Changes to -RES (Resistance Debuffs)

[kingsmidgens]

Didn't see this mentioned in any patch notes but I notice that there are changes in the behavior of -RES between here and at least Live, in fact, I think it's working differently than it was at the launch of this server.

It boils down to Resistance debuffs taking relative level into account.  Previously, this was not the case.  If it's a -20% Debuff, it'd take 0% to -20% and you're doing 20% more damage.  Resistance to Resistance debuffs is (still) Resistance for better or for worse - and the damage you deal is scaled based on relative levels, regardless of what their base Resistance is, -20% would result in 20% more base damage.

So could anyone enlighten me if this was an intentional change and just not mentioned anywhere?  The closest thing I can find is a patch note for Tar Patch being Unresistable and removing a flat amount of resistance which I would wager was leftover from a change that changed the underlying -RES mechanics to facilitate level differences being taken into account as it definitely did not work that way until recently.  Essentially, would further discussion belong in bug reports (unintentional change) or suggestions (intentional change)?

[macskull]

26 minutes ago, kingsmidgens said:

Didn't see this mentioned in any patch notes but I notice that there are changes in the behavior of -RES between here and at least Live, in fact, I think it's working differently than it was at the launch of this server.

Resistance debuffs have taken relative level into account since the patch which added that waaaaaaay back in June 2004. The reason you can't find any patch notes for what you're searching for is because they don't exist. Even going back to the archived version of CoD from 2012, none of the player-accessible -res powers there are flagged to ignore level differences.

[kingsmidgens]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

Resistance debuffs have taken relative level into account since the patch which added that waaaaaaay back in June 2004. The reason you can't find any patch notes for what you're searching for is because they don't exist. Even going back to the archived version of CoD from 2012, none of the player-accessible -res powers there are flagged to ignore level differences.

Did you look up that patch note or are you going off of memory?  I just looked through all of the patch notes 2004-2006 that are on the wiki which seemed like a pretty comprehensive list, just missing stuff before launch and it wasn't mentioned from what I saw.  There were a lot of patch notes.  I know the change you're referring to, but as I recall -RES was not included as a debuff that was impacted by relative levels.

I looked at this in depth circa issue 22 and the only resistance to -Resist was Resistance itself, relative level was not taken into account.  Using Power Analyzers, I could see that -20% RES would equal 20% more damage (compared to their base RES) whereas now it'll be reduced to -14.whatever%.  Damage itself is already scaled based on level so the debuff itself didn't need to also scale down.

[macskull]

47 minutes ago, kingsmidgens said:

Did you look up that patch note or are you going off of memory?  I just looked through all of the patch notes 2004-2006 that are on the wiki which seemed like a pretty comprehensive list, just missing stuff before launch and it wasn't mentioned from what I saw.  There were a lot of patch notes.  I know the change you're referring to, but as I recall -RES was not included as a debuff that was impacted by relative levels.

This is the patch in question (June 3, 2004). It doesn't explicitly say those words, but that's what that patch is (aka the "purple patch"). The wiki article dates from late 2006, so at the very least this was in the game at that point.

 

47 minutes ago, kingsmidgens said:

I looked at this in depth circa issue 22 and the only resistance to -Resist was Resistance itself, relative level was not taken into account.  Using Power Analyzers, I could see that -20% RES would equal 20% more damage (compared to their base RES) whereas now it'll be reduced to -14.whatever%.  Damage itself is already scaled based on level so the debuff itself didn't need to also scale down.

The only resistance to -res continues to be damage resistance. Relative level doesn't provide resistance to debuffs, it means the debuff is less effective to begin with. The "-20% equals 20% more damage" is referring to damage resistance reducing the value of -res (you still end up doing 20% more damage with a 20% -res debuff even if your target resists it slightly). Again, you can go and check City of Data on the wayback archive and you'll see none of the -res powers were flagged to ignore level differences - this is important because every single power which affects an enemy must be explicitly flagged to ignore level differences if that's how the devs want that power to behave.

Edited April 28, 2022 by macskull

[kingsmidgens]

41 minutes ago, macskull said:

Again, you can go and check City of Data on the wayback archive and you'll see none of the -res powers were flagged to ignore level differences - this is important because every single power which affects an enemy must be explicitly flagged to ignore level differences if that's how the devs want that power to behave.

FWIW I have never seen a tag similar to "Ignores level differences" or anything of the like, even on powers that did ignore level differences.

