issue 26 Patch Notes for May 30th, 2019

[justicebeliever]

First off:  I was fine with DFB the way it was, and I'm fine with the change.  I also think you have well summarized most of what the anti-dfb crowd was saying.

 

My thoughts

 

The reasons for nerfing it was silly. People running through DFB to however many levels they wanted wasn’t hurting others. The mass majority of complaints I see from anti DFB posts were:

 

- People should do the content instead just like me. Nothing is stopping people from doing the content if they so wish.

True

- People doing DFB makes it harder for me to team. Again, no it doesn’t. Never had a problem filling a non-DFB team quickly.

  Your experience, is one data point.  Mine is a different one.  I get that you haven't had issues filling a non-DFB team, but I have.  There are likely reasons, and I am not saying DFB nerfing is the solution, but I am tired of hearing everyone say how easy it is to form a team.  It takes NO effort to jump into a DFB team.  It takes a lot of effort to find the players that are willing to team for other content.  Impossible?  No.  Incredibly Difficult?  No.  Harder?  Yes

- It’s annoying seeing DFB advertised in LFG. LFG channel is for looking for group. So why shouldn’t people use it to fill a group for DFB. If you don’t want to join just ignore it. I don’t have a problem ingoring the myriad of LFG posts that I don’t feel like participating in at the moment be they for DFB or otherwise.

It is annoying.  Not saying it's a reason to change, but it is annoying.  And of course it's easy to ignore non-DFB posts - there's what, 1 non-DFB for every 10 DFB posts?  Its hard to see the non-DFB posts, super easy to ignore them

- People shouldn’t level up so fast. Again, why? Why does this hurt someone who wants to do it slowly? It doesn’t. Nothing prevents people from leveling as slowly or as quickly as they want.

It doesn't hurt anyone if other people level up faster than me...agreed

 

This also will do nothing about getting people to play more story arcs or other similar content in lower levels. The same people who wanted to get passed the low levels quickly will still do DFB or AE, or find a power leveler. The same people who want to do Kings row story arcs will still do those. And they will still complain about people leveling too fast. So I’m the end, I highly doubt it will change any behavior (although the venue may change somewhat).  People will still complain about people playing the game a different way than they want them to. All this does it make DFB less rewarding for people who enjoy leveling up new alts quickly. None of the root behaviors are changed and thus it is a meaningless nerf.

  Is it going to dramatically change behavior?  No of course not.Well let's see if that's true.  Is every single DFB player going to just do one of those 3 things?  Maybe, maybe not.  Let's observe first...

 

Even so, the devs are the boss and I’m playing their game. So I will take it in stride. I have no intentions of leaving and very much appreciate all that they have done.  I’m bound to not like some decisions made, but honestly that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I still get to play, for which I am very grateful.

+1 Inf for being pretty fair about this...

[ineffablebob]

Added power cooldown indicators as a WIP option, accessible through Options > Window > Beta Settings.

Checked this out and it seems to work well, nicely done! Couple suggestions:

- The partial seconds that show up under 10 seconds are distracting for some folks. Be a good option to let people choose whether to use partials or just leave it at whole numbers even under 10 seconds.

- Not sure how hard this would be to implement, but I'd love to be able to turn on timers only for long-recharge powers. The growing-icons are just fine for powers that recharge in 10 seconds or so, I don't need a number for that. But longer ones, Hasten and the link, the numbers are great there. Could we set a threshold so timers only show up for powers that take longer than, say, 30 seconds to recharge?

- If the above isn't feasible, maybe an option to simply have the timer disappear with 10 seconds left might solve both things.

 

(And if there's an actual feedback thread somewhere, let me know. Couldn't find one.)

[AlienMafia]

Need clarification,

 

"Fixed an issue with Morality Missions not resetting the mission owner's alignment points on completion in some cases. This does not apply to teammates, only the mission owner."

