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[Caulderone]

7 minutes ago, SaddestGhost said:

Perhaps I'm getting my hopes up (and sorry to pose this question a second time), but this sounds like it could address the issue with pseudopets and Domination.  Is that a fix that is being considered?  Synaptic Overload (on Live) only had an increased mag on one target, which was a bit of a bummer for doms.  Some of the other powers that would benefit (Volcanic Gasses, Shadow Field) are already quite good, but it would be nice to see them behave with respect to the AT's inherent power.

I'm looking at you Static Field.

Great question.

[oedipus_tex]

The fix to psuedo pets is exciting to me actually. It actually makes it easier now to glance at a powerset and know how it scales across the archetype.

 

The original system where some psuedo pets were adjusted and others not was a mess and I won't miss it.

 

I do wonder how Tornado and Lightning Storm will fare. Does this mean they can Scourge? If so, bring it on.

 

I also assume this change makes it easier to carry flags like Domination over from caster to pet, which is very useful and the reason I assume they pursued this.

[ScarySai]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

List out which are which.

Off the top of my head: Trick arrow (Being worked on, apparently!), Electric blast (All ATs), Energy Melee, Super Strength, (Fix. Rage.) Battle Axe, Scrapper Savage Melee (Doesn't scale properly for scrappers), Dual Pistols (DPA is still horrendous, a DPA buff was confirmed but we never got it due to shutdown.), Assault Rifle (Do I need to explain?) Force-field (Almost completely useless.)

 

Plant's going to be in a rough spot, depending on how these changes proceed. Carrion creepers and confuse carry the set hard. Storm could be helped or hindered, if Tornado, Storm and rain all eat a nerf, that's really rough. If they end up doing the same in addition to benefiting from something like scourge, that's amazing.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[macskull]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I was under the impression that EM was nerfed due to PvP, but the effects of said nerf also had to be done in PvE since there was little to no separation at the time?

Even if this were true it would still be the case now (at least for Energy Transfer) because animation time is one of the power attributes that can't be changed between PvE and PvP. EM was nerfed because it significantly outperformed every other melee set in single-target damage. Basically it was the single-target Titan Weapons of its time. If you stick around for the rest of this post, I'll explain more below.

4 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

No, it was for stalkers, and pvp because honestly with AS and ET animating around a second WITH stuns, it wad an abusive setup.  But nerfing it across the board killed tank EM.

 

There was a ton of whining about Stalker PvP EM and that wad the origin of the nerf.  I know I was there right in the middle of it then.

While ET itself was only a 1-second animation, AS was 3.67s with a concurrent 2s interrupt time. The only people that were dying to the AS/ET combination (4.67s at a minimum) against Stalkers were players who were deliberately standing still long enough to be hit by both powers (aka bad players). AS didn't stun you, and ET only had a 50% chance, and if you got hit by both the stun didn't really matter anyways since you'd be dead. The EM nerf was two separate parts: stun mag on Total Focus went from mag 4 to mag 3 - an entirely PvE-based change since there was zero functional difference between mag 3 and mag 4 mez in PvP but that extra mag allowed you to stun a boss with one power - and an increase in the animation time of Energy Transfer from 1.0s to 2.67s. The goal of the changes was to rein in EM's single-target damage, specifically in regards to Energy Transfer, which had a DPA roughly three times higher than any other melee attack.

 

To be fair, the EM nerfs were heavy-handed and largely unnecessary because they took a set that was good at one relatively unimportant thing and made it good at nothing, and back when the changes first went to test I remember advocating for simply swapping the ET and Stun animations and calling it good because while it would've been a nerf it wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it ended up.

 

TL;DR: Yes, the EM nerfs sucked (and still suck) and went too far, but saying they happened because of PvP is disingenuous at best. And with that, back to the topic at hand!

[Infinitum]

12 minutes ago, macskull said:

Even if this were true it would still be the case now (at least for Energy Transfer) because animation time is one of the power attributes that can't be changed between PvE and PvP. EM was nerfed because it significantly outperformed every other melee set in single-target damage. Basically it was the single-target Titan Weapons of its time. If you stick around for the rest of this post, I'll explain more below.

