I really don't like the sniper changes.

[Thezanman]

I see a lot of Dominators posting in this thread, maybe one of you can tell me what to do about my literally useless targeting drone now? A power which differentiated my character from other characters, you know, so there's some variety in the game, which I now might as well drop? You get the best part of my sniping ability, can I get an AoE hold then? Since apparently everyone having everything is the way it should be, and that's fine.

 

Also, last time I checked Targeting Drone should also give you added recharge on top of the added damage you will receive for having such high +To Hit for rolling /Devices.

That is how it worked in the last beta patch, but they said they were going to change it to a damage buff at the start of combat as well as a small, persistent damage buff.

[Drueth]

if you want an aoe hold you'll have to reroll /plant

No, I'd just like it patched into my powerset thanks, people shouldn't have to build a particular way to get the abilities they want.

 

in any event, "someone else is getting buffed so I am also owed a buff' is a silly way to think about design

I was being facetious to highlight how absurd and unnecessary this change is, I don't actually want a buff of any description. Nevertheless, it's no more silly than "I want access to some ability but I don't want to build for it so let's just change it so everyone gets that ability for no effort". People high fiving each other over how great a change which actively removes flavour from the game will be, while ignoring how it affects balance between ATs and sets all ATs on a path to total blandness because it benefits them personally, is kinda sickening.

 

 

[Mezmera]

Most doms don't want anything to do with this change too I assure you.  We're losing 1/3 of our current damage on snipe for a bit shorter recharge which also reduces procs chances of firing, so bad all around.  Blasters did get quite the upgrade while the game was gone, there's many primaries and secondaries with some sort of mez control even aoe along with heals and all sorts of other self buffs.

 

I agree it's on its way to City of Blandness.  You can have more of our aoe mez controls if we can get some of your self buffs, aim/build up and the nukes. 

[Drueth]

You can have more of our aoe mez controls if we can get some of your self buffs, aim/build up and the nukes.

Sounds good to me. If we give all that stuff to defenders too, do you think they'll mind if we get their heals?

[eiynp]

if you want an aoe hold you'll have to reroll /plant

No, I'd just like it patched into my powerset thanks, people shouldn't have to build a particular way to get the abilities they want.

 

in any event, "someone else is getting buffed so I am also owed a buff' is a silly way to think about design

I was being facetious to highlight how absurd and unnecessary this change is, I don't actually want a buff of any description. Nevertheless, it's no more silly than "I want access to some ability but I don't want to build for it so let's just change it so everyone gets that ability for no effort". People high fiving each other over how great a change which actively removes flavour from the game will be, while ignoring how it affects balance between ATs and sets all ATs on a path to total blandness because it benefits them personally, is kinda sickening.

 

I mean, 'a path to total blandness?' Because you no longer need to take tactics to get instant snipe? cmon man

 

it doesn't take "effort" to slot tactics and a kismet IO. It takes some esoteric game knowledge, that's all.  The functionality of the build you're running won't change at all but the change is bad because... it'll remove the 'flavor' of having to put three slots in tactics?

[Coyote]

Most doms WHO KNOW ABOUT HOW TO BUILD FOR A 22% TO-HIT BUFF don't want anything to do with this change too I assure you. 

 

Fixed.

 

I imagine that other Doms, especially newbies, are going to be quite happy to find that their Snipe just became usable in combat without them having to research the esoteric tricks of how to build a character to do it.

 

IMO, in game design, any change that weakens top builds while strengthening weak builds, is a good change, at least as long as it doesn't limit choices. Min-maxers are always going to figure out a way to min-max and make their characters effective, while newbies will have underperforming builds, so changes that bring them closer in efficiency while also opening up more builds, are good changes.

 

There are always going to be vocal min-maxers complaining that their tightly-specced build is now no longer so well-designed, but for every one of them, there are probably 10 or more non-vocal casual players who don't frequent the forums, who never had such a tight build and will be happy to see what ends up as a buff for them.

[Drueth]

I mean, 'a path to total blandness?' Because you no longer need to take tactics to get instant snipe? cmon man

 

I don't have tactics. You never needed it to get instant snipe. This is not just 'big deal you no longer need tactics to get instant snipe', this is 'EVERY possible way that ANY archetype could previously have built to get instant snipe is now irrelevant'. That's the flavour this change removes.