 

Is it back to 5 tips per day + morality after hitting 10 like It used to be on live or 10 tips + morality per da?

[justicebeliever]

BTW - just played for the last hour - love the new fX.  Thanks for the work on that!

[Tater Todd]

 

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.

Why would Stormies hate this change? Hurricane will still Repel, even if they won't go flying as much, which should be more precise than before, and it's a huge buff to Tornado's CC effects if they get knocked down in place rather than either scatter or stand unaffected. And Fire Control never had -KB in the first place, so Bonfire is unaffected.

 

<sigh> serves me right for reading too quickly.  I missed the second sentence and now all of my characters are happy.  Although, I did check and fire cages do -knockup.  Was fairly certain my fire/storm would spam cages whenever tornado was out  Need to try her out tonight to be reminded how I used bonfire.

 

 

Thank you for correcting my statement

 

You are correct Fire Cages do -Knockup.  I mained a Fire Control/Storm Controller who spammed Fire Cages like their life depended on it just so I could offset the Chaos of Tornado, Lightning Storm and Waterspout.  I remember avoiding using Bonfire because I recall it still scattering mobs even when Fire Cages was applied (Or Bonfire at times seemed to almost have a repel in it's power)...or either it ticked so often that if one toon didn't get immobilized from my Fire Cages they would go FLYING across the Universe or *clipped and bugged into a wall*.  The Immob changes make my Ice and Earth controllers BEYOND happy and in general it makes group play with other Dominators and Controllers FAR less stressful but these immobs changes are a lot and I need time to let it all soak in.  It seems like /Storm Controllers will be at a disadvantage and that we will have to shift our builds dramatically.  Granted this change will make all Storm players builds Universal which is good overall but for some Storm controllers you could get around having to slot the Knockback to Knockdown enhancement by just tactically spamming your immob.  I guess this change will be a BOON to Ice/Storm and Earth/Storm controllers as well as all the other Controller and Dominator Secondaries that benefit from immobs used for containment and placement.  This immob change happened at the right place and at the right time but it looks like some of us are going to have to grind a bit for KD enhancements.

 

TLDR:  The change is good and was a necessary step in the proper direction due to the maturation of Dominators and Controllers Primaries as well as adding in more options and variety.  The only frustrating thing is a lot of us who depended on our -KB immobs will have to swap out our current procs for the KB to KD proc.  At least this change will mostly affect a few of us Storm users (and Energy Ass and Thorny Ass Doms) which are the minority but in turn, will hopefully usher in more Storm users and more Controller/Dominator options.

 

I didn't know about the Merit Buffs for the TFs SFs of the like but I wonder if it was truly a big enough buff to make it worthwhile still?  Some of those Arcs and and other runs would take hours on end to finish with little gain which made a lot of old players avoid them like the plague.  The rewards need to be inticing enough to the point where a lot of us Old Players will even bother doing them again.  *Thinks back to the lengthy Positron and Silver Mantis Task forces and weeps deeply*

[Nericus]

If you Ouro those, you can still get Psyche's TF at the very least, along with Calvin Scott and possibly a Statesman version of Hero's Hero.

 

Sister Psyche and Statesman's Pal are in Ouro

[Rylas]

• Getting to level 12 will take ~1% longer than before. This is negligible.
  
• Getting to level 15 will take ~7% longer than before. Not completely negligible, but won't make any practical difference.
  
• Getting to level 18 will take ~20% longer than before. Will make a practical difference, but not a significant one.
  
• Getting to level 20 will take ~42% longer than before.
  
• Getting to level 22 will take ~61% longer than before.
  

 

Thanks for the more easily readable translation. Do you know what this equates to in DFB runs? Like, instead of level 20 after 4 runs with Double XP, how many runs would one need to do using Double XP to hit 20? Between 5 and 6?

