Focused Feedback: Enhancements

[thunderforce]

59 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Seriously, try this: Make a character on live. Play through the Praetorian missions from, say, 1-20. Then remake the character on the beta, and do the same there. The beta version, with SO enhancements, will still be tough (simply because you have so few powers and slots to enhance them with), but it won't feel like you're slamming your head against a brick wall anymore. Especially with a squishy AT. This is a very, very good change.

So, I don't think this is a bad change - the old TO->DO->SO progression never really worked all that well and became almost completely moot - but I've brought up more than one Praetorian since the comeback (including an en/en blaster) and never had any head-slamming sensation.

[kenlon]

Just now, thunderforce said:

but I've brought up more than one Praetorian since the comeback (including an en/en blaster) and never had any head-slamming sensation.

Then you are a far more patient man than I. 😄

[thunderforce]

7 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Then you are a far more patient man than I. 😄

Please don't assume all players are men.

 

Victory is only sweet because defeat was a possibility. If you're not getting some debt, you're not level ten yet doing it wrong.

[arthurh35353]

So TOs are essentially gone (unless you have access to a supergroup base) but DOs and SOs are 'standard'. Is the ramping down base accuracy of 90% to 75% going to be removed now or later? Or leave that so that people will more likely slot SO damage first until you get a couple of slots in your attack?

[thunderforce]

1 hour ago, arthurh35353 said:

So TOs are essentially gone (unless you have access to a supergroup base) but DOs and SOs are 'standard'. Is the ramping down base accuracy of 90% to 75% going to be removed now or later? Or leave that so that people will more likely slot SO damage first until you get a couple of slots in your attack?

TOs will still drop, so they won't be completely gone (indeed, I was worried they'd be a bit of a newb trap, but to be honest I think the way they're not in the shops will help anyone even moderately curious to figure it out).

 

Removing the "beginner's luck" accuracy would make for a horrible new player experience.

[arthurh35353]

19 minutes ago, thunderforce said:

TOs will still drop, so they won't be completely gone (indeed, I was worried they'd be a bit of a newb trap, but to be honest I think the way they're not in the shops will help anyone even moderately curious to figure it out).

 

Removing the "beginner's luck" accuracy would make for a horrible new player experience.

I thought the patch notes said they were removed from drops and normal vendors, someone mentioned them still being the in SG base vendors. That may be a bug that they still drop then.

[Lines]

Quote

• TOs have been removed from regular vendors but can still be purchased from the Supergroup Base enhancements vendor if you're into that kind of thing

• Story Arc rewards that used to drop TOs and DOs will now always drop a SO of your origin

  • TOs and DOs will still drop from other sources as vendor trash

Only from vendors to declutter them. They're still very much around.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Lines

[csr]

9 hours ago, Lines said:

Only from vendors to declutter them. They're still very much around.

While the Patch Notes imply that TOs still drop, I've not received one TO on three new start test toons.  One played to 10 at 2x XP, one to 8 at normal XP and this third I just ran for this response to 5 at 2x XP.  The last had 10 DOs and no TOs drop.  I didn't count the number of DOs on the 1st two.

[Lines]

15 minutes ago, csr said:

While the Patch Notes imply that TOs still drop, I've not received one TO on three new start test toons.  One played to 10 at 2x XP, one to 8 at normal XP and this third I just ran for this response to 5 at 2x XP.  The last had 10 DOs and no TOs drop.  I didn't count the number of DOs on the 1st two.

Interesting. I'll give this a shot later as well.

[kenlon]

21 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

Is the ramping down base accuracy of 90% to 75% going to be removed now or later? Or leave that so that people will more likely slot SO damage first until you get a couple of slots in your attack?

I would be very surprised if they did that - even though you can now slot Acc SOs, having the extra early accuracy compensates for the lack of slots that you have to spend on powers. I can't really see any good reason to remove it.

[arthurh35353]

4 minutes ago, kenlon said:

I would be very surprised if they did that - even though you can now slot Acc SOs, having the extra early accuracy compensates for the lack of slots that you have to spend on powers. I can't really see any good reason to remove it.

I didn't either. Really, the problem I'm seeing is the cost of DOs/SOs versus the TOs that you can't buy. And leaving TOs as vendor trash to sell is actually hurting you, as at least with DOs as vendor trash, they give you more influence to spend towards your DOs and SOs.

[csr]

On 10/27/2020 at 11:57 AM, arthurh35353 said:

I didn't either. Really, the problem I'm seeing is the cost of DOs/SOs versus the TOs that you can't buy. And leaving TOs as vendor trash to sell is actually hurting you, as at least with DOs as vendor trash, they give you more influence to spend towards your DOs and SOs.

My testing at low levels makes it clear to me that INF can be an issue with the new system at low levels.  Mind you, you don't HAVE to use the system, so it's a net win for everybody regardless.  With some lucky salvage drops you could probably fund yourself just using the AH, but it would be a hit-or-miss thing.

