Sniper Beta Patch Notes, June 2nd 2019

[Novacat]

The skipping I believe was because of bad execution. The snipes pre-i24 were slow, expensive, unusable once in combat most of the time unless severely slotted for interrupt and even if fully slotted for damage weren't certain to kill even an orange minion depending on your damage type and their resistances. And woe be to you if it bloody missed on top of that. NPCs weren't players: They didn't spend five seconds trying to spot that Crey - they immediately knew who and where you were. You had all the drawbacks, none of the range, and none of the advantages. "Range is your defense" my shiny metal ...

 

Only natural so many would refuse to use it then.

[Pzn]

This change is terrible for martial assault doms.  They could already achieve instant snipes with envenomed blades and now the damage has been nerfed dramatically.  Why nerf one set in order to buff the others?

 

I don't need to log in the to the test server to see that reducing the damage to less than 2/3 of it's previous value is a big nerf.

[Novacat]

Made a Beam/Devices Blaster. Been running around to get a feel for the current changes.

Slow Snipe

The range increasing Defiance buff from a slow snipe is a wonderful thing. Helps QoL on follow-ups immensely (I don't have to leap forward as much to overcharge for example)

It's so... smoothing to the start of my fights that I find myself wondering if the full damage boost is even truly necessary anymore. If anything DOES need nerfing, maybe ratcheting down to base 4.0 scale from 4.5 given it's easier to fire more stuff at long range will be acceptable

Either way, LOVE IT

 

Engaged / Disengaged Snipe Timer

Not as bad as I thought 10s would be. 15s was definitely put a crimp in one's rhythm, but 10s... not as bad. Still a bit long, would rather 8s I think... but I could live with 10. I can live with it.

 

Fast Snipe

Getting the range back solves it really. With Slow's boon to range I don't even feel the quick-snipe needs to be as easily obtained even. Can't complain, I guess.

 

Toxic Web Grenade

Feels more in line with newer starters like Electric Net Arrow. Still brutal on recharge, feels decent enough

Speaking of Electric Net - I do believe its endurance cost is too low for the range and activation time combination - 5.2 instead of 7.8 seems to be for the weaker, cruddier starters lacking in power and/or range, which that one definitely is not.

 

Taser

I'll have to remember to keep this off Auto because now that it's actually being taken it'll screw up my jumping in and laying mines before they know I'm there. 20ft energy punch: taken.

 

Time Bomb

SOLD. I'm running low on power slots here. 5s is just long enough to put down a tripmine or build-up+start that inferno... with a little interrupt recharge on the mine... maybe both? I'm just sayin.

[Mezmera]

This change is terrible for martial assault doms.  They could already achieve instant snipes with envenomed blades and now the damage has been nerfed dramatically.  Why nerf one set in order to buff the others?

 

I don't need to log in the to the test server to see that reducing the damage to less than 2/3 of it's previous value is a big nerf.

 

This.

 

I just don't understand why Doms get a nerf and a half out of this?  The Damage scale from the original devs was obviously intentional because doms lacked in damage compared to other damage dealers and who has time to snipe on a primary control character?  Controllers get access to radiation and a lot of other team friendly buff/debuffs.  So if a dom is there for damage and is as squishy as a blaster shouldn't they be somewhat in comparison?  I'm not saying doms should out damage the intended king dpser but there's very few tools in the damage kit for doms and this snipe was just a nice find for once. 

 

This past month has felt like the original devs finally threw doms a bone with at least dealing some good single target damage and now it's being reduced 1/3 but we get it to charge faster?!  I don't need it to charge faster I have controls to lay out in the midst of fighting so when it gets back to charged I want that snipe to hurt. 

 

This whole thread seems like a lot of blaster players and no one that has played particular ATs like a dom.  If you haven't played it to understand the playstyle and don't get why lowering something from hitting for 450-500 to 300-350 isn't a huge nerf why speak on it?  Doms secondary is damage and the toolkit is kinda bare comparably. 

 

Maybe I should just run my Titan Weapon brute around and call it a day.  Yay for variety.

 

Please leave the dominator snipe as it is.  We get to use a power we never ever took before. 