 

I won't lie, I'm not totally psyched about the DFB change. It certainly makes sense not to have people going 1–50 in it. But as a long time fan and player of the game, the first 20 levels of the game just don't excite me, and my play time is a lot less than it was when I was younger. Being able to take a character to 20 was a great way to see which sets I'd enjoy playing and investing in. Because even after 20, I have to take them out to the rest of the content I enjoy to see how they really play.

 

Is there any chance of just doing a flat XP drop at level 20 (or 22, seeing as how the powers you get from the DFB stop working then anyway) instead of the gradual curve?

 

 

[Saikochoro]

First off:  I was fine with DFB the way it was, and I'm fine with the change.  I also think you have well summarized most of what the anti-dfb crowd was saying.

 

My thoughts

 

The reasons for nerfing it was silly. People running through DFB to however many levels they wanted wasn’t hurting others. The mass majority of complaints I see from anti DFB posts were:

 

- People should do the content instead just like me. Nothing is stopping people from doing the content if they so wish.

True

- People doing DFB makes it harder for me to team. Again, no it doesn’t. Never had a problem filling a non-DFB team quickly.

  Your experience, is one data point.  Mine is a different one.  I get that you haven't had issues filling a non-DFB team, but I have.  There are likely reasons, and I am not saying DFB nerfing is the solution, but I am tired of hearing everyone say how easy it is to form a team.  It takes NO effort to jump into a DFB team.  It takes a lot of effort to find the players that are willing to team for other content.  Impossible?  No.  Incredibly Difficult?  No.  Harder?  Yes

- It’s annoying seeing DFB advertised in LFG. LFG channel is for looking for group. So why shouldn’t people use it to fill a group for DFB. If you don’t want to join just ignore it. I don’t have a problem ingoring the myriad of LFG posts that I don’t feel like participating in at the moment be they for DFB or otherwise.

It is annoying.  Not saying it's a reason to change, but it is annoying.  And of course it's easy to ignore non-DFB posts - there's what, 1 non-DFB for every 10 DFB posts?  Its hard to see the non-DFB posts, super easy to ignore them

- People shouldn’t level up so fast. Again, why? Why does this hurt someone who wants to do it slowly? It doesn’t. Nothing prevents people from leveling as slowly or as quickly as they want.

It doesn't hurt anyone if other people level up faster than me...agreed

 

This also will do nothing about getting people to play more story arcs or other similar content in lower levels. The same people who wanted to get passed the low levels quickly will still do DFB or AE, or find a power leveler. The same people who want to do Kings row story arcs will still do those. And they will still complain about people leveling too fast. So I’m the end, I highly doubt it will change any behavior (although the venue may change somewhat).  People will still complain about people playing the game a different way than they want them to. All this does it make DFB less rewarding for people who enjoy leveling up new alts quickly. None of the root behaviors are changed and thus it is a meaningless nerf.

  Is it going to dramatically change behavior?  No of course not.Well let's see if that's true.  Is every single DFB player going to just do one of those 3 things?  Maybe, maybe not.  Let's observe first...

 

Even so, the devs are the boss and I’m playing their game. So I will take it in stride. I have no intentions of leaving and very much appreciate all that they have done.  I’m bound to not like some decisions made, but honestly that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I still get to play, for which I am very grateful.

+1 Inf for being pretty fair about this...

 

Honestly, even though the tone of my post was quite negative on the DFB change it doesn’t truly matter to me in the grand scheme of things. I disagree with it, but I can adapt easily enough. I just wasn’t fond of the reasoning most people put forth. I concede that my ability to form teams easily is anecdotal and other may have different experience. A number of variables could be st play as to why I can easily fill teams and other may not.

