Focused Feedback: Power Changes (Release Candidates)

[siolfir]

14 minutes ago, Rikti said:

If it needs more work then give it more work, but it better not get shelved indefinitely. Toggles during walk is a fantastic change and we should get it when they're able to do it properly.

I doubt it will be shelved indefinitely; a lot of the travel power changes were reverted in page 1 and ended up in page 2 along with new items (like higher speed caps). Without having any insider knowledge I feel that it's a "back to the drawing board" situation instead of an "oh well, so much for that idea" one.

[Myrmidon]

That’s quite tricksy renaming the thread to Release Candidate. At first glance, thirteen pages in four hours would have been quite an experience to read, I’d wager.

[Andreah]

Just spit-balling here. What if there was a Null-the-Gull style setting to suppress everything in walk mode, or not? Or perhaps such a setting to suppress all powers' effects VFX while in walk mode, but leave them running? Kind of like a Super-Minimal-FX temporary customization.

[Faultline]

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

Just spit-balling here. What if there was a Null-the-Gull style setting to suppress everything in walk mode, or not? Or perhaps such a setting to suppress all powers' effects VFX while in walk mode, but leave them running? Kind of like a Super-Minimal-FX temporary customization.

 

We really don't want to put more mechanic toggles in Null. It'll probably be either a Power Suppressor you get from P2W for free, or a pop-up tray power on Walk, or both (get it on P2W, it automatically appears on a tray while Walk is active). In any case, it's a page 3 thing at this point.

[garvisdol74]

Hello.  Sorry if this has already been asked.

 

Are the changes to Athletic Regulation (bio armor) on Sentinels intended as is?

 

Currently, with Athletic Regulation and Ninja Run (or an equivalent), you hit the speed cap easily

 

On beta, you are probably at half the speed cap or less.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Katharos]

I don't see recharge changes to kuji-in rin listed in these patch notes, but there must have been something, because on live my nin scrapper can comfortably doublestack kuji-in rin, and on the test server I can't even maintain 100% uptime.  With a recharge IO in kuji-in rin and hasten up, 182% global recharge, I still have 20 seconds of downtime on  kuji-in rin, and its amount of remaining recharge does not change when I use hasten.

If working as intended, this is a serious nerf.

[Jimmy]

1 hour ago, Katharos said:

I don't see recharge changes to kuji-in rin listed in these patch notes, but there must have been something, because on live my nin scrapper can comfortably doublestack kuji-in rin, and on the test server I can't even maintain 100% uptime.  With a recharge IO in kuji-in rin and hasten up, 182% global recharge, I still have 20 seconds of downtime on  kuji-in rin, and its amount of remaining recharge does not change when I use hasten.

If working as intended, this is a serious nerf.

 

It seems it's currently ignoring all outside recharge buffs. This isn't intentional - thanks for raising it!

[Stan The Man]

5 hours ago, Faultline said:

 

We really don't want to put more mechanic toggles in Null. It'll probably be either a Power Suppressor you get from P2W for free, or a pop-up tray power on Walk, or both (get it on P2W, it automatically appears on a tray while Walk is active). In any case, it's a page 3 thing at this point.

This sounds good to me.

Shame we have to wait for Page 3, but we've waited this long.  I didn't even realize walk was changed until it was reverted back.  I know the one or two villain characters I have would really love to menacingly attack while walking.  Not practical, perhaps, but when has that ever stopped a bad guy?

[KingofMonkeys]

Still not a fan of the change to fast cast snipe's range, it was a nice way to deal with fliers / cowards and the like mid-combat. They should have something a little more than 80' imo.

Edited April 11, 2021 by KingofMonkeys

[DeepSky]

So ultimately a big desire here would be also just being able to suppress the heal floaters on panacea and er... the other one. Annd... thats it?

 

Wouldn't mind being able to hover in my go too saucy arms crossed while flying idle position, without giant green numbers unstoppably escaping The Matrix from my genius mind and freaking out the poor ground-bound sleeper-walkers, as well as say, the flying but poor and destitute IO-less souls who need no further reminder of the divide that exists between us.

[Katharos]

5 hours ago, Jimmy said:

 

It seems it's currently ignoring all outside recharge buffs. This isn't intentional - thanks for raising it!

Are there plans to push this fix before implementing the changes on live? I wanted to get a feel for these changes in particular - I had concerns the new mechanic might make nin feel lurch-y and clumsy when going from one to two back to one stacks.

[Katharos]

Sorry for doubleposting, didn't realise the MM changes would be here too. 😅

In this cycle of beta changes, I put two MMs on the test server: a beast/rad and a thug/cold. The first I did before I had looked into the newest round of changes. Rad's definitely a borderline to failing MM secondary and isn't well regarded as an MM secondary in spite of being a still very solid support set overall. It doesn't have passive mitigation for your pets, which is a big one for MMs. Many of the things that people like about rad just don't apply to MMs; pets don't benefit from recharge changes, and very few pets have such endurance problems that recovery would improve their performance a notable amount, so AM is something to shrug about. The mezzes that MMs can usually disregard will frequently wipe a rad MM's pets, and shortly thereafter the MM itself, because its active mitigation lives in toggles that drop off when mezzed, and in radiant aura, which you can't cast when mezzed. I had wanted to test how much of a difference choking cloud could make on an MM's ability to mitigate incoming damage to their pets, when on other ATs it's just about worthless. Of course... choking cloud also falls off when mezzed! C'est la vie. Rad emission remains borderline to failing. 