 

With a level 8 toon running at normal XP I earned enough INF to buy a level 5 SO and two level 10s.  I had a level 4 and a level 5 SO as rewards.  I couldn't afford to upgrade the 4 from red status.  I did spend 10k on Reveal, which would have allowed me to buy another level 5 SO.  And I used a few inspirations when my tray was full.  Other than those insps and a Rare salvage, I sold everything that dropped (including the vast majority of my insps, especially those from Inner Inspiration) to the vendors.  I ran arcs from St. John Smythe, Habashy, Costel, Thierry and Twinshot (I'm at Help Defend Shining Star's Base in that one, so not done yet).  I earned 9 RM and got that Rare salvage.

 

So if I used the AH I'd have about 400k more INF from the salvage (at current market price for that one).  If I used both the Merit Vendor and AH I'd have about 2.2M INF total.  My RM-to-INF Conversion suggestion would provide 900k INF from the RMs without using the AH.  Which would get me to level 21 (from level 8 ) at 2x XP based upon my 1st test (it cost me about 600k to buy what I needed and then upgrade to level 17 SOs at level 14).  The one Rare salvage sold in the AH would be close to doing that too.  And I'd be certain to get enough drops to fund the rest.  A proviso on that is that you might not have the SOs at the lowest levels, as you'd need to hold off until you got that first Rare salvage drop.  So, based on my one complete and two incomplete tests, I'd say you need to have some luck and use the AH, or use both the MV and AH to fund the new SO system.  With my suggestion it would become an either-or on the AH and MV (and there'd be no luck involved, just waiting to get your first RM from an arc or - as I do it - the AP explores), without it you need to at least use the AH.  As expected, just trying to go off of drops and vendors isn't going to work.

Edited October 28, 2020 by csr
Removed accidental emoji; clarity

[Aberrant]

It would be helpful if either the enhancement screen or upgrade popup window showed your current Inf. When you click upgrade and don't have enough Inf, you then have to go to a vendor/open the ID screen/open the Combat Attributes window to find out how much more you need. Also relevant so you don't accidentally spend everything you have. This is I think currently the only screen in the game where you can spend Inf without knowing how much you have, and the only way to spend Inf while inside a mission, other than trading with another player.

Edited October 27, 2020 by Aberrant

[arthurh35353]

Really, the upgrade option seems to be built to be a sink for people that have had 10s of million INF dropped on their heads as new characters. 😕

[Troo]

17 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

Really, the upgrade option seems to be built to be a sink for people that have had 10s of million INF dropped on their heads as new characters. 😕

Yep, that is pretty much troo.

 

It does provide a quick way to accomplish what can be a mundane task if one so chooses. (it is not mundane for all)

 

Request: A comma in the popup window costs might be nice.

 

Request: Formatting of the message could have been:

Do you want to spend

Cost

to upgrade __ enhancements to level __ ?

 

Example:

Do you want to spend

10,000,000

to upgrade 50 enhancements to level 45 ?

Edited October 27, 2020 by Troo

[csr]

Would it be at all possible to make the Upgrade button sell the DOs/SOs you have slotted at vendor costs to reduce the net cost of upgrading?

[Faultline]

19 hours ago, csr said:

While the Patch Notes imply that TOs still drop, I've not received one TO on three new start test toons.  One played to 10 at 2x XP, one to 8 at normal XP and this third I just ran for this response to 5 at 2x XP.  The last had 10 DOs and no TOs drop.  I didn't count the number of DOs on the 1st two.

TO drops are removed from everywhere I found them. The patch notes wording is mainly CYA in case I missed something. They are very much not intended to be around anymore, but if there's some obscure reward table somewhere that still drops one once in a blue moon and I can't find it, consider it vendor trash.

[Faultline]

On 10/26/2020 at 6:10 PM, arthurh35353 said:

So TOs are essentially gone (unless you have access to a supergroup base) but DOs and SOs are 'standard'. Is the ramping down base accuracy of 90% to 75% going to be removed now or later? Or leave that so that people will more likely slot SO damage first until you get a couple of slots in your attack?

No plans to remove that buff from native low level characters, they don't have enough slots to compensate for the loss. I don't remember if that applies to high level characters that exemplared down, that may be looked at someday but it's not in our radar.

[ShardWarrior]

Just want to say the new Enhancement Upgrade button is pure genius and a wonderful, wonderful QoL change that was sorely needed.  Thank you!

Edited October 31, 2020 by ShardWarrior

[gourdhead]

I'm running through the early levels and tracking my INF usage.  Swapping reward merits for converters/inf (assumed price 65k each), and selling rare salvage for an assumed 400k (which is pretty standard on they AH last I checked), I have a full compliment of SO's, all green using the auto upgrade button, and almost 3M influence to spare.  I stopped selling common/uncommon salvage and recipes at L15, and I'll use them to craft IOs when I hit L22.  So far, its been a breeze. 

