issue 26 Patch Notes for May 30th, 2019

[Rhinoxx]

So how is PhysX activated? I have always been curious about that option - but under settings I can just see "PhysX Support" as N/A and no way to turn it on.

 

The extra physics effects are on by default, you don't need to enable PhysX hardware support. That's the bit that requires a .dll upgrade that I don't want to do as long as we're sharing the game folder with other servers. Go run into a dumpster or mailbox and you should see junk flying out.

 

Ahhhhhhhh - I have misunderstood that part all these years - I always thought there was some gfx upgrade that I was missing out on :D Thx for clearing that up.

[Erydanus]

Primarily I just wanted to complement you guys on another fine update and also thank the community member who supplied some cleaned up art. Honestly that is some serious life quality improving art.

 

Regarding the DFB adjustment, I have to say I really love it especially since it's exactly what I suggested they do; some people thought that was limiting options; I think it's just normalizing reward. Plus you know how everyone wants an Oro porter? Well if you DFB to 15, and then go do Faultine's story arcs, you GET an oro porter as part and parcel of that!

 

But I will address one other comment because I think it's coming from an uninformed place:

 

My only issue with the VG merit  ... has to do with the availability of merits as a whole.  As a person who has altitist, it has ALWAYS been hard for me to outfit my multitude of characters because I spend a lot more time doing low-level content and I don't farm. ... I could do an hour of work and get a single IO for one of my slots.

 

I've always thought the reward merits that you get were set ridiculously low, forcing you to farm if you want to get cool stuff for your characters. ... the cost for most of the good ones is 100. I have to do 3 TFs to get one slot out of how many? for how many characters? It is just too low.

 

I think reward merits should be increased across the board a good deal. At least twice what they are. MSR was definitely high, but honestly, IMHO it was in the right direction.

(some text snipped to consolidate the main points)

 

I can see where you're coming from but at the same time I feel like you're asking for a lot. You say you're doing a lot of low level content and have lots of alts ... so why do you need any sets? Why aren't you using mostly generic IOs and maybe a few special pieces. Karma: Knockback protection costs a mere 20 merits! When you say you need 100 merits for a "good one" are you talking about the level scaling archetype enhancements? Those are like the crown jewels that used to cost 400-500 merits. PVP IO recipes also can cost 100 but as far as I've seen the normal set recipes are 20 for an uncommon and 50 for a rare, and that is a serious price reduction from live when uncommon set IO recipes were 50-75, and rares were 125-275. Here is the list of Original Dev prices for things bought with merits: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards#Rewards_Purchases

 

If you feel you can't buy specifically what you want still, maybe a better tack for you would be to spend 10 merits on a random roll and then just sell the most valuable recipes and use that to buy modest replacements for yourself. But it really does feel like you've chosen to stretch yourself very thin and want to still be able to gear up in the same way someone who focuses on just a couple characters can.

 

 

 

[OtterSeaborne]

Question about the Knockback/Knockup immunity change to Immobilise effects: Are you considering applying this to Holds as well? Ice and Earth both apply -KB with their hold, as does Gravity, and all three have significant knockdown or knockback effects in their sets, not to mention options in Controller/Dominator secondaries, creating unfortunate situations where you can't rely on juggling a boss while you layer up a Mag 6 hold on them. In particular, Ice and Gravity have an AoE hold (Glacier, Gravity Distortion Field) that applies -KB that removes the AoE control effect from Propel and almost entirely negates Ice Slick. While the uptime on Glacier and GDF isn't as high as those of the AoE Immobilise skills, and neither deals any damage, the reasoning for the Immobilise change would appear to apply to Holds too. Any chance of it being spread further?

[Captain Fabulous]

I’m happy about DFB. God I hate running as a level 5 for 5-6 runs to get to 22 with every character with every other option just being inefficient in comparison...

 

The DFB nerf is foolish at best and highly counterproductive at worst.

 

Now it'll just be level 1s looking to get PL'd in PI/Grandville farms, in exchange for giving the mission owner any good drops (recpie/salvage). The XP rates available from that (remember double xp weekends on live servers where people would PL from 1 to 50? I do. So that's just your P2W +100% xp buff "anytime") are similar to way over DFB's depending on the relative "efficiency" of the two teams.

 

The advantages of DFB are huge and being overlooked compared to the other content:

* A group of low levels can do it, without begging/selling their soulsdrops.

* It actively encourages actual participation as opposed to piking at the door -- you help, the run is faster, your xp/min goes up.

* All ATs meaningfully contribute (mostly because when you're limited to level 10, everybody sucks equally).

* It teaches people to use some of the tools (building a team, queueing to lfg, etc) of the game.

* It lowers the cost of experimentation ("would I like this powerset/at combo? Let's get it to 22, do it up with SOs, and see!") and so players will be more willing to experiment. **

* Its relatively short content so you can drop in and drop out when you have 15 minutes as opposed to, "oh yep another 1.5 hour task force. That's excellent, but I have a family these days so I guess I'll just go play... something else."

* When high levels drop in because they only have 15, newbies can ask questions and learn something.

 

This x1000. All nerfing DFB is going to do is push new players into other PL situations where they will not actually have to engage the content and learn how the game works.

 

As for those saying "Yay, it's nerfed, now I don't have to run it anymore", guess what? No one was forcing you to run it at all. You always had the option to get to 22 by other means if you chose. Now no one has the option.

[Number Six]

I'm curious, how does one change the graphics calculations from the GPU to the CPU?

 

To clarify on this a little, this patch note is about the PhsyX effects for particles, debris, etc. When it was originally introduced, it required an Ageia hardware card, or there was a software mode which had reduced effects. Later, NVidia bought Ageia and ported the drivers to use CUDA on NVidia GPUs for hardware acceleration.

 

At some point, Paragon Studios updated the PhysX software from 2.4 to 2.8. Something broke when they did this, and since then the effects were still present, but didn't work right. Most of the small objects just disappeared immediately instead of hanging around, usually by sinking through the floor, though in some cases they would float upwards if your framerate was higher than expected. It also failed to detect newer NVidia cards as usable for hardware acceleration.

 

Recently there was a bunch of attention paid to this subsystem and someone made a change to the Issue 24 source to import a newer version of the driver, which was said to "re-enable" these broken effects. I haven't been able to independently verify this, and looking at that particular change it appears to be a minor version update - from 2.8.4.5 to 2.8.4.6. That's a minor bugfix release and based on the patch notes for that version it's not clear to me how that could successfully enable true hardware support again. We decided not to implement that particular change as it would cause conflicts with other servers using the same base game files, specifically the PhsyX DLLs.

 

Since we were looking at it anyway, one of our developers decided to dive in and see if they could find what originally broke these effects. It turns out that some relatively minor tweaks to the way geometry is "cooked" for the PhysX software was all it took to prevent objects from falling through the world and make this feature behave the way it's supposed to. We then wrote a separate fix to handle framerates higher than 60fps.

 

Along the way, we also deprecated the "HardwareOnly" flag, which is what the game used on FX in order to spawn extra objects when Ageia/NVidia hardware is present. Full PhsyX support is now enabled for both hardware and software simulation modes.

 

The best part of this is that even with this relatively ancient version of the PhysX software, the physics simulation happens in a separate thread from the rest of the game. That means if you have a multicore machine, you can easily run it at the highest settings and one of the spare CPU cores that the game isn't using (it normally can use 2 at most) does all of the math for it, effectively filling the same role that the add-on card used to. That way you get the full experience even if you don't have an NVidia GPU to do true hardware offload. Even if you do, using otherwise idle CPU capacity for this rather than adding to the GPU's already busy load may be a net win.

 

So if you have a CPU with 4+ cores, I highly recommend going into graphics options and cranking "Physics Quality" up to Very High. Ignore the warning about no PPU being present - it no longer really applies to modern hardware and will be removed in a future patch.

[Judicator]

Primarily I just wanted to complement you guys on another fine update and also thank the community member who supplied some cleaned up art. Honestly that is some serious life quality improving art.

