[Beta] Patch Notes for April 4th, 2020

[Doc_Scorpion]

18 hours ago, Faultline said:

The radio/newspaper is another way to gain contacts that is not advertised very well, maybe those should be granted automatically without having to visit a broker/detective.

That could work...  If you did that, night be a good idea to move the mini-tutorial the contact gives to the radio/newspaper popup window.  (Right above "turn off the radio".)  "Radio user's manual"? 

Shouldn't bother the experienced folks, will be available to new players if they read the whole window.
 

[Jacke]

When I first saw this proposal, I thought it would be best to restrict enhancement upgrading to the enhancement vendors and shops.  The commands and interface features we have that allow us to skip certain hubs (/ah, /enterbasefrompasscode, trainers who also allow costume editing, etc.) are great timesavers.  But they've turned more of the game into parts we don't use anymore, in a game where there's already too much of a false front.  There's all these wonderful shop fronts all over Paragon and the Rogue Isle.  And most of them we try to enter say we can't.

 

Anyhoo, I really do think TOs need to go.  More unsure about effectively dropping DOs as well.  However, there still seems to be problems with the DO drops to a character being unuseable, due to the character not having either of the two origins.  I can't recall that ever happening with SOs.

 

On 4/6/2020 at 5:23 PM, gameboy1234 said:

In addition, I'd replace everything out side of Acc, EndRdx, Rrchg, and Range with "Power."  So all damage, heal, hold, sleep, slow, etc.  all those Enh that you get that you never can use because you don't have the right power, those all go away, and you just get Power Enh now.  Power goes in any power, and enhances the ability of that power.  So in a Damage power they enhance Damage, in a Hold they enhance hold time, in a Heal it enhances health gained, etc.  A bit of work would have to be done for power that have multiple effects, but I think it's doable to work that out.  This would eliminate a lot (I think all) of the useless drops and make the game more fun and less about managing your inventory too.

 

Interesting idea, "Power".  A way to get out of all those enhancements being mostly unusable for most characters.

 

But the problem is that some powers have a lot of enhanceable aspects.  Take for instance Dark Miasma's Dark Servant.  Effectively a Pet Controller, outside of Accuracy, Endurance Reduction, Recharge Reduction, and Range, its powers have:

• Damage
• Heal
• ToHit Debuff
• Immobilize
• Hold

Making an enhancement that buffs all those would be rather overpowered.  It would be like an uber Hamidon Enhancement.  Currently the HOs that buff the most aspects are Endoplasm Exposures (Accuracy & all Mez) and Peroxisome Exposure (Damage and all Mez).  And I think it would have to be coded like those 2 HOs, with a buff for all the aspects explicitly included (thus an entry for Damage, Heal, all the Mez, Slow, ToHit Buff, Defense, Resist Damage, ToHit Debuff, Defense Debuff, I think that's it).  Assuming there's no technical limit to those, it's still a rather overpowered enhancement for some powers.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Jacke

[Jacke]

On 4/7/2020 at 11:55 PM, Faultline said:

An upgrade option to +5 all crafted IOs is not happening alongside this update for many reasons; one that might not be obvious is that proc effects are not improved by boosts, so a mass-upgrade button would waste boosters for no benefit.

 

I think one change that needs to be considered is that proc and global IOs should all have another enhancement aspect.  Some do, for example the Luck of the Gambler global recharge reduction, which also has a Defense aspect.  Some IO sets badly need this to supplement some aspects they're poor in, for example Positron's Blast is somewhat poor in Accuracy (even with its 4-slot set bonus).

[Replacement]

I think it was mentioned that some of the Upgrade costs or behavior aren't quite right, but I wanted to give some data in case it helps.

 

Testing Data: 

+tier enhancements are charging full price to upgrade. 

• Level 13 character
• Slotted with a level 15 Damage Enhancement
• Combined another 15 with it to gain a 15+ enhancement
• Using Upgrade button attempts to convert this to a level 16 enhancement (despite there being no reason to do so)
• Still charges me a full price of 19k influence to do so

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Replacement

[gameboy1234]

12 hours ago, Jacke said:

But the problem is that some powers have a lot of enhanceable aspects.

Right, I mentioned that in my post. I just didn't speculate on any solutions.  Basically for powers with multiple effects we'd have to come up with something, but I think the details could be worked out later.  It's a solvable problem.  The big deal is getting consensus that something like this would be a good thing, getting player buy-in, and getting the engineering time to actually do it.

