Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Build 1)

[garvisdol73]

Hello

 

• All interruptible powers (snipes/assassinations/etc) will now root for their uninterruptible window

 

I haven't been able to test this yet but on the face of it I am not sure I like it.  For interruptible powers, I rely on being able to interrupt them myself by moving.

[macskull]

10 minutes ago, MsSmart said:

Thank you for changes, more questions and pleas...

 

When I am in Granite Armor, I can teleport, thank heavens for it, but I have a mega problem with this! When I pop after I teleport I immediately fall, thus making travel very very annoying, if I am not in granite form, when I tp,  I have a few moments to select my next teleport point, which makes the power useful.

 

Is it possible to allow to TP in granite form and have the few moments needed to make my next TP port decision? This ability is very needed when I am traveling in a map where ambushes are set on by a TF, or traveling in Zulu map type areas. I truly do not relish traveling thru ambushes in a "pants down" mode.

 

With regards to rooting, its not clear to me, what the actual time of rooting is? Thus far for example the use of weave and tough as is if already moving they do not root, but if you were not moving you get to be in la la land and giving your opposition free shots. Thus am I to understand, that they will  no longer root? But for example take a kinetic punch, there is annoying long animation, which has me rooted for a terribly long time, where Battle Maiden in Apex, truly gets to exploit this a bit too much as an example. With this new limited root, how would it work, how much shorter would it be?

 

Suggestion, do away with rooting! If you want to shoot on the go accept a -25% to your accuracy buff, if you stand/hover still and shoot, there is no penalty and you were the one who chose to self root.

 

Also mentioned some travel powers, will now put you in affect self only, like Super Speed, normally when I utilize a self only like walk they automatically de-toggle all my toggles! Should I be concerned about this?

 

Request, can we have powers that when self only to not de-toggle, but only suppress the effects of those toggles?

1. The behavior you're describing in Granite is how it's always worked. Granite has -jump/-fly so the hover period from teleport doesn't function.
2. Root time should match the power's cast time, which you can see in the ingame info. Powers that do not affect enemies should not root (Tough and Weave being examples of those). If you find a non-enemy-affecting power rooting, file a bug report.
3. If rooting were to go away entirely you'd just be randomly firing projectiles out of places and it would look really weird. If I remember right in order to completely decouple root and animation they'd need to completely redo the game's animation system which probably won't happen.
4. Travel powers don't put you in OAS - in the case of Super Speed you'd need to activate the click phase power which only lasts a certain duration. OAS powers don't normally detoggle the rest of your powers. Walk isn't OAS but it disables the rest of your powers because it uses a different character movement animation that isn't written to be compatible with other powers (some of the prestige travel powers like Flying Carpet and Void Skiff are the same way).

[TheSpiritFox]

I love the changes to masterminds. Demons are very glad for the cast time reduction, everyone is glad for the easier resummoning. 

 

One thing, cause I see it repeatedly pop up. 

 

Please do not make upgrades automatic. Upgrading resummons in combat is part of the mastermind experience and should not be changed. 

[Tuft]

4 hours ago, GM Arcanum said:

 

•  Trick Arrow > Disruption Arrow
  • The visual FX for this power has been changed to alleviate headaches being induced by the old FX
  • Due to the health implications of the old FX, this is not an optional change

 

 

It is OK seeing it at a distance, but still a bit iffy if you stand in the center of the effect (such as if e.g. you are playing the team's tank).

 

Also, has anyone tried multiple interfering arrow at once? Did not have time to try it right now, unfortunately.

[ExeErdna]

2 hours ago, Carnifax said:

Since no-one ever seems to bother taking Adrenal Boost or Unleash Potential (seriously, I've never seen a Build posted with either of them) then why not look at fixing those rather than nerfing RoP to match? 

 

Set all 3 to 90 second duration. Mark Unleash as not effected by +Special (to avoid repeats of PBed Fade / Farsight) by giving it like 5% Toxic resistance. 