[Tar]

I never bothered to build for instant snipe because I just figured it was really convoluted and restricting to do. Learned upon reading these feedback threads it's apparently easy as all get out and I've been playing at half my potential this entire time. Whomp whomp. I think this makes me the exact target audience for these changes, though. Was just too dumb to figure it out on my own so now I'm getting a new toy for, at most, 30 minutes of work redoing builds. Ported my Plant/Fire/Fire Dom and Fire/Dark/Dark Corr over and was blown away by how much faster they are.

 

ToHit needs to continue to interact with snipes in some way for this to be good for anyone else besides me. People that relied on Aim for insta snipe no longer have their burst window of ultra-satisfying huge numbers. People that built for +22% ToHit are left with a handful of entirely redundant bonuses along with much less damage. It's a loss of engagement, of complexity, and it kind of just majorly sucks.

 

Echoing other suggestions here: have ToHit increase your snipes damage, capping at +22% where it'll make all your snipes do 100% of their charged damage. Stacking it is less of a damage boost than it was before, but it's still a boost. Additionally, people that built for it don't feel ripped off. If you can't make it scale, make it all-or-nothing; no boost at 21%, full charged damage at 22%. There has to be some kind of interaction there.

[AngriestGhost]

This change is terrible for martial assault doms.  They could already achieve instant snipes with envenomed blades and now the damage has been nerfed dramatically.  Why nerf one set in order to buff the others?

 

I don't need to log in the to the test server to see that reducing the damage to less than 2/3 of it's previous value is a big nerf.

 

I had forgotten about Martial Assault in my brief assessment of dominator snipes, but it just goes to show how wildly inconsistent the to hit threshold treats these different sets.

 

As for the damage reduction, I haven't formed an opinion yet on whether it's justified or not.  For sets where it wasn't accessible before, just having access to a usable snipe feels like a buff.  But the nature of balance requires outliers from both ends to be brought closer to the center. 

[Captain Powerhouse]

...have ToHit increase your snipes damage, capping at +22% where it'll make all your snipes do 100% of their charged damage.

 

If you excuse me, I need to run a spyware check on my computer...

[MechaMarshmallow]

Echoing other suggestions here: have ToHit increase your snipes damage, capping at +22% where it'll make all your snipes do 100% of their charged damage. Stacking it is less of a damage boost than it was before, but it's still a boost. Additionally, people that built for it don't feel ripped off. If you can't make it scale, make it all-or-nothing; no boost at 21%, full charged damage at 22%. There has to be some kind of interaction there.

 

I actually really like this suggestion. It would be a buff, but blast sets already needed help with their single target DPS. Having the tohit buff give a (hopefully) scaling increase that caps out at 22% will keep tohit as a relevant stat, and the cap being 22% means that people already built to quicksnipe won't need to change their build at all to take maximum advantage of it. Snipe damage scaling off of tohit is also a lot more intuitive thematically than tohit suddenly speeding up the animation time to one second.

 

I say 'hopefully' scaling because it will make 22% tohit feel far less obligatory than it currently does. Quick snipes turning on like a switch at the magic number 22% has never sat well with me, as it feels very arbitrary, and I'd be very excited to see people able to build to, say, +19% to hit and get about 90% of the benefit if that's the most convenient number for them.

[Primantis]

 

 

Time Bomb animation is now 2.77 seconds, interrupt time removed, countdown reduced to 5 seconds, defiance values reduced to match

 

 

 

Much Hype!!!

 

 

 

(this only applies to this set, not to the Traps support set versions.)

 

 

 

Much Sad :CCC

 

I am glad to see you reverse the snipe range change; that will make things more palatable imo!

[Williwaw]

Just to clarify, "Patron power pools are now unlocked at character creation" means on the test server only, not as part of the update, right?  (I've seen some confusion about it)

[Nic Mercy]

Just to clarify, "Patron power pools are now unlocked at character creation" means on the test server only, not as part of the update, right?  (I've seen some confusion about it)

 

Correct. You still have to unlock them on the live servers.

[Guest JackRooks]

How about you people leave the goddmaned game mechanics alone and just run the server, which is what people actually wanted.