[Thezanman]

I mean, 'a path to total blandness?' Because you no longer need to take tactics to get instant snipe? cmon man

 

I don't have tactics. You never needed it to get instant snipe. This is not just 'big deal you no longer need tactics to get instant snipe', this is 'EVERY possible way that ANY archetype could previously have built to get instant snipe is now irrelevant'. That's the flavour this change removes.

And by "every possible way that any archetype could previously have built to get instant snipe", you of course mean "tactics + kismet, perma envenomed blades + kismet, perma farsight + kismet, or targeting drone". That's literally it. There are three sets that can get insta snipe without needing tactics + kismet, and two of them still need kismet. It's funny that you're talking about people being fine with the change because it personally benefits them, when it seems like the only reason you're angry about it is because you have a /devices blaster.

[Mezmera]

Most doms WHO KNOW ABOUT HOW TO BUILD FOR A 22% TO-HIT BUFF don't want anything to do with this change too I assure you. 

 

Fixed.

 

I imagine that other Doms, especially newbies, are going to be quite happy to find that their Snipe just became usable in combat without them having to research the esoteric tricks of how to build a character to do it.

 

IMO, in game design, any change that weakens top builds while strengthening weak builds, is a good change, at least as long as it doesn't limit choices. Min-maxers are always going to figure out a way to min-max and make their characters effective, while newbies will have underperforming builds, so changes that bring them closer in efficiency while also opening up more builds, are good changes.

 

There are always going to be vocal min-maxers complaining that their tightly-specced build is now no longer so well-designed, but for every one of them, there are probably 10 or more non-vocal casual players who don't frequent the forums, who never had such a tight build and will be happy to see what ends up as a buff for them.

 

Most arguments assume people can't learn things as they play this game.  That's what a newbie does, learns things.  I didn't even know snipe was like this on my dominator until 50 and playing a blaster.  Thanks to aim my curiosity was piqued about the yellow ring around my snipe, all I did was ask in help and there we go new thing to build for for me, and I'm a vet and didn't know right away.

 

A lot of people that play a dominator wouldn't know if they didn't have an aim or build up to get them curious.  All doms with a snipe can easily get it with the exception of /fire but don't get me started on them they already have fantastic DPS over most all the others.

 

Maybe the reason not many knew of insta snipe is that back on live new issue updates were well detailed right there when you log in and the new snipe never made it to a live update.  So maybe there could be an easier way to find out about all these big changes made while the game was away.  But I believe they wanted to change snipe from the start so no info was widely trumpeted until they got the "fix" in.

 

Having tohitt be something very positive to build for ADDS variety to builds, not diminishes them.

[Novacat]

The fact that we've all gotten *used* to it (well, many of us - just a few weeks ago I was still seeing questions from people who'd put a whole bunch of accuracy in their snipes and couldn't understand why it still wasn't turning yellow) doesn't mean it was not a poor execution.

 

There were two problems. Targeting Drone lost a lot of value due to accuracy in all those IO damage sets, and blast sets with snipes were generally inferior to those without due to that power itself. The >22% to-hit solution was a first-time first-try in the process of fixing an AT who'd spent more than 20 issues being told "you can't not-suck that would be stepping on anyone else's toes", with more than a little "you're fine, learn to play, devs don't buff them no matter what".

And it was a valiant first shot, but it fell short as a solution: Secondaries other than /Devices had snipes because snipes are in the primary, and "everyone needs to 3-slot tactics and get Kismet" is a half-assed cookiecutter of a workaround if we've ever seen one, especially as a fix for the basic mechanics of a power whose basic mechanics were where it was having a problem.

 

With the Fast/Slow baked into the power itself, the snipe is now self-contained. It works on its own. You don't need either a specific secondary OR a specific IO AND A POOL POWER WITH 3 SLOTS DEDICATED TO IT to gain the snipe's basic functionality. Other powers can make it better, much better, but this rectifies a bad early design. And because Targeting Drone had been made the slap-patch for all this, it's becoming a global +recharge to compensate, and STILL is the cheapest easiest way to buff the damage of said snipes.