 

Regarding the DFB adjustment, I have to say I really love it especially since it's exactly what I suggested they do; some people thought that was limiting options; I think it's just normalizing reward. Plus you know how everyone wants an Oro porter? Well if you DFB to 15, and then go do Faultine's story arcs, you GET an oro porter as part and parcel of that!

 

But I will address one other comment because I think it's coming from an uninformed place:

 

My only issue with the VG merit  ... has to do with the availability of merits as a whole.  As a person who has altitist, it has ALWAYS been hard for me to outfit my multitude of characters because I spend a lot more time doing low-level content and I don't farm. ... I could do an hour of work and get a single IO for one of my slots.

 

I've always thought the reward merits that you get were set ridiculously low, forcing you to farm if you want to get cool stuff for your characters. ... the cost for most of the good ones is 100. I have to do 3 TFs to get one slot out of how many? for how many characters? It is just too low.

 

I think reward merits should be increased across the board a good deal. At least twice what they are. MSR was definitely high, but honestly, IMHO it was in the right direction.

(some text snipped to consolidate the main points)

 

I can see where you're coming from but at the same time I feel like you're asking for a lot. You say you're doing a lot of low level content and have lots of alts ... so why do you need any sets? Why aren't you using mostly generic IOs and maybe a few special pieces. Karma: Knockback protection costs a mere 20 merits! When you say you need 100 merits for a "good one" are you talking about the level scaling archetype enhancements? Those are like the crown jewels that used to cost 400-500 merits. PVP IO recipes also can cost 100 but as far as I've seen the normal set recipes are 20 for an uncommon and 50 for a rare, and that is a serious price reduction from live when uncommon set IO recipes were 50-75, and rares were 125-275. Here is the list of Original Dev prices for things bought with merits: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards#Rewards_Purchases

 

If you feel you can't buy specifically what you want still, maybe a better tack for you would be to spend 10 merits on a random roll and then just sell the most valuable recipes and use that to buy modest replacements for yourself. But it really does feel like you've chosen to stretch yourself very thin and want to still be able to gear up in the same way someone who focuses on just a couple characters can.

Hey, thanks for the reply. It is a valid argument. But I've always viewed CoH as a game for those who want light play and not power game. Imho, there is no reason I shouldn't be able to get the builds I want or the special IOs that go for bazillions simply because I don't constantly play 50s and get tons of influence. My argument is why restrict and force the playstyle?  I don't' want to play the same character over and over again. I do want to be able to tweak my characters. It is just too much to expect me to do three TFs worth of content to get one IO. CoH has always been the game you could just jump in and jump out of and I love it for that, I just wish its advancement system matched that. It doesn't.

[misat]

" Death From Below will now gradually grant less Experience Points after level 10. The effect is based on the experience points required for each level, so it has a built-in curve that starts with a very minor decrease and ramps up until level 20. Please see GM Jimmy's post below for more details on this change."

 

I told everyone they were going to Nerf the hell out of other ways of leveling fast not just AE missions, just give them some time and people laughed. Next will be things like sewer runs lol

[Murcielago]

 

I love this skit lol

[_NOPE_]

This is fantastic. I love to see that the game will continue to be updated.

[Mr. Vee]

 

Hey, thanks for the reply. It is a valid argument. But I've always viewed CoH as a game for those who want light play and not power game. Imho, there is no reason I shouldn't be able to get the builds I want or the special IOs that go for bazillions simply because I don't constantly play 50s and get tons of influence. My argument is why restrict and force the playstyle?  I don't' want to play the same character over and over again. I do want to be able to tweak my characters. It is just too much to expect me to do three TFs worth of content to get one IO. CoH has always been the game you could just jump in and jump out of and I love it for that, I just wish its advancement system matched that. It doesn't.

 

You can still casually play and get a top build, and you can do it faster now than ever before. But it's a bit much to ask that you be able to do it in the short time these servers have been running.

[Nuc]

This x1000. All nerfing DFB is going to do is push new players into other PL situations where they will not actually have to engage the content and learn how the game works.

 

As for those saying "Yay, it's nerfed, now I don't have to run it anymore", guess what? No one was forcing you to run it at all. You always had the option to get to 22 by other means if you chose. Now no one has the option.

