issue 27 Patch Notes for February 20th, 2024 - Issue 27, Page 7

[WindDemon21]

So as noticeable and unnecessary as the bonfire nerf was, especially for controller/dominators there should be some compensation to recover control that was lost due to this.

 

Since Smoke has been in the set forever, which is nice but widely the most skippable power besides the bad tier 1, and now that smoke cannister is working in arsenal, I think a perfect way to fix fire control would be to change smoke into what smoke canister is but just with smoke's animation.

 

This would give fire control back the every mob mitigation without relying only on flashfire (generally assuming you save the aoe hold for oh sh!t moments like you do with other sets), especially earlier on when you don't have i ready every mob.

 

The smoke canister power would be the perfect way to change smoke and fix the control lost for fire control.

 

Edit: hopefully this gets fixed very soon with page 27.2 and not wait till page 28 please *crosses fingers*

Edited February 29 by WindDemon21

[Derek Icelord]

OK, this isn't in the notes.

 

What's with all levels of the Council having this FREEM! effect on what seems like all powers, which comes with a high magnitude knockback? I know it's at least Mag 4.1 because it punches through the Karma: KB Protection IO. I've been encountering it since level 12 on Council mobs.

 

The notes only mention high level Council getting a rework/tweak.

[Uun]

• The Rikti Pylons found throughout the zone now con as Level 54 rather than ignoring level mods.

This change is having an unintended consequence. There are several mission doors in the Heartbreak Ridge section that require you to pass near the pylons. These pylons previously conned as +1 but are now +11 to a lvl 43 player and see through invisibility. I was 1-shot twice trying to get to a mission door and once after exiting.

[DarionLeonidas]

The first thing I noticed is that Exploration Medals no longer give XP.
Seriously, Admins; this is poor management and it is not how to deal with the public.

You never, ever, ever take things back that people have gotten used to having.
You just don't; it's bad public relations. It's better to flat out say "no" than to take something away, even if you think giving them something else will make up for it.

It will not.

Once people have something, leave it alone.

No matter how trivial it may seem to others, it is not trivial to them.

Edited March 3 by DarionLeonidas

[Wavicle]

12 minutes ago, DarionLeonidas said:

The first thing I noticed is that Exploration Medals no longer give XP.
Seriously, Admins; this is poor management and it is not how to deal with the public.

You never, ever, ever take things back that people have gotten used to having.
You just don't; it's bad public relations. It's better to flat out say "no" than to take something away, even if you think giving them something else will make up for it.

It will not.

Once people have something, leave it alone.

No matter how trivial it may seem to others, it is not trivial to them.

They give Patrol XP now, in LARGER amounts than the xp was. They haven’t taken it away, just modified it.

[WindDemon21]

Epic > Earth Mastery > Hurl Boulder (Controller) - Range increased from 40ft to 80ft, Recharge increased from 10s to 16s, Cast Time reduced from 2.5s to 2.0s, endurance cost decreased from 11.7 to 10.66

 

Also any chance we coudl get this fixed on hurl and hurl boulder in stone melee and SS? These have been crap powers for a while now and could really use this fix. Though 1.5s like the dominator version should really be standard for all versions too. 40ft range is fine obviously for the melee versions but something more for the power, mostly the cast time reduction, and a bit of more rech for more damage on the powers.

 

Also, this has been a long time coming. For Hurl in SS, instead of just the standard boulder that hurl boulder is, it should pick up random objects like propel does!

[Captain Fabulous]

5 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

Epic > Earth Mastery > Hurl Boulder (Controller) - Range increased from 40ft to 80ft, Recharge increased from 10s to 16s, Cast Time reduced from 2.5s to 2.0s, endurance cost decreased from 11.7 to 10.66

 

Also any chance we coudl get this fixed on hurl and hurl boulder in stone melee and SS? These have been crap powers for a while now and could really use this fix. Though 1.5s like the dominator version should really be standard for all versions too. 40ft range is fine obviously for the melee versions but something more for the power, mostly the cast time reduction, and a bit of more rech for more damage on the powers.

 

Also, this has been a long time coming. For Hurl in SS, instead of just the standard boulder that hurl boulder is, it should pick up random objects like propel does!

Bro, dunno what you're smoking, but SS Hurl is damned good. 80' range, 2.5 sec cast (used to be higher on live), 8 sec recharge, 9.36 end, and has a melee damage modifier instead of ranged so it does the same base damage as Haymaker.

Random items on Propel works because you're creating a wormhole, but that makes no sense if you're pulling up the ground beneath your feet.