 

There may - probably even - be better alternatives or solutions. By all means suggest them! And if Dominators need fixes that aren't quite the same as the blasters, that's fine too and maybe they can get those instead! But "it was better for everyone the way it was in its first iteration on i24 beta server when the game shut down" is simply not true.

 

P.S: LRM needs Snipe-treatments badly (and either half the recharge or double the damage since even for an epic it's half the values it should have).

[Coyote]

Having tohitt be something very positive to build for ADDS variety to builds, not diminishes them.

 

I agree with this completely. Once I suggested that having accuracy over 100% should grant a scaling chance to Crit... not so much that slotting for excessive Accuracy does more damage than slotting for Damage, but there should be a bonus for getting more Accuracy.

 

However, I don't agree that the method used to make ToHit be very useful should be linked to a specific power and specific values... on Live, the Devs once stated that the number of active accounts that also used the forums were less than 10% of the player base. That is over 90% of the people playing, who didn't get to read forums to find out how to get 22%. The percentage is probably lower on these servers for various reasons, but still, we shouldn't be creating a knowledge gateway, and on one side of it ToHit bonuses are very useful, and on the other, they're not. And the way to pass through the gateway is to visit the forums and look for the topic.

[Thezanman]

Having tohitt be something very positive to build for ADDS variety to builds, not diminishes them.

 

I agree with this completely. Once I suggested that having accuracy over 100% should grant a scaling chance to Crit... not so much that slotting for excessive Accuracy does more damage than slotting for Damage, but there should be a bonus for getting more Accuracy.

 

However, I don't agree that the method used to make ToHit be very useful should be linked to a specific power and specific values... on Live, the Devs once stated that the number of active accounts that also used the forums were less than 10% of the player base. That is over 90% of the people playing, who didn't get to read forums to find out how to get 22%. The percentage is probably lower on these servers for various reasons, but still, we shouldn't be creating a knowledge gateway, and on one side of it ToHit bonuses are very useful, and on the other, they're not. And the way to pass through the gateway is to visit the forums and look for the topic.

I'm sure that some people found out from the in-game help chat as well.

[Mezmera]

Having tohitt be something very positive to build for ADDS variety to builds, not diminishes them.

 

I agree with this completely. Once I suggested that having accuracy over 100% should grant a scaling chance to Crit... not so much that slotting for excessive Accuracy does more damage than slotting for Damage, but there should be a bonus for getting more Accuracy.

 

However, I don't agree that the method used to make ToHit be very useful should be linked to a specific power and specific values... on Live, the Devs once stated that the number of active accounts that also used the forums were less than 10% of the player base. That is over 90% of the people playing, who didn't get to read forums to find out how to get 22%. The percentage is probably lower on these servers for various reasons, but still, we shouldn't be creating a knowledge gateway, and on one side of it ToHit bonuses are very useful, and on the other, they're not. And the way to pass through the gateway is to visit the forums and look for the topic.

 

I agree that information needed to be more widely available.  On the old log in patch notes and issue updates were right there as you logged in so the only reason not to be in the know was to have no curiosity at all about why your game needed to download something before you could log in.  All you had to do was read the paragraph above the line you just quoted from me to see that the lack of info widely available I believe to be a big key in this. 

 

Here it is again:

 

"Maybe the reason not many knew of insta snipe is that back on live new issue updates were well detailed right there when you log in and the new snipe never made it to a live update.  So maybe there could be an easier way to find out about all these big changes made while the game was away.  But I believe they wanted to change snipe from the start so no info was widely trumpeted until they got the "fix" in."

[carroto]

So what's the argument for reducing the cooldown (and damage) on Dominator snipes?  Is it because the higher base damage would make them too powerful with the snipe changes?  Is it to allow them to fit more easily into regular attack chains?  Is it just so no one complains about the differences between Dom snipes and everyone else's?

 

I'd prefer the cooldowns on Dom snipes remain as they are, but other than that I'm on board with the snipe changes.  I think this will be an improvement over what we currently have.

[JPax]

Is assault rifle ACTUALLY going to get the Instant-sniper activation times for it's [Sniper Rifle]? It's currently sat at around 1.67s compared to the 0.67 of other instant snipes.

[Captain Powerhouse]

No snipe sits at 0.67 seconds. 0.67 display on Sniper Rifle was always a display bug.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse