issue 27 Issue 27, Page 4: General Feedback

[Indystruck]

I level up doing regular content to include incarnate trials and TFs and such and always had a surplus of emp/astrals as it is because I plan ahead. So I guess now I'll just have an excess of Incarnate stuff I won't ever use because ?????

[Vanden]

Removing Empyrean/Astral -> Reward Merit conversions is going to have a big impact on any lapsed player with significant amounts of merits in storage. What's going to happen to a player that returns after a hiatus and finds that a big chunk of their stored wealth is effectively just gone?

[@Ghost]

re: Astrals/Emps, I think the change as it stands has a lot of pressure points. People with stockpiled merits across lots of alts, people who prefer to take Astrals/Emp rewards while they're still building a character for flexibility, etc.

 

For the same result, could you consider changing how incarnate salvage/crafting works? Rather than rewarding Empyrean Merits with veteran levels, reward an appropriate amount of incarnate salvage instead. Consolidate the various salvage items down to a simple form named after its rarity, ie, "common incarnate salvage," "uncommon incarnate salvage," and so on, since the salvage items themselves are functionally identical.

 

It's possibly a lot more work, but I think it's a better option than invalidating whatever stockpiles of merits people have stored up, and it stops a flood of wealth from farming, while still letting farmers craft incarnate powers for their characters by leveling.

Edited July 19, 2022 by @Ghost

[Digirium]

10 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Removing Empyrean/Astral -> Reward Merit conversions is going to have a big impact on any lapsed player with significant amounts of merits in storage. What's going to happen to a player that returns after a hiatus and finds that a big chunk of their stored wealth is effectively just gone?

 

Ignore me.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Digirium

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, Digirium said:

That is not what the patch notes mean! Within the Reward Merit Vendor this is a function to convert Empyrean Merits in to Reward Merits and another function to convert Astral Merits to Reward Merits. Both these functions are being removed. Existing Reward Merits within salvage will remain, they're not being removed.

I know what the patch notes mean. Right now there's no reason to convert Empyreans or Astrals into anything until you need them, so if you want to use them for rewards it's better to leave them as they are because they have a higher effective cap that way.

[Booper]

Everyone, please direct all your feedback on Reward Merit changes to this area of the mall: 

 

[arthurh35353]

Hmm. Is there any reason that Sentinels did not get Seismic Blast as a set when that came out (or now, the page afterwards?) I wouldn't mind getting stone armor as a set, too.

 

And there are some really weird holes in their Ancillary power pool sets.

[Ardzog]

I just tested that point (in 2 stars) :

• The possession chain from hostless Nictus now teleports you to them held, so there is no escape.

In solo it's still easy to avoid the held, with range (easy as a blaster) or, even with melee attack, if running away quick while giving the final hit... Thanksfully !

Way harder in a complete team and a complete mess 🙂

[MsSmart]

From what I can tell, the changes are going to be amazing, can't wait for the next patch!

 

I do have a suggestion, when we get stuck fighting infinity mobs, I disagree with them not yielding nay experience, influence and salvage, because they can and do kill you!

 

Instead of making a change to not reward the fight, simply stop making them infinity, say limit them to 16 mobs and its done, so there are no farming of them.

 

I do have a question:

 

During the previous patch, it was mentioned that if you did AE missions that were not Dev's Choice, you would suffer a 25% penalty to experience. Is that not going to happen now? There was nothing said about this in the present patch notes.

 

Hugs

 

Sue

[Nikolas_v31]

Love the patch notes! Had a question regarding the changes to the crab spider backpack, and arachnos costumes. I was wondering if the requirement to need crab spider powers in order to have the backpack on our characters applies to powers that don't really require the backpack for the power animation such serum, crab spider armour, omega maneuver and aim? if i was to create a character who used mainly wolf spider powers, and went the crab spider route, taking the aforementioned powers, and didnt want the backpack would this be the result? also, would it be possible to have multiple arachnos costumes options in the future?!

appreciate all the hard work you guys do!

Edited July 21, 2022 by Nikolas_v31

[GM Kal]

On 7/19/2022 at 10:51 AM, MsSmart said:

During the previous patch, it was mentioned that if you did AE missions that were not Dev's Choice, you would suffer a 25% penalty to experience. Is that not going to happen now? There was nothing said about this in the present patch notes.

AE exp in general will not change now, other than a fix for the EXP booster that was giving more than intended for non Dev choice; and calculations for exp value of enemies may change if they were are greatly underpowered.

Non Dev choice AE have been x0.5 exp since 2019, no change there.

Edit: Thanks for the extra info below AlwaysAPrice!