While ET itself was only a 1-second animation, AS was 3.67s with a concurrent 2s interrupt time. The only people that were dying to the AS/ET combination (4.67s at a minimum) against Stalkers were players who were deliberately standing still long enough to be hit by both powers (aka bad players). AS didn't stun you, and ET only had a 50% chance, and if you got hit by both the stun didn't really matter anyways since you'd be dead. The EM nerf was two separate parts: stun mag on Total Focus went from mag 4 to mag 3 - an entirely PvE-based change since there was zero functional difference between mag 3 and mag 4 mez in PvP but that extra mag allowed you to stun a boss with one power - and an increase in the animation time of Energy Transfer from 1.0s to 2.67s. The goal of the changes was to rein in EM's single-target damage, specifically in regards to Energy Transfer, which had a DPA roughly three times higher than any other melee attack.

 

To be fair, the EM nerfs were heavy-handed and largely unnecessary because they took a set that was good at one relatively unimportant thing and made it good at nothing, and back when the changes first went to test I remember advocating for simply swapping the ET and Stun animations and calling it good because while it would've been a nerf it wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it ended up.

 

TL;DR: Yes, the EM nerfs sucked (and still suck) and went too far, but saying they happened because of PvP is disingenuous at best. And with that, back to the topic at hand!

Look, you can say this all you want to, there was constant whining on the forums then to nerf EM because of PvP stalkers.

 

Thats a fact.  Shortly after that it was nerfed.

 

I'm not Colombo but I can figure that one out.

[ABlueThingy]

From what I recall the original complaints about PVP nerfing X or Y are because in introducing PVP the Devs ended up seeing a lot of these powers in different lights.

 

Castle said something to the effect of "Because of the PVP we noticed that some of these powers are out of wack."  Not that they were going to nerf just so it would be balanced in PVP and that PVE was caught in the blast.  He did clarify that EM was on the chopping block since he joined and the PVP stuff just helped prove his point that it needed nerf'ding.

 

But that's not how players saw it. They just saw "PVP caused EM to be nerfed" and Castle gave up trying to argue otherwise pretty quick.  From what Castle said though... even if PVP was never introduced.  He would have nerfed EM.  He didn't like how far it broke the damage calculations

 

It was... arguably OP under specific conditions. I do remember playing as a scrapper and wiffing because the Tank one/two shotted the boss.  But those are long since passed.  AoE wasn't (as) all consuming back then.  IO Procs weren't the kings.  It was also as I recall nerfed before Arcanaville invented Arcanatime™ and showed how important DPA was and all that.

 

I'd say give ET back it's animation and it should be fine.

[macskull]

24 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Look, you can say this all you want to, there was constant whining on the forums then to nerf EM because of PvP stalkers.

 

Thats a fact.  Shortly after that it was nerfed.

 

I'm not Colombo but I can figure that one out.

Correlation != causation

 

Or, to provide more detail: the Energy Melee changes didn't happen until three years after CoV's release, and if the concern was really Stalkers, they would've left the power alone on the other ATs that got it.

Edited March 14, 2020 by macskull
added stuff

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

I'd say give ET back it's animation and it should be fine.

Crazy thing is if this happened it would be middle of the pack.  lol. It was never as out of whack as it was claimed, because you could outperform EM easily with superstrength, but EM was a boss killer I lived for 2 shotting bosses and 1 shotting lieutenants.

 

Just a different approach to how most normal sets worked.  It wss strictly single target that lost its single rarget effectiveness in the nerf.

 

Castle was my Statesman, I'll hold further thoughts about him, but any other arcs to remove npcs are developed I vote that one.  hehe

[Infinitum]

19 minutes ago, macskull said:

they would've left the power alone on the other ATs that got it.

That's not how it worked then though.

 

20 minutes ago, macskull said:

Or, to provide more detail: the Energy Melee changes didn't happen until three years after CoV's release, and if the concern was really Stalkers,

I think it probably would have been left alone or nerfed less severe were it not for all the butt hurt on the forums about EM stalkers.

 

The complaining was a real thing back then.

[Gorgar]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

This is categorically false. In the entire history of this game there has only been one power which received a PvE nerf for solely PvP reasons and I'm betting almost no one here knows what that power is.