 

[thunderforce]

18 hours ago, Jacke said:

Anyhoo, I really do think TOs need to go.  More unsure about effectively dropping DOs as well.  However, there still seems to be problems with the DO drops to a character being unuseable, due to the character not having either of the two origins.  I can't recall that ever happening with SOs.

It happens all the time with ordinary SO drops. The TF/trial completion drops are guaranteed to match your origin, but the rest are random. You maybe haven't noticed because by the time SOs start dropping from normal mob defeats, they're also vendor trash.

[Jacke]

15 hours ago, thunderforce said:

It happens all the time with ordinary SO drops. The TF/trial completion drops are guaranteed to match your origin, but the rest are random. You maybe haven't noticed because by the time SOs start dropping from normal mob defeats, they're also vendor trash.

Of course, after saying my SO drops match my characters' origins, I follow them over the next day or so and see they don't.  LOL

[CabooseCC]

On 4/7/2020 at 12:03 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

Not aimed at you Caboose, just a general question that springs from the tenor of these particular discussions...

Why the near religious fervor to "convert" people to the IO system?  (Especially since at lower levels, IO's are markedly inferior in quality to DO's and SO's?)  Why the constant subtext of "if you aren't using IO's, you're doing it wrong?"

Yikes.  I don't mean to propagate that sort of mentality.  I know the comment wasnt specifically aimed at me, but I was speaking to how a lot of people (myself included) found the IO system complex and intimidating at first.  It would be nice to see them as rare full enhancement drops at a slightly lower chance than recipes to increase familiarity with the system.  I think its just fine to ignore IOs, myself.  As a person who does now like using them, I dont like having to farm for hours on end to get the money to buy/make them at the exorbitant prices they go for on the AH.  I just think that adding IOs of any tier as enemy drops or mission rewards would go a long way to keep people from congregating in the AE all the time.

[Sovera]

Turning DOs into the equivalent of white gear in another game is kinda ish dunno... I mean. I get the idea. Only the most abject newbling would equip white gear from drops when they can get green gear with bonuses tailored to their need (in another game this would be +stats for their given class, such as agility for a hunter).

 

But in the end white gear is barely half a step above grey drops (whose sole purpose is filling the inventory so a player eventually has to stop and go sell).

 

If I have a vote on the matter I would simply cut the extra step. There is room for DOs in the convoluted half steps other games like such as the white gear I mention that is maybe useful for the first ten levels and then just turns into vendor fodder.

 

This is an old system. There is no particular reason to follow tradition just for the sake of it. Make drops SOs. Someone NEW to the game is leveling and will notice they got something that they could use, great, take it, slot it. With the new option they can then upgrade it and avoid the mid TF wail I am used of about their enhances having gone red.

 

Someone who is NOT new will have no need for this. At level 5 they will go to the nearest vendor and stock up. I know I probably will until 22. One accuracy (plus the accuracy boost new characters get), three damage (this in particular) or how many it will be to reach ED, then recharge, will be a lot better than to level with empty slots.

 

Even so for someone who knows about the game they might do what I do which is slotting Kinetic Combats straight at level 17, but even so it is much nicer to level with damage and recharge (recharge in the low levels is particularly welcome since we have few attacks and large gaps waiting for them).

 

 

TL;DR Cut DOs from drops since they are meant to be vendor fodder. SOs a player can be happy at seeing and slotting (and upgrading) is a better option. The costs of upgrading will also be eased by the higher sale value of SOs.

[JCMcBoo]

Has the Upgrade button been scrapped? I was really looking forward to that feature but it doesn't appear to have made it out of the test server.

[Bopper]

4 hours ago, JCMcBoo said:

Has the Upgrade button been scrapped? I was really looking forward to that feature but it doesn't appear to have made it out of the test server.

Still being tested. Not scrapped.

[JCMcBoo]

11 hours ago, Bopper said:

Still being tested. Not scrapped.

I can be patient... I can be patient... I can be patient...

 

It's not working! 😉

[starro]

On 8/6/2020 at 3:47 PM, JCMcBoo said:

I can be patient... I can be patient... I can be patient...

 

It's not working! 😉

Awesome... just this weekend I had a good team rolling... leveled a lot and didn’t want to take the time to upgrade.  I would consider the button a great add.   I still like that one option sitting out there even if I normally might tinker with my enhancements otherwise.