 

Yes, in any group of people there are going to be loud minorities screaming  for changes. Please stop listening to them.

 

Constant nerfs and balances are what killed the MMO genre in the first place...there's a reason the WOW Killer everyone was always waiting for turned out to NOT be an MMO. Instead of sucking up all your limited dev time making changes to powers, use it to add art assets, run events, create interesting mission content. Don't spend all your time going over and over and over and over minute powerset numbers.

 

Also, I'm going to start campaigning for this: Every time you make a change to the game mechanics that significantly changes the way a character plays, any player that has such a character (In this case a level 50 witha snipe and with more than 20 set IO's slotted, for example) gets a free level 50 character of their choosing and 2 billion inf in order to build it so they have a character they still want to play instead of the unfun mess you just turned theirs into.

[Super Homer]

If that is how you feel, you may be on the wrong server. Some servers have vowed not to change a thing, others will change. The best part of this new age is we can have both.

[Guest JackRooks]

If that is how you feel, you may be on the wrong server. Some servers have vowed not to change a thing, others will change. The best part of this new age is we can have both.

 

Any names of these servers?

[Super Homer]

This article lists a few.

https://massivelyop.com/2019/05/21/city-of-heroes-reddit-shards-homecoming-multibox/

 

I hear the name “rebirth” thrown around a lot.

[Guest JackRooks]

This article lists a few.

https://massivelyop.com/2019/05/21/city-of-heroes-reddit-shards-homecoming-multibox/

 

I hear the name “rebirth” thrown around a lot.

 

Thanks.

 

I don't mean to come across as an ass, but to me the thing that destroyed MMOs was the constant buff/nerf cycle that too many dev teams substituted for content as a way to keep players playing by forcing them to start characters over, etc.

 

I really had hoped that a team running a private server would focus on real content - missions, stories, events, new arts, powers, etc. instead of just trying their hand at the old nerf/buff/rinse/repeat game that people hated back when MMOs were still a thing.

[Super Homer]

Keep in mind this is still a beta. They already rolled back some of the “nerf”, who knows how this will look next week, or even tonight.

[Guest JackRooks]

I get it. I guess my larger concern is that this is how they want to spend their limited dev time. They don't have some huge well paid team of developers...so instead of creating content, they're spending this much time tweaking snipes? Really?

 

It's like trying to decorate a house and instead of putting in couches, beds, a TV set, etc. they just want to keep changing the style of the doorknobs over and over again.

 

People came here because they loved this game as it was when it was shut down. Anyone that was sitting around still mad about the recharge time of Snipes after 7 years didn't come back. The people here, again other than the constant loud minority that there will always be, would be better served by actual content.

 

It's less about the changes themselves, even though the changes are absolutely terrible, it's the philosophy of what the devs should be doing to enhance the experience for the users.

[Number Six]

Because powers designers are notoriously terrible writers? I mean, have you read some of the power descriptions?

[Golden Azrael]

Because powers designers are notoriously terrible writers? I mean, have you read some of the power descriptions?

 

Fair point.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

I get it. I guess my larger concern is that this is how they want to spend their limited dev time. They don't have some huge well paid team of developers...so instead of creating content, they're spending this much time tweaking snipes? Really?

 

It's like trying to decorate a house and instead of putting in couches, beds, a TV set, etc. they just want to keep changing the style of the doorknobs over and over again.

 

People came here because they loved this game as it was when it was shut down. Anyone that was sitting around still mad about the recharge time of Snipes after 7 years didn't come back. The people here, again other than the constant loud minority that there will always be, would be better served by actual content.

 

It's less about the changes themselves, even though the changes are absolutely terrible, it's the philosophy of what the devs should be doing to enhance the experience for the users.

 

I'd echo this sentiment. 

 

The Paragon Studios dev' team left snipe in 'pitch perfect' shape.  You don't NEED an IO to have it playing 'most' of the time.  I know.  I have an en/en blaster with tactics.  (My 1st time using that power.)  Sure, I had to 'ask' how to get the 'to hit' instant snipe working.  (That 'bit' isn't intuitive.)

