Real Talk: Dear Devs, are you aiming to force Trinity Gaming?

[kelika2]

I like that one part in the old dev Q&A where that one guy said no pve cc over 3 seconds long

[Indystruck]

Well the old devs definitely didn't hold to that with the malta stun nade lol

[Luminara]

53 minutes ago, WhiteNightingale said:

When they buffed Crey.... ok, they're supposed to have a private army with experience in metahumans, but when EVERY SINGLE FACTION above level 30 has the damn Triple Threat (holds, KB, blinds and/or some equally crippling debuff), the message is clear: Trinity or GTFO.

 

I solo at +1/x5-8 on a variety of characters from level 31 onward.  And unless I've been promoted and no-one bothered to inform me, I don't qualify as a trinity.

 

1 hour ago, WhiteNightingale said:

What's even the point of the Concealment pool existing if the devs buffed all factions' perception to the point rikti drones are redundant now? No, now you want real stealth? Stalker/Illus or GTFO (and even proc slotted, don't even think about sneaking past any faction with drones). Why not just REVERT that messup of being able to toggle several travel powers at a time? THE DEVS themselves created the "over concealment" problem, and then "patched it up" by nerfing stealth into near oblivion.

 

I have and use Stealth on numerous characters so I know there's been no change to how it works in standard content, or changes to any standard content enemies which allow them to see through Stealth.  Nothing in standard content that couldn't see through Invisibility before can see through Stealth now.

 

None of what you're complaining about is true.  Malta weren't buffed, Stealth wasn't nerfed and enemy perceptions weren't buffed in standard content, the game still isn't even hard enough to require teaming at all, much less specific team compositions.  You might want to check your facts before posting again.  You're either being told lies, or you're making faulty assumptions.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Indystruck said:

Well the old devs definitely didn't hold to that with the malta stun nade lol

 

I remember those days.  Fuckers kept my Inv/SS tank Stunned for twenty minutes one night.  I still twitch when I have to run a Malta mission.

[Jacke]

On 8/9/2024 at 2:45 AM, Luminara said:

I have and use Stealth on numerous characters so I know there's been no change to how it works in standard content, or changes to any standard content enemies which allow them to see through Stealth.  Nothing in standard content that couldn't see through Invisibility before can see through Stealth now.

 

None of what you're complaining about is true.  Malta weren't buffed, Stealth wasn't nerfed and enemy perceptions weren't buffed in standard content, the game still isn't even hard enough to require teaming at all, much less specific team compositions.  You might want to check your facts before posting again.  You're either being told lies, or you're making faulty assumptions.

 

I'll second @Luminara on this.  I use stealth on ALL my Toons and have done so since well before Shutdown.  Perception and stealth hasn't changed much.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention the important bit about Rikti Drones and Rularuu Sentries,  Now fixed.

 

Some mobs have normal rank-based perception ranges (Rikti Drones, Rularuu Sentries) but ignore stealth and that's been true a long time.  Some mobs--Turrets, Snipers, Giant Monsters--have much longer perception.  It's rare outside of Advanced Mod, but some mobs have Tactics-like Powers that give them more perception and there are a few more of them.  Using stealth means knowing what to do when the mobs see you--either defeat them all or break contact.  That's always been so.

Edited August 13 by Jacke

[Uun]

9 hours ago, WhiteNightingale said:

What's even the point of the Concealment pool existing if the devs buffed all factions' perception to the point rikti drones are redundant now? No, now you want real stealth? Stalker/Illus or GTFO (and even proc slotted, don't even think about sneaking past any faction with drones). Why not just REVERT that messup of being able to toggle several travel powers at a time? THE DEVS themselves created the "over concealment" problem, and then "patched it up" by nerfing stealth into near oblivion.

There have been no changes to how stealth or enemy perception works. There have been no buffs to enemy perception. HC has made changes to how stealth powers stack with each other. While these may require changes in slotting to achieve the same level of concealment, the effectiveness of stealth has not been nerfed.

[Triumphant]

11 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

I remember those days.  Fuckers kept my Inv/SS tank Stunned for twenty minutes one night.  I still twitch when I have to run a Malta mission.

20 MINUTES?  Sweeeeet  Jeeeebus.... 😬

[Excraft]

17 hours ago, Greycat said:

Is it? I mean, we've had plenty of complaints about things being non challenging  - so they set up plus-star levels and such, and there have been requests for team content... so, labrynth. But we've also gotten power sets and perfectly soloable story arcs. Yeah, they may work more on one thing than another at one time or another, but... I've more a sense of it being balanced out as far as team/solo/small team long term. (And just like when Incarnates came out and the answer we got to "what about solo/small team" stuff was "Grind the itrials!" ... I'm not shy about speaking out about either side being ignored 😄 )

 

From my perspective, it does seem like more focus is put on team oriented content.  Reading the forums here and chatting with others in game, I know I'm not the only one.  There's a few of the HC folk who have posted over the years on the forums here how their preference is for team based content.  Absolutely nothing wrong with that.  They can work on whatever it is they want to work on. It's their server.

 

Adding harder content is fine when it's optional like the hard mode TFs.  Quite a lot of people have been turned off by the NPC revamps though, which aren't optional.  I could be wrong, but I believe that's where the distinction is being made.  Not saying those people are right or wrong, just my observation.

[Trickshooter]

15 hours ago, WhiteNightingale said:

What made WoW (and then CoX) great back in the day was the promise of "you can solo your way to lvl 50 and you don't need to grind