impacts.

 

Melee

	Blaster	Contrlr	Defendr	Scrappr	Tanker	Khldian	Brute	Stalker	MasterM	Domnatr	Coruptr
EndDrn	1	1.1	1.25	1	1	1	1	1	1.1	1.1	1
Slow	-1	-1.25	-1.25	-0.8	-0.8	-1	-0.8	-0.8	-1	-1	-1
BuffDef	0.07	0.09	0.1	0.075	0.1	0.075	0.075	0.075	0.09	0.085	0.085
BuffDmg	0.125	0.08	0.1	0.125	0.1	0.09	0.1	0.1	0.08	0.085	0.085
Buf2Hit	0.075	0.08	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.09	0.1	0.1	0.08	0.085	0.085
DBf2Hit	-0.07	-0.1	-0.125	-0.075	-0.07	-0.09	-0.075	-0.075	-0.1	-0.1	-0.075
DBufDam	-0.07	-0.1	-0.125	-0.075	-0.07	-0.09	-0.075	-0.075	-0.1	-0.1	-0.075
DBufDef	-0.07	-0.1	-0.125	-0.075	-0.07	-0.09	-0.075	-0.075	-0.1	-0.1	-0.075
ResDmg	0.07	0.1	0.1	0.075	0.1	0.075	0.075	0.075	0.1	0.085	0.075

 

 

Ranged

	Blaster	Contrlr	Defendr	Scrappr	Tanker	Khldian	Brute	Stalker	MasterM	Domnatr	Coruptr
EndDrn	1	1.1	1.25	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1.1
Slow	-1	-1.25	-1.25	-0.8	-0.8	-1	-0.8	-0.8	-1	-1	-1
BuffDef	0.065	0.075	0.1	0.065	0.065	0.075	0.065	0.065	0.075	0.075	0.075
BuffDmg	0.07	0.1	0.125	0.07	0.07	0.09	0.07	0.07	0.075	0.075	0.1
Buf2Hit	0.07	0.1	0.125	0.07	0.07	0.09	0.07	0.07	0.075	0.075	0.1
DBf2Hit	-0.07	-0.1	-0.125	-0.07	-0.07	-0.09	-0.07	-0.07	-0.075	-0.075	-0.1
DBufDam	-0.07	-0.1	-0.125	-0.07	-0.07	-0.09	-0.07	-0.07	-0.075	-0.075	-0.1
DBufDef	-0.07	-0.1	-0.125	-0.07	-0.07	-0.09	-0.07	-0.07	-0.075	-0.075	-0.1
ResDmg	0.065	0.075	0.1	0.065	0.065	0.075	0.065	0.065	0.075	0.075	0.075

 

 

MELEE

	Blaster	Contrlr	Defendr	Scrappr	Tanker	Khldian	Brute	Stalker	MasterM	Domnatr	Coruptr
Damage	1	0.55	0.55	1.125	0.95	0.75	0.75	0.9	0.55	0.75	0.75
KheldSS	---	---	---	---	---	0.85	---	---	---	---	---
Heal	0.9	1.1	1.25	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.9	1.1	1.1	0.9
HealSlf	1.125	0.95	0.95	1.25	1.75	1	1.4	0.95	0.75	0.95	1
Stun	0.8	1.25	1	0.8	0.8	0.9	0.8	0.8	1	1	0.8
Immobil	0.8	1.25	1	0.8	0.8	0.9	0.8	0.8	1	1	0.8
Sleep	0.8	1.25	1	0.8	0.8	0.9	0.8	0.8	1	1	0.8
Knockbk	1	1	1	1	1.25	1	1.25	1	1	1	1
Fear	0.8	1.25	1	1	1	0.9	1	1	1	1	0.8
ResBool	0.8	0.8	0.8	1	1.25	0.9	1	1	0.8	0.8	0.8

 

 