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Bro, dunno what you're smoking, but SS Hurl is damned good. 80' range, 2.5 sec cast (used to be higher on live), 8 sec recharge, 9.36 end, and has a melee damage modifier instead of ranged so it does the same base damage as Haymaker.

Random items on Propel works because you're creating a wormhole, but that makes no sense if you're pulling up the ground beneath your feet.

“Graahh! Modern Art to the face!”

[WindDemon21]

15 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Bro, dunno what you're smoking, but SS Hurl is damned good. 80' range, 2.5 sec cast (used to be higher on live), 8 sec recharge, 9.36 end, and has a melee damage modifier instead of ranged so it does the same base damage as Haymaker.

Random items on Propel works because you're creating a wormhole, but that makes no sense if you're pulling up the ground beneath your feet.

2.5s cast time is still HORRID for the power. I don't know what YOU'RE smoking, but that not good at all. 67% more cast time for the same damage is BAD. Especially on SS who really needs it for a better attack chain that has always been an issue. I'd much rather just have a normal melee attack if it meant an actually good ST chain.

 

The attack should be based on the proper damage for the set class, the range is just a bonus but the DPA still needs to be proper for the attack. 8s is honestly too short a recharge for the damage and current cast time where that should be higher on the recharge and damage to compensate whatever is needed to align the damage properly for a 1.5s cast time that already exists on doms for that animation.

 

2.5s on it is just BS for its damage and will forever remain a skip until it's fixed. It's horrid. Same with Hurl Boulder obviously. If it's the same damage as haymaker, it should have the same cast time. It's that simple. (The range BONUS might denote that it's recharge be a little longer perhaps like 10s or even 12, but that cast time NEEDS to be fixed)

 

Edit: not to mention it's knockBACK which actively inhibits your attack chain. That part would likely not change to make sense for the power, but the cast time/rech/damage absolutely can and should.

 

Also there are plenty of other things in this game that don't make sense, so for how much more awesome it would make the power feel random objects make more sense than pulling a chunk of rock out if deep water or from a 3rd story laboratory, so that point is pretty moot.

Edited March 5 by WindDemon21

[gabrilend]

Hi, since you're improving the new player experience, can I humbly request that the old Mercy Island be added back into the game somehow? It has a much, much better learning experience for new players.

 

I know most people tend to disappear into missions or farms or whatever, but the kind of people I hang out with spend most of the time in the world. The design of the overworld map is absolutely lovely and top tier, and yet Mercy Island sticks out as a poor example of the failed updates to the design that NCSoft applied in their waning years as masters of this game.

 

I'd much, much rather prefer to show people the old Mercy Island. It has a much better flow and dynamic, and I can explain why if asked.

 

In addition, the incursion of Longbow into the area felt like City of Heroes intruding upon the space of City of Villains. I like City of Villains much more, and Mercy Island feels occupied in my mind by a foreign power. I hate that they're there, it breaks the illusion of the Rogue Isles being sovereign states outside of the reach of the "civilized" world. Please hear my plea! I'll make it again once every year or two. But please, it's all I want from this game anymore.

 

... well I'd also like if my ninja's didn't crouch all the time after being upgraded. It's gotta hurt their knees! Plus, I'm just standing around hanging out, why are they ready for combat?

 

... anyway thank you for all the work you have done, please reply if you want to converse.

[Lockely]

10 minutes ago, gabrilend said:

Hi, since you're improving the new player experience, can I humbly request that the old Mercy Island be added back into the game somehow? It has a much, much better learning experience for new players.

 

I know most people tend to disappear into missions or farms or whatever, but the kind of people I hang out with spend most of the time in the world. The design of the overworld map is absolutely lovely and top tier, and yet Mercy Island sticks out as a poor example of the failed updates to the design that NCSoft applied in their waning years as masters of this game.

 

I'd much, much rather prefer to show people the old Mercy Island. It has a much better flow and dynamic, and I can explain why if asked.

 

In addition, the incursion of Longbow into the area felt like City of Heroes intruding upon the space of City of Villains. I like City of Villains much more, and Mercy Island feels occupied in my mind by a foreign power. I hate that they're there, it breaks the illusion of the Rogue Isles being sovereign states outside of the reach of the "civilized" world. Please hear my plea! I'll make it again once every year or two. But please, it's all I want from this game anymore.

 

... well I'd also like if my ninja's didn't crouch all the time after being upgraded. It's gotta hurt their knees! Plus, I'm just standing around hanging out, why are they ready for combat?