 

I'd also suggest halving the recharge on Enflame and Corrosive Vial, although I doubt even that will save them as powers. Seems deeply weird to me that effort would be expended creating these new pools just for everyone to ignore them mostly. 

 

I agree, the only time I took Adrenal or Unleash is on beta builds like they work yet also become too janky to use especially once you get incarnate levels plus you normally are only able to access them but cutting out a lot of primary and secondary. Like I DO like Enflame and Corrosive Vial my issue is even when they synergize with the build they feel weak. Like they should be a go to for controllers that want some solid AOE damage. Also a reason why people skip Enflame is that when you color it doesn't have the flame patch. With the Vial it doesn't change colors of the vial itself. Like one of my last beta builds was plant/traps so I was able to skip a whole lot, I was able to 6 slot the vial with Ragnarok the KD was reliable, the damage not so much. I also agree on making the recharge time half because for the damage they do isn't worth the CD.

Yeah nerfing RoP is bad since A LOT of builds use it to protect them versus mez happy things early to mid game. Plus it was a synergy with Clarion Radial when soloing 50 content with characters like controllers/defenders/etc. These t5 should have been buffed to 90 sec and given some sort of mez

[ExeErdna]

1 hour ago, The Godchild said:

 I'm....not cool with this change tbh, since the stealth IO is a bit of a weird spot giving its either "on/off by the toggle its in" or "2 minutes duration based off a clicky its slotted to"

 

Do people realize that they're adding the option to plug the stealth IO into the MEZ PROTECTION power....that isn't a toggle, its a clicky. So if you put the IO in it, you get the 90 seconds of stealth yes....but you also can't just 'turn it off' like you can atm with it being in Shinobi-iri and that can be a big issue giving how univerally dumb the hostage AI is most times >.>

 

Yes you can just cancel the power to drop stealth forcefully....but that's your mez protection power at the same time...so to lead a hostage out you have to a: give up stealth initially, b: give up your mez protection, and lastly: probably have at least 1-2 ambushes to face on the way out with no protection or having to literally sit n'wait for powers to recharge.

 

Just...no, please...put the travel set slotting part back into Shinobi-Iri or another toggle because this is gonna cause no small amount of headaches...

 

Afterthought: Oh god....I'm even more against this change now that I realize you can also slot res sets in there....you know, the set type with some of the best defensive procs out there. Mez clicky going from IO end redux/rech only slotting, to taking 2 sets...1 of which has alot of options to slot procs with....? Yeahno, please....do NOT push this change through, its gonna cause nightmares for Ninjitsu users if it does x.x

 

Additional Afterthought: ...with all the stacking travel changes, why is this change even on the table? Seriously. Nothing is changing fundamentally about Nin getting the +run/jump speed still, why are things being changed to make 1 cool power totally boring and a core-survival power over-complicated? 

 

 

I agree with this too I made few ninjas and the logic here seems to be reversed. Kuji-Rin only needs 1 recharge to be perma'ed. It can easily double stack which help versus Malta,Carnies, Thorns. Yet if you're on an escort/kidnapping type of mission with that mob now you cannot solo it. You're gonna get mezzed and those Malta flashbangs last an obscenely long time. I'll always rather turn off stealth to escort than turn off mez protection. The how I slot Shinobi-Iri is normally 4 with the defensive set itself and maybe 2 for half of the jumping set

[BrandX]

You can put the Stealth IO in Sprint.  Either way, you had to put a slot somewhere to put in the Stealth IO, as I would guess one didn't just put the Stealth IO in the Ninja Power.  So, yeah, the one slot into the Stealth power meant invis, but so does Sprint and in Sprint you can combine it with another from the same set for +2.25% S/L Resist.

[ironjoe]

Testing the travel changes I like all except on Ninjitsu. Currently with Ninja Run/Sprint/ Shinobi-Iri I get a run speed of 67.85. On beta with Ninja Run/Sprint/Kuji-In Rin  I get a run speed of 60.83. I get similar results testing my Ninjitsu Sentinel. A small increase to the speed/jump/max buff on the beta Kuji-In Rin would fix this.