Ranged

	Blaster	Contrlr	Defendr	Scrappr	Tanker	Khldian	Brute	Stalker	MasterM	Domnatr	Coruptr
Damage	1	0.55	0.65	0.5	0.8	0.625	0.5	0.6	0.55	0.65	0.75
KheldSS	---	---	---	---	---	1.2	---	---	---	---	---
Heal	0.9	1.1	1.25	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.9	1	1	1.1
HealSlf	1.125	0.95	0.95	1.25	1.75	1	1.4	0.95	0.75	0.95	1
Stun	0.8	1.25	1	0.8	0.8	0.9	0.8	0.8	1	1	0.75
Immobil	0.8	1.25	1	0.8	0.8	0.9	0.8	0.8	0.8	1	0.8
Sleep	0.8	1.25	1	8	0.8	0.9	0.8	8	0.8	1	0.8
Knockbk	0.8	1	1	1	1.25	0.9	1.25	1	0.8	1	0.8
Fear	0.8	1.25	1	1	1	0.9	1	1	0.8	1	0.8
ResBool	0.7	1	1.25	0.7	0.7	0.9	0.7	0.7	0.75	0.75	1

 

 

Hit Points

	Blaster	Contrlr	Defendr	Scrappr	Tanker	Khldian	Brute	Stalker	MasterM	Domnatr	Coruptr
HitPts	1.125	0.95	0.95	1.25	1.75	1	1.4	0.95	0.75	0.95	1
MaxHP	1.15	1	1	1.5	2.2	1.5	2	1.3	1	1	1

 

 

Notes

EndDrn = Endurance Drain
BuffDef = Buff Defense, used by powers like Maneuvers and Personal Force Field
BuffDmg = Buff Damage, used by powers like Forge and Build Up
Buf2Hit = Buff To-Hit, used by powers like Tactics and Aim
DBf2Hit = Debuff To-Hit
DBufDam = Debuff Damage
DBufDef = Debuff Defense
ResDmg = Resist Damage, used by both buff and debuff powers that modify resistance

HitPts = Total Hit Points
MaxHP = Maximum possible Hit Points, using HP-boosting powers like Dull Pain or accolades

KheldSS = Kheldian Damage modifiers while shapeshifted, Melee is Dwarf Form, Ranged is Nova Form
HealSlf = Heal Self, used for self heal powers like Reconstruction and Aid Self
ResBool = Res_Boolean, used for misc. attributes that scale by level, like mez resistance

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Bopper
corrections to table

[csr]

2 hours ago, The Curator said:

It makes sense from an internal development point of view: this is part of a general pass to get rid of all pseudopet powers and replace them with native mechanics. Pseudopets are spread all over the game, so there will no clear pattern to the powers unless you connect the dots to a pseudopet cleanup. And the change will be invisible for most powers, increasing the confusion on why so many powers were "untouched": they were, but it resulted in no change from the player's perspective.

So... do you mean to imply that the pseudo-pet pass is complete and these were the only powers affected?  Or is it still on-going?

 

Also, tangentially, is there any plan to make key buffs/debuffs such as +Recharge, +Recovery and -Regeneration vary by AT?

[ScarySai]

Just now, Vanden said:

This made me laugh. Even suggesting that this could possibly be covered by the Cottage Rule is absurd.

A key power from one of the earliest sets in the game not being altered in any way despite several opportunities being presented to do so, it could very well have been a consideration in some form. This was a random throw-out and hardly the foundation of my argument.

 

2 minutes ago, Vanden said:

if you want to make the case that these powers not respecting AT mods is deliberate, the other reasons you allude to better be a hell of a lot stronger than that.

I've explained this to you several times already, and I'm not repeating myself. The burden of proof is on you, now. You're the one claiming it's unintended, yet it remained this long. Your stance justifies change with assumptions, my stance advocates for leaving it alone on assumptions (Neither of us worked for Paragon, after all.) there are quite possibly other reasons we aren't aware of that it was left alone.

[Bopper]

1 minute ago, csr said:

Also, tangentially, is there any plan to make key buffs/debuffs such as +Recharge, +Recovery and -Regeneration vary by AT?

I wondered this myself, which is why I researched the AT Modifiers. If the Power Data Standardization table is an all-inclusive list of AT Modifiers, then it would appear there are no AT Modifiers for Recharge, Recovery and Regeneration. I'm curious to see if those would eventually get modifiers, but I doubt it.

