[Beta] Patch Notes for April 5th, 2020

[Faultline]

This patch also includes everything from the April 4th build.

 

Enhancements

• With the addition of the Enhancement Upgrade feature, we wanted to widen the availability of low-level Single Origin enhancements
  • Low level stores will now sell DOs and SOs starting at level 5
    • TOs are now only available to purchase from the Supergroup Base vendor
  • Completing a story arc, at any level, will now reward a SO of your character's origin
  • Completing a door mission, at any level, now has a 10% chance of dropping a SO of a random origin
  • The Shop Keeper and Smuggler day jobs will now always drop SOs at the end of a door mission

Yin's Market

• With regular SOs being available at low level, Yin's Talisman enhancements have been modified to keep the store unlock relevant.
  • Yin's Talisman enhancements can now be slotted by any origin
  • Yin's Talisman enhancements have new icons and descriptions
  • Talisman of the Owl's Eye (Accuracy), Talisman of the Ogre's Might (Damage), Talisman of the Sleeping Lion (Endurance Reduction) and Talisman of the Quickening (Recharge) are available at Yin's Market at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20
    • They are sold at a 35% discount over regular SOs
  • Talisman of the Altered Offspring (Damage) is no longer available for purchase, since Talisman of the Ogre's Might is available to all origins
    • It has been renamed to Talisman of the Initiate and has replaced the damage TO drops in the Tutorial zones and City Hall starter missions

 

 

Enhanced Gamepad Support

• Added support for using the left and right triggers as modifiers with XInput
• Added several convenience aliases for usage with keybinding

Virtual Mouse Mode

• Implemented virtual mouse mode for XInput gamepads
• Holding both triggers now enters virtual mouse mode:
  • The left stick moves the mouse pointer. This is analog, with a small amount of acceleration past halfway pressed.
  • Moving the right stick up and down moves the mouse wheel.
  • Moving the right stick left and right passes through to your normal binds, allowing you to turn the camera.
  • The A/Cross button is the left mouse button.
  • The B/Circle button is the right mouse button.
  • The Y/Triangle button is the middle mouse button.
  • The d-pad will snap your mouse pointer around the screen. The X/Square button will snap your mouse pointer to the center of the screen.

 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed door missions between level 10 and 14 missing the 10% chance to drop a Pool B recipe
• Fixed an issue with missing color palettes for Spines and Thorn sets in the Power Customization screen
• Fixed the damage percentage display in the description of the Going Rogue pre-order enhancements (the enhancements available from the P2W vendor)

[Replacement]

This is quite awesome, guys.  As an interesting fallout of this change, I think a lot of folks might target Shop Keeper early on (especially those of us who regularly park characters under level 10 for a week or 2 to build up some patrol XP).

 

The QOL around SOs, paired with the Upgrade function, will really make the low levels a lot more accessible.

 

Kudos, good stuff.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Today, in 2020, I learned that you can actually go inside Yin's Market....

[Doc_Scorpion]

9 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Today, in 2020, I learned that you can actually go inside Yin's Market....

Yin's Market was, back in the OG days, the reason why people ran the Faultline arcs as early as they reasonably could.  When it could take weeks of casual play to get from 15-22, early access to even a limited range of SO's was a gift from $DIETY.

[ScarySai]

I like what I see.

 

'

 

[Wavicle]

Great update!

[Telephone]

I'd just like to note that the above patch notes don't encompass the full extent of the controller changes (the fault is mine, as I have been tracking notes in a long-running merge request and the notes there are from an earlier revision in a commit message).

 

New Slash Commands

• /extra_modifiers [mod1] [mod2] [mod3] [mod4]
  • Allows setting up to four extra modifiers. These (currently) only work when no other modifier is pressed.
  • Recommended for XInput users is /extra_modifiers LBumper RBumper
• /controller_modifiers <first> <second>
  • Allows setting two controller buttons as modifiers.
  • On non-XInput devices, when both of these are pressed together, the controller will enter virtual mouse mode.
  • The arguments are the button numbers to use (from 1-24).
  • Recommended for XInput users is /controller_modifiers 7 8 (the two triggers, since these are currently hard-coded as virtual mouse mode on XInput)
• /controller_vmouse <LMB> <RMB> [MMB] [Snap]
  • Configures virtual mouse mode buttons.
  • By default, button 1 is the LMB and button 2 is the RMB. The other two are unset.
  • Recommended for XInput users is /controller_vmouse 1 2 4 3 (which will give you the configuration from the above patch notes).

