Focused Feedback: VEAT Updates

[Dispari]

We got frag grenade 😄

[LastHumanSoldier]

1 hour ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Has anyone done the testing on this to see how it stacks up among the other single target ranged/psi powers for Fortunatas?

 

My rough numbers:
 

1.67 -- Mental Blast -- 56ish DPA

1.00 -- TK Blast -- 58 DPA

1.67 -- Subdue -- 56ish DPA

1.10 -- Dominate -- 70ish DPA + Massive Proc Potential

2.00 --Scramble Thoughts -- 50ish DPA (If you get all the ticks) + 4 mag stun

 

I build for full exemplar so I ended up taking 

TK, Subdue, Dominate, Scramble Thoughts, and yes Gloom to up the dps at end game.
I rotate Dom (either Scram or Subdue) Gloom at 50.

 

Devs: I actually WANT Wide Area Web Grenade now.  Struggling to fit this into my bane build now.
Also thanks for the Mace animation option on Frag Grenade.   Kudos.

 

Edited January 28 by LastHumanSoldier

[Dispari]

Just a quick one, but WAWG was increased from a 10 foot radius to a 25 foot radius. That's an area increase from 314 to 1962. The target cap was also raised from 10 to 16. This puts it pretty close to actual mez set AoE immobilizes, which have a 30 foot radius. Visualized, the difference is:

 

Old version, targeting this Shocker but it not being wide enough to hit the Troll top right.

New version, targeting the Grenadier and getting everyone but the security guard top right.

[Spectre7878]

Think I found a bug. Fortunata build, total domination. It says it allows SoA archetype sets. But when I try to put a set into it. It won’t let me. 

[KaizenSoze]

Initial thoughts on the improved WAWG. It's an improvement, but it causes other issues.

 

I can get the recharge down to 6 secs. So, perma immobilize is fairly easy. In my initial test I took both WAWG and Mace: Web Envelope.

 

Solo:

The radius is amazing, recharge great. But it removes any KD/KB (mag 100 protection), which greatly increases the amount of hits the player takes. Crowd Control for instance loses all it's KD, which is very useful when combined with MBB or Frag to keep mobs down. I was taking a lot more damage in general using WAWG than not.

 

Team:

Blocking all KD/KB messes with a lot of powers. Bonfire even the beta version will get completely neutralized by WAWG. Shield charge KD, neutralized. Liquefy, neutralized. Oil Slick Arrow....

Suggestion:
Remove the KD protection from WAWG.

 

[Dispari]

There was a pass a while back to give all the control sets immobilizes that reduce KB to KD instead of simply disabling it entirely. All powers should have that treatment, including WAWG.

[KaizenSoze]

1 hour ago, Spectre7878 said:

Think I found a bug. Fortunata build, total domination. It says it allows SoA archetype sets. But when I try to put a set into it. It won’t let me. 

I confirmed it. Probably wasn't never supposed to take any damage set. Confuse and Aura of Confusion cannot take AT set.

 

[Booper]

1 hour ago, Dispari said:

There was a pass a while back to give all the control sets immobilizes that reduce KB to KD instead of simply disabling it entirely. All powers should have that treatment, including WAWG.

It's not. It was missed during the sweep. Fixed in next build.

[Troo]

3 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

I confirmed it. Probably wasn't never supposed to take any damage set. Confuse and Aura of Confusion cannot take AT set.

 

 

While damage sets don't help much in Total Domination, ATOs could be an option. Splitting the ATOs across multiple powers is a option folks use.

(I don't use this on my widow, but someone might, just food for thought)

 

Edited January 28 by Troo

[Paradox Fate]

On 1/28/2024 at 3:33 PM, Dispari said:

Just a quick one, but WAWG was increased from a 10 foot radius to a 25 foot radius. That's an area increase from 314 to 1962. The target cap was also raised from 10 to 16. This puts it pretty close to actual mez set AoE immobilizes, which have a 30 foot radius. Visualized, the difference is:

 

Old version, targeting this Shocker but it not being wide enough to hit the Troll top right.

New version, targeting the Grenadier and getting everyone but the security guard top right.

 

Damn, glad I did add WAWG into my Crab build. Now this will make a nice combo. WAWG -> Venom Grenade -> Arctic Breath (full of damage procs) -> Suppression -> Frag.

 

Lots of brr to do.