[csr]

5 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I wondered this myself, which is why I researched the AT Modifiers. If the Power Data Standardization table is an all-inclusive list of AT Modifiers, then it would appear there are no AT Modifiers for Recharge, Recovery and Regeneration. I'm curious to see if those would eventually get modifiers, but I doubt it.

There is no reason +Rec can't use the Ranged EndDrn mod, -Regen the Ranged Heal mod, nor +Rech the Ranged Slow mod.

 

It's always bugged me that Masterminds (and Corruptors and Controllers) get the same value as Defenders for these.

Edited March 14, 2020 by csr

[Troo]

45 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Twilight Grasp - like all of the PBAoE heals - uses the ranged heal modifier for all targets, not the melee heal modifier. The debuff part of Twilight Grasp was also never a pseudopet, only the heal was, so for Corruptors it reduces the amount of the heal and it still does -5% to-hit, -10% damage, and -50% regen. The far larger penalty to Dark Miasma is Tar Patch, which is a 25% reduction in effectiveness, and in the help that Dark Servant is providing.

I appreciate the clarification. It's still a nerf, just less than the -28% to the team heal.

When you say 'all targets' does that include the caster (so there is no actual self heal?).

 

In the case of changes like these there could/should be more specific explanations. Somethings get complicated.

 

 

 

[Mystic Fortune]

A couple of bugs that I discovered while playing around with Defibrillate, ironically enough, not related to Defibrillate at all.

 

First, enemies will randomly flash a con level below what they are. For instance, these Possessed Scientist would normal con Blue to me being 50+1, however for an instance they flash Green as if they were -2's. I believe this may be associated with the Alpha slot, perhaps there is a refreshing issue which is causing a level shift overlap. However, as shown in the image, my level shift never changes.

 

 

Second, appears to be a combat attributes bug. As you can see above I monitor a good deal of combat attributes. I noticed that Smashing Resistance had been replaced with Knockback Resistance. Removing Knockback Resistance from the combat attributes monitor and attempting to monitor Smashing Resistance just brings Knockback Resistance back up. Smashing Resistance is currently unable to be monitored and no longer shows the sources of the values it is receiving.

 

 

Continuing from the previous bug, looking at the Status Effect Resistance tab I see that Knockback Resistance is incorrectly receiving the values from the sources of Smashing Resistance.

 

 

EDIT: In the first two images the values in Resistance, Defense and Recovery are different because I unslotted ALL of the procs and global enhancements from the build in an attempt to track down the culprit of the flash con bug. At first I thought it was the Reactive Defenses global, but the flash con persisted. Finally I unslotted my Agility Core Paragon, and the bug appeared to go away.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Mystic Fortune

[Troo]

18 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Not sure if this helps anyone,

This totally helps. Beats flipping back and forth between AT web pages comparing each.

[Bopper]

13 minutes ago, csr said:

There is no reason +Rec can't use the Ranged EndDrn mod, -Regen the Ranged Heal mod, nor +Rech the Ranged Slow mod.

 

It's always bugged me that Masterminds (and Corruptors and Controllers) get the same value as Defenders for these.

My guess is because powers like Health, Stamina, and Hasten would benefit some ATs more than others. Probably best to just keep them fixed as they are common self buffs for all ATs.

[Bopper]

7 minutes ago, Troo said:

This totally helps. Beats flipping back and forth between AT web pages comparing each.

If it helps at least one, then it was totally worth it 🙂

[Vanden]

23 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

A key power from one of the earliest sets in the game not being altered in any way despite several opportunities being presented to do so, it could very well have been a consideration in some form. This was a random throw-out and hardly the foundation of my argument.

Absolutely not. The core function of the power is not altered in the slightest, there is no way to claim that the Cottage Rule has any influence on these powers going unchanged without making a bad faith argument.

 

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

  

10 hours ago, honoraryorange said:

Also to add one more bit on those 'fixes'... you cannot just look at a single power in a set and think that just because it isn't working as intended that it needs to be looked at as a whole. If 1 power is a bit tuned too highly, but the set itself isn't an overperformer, then fixing it is nerfing a set unnecessarily.