 

Virtual Mouse Mode

• The above patch notes are largely correct, except that the middle mouse button and snap button are not configured by default.
• Note that on XInput devices, the Back and Start buttons are also hard-coded to pass through (so you can configure the Start button to activate the menu and then open it in VMM).
  • There is no current way to modify VMM passthrough configuration, but this is planned.
• Note that only XInput devices can currently snap diagonally. Due to various controllers reporting inputs differently, this is difficult to fix, but we're looking into it.

 

Future Potential Enhancements

• A real GUI to configure all these things.
• Passthrough configuration for VMM.
• Properly stackable modifiers (so you can finally bind Ctrl+Alt+X to your nuke).
• Latching modifiers (so that you can set up a bind for Left Trigger, then Left Bumper, then the X button).
• The ability to independently bind LShift/RShift/LCtrl/RCtrl/LAlt/RAlt as actual modifiers if you wish.
• Analog movement and camera control when using analog sticks.
• A bindable 'interact' which will interact with the closest thing in front of you (e.g. opening a door or talking to a contact).

 

Questions for Users

• How does Virtual Mouse Mode feel?
  • Any specific issues?
  • Does the pointer move at a good speed?
  • Are the snap positions good?
• Do binds save and restore well?
  • Can you load a bind file from live without issues?
• There's currently a very unusual behavior in City of Heroes where if you bind Ctrl+X and Alt+X, then press Ctrl+Alt+X, both keybinds will fire.
  • Do you depend on this behavior?
  • We're considering removing it as it will make many of the above features much easier to implement.

 

One More Thing

• If you copy your launch line from Tequila and then launch the game from Steam, any controller can be an XInput controller. (I personally use this on my DS4).

 

[Number Six]

15 minutes ago, Telephone said:

Future Potential Enhancements

Also add: Some sort of "interact" command to talk to targeted NPCs and open doors directly in front of the player so that it can be bound to a button instead of having to use virtual mouse mode to do it.

[Apparition]

Will red side get an equivalent to Yin's Talisman enhancements, or will they remain locked to blue side?

[Caulderone]

I hate using mouse movement in this game as it requires me to hold down the right mouse button constantly.

 

Once these controller enhancements are fleshed out, any chance of having a mode similar to this for KB/Mouse where we can hold something like LControl to get mouse mode (or toggle it), but effectively be in freelook with the mouse otherwise?

 

edit:  There is a setting that does something approximately like this, but everything I have ever read on it says it is horribly unreliable.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Caulderone

[Lightyears]

3 minutes ago, Caulderone said:

I hate using mouse movement in this game as it requires me to hold down the right mouse button constantly.

 

Once these controller enhancements are fleshed out, any chance of having a mode similar to this for KB/Mouse where we can hold something like LControl to get mouse mode (or toggle it), but effectively be in freelook with the mouse otherwise?

 

edit:  There is a setting that does something approximately like this, but everything I have ever read on it says it is horribly unreliable.

As middle-mouse is only used to spin the camera around to see your character, you could rebind it or a thumb button (if you have any) to toggle auto run on/off.

[Caulderone]

I'm talking about holding right mouse button down to control turning, not run/autorun.  Having to hold any key down to do it is a pain.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Caulderone

[csr]

I ran a new toon from 1 to 11 to get an estimate of costs and effectiveness of keeping yourself in +3 SOs as much as possible.  I rolled a DM/Bio Stalker and used Prestige Powers and Enhancements as well as Double XP boosters.  I choose Science, and did OK with SO drops, though I out-leveled one EndRdx before I could get to the trainer to add a slot to put it in.