 

But taking tactics (which saves alot of acc slots...) and the new inherent perma energy power is a revelation.  I have the 'end' and the 'acc' to trigger snipe....WITH AIM or BU or Power Boost.  If I want it up for even longer?  Buy aim inspires.  They drop pretty often.

 

So, the devs fixed the health issue in en blasters.  They fixed the end issue that soaked En blasters.  They gave en blasters a '3rd' heavy hitting power.

 

Compared to Water blast?  En or even elec seem slow and dated and lacked utility.  Water was the future when I last played it on live.  The changes to all blast sets of the ones I've experienced in EN/Elec or Ice are transformative.  Sorting out the end and health regen issues is great.  And I don't get de-toggled as easy, either..?

 

My point.  The auto snipe is perhaps something that doesn't need fixing.  It isn't broke.  And I can argue it isn't behind an IO pay wall because I can use 'auto' snipe MOST of the time in a minute.

 

1.  The tradeoff of taking tactics instead of stun or power push is hardly back breaking.  The whole point of the game, even mainstream game is....'choices.'

2.  I (!) can decide, manually, when to activate instant snipe mode.  That brings 'gamesmanship' to the play.  eg.  Like the cool orange ring combos in dual blades.

3.  It works and plays beautifully as is.  Pitch perfect.

 

I...don't like...

 

1.  The longer 3 sec recharge whilst Domi's (I pay one, by the way...) get an 8 second snipe recharge cut.  Eh?

2.  The above makes it far more awkward putting snipe in the attack chain as you're waiting...and waiting for it...which means the scales have tipped back in favour of the mob.  That's going back to i23.  i24 was liberating.  The Dev's had this one spot on. 

3.  Never has a 'timing' nerf spoiled my fun since the post i3 perma hasten nerf.  (if I wanted to waste 6 slots making hasten perma, what of it?) 

4.  The inherent 'acc' 1.20?  Has gone AWOL?  (Did I read that right?)

5.  It doesn't seem instant activating compared to live.  Seems to be a slight pause compared to.  I'm sure I've counted 'up to' 2 secs.  It seems to vary.  My imagination.  But it doesn't not 'feel' instant.

 

I do like the idea of...

 

1.  Democratisation.  But it kinda already is.  And if I can have it up for most of the minute of combat without IOs anyone can.  I'm no IO whizz.

2.  The bigger 'up front' damage is decent.

3.  'Snipe!'  fun stuff.

4.  2 second 'long snipe' on the standard opening snipe is ok.  Trimming a slow activating power.  That's in spirt of issue 24.  (Which begs the question, you make it activate it quicker to recharge it slower?  Eh?  And in combat...why do you want snipe to be slower in your attack chain when the original devs (who, yes, didn't get everything right...) wanted this to equalise the older blaster sets with the new ones in terms of a 3rd solid single strike power with some utility in 2ndary.  I've really enjoyed the attack chain with combo-ing the snipe withh other powers.  Now?  It feels clunky.  Slow.  Pauseworthy.)

 

If it aint broke, don't fix it.  For me, snipe was the one thing I was really looking forward to.  And it plays perfect.  And now someone is mucking around with it.  I know it's beta...

 

So here's my idea.

 

1.  Put the darn recharge back to where it was.  (That is as bad an idea to affecting play as was the range brainstorm.)

2.  This one came to me last night before bed, have a 'manual' over-ride mode that is activates the 'auto' snipe if you have selected aim, bu or Pb.  ie.  Plays how it is now!  You over-ride the auto.  When out of AIM/BU/PB or AIM inspire?  It defaults to auto.

3.  Tie better recharge rates scaling with tactics.  The more SOs in tactics the more efficient your snipe is.

4.  I still feel you can get the auto and keep things as they by just slotting 'to hits' in aim.  It's 3 slots.  Hardly back breaking.

5.  Keep the up front damage and the 2 second 'normal' snipe trim...I'm not opposed to 'everyone' having the auto snipe.  But it's hardly a major problem having the code as it is now as a manual over-ride for those that want that autonomy? 

