issue 27 [Beta] Patch Notes for April 24th, 2021

[GadgetDon]

Feedback on stealth powers.

 

First, thank you thank you thank you! It now disables when I expect it to disable and doesn't when I don't. If you plan in the future to add "disable on heal/buff others", I'm fine with that.

 

On the default setting, there's still very little visual difference between "disabled" and "enabled". Going to an icon employee and switching to "invisibility", yes, the visual difference is significant. I'll be honest, I don't remember what the visual difference was with just the old stealth power, because I'd grab stealth and then mostly ignore it until I could get invisibility. 

 

My preference would be that the power now default to "invisible", but if you don't want that change, please make enabled stealth a bit more translucent and disabled stealth almost none at all. While this is less of an issue than it was before - I can't count the times I've been stealthing through a map, someone without invisibility decides to just run through, and I get hit with splash damage and as Baymax would say, "oh no" (Yes, I've been streaming the series on Disney+ lately)

 

Thanks so much for listening!

Edited April 25, 2021 by GadgetDon
GadgetDon can't spell

[kelika2]

4 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

For those dissatisfied with the normalization of the Crit chances: are there additional ways to normalize the sets in question (KM specifically, apparently) to help make it competitive without relying on a single power working much better than it probably should?

I vote go in the opposite direction and somehow work in AoEs for old(launch) stalker sets with no/low AoE and allow for a 100% crit chance for all AoEs from hide/placate/ATO1 proc.  Like taking the Tanker aoe target limit/arc/radius buff and apply it to some stalker attacks.  Flashing Steel can hit 10-16 targets with a wider arc, dragonfly can hit up to 6 with a wider arc and so on

 

1.) stalkers are not popular as it is

2.) stalkers already have a lower base damage to compensate for high chance/auto crits

3.) this will have no effect on high end gameplay as it is for trash clearing, which is 99% of city of heroes.  Wading through hoards of minions, that is

4.) some sets with low AoE like Katana would benefit from a 100% crit chance from Dragonfly or Flashing Steel

5.) the game moves pretty fast to even allow for Re-Hiding most to some of the time to even take effect, which means placates 45ish second CD with slots to balance out kin melee or proposed stalker aoe crits.  ATO1 proc chance/per minute unknown to me

Edited April 25, 2021 by kelika2
low

[Croax]

8 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Stalker > Kinetic Melee > Burst: PvE Hide Crit changed from 100% to 50%

You should not nerf Kinetic Melee. The Set needs a rework across all ATs.

[Bopper]

2 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

showing all the math you want doesn't matter

I'd like to see the math.

[Sovera]

Hyperbole.

Spoiler

 

People come from making demands which are not met and massage it into 'devs are not listening and go ahead and do things I didn't like'. Its convenient to forget that broadly speaking everything touched has been a straight out buff. EM with a combo system was against some people's wishes? Sure, but it went from a niche unpopular set to not just usable but even top damage (I hope to see this with Fire Melee that -should- be 1# in damage no matter the AT, but this is beating a dead horse). RoP was nerfed for top end builds? Sure, and it was buffed for lower end builds plus the rest of the pool was buffed magnificently to the point we may finally get a decent attack out of a pool.

 

Caramba, what is this hissing at the very professional help we are receiving in playing one of our favorite old games? Haven't we seen other servers with their slapdash approach at messing with numbers? Almost to the point of playing as if with cheat codes on? What is it with the straight up lying about hiding posts and devs refusing to change their stance when it has repeatedly happened?? The effing vocal minority is once more rearing their head, and we even have loud aggressive posts above giving a bad taste to the ones reading it, and not just the devs. What the heck? Do you guys also shout at retail workers?? I'm refraining from using adjectives like american and I hope it's appreciated.

 

 

 

On to more pleasant topics.

 

I've tried KM on all ATs and actually leveled them to max. Just like Savage Melee the set has beautiful animations and just like Savage Melee it is hurt by the higher level powers being so bad that the general advice is in not taking them. This is obviously just something that needs a tuning pass but the small team and the LARGE number of issues the current dev team is tackling makes progress necessarily glacial.

 

Hemorrhage was only taken with Stalkers, and the fix to the bug now has the advice in the Stalker forums not to take it. It means the set relies on the T1, T2, and T4 to do ST damage. I shouldn't need to say that such low tier attacks do not good damage make nor should sets have their stronger attacks not taken. I'm half surprised Devastating Blow does not have the same advice given since I feel the same about it. Too much of a wind-up (plus really dumb looking animation), and outside of Scrappers/Stalkers it does not feel rewarding to push that button.

 

The same applies to KM. T1, T2, and T3 are the powers advised to use. This requires only a pass to make the T9 numbers more appealing, but frankly, I don't think that numbers would be enough. The set is just like Claws in the way that its gimmick is super fast beautiful animations (with KM they even visually chain into each other which has an important, non number related, appeal). Imagine Claws being Claws but the last attack is a near three second wind-up? With all the downsides of huge winding up animations, such as the -bad- feeling it invokes when we whiff.

 

Spoiler

TBH I'd like some sort of standard that the longer animations are not restrained by 95% chance to hit. If we spend nearly 3 seconds winding up it needs to hit, it needs to hit hard, that's the only way to make it appealing.

 

The way I found to make KM do decent damage was using quadruple damage procs for each attack and even then it was not spectacular damage due to the fast animation and native fast recharges involved, but as others mentioned above everyone loved and straight out mentioned KM as a fun set thanks to the 100% crit out of hide. Removing this is fine. Normalizing and all, but it does imply the set needs a complete rework.
 

Spoiler

On another TBH I'd like all narrow cones to be removed. We need minimum 90% cones. 45% is a ranged character's prerogative, not something a meleer gets to fully use. We have others with 60 and 70º. Cones are already iffy and could do with a major rework where they hit in the direction the character is facing instead of requiring a target, but this is an argument for another time.

 

 

[Jimmy]

5 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

However, the one thing that I don't like is that once they decide to nerf something it gets nerfed. The amount of people against it doesn't matter, showing all the math you want doesn't matter, nothing matters. They ask for feedback but, if your feedback is too aggressively against their proposed changes they hide your posts and say that your feedback wasn't focused enough.

Once again, this simply isn't true, please stop spreading false information.

If you're an asshole to us other posters, then your post will be hidden. If you try to derail a thread with something off-topic, then your post will be hidden. If you reply with unhelpful hyperbole without actually testing, usually we don't hide your post unless you're also being an asshole (however, this is a very common combination), despite how incredibly unhelpful it is.

 

If you quote any of the above, your post will also get hidden, because it's not worth our time to filter through it all.

 

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

Do you guys also shout at retail workers??

 

Seems that way. Seriously - posts like this will drive us to not bother communicating at all.

 

To everyone else: Voice your concerns. Don't resort to mudslinging, hyperbole, and blatant misinformation. Doing that is a really poor way to convince someone (ie: us) that you're correct. Don't listen to the few posters who say we don't listen (because we don't do exactly what they say), because they're completely incorrect.

[Jimmy]

@Replacement @Glacier Peak @GadgetDon Thank you for testing and providing feedback.

 

9 hours ago, Replacement said:

Just so I'm clear... the intent here is to later on reintroduce base Running and Leaping sets, specifically sets that cannot be slotted in Sprints?

Right - we want to introduce new Running / Leaping sets in the future. The current status quo meant that any Uniques had to be balanced around Sprint, rather than actual running and leaping powers. This will no longer the case.

 

8 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

This begs the question though, will Fly and Teleport sets also get a dual-hatted set? Will Universal Travel IO sets be moot? 

Not entirely sure what you're getting at here. Fly, TP and Universal sets can't be slotted in Sprint 🙂 (I guess when they introduced Universal sets they'd already learned their lesson!)

 

5 hours ago, GadgetDon said:

On the default setting, there's still very little visual difference between "disabled" and "enabled". Going to an icon employee and switching to "invisibility", yes, the visual difference is significant. I'll be honest, I don't remember what the visual difference was with just the old stealth power, because I'd grab stealth and then mostly ignore it until I could get invisibility. 

 

My preference would be that the power now default to "invisible", but if you don't want that change, please make enabled stealth a bit more translucent and disabled stealth almost none at all. While this is less of an issue than it was before - I can't count the times I've been stealthing through a map, someone without invisibility decides to just run through, and I get hit with splash damage and as Baymax would say, "oh no" (Yes, I've been streaming the series on Disney+ lately)

I believe (but am not 100% sure) that the current default suppressed and unsuppressed transparency match Stealth's old values. I'll take a look to make sure, maybe there's a way we can make this more distinct (but I'm also conscious people like keeping their characters transparent for thematic reasons). Edit: Just checked, it's the same as before (70% opacity unsuppressed, 85% opacity suppressed).

 

Changing the default however isn't so simple as it also impacts everyone who's already using the power and likes the transparency how it is. If we could change it just for players who don't already have the power I think that would be great, but I don't believe there's a good way to do that.

[Clave Dark 5]

This is going to be a dumb question, but regarding this: 

 

 Only Affect Self

• Activating this power prevents you from attacking foes or aiding allies - all powers will only affect yourself

What can one do with this?  Maybe cast a shield on themselves that was previously only "for those on your team, but not you"? 

[Faultline]

12 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

This is going to be a dumb question, but regarding this: 

 

 Only Affect Self

• Activating this power prevents you from attacking foes or aiding allies - all powers will only affect yourself

What can one do with this?  Maybe cast a shield on themselves that was previously only "for those on your team, but not you"? 

 

No, this is explicitly to cater to people who used the old Invisibility power to intentionally set themselves to OAS so they can walk through enemies without damage auras affecting them and drawing aggro.

[Clave Dark 5]

I wasn't even aware that was a thing, but I don't usually like to ghost to the end either.  Thanks!

[Parabola]

34 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

To everyone else: Voice your concerns. Don't resort to mudslinging, hyperbole, and blatant misinformation. Doing that is a really poor way to convince someone (ie: us) that you're correct. Don't listen to the few posters who say we don't listen (because we don't do exactly what they say), because they're completely incorrect.

Yeah. It shouldn't need pointing out how unnecessary the hostile and insulting posting is but apparently this is where we still are. Lets be grown up about this everyone.

 

So, onto the subject at hand. I can understand the feeling that KM does not need down tuning overall. My guess is that the devs are coming at this from the point of view that they want powers to be working consistently to make it easier to implement and balance changes in the future. I know from firsthand experience what it's like to try to manage a system where various components behave differently so each change has to be tested individually against everything under the sun rather than being able to make any broad assumptions. Consistency and normalisation make it so much more possible to roll out changes without completely unexpected things going wrong.

 

To mitigate the crit chance reduction bumping up the radius on Burst to 10' to match the other stalker pbaoe's would seem to be a reasonable ask. Any shaving of animation time would always be welcome but Burst isn't an outlier in this regard compared to the others. As others have mentioned there are wider problems with the set such as Concentrated Strike really not being worth it on any AT and Power Siphon being a slightly disappointing mechanic (the latter not affecting stalkers obviously). Given that stalkers really need to be doing very good single target burst damage the problem with CS does potentially impact them more than most. Also recharging build up isn't all that great a benefit given how often they get this anyway from the ATO. If CS could be adjusted into a proper heavy hitter, maybe with normal crits, the set would be in a much better place.

 

1 minute ago, Faultline said:

No, this is explicitly to cater to people who used the old Invisibility power to intentionally set themselves to OAS so they can walk through enemies without damage auras affecting them and drawing aggro.

Oh, that'll be really useful on my current Energy Aura scrapper - thanks!

[Signalrunner]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

To everyone else: Voice your concerns. Don't resort to mudslinging, hyperbole, and blatant misinformation. Doing that is a really poor way to convince someone (ie: us) that you're correct. Don't listen to the few posters who say we don't listen (because we don't do exactly what they say), because they're completely incorrect.

 

I'd also like to bring up that the recent Energy Melee rework gave Stalkers a stronger version of Power Crash due to the set not having Whirling Hands like the other melee AT counterparts. It was a step in the right direction.

 

Why can't this newer design philosophy also be applied to Burst on Stalkers since the set omits Repulsing Torrent? Reducing the crit rate just feels like a step backwards in light of recent design improvement. It should be left alone or be put off until a rework for Kinetic Melee (for all ATs) can be done.

[Replacement]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Right - we want to introduce new Running / Leaping sets in the future. The current status quo meant that any Uniques had to be balanced around Sprint, rather than actual running and leaping powers. This will no longer the case.

Thanks for the confirmation.

 

I realize design accretion from the past has greatly limited your options, but I don't think this is very "readable."

 

I feel like we could propose some alternative approaches, but first I should ask this:

Is it possible to run a script or something so that everyone with Unbounded Leap slotted wakes up one day to find it's been replaced with Celerity?

[Jimmy]

2 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Is it possible to run a script or something so that everyone with Unbounded Leap slotted wakes up one day to find it's been replaced with Celerity?

Different set bonuses. Also doesn't solve the problem of new Run sets being slotted into Sprint.

[Replacement]

12 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Different set bonuses. Also doesn't solve the problem of new Run sets being slotted into Sprint.

I was going somewhere with that, but I actually realized something simpler:

 

Consider adding run Enhancements to the existing jump sets and vice versa.  This would let you move all 4 of the current sets into something like a "Parkour" category while still freeing you up to re-adding targeted leaping and running sets (without Sprint support) later on.

 

As I'm typing up my edit to this post, the more I think about it the more I think these rules will be muddy until those new sets arrive, and then everyone will be ok.  So you're probably ok.  I just wish we had a little more distinction in the names. 

 

No matter what you do, navigating which powers get access to the Venn diagram of relevant travel sets will never be great.

Edited April 25, 2021 by Replacement

[starro]

oh i do like that locking your toolbar number in place.  I have been advanced my toolbar in combat on accident since COH beta.

[Faultline]

47 minutes ago, Replacement said:

As I'm typing up my edit to this post, the more I think about it the more I think these rules will be muddy until those new sets arrive, and then everyone will be ok.  So you're probably ok.  I just wish we had a little more distinction in the names. 

 

I think the patch notes made things more confusing here. I did the renames with a specific framing in mind:

 

* Sprints take Sprints sets.

* Run powers take Running sets.

* Jump powers take Leaping sets.

* Celerity slots in powers that take Running or Sprints sets.

* Unbounded Leap slots in powers that take Leaping or Sprints sets.

 

This would be like creating a new set and giving it the "Flight and Defense" category, it just means it can be slotted in Fly and also in Fortitude. Don't think of them as two new categories, think as a single new category (Sprints) with these sets slotting on either one.

[Troo]

16 hours ago, Jimmy said:

 Evasive Maneuvers and  Quantum Maneuvers

• Defence will no longer suppress upon activating any power
  • Defence will now suppress on all attacks, including pseudopet attacks

 

So these can be used while buffing?

 

Thanks for addressing the broken out of combat functions.

 

(and just fyi Defense has an 's' Luck: +12.5% Defense to all attacks)

Edited April 25, 2021 by Troo

[Jimmy]

8 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

So these can be used while buffing?

 

Thanks for addressing the broken out of combat functions.

 

(and just fyi Defense has an 's' Luck: +12.5% Defense to all attacks)

Buffs and pet commands still suppress defence - have updated the notes to clarify this. Keep in mind neither of these things were possible whilst in the Only Affect Self state that Invisibility and the old version of Afterburner used to impose. You can now use the new OAS prestige power if you wish to lock yourself out of doing anything that could suppress your stealth or defence.

[Troo]

No new vendor for Siren''s Call mentioned yet?

[Alisson]

16 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Stalker > Dual Blades > Ablating Strike: Fixed a bug where this power would not apply AoE knockdown on combo completion

 

Tested and sweep is working properly again with AoE knockdown and the extra minor damage.

 

Oh also I couldn't make teleport not work, so that seems fixed too!

[Glacier Peak]

28 minutes ago, Alisson said:

Tested and sweep is working properly again with AoE knockdown and the extra minor damage.

 

Oh also I couldn't make teleport not work, so that seems fixed too!

I tried for an hour to force the AoE Knockdown at the end of the combo, but I realized I didn't understand the set combo mechanic and chalked it up to my own failure 😅. Thank you for confirming your findings!

[Glacier Peak]

36 minutes ago, Troo said:

No new vendor for Siren''s Call mentioned yet?

@Troo I am confident that what you are referring to is working as intended. The vendor(s) on both sides work when you achieve the prerequisites. And an alternative if you find that unsatisfactory is to go in to another PvP zone and purchase charges or temps from those vendors then come back to Siren's Call where they work just the same.  

[Glacier Peak]

52 minutes ago, Troo said:

So these can be used while buffing?

 

Thanks for addressing the broken out of combat functions.

 

(and just fyi Defense has an 's' Luck: +12.5% Defense to all attacks)

There are different ways to spell the same word in the English vernacular. It is common for folks in the commonwealth nations to spell it 'defence' . It's not wrong, but if your point was to ensure the spelling matches what is appropriate for in game, that's fair. 

[Myrmidon]

17 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Freaklok Arcs

• Adjusted Salamander and Grey Matter's "Hail Mary" powers (in Agent Watkins' Rusty Rivet mission)
  • Endurance cost and recharge times on them have been reduced, making them more dangerous

Excellent.😁