General Feedback: Issue 27, Page 1

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

rtfm

RTFM will now be replaced by RTFPN.*

 

* "Read the F-$%^g Patch Notes.

[Blackfeather]

Quick question: a fair amount of powers have been shuffled about in quite a few powersets. As such, is the team thinking of awarding a free respec once this patch goes live to allow for players to rearrange their powers to their liking if they so wish?

[CrudeVileTerror]

I will mention, @Jimmy, while I personally like to use the word "queer" in a positive way, last year members of the Pride Global Channel did have a bit of a big discussion on its use.  There are (or at least were, at the time) a few players within our community whose personal feelings related to the word were strongly negative.  These stemmed from personal experiences of harassment and abuse during their youth, and they strongly felt the word could not be "reclaimed."

 

So; while I'm not personally against it being dropped from the profanity list, I did want to bring the feelings of those other players to your attention.

I could attempt to track down the specific chat logs, if you'd like me to.  I'll scrub the names accordingly or share it privately, at your discretion.

[Jimmy]

7 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Quick question: a fair amount of powers have been shuffled about in quite a few powersets. As such, is the team thinking of awarding a free respec once this patch goes live to allow for players to rearrange their powers to their liking if they so wish?

Most likely.

6 hours ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

I will mention, @Jimmy, while I personally like to use the word "queer" in a positive way, last year members of the Pride Global Channel did have a bit of a big discussion on its use.  There are (or at least were, at the time) a few players within our community whose personal feelings related to the word were strongly negative.  These stemmed from personal experiences of harassment and abuse during their youth, and they strongly felt the word could not be "reclaimed."

 

So; while I'm not personally against it being dropped from the profanity list, I did want to bring the feelings of those other players to your attention.

I could attempt to track down the specific chat logs, if you'd like me to.  I'll scrub the names accordingly or share it privately, at your discretion.

I do understand this viewpoint, and appreciate that not everyone will agree - however, the filter is a balancing act. When a word is more commonly used by people to describe themselves than it is by someone attempting to cause offence, then the word should not be filtered anymore, and queer definitely falls into that category.

[Lockpick]

There has been a ton of work that has gone into this update and I appreciate all the effort from the HC team. 

 

That being said, I have been thinking that there is actually to much content in this update.  I know that is heresy, but give me a sec.

 

I have been doing some testing the last several days and there is no way I am going to be able to test most of the content, so my focus has been on the things that interest me (Tactical Arrow, EM on Stalkers, Story Arc, and LRT).  Others will test what interests them.  We have a small player base, so it seems likely that many changes will not get tested by many players as they will be more likely yo focus on their core interests.

 

I guess my point is that (IMO) it might have been better to do smaller and more frequent releases, so that there could be more focused testing on content. 

 

For example:

• One release on the changes to Blaster secondaries and the new secondary
• One release on TP changes
• One release on EM
• One release on story arcs

 

I'm not sure if this leads to more overhead or not because I expect functionality is managed by different team members.  Anyway, I was thinking about this stuff, so thought I would post to provide the perspective.

[zenblack]

58 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

That being said, I have been thinking that there is actually to much content in this update.  I know that is heresy, but give me a sec.

I agree completely. It doesn't help that parts of the testing are huge system stuff like the adjusting of the use of enterbase from passcode, the entire Teleport pool, the entire Blaster secondary, 2 entire sets. I would hope that this would encourage the vast amount of players not only that they work is being put in but also give some incentive to help test.

 

Thanks HC devs!

[CrudeVileTerror]

Jimmy (I think) mentioned a couple months back that Page 6 kind of ran away from the team, getting bigger and bigger, and they already cut back everything they felt "just didn't fit."

Seems the thing just kept getting bigger anyway, and that's how we ended up with Issue 27, Page 1.

I get the impression that the Team doesn't plan for another "big 'un" like this again any time soon.

[Lines]

My best guess around that issue is that various events over the last year have meant that the devs have been unable to consolidate their changes into one place - I imagine doing so takes a long sustained effort from everyone.

 

But they were still able to develop things individually, which inflated the consolidation problem. It sounded to me like a few months ago they hit the breaks on what they were doing in their own sandbox builds in order to get serious about getting it together.

 

In a way, it's no bad thing that this one is so big. The dev team can trial how much & often releasing content works for them. This end of the spectrum seems to be above a comfortable capacity.

 

/speculation

[Seed22]

13 hours ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

Jimmy (I think) mentioned a couple months back that Page 6 kind of ran away from the team, getting bigger and bigger, and they already cut back everything they felt "just didn't fit."