 

... anyway thank you for all the work you have done, please reply if you want to converse.

 

I had a full-on false Mandela Effect moment when I cleared Sgt. Harris and took back Fort Darwin, walking down that ramp after the mission and having memories resurface of the first time I played CoV.

I agree that I liked the zone flow better, but I don't see how it could be returned to how it was at this point without overly significant dev time that should honestly be spent bringing Khalisti Wharf into a playable state. I doubt OG Mercy exists anywhere within the 'files,' so it would need to be re-made from scratch. As a bonus, this means the devs could bring it up to the same standard as Goldside, and maybe make it so that we're not killing snakes over and over and over for the first 12 levels. But I wouldn't want it at the expense of new content.

[Starhammer]

Something I just noticed the other night... Arsenal Control > Sleep Grenade shows as accepting Ranged AOE sets, but does not accept them. (I tried placing a damage proc) Obviously it would be nice if it accepted the sets, but at least having the text updated to match what it does would be acceptable.

[WindDemon21]

5 minutes ago, Starhammer said:

Something I just noticed the other night... Arsenal Control > Sleep Grenade shows as accepting Ranged AOE sets, but does not accept them. (I tried placing a damage proc) Obviously it would be nice if it accepted the sets, but at least having the text updated to match what it does would be acceptable.

No matter anyway, the power won't proc on enemies almost at ALL since it's a location power. Another reason it would be better as a targetted power especially on controllers who kinda need it to proc out to make up for not having an aoe immobilize in the set.

 

Edit: But it SHOULD still take them for slotting/set bonuses, i'm sure it's a bug. Also note that smoke canister and nitrogen also both won't proc at all :/.

Edited March 5 by WindDemon21

[Lockely]

7 minutes ago, Starhammer said:

Something I just noticed the other night... Arsenal Control > Sleep Grenade shows as accepting Ranged AOE sets, but does not accept them. (I tried placing a damage proc) Obviously it would be nice if it accepted the sets, but at least having the text updated to match what it does would be acceptable.

It does accept them.

 

[figster45]

I'd agree on the cast time on hurl and hurl boulder and skip them as well because of that, so it would make sense if those powers had shorter cast times. It wouldn't make or break it if hurl didn't pick up the random objects but it would be fun still, especially when throwing a forklift to an enemies face.

[Ukase]

I decided to wait until I at least got through a 1 star lgtf before I gave some feedback on this patch. 

I played an arsenal/arsenal dom; it was interesting. I swore off Dominators a few years back after an unsavory experience with a mind dom. But while I liked Arsenal assault better than Arsenal Control, much of that is probably due to playstyle, than the powerset itself. 
I got it to 50, t-4 in all, so it had to be at least decent, or I'd have just deleted it. 

I've gotten used to the patrol xp for badges deal. It did take some getting used to, though. 

So, I did get through a 1 star lgtf. I'd never done it on beta. So, I was going in cold. The leader, despite having gotten badges from it on numerous characters didn't really explain much. 

While I may be obtuse from time to time, it was rarely clear to me precisely what was going on. 
The pros:
The little dragon-looking monkeys, or whatever they were called - very interesting. It wasn't immediately clear to me exactly what I was supposed to be doing in that part. Leader said kill the dragon monkeys, and at that point, I hadn't even seen one to know to target it. Still, it was interesting. Certainly more interesting than a big bag of hitpoints that we have to whittle down. 

The Hamidon part...it was such a contrast from the mission prior, during which I think I was defeated more times than the entire life of my character. 6 times, I think. And something killed the whole team except one of us at the end. I have no idea what. 

At one point, there was a voice talking about gas, and I was a bit puzzled. Didn't know if it was the game or something from someone's radio, outside. 

The Cons: 
It's not clear what the specific requirements are for Doesn't look at Explosions. At least, it wasn't clear to me from the patch notes. Maybe that's by design? I'm supposed to wander around like a Leisure Suit Larry game until I figure it out? I barely survived that TF and got the Zookeeper Omega, but whatever was needed for the other one, I guess we didn't achieve it. 

Mirror Image is awarded by satisfying the conditions for Archetype Duplication. I read something about having at least 4 of the same AT on a tf - and it's very nice that there are no other conditions, like all being the same alignment or something. I'm sure the answer is somewhere, but I have no confidence in my understanding of what "the conditions for Archetype Duplication" are. 
Kind of the same thing with Variety Act - I thought it was straightforward when I was recruited for this badge by a friend. No duplicate ATs, which SHOULD satisfy the "conditions for Role Diversity", but it doesn't. I think we had to ensure we only had traditional Hero ATs - and that was a bit silly. Granted, nobody forced us to pursue this badge, I'm just suggesting the conditions for it be made more clear for those of us who are prone to being obtuse. 