By definition, if a power in a Controller secondary set is doing any buff or debuff (other than -speed) at the same level as the Defender equivalent, the set is over-performing, even if not by a ridiculous margin. That said, Twilight Grasp is tied 1st place (with Transfusion) when it comes to AoE heals, and adds -dmg, -regen and -tohit to an enemy, plus is easier to use than Transfusion by virtue of healing around the caster instead of the enemy (and for reference the heal from Transfusion does scale with AT modifiers). A mastermind with Twilight Grasp can heal in an area for 188.65 HP at level 50, after this change. A defender with Healing Aura heals for 133.86. Before the change, every version of twilight grasp was healing for 238.81.

 

Even after this change, Twilight Grasp remains the strongest and most versatile AoE heal on any given archetype that has it, and on all ATs, it's still a stronger AoE heal than an Empath Defender's Healing Aura. So the alternative option of Buffing the Defender version instead is not in the table.

 

10 hours ago, nyttyn said:

It came up in discussions on the discord that there are other powers that are the same across archetypes - Sleet and Frozen Rain being two such examples. Is the intent to eventually change all existing such powers to match their "Correct" value scales? Including Leadership?

Yes, every pseudopet power that ignores AT modifiers will be looked at, but for clarification: None of the leadership toggles ignore AT modifiers. This issue is mostly a problem with very old Pseudopet powers. We implemented new tech a long time ago to make pets automatically inherit AT modifiers with far less chances of human error.

 

9 hours ago, summers said:

I don't think every 'type of buff' is subject to the same Defender/Corruptor modifiers.

 

For instance Radiation Emission / Accelerated Metabolism both grant equal amounts of +recharge and +recovery, and Kinetics / Speed Boost follows suit. Time Manipulation / Temporal Selection similarly grants the same +recharge between Defender and Corruptor.

There are no AT modifiers at the moment for +Recharge, +Recovery, +Regen and a few other common stats either. If that ever changes, in those cases, the Defender version will see a buff instead of the other way around. New tables wont be used to retroactively nerf sets.

 

3 hours ago, JayboH said:

My understanding is that TW isn't OP unless you sacrifice everything for godlike recharge - and using something you consider OP as an argument to keep other things imbalanced on purpose is a head-scratcher too.

Titan Weapons will see significant adjustments in Page 6. It was going to happen on Page 5 but we want those changes to come at the same time as the update for Energy Melee and another round of Dark Melee buffs.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Captain Powerhouse

[ROBOKiTTY]

20 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Every power in the game can be observed to respect AT mods, except certain powers using pseudopets. There are powers that are allowed to be exceptions to the usual rules of power balance, but this is a pretty clear case of technical issues getting in the way rather than deliberate design.

No? Ranged attacks in melee ATs used to use melee numbers until HC decided to tweak them to follow ranged mods (albeit they did so without changing the resulting numbers). This is also why melee AT ranged attacks in epic pools outdamage their defender equivalents despite defenders having a higher ranged mod.

 

Powers shared between blasters and doms, between blasters and melee ATs, and between doms and melee ATs have different base numbers irrespective of AT mods. Widow/fortunata versions of attacks have different base numbers compared to equivalents in other control/blast/melee ATs. Bane/war mace attacks have different base numbers. Sometimes the result is that the version with the lower AT mod does more damage. Sometimes the result is that two ATs with different mods do about the same damage.

 

AT mods were a shortcut used to facilitate easier porting of powers between ATs. Cryptic/Paragon were never strictly bound by them.

[Mystic Fortune]

6 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 Titan Weapons will see significant adjustments in Page 6. It was going to happen on Page 5 but we want those changes to come at the same time as the update for Energy Melee and another round of Dark Melee buffs.

Can you spit ball what those changes might look like, so I can decide if I need to delete my TW/Fiery farming toon and roll RM/Fiery like EVERYONE else?

 

Without seeming too passive aggressive about this. I REALLY hope these changes are well balanced. TW performs great at 50, but getting there is a god damn battle. Early level Titan Weapons is brutal, and not in the good way.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Mystic Fortune