Seems the thing just kept getting bigger anyway, and that's how we ended up with Issue 27, Page 1.

I get the impression that the Team doesn't plan for another "big 'un" like this again any time soon.

I think what they’ll do is release in pages, this will be the first release, then maybe pg 2 will have X and will be released later, pg. 3 and so on...

[Jimmy]

Some off topic posts have been hidden.

 

This thread is to discuss changes not covered by any of the focused feedback threads. Feedback for those changes belong in those threads.

[Jimmy]

Build 2 - October 31st, 2020

 

Other Changes

• Reduced invite blocking time after quitting a team or league to 5 seconds
• Restored the classic "pshewwwww" sound when entering the game
• Halloween salvage vendors (Annah in Croatoa, Granny Beldam in Nerva Archipelago, Acantha in Imperial City) now have icons on the minimap
• The basic version of Penelope Yin will no longer summon her gigantic pet outside of mission maps
  • This will prevent her being difficult to talk to in Independence Port
• Normalized LODInfo hashtable key names
  • This may address or at least rule out some possible causes of the crash upon changing graphics settings that some people are getting

Profanity Filter

• Several outdated / reclaimed terms have been removed from the profanity filter
• Several slurs have been added to the profanity filter
• The profanity and copyright filter is now checked during character creation (this is the same behaviour as live - it just wasn't activated)

New Command: /interact

• Allows you to interact with objects in front of you as if they had been clicked
• This includes contacts, doors, ouroboros portals, mission objectives, etc

Command: /powexec_location

• Several improvements have been made to /powexec_location to make it more reliable when used with teleportation powers
  • Directional and terrain-following mode are more robust and less likely to stop short of the full distance
  • Target mode no longer requires line of sight to the target, so long as the target is in a location that is a valid teleport destination
  • Target mode no longer tries to occupy the same space as the target - instead it selects a location as close as possible to the target without being pushed away

Command: /window_scale

• The /window_scale command takes the window "contactdialog" to independently resize the window where contact give you mission descriptions and such
• Usage: /windowscale contactdialog 2 to make it twice as big (accepts anything from 0.65 to 2)

Popmenus

• The "LockedOption" structure in popmenus now has three extra fields:
  • Icon - adds a small image to the left side of the text
  • PowerOwned - unlocks the entry if this power is owned, regardless of state
  • PowerReady - unlocks the entry if this power is owned, enabled, and recharged

Mission: The Strongest Bond

This is the fourth and final mission given by the contact Ward, in the Night Ward, notorious for unrecoverable team wipe situations due to the location of the in-mission hospital

• Gurneys moved to roof of mansion in order to buy you some time
• An Acolyte of Repulsion wards the roof with a Dispersion Bubble and a Force Bubble, but their power is so strenuous and difficult to maintain that they are incapable of doing anything else
• The Acolytes of Soothing, fragile but helpful, stand ready to assist with sweet nothings of periodic minor healing, but their devotion to your wellbeing renders them incapable of anything else
• In the spirit of the original encounter, enemies are designed to chase you - this has not changed, we have simply provided the means for you to tip the scales in your favour

 

Bug Fixes (Report Bugs Here)

• You should no longer see erroneous messages about adding slots to certain temporary powers while levelling up
• The double Duray fight in the Sutter Task Force should no longer fail to complete properly
• Fixed an issue on the Portal Corp tech lab variant map in which certain objective placements would cause them to be almost entirely buried in geometry
  • You won't need to dig around for buried glowies anymore, but you are still on a Dr. Q...
• Minor geometry fixes to Siren's Call, Talos Island, Port Oaks and Atlas Park
• Fixed an issue that caused Ouroboros portals to occasionally be targetable when summoned by a villain
• Fixed an issue that caused Villains and Rogues to be able to summon Ouroboros portals in Ouroboros
• Fixed an issue that caused the base portals in Recluse's Victory to count towards the Duty Monitor (supergroup base) day job, and block the Predator (PvP zone) day job

• Fixed the mission reward for levels 10 to 14 missing Pool B invention recipes

• Tutorial missions in Outbreak and Breakout can no longer be abandoned

• Fixed an issue that caused the glass on police drone sirens to not render correctly