[Spectre7878]

23 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

I confirmed it. Probably wasn't never supposed to take any damage set. Confuse and Aura of Confusion cannot take AT set.

 

Thanks. I did a respec and was going to put ato in total dom. But couldn’t. So I figured I ask. 

[Spectre7878]

Also further tested my nightwidow and fortunate. Night widow plays much better. Fortunata is ok but does feel much different then my current version. 

[Booper]

7 hours ago, Spectre7878 said:

Also further tested my nightwidow and fortunate. Night widow plays much better. Fortunata is ok but does feel much different then my current version. 

How does it feel different? 

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, Booper said:

How does it feel different? 

It's preeeeeettier.

Honestly, I can't say I noticed much difference, though I hadn't played it in a while.  The cone on Psychic Scream sure feels small, though.  Probably I'm just used to wider cones from playing other sets more recently.  That said, I feel making it wider-but-shorter to be something closer to the Night Widows might be nice, if, based on the Thunderstrike changes, part of the idea is "consistency" among powers.

 

One other relatively small element I noticed is that Fate Sealed does not appear in the Enhancement screen.  Fair enough in a way, since at least as-is, it doesn't seem like it would benefit from any particular type of Enhancement.  That said, to maybe lessen confusion on whether the power was taken and/or working, perhaps consider having it still show up as a zero-slot power (like Swap Ammo)?  And/or give it something enhance-able, just for us OCD folks.  But I'd settle for the former. 

[Heatstroke]

Maybe im just being picky but it feels weird to me for Heavy Burst to have the alternate animation as LongFang..  Because I already have Longfang.... it just doesnt flow well.  

[Shin Magmus]

On 1/28/2024 at 5:16 PM, Dispari said:

There was a pass a while back to give all the control sets immobilizes that reduce KB to KD instead of simply disabling it entirely. All powers should have that treatment, including WAWG.

YES ESPECIALLY ONI'S RING OF FIRE IN NINJAS.  I would appreciate this pass on WAWG for VEATs but Ninjas is still screwed by active anti-synergy where one pet completely ruins your 2 sources of Knock Up and Knock Down; Oni's shitty Ring of Fire immediately increases that boss's ability to deal damage to your pets by 5,000%.  If we just got a pass that kept the -KB Magnitude% but eliminated the -KB protection, Ninjas would work correctly overnight.  This would also make VEATs way more likely to take this power.

Edited January 30 by ShinMagmus

[Gobbledigook]

I think the Soldiers Spiderling and Reinforcement pets could do with a little built in defense. They die rather too easily and are have a long summon recharge.

[csr]

On 1/29/2024 at 7:47 PM, Heatstroke said:

Maybe im just being picky but it feels weird to me for Heavy Burst to have the alternate animation as LongFang..  Because I already have Longfang.... it just doesnt flow well.  

 

It's odd that the alt animation for the power is from Longfang, which has a cast time barely over 1/2 as long as Heavy Burst (1.33s vs 2.50s).  It seems to me that the alt animation for Heavy Burst ought to be Suppression.

[Heatstroke]

9 hours ago, csr said:

 

It's odd that the alt animation for the power is from Longfang, which has a cast time barely over 1/2 as long as Heavy Burst (1.33s vs 2.50s).  It seems to me that the alt animation for Heavy Burst ought to be Suppression.

 

Thanks. Thats kind of the way I feel  as well. It would be cool if there was some animation where all the arms fire at once... just one shot.... that would be a perfect "heavy burst" alternate animation

[balor]

On 1/26/2024 at 12:37 AM, Booper said:

 

Hello, and thanks for asking. I won't have much to add, as Koopak has already provided you with an excellent answer. Koopak has been involved with the beta testing for these changes and has tracked the discussions quite well in giving you their response. In short, this effort was a collaboration between multiple developers with a vested interest in VEATs. Between bug fixes, customization, and low-performing powers, we wanted to bring an update that is across-the-board performance buffs that raise the floor of VEAT performance without raising the ceiling too much. We also wanted to separate some of the branches' identities to better diversify play-styles and build options.

