[OPEN BETA] Patch Notes for February 6th, 2024 - Issue 27, Page 7 - Build 4

[Crimsanotic]

22 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Every other volume control system on a computer goes from 0-100%.  Calling the top end 150% just gives the impression that the setting will go above system limits.

 

To be fair (kind of), many sliders in this game already go above 100%.

[sbloyd]

CoH is just that EXTREEEEEEEME!

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

One of the frequent complaints about the volume in this game is that it's somehow louder than everything else on the system.

 

Yet last time I threatened to reduce the top end volume because nobody sets it above 20%, a couple people complained and said that for whatever bizarre reason, they have to set it to 100% on their weird old laptop and it would be literally unplayable if the top end volume changed.

 

So yes, it does go to 11. But if you play with the slider you'll notice that if you push it to 100% it wants to snap there and it takes extra effort to go beyond that. And at 150% it is indeed louder than all those wimpy other games you have set to a measly 100%.

 

On my weird old laptop (from about 2012), the volumes usually stay at 3%.  Sometimes when I want it quieter, they get set to 2%.  Sometimes when I need to find a glowie, Sound Effects gets turned up to 5% or 6%.

 

The only time in the longest I remember it being different was for a few days in January, as I related below.  Not sure why it happened.  But it only lasted 2 days or so.  And the volumes are all back at 3%.

 

6 hours ago, Jacke said:

I noted something similar back in January, maybe after testing on Breakout Shard (but unsure).  But somehow it affected all Shards.

 

Normally my 3 volumes are at 3%.  Sometimes turn up Sound Effects to find a glowie.  Sometime turn them down to 2% when I need the game to be quieter.

 

Then in January, had to turn them all up to about 25%.  Held on multiple Shards.  Later that day, had to turn it down to 15%.  Then the next day to 10%, then 5%.  Then I was back at 3%.

 

It's weird and I don't know what caused it.

 

[StarkWhite]

Currently 95% of the volume bar goes unused for me, which seems silly, so I'm all for the change. 

 

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

So yes, it does go to 11.

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 2/1/2024 at 5:48 AM, The Curator said:

• Finding your first exploration badge now gives a pop-up explaining that you'll get LRT if you collect 10 in total.

Well, I guess I can no longer say that the developers don't listen to our feedback.

 

Between that and the mods no longer banning people for giving negative feedback in the feedback threads, I'm going to have to find something else to be grumpy about.

 

Seriously though, thank you for the change.

[patunya]

On 2/1/2024 at 7:48 AM, The Curator said:

---

 

• • The following powers are Wet status triggers:

    • Water Blast > Aqua Bolt

    • Water Blast > Hydro Blast

    • Water Blast > Water Burst

    • Water Blast > Whirlpool

    • Water Blast > Water Jet

    • Water Blast > Steam Spray

    • Water Blast > Geyser

    • Storm Blast > Storm Cell

    • Storm Blast > Cloud Burst

    • Storm Blast > Category Five

    • Storm Summoning > Freezing Rain

    • Leviathan Mastery > Water Spout

    • Leviathan Mastery > Summon Coralax > Wave of Cold

    • Temporary Powers > Extinguisher

    • Temporary Powers > Large Extinguisher

This is it??? Nothing from cold dom, nothing from poison, nothing from traps? RIP arse

[GunselKarcist]

Posting for the first time to ask that you please don't rename to Pay2Win and Transact4Victory vendors.  I know it can be misunderstood, but it's a solid bit and my entire crew (OG and new players) find it charming.  It also grab attention, where as you'll need just as much instruction to point someone to the vendor if it's called something different.

[OldPenn]

If you know how to fix doors/hatches to still be usable when open I have two that have always given me trouble and could use the fix!

1. Dr. Aeon SF: The hatch in the ship after you get the key and enable the in-misison hospital ability.
2. The big hanger door in iTrial Lambda (people say there's still a spot to click that works when it's open, but I've had trouble finding it reliably).

 

Thanks for your work, you are appreciated 🙂

[Shocktacular]

4 hours ago, patunya said:

This is it??? Nothing from cold dom, nothing from poison, nothing from traps? RIP arse

I know, right? Controllers can get all of 4 of the powers in this list, and that includes the two temp powers! This just... doesn't really make sense to me.

[Starhammer]

12 hours ago, StarkWhite said:

I'm perfectly aware, but new and returning players won't be.  And really,  we shouldn't *have* to do that when it's just as easy to NOT go around forcing a change in the movement controls of strangers who didn't consent to or expect it. 

It's not so easy as you seem to think. It's highly counterintuitive to not buff allies in this game (especially if on an AT whose primary purpose is buffing allies, and even more so with a buff that is so commonly requested because of its other effects). The fact that increased movement speed is not universally appreciated (I don't like it either, I get hung up on terrain bad enough even without it) is bad power design, not something you should be blaming on players who may not understand why it doesn't work well for some others.

Frankly, I think we should be pushing for a change to be made to the base power itself. While "thematically" there may be sense to "Speed Boost" giving both a movement boost and a recharge boost (plus the end boost that everyone really wants), in practice those effects are very different, and maybe shouldn't be in the same power... or maybe better yet, should give the receiving player more control over how they're used. I think the best way to do this would be to make use of the travel power popup tray, and when you apply Speed Boost to someone (or Group Fly for that matter, or anything that alters the receiving character's movement performance), give them a toggle power covering the movement performance aspects in the popup tray that allows them to turn it on if they choose.

And if none of that is sufficient, perhaps the terms of use should be updated to include acknowledgement that by playing the game, you are consenting for your character's appearance and performance to be potentially affected by other player and non-player entities 😞

[Starhammer]

2 hours ago, GunselKarcist said:

Posting for the first time to ask that you please don't rename to Pay2Win and Transact4Victory vendors.  I know it can be misunderstood, but it's a solid bit and my entire crew (OG and new players) find it charming.  It also grab attention, where as you'll need just as much instruction to point someone to the vendor if it's called something different.

Personally, I think an outright name change will just add confusion, and impair practical communication between players who have been used to the existing names, and players new to the game after the change. Ad "S.T.A.R.T." as something like a title or SG name. Update the lore on their info accordingly, but even with the change, I don't see myself (or many other players) calling the vendors by anything other than "P2W" even if it's entirely scrubbed. Also, update Keister in the Breakout tutorial with the title. It was years before I noticed he was a P2W, and even then only because of a misclick.

[ZamuelNow]

6 hours ago, patunya said:

This is it??? Nothing from cold dom, nothing from poison, nothing from traps?

They should at least add the Mutant origin power so it can get a similar situation as igniting Oil Slick Arrow regardless of powerset (though all of the above should probably also be considered).

[AgentForest]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:48 AM, The Curator said:

  Liquid Nitrogen  Ranged, Target DoT(Smashing), Immobilize, -Fly

• The Liquid Nitrogen dispenser can spray a target location with liquid nitrogen creating a large patch of ice. Those caught in the patch of ice are dramatically slowed, take cold damage over time, tend to fall down and will be unable to jump. Enemies that happen to be wet will also have a chance to be immobilized in ice.

• The following powers are Wet status triggers:

  • Water Blast > Aqua Bolt

  • Water Blast > Hydro Blast

  • Water Blast > Water Burst

  • Water Blast > Whirlpool

  • Water Blast > Water Jet

  • Water Blast > Steam Spray

  • Water Blast > Geyser

  • Storm Blast > Storm Cell

  • Storm Blast > Cloud Burst

  • Storm Blast > Category Five

  • Storm Summoning > Freezing Rain

  • Leviathan Mastery > Water Spout

  • Leviathan Mastery > Summon Coralax > Wave of Cold

  • Temporary Powers > Extinguisher

  • Temporary Powers > Large Extinguisher

Oh hell yeah, someone was playing BG3 recently ❤️

[macskull]

 

These numbers are... disappointing, to say the least. The self-buffs are fine, I guess, assuming they stack from each target, but those -maxhp and -maxend numbers are awful and you can't even enhance the -maxhp. As a comparison, Degenerative Interface can potentially drop an AV's health by 4000hp and maintain that debuff for the duration of the AV fight, while this power with a 10-minute recharge can reduce that same AV's health by... 1% of that for one minute. Woo.

 

Make it an AoE ally buff and you might get some more takes on this (hey look, free idea to expand the inventory of ally +maxhp buffs!). As it stands it's still a power on a 10-minute recharge that needs two less-than-stellar prerequisites to unlock. There are some tier 3 epic powers that are worth doing that. This one isn't it, chief.

[JayboH]

I think there was another patch and now the 'wet' combo with Liquid Nitrogen has been crossed out, granting a chance for immobilize automatically?

[Captain Powerhouse]

7 minutes ago, JayboH said:

I think there was another patch and now the 'wet' combo with Liquid Nitrogen has been crossed out, granting a chance for immobilize automatically?

 

2/7 fixes and changes:

• Fixed a bug where Controller version of Smoke Grenade was not usable
• Fixed a bug with the accuracy check and chance in Tear Gas
• Removed Liquid Nitrogen's conditional immobilize

[Syovere]

13 hours ago, patunya said:

RIP arse

there has got to be a better way to say that

[weveteran]

Regarding Darkness mastery's Soul consumption:

I really like the idea of giving more archetypes more options for self sustain.  I was a huge fan of the first two ideas (the health/end over time and the +regen/recovery) but that certainly doesn't mean they were the best simply because I liked them, hahah.

The current idea just doesn't feel very impactful to me (i'm sure there are a lot of reasons under the hood that I don't see).  It sorta makes this set feel like "Ice mastery but- (insert comment here)" to me. 

To summarize, the noteworthy powers feel like: tar patch (like sleet but- without the -def) and soul consumption (like hoarfrost but with more steps).  And ice mastery's defense ability has a boatload of def and some resistances.  It's a pretty great power all around. 

What I'm getting at here is that the previous two iterations of darkness mastery (and i'm mostly looking at this from a controller/dominator perspective) had something unique to it but this just feels more and more like a 'lesser ice mastery' with the soul consumption triggering +max hp/end.  (again i'm not a game dev so it probably has some balancing i'm just not seeing)


All of that said:
If you really want to make it a sustain power (because many of these sets AFAICT are aimed at plugging weaknesses in ATs rather than doubling down on a strength) Is it worth considering changing the idea all together and making it something that triggers off of defeated enemies like a togglable aura of some sort (like a +health/end per death that's very small)? Or dropping a capstone sustain(like parasitic aura) power and reskinning it for the theme (like in mu-mastery for dominators that's just a capstone resist power with a crash at the end) and giving it a longer cooldown or a weaker effect?

I really like the overall goal of making the process of adding more powersets like this more streamlined and I can't wait to see what else you all come up with.  Thanks again for all the hard work and I can't wait to see how this irons out!  And if you read all of this thanks for taking the time with my two cents, haha.

[MoonSheep]

21 hours ago, macskull said:

 

These numbers are... disappointing, to say the least. The self-buffs are fine, I guess, assuming they stack from each target, but those -maxhp and -maxend numbers are awful and you can't even enhance the -maxhp. As a comparison, Degenerative Interface can potentially drop an AV's health by 4000hp and maintain that debuff for the duration of the AV fight, while this power with a 10-minute recharge can reduce that same AV's health by... 1% of that for one minute. Woo.

 

Make it an AoE ally buff and you might get some more takes on this (hey look, free idea to expand the inventory of ally +maxhp buffs!). As it stands it's still a power on a 10-minute recharge that needs two less-than-stellar prerequisites to unlock. There are some tier 3 epic powers that are worth doing that. This one isn't it, chief.

 

i think things are pretty much set in stone judging by the limited amount of changes on beta version 4. i wholeheartedly agree though, the power is on the verge of being humorously useless

 

as some constructive but unfortunately negative feedback, most of the upcoming changes across almost all of the patch notes are quite disappointing, forgettably average or unwelcome nerfs

 

i understand we don’t want to make kneejerk swings on every release and turn the game into an automatic “i win” simulator, however surely there’s some sort of QA process and check within the development team to say “is this good? is this fun?”

 

why is there such tight rationing by the dev team on introducing fun? 

[Wavicle]

6 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

as some constructive but unfortunately negative feedback, most of the upcoming changes across almost all of the patch notes are quite disappointing, forgettably average or unwelcome nerfs

that’s a mighty big claim. Care to be more specific?

[MoonSheep]

8 hours ago, Wavicle said:

that’s a mighty big claim. Care to be more specific?

 

my comments mostly refer to the blanket dulling of mastery powersets

 

there are some good nuggets of change elsewhere in the patch notes, but not much stands out that makes me think “wow, i can’t wait for this”

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, MoonSheep said:

 

my comments mostly refer to the blanket dulling of mastery powersets

 

there are some good nuggets of change elsewhere in the patch notes, but not much stands out that makes me think “wow, i can’t wait for this”

oh I see. Well I suppose that’s fair. They have nerfed some of those powers. The new pets look fun to me.

 

 They DID say that this is a first step, that more changes will come to epics later. 

[MoonSheep]

7 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

oh I see. Well I suppose that’s fair. They have nerfed some of those powers. The new pets look fun to me.

 

 They DID say that this is a first step, that more changes will come to epics later. 

 

i think their efforts could have been better spent reviewing data of underplayed powersets and ATs then introduce some upward balancing changes

 

we have powersets that can solo huge mobs of +4/8 content and rip through the game.. yet it’s dark mastery for dominators that needs nerfing apparently

 

the new content is generally good, but the element of fun tends to be missing from the dev’s endeavours to update powers

[SuperBear]

I don't see a place for power animation feedback. Specifically Dual Pistols/Dual Wield. The animation is still cut short and you just kind of snap back into position after the power animation plays out. I keep avoiding the power cause it really messes with the flow. Might just be me.