The Piecemeal personal story: If I hadn't read about it in the patch notes, my character, a level 50, with all the badges except for the ones from this patch, would have had no idea the telephone contact existed. In fact, I had to go through Ouro to find the contact. 
Then, when I got the mission, it wasn't at all clear what "look around the lab" meant. I mean, I walked around, and got some messages for entering certain spots - but after that - there was no way point, no verbal or written directive as to what to do. I quit it, restarted it, and only by incidentally walking to a certain point did Bile mention something about popping through - I can't recall the words he used. 
The story he tells is interesting, but it took me a second try for a way point to appear after I hopped around the lab. Once I got through the portal, the objective said to go to the arena. I look at the map and there's no indication of where the arena is. Granted, I can hop around in concentric circles until I find it - but my reveal was disabled, and I was given a powerset that I had no idea which powers did what. I've seen this before in other personal stories - in some ways, very interesting. In other ways, a bit frustrating. So, a way point to the arena would have been helpful. 

When I was sent to AE - I click on a glowie and it wants me to go back to the arena. Fine - but the way point remains on AE, so for a moment, I was a bit confused. 
The entire experience was interesting, but I was never really clear on what I was supposed to do. 

Those are my thoughts on it up to this point. I am left wondering if my lgtf team was really bad, or if the tactics used were bad. It doesn't seem to me like a leader should be burdened with explaining things with a lengthy lecture - the game should make that clear prior to combat - and that might be something the game did do - but getting ported around with incandescence inhibited the game from making things known. No idea. I plan to run it again with someone who will be on discord. It's always going to be easier to talk while playing then typing while playing. 

[VulnaviaPhibes]

I've got to say the new redside striga story arcs seem strangely unfinished.

 

Obviously their production value is a lot lower, and maybe the previous arcs, both the vazhilok stuff and especially the rogue and vigilante content, just set the bar too high with dialogue trees, moral choices, interesting boss fights, and so on. And presumably most of the focus was on the issue finale.

 

However, even for a more low-key project, a lot of the writing feels like a first draft. The NPCs don't have much character, the wording is often awkward, and there's none of that classic redside camp since the dialogue is so sparse, and mostly utilitarian exposition. The bare-bones sparseness of the writing combined with the bare-bones simplicity of the missions makes the story really hard to get into.

 

The vibe and quality seems much more in the vein of the blue-side striga arcs. The contacts even tell you to check their shops for enhancements, even though contacts don't sell enhancements anymore... Was it intentionally written to be a throwback to old-style CoH? To match the quality and style of the blue side arcs? If so, why?

 

This is obviously an enormous project, especially for an all volunteer team, but the Homecoming team has made so many incredible, beautifully polished quests in the past, so it just seems weird that these quests were released in this state.

Edited March 14 by VulnaviaPhibes

[VulnaviaPhibes]

I just wanted to say how much I love the Grandville update. Checking on all of the heroes in arachnos' dungeon was so cool, especially the special cells. I love the little worldbuilding touches that you've been adding!

[Xaddy]

So, I guess I'm a little late to the party with feedback. 

It's really ...different, being in Striga as a villain. So - that's a cool thing, because it gives the red-siders more options. 

The one thing I had a problem with was maybe more user error than anything else - but Orpheus..I don't like him. 
And the reason I don't like him is he is just like the old school boring blue side contacts giving you useless busy work before letting you start the arc. 

At level 25, I went to him - go hunt. No. I'm not going to hunt in the open zone if it's not part of the story arc. I want merits, not xp. 
I asked myself why this guy wouldn't give me the arc. Maybe at 25, the game thinks I'm too low. So, I do a Moonfire TF, and come back. Still with the hunting nonsense. 
So, I auto-complete it  - just to see, and then I get an option for the arc. 

So, thumbs DOWN for this useless waste of an auto-complete to get to the arc. 
Hunting in zones to get to a story arc, one-off missions to get to a story arc - those are just bad things for a player to have to do. Sucks the fun right out for me. Maybe I'm just one player with this feeling, no idea. 

The arc itself - having done the blue side stuff before - it's fairly symmetrical, just better thought out. So, good job on the arc itself! 
But the go kill this before you can earn merits. Just stop that, okay?