Phase Shift.

 

*grumble*

[Tater Todd]

1 hour ago, Caulderone said:

I'm looking at you Static Field.

Great question.

Exactly this.  I often bring up this conversation whenever folks argue that Illusion shouldn't be ported over to Doms.  Arguing that Illusion wouldn't work because none of the powers would benefit from Domination is a failed argument when we have sets like Electric, Earth and Dark Control as options.  Phantom Army isn't a problem either since my Ill/Storm Controller out taunts PA with ease...a Dominator would be no different.  I'm going to stop now because you know me I always find a way to change every discussion into a Dominator focused one 😝.

[macskull]

6 minutes ago, Gorgar said:

Phase Shift.

 

*grumble*

Nope! PvE reasons there as well (but I think the nophase period needs to go away, there's not really a point to that when phase powers detoggle after 30s).

Edited March 14, 2020 by macskull

[JayboH]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

Off the top of my head: Trick arrow (Being worked on, apparently!), Electric blast (All ATs), Energy Melee, Super Strength, (Fix. Rage.) Battle Axe, Scrapper Savage Melee (Doesn't scale properly for scrappers), Dual Pistols (DPA is still horrendous, a DPA buff was confirmed but we never got it due to shutdown.), Assault Rifle (Do I need to explain?) Force-field (Almost completely useless.)

 

Plant's going to be in a rough spot, depending on how these changes proceed. Carrion creepers and confuse carry the set hard. Storm could be helped or hindered, if Tornado, Storm and rain all eat a nerf, that's really rough. If they end up doing the same in addition to benefiting from something like scourge, that's amazing.

Can you go into what is wrong with Battle Axe and Assault Rifle?  Force Fields are hella strong but yeah quite a few powers in there are skippable - then again, that might be appealing to some that want a character that can dig into the pools or concentrate on other abilities.

 

I have only heard that Battle Axe isn't desirable because Mace got so much better with tuning.  AR got rebalanced around Ignite a long time ago - Full Auto is a little disappointing but the set feels ok to me outside of perhaps some activation times (sniper rifle and Ignite take a bit too long IMO.)

[Frogtown I]

21 hours ago, esotericist said:

Can we talk about this? Please?

 

Anchoring my mercs to one spot, hell or high water, was a godsend.  Having them wiggle across a 30' span would be a massive downgrade in quality of life for me.

I agree. I much prefer the last iteration where only melee pets move that 30' span.

[Gorgar]

9 minutes ago, macskull said:

Nope! PvE reasons there as well (but I think the nophase period needs to go away, there's not really a point to that when phase powers detoggle after 30s).

Ah.  I never heard any justification other than pvp reasons.

[macskull]

5 minutes ago, JayboH said:

Can you go into what is wrong with Battle Axe and Assault Rifle?  Force Fields are hella strong but yeah quite a few powers in there are skippable - then again, that might be appealing to some that want a character that can dig into the pools or concentrate on other abilities.

 

I have only heard that Battle Axe isn't desirable because Mace got so much better with tuning.  AR got rebalanced around Ignite a long time ago - Full Auto is a little disappointing but the set feels ok to me outside of perhaps some activation times (sniper rifle and Ignite take a bit too long IMO.)

BA and WM were pretty bad sets until WM got buffed. BA is still sitting back there, relatively unchanged since Issue 0 while the game has evolved around it. AR being rebalanced around Ignite should tell you everything you need to know about the set being bad - on paper it's got the best AoE output of any Blaster primary but most of that AoE is tied up in awful, long-animating powers like Flamethrower, Ignite, and Full Auto. Ignite is good damage only if you can keep a target in it for its duration but its radius is so small that it's next to impossible.

1 minute ago, Gorgar said:

Ah.  I never heard any justification other than pvp reasons.

Pretty much the ability to go intangible whenever you wanted to, as often as you wanted to, didn't make a whole lot of sense from a gameplay/balance perspective.