Powers & Enhancements Bug Fixes

• Procs that inflict damage should no longer auto-hit even if slotted in powers that auto-hit foes. This applies to:
  • Enhancements
  • Incarnate: Hybrid
  • Note: this already applied to Incarnate Interface procs, nothing changes there
• Fixed recipe name for Encouraged Accuracy: To Hit Buff
• Dual Pistols:
  • AoE powers no longer grant Defiance for every target hit
  • Single target powers no longer grant double Defiance
  • Hail of Bullets (Blaster): Fixed an issue where the blaster version of this power would not trigger the base lethal damage in PvE
• Savage Melee (Scrapper & Stalker):  Fixed numerous errors with critical hits
  • Many powers had incorrect crit values or would not crit in PvE, PvP or both
• Sentinel > Vulnerability: Will no longer spam float messages when triggered
• Dark Miasma > Tar Patch: Was recently flagged to ignore resistance - this was not intended and has been fixed
• Enhancements > Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control:
  • All enhancements in this set should now require level 17 to be slotted, instead of half the set being available at level 7
  • The set is documented to be 20-50 level range

• Enhancements > Performance Shifter:

  • All enhancements in this set should now require level 17 to be slotted, instead of half the set being available at level 7

  • The set is documented to be 20-50 level range

• Incarnate > Destiny > Clarion: Fixed an issue that caused Clarion's buff to increase the strength of other +special buffs

• Epic > Mastermind | Blaster > Oppressive Gloom: Self damage will no longer variate based on enemy level

• Temporary Powers > Ethereal Shift: This power no longer ignores NoPhase

• Dark Miasma | Dark Affinity > Twilight Grasp: Fixed a bug where tintable versions of this power would not play the healing sound or FX

[Keen]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Popmenus

• The "LockedOption" structure in popmenus now has three extra fields:
  • Icon - adds a small image to the left side of the text
  • PowerOwned - unlocks the entry if this power is owned, regardless of state
  • PowerReady - unlocks the entry if this power is owned, enabled, and recharged

This is great, thanks!

[Onlyasandwich]

@Jimmy

 

I'm dubious about the damage proc accuracy "bug fix." Did damage procs previously have an accuracy check that was later removed inadvertently? If not, what led to the determination that this behavior is a bug?

 

It is not intuitive to me that an accuracy check should be required. The proc is a part of the power, and already has a percentage chance of triggering. 

 

This will have a fairly measurable impact on proc damage, especially in slotted powers heavily leveraging the mechanic. This also nerfs hybrid doublehit in comparison to core. Is there a balance reason behind this? This seems beyond the scope of a "fix."

 

I know @Bopper has done a lot of proc testing. I may have misunderstood the notes or how it already works in game. Is anyone able to confirm?

Edited November 1, 2020 by Onlyasandwich

[aethereal]

I remember @Bopper speculating, with seemingly decent evidence, that stalker hemorrhage might be badly coded, and that some of its larger damage might be a mistake.  Does the fixing of scrap/stalk savage melee powers nerf any power?

[Bopper]

20 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I remember @Bopper speculating, with seemingly decent evidence, that stalker hemorrhage might be badly coded, and that some of its larger damage might be a mistake.  Does the fixing of scrap/stalk savage melee powers nerf any power?

I haven't looked at all the changes, but I know Stalker Hemo got fixed and it works the same way as Scrapper Hemo. They both crit with 2.6 scale up front damage (no more crit DoTs)

 

Also, Scrapper Shred now does Crits. So that bug got fixed too.

[Darkneblade]

I haven't look into all sets but since you are looking into blaster secondaries, can you also look at devices  Web grenade? and Toxic Web Grenade from weapon mastery. They both do 10 fly protection. I think they should do 1.60 same as rest of immobilize powers.

[Hew]

34 minutes ago, Darkneblade said:

I haven't look into all sets but since you are looking into blaster secondaries, can you also look at devices  Web grenade? and Toxic Web Grenade from weapon mastery. They both do 10 fly protection. I think they should do 1.60 same as rest of immobilize powers.

One is in an epic, and the other is part of a set thats, well, kinda beat. I think if devices was, you know, less beat, I could see the 1.6. But given these two things, I can see why they are above that value.

[Bopper]

14 hours ago, Onlyasandwich said:

@Jimmy

 

I'm dubious about the damage proc accuracy "bug fix." Did damage procs previously have an accuracy check that was later removed inadvertently? If not, what led to the determination that this behavior is a bug?

 

It is not intuitive to me that an accuracy check should be required. The proc is a part of the power, and already has a percentage chance of triggering. 

 

This will have a fairly measurable impact on proc damage, especially in slotted powers heavily leveraging the mechanic. This also nerfs hybrid doublehit in comparison to core. Is there a balance reason behind this? This seems beyond the scope of a "fix."

