So Dark Melee......

[Vald]

Was trying out touch of fear, love the damage it deals but the notes say its only supposed to fear 1 target but I have groups of them run away like they are in a rain of fire which sucks for a melee toon especially since it doesnt slow them.

[Bopper]

11 hours ago, Boudicia.Dark said:

Why the hell did you leave that (comically....stupidly) gigantic cone and yet only let it hit 5 targets. That just....I mean....wtf.

It is standard for cones to only hit 5, even the large Titan Weapons sized cones. The only reason Shadow Maul was given a 10 tgt cap was as a temporary solution until another AoE could be added to dark melee. That came in the form of Touch of Fear. Despite anyone's opinion of Touch of Fear, Shadow Maul's band-aid of being a 10 tgt cap cone was coming to an end.

[Boudicia.Dark]

10 hours ago, Vald said:

Was trying out touch of fear, love the damage it deals but the notes say its only supposed to fear 1 target but I have groups of them run away like they are in a rain of fire which sucks for a melee toon especially since it doesnt slow them.

Yes and that is the reason why Touch of Fear always has and always will suck. Pretending like ToF is a super keen awesome consolation prize is just garbage (like Touch of Fear itself, garbage). This is just pointless. Thanks for fucking up my bread and butter, you can keep your caffeine free diet coke.

[Bopper]

11 hours ago, Vald said:

Was trying out touch of fear, love the damage it deals but the notes say its only supposed to fear 1 target but I have groups of them run away like they are in a rain of fire which sucks for a melee toon especially since it doesnt slow them.

Thats a common occurrence with DoTs in the game

[Shayendrel]

On 11/21/2020 at 2:00 PM, Gobbledegook said:

So Dark Melee was released entirely ignoring the feedback that that was given. Why did we even waste our time?

Feedback is either being cherry picked or completely ignored.

The rest of the update it awesome 😉 but Dark Melee should've been put back again as the feedback was pretty negative to it.

Opening a suggestion thread for it would have been better.

100% Feels like they really don't care about DM or the people who play it. There were so many other things they could have done, and yet they insisted on nerfing SM and going through with the ridiculous changes to ToF. Why bother asking for feedback if you have no intention of listening to any of it? At least tell us reasoning for the changes, and what things they took into consideration from our feedback. And yes, they should have waited honestly.
 

On 11/21/2020 at 2:25 PM, parabola said:

I can understand the desire to get the issue as a whole out the door. My concern is whether this is the final word on Dark Melee? Will it now fall to the back of the queue for any future work? It has clearly eaten up quite a bit of dev time with these changes and those in the previous page but the prevailing opinion seems to be it needs more work. It would be a reassurance if we could get word that it will get yet another look in the next page.

In the meantime I'm trying to hang onto the fact that Shadow Maul has been buffed overall from where it was before the last page. I have got rather used to the current high mob cap but that's the danger of temporary changes...

Then why bother putting it into live at this point? They could have left it on beta to work on some more rather than the bastardization it is at this point. And yes, still love that they didn't nerf the cone angle, but still, it will make some fights a bit tougher/longer.
 

On 11/21/2020 at 4:20 PM, Greycat said:

Just because you *give* feedback doesn't mean it'll be agreed with or put in, either right away or at all.  That does not mean it's ignored.

It's a new patch - a new *issue.* Generally the changes are watched more closely for a while afterward as the general player base gets their hands on it and finds new and interesting ways to break/abuse/fold/spindle/mutilate it. Depending on how the devs feel about it, it may get more changes right away, or in the next "page" or two, or they may be happy with how it fits in the overall idea of how the game works and leave it as is.

Well, sorry, but then they should either hold off as I said above, or give us feedback on our feedback to them. Writing a few lines on their reasoning goes a long way to not make us feel ignored.
 

On 11/21/2020 at 5:23 PM, Greycat said:

As I've said elsewhere. Development is not, and should not be, a democracy. 

Just because they don't give a response doesn't mean they don't pay attention to your feedback. (Small, volunteer team, putting out a fairly big update, after all.) Just because they didn't go and change things with the "most popular" option doesn't mean the feedback was useless. "Most popular" doesn't necessarily mean "right" (or "fits with whatever internal overall plan they have," or "is something they can do.")

No, it is not and should not be a "democracy"; but I know from insiders that there are people working things that do not actually play what they are working on. If that is indeed the case (I always take insider info with a grain of salt) then they really need to listen to the feedback from those of us who do rather than making arbitrary changes that impact people who play the sets negatively.

 

On 11/21/2020 at 6:01 PM, Gobbledegook said:

But it was proven to be wrong.

Of course they can do what they want, whether right or wrong. Ill just choose to leave DM as it pales in comparison to EM.

And i am grateful to the developers for all their work. I just wished they had responded more with DM. MA was pulled due to feedback.

And that is my biggest problem with these changes. My original main toon on Live when I first started playing a couple months after CoH launched was a DM/DA Scrapper. I did have alts, but that was my go to. People thought I was nuts because the DPS is lower than other sets, and it was such an end hog. I got it to 50 to prove people wrong, and enjoyed it along the way. Yes the narrow cone was a pain in the ass, but it was good that it hit multiple targets for clearing mobs around a boss, etc. Yes, I had to take body master for the end (until much later when incarnates came out), but I was one of the few who was resistant to psi damage.

 

These changes feel like an insult to those of us who have played DM/DA since the beginning (first toon I re-rolled on joining Homecoming was my DM/DA main). What are they trying to do? I really don't want cookie cutter BS, but at least keep things competitive. My Mace/Shield scrapper can farm S&L mobs almost as fast as my fire farmer can farm fire mobs. My DM/DA scrapper? Nope, not even a contest. Very freaking slow comparatively. Like probably more in line with how fast my DA/DM Tanker can do it, just with a lot more maintenance clicking (like Dark Regen or using incarnates, etc.).
 

[Taboo]

14 hours ago, Bopper said:

It is standard for cones to only hit 5, even the large Titan Weapons sized cones. The only reason Shadow Maul was given a 10 tgt cap was as a temporary solution until another AoE could be added to dark melee. That came in the form of Touch of Fear. Despite anyone's opinion of Touch of Fear, Shadow Maul's band-aid of being a 10 tgt cap cone was coming to an end.

standard sounds much like make everything the same.

i understand your view, just saying..

[Taboo]

45 minutes ago, Shayendrel said:

Well, sorry, but then they should either hold off as I said above, or give us feedback on our feedback to them. Writing a few lines on their reasoning goes a long way to not make us feel ignored.

yes

[Galaxy Brain]

22 hours ago, Solarverse said:

For me personally, they should have just put it back the way it was during i5 and added a +Recharge buff to Death Shroud (+Recovery +Regen for the Blaster version to get away from that damn target click ranged fear b.s.) and called it a day.

I truly loved the Teleport version of the Dark Consumption idea that they were tossing around, but they didn't do that because of Stalkers being unable to get that power, even though they could have just added a proc system to turn the Stalker version of Midnight Grasp into an AoE to make up for that to allow for more diversity in the Stalker set and then called it a day.

Super side note, but I would looooove to have more sets be very different AT to AT. Why does the Stalker version of a set have to mirror another AT's? Why does the Scrapper, Brute, and Tank versions have to be 1:1 outside inherents?

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Super side note, but I would looooove to have more sets be very different AT to AT. Why does the Stalker version of a set have to mirror another AT's? Why does the Scrapper, Brute, and Tank versions have to be 1:1 outside inherents?

They don't have to be identical. But in retaining a set's identity, it sure as hell makes things easier to balance.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

They don't have to be identical. But in retaining a set's identity, it sure as hell makes things easier to balance.

It does, but even like 1 power being different here or there. Stalkers already get this with the addition of AS giving each set a solid ST attack (hi Elec Melee), and then some AoEs are changed for them only (hi Power Crash). Conversely, Tanker powers could be altered to take advantage of their inherent with clever manipulation of radius / etc, and we already see certain changes with Claws on Tanks/Brutes vs Scrappers in terms of how they behave. 

 

For me, it kind of comes down more to how Tanks/Brutes/Scrappers have nearly 1:1 mirrors of certain sets outside of Taunt/Confront and minor differences here and there. It begs the question of why play an X/ brute over a X/ scrapper, or a Y/ tank over a /Y brute, when if there were slight changes between them it would encourage a bit more exploration.

 

[aethereal]

6 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Super side note, but I would looooove to have more sets be very different AT to AT. Why does the Stalker version of a set have to mirror another AT's? Why does the Scrapper, Brute, and Tank versions have to be 1:1 outside inherents?

I mean, they don't.  Brute and Tanker get defense in Thunder Kick in Martial Arts.  Brute and Tanker have different T9s in Ice Armor than Stalker and Scrapper.  I'm sure there are a bunch of other differences.

 

But there are a TON of melee ATs and a TON of both melee attack and armor sets.  If you make each set substantively a different set for Tank/Brute/Scrap/Stalk, you're talking about making like 50ish differently balanced powersets.  It's just clear that the HC team doesn't have the capacity to do that.

[Shayendrel]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It does, but even like 1 power being different here or there. Stalkers already get this with the addition of AS giving each set a solid ST attack (hi Elec Melee), and then some AoEs are changed for them only (hi Power Crash). Conversely, Tanker powers could be altered to take advantage of their inherent with clever manipulation of radius / etc, and we already see certain changes with Claws on Tanks/Brutes vs Scrappers in terms of how they behave. 

 

For me, it kind of comes down more to how Tanks/Brutes/Scrappers have nearly 1:1 mirrors of certain sets outside of Taunt/Confront and minor differences here and there. It begs the question of why play an X/ brute over a X/ scrapper, or a Y/ tank over a /Y brute, when if there were slight changes between them it would encourage a bit more exploration.

 

I do get what you are saying, and agree to a large extent, but there is more to the differences than just the one power difference in a set (if there is one), in that brutes are more like scrap-tankers (though not as good as either in their established areas, scrappers do more damage, tankers can generally take more damage), but depending on the set the differences can be minimized

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It does, but even like 1 power being different here or there. Stalkers already get this with the addition of AS giving each set a solid ST attack (hi Elec Melee), and then some AoEs are changed for them only (hi Power Crash). Conversely, Tanker powers could be altered to take advantage of their inherent with clever manipulation of radius / etc, and we already see certain changes with Claws on Tanks/Brutes vs Scrappers in terms of how they behave. 

 

For me, it kind of comes down more to how Tanks/Brutes/Scrappers have nearly 1:1 mirrors of certain sets outside of Taunt/Confront and minor differences here and there. It begs the question of why play an X/ brute over a X/ scrapper, or a Y/ tank over a /Y brute, when if there were slight changes between them it would encourage a bit more exploration.

 

Except with claws, the lack of spin for Stalkers makes me never touch stalkers. The extra recharge on spin and shockwave for brutes/tanks forces me into an attack chain of followup, focus, spin, shockwave rather than the the preferable chain of followup, spin, shockwave that I'm able to use on the scrapper.

 

Changes made have actually driven me away/lessened my love rather than encouraging exploration.

[Galaxy Brain]

25 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Except with claws, the lack of spin for Stalkers makes me never touch stalkers. The extra recharge on spin and shockwave for brutes/tanks forces me into an attack chain of followup, focus, spin, shockwave rather than the the preferable chain of followup, spin, shockwave that I'm able to use on the scrapper.

 

Changes made have actually driven me away/lessened my love rather than encouraging exploration.

That is fair, and it an unfortunate example but Im not sure that is HC's fault. What I'd love to see is more like "signature" powers in sets do something a bit extra.

 

Like what @aetherealmentioned with how Brute/Tank MA has a different effect, as well as Hibernate vs Icy Bastion. (And tbh, outside of that there are not many substantial differences aside from Claws having randomly different stats for non-scrappers... and then Stalkers are their own thing). 

 

There is already a concern of balance due to AT mods and the like (for example, a Dark Melee brute gets kinda shafted by Soul Drain compared to other ATs), so having changes per set per at to address that would be nice. Another example would be Defender Elec Blast which does NOT benefit from Defender mods at all, nor does Defender Fire Blast, making them dubious choices.

[Shayendrel]

Like I said, probably a bunch of other things they should have focused on prior to monkeying with  some of what they did. IMO

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Super side note, but I would looooove to have more sets be very different AT to AT. Why does the Stalker version of a set have to mirror another AT's? Why does the Scrapper, Brute, and Tank versions have to be 1:1 outside inherents?