[arcane]

3 hours ago, Carnifax said:

Since no-one ever seems to bother taking Adrenal Boost or Unleash Potential (seriously, I've never seen a Build posted with either of them) then why not look at fixing those rather than nerfing RoP to match? 

 

Set all 3 to 90 second duration. Mark Unleash as not effected by +Special (to avoid repeats of PBed Fade / Farsight) by giving it like 5% Toxic resistance. 

 

I'd also suggest halving the recharge on Enflame and Corrosive Vial, although I doubt even that will save them as powers. Seems deeply weird to me that effort would be expended creating these new pools just for everyone to ignore them mostly. 

I definitely take Adrenal Booster most often of the three.

[Keen]

 

The new effect for Disruption Arrow is customizable.

 

If you paint it black, the effect disappears completely.

 

Not sure this is good or bad, but I want to say good.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Keen

[Monos King]

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

I definitely take Adrenal Booster most often of the three.

I'd take it more if it were 90s. Rune at the very least ought to go back to 90s.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, Troo said:

but in the same post they had an example that did allow full long animation if wanted.

If you want, sure. But actively denying the player options for such a long time (even worse for Mercs) is awful for how the pace of the game plays. 

 

This is one of those "protect the player from themselves" things where if a power is really cool but can actually hinder the user it ends up being not so cool.

[arthurh35353]

It appears something broke with the Combat Attributes window. I had lost 2/3rds of the stats I was monitoring and to clear it up I had to turn them all off and back on.

[Coyote]

6 hours ago, GM Arcanum said:

 Full Auto (All Versions, including Henchmen)

• Cast Time reduced from 4s (or 6s) to 2.5s (Mercenary Commando actually took a whopping 6s before!)

 

Would it be possible to make the same change for Robots? They have a Full Laser Auto version that takes a whopping 6s. And also a Flamethrower version that also takes a whopping 6s.

[Galaxy Brain]

8 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

Would it be possible to make the same change for Robots? They have a Full Laser Auto version that takes a whopping 6s. And also a Flamethrower version that also takes a whopping 6s.

 

It would be in theory, but after some talk about this during the initial testing this was due to how animations are "linked". The change to make the player version of Full Auto a different speed conveniently effected all powers sharing that root animation, spreading to Mercenaries who use the same FA as players animation-wise (despite the 6s timers for them)... as well as some others 😉

 

I am sure those will be looked at soon, but it is just a matter of hitting one chunk at a time.

[Saikochoro]

Ill start with positive feedback, I like the speeding up of the slower animations. I also really like a lot of the travel power changes. So basically everything except for one thing. 
 

I am disappointed with nerfing rune of protection so much. I think it would be much better to buff the other origin pool powers duration instead of nerfing rune of protection. I am very against this change, and this will likely adjust my build philosophy. For how deep you have to go into the pool power, it offered just enough uptime and benefit to go into the pool. Now, it is a bit more questionable. The low duration is why do not go into the other origin pools to pick up their equivalent power. 
 

Still I understand that with balancing I am bound to not like some changes. That is just the nature of the beast. Nothing against the devs. If it goes through I understand. I’ll just adjust accordingly if need be. 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Saikochoro

[Crysis]

1 hour ago, TheSpiritFox said:

I love the changes to masterminds. Demons are very glad for the cast time reduction, everyone is glad for the easier resummoning. 

 

One thing, cause I see it repeatedly pop up. 

 

Please do not make upgrades automatic. Upgrading resummons in combat is part of the mastermind experience and should not be changed. 

Speak for yourself, the MM “experience” shouldn’t require me to waste END on upgrades to a henchman if his upgraded buddies are still alive.  Maybe if I lost them all....but losing one and resummoning it should allow it to benefit from the group Upgrades.  
 

And what I’d give to have my END penalties diminished so I could actually USE my primary attacks....