I'm not arguing against the existence of the "purple patch" but rather that the behavior of the -RES debuff specifically was changed to take it into account when it was not taken into account before.  Every AV I checked on Live with a Power Analyzer to see what level of -RES we were doing had exactly the matching values of the powers thrown on them being only ultimately reduced (or increased) in effectiveness by their pre-existing resist values.

Other debuffs?  Absolutely floored by a high lvl AV.  -RES, not really.  My understanding of the why was due to the fact that your damage itself is already scaled down and reducing the debuff would be a bit of a double whammy there so to speak.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, kingsmidgens said:

FWIW I have never seen a tag similar to "Ignores level differences" or anything of the like, even on powers that did ignore level differences.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=defender_ranged.dark_blast.life_drain&at=defender

 

Look to the bottom right.  Note the purple circle with a slash through it in the part of the power which lists the Heal stats.  Hover your mouse pointer over that icon.  The pop-up text reads, "Does not scale with enemy level".  You'll find that flag on every power which affects both enemies and player characters, like Life Drain or Guarded Spin.  The actual code used by the power definition files is " "ignore_level_differences": true/false, ".  Any power or specific part of a power (each thing a power does has a separate attribute list and section of code within a definition file) without that flag and without it set to true is subject to purple patch level scaling.

 

That flag was added shortly after the purple patch went live, to solve the problem of powers like Follow Up scaling buffs according to enemy level, resulting in lower buffs when attacking +X foes and higher buffs when attacking -X foes, a problem which only occurred because of the powers' interaction with the purple patch.  The flag has never been used on any -Res powers, at any time, ever, in the entire history of the game.  -Res has always been subject to purple patch mechanics, just like every other debuff.

 

The HC team hasn't changed anything with -Res' functionality.  Paragon didn't make any changes either.  In fact, the only change to how -Res works, ever, other than the purple patch, was the prevention of Damage enhancements increasing +/-Res, by Cryptic, in July 2004.  That's the only way -Res has changed between launch day and now.  @macskull knows what he's talking about.

[Glacier Peak]

Jesus 😵 the memory on @macskull

[Luminara]

33 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Jesus 😵 the memory on @macskull

 

We upgraded his storage capacity.  It was necessary.  He kept filling up with Bollywood trivia and his load times were becoming cumbersome.

 

Seriously, though, it's all archived on the wikis.  Almost every patch note is there, plus individual page histories can be used to assemble a timeline, from inception to current day, for anything in question, and find at least a date for every change, even undocumented ones, via comparison of histories and patch notes.  You just have to put a little time into sifting through the data.

[bustacap]

Quote

• Removed Dimension Shift from Singularity.

 

Grav was just the Worst...

[oedipus_tex]

3 hours ago, bustacap said:

 

Grav was just the Worst...

 

 

Hah!

 

Somehow I missed this bit of City of Heroes history. Singularity had Dimension Shift at one point? Wow, Gravity Control really was the most cursed set from the beginning wasn't it?

[macskull]

3 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Hah!

 

Somehow I missed this bit of City of Heroes history. Singularity had Dimension Shift at one point? Wow, Gravity Control really was the most cursed set from the beginning wasn't it?

Granted, it only lasted like a month before it got shot into orbit with extreme prejudice. This game's full of examples of things which were only in the game for a very short period because they were broken - my favorite two examples are the week after I9 where players could slot stealth IOs into auto +movespeed powers which resulted in players not being able to complete escort missions, and the Energy Manipulator stun proc working on friendly targets so you could drive-by toggle drop people with Speed Boost.

[oedipus_tex]

56 minutes ago, macskull said:

Granted, it only lasted like a month before it got shot into orbit with extreme prejudice. This game's full of examples of things which were only in the game for a very short period because they were broken - my favorite two examples are the week after I9 where players could slot stealth IOs into auto +movespeed powers which resulted in players not being able to complete escort missions, and the Energy Manipulator stun proc working on friendly targets so you could drive-by toggle drop people with Speed Boost.

 

 

Reminds me of the time I was modding Terraria to add some CoX-like features and wanted to add a "Rain of Arrows" type power, got this instead:

 

 

[ExeErdna]

On 4/29/2022 at 4:07 PM, bustacap said:

 

Grav was just the Worst...

 

Seeing how the Primas and Wardens are now with Grav. I'm glad it's gone, YET it makes me think "what if it could do Wormhole..."