 

I know @Bopper has done a lot of proc testing. I may have misunderstood the notes or how it already works in game. Is anyone able to confirm?

The reason for the proc change was due to mechanics with auto-hit powers and procs. This mechanic is why Taunt auras were not allowed to slot Taunt enhancement sets, as enemies who could otherwise have 9999% defense would still be hit reliably by a proc. 

 

The reason why it was updated actually had to do with changes made originally in this issue. Total Focus and Titan Weapons now grant their special mechanics (Energy Focus and Momentum) automatically. In early versions of those powers, it was meched by having the powers be auto-hit to grant the special mechanic, then have the power redirected to the actual attack so a hit-check can be done. This functionality revealed a major bug as you could miss with the attack, yet still hit the target with your procs. That was bad.

 

So the auto-hit made it necessary for procs to carry their own hit rolls as a workaround for the auto-hit mechanics. I tested this, however I am blanking on the exact results of the test, but long story short it did what is was supposed to do, which made average proc performance in auto-hit powers have the same statistical performance as powers without auto-hit. I can tell you that your regular powers will see ZERO change to their proc performance as I tested it to exhaustion. This change only impacted the new Total Focus and Titan Weapons, and again, I tested that to exhaustion too and the average performance matched what was expected.

 

Now, here is a big (BIG!) however. The auto-hit mechanic for those powers is no longer used as nee capabilities were developed that did not require redirects to non-auto-hit powers (Activation Effect Groups). With this new capability, some big questions need to be asked:

1) Do we still need the hit-check functionality in procs? 

That depends on what we want to do with Taunt Auras. It's possible we could remove Taunt enhancements sets from Taunt auras and go back to how we are playing now. The devs would have to chime in to tell us what they think, because I dont really know.

2) Does the same auto-hit mechanic problem still exist with the incorporation of the new Activation Effect Group (the new capability added to allow auto-hit effects in powers that otherwise use hit-checks). This hasn't been tested...at least not much. So it has yet to be seen if old procs would only trigger from the hit-roll effects and bypass the Activation Effect Group's auto-hit nature. 

 

Anyways, I need coffee, I hope that helps...if not, blame the lack of coffee.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Bopper

[Onlyasandwich]

Thank you for the clarification, @Bopper!

 

I figured I might have misunderstood the implications, as otherwise there would likely be more discussion around this.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Onlyasandwich

[Bopper]

20 minutes ago, Onlyasandwich said:

Thank you for the clarification, @Bopper!

 

I figured I might have misunderstood the implications, as otherwise there would likely be more discussion around this.

Your thoughts were my initial fears. But testing showed everything worked as intended.

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, Bopper said:

This mechanic is why Taunt auras were not allowed to slot Taunt enhancement sets, as enemies who could otherwise have 9999% defense would still be hit reliably by a proc.

According to Castle the reason that he wouldn't allow taunt sets to be slotted into taunt auras was that the damage procs would hit the tank instead of the enemies. He also claimed that it would take a lot of work to fix and that he'd get to it when he had the chance.

 

I guess he never got the chance.

[Bopper]

3 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

According to Castle the reason that he wouldn't allow taunt sets to be slotted into taunt auras was that the damage procs would hit the tank instead of the enemies. He also claimed that it would take a lot of work to fix and that he'd get to it when he had the chance.

 

I guess he never got the chance.

We tested it. No self damage. I think that got changed around the time Performance Shifter stopped giving your enemies endurance. For what its worth, we also couldn't get the stun proc to stun us either.

[PeregrineFalcon]

13 minutes ago, Bopper said:

We tested it. No self damage. I think that got changed around the time Performance Shifter stopped giving your enemies endurance. For what its worth, we also couldn't get the stun proc to stun us either.

Now that you mention it I do seem to vaguely remember that. I wonder why they didn't also fix allowing taunt auras to slot taunt sets then. Weird.

[aethereal]

I am pretty unconvinced that anything would be too horrible if taunt auras allowed procs to auto-hit enemies.  Back before PPM, when procs in auras were good?  Maybe an issue.  Now?  Checks once every ten seconds with a low proc rate?  One available damage proc?  Who cares?

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Bopper said:

We tested it. No self damage. I think that got changed around the time Performance Shifter stopped giving your enemies endurance. For what its worth, we also couldn't get the stun proc to stun us either.

My testing brought me to the sad realization that the Triumphant Insult Proc isn’t even worth giving away.