[Dr. Gemini]

I didn't know about the Merit Buffs for the TFs SFs of the like but I wonder if it was truly a big enough buff to make it worthwhile still?  Some of those Arcs and and other runs would take hours on end to finish with little gain which made a lot of old players avoid them like the plague.  The rewards need to be inticing enough to the point where a lot of us Old Players will even bother doing them again.  *Thinks back to the lengthy Positron and Silver Mantis Task forces and weeps deeply*

 

From the story arcs I've played so far, you get 60% more than you used to (plus or minus a couple of percentage points). I haven't come close to playing them all, or even most, and I haven't done a TF yet, so I don't know if they just did a +60% buff or if they're using a different formula for determining merits and its just coincidence everything I've run has been about 60%.

[Jon]

Really stoked about a lot of these changes, particularly about Patrol XP now working in AE, the Controller immob changes, and the costume piece fixes. Thanks for putting in work on the game and making efforts to improve the gameplay experience for all of us.

 

[Saikochoro]

The people raging over DFB make me LOL. Running it 15 times doesn't teach you anything more than running it 2-3 times. People will not "learn their powers" because they can only use so many of those powers LOL. The "reasons" behind not nerfing it are just silly and remind me of a kid throwing a temper tantrum. The amount of xp and rewards on Homecoming are FAR above what Live ever was - especially with the FREE boosts available. I also get a kick out of the people threatening to leave and/or run their own servers hahahaha.

 

Honestly, it wasn’t about learning more. It was a good way to get up to low to mid 30s to test out a new powerset combination. Many, perhaps even most, of us are veterans from live.  The low levels are boring and a lot of people do t want to slog through then just to see if their powerset combination is worth investing more time into. Getting to mid 20s quickly and having a bit more of the build gives a better (though still incomplete) picture.

 

The reasons for nerfing it was silly. People running through DFB to however many levels they wanted wasn’t hurting others. The mass majority of complaints I see from anti DFB posts were:

 

- People should do the content instead just like me. Nothing is stopping people from doing the content if they so wish.

- People doing DFB makes it harder for me to team. Again, no it doesn’t. Never had a problem filling a non-DFB team quickly.

- It’s annoying seeing DFB advertised in LFG. LFG channel is for looking for group. So why shouldn’t people use it to fill a group for DFB. If you don’t want to join just ignore it. I don’t have a problem ingoring the myriad of LFG posts that I don’t feel like participating in at the moment be they for DFB or otherwise.

- People shouldn’t level up so fast. Again, why? Why does this hurt someone who wants to do it slowly? It doesn’t. Nothing prevents people from leveling as slowly or as quickly as they want.

 

None of these reasons are compelling in my opinion. Most of them are about restricting how another player enjoys playing the game, even though it has no bearing on how they themselves are able to play. It does not enhance other content. It just restricts a popular content. I always like more options. Not less. And this does not open up more options. The alternatives were always there. People just chose not to do them.

 

This also will do nothing about getting people to play more story arcs or other similar content in lower levels. The same people who wanted to get passed the low levels quickly will still do DFB or AE, or find a power leveler. The same people who want to do Kings row story arcs will still do those. And they will still complain about people leveling too fast. So I’m the end, I highly doubt it will change any behavior (although the venue may change somewhat).  People will still complain about people playing the game a different way than they want them to. All this does it make DFB less rewarding for people who enjoy leveling up new alts quickly. None of the root behaviors are changed and thus it is a meaningless nerf.

 

Even so, the devs are the boss and I’m playing their game. So I will take it in stride. I have no intentions of leaving and very much appreciate all that they have done.  I’m bound to not like some decisions made, but honestly that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I still get to play, for which I am very grateful.

 

This is a situation where knowing someone with a private server can be of great benefit.  As I stated before, on a private server you have GM level access to everything.  So, characters can be boosted to whatever level, missions can be run, and knowledge may be gained to see if this is something they might want to pursue on the "Live" server.  Hopefully, there are enough folks doing private servers that this is an option for anyone using DFB to do research on powerset viability, and unhappy with the reduction in the XP curve.

 

Sorry for the huge quote string. I’m on my phone and don’t want to deal with snipping. Anyway, I am by no means unhappy enough to do my own server. No in the slightest. Despite the tone of my post, I’m honestly not really unhappy st all with the change. I disagree with it, but it doesn’t make me like the game any less. I hate the low levels, but do not want an instant 50. I really enjoy mid 30s and up. I’d hate to skip the middle levels as those are honestly my favorite and that’s when I stop hunting for xp. I just enjoyed an easy way to skip the low levels to test out various power combinations.  In the end I suspect it won’t change much for me or for the anti DFB crowd. So I feel it was kind of pointless. But that is only my opinion. They could delete DFB and I’d still be happy to play.

 

[Profit]

*get's popcorn*

 

LOL just wait until they nerf brutes as they slowly remove every tool for farming or the economy on this server. Don't think brutes aren't on the list of 'farming issues'.

[Abraxus]

*get's popcorn*

 

LOL just wait until they nerf brutes as they slowly remove every tool for farming or the economy on this server. Don't think brutes aren't on the list of 'farming issues'.

 

Why?  Are they so noticeably overpowered that they would scream "Nerf candidate"?  So much so, that they would jump to the top of the priority list?

[Profit]

Didn't say they were at the top Brax, just on the list of farming 'issues'.

[Dr. Gemini]

*get's popcorn*

 

LOL just wait until they nerf brutes as they slowly remove every tool for farming or the economy on this server. Don't think brutes aren't on the list of 'farming issues'.

 

They're moving so slowly, in fact, that they've yet to actually remove even one farming tool.

[Profit]

*get's popcorn*

 

LOL just wait until they nerf brutes as they slowly remove every tool for farming or the economy on this server. Don't think brutes aren't on the list of 'farming issues'.

 

They're moving so slowly, in fact, that they've yet to actually remove even one farming tool.

 

It is a slow burn your right, I'm going to need more popcorn.

 

This is going kinda like gas prices, slowly rising (or in this case removing effectiveness), while letting everyone get adjusted to the new status quo until suddenly, look everyone $20/gallon it's our lucky day!

[justicebeliever]

*get's popcorn*

 

LOL just wait until they nerf brutes as they slowly remove every tool for farming or the economy on this server. Don't think brutes aren't on the list of 'farming issues'.

 

They're moving so slowly, in fact, that they've yet to actually remove even one farming tool.

 

It is a slow burn your right, I'm going to need more popcorn.

 

This is going kinda like gas prices, slowly rising (or in this case removing effectiveness), while letting everyone get adjusted to the new status quo until suddenly, look everyone $20/gallon it's our lucky day!

 

So, since there is a small volunteer development team, we should recheck our adjustment level in what?  10 years?  Get the jumbo, jumbo popcorn with lot's of refills....

[Dr. Gemini]

*get's popcorn*

 

LOL just wait until they nerf brutes as they slowly remove every tool for farming or the economy on this server. Don't think brutes aren't on the list of 'farming issues'.

 

They're moving so slowly, in fact, that they've yet to actually remove even one farming tool.

It is a slow burn your right, I'm going to need more popcorn.

 

This is going kinda like gas prices, slowly rising (or in this case removing effectiveness), while letting everyone get adjusted to the new status quo until suddenly, look everyone $20/gallon it's our lucky day!

 

You remind me of those people who, after every patch, would loudly proclaim that the game would end because of (fill in the blank) change. And then went on about how they were right when the game finally shuttered, years later. So, when your prediction fails to come true, are you going to fess up to being wrong, or just continue to stress that its "just around the corner"?

 

[Ironblade]

Need clarification,

 

"Fixed an issue with Morality Missions not resetting the mission owner's alignment points on completion in some cases. This does not apply to teammates, only the mission owner."

 

Is it back to 5 tips per day + morality after hitting 10 like It used to be on live or 10 tips + morality per da?

There was a bug where you could do your ten Tip Missions, do a Morality Mission for merits and then still have a full tip bar.  So you could immediately do another Morality mission for merits.

 

And when I say 'bug', I really mean exploit.  Someone explained how they farmed merits.  After the Morality mission, they would choose to not change alignment and then do another Morality mission and not change alignment, etc.  At least, that's how they described it.  Definitely sounded like an exploit.

[MTReese]

Probably a dumb question but I just wanna ask anyway. So when I opened the launcher it downloaded (assume it was the update) but when I launched the game it closed and the security on my computer said homecoming.exe was a high risk and I needed to reset my computer immediately. I deleted the whole file I had that everything to do with the game in it. What exactly should I do? Reinstall or was there something simple I could have done to resolve this issue? Thanks in advanced!

[justicebeliever]

Probably a dumb question but I just wanna ask anyway. So when I opened the launcher it downloaded (assume it was the update) but when I launched the game it closed and the security on my computer said homecoming.exe was a high risk and I needed to reset my computer immediately. I deleted the whole file I had that everything to do with the game in it. What exactly should I do? Reinstall or was there something simple I could have done to resolve this issue? Thanks in advanced!

 

It's safe to reinstall - it's a known issue for some AV software

 

JSYK, the new homecoming.exe was flagged by my AV (AVG) as suspicious, but already passed inspection (in case others post of app closure issues)

 

Yes, that's going to continue to happen until I start digitally signing the .exe with a code certificate and they build enough "trust" with the AV companies. The code cert was requested a couple of weeks ago but it's still in the process of being issued, since Homecoming LLC is a new entity they are being extra demanding. I wasn't planning to patch until I had a cert, but it's been two weeks already, so unsigned .exe it is.

[Profit]

*get's popcorn*

 

LOL just wait until they nerf brutes as they slowly remove every tool for farming or the economy on this server. Don't think brutes aren't on the list of 'farming issues'.

 

They're moving so slowly, in fact, that they've yet to actually remove even one farming tool.

 

This is going kinda like gas prices, slowly rising (or in this case removing effectiveness), while letting everyone get adjusted to the new status quo until suddenly, look everyone $20/gallon it's our lucky day!

 

You remind me of those people who, after every patch, would loudly proclaim that the game would end because of (fill in the blank) change. And then went on about how they were right when the game finally shuttered, years later. So, when your prediction fails to come true, are you going to fess up to being wrong, or just continue to stress that its "just around the corner"?

It is a slow burn your right, I'm going to need more popcorn.

 

Nope Dr, if I'm wrong and they aren't actually anti farming/economy (which from the evidence so far seems to be exactly what they are) I will gladly proclaim I'm wrong AND serve up some juicy movie flavored popcorn for everyone! (add your own salt, because heart conditions)

[Zep]

 

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.

 

/signed

 

I use firecages to hold mobs in place while I tornado / lightning storm / bonfire etc. Or, well, I used to.

 

I can see removing it from the single target, as it is with firecages the -kb is(was) a much shorter duration then the immob. This allowed firecages to really help nail mobs down and keep them in place for nuking.

 

Or was the change just for the single target immob?

[Trickshooter]

/signed

 

I use firecages to hold mobs in place while I tornado / lightning storm / bonfire etc. Or, well, I used to.

 

I can see removing it from the single target, as it is with firecages the -kb is(was) a much shorter duration then the immob. This allowed firecages to really help nail mobs down and keep them in place for nuking.

 

Or was the change just for the single target immob?

 

KnockBack will be converted to KnockDown

[Zep]

/signed

 

I use firecages to hold mobs in place while I tornado / lightning storm / bonfire etc. Or, well, I used to.

 

I can see removing it from the single target, as it is with firecages the -kb is(was) a much shorter duration then the immob. This allowed firecages to really help nail mobs down and keep them in place for nuking.

 

Or was the change just for the single target immob?

 

KnockBack will be converted to KnockDown

 

for partial or full time?