 

I did the tutorial.  It's still not worth the trouble despite the Talisman of the Initiate.  Then I did my usual street sweep/AP explore badge loop, reaching level 4 as usual and getting the Reward Merits to fuel purchases.  I typically get about 1.2-1.3M INF on live servers doing this.  I then ran two Origin contact (Smythe) missions to get to level 5.  After that I ran Twinshot-Wincott-Flux to get to 11.  I earned 33 total RM, which is 8-9M INF in earnings.  Overall my costs for keeping myself in +3 SOs at each level was (rounding to the nearest 5k)...

 

5	100k
6	155k
7	235k
8	340k
9	480k
10	660k
11	885k

 

The toon was significantly more effective than the largely unslotted build I'd have on live.  My typical attack slotting produced +38% Acc, +55% Dam, +17% Rech.

Edited April 5, 2020 by csr

[csr]

On 4/5/2020 at 10:32 AM, Faultline said:

This patch also includes everything from the April 4th build.

 

Enhancements

• With the addition of the Enhancement Upgrade feature, we wanted to widen the availability of low-level Single Origin enhancements
  • Low level stores will now sell DOs and SOs starting at level 5
    • TOs are now only available to purchase from the Supergroup Base vendor

 

What is the proper name of the  "Supergroup Base vendor"?

Edited April 7, 2020 by csr
Typo, clarity

[0th Power]

36 minutes ago, csr said:

What is the "Supergroup Base vendor"?

Npc that sells enhancements 

[Zed]

Quote

A bindable 'interact' which will interact with the closest thing in front of you (e.g. opening a door or talking to a contact).

 

So this will prevent the need to click sometimes up to 5 times on a door to open it ? Great !
(PS: make it so as well so the boats doors in Cim can be clicked even when they're opened 🤪)

[Razor Cure]

6 hours ago, Faultline said:

Yin's Market

Is this new?! Or did he previously only sell 'normal' SO's?

Also..is there gonna be a Redside version of this store too?

6 hours ago, Faultline said:

• Completing a story arc, at any level, will now reward a SO of your character's origin
• Completing a door mission, at any level, now has a 10% chance of dropping a SO of a random origin

Do 'normal' mission bosses have a chance too?

[Razor Cure]

27 minutes ago, Zed said:

(PS: make it so as well so the boats doors in Cim can be clicked even when they're opened 🤪)

GOD YES. ALl doors, especially subs and sewer doors, should still be clickable. Make the trams the same way?

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Razor Cure said:

Is this new?! Or did he previously only sell 'normal' SO's

Yin’s market has existed since the original Faultline got revamped but currently only sells each origin a single kind of SO.

[JPax]

4 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Today, in 2020, I learned that you can actually go inside Yin's Market....

I didn't even know it existed.....

[Apparition]

Maybe Lorenz Ansaldo opens up a store in Sharkhead Isle that sells goods smuggled in from Paragon City, including Yin's Talisman enhancements.  That seems like something The Family would do, especially since the later story arcs blue side seem to have them try to be at least somewhat "reputable."  To open it up, you'd have to run Lorenz Ansaldo's mission arc.

[Razor Cure]

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

Maybe Lorenz Ansaldo opens up a store in Sharkhead Isle that sells goods smuggled in from Paragon City, including Yin's Talisman enhancements.  That seems like something The Family would do, especially since the later story arcs blue side seem to have them try to be at least somewhat "reputable."  To open it up, you'd have to run Lorenz Ansaldo's mission arc.

Wow, perfect idea! Makes sense with needing his badge mission for an accolade later on too.

[csr]

2 hours ago, 0th Power said:

Npc that sells enhancements 

I wanted the actual names to look one up in the base editor so I could test all of those that are supposed to sell TOs.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, csr said:

I wanted the actual names to look one up in the base editor so I could test all of those that are supposed to sell TOs.

Vanguard Quartermaster, Midnighter Quartermaster

Edited April 6, 2020 by Wavicle

[csr]

13 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Vanguard Quartermaster, Midnighter Quartermaster

And the Arachnos QM too.  All sell TOs.  Any others hiding in the weeds of the long list of NPCs?  (The Nurse, another vendor, doesn't sell enhancements.)

Edited April 6, 2020 by csr