6.  I hope 'instant' means instant.  It doesn't feel that way on test.

 

I don't feel much has to change.  Keep the up front dam / faster normal snipe initial strike.  But allow the manual mode to activated as above.  For those that don't care?  They can have 'auto'.

 

It may be that if the recharge time is taken back to 12 seconds it may not be necessary for a manual mode.  But I like it.  I think it plays better or more intelligently.

 

Azrael.

[Jaguaratron]

I get it. I guess my larger concern is that this is how they want to spend their limited dev time. They don't have some huge well paid team of developers...so instead of creating content, they're spending this much time tweaking snipes? Really?

 

It's like trying to decorate a house and instead of putting in couches, beds, a TV set, etc. they just want to keep changing the style of the doorknobs over and over again.

 

People came here because they loved this game as it was when it was shut down. Anyone that was sitting around still mad about the recharge time of Snipes after 7 years didn't come back. The people here, again other than the constant loud minority that there will always be, would be better served by actual content.

 

It's less about the changes themselves, even though the changes are absolutely terrible, it's the philosophy of what the devs should be doing to enhance the experience for the users.

 

Who exactly do you think you are?

 

This is a volunteer project and a progress server and as such the people who are actively working on the project are entitled to work on whatever part of it they see fit when they see fit, how they see fit. You have no idea who is doing what or how all the pieces go together or who is working on what, person A who does powers isnt the same guy who as person B who could be creating and assembling assets for say Moonbase Alpha, or person C who is building a new "power armor" EAT or person D who is making new costume assets.

 

You are fundamentally and utterly clueless on how development works, working on powers does not detract from other areas because they are done by different people/departments and all you have done is stamp your feet in a huff and offered no usable feedback whatsoever. I didnt like iteration 1 of these changes because it was a net nerf to fringe specs and a buff to stronger sets, I even logged into the beta server to test and verify that the reality met up with my perception and then provided the appropriate feedback. Iteration 2 dealt with those concerns so tangible progression can be actively seen.

 

Luckily for you the code is available everywhere, you can go and show everyone how it should be done  ::)

[Golden Azrael]

If you want something to 'bug fix' how about taking perma-hasten's 70% (I know with IOs you can get faster...) from behind the pay wall?  I'd happily put x3 more slots in it to x6 slot it.

 

Or...put back the KN bk boost in Power Boost from the en 2ndary.

 

I didn't agree with either being taken away.

 

Now that I'm enjoying Energy again, the Snipe is being made into a pregnant pause.

 

And I waited 7 years to play it.

 

You couldn't make it up. :)

 

Asides from the puzzling snipe focus, the rest of what you're doing has been monumental.

 

Servers smooth as butter.  The graphic fixes clever.  And a mountain of bug fixes.  But I'm wary of changing the snipe when the devs had it spot on.  I guess I've said what I like and what I don't like.  My first beta feedback ever.

 

Azrael.

[Leandro]

The Paragon Studios dev' team left snipe in 'pitch perfect' shape.

 

This is absolutely not true. The Paragon Studios dev team "left" snipe in Issue 23. Issue 24 was in beta, and there are clear indications in the code and data that the snipes were not going to be "left" in the state they are currently in, had the studio not been shut down. For example, the sequencers data contains half-finished moves called "QUICK SniperBlast" (Q_SniperBlast, Q_SniperBlast2, A_Q_Sniperblast and A_Q_SniperBlast2) for the real animations to be used in Quick Snipe, rather than the unfinished hack that exists in Issue 24 Beta with the blast firing on frame 0 and having broken FX and bad synchronization for multiple powers.

 

The current animation tweaks are more in line with what would probably have hit the Live servers when Issue 24 was finished, so I am pretty sure the animation tweaks are going live regardless of what happens to any other changes.

 

When it comes to snipes, I am treating this Beta as a direct continuation of Issue 24 Beta. They were definitely not finished.

[Jaguaratron]

 

Or...put back the KN bk boost in Power Boost from the en 2ndary.

 

I didn't agree with either being taken away.

 

 

Surely you can see WHY they did it? Its because augmenting KB trashes various abilities in the Controller/Dominator/Corrupter/Defender/Masterminds who all have access to the same power.