[JayboH]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

BA and WM were pretty bad sets until WM got buffed. BA is still sitting back there, relatively unchanged since Issue 0 while the game has evolved around it. AR being rebalanced around Ignite should tell you everything you need to know about the set being bad - on paper it's got the best AoE output of any Blaster primary but most of that AoE is tied up in awful, long-animating powers like Flamethrower, Ignite, and Full Auto. Ignite is good damage only if you can keep a target in it for its duration but its radius is so small that it's next to impossible.

Pretty much the ability to go intangible whenever you wanted to, as often as you wanted to, didn't make a whole lot of sense from a gameplay/balance perspective.

I agree on Ignite.  Way too slow.  Prior to the rebalance Ignite was absolutely ridiculous - especially on a Kin corruptor.  The animation would take longer than the recharge.  I am fine with Flamethrower and it's activation.  Full Auto should have more damage IMO but I never had an issue with its activation time.  Sniper rifle (even on fast snipe) and Ignite take way too long.  Other than that I don't think it's bad at all.

 

Yeah I figured the BA thing was due to the Mace changes.  I don't think it's in need of a focus as much as TW and EM do.

[ScarySai]

13 minutes ago, JayboH said:

Can you go into what is wrong with Battle Axe and Assault Rifle?

It would be easier to tell you what isn't wrong with them. The list is short.

 

To start for AR: The animations are too long, especially on FT and FA, no aim, ignite is way too situational to be useful in 90% of encounters and it needs a larger target cap.

[JayboH]

5 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

It would be easier to tell you what isn't wrong with them. The list is short.

 

To start for AR: The animations are too long, especially on FT and FA, no aim, ignite is way too situational to be useful in 90% of encounters and it needs a larger target cap.

I'm fine with FT's activation.  FA's activation is long, but if the damage was ramped up on it I would feel better about it's activation time.  Yeah like I said Ignite used to be ridiculous and I am fairly sure the overhaul back then was made around it.

[Inflated Donkey]

6 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

THAT one is getting a nerf, yes.

Don't nerf Tac Arrow!!! It is glorious! It is unique! its a great way to get a different feel from a blaster.  

We don't need all our sets to be clones of one another!  LET TAC ARROW RUN FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ScarySai]

4 minutes ago, Inflated Donkey said:

Don't nerf Tac Arrow!!! It is glorious! It is unique! its a great way to get a different feel from a blaster.  

We don't need all our sets to be clones of one another!  LET TAC ARROW RUN FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fun detected, fun removed.

[JayboH]

Sonic Attack could use better AOE IMO.  Make Shockwave or Siren's Song do more damage.  Electric Blast of course has been talked about a lot for needing love.  Dual Pistols is often complained about.  Psionic's AOE is terrible as well however it has a lot of control (which may explain Sonic.)

Edited March 14, 2020 by JayboH

[Inflated Donkey]

There are some really sad and lacking sets out there that have been sad and lacking for years.  What if we gave FF some love?   

8 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Fun detected, fun removed.

Sadly, this is how it comes off looking.  While i'm sure they are capable of doing more than one thing at a time, I feel like just about everyone (except a few contrarian stinkers) would prefer to see the underperforming and lackluster sets fixed.  ones that have been lagging behind for a decade. Let a new baseline develop and balance from there.   

We are playing a VERY old game.  We are here because we love the game.  Don't chip away at that.  Build up the foundation instead!

[ScarySai]

6 minutes ago, Inflated Donkey said:

We are playing a VERY old game.  We are here because we love the game.  Don't chip away at that.  Build up the foundation instead!

No, just keep fixing things that aren't broken, it worked out so well for super stre-oh.

 

Honestly, I was mad about tar patch on principle, I don't have any /dark characters. The potential of TA getting nuked from orbit is more worrying, at this point. Did not expect that tidbit of info, but I guess the warning is better than none.

 

I'm growing rather sick of these blatant nerfs being disguised as 'bug fixes', personally.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[Psi]

I'm just going to say thank you to our HC devs for trying to maintain our game and do their best to balance it. It's not a popular job, but it's appreciated by more than a few of us.

 

 

(I also cannot fathom trying to balance the whole game around a few outlying over-performers rather than reign them in to the established balance. It just goes to show that there is no consideration for the amount of effort and work that the devs already put in, much less how much more it would take to do something like that.)