But I did notice the MM changes even without having read the patch notes at the time. Being able to summon my fallen pets (and oh, did they fall) that much more cheaply and that much more quickly meant that I could, actually, come back from a stray hold or stun, whereas on live it would have been a case of inevitable death. At the end of combat, I wouldn't have to summon, upgrade, then rest for two minutes to be able to get my endurance to a place where it could support my toggles.  It would take maybe five seconds of resummoning and training and I could run into the next group. I can't say it was a fun experience, but it's viable in a way it's not on live, and that's not nothing. For people who have just one page of characters (compared to my three pages of fifties) I'm sure this'll make the difference between rolling then abandoning and playing all the way to 50. I have to imagine it's going to be a boon to MM play on high performance teams, too, where T1 pets often get deleted without chance for reprisal or recovery. But, I can't test that kind of thing on the test server, so I'll have to wait to see for sure on that part!

In contrast, I can't say I noticed the changes on my thugs/cold. Not because they're bad changes, but cold's such a good secondary that losing a thug is very rare. So it's definitely the kind of MM improvement geared towards borderline play, and I think that's all it needs to be. In my opinion, the biggest problem for MMs as an AT is the huge gaping canyon between performance on a good choice of primary+secondary and the performance of a bad choice of primary+secondary. 

[BillyMailman]

Can I ask about the Rest change noted in the RC2 thread (the no-other-powers-while-resting one)? Why is that being done? Is there some cheese or exploit that Only Affecting Self wasn't enough to prevent?

 

My issue is that it seems like that change will make toggle-heavy characters have an even worse time of things if they die and have to use a rez that doesn't full-heal. Currently, if I have to use a small rez insp, I can just pop Rest as soon as the stun wears off, and re-toggle everything else while resting. This change seems like it's going to make rez-and-re-toggle time go way up for any rez that doesn't bring you back up to a reasonable amount of health.

[Blackbird71]

12 hours ago, DeepSky said:

So ultimately a big desire here would be also just being able to suppress the heal floaters on panacea and er... the other one. Annd... thats it?

 

Wouldn't mind being able to hover in my go too saucy arms crossed while flying idle position, without giant green numbers unstoppably escaping The Matrix from my genius mind and freaking out the poor ground-bound sleeper-walkers, as well as say, the flying but poor and destitute IO-less souls who need no further reminder of the divide that exists between us.

 

I wish that something like the "Hide Buff Numbers" setting in the game options would suppress the floaters.  Maybe this is something that needs it's own graphics/effects setting toggle.  Hide floaters on self, hide all floaters, etc.

[Laenan]

With all the changes to the travel pools and pop-up trays, is there any way Null the Gull (or maybe his cousins Mull and Cull who can't do things like change alignments or teleport people around) could be assigned to a spot in Atlas Park and Mercy Island? This would allow players taking those travel powers early more easily disable the pop-ups if they would like to.

 

It could also be a travel power trainer NPC near Ms. Liberty or in city hall that could assist with this.

[arthurh35353]

23 hours ago, garvisdol74 said:

Hello.  Sorry if this has already been asked.

 

Are the changes to Athletic Regulation (bio armor) on Sentinels intended as is?

 

Currently, with Athletic Regulation and Ninja Run (or an equivalent), you hit the speed cap easily

 

On beta, you are probably at half the speed cap or less.

 

Thanks for reading.

That actually Fly's change. They increased the speed/cap, but also increased the amount of enhancing that it would take to reach new speeds and caps.

[SwitchFade]

Pool > Fighting > Cross Punch: Fixed critical damage values

 

May I ask, did this result in a net change to this power's damage output?

[Bionic_Flea]

[BUG] Spirit ward is granting a quick-boost equivalent to 6 stacks, builds up to 10 stacks, but then goes back down to 6 stacks and starts building up again to max stack of 10 before remaining steady.

 

Comments:  I like the up-front loading and lowered endurance cost and think that Spirit Ward can be a powerful buff.  With just the default slot and a +5 heal/endurance I get a 313 HP shield on my already tanky Singularity at an endurance cost of .29 end/sec.  I'd like to have more slots to dedicate to it, but frankly I'm not sure it would be worth it for another 60 or so HP at max stacks.

 

I'm still not sold on Enflame, although I have to admit that it seems tailor made for Gravity Control -- Wormhole a group into a wall or corner, Crushing Field to keep them in place, Enflame someone and watch them all burn.  I found that to be a much better use than putting it on Singularity as the new push-pull mechanic meant things weren't taking minor damage if any damage.  It might be better on a different pet.  Too bad you can't use it on PA.  But again, I have it as a one slot wonder with a +5 dam/end Ragnarok, which gives 5.33 per tick damage and .37 endurance per second.  I find it difficult to keep both Enflame and Spirit Ward on while also fighting and debuffing, even with some endurance uniques and perma-chrono-shift.  So I actually like that Enflame toggles off on it's own.  Again, it might be nice to dedicate more slots to it but I'm not sure it's worth it to add less than a point more damage per tick.  Maybe it would be nice to add some procs and see how that works out.  

 

I'm fine with the change to Rune of Protection, although I don't think it needed changing.  And I LOVE the change to Arcane Bolt.  It's great for controllers and corrupters who can get a an extra crit.  I suppose scrappers and stalkers can also get crits but their lower ranged modifier and access to more damaging attacks makes it less attractive.  On live I think I might take Spirit Ward or Enflame or Arcane Bolt plus Mystic Flight and Rune of Protection, but I doubt I will take them all.  Then again, that is not out of the ordinary.  I usually do not take everything in a pool.  Of the set, Enflame is the easiest for me to leave on the table, unless I come up with some unique pairing -- Enflame and Bonfire come to mind.  Hmmm . . . .

[Bopper]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

[BUG] Spirit ward is granting a quick-boost equivalent to 6 stacks, builds up to 10 stacks, but then goes back down to 6 stacks and starts building up again to max stack of 10 before remaining steady.

That's not a bug, the patch notes state you get an upfront shield equivalent in strength to 5 stacks that lasts 10s. So you're seeing the big upfront shield plus the first tick from the absorb toggle. So if you look at the sequence you'll see.

0s: 5+1 = 6 stacks

2s: +1 = 7 stacks

4s: +1 = 8

6s: +1 = 9

8s: +1 = 10

10s: -5+1 = 6

12s: +1 = 7

14s: +1 = 8

16s: +1 = 9

18s: +1 = 10

20s: -1+1 = 10

22s: -1+1 = 10

and so on.

 

You could have it changed where it stays at 5 stacks up front for the first 10s, then grows from there, but it would require a lot of messy effects. But it would look like this:

 

Burst Absorb (does not repeat):

     0.2 scale absorb for 10s

     0.2 scale absorb for 8s

     0.2 scale absorb for 6s

     0.2 scale absorb for 4s

 

Toggles absorb (repeats every 2s):

     0.2 scale absorb for 20s

 

That would make the sequence look like this:

0s: +1+1+1+1+1 = 5

2s: -1+1 = 5

4s: -1+1 = 5

6s: -1+1 = 5

8s: -1+1 = 5

10s: -1+1 = 5

12s: +1 = 6

14s: +1 = 7

16s: +1 = 8

18s: +1 = 9

20s: +1 = 10

22s: -1+1 = 10

and so on.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Bopper

[Bionic_Flea]

That's exactly what I'm seeing.  I knew about the change to upfront burst, but I expected it to start at 5 stacks, not 6 -- but I'll take the extra tic.  What I thought was a bug was at your 10 second mark when it goes back down to 6 stacks.  That seems odd and counterintuitive to me, but if that's the way its supposed to be . . . *shrug*

 

[kazrack35]

On 4/8/2021 at 4:47 PM, damienray said:

Sniper Rifle (Assault Rifle - Blaster) The yellow ring appears randomly and not reliably (sometimes not at all during an attack using Burst, Slug, M30, Flamethrower, Full Auto, Buckshot in random orders). When it does appear, it lasts for only approx. 1 second, making it difficult to use. I have a set of 5 Winter's Bite in the power on Beta. Current recharge on my Snipe is 5 seconds (when the ring does appear, recharge is still 5 seconds).

Also noted, when I am able to use the enhanced Snipe, the animation time doesn't seem to be shortened nor does the range seem to change.

 

just tried an assault energy blaster.

Never had the yellow circle, I only could do regular snipes. tested in cimé for 5, 6 min.

 

[UberGuy]

There seems to be a widespread issue with fast snipes not working correctly, both in blast sets and in melee epic pools. Devs are investigating. Early indications is that the problem is specific to Brainstorm. (Testing by devs on internal environments don't show the issue.)

[kelika2]

Disruption Arrow and Sonic Grenades:

 

You sure it is the visual effect?  The constant sound effect of WubWubWub with headphones on might be another factor

[UberGuy]

There was a player in the testing Discord that specifically talked about the original visual effects causing disorientation and discomfort, and the latest new effects got a thumbs-up from them. Since the sounds didn't change, it seems that it really was the visuals.

[SuperPlyx]

Question about the Singularity pull mechanic, will the MoBs that use Singularity also get this new mechanic?

I know Prima Capo's from The Family use Singularity, do I need pull resistance now? I can't think of anything that pulls you in game. Perhaps KB protection could also do Pull Protection.

Altho we may need to rename it.