[macskull]

1 hour ago, ExeErdna said:

 

I agree with this too I made few ninjas and the logic here seems to be reversed. Kuji-Rin only needs 1 recharge to be perma'ed. It can easily double stack which help versus Malta,Carnies, Thorns. Yet if you're on an escort/kidnapping type of mission with that mob now you cannot solo it. You're gonna get mezzed and those Malta flashbangs last an obscenely long time. I'll always rather turn off stealth to escort than turn off mez protection. The how I slot Shinobi-Iri is normally 4 with the defensive set itself and maybe 2 for half of the jumping set

You can activate your mez protect power while mezzed so that solves this problem.

 

27 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

It appears something broke with the Combat Attributes window. I had lost 2/3rds of the stats I was monitoring and to clear it up I had to turn them all off and back on.

This happened because they added absorb to combat attributes, and it got added in the middle of whatever list of identifiers combat attributes uses to track what's being monitored. Unfortunately the only fix is to clear them all and re-enable them.

[macskull]

Just now, Crysis said:

Speak for yourself, the MM “experience” shouldn’t require me to waste END on upgrades to a henchman if his upgraded buddies are still alive.  Maybe if I lost them all....but losing one and resummoning it should allow it to benefit from the group Upgrades.  

This was discussed earlier and IIRC the reason upgrades aren't automatic is because the devs felt the cost of having to reapply them gives more incentive to keeping your pets alive.

 

That being said, I don't think upgrades should be automatic until some issues with pet AI are addressed - namely, upgrading certain pets with certain upgrades actually makes them perform worse and that's unacceptable.

[TotalThunder]

48 minutes ago, Monos King said:

I'd take it more if it were 90s. Rune at the very least ought to go back to 90s.

 

Adrenal Booster is already better than the other 3 without being 90 seconds.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, macskull said:

This was discussed earlier and IIRC the reason upgrades aren't automatic is because the devs felt the cost of having to reapply them gives more incentive to keeping your pets alive.

 

That being said, I don't think upgrades should be automatic until some issues with pet AI are addressed - namely, upgrading certain pets with certain upgrades actually makes them perform worse and that's unacceptable.

 

I do not want to derail this, but this is a specific concern for Robotics.

 

Testing them out over repeated runs at varied difficulty levels, I uniformly found that robotics performed significantly better if you DO NOT upgrade the Battle Drones (minions) with the Tier 9 upgrade, and DO NOT upgrade the Assault Bot (boss) with the t4 upgrade. The fact that doing upgrade surgery on different tiers of pets got much more effect is troubling, and it is due to the animations mentioned by @Coyote. 

 

I encourage people to try Mercs out now that they have gotten significant speed upgrades for sure!

[DougGraves]

With the rooting animation changes and fast snipes being normalized, has the long activation for the assault rifle fast snipe been fixed?  It is much slower than the other fast snipes, at least the animation is.

[Dahkness]

4 hours ago, Ohsirus said:

What is the purpose of out of combat defence? 

 

 

•  Stealth
  • Stealth radius increased to match the numbers Invisibility had before this patch
    • PvE radius has increased from 36ft to 55ft
    • PvP radius has increased from 389ft to 611ft
  • Out of combat defence increased from 3.5% to 7%

I think pvp. 

[ScarySai]

8 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

With the rooting animation changes and fast snipes being normalized, has the long activation for the assault rifle fast snipe been fixed?  It is much slower than the other fast snipes, at least the animation is.

I don't believe it has, though I have noticed that one is abnormally long.

[Captain Powerhouse]

13 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

With the rooting animation changes and fast snipes being normalized, has the long activation for the assault rifle fast snipe been fixed?  It is much slower than the other fast snipes, at least the animation is.

 

Sniper Rifle cast time is not a bug. It has always been, since before shutdown at i24 beta, a 1.5s cast time on it's fast mode.

Fast snipes are not "normalized" some are slower than others. Would need to check but off the top of my head the range is between 1.33 and 1.67 seconds.