 

This goal is why Night Widows received buffs that improved their survival stats (increased resistance, health, and placate dancing) and their stalking play-style (stronger hide, stronger crits, and again placate dancing). Fortunatas already were strong in all forms of DPS, with single-target nearly on par with Night Widows while having superior AoE options. They also did this with similar survival stats and plenty of control options that didn't sacrifice their DPS (Psi Wail, Dominate). For this reason, damage improvements were minimal for Fortunatas; instead, we improved upon their controller play-style to offer viable and different options. Total Domination and Scramble Thoughts were made more potent for this reason, and it is why Fate Sealed buffs those types of powers with very little investment (acts as a free S.O. for all your mezz powers, without the concern of enhancement diversification).

 

As for Banes and Crabs, much of the player's complaints stemmed from their branch of attacks being worse than the default attacks. However, those default attacks are still available for use by each branch, so even if we buffed the branch of attacks, they had to be tempered because they would still be paired up with the default options. Considering that, we improved many branch powers to be viable options via increased damage and/or cast time reductions. Finally, we wanted to improve on some of the play-style options, so Banes received the same "hidden" buffs that Night Widows received, offering up the old-school stalker play-style that players wanted. Crabs received a considerable, but not meta-making, buff to Omega Maneuvers allowing it to be more reliable and usable in typical gameplay.

 

But don't take my word for it, nor take the patch notes' word for it. Please test it out; try different build styles for each AT and let us know how it performs and compares with Live.

Thanks for the reply and insight into what was going on. Yes, Koopak has been great at helping us work out the current objectives. He has also been solid at bouncing around ideas on Discord. I've been testing moreover the last few days to see the changes and still have some other ideas I want to check out, namely a non-pet crab Omega Maneuver build, and I'll try to force it to work.

Also, a big thank you to the Devs, City Council (not the villains' Council), and the testers. I have experience in game development in the past, specifically for a tabletop game, and I have a deep appreciation for how challenging game development can be. It involves long hours, numerous discussions, an absurd amount of testing, and feedback. Working through the feedback and determining what is valid and what is false or flawed data can be daunting. In companies, dealing with politics, from Devs to "in groups," to management, is no small task. From someone who has navigated this in a different field, I can genuinely say thank you, and I understand the complexity and effort involved.

 

The great thing is that we can all have different opinions and still be friends, even if we disagree. My philosophy in game design is, "A rising tide lifts all boats," meaning as you address issues in the game, it improves it as a whole. This creates momentum to take on new challenges and learn from the process.

 

Now, my opinion of HEATs and VEATs from a game design standpoint is a mixed bag with the highlight of NCSoft nailing the themes. However, the Epic Archetypes do not feel organic and cohesive like the rest of the CoX archetypes. It seems like the EATs originated from a marketing/upper management directive to create a gimmick to keep people playing more. Very rarely do game developers want to create a hybrid class that expands beyond the normal scope and game design tenets laid out for the rest of the player characters. On top of that, hybrid classes are the hardest in any game format to get right (video game, tabletop, or RPG). It generally takes way too long to tune them to hit that right chord of balance, not being too strong or weak, as well as resonating with the audience to reach the Goldilocks zone. The VEATs are suffering from wearing too many hats, with a wide mix of group support, tanking, damage dealing, and pets. Personally, I would have loved to have seen them as a series of focused micro-classes in the Arachnos theme.

I want to share my opinions on what else I have observed after testing and discuss some concerns as well as what has worked.
What's worked?

 

-The crit 100% / placate dance for Widow, Bane, and even my Huntsman (Bane-Pummel/Bayonet) feels great, and you all addressed an issue that goes back to the release of the VEATs. I remember being on the forums discussing this problem with gamers years ago.
-Web Grenade - Wow, this was a shock but welcome. It does help fulfill the role of support. 
-Animation clean-up and alt weapon animation are great, but we are missing one that I really want to see done.

 

->The time is right to be creative, test, and experiment on a test server. It does not need to go live if it fails to meet expectations.<-

Concerns:
1.The Devs and City Council are locked in and are at a state of "good enough," with this feedback forum just in a state of cleanup and going through the motions. If that is the case, that is fine, but I do believe there is more room for some TLC here. I hope there is room for further development here or in future updates as there are still ongoing issues. I’m still going to provide feedback even if that is the case.

 

2. New Powers
As nice as it is to get new powers, it also creates bloat and raises the question of what I am taking in place of this power. Or was something made irrelevant in my build, and is that justified?

 

I find my VEATs not having a lot of extra slots, as I don't even take travel powers on VEAT builds. I'm not going to speak on Fate Sealed, as I don't play Fort, besides it being an extra power. But Pain Tolerance is okay. It is a similar but slightly weaker version of the Bane Spider Armor Upgrade, giving what seems to be less %HP and less resistance (5% vs. 7.5% Bane). With a full set of Unbreakable Guard, besides the IO's bonuses, it only boosts it up to 7.88%, making it not worth the investment. Four-slotting it with Preventative Medicine gets it a 91.8% boost from 160.63HP to 308.06HP, but you need the three slots to burn on this ability.

 

As much as I like more tanky elements for my Widow, I'm not sold on it. Widows are Def tanks, and this is a small Res boost and a scalable HP booster that you could skip, as it will need to kick something else to the side. At best for me, it can replace Assault for my build with zero slots added. Dump one of the proc healing enhancements and forget about it, or if I feel it is a waste, just respec out later. On the flip side, my team lost out on the assault buff, and would that extra DSP be better than a few extra hits I can take?
  
These would be great if they were passive, included powers when you picked your branching path archetype. Hit 24, move to Night Widow, and gain Pain Tolerance or pick Fortunata and gain Fate Sealed. It would almost help resolve some of the issues with the goofy inherent. If you want to go this route and are worried about people complaining that Soldiers don't get anything, there is an easy pick in the Soldier power set that everyone who has two cents always takes and normally never adds any slots to it.

 

3. Missing customization animation needed for a power! Also, the lowest hanging fruit right here!

The most underrated power for the Soldiers is Pummel; it is an S-tier power when it comes to support/control with a 66% chance to Stun at mag3. Pummel needs a Mace animation customization for the Banes. Why? Because the Banes Mace stun chances are low, and NCSoft did not port over Clobber from War Mace, so the build does not have on-demand Stun. The Bane powerset, as we know, has a mostly copied and pasted power set from War Mace. The two primary "stun" attacks NCSoft moved over were the power 1 and 2 from War Mace, which had the lowest chance to stun out of that power set.

I spent time clearing a number of missions using mostly Bash and Pulverize to see how often I could get them to proc. I was a little disappointed with their performance and concerned enough that someone might want to check if the stun chance listed on the skills is the same as the code is showing. I tested for a few more days and still found Bash to rarely trigger, but Pulverize was triggering around the correct 20% of the time, depending on the target type.

Bane has good melee damage and one fun AOE melee attack but no support melee power. Pummel is already mashed up in this turducken of an archetype. Please make this happen as this is a simple quality of life fix.

4. Banes, these guys still need some more TLC or a support squishmallow.  
Have you guys played Banes on the test server, and did you try going FULL Bane? I have been. By keeping the common melee combo of powers(those do good damage) but sticking to Bane Mace Beam range attacks to see how it all synergized.

Currently, the synergy between Mace melee stuns and Mace Beams knockbacks is very weak. The concept is great on paper, but the stuns and knockbacks don't trigger enough, especially the stuns. The exception is the change to Mace Beam Blast, so it feels like you all were likely already aware that the control/disruption was really not happening enough. The single skill change on control/disruption is not enough.
 

Mace Beam weapons are weaker DPS options than what you get in Huntsman. Taking Venom and Frag grenades stomps the Mace Beam ranged attacks into the ground. I understand not wanting to boost the power of Mace Beams and mostly agree. But they should have a purpose and ideally a synergy with the melee attacks. The Huntsman powers offer more damage and debuffs where Mace Beam, Mace Beam Blast, and Mace Beam Volley don’t.

There is hope as the new auto knockback Mace Beam Blast gives you a hint what this class could be and should be.
I had a vision of cultivated chaos when playing on the test server with the Bane. I imagined the Mace procs stunning at a reasonable rate and the enemy getting knocked back left and right via knockback effects. It seems like this was the goal via NCSoft with the combo of powers and procs, but it failed to come together, and we never got this havoc-inducing support melee class.
 

Here is a solution with no boost in damage that I can tell. Add a Stun proc to the Mace Beam, Mace Beam Blast, and Mace Beam Volley at a 20% chance for a 2-mag stun for 4s, just like the War Mace attack Pulverize. It will allow for Stun set pieces to be slotted, but I don't see any having a damage proc out of the sets. In theory, you can combine the good melee damage of the Bane with the thematic Mace Beam Range attack that doesn't do a lot of damage but adds chaos and control with knockback and stuns. A 20% chance is at least a starting point to try and test it. If it proves inadequate, change it again, or if it is criticized too harshly, change it in a different way.