(emphasis mine)

 

 

Of course you still have the option. DfB hasn't been removed from the game, the rewards are just lessened at higher levels. And up until about level 17 or so aren't even nerfed by all that much. You can absolutely continue to run DfB until level 22 if you wish. It just won't be the absolute, 100% most efficient method of gaining XP any more.

[Dragone]

I do have a problem with the nerf to DFB. I love making alts, I love running them, I DON'T like having to run the same missions over and over again to level up "the normal way". Who cares if Bob the builder over there is leveling to 50 quickly using DFB. It doesn't take away from YOUR enjoyment of the game. I keep seeing people say it's not right that DFB has that much exp in it. News flash folks....no one is holding a gun to your head and saying you must run DFB until your 50. You don't want the exp then don't run dfb. I hate when gaming companies do this. Someone complains that Bob is getting too much exp and leveling too fast so the company nerf's those missions. Again....why? Why can't you let other people enjoy the game THEY want to instead of forcing them to play it YOUR way! Here's another news flash folks....we have no idea how long we will be able to play COX. I would rather see everyone running around with a lvl 50 than feel the heartache again of losing a character because it will take a month or more to level to 50 only (GODS forbide this happens) to have the game shut down. Please....stop telling me how I have to play the game, just let me and others enjoy the experience OUR way. Would you like it if the way you play was removed so you were forced to play it a way you didn't agree with?

[Dr. Gemini]

Hey, thanks for the reply. It is a valid argument. But I've always viewed CoH as a game for those who want light play and not power game. Imho, there is no reason I shouldn't be able to get the builds I want or the special IOs that go for bazillions simply because I don't constantly play 50s and get tons of influence. My argument is why restrict and force the playstyle?  I don't' want to play the same character over and over again. I do want to be able to tweak my characters. It is just too much to expect me to do three TFs worth of content to get one IO. CoH has always been the game you could just jump in and jump out of and I love it for that, I just wish its advancement system matched that. It doesn't.

 

The big thing is, 34 merits (using a number you noted in your earlier post) buys you 102 Enhancement Converters. These are selling at about 125,000 inf, and slowly dropping, so let's call it 100,000. That means 102 x 100,000 = 10,200,000 Inf. As someone who does like to start using set IOs from level 20 onward, I can tell you that will set you up with recipes and the salvage to make them at low level (and you'll find many enhancements are cheaper to buy than to craft). Those few very expensive IOs (relative to the current market, at least), such as the Performance Shifter proc, you just buy a cheap end mod set recipe or enhancement and save a few converters to turn it into one. That can get iffy, though my worst luck to date with that has been burning through 12 converters.

 

While converters are dropping, boosters were selling for 1.75 mil last night and still had a low supply. Unslotters are also doing well at 150,000 each, but are also heavy on supply. The point is, to date, one of these 3 options will net you the money to slot your character, and if you keep spending your merits on whichever has the best inf to merit ratio at the time, you'll continue raking in the dough as you level up to the next group of sets you want to slot.

[justicebeliever]

This x1000. All nerfing DFB is going to do is push new players into other PL situations where they will not actually have to engage the content and learn how the game works.

 

As for those saying "Yay, it's nerfed, now I don't have to run it anymore", guess what? No one was forcing you to run it at all. You always had the option to get to 22 by other means if you chose. Now no one has the option.

(emphasis mine)

 

 

Of course you still have the option. DfB hasn't been removed from the game, the rewards are just lessened at higher levels. And up until about level 17 or so aren't even nerfed by all that much. You can absolutely continue to run DfB until level 22 if you wish. It just won't be the absolute, 100% most efficient method of gaining XP any more.

 

Agreed.  New Players (who all start at level 1), can still use DFB as the most efficient to level up.  They were already going to see a drop off at level 22 and have to find some other way to PL, now it's just started a little earlier...And who knows, they might find some different content they enjoy. 

 

I say play the game, see what happens.  It's clear the dev's are listening - if they over compensated, or it causes major unintended ripples I am sure they will course correct.  But let's get some data first before we paint in all absolutes...

[zimz]

Don't like the DFB nerf. That's all I want to say.