They don't in my opinion. However, I am just going by the pattern I have seen and I assume there is a hell of a lot more coding involved when you have all of the AT's have different mechanics with their relative power sets.

 

Trust me, I was one of those people who preferred certain power sets be exclusive to the AT they started on. However, that was done away with, so if we could give each AT their own mechanic with their relative power sets I would be thrilled. I just don't see it being feasible due to the extra coding and the minimal volunteer Dev Team.

[Vald]

I think I would rather see shadow maul get rolled back and instead of touch of fear, lower dark consumptions recharge, which I have always thought to have too long of a recharge to warrant using it.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Vald

[xl8]

Someone close this thread, no one is talking about DM.

[Metatheory]

You're not closing it before I also get to chime in with some 'I really don't like the changes to DM' feedback 🙂

 

Love the rest of the release (that I have tried) but not these. Touch of Fear? Please rename as Touch of DoT.

 

Hopefully we'll see another pass at DM in the future that does a better job of marrying the theme of the set with the 'need' to balance.

 

And yes, I did post feedback before release. And no, I cannot recall any discussion of the 'why' to these changes. Having some insight into the rationale would help, IMO.

 

Nevertheless, in no way wish to appear ungrateful for the work people do, just hoping that in this case enough volume will prompt another look.

[Solarverse]

13 hours ago, Vald said:

I think I would rather see shadow maul get rolled back and instead of touch of fear, lower dark consumptions recharge, which I have always thought to have too long of a recharge to warrant using it.

Agreed. Touch of fear being an AoE that has no hit sound effect and just doesn't make any real sense is just...huh? They had such a great idea with the teleport AoE they had going on...wish they could have done that, given Stalkers a mechanic where they can proc Midnight Grasp to be an AoE (so long as they chose to) and called it a day. This thing they have going on with Touch of Fear kind of irks me.

[Leogunner]

On 11/25/2020 at 11:12 AM, Boudicia.Dark said:

Yes and that is the reason why Touch of Fear always has and always will suck. Pretending like ToF is a super keen awesome consolation prize is just garbage (like Touch of Fear itself, garbage). This is just pointless. Thanks for fucking up my bread and butter, you can keep your caffeine free diet coke.

Past me is chuckling at this because I enjoyed Shadow Maul BEFORE it was overpowered and making it a honking-easy AoE really turned off the novelty of using skilled placement to get maximum performance out of it.  Hit 1 target and you are flushing your DPS, hit 2 and it's still not great, hit 3 and you're good (for the most part), hit 5 and you are getting a good amount of DPS and AoE mixed in.

 

Of course, I'm in the minority so no one cares. Unfortunately, so are you and now you just have to eat your porridge or go away. 

23 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

They don't have to be identical. But in retaining a set's identity, it sure as hell makes things easier to balance.

Identity can be rather fluid but I don't think making sets identical make them easier to balance.  Considering the overall AT performance partially hinges on the tools granted by the powersets, you're naturally going to get peaks and valleys in various attributes but having Electric Melee as mediocre on most melees while being upper tier for Stalkers doesn't = balance if the reason they are mediocre on the other ATs is because the tools don't favor the AT goals.

 

Just my opinion but, anyone playing Electric Melee on a melee AT should just skip everything else and go to Stalker as you get great AoE and good ST if you supplement your DPS with an out-of-set attack to make up for it (the epic pools have some variety).  That being said, I don't think it would be that bad if, for example, Scraps got a modified mob-crit aspect to their Thunder Strike (i.e. if they crit their primary target, all targets in the AoE will get crit as well) while Brutes get higher -end with the higher fury for no other reason that they could have some new option to create a sapper/debuffer for variety (Tankers already get a nice energy cone from JL which is unique enough since it's rather meh on everyone else).

 

That was just an example though.  On the topic of Dark Melee, I'm rather indifferent now.  I haven't played my Shield/DM for a long while (got him to the 40s after the Tanker buff) and I squandered the chance to remake my DM/WP Stalker from live.  If I get the urge to take a break from FFXI and come back to CoX, maybe I'll try out the new TW to see if I can get some levels with my WP Scrap but everything feels like it's just ripening into a sour plumb.  Oh well...

[PorkTips]

I somehow replied to the wrong thread. Getting old. Edited to clear it out. :)

Edited November 28, 2020 by PorkTips
wrong thread