 

My leveling process has been 1) tech and science origin arcs 2) Matthew Habashy 3) Shauna Stockwell 4)Eagle Eye 5)Midnight Squad.  3 rare salvage drops and 28 reward merits.  If I was on live and TFs were running, I'd jump on Posi 1/2 for the merits, but instead I'm heading to Faultline. 

Edited October 31, 2020 by gourdhead

[Sovera]

On 10/25/2020 at 1:24 PM, arthurh35353 said:

You absolutely don't earn enough inf. I couldn't even afford more than 2 DOs at level 2. So unless you get lucky on the RNG on your first bit of salvage, you are basically SoL on actually being able to buy your enhancements with this upgrade. Or waste precious merits on INF instead.

 

Good job making sure you don't have those later to buy your IO sets you want. 😕

 

On 10/27/2020 at 9:06 PM, arthurh35353 said:

Really, the upgrade option seems to be built to be a sink for people that have had 10s of million INF dropped on their heads as new characters. 😕

There is plenty of money to be made. I documented an experiment in the build thread of my signature where I leveled without any money as an extreme example (having absolutely no money is like being the very first time logging into CoH. Other than one event of logging into CoH for the very first time any character leveled gets -some- cash and merits in). Check my signature's other link, the guide, and feel free to spread it for other newbies you find.

 

If you are interested enough to log into the forums and look at things then you are at a level where there is no reason to have made a character and have earned 3-4 mill in the first hour of playing the game. It just keeps on adding after that first hour so the sums on SOs are paltry seen from that angle. In my experiment I ended the first day of playing a character at level 44 and with, I believe, 27 mill in money with several IOs worth 10+ mill bought and slotted. And it started with zero cash. There was no chicanery involved or staring at the AH and crafting.

 

This is not a brag, it's me telling you that it is (easily) doable and repeatable for every character.

 

IMO there is also nothing wrong or objectionable about a new player having no clue and no money to buy what they need. This may sound callous, but it's a game. We already have a ton of cheats incorporated. We don't need to have every new player logging in like in an asian P2W MMO to find their mailbox overflowing with pets, XP scrolls, a free mount and a full set of armor every ten levels. Not knowing things is part of the experience. Anyone who cares enough will raise their voice and ask how to afford those SOs (just like you did, welcome to the game!) and this community is super helpful and someone always will answer. Just like you were a couple of times in this thread though instead of asking a bit further on what you ought to do you were all -_- about it.

 

 

But this change while great for low levels is also a damned duck trap. People will get fixated on the comfortable and level without IOs. While I personally do not bother with slotting TOs and DOs I do, sometimes, bother slotting level 10 IOs. They don't do much (10%) but on important powers why not? An example of this was Seeds of Confusion. We get it at level eight, it's important, so I six slotted it as soon as I could with six level 10 recharge IOs. That gave it a nice 60% recharge boost.

 

The trap is that SOs -still- go bad after a few levels, and those levels fly by with double XP on, while IOs do not go bad and are a one time purchase much cheaper than upgrading SOs all the way to 50. The large increase in power from low level SOs makes them better than generic low level IOs, but once at 22 stop using SOs and stop hurting your wallet.

[Wavicle]

There are currently no plans to make those enhancements available to Villains or Praetorians, as the store unlock is a reward for the Faultline arcs

 

But I DID get them as a Villain. I ran a level 1 Stalker through the Breakout tutorial and received Yin Damage Enhancements at multiple points during the tutorial, as seen below:

 

[Jimmy]

Just now, Wavicle said:

There are currently no plans to make those enhancements available to Villains or Praetorians, as the store unlock is a reward for the Faultline arcs

 

But I DID get them as a Villain. I ran a level 1 Stalker through the Breakout tutorial and received Yin Damage Enhancements at multiple points during the tutorial, as seen below:

 

On 10/24/2020 at 1:46 PM, Jimmy said:

• The tutorial zones now reward the player with Talisman of the Initiate (Damage) SOs instead of Damage TOs

🙂

[Wavicle]

missed that one I guess lol

 

Why Damage though? Why not make them Accuracy, which EVERYONE can benefit from?

 

Also, I imagine there are going to be people playing Tech, Science, etc toons who will be irritated at being given Magic enhancements. Would probably be better if they were Origin appropriate SOs.

[Lines]

27 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Also, I imagine there are going to be people playing Tech, Science, etc toons who will be irritated at being given Magic enhancements. Would probably be better if they were Origin appropriate SOs.

The yin talisman can be slotted by any origin. Unless you mean thematically.

 

Quote

Why Damage though? Why not make them Accuracy, which EVERYONE can benefit from?

Beginner's Luck already gives lowbie characters a +15% ToHit buff to tide them over for accuracy.

 

I think most toons could do with damage at level 1. I can't think of any who wouldn't benefit from that.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Lines