[Jaguaratron]

Solid, logical changes across the board.

[Eiko-chan]

About make up that needs fixing. Would you consider making a SECOND version of those that does NOT include lip coloring, some time in the future? I rarely want the same color on the lips as I do on the eyes.

I wonder how hard it would be to give the makeup face skins a two-colour option, with one being the eye makeup and the other being the lip makeup?

[Crysis]

 

 

You can still casually play and get a top build, and you can do it faster now than ever before. But it's a bit much to ask that you be able to do it in the short time these servers have been running.

 

Curious.  Why is a "bit much to ask" that a person be able to do it in such a short period of time?

 

I'm not being combative.  I'm really trying to understand the mentality that "X is too fast, and should be eliminated." 

 

I'll qualify my question here:  PVP, I get your point.  That's competitive.  But for a co-operative game that also allows solo play with built-in mission difficulty sliders so you can effectively solo content meant for full teams if you can build for that......and there's no financial reward for anyone for keeping the player base moving slowly or at least all at the same speed/pace.....

 

Why is this a bit much to ask for? 

[HoundsTooth]

Hey, thanks for the reply. It is a valid argument. But I've always viewed CoH as a game for those who want light play and not power game. Imho, there is no reason I shouldn't be able to get the builds I want or the special IOs that go for bazillions simply because I don't constantly play 50s and get tons of influence. My argument is why restrict and force the playstyle?  I don't' want to play the same character over and over again. I do want to be able to tweak my characters. It is just too much to expect me to do three TFs worth of content to get one IO. CoH has always been the game you could just jump in and jump out of and I love it for that, I just wish its advancement system matched that. It doesn't.

 

The big thing is, 34 merits (using a number you noted in your earlier post) buys you 102 Enhancement Converters. These are selling at about 125,000 inf, and slowly dropping, so let's call it 100,000. That means 102 x 100,000 = 10,200,000 Inf. As someone who does like to start using set IOs from level 20 onward, I can tell you that will set you up with recipes and the salvage to make them at low level (and you'll find many enhancements are cheaper to buy than to craft). Those few very expensive IOs (relative to the current market, at least), such as the Performance Shifter proc, you just buy a cheap end mod set recipe or enhancement and save a few converters to turn it into one. That can get iffy, though my worst luck to date with that has been burning through 12 converters.

 

While converters are dropping, boosters were selling for 1.75 mil last night and still had a low supply. Unslotters are also doing well at 150,000 each, but are also heavy on supply. The point is, to date, one of these 3 options will net you the money to slot your character, and if you keep spending your merits on whichever has the best inf to merit ratio at the time, you'll continue raking in the dough as you level up to the next group of sets you want to slot.

 

You kind of unintentionally proved their point. To make your argument you needed to know how much items are selling for on the market, and you had to do some math to calculate relative costs. Their arguing (and I am as well) that CoH is not a min-maxing game. You shouldn't need a deep knowledge of the market to build a great character.

 

If you have a lot of merits you can mostly ignore the market. It is not as effective as farming and playing the market, but it works. Before, we had an easy way to get enough merits to get good recipes.

[tatmia]

 

Immobilize Powers in Controller and Dominator primary power sets should no longer make their targets immune to KnockUp. KnockBack will be converted to KnockDown. This helps sets like Ice and Earth, as their AOE Immobilize power will no longer make their AOE Knockback power useless.[/

 

/storm controllers (or fire tollers that took bonfire) are probably the only controllers not happy with the change.

 

Still, it will fix so much of the frustration with AOE immob, especially in the hands of new controllers.

 

As someone who’s still learning the basics on my private server, I’m amazed at all of these updates.

[HoundsTooth]

 

 

You can still casually play and get a top build, and you can do it faster now than ever before. But it's a bit much to ask that you be able to do it in the short time these servers have been running.

 

Curious.  Why is a "bit much to ask" that a person be able to do it in such a short period of time?

 

I'm not being combative.  I'm really trying to understand the mentality that "X is too fast, and should be eliminated." 

