issue 27 Patch Notes for April 20th, 2021 - Issue 27, Page 2

[Jimmy]

7 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Oh, you mean the thread where you and the other mods deleted almost all of the posts arguing against the combo system because it wasn't "focused feedback"? That thread?

 

No, you don't get to show a discussion that you edited to your liking as "proof" that everyone was just peachy with the combo system being added to Energy Melee.

 

Look, you're clearly the kind of person who never admits when they're wrong even when proof is shoved in their face. That being the case I'm just going to bow out of this conversation now before I get myself in trouble.

I just looked at the first 2 pages, and there's no deleted posts. I do remember a small number of problematic posters repeatedly derailing the thread later on, but it's also kinda disingenuous to claim that we deleted almost all the posts arguing against the combo system - there's still plenty there, you just need to read the thread to see that,

 

This back-and-forth is kinda circular and pointless, we're not going to agree, so let's leave it there.

[Wavicle]

On 4/23/2021 at 10:44 AM, PeregrineFalcon said:

Yes. This development team has habit of sweetening nerfs with buffs. That's a good thing, but it doesn't change the fact that once this team has decided to nerf something they ignore feedback against it.

 

1) We gave feedback against adding a combo system to Energy Melee. Ignored.

2) We gave feedback against adding a combo system to Sorcery pool. Ignored.

3) We gave feedback against decreasing the range of fast snipes. Ignored.

4) We gave feedback against the Rune of Protection nerf. They didn't ignore our feedback this time. They responded by nerfing it even harder!

 

 

Look, I'm not saying these decisions are wrong or that I disagree with them. I'm just saying that anyone who claims "the devs listen to feedback" is cherry-picking minor details while ignoring the big issues where the devs did ignore feedback.

 

Yes. Who cares what the angry mob has done? The angry mob is always going to act like the angry mob. Using the angry mob as an excuse to refuse talk to those of us who are reasonable adults is ridiculous. Once again. If the devs aren't even going to talk to us then why have feedback threads?

That they didn’t do what you asked does NOT mean you were ignored.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Wavicle

[WindDemon21]

2 hours ago, Bopper said:

The split on alphas hasn't changed. As for your comment, what AT are you? I thought before you said a Brute, and I'm looking at the CoD data now: a Level 50 Brute will do 19.3 absorb every 2s. So, assuming you're level 50 and you are completely unenhanced, then I would not expect you to see less than 19.3 (rounded to show +19, probably) when you use the power on another ally.

Yeah tested it on a brute, i figured it wasn't actually enhancing just pointing out the alpha was stating that it was though. Would be nice if they would fix alphas so heal/absorb are the same thing like for enhancements. But yeah though, it feels absurdly weak.

[Myrmidon]

Let the record reflect that if a combo system is necessary to give us updates the likes of Energy Melee and Sorcery, then I say combo until your heart’s content, @Captain Powerhouse.

[Wavicle]

Regarding the new animation for Disruption arrow and the Longbow versions:

 

I have no issues with the overall idea of how they were corrected, but they are now actually very difficult to see at all. Is it possible to make them slightly more obvious without restoring any of the harmful flashing?

[Wavicle]

17 minutes ago, Katharos said:

It feels like it's time for HC's team to restate their development priorities, because they seem to have changed. After seeing all of the confusion, outrage, and questions both in this thread and in the feedback leading up to this update, it seems like the ongoing problem between the community and the dev team is that it's not clear what overall vision the development team is working towards. There's a transparency problem. As people have stated already, there were several questions as to motives for changes in a number of threads that went unanswered. Some people have started speculating that some general gameplay nerfs have been motivated by PVP balance for lack of a better explanation. It's not necessarily bad to develop around PVP as a priority, but if PVP is a balancing point for HC development, then it's better to state that outright so players can make their decisions accordingly. There will be less fussing over individual changes if they're in alignment with a transparent and explicit design goal; if a design goal does not align with a player's preferences, they can then make the decision to move to a different rogue server that is in better alignment with their preferred playstyle.

 

 

I disagree. They've been exceptionally transparent, communicative, responsive, and consistent. Was KM overperforming, probably not, but Stalkers in general are either overperforming or very, very close to it.

  

On 9/20/2020 at 11:19 AM, The Curator said:

This means some sets will be buffed, and yes, some sets will be nerfed. However, we feel there are definitely more underperforming sets than there are overperforming ones - so expect to see more buffs than nerfs.

 

 

 

[Troo]

5 hours ago, UberGuy said:

Your original statement was that no one wanted combos. Unless you're claiming that they edited the thread to add people posting that they liked the combo system, I think you're moving the goalposts.

 

I am very comfortable with saying; Many people spoke up regarding Energy Melee changes with emphasis directed at the combo mechanic. Many posts were removed for many reasons.

 

Areas of the Page 2 beta was similar but not to the same degree. It's a discouraging.. process?

[Troo]

Who do we ask to get a shhhhh emoji added to the forums? @Myrmidon

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Katharos said:

Wow, yeah. My KM stalker just got kneecapped. I thought having to respec out of haemorrhage on my savage stalker was going to be bad enough. I actually rolled my KM stalker on the basis of burst's elevated crit chance. I think I'm going to have to sit down and go through all my stalkers and figure out how badly nerfed they were on average. This is really frustrating and disappointing.

 

I was already a standardisation sceptic before this patch. I wasn't under the impression the differing crit chances were bugs. I was under the impression that had been decided by the individual attributes of the powers in play. Burst isn't a power to write home about. It's tiny and doesn't do amazing damage. Really the only thing it had going for it was that elevated crit chance from hide. I'm very afraid my stalkers are going to feel much more samey than before... I don't want a repeat of my experience with blasters. And for what? What did this actually improve in gameplay terms? What has standardisation actually added to the city of heroes experience? I'm hard pressed to list a positive example, but I welcome them if others can think of them. 

It feels like it's time for HC's team to restate their development priorities, because they seem to have changed. After seeing all of the confusion, outrage, and questions both in this thread and in the feedback leading up to this update, it seems like the ongoing problem between the community and the dev team is that it's not clear what overall vision the development team is working towards. There's a transparency problem. As people have stated already, there were several questions as to motives for changes in a number of threads that went unanswered. Some people have started speculating that some general gameplay nerfs have been motivated by PVP balance for lack of a better explanation. It's not necessarily bad to develop around PVP as a priority, but if PVP is a balancing point for HC development, then it's better to state that outright so players can make their decisions accordingly. There will be less fussing over individual changes if they're in alignment with a transparent and explicit design goal; if a design goal does not align with a player's preferences, they can then make the decision to move to a different rogue server that is in better alignment with their preferred playstyle.

 

Did you even look ingame before posting this? Nothing about Burst changed.

 

Also, PvP is far from a balancing point - it's been explicitly stated by multiple people on the dev team that they are 1) not designing powers around PvP and 2) not going to let PvP stop changes from happening.

[Coyotedancer]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

Did you even look ingame before posting this? Nothing about Burst changed.

 

Also, PvP is far from a balancing point - it's been explicitly stated by multiple people on the dev team that they are 1) not designing powers around PvP and 2) not going to let PvP stop changes from happening.

 

The power itself is the same. What was altered was the powers' % chance to crit when used from Hide. Prior to this standardization, it was higher. It was an indirect nerf, I guess you could say... But it is a noticeable change.  

[scottocamp]

11 hours ago, arcane said:

They *did* talk to us about the RoP change though - that was my point. And that extra effort had little impact on nearly everyone who claimed to want answers, from what I saw. That’s all I’m saying. Not that they should never talk to us. [EDIT: though I will say that I don’t think it’s correct to believe that a properly functioning game is necessarily democratic.]

 

 

I don't believe that is true at all. 

 

I, for one,  greatly appreciated the developer response on RoP once that response finally happened.  I believe the posts by Faultline and Jimmy initiated a much better and more productive discussion and eventually a very nice re-work of the Sorcery Pool.  It is often very difficult to give meaningful feedback without knowing why a certain action is being taken. 

 

[Britannic]

I've got a character using the large body type and all of their blaster assault rifle attacks, other than the flame thrower ones, are firing from knee/feet height rather than the end of the rifle. Is this a new bug, I hadn't touched them in a little while.

[Parabola]

My only slight complaint about page 2 is the change to the spawning rate in atlas park. I have a tradition of running the three little 'saviour of atlas park' arcs on each new toon and I've never had to take so much time hunting down the right mobs. I was running a new toon yesterday and was having to stand around waiting for mobs to respawn several times because they'd been cleared out.

 

I'm not sure I really understand what the problem was that this adjustment was designed to fix? The only thing I can think of that could be even slightly annoying was the bit where you have to click the three glowie boxes with arachnos respawning around you but surely moving those boxes slightly further away from the spawn points would be a better solution?

 

Anyway, I love the travel power updates. The sorcery rework looks interesting, I'll be giving that more attention on future builds. The snipe changes make sense to me, it seems sensible that the extra range should be a product of the 'real' snipe not the fast version.

 

Oh, and chalk me up for another vote in favour of combo mechanics in general. They make the game more interesting in my opinion. Also, I strongly suspect that people would react very badly to the adjustments certain powers would experience if the opportunity costs of being involved in combo mechanics were removed. Removing the combo mechanic from energy melee wouldn't leave us with fast energy transfer on permanently for example, that would be ridiculously op.

[Faultline]

4 hours ago, parabola said:

My only slight complaint about page 2 is the change to the spawning rate in atlas park. I have a tradition of running the three little 'saviour of atlas park' arcs on each new toon and I've never had to take so much time hunting down the right mobs.