Edited July 21, 2022 by GM Kal

[AlwaysAPrice]

17 minutes ago, GM Kal said:

AE exp in general will not change now, other than a fix for the EXP booster that was giving more than intended for non Dev choice; and calculations for exp value of enemies may change if they were are greatly underpowered.

 

As I mentioned a couple days ago on the AE thread (where the note was in build 1), the patch note on that change is missing from the Build 2 notes (but is still in effect), and the previous patch note didn't mention that the change is also being applied to Patrol XP.

[Kal5]

Here we are again another patch.
Mercs still needs help.

 

---

Mastermind/Mercenary Bug Fixes

• Mercenaries were not displaying their Assault Rifles during Full Auto (Assault Rifle Auto Fire for Soldiers).
• Sped up DoT duration to match the new animation like on player versions of the power.
• Soldiers now have the correct powers assigned and revoked per upgrade
  • Equip Mercenaries: Applies ASMG Heavy Burst, does not grant Assault Rifle Heavy Burst
  • Tactical Upgrade: Now applies all Assault Rifle powers and removes ASMG powers appropriately

    ---

    
     

These changes still do not address Mercs continuing to be an extreme outlier for low damage.
This is known, and has been documented and charted in detail by the hard work from Galaxy Brain shared elsewhere.
The most recent chart shows 60.4% damage compared to the next higher damage mastermind set Necromancy. (ignoring Robots that did not account for incendiary patches, avoidance of the 6.33 sec cast time flamethrower, or -regen)
And that is comparing mostly lethal vs dark, not a fair fight with even numbers.
Just about half the damage of another set. This is not acceptable balance for another year or so.

Why should this be a priority?

Masterminds can be a frustrating AT to play for new players.
Cipher's census charts (while a bit out of date) show a large number of Masterminds started, then not stuck with to high levels compared to other ATs.

Combine that with the extreme outlying low performance of Mercs.
The result is if a new player chooses mercs as a first character, they may just give up CoH due to frustration.
Or we council them to not play Mercs to avoid the above. This commonly happens.

Neither of these is acceptable, and is a negative to the community and player creativity.

Please again consider a "band-aid" patch for Mercs consisting of at least an across the board 20% damage increase.
This will make Mercs not one that should be avoided by new players due to frustration concerns. Still the worst by far, but not as egregiously so.

I am aware that Masterminds will be changed in the future.
The community continues to wait, and more players are dissuaded from choices or frustrated long term.

Here are all the Mercs ranged damage powers, modified for +20% damage if that helps.
I am sure the community would be excited to test this long awaited change.

Mastermind Pets.Commando.Buckshot.txtMastermind Pets.Commando.Burst.txtMastermind Pets.Commando.Flamethrower.txt

Mastermind Pets.Commando.Full Auto.txtMastermind Pets.Commando.LRM Rocket.txtMastermind Pets.Commando.M30 Grenade.txt

Mastermind Pets.Commando.Slug.txtMastermind Pets.Medic.Frag Grenade.txtMastermind Pets.Medic.SMG Burst.txt

Mastermind Pets.Medic.SMG Heavy Burst.txtMastermind Pets.Soldier.ASMG Burst.txtMastermind Pets.Soldier.ASMG Heavy Burst.txt

Mastermind Pets.Soldier.Assault Rifle Auto Fire.txtMastermind Pets.Soldier.Assault Rifle Burst.txtMastermind Pets.Soldier.Assault Rifle Heavy Burst.txt

Mastermind Pets.Spec Ops.SCAR Burst.txtMastermind Pets.Spec Ops.SCAR Heavy Burst.txtMastermind Pets.Spec Ops.SCAR Snipe.txt

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by GM Kal

[Dispari]

The new emotes are cool, and I can't really complain, but they're on the already long list of emotes that don't work while flying.

Maybe we could at least get this animation for the casting one?

[one eye archer]

I wish that the "mini" size option was available in the character generator. It would be great to have those REALLY small toons at the start and not something you have to grind in order to get.

"

• Deluxe Costume Powers are very unusual or exotic appearances and cost 1000/1500 (normal/mode) Prismatic Aether Particle salvage each.
• The costumes in this tier are listed as Very Rare on the BenevoLabs vendors and are intended to serve as long-term prestige goals for extremely dedicated players who regularly complete Advanced Difficulty content on the highest levels and purchase the salvage from other players, while also serving as a market sink for the new currency.
• There are only mode costumes currently offered at this tier at the release of Page 4." Seems like a heck of a lotta work for just the toons concept to match it's appearance.
•  

 Seems like a lot of extra work just to have the toon's concept match their appearance.

[Wavicle]

18 minutes ago, one eye archer said:

Seems like a lot of extra work just to have the toon's concept match their appearance.

how you look is literally the most important thing in the entire game, to a lot of us. So, no, it doesn’t seem like a lot of extra work for such an excellent feature.

[Marshal_General]

10 hours ago, Wavicle said:

how you look is literally the most important thing in the entire game, to a lot of us. So, no, it doesn’t seem like a lot of extra work for such an excellent feature.

Except to have your character look the way you want from level 1, it is a lot of extra work before you can create that character.

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, Marshal_General said:

Except to have your character look the way you want from level 1, it is a lot of extra work before you can create that character.

 

There's literally no way to add unlockable cosmetic content to the game without that being true for someone.

[Battlecruiser]

 

Is there any chance this weirdness is getting fixed soon?

 

It's been broken since Page 3 and I don't want to play my character (whose whole concept revolves around this mace model) because of it.

 

 

 

 

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask.

[Bionic_Flea]

8 hours ago, Battlecruiser said:

Is there any chance this weirdness is getting fixed soon?

 

Is the floating ball always that high or just sometimes?

 

Have you tried changing to a different mace and then back to that one?

Edited July 23, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Marshal_General]

8 hours ago, Vanden said:

 

There's literally no way to add unlockable cosmetic content to the game without that being true for someone.

I plan on farming all the currency I need for it and putting it into storage when I have enough to create the character who can pick it up and buy it at level 1.

[Battlecruiser]

9 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Is the floating ball always that high or just sometimes?

 

Same place, every time.

 

9 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Have you tried changing to a different mace and then back to that one?

 

I have.

 

This is a bug with the "Tech Mace." It will happen if you roll a WM character with this weapon model right now on live.

 

It was reported on shortly after Page 3 launched.

[Ardzog]

Hey there,

 

I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it's intentional, but

during last fight VS Romulus in ITF advanced difficulty, I saw that :

 

[12:17] Romulus Augustus hits you with their Void Mire for 20353.1 points of Negative Energy damage.
[12:17] J88QF9JFRU8EYZLAXYTACXWWF2
[12:17] Romulus Augustus hits you with their Void Mire for 20353.1 points of Negative Energy damage.
[12:17] J88QF9JFRU8EYZLAXYTACXWWF2

 

Fatal, and hard to avoid ! And that's just in 1-star !

 

And even without mentioning the damage, what is "J88QF9JFRU8EYZLAXYTACXWWF2" Some nictus langage, or Romu trying to speak like freakshow ?

[GM Impervium]

On 7/23/2022 at 5:19 AM, Battlecruiser said:

 

Is there any chance this weirdness is getting fixed soon?

 

It's been broken since Page 3 and I don't want to play my character (whose whole concept revolves around this mace model) because of it.

 

 

 

 

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask.

Per the Curator:

NOTICE: There are a couple database-related changes in Page 4, which means characters transferred to Brainstorm from Homecoming may have some oddities, specifically in regards to the weapon changes. Please verify any weapon-related issues occur on a new character created on Brainstorm before reporting them.

 

These will be fixed retroactively on existing Homecoming characters by a database fix that will be applied to all characters when Page 4 is launched on the live servers.

Make sure this isn't happening on a NEW character made on Brainstorm. If it is, confirm that and we'll add it to the bug list.

 

2 hours ago, Ardzog said:

Hey there,

 

I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it's intentional, but

during last fight VS Romulus in ITF advanced difficulty, I saw that :

 

[12:17] Romulus Augustus hits you with their Void Mire for 20353.1 points of Negative Energy damage.
[12:17] J88QF9JFRU8EYZLAXYTACXWWF2
[12:17] Romulus Augustus hits you with their Void Mire for 20353.1 points of Negative Energy damage.
[12:17] J88QF9JFRU8EYZLAXYTACXWWF2

 

Fatal, and hard to avoid ! And that's just in 1-star !

 

And even without mentioning the damage, what is "J88QF9JFRU8EYZLAXYTACXWWF2" Some nictus langage, or Romu trying to speak like freakshow ?

Can you post this over in Beta Bug Reports? It's minor, but I want to make sure it doesn't get missed.

Edited July 24, 2022 by GM Impervium

[Hardship]

4 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

NOTICE: There are a couple database-related changes in Page 4, which means characters transferred to Brainstorm from Homecoming may have some oddities, specifically in regards to the weapon changes. Please verify any weapon-related issues occur on a new character created on Brainstorm before reporting them.

 

These will be fixed retroactively on existing Homecoming characters by a database fix that will be applied to all characters when Page 4 is launched on the live servers.

Can this datafix only be applied once for existing characters? If it can be applied multiple times (doing nothing if already fixed), then maybe running it periodically on Brainstorm to catch the newly copied over characters would be helpful? Depending on how taxing it is to run the datafix, maybe every hour or once per day would be sufficient.