 

I'll qualify my question here:  PVP, I get your point.  That's competitive.  But for a co-operative game that also allows solo play with built-in mission difficulty sliders so you can effectively solo content meant for full teams if you can build for that......and there's no financial reward for anyone for keeping the player base moving slowly or at least all at the same speed/pace.....

 

Why is this a bit much to ask for?

 

I don't understand either. I would like the understand the though process.

 

This game has been offline for 10 years and could be shut off at any time. This game is no longer subscription based, so there's no monetary reason to slow down player's growth. You should be able to do things quickly considering the current state of the game. On top of that, nothing stops you from slowing down the experience for yourself.

[Nightmarer]

 

POWERS

• Immobilize Powers in Controller and Dominator primary power sets should no longer make their targets immune to KnockUp. KnockBack will be converted to KnockDown. This helps sets like Ice and Earth, as their AOE Immobilize power will no longer make their AOE Knockback power useless.

 

*Wipes tear*

 

Thank you and ten thousand times thank you!!! now I can finally level my ice and earth controllers without cursing everything and everyone

[Mr. Vee]

 

 

You can still casually play and get a top build, and you can do it faster now than ever before. But it's a bit much to ask that you be able to do it in the short time these servers have been running.

 

Curious.  Why is a "bit much to ask" that a person be able to do it in such a short period of time?

 

I'm not being combative.  I'm really trying to understand the mentality that "X is too fast, and should be eliminated." 

 

I'll qualify my question here:  PVP, I get your point.  That's competitive.  But for a co-operative game that also allows solo play with built-in mission difficulty sliders so you can effectively solo content meant for full teams if you can build for that......and there's no financial reward for anyone for keeping the player base moving slowly or at least all at the same speed/pace.....

 

Why is this a bit much to ask for?

 

Because there needs to be at least a minimum required effort put in for things or all the people who don't just casually play low level stuff will get bored. They could just make everything completely free but when you just push the button to get a food pellet you quit running the maze and eventually your stomach explodes. If this were any other game than coh where altitis is the true endgame players who play a lot would already be getting bored at the accelerated growth rates available now.

 

Note that I'm the last to be calling for nerfs or saying you should play a certain way. All I'm saying is that the across the board merit increase you originally asked for has a) already happened and b) is unnecessary given how many orders easier it is to level and io characters now. I fully decked out a character last night, superior, purples, everything attuned, all at but it nao pricing and it cost me about what a crafted apocalypse would have cost pre-shutdown. I didn't even have to use my stockpiled merits. And I've been playing a fraction time per day I did on live. There's nothing keeping you from what you're asking for with the way it is right now.

[Dr. Gemini]

You kind of unintentionally proved their point. To make your argument you needed to know how much items are selling for on the market, and you had to do some math to calculate relative costs. Their arguing (and I am as well) that CoH is not a min-maxing game. You shouldn't need a deep knowledge of the market to build a great character.

 

If you have a lot of merits you can mostly ignore the market. It is not as effective as farming and playing the market, but it works. Before, we had an easy way to get enough merits to get good recipes.

 

No deep knowledge required. There may well be more efficient ways to make inf, there may be enhancements that get a better profit if you spend your merits on them and craft. I don't know because my way is simple and takes 1 minute of looking at the prices of 3, easy to find on the market, things. I can't stand spending my time playing super broker instead of super hero. However, lots of helpful people who do watch the market post here and give advice in game so its neither difficult nor time consuming.

[Werewolf36]

I understand both visions on DFB, but I for one am glad it got nerfed. It did not get nerfed to hell where it's no longer a viable grind if you just want to level up (especially with the unlimited EXP boosters)..

Plus, most of you are talking out of experience of how the game used to be.

What about the new players? I find it kind of sad that there are so few low level teams going around and doing contact missions, e.g. That is what got me hooked when I was a new player - team play, fairly slow character development (that way every step felt exciting - unlike travel powers at L4), exploration of a unique game world.

I think nerfing DFB slightly, as has just been done, will motivate people a bit more to not just jump aboard the EXP-train when they first join the game, but to actually learn to appreciate the game for what it is. There are still options to level fast, but hell, if it's my first day playing an MMO with no endgame content, I don't want to be L25/50 by the end of my first hour of gameplay.