->The time is right to be creative, test, and experiment on a test server. It does not need to go live if it fails to meet expectations.<-

Banes Part 2 Poisonous Ray
This one is disappointing and needs some love. The damage is fine, but it just does not add much to the equation as it is a poison/toxic attack that oddly does not have a -res but only a -def. Because Venom Grenade is an AOE combined with a good -Res and has a Mace animation, it dwarfs the Poisonous Ray power and leaves it in a very sad place. Venom Grenade may even win out versus Poisonous Ray on a single target with the -Res combined with the melee rotation.

 

So Devs/Council, why do I take this? Or better, what can you all do to create an incentive to take it? The goal should be to give everything a reason and purpose.

 

I have two solutions here, and it would be to blend Poisonous Ray with one of two other powers.

 

First, consider a lesser version of Envenom with all those debuffs but at 15s, like Poisonous Ray, versus the 30s for Envenom. You pick the value that seems fair but give it a role in the power set. This creates another layer of taking down those hard-to-kill targets but also boosts the rest of your team.

 

The second option is to have it act like a blinding poison. I'm thinking of the power Mental Scramble from the Tarantula Mistress, as I can’t think of a power like this that players have right now. It has a Foe -Acc, -Def -Perception but have the -Def better than what you can get out of the Huntsman weapons, giving it a role.

 

5. Endurance issues?
Did you all talk about boosting the inherent’s recovery rate? It would be a great time to explore what it would do if it was taken from 5% to 7.5% or even 10% recovery. Even a small quality of life change would go a long way. I wonder how many people stop playing VEATs during leveling before they get a chance to really stack the enhancement sets at end game?

 

Trying out something and exploring what it does does not mean it will stay; that is part of testing. But there needs to be something to test out to see if it works or not. I have been on the test server, and there is still room for TLC.

 

In summary, I played some of these guys when the server was live and in the last few years thanks to Homecoming. Game Dev is a pain in the backside, and you all have a lot coming in this patch. I'm passionate here, not hating or doing the blame game but want things to get better. Here is a good time to test stuff, tinker, try things, or wash your hands of it and move on to more custom power sets or another power set to review.

 

There are mostly positive things you all are working on here, and that is awesome! But it is like having a really good dinner roll when you know Thanksgiving dinner is just in the other room but there are no seats at the table. (Sorry, I’m hungry it seems.)

 

-Customization for Pummel to a Mace animation
-New powers ...yay/maybe ... make them auto included free powers
-Bane synergize needed to balance the lower damage Mace Beams with a added Stun for cultivated chaos (support roll-no damage boost here)
-Poisonous Ray - You're the salesman ... make me want to take it, please
-Endurance issue - Do some Quality of Life fixes here, Spin is end is overpriced, drop the costs of other thing maybe in class toggles or look at the recovery rate in the inherent

 

In the end, there is more work to be done here, and maybe we can test some of these together now or in the future. But I'm just a fan, asking for a little more, just like when it was live. There is more hope now with Homecoming.

 

->The time is right to be creative, test, and experiment on a test server. It does not need to go live if it fails to meet expectations.<-
 

[Sarn]

I don't see the new Psychic Scream values in the information of the power. It still seems to reflect the old values. Will this happen later?

Edited February 1 by Sarn
Junk at the top from a former post.

[ScarySai]

Change to how placate works is very nice. 

 

And WAWG working properly makes it a very, very tempting option, even for tight builds. Rare to get an immob this potent on a dps.

[balor]

58 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

And WAWG working properly makes it a very, very tempting option, even for tight builds. Rare to get an immob this potent on a dps.

That is the big win by the Dev team they are still sticking to the fact that VEATs are also a support class.  

[ScarySai]

3 minutes ago, balor said:

That is the big win by the Dev team they are still sticking to the fact that VEATs are also a support class.  

Soldiers are the actual sentinels, so it makes sense.

Edited February 1 by ScarySai

[Random Robot]

Minor thing, could we get Bayonet and/or Pummel alternate animations for the crab backpack?

 

edit: also going to add to the opinion that Heavy Burst's crab animation needs some work. It's too short at the moment.

Edited February 2 by Random Robot