 

I hear you; this was meant to address issues with the mobs re-spawning on top of players that were not ready for them (they ignored spawn distance range unlike other street mobs in the game) but it looks like we need a better solution. There's a cave area in particular where mobs would respawn in the front while players were making their way to the back.

[Parabola]

12 minutes ago, Faultline said:

I hear you; this was meant to address issues with the mobs re-spawning on top of players that were not ready for them (they ignored spawn distance range unlike other street mobs in the game) but it looks like we need a better solution. There's a cave area in particular where mobs would respawn in the front while players were making their way to the back.

Ah, good news that it's on the radar. While we're on roughly the same subject could I request another couple of adjustments be looked at? Hunting Council in Steel Canyon is a bit of a pain because they spawn so rarely by themselves and if they do it tends to be individually. Trying to get some hits in before the 5th Column wipe them out in the battle spawns is something of a race against time too (also a particularly prevalent problem in Boomtown). The 5th Column are so much more powerful than the Council it can be frustrating watching them get murdered repeatedly before you can get stuck in.

[Stormchant]

2 hours ago, Faultline said:

 

I hear you; this was meant to address issues with the mobs re-spawning on top of players that were not ready for them (they ignored spawn distance range unlike other street mobs in the game) but it looks like we need a better solution. There's a cave area in particular where mobs would respawn in the front while players were making their way to the back.

Silly spawn rates are kind of needed when the Atlas quests want you to defeat specific sets of mobs.

 

I just logged off a new character because there were zero quest mobs available to progress with (and a couple of suspiciously high level characters parked in the area...) Even aside from that it had been hard to progress earlier.

 

I think this needs to be reversed.

 

[Aberrant]

5 hours ago, Faultline said:

I hear you; this was meant to address issues with the mobs re-spawning on top of players that were not ready for them (they ignored spawn distance range unlike other street mobs in the game) but it looks like we need a better solution. There's a cave area in particular where mobs would respawn in the front while players were making their way to the back.

Would it be possible to have the world enemies required for defeat in these arcs such as the Arachnos in Argosy Industrial and Hellions at the bank instead spawn out of the doors of the nearby buildings and head to their usual area so they aren't appearing directly on you? I know there are some world spawns that operate like this, like Vahzilok coming out of sewers and rooftop doors when you approach, and decoy citizens that call for backup.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Aberrant

[macskull]

14 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

The power itself is the same. What was altered was the powers' % chance to crit when used from Hide. Prior to this standardization, it was higher. It was an indirect nerf, I guess you could say... But it is a noticeable change.  

Once again, this change you are talking about did not happen.

[lemming]

6 hours ago, parabola said:

Ah, good news that it's on the radar. While we're on roughly the same subject could I request another couple of adjustments be looked at? Hunting Council in Steel Canyon is a bit of a pain because they spawn so rarely by themselves and if they do it tends to be individually. Trying to get some hits in before the 5th Column wipe them out in the battle spawns is something of a race against time too (also a particularly prevalent problem in Boomtown). The 5th Column are so much more powerful than the Council it can be frustrating watching them get murdered repeatedly before you can get stuck in.

For council in Boomtown, the base in the west is the best place.  Large groups and no 5th

[Wavicle]

It looks like the suppression mechanics in both Stealth and Evasive Maneuvers are still a little wonky. Once it gets figure out though, I have high hopes that this means that the mother of all OAS powers, Personal Force Field, might finally get looked at.

 

Also, Phase Shift should let us attacked phased mobs, but that's far less important.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Night said:

Power activation time should be adjusted match animation time, or animations should be extended to match their activation time.

The former, please.

[gec72]

On 4/20/2021 at 10:41 PM, arcane said:

This new Singularity change is frankly amazing.

 

The effect is neat, but functionally I'm not a fan. I do not want it to pull mobs -- which I have immobilized (often in a patch of freezing rain) -- TOWARDS me. I built for ranged defense for a reason.

Edited April 25, 2021 by gec72

[GadgetDon]

Thanks for the changes to Stealth on Test - copying over a character to test it now.

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, gec72 said:

 

The effect is neat, but functionally I'm not a fan. I do not want it to pull mobs -- which I have immobilized (often in a patch of freezing rain) -- TOWARDS me. I built for ranged defense for a reason.

Adjust tactics, back up.

[Cinnder]

Just want to say thank you to the devs for all their (volunteer) work.  Although I view a lot of this update as being in the Fixin' What Ain't Broke category (esp travel power changes), I do appreciate the bug fixes and especially the toning down of the difficulty on the new arcs.  I look fwd to trying those arcs again.

 

The one thing I'm enjoying more than I expected is the exploration badge tip missions.  There's a lot of good writing in there.  I'm now playing a mini-game where I try to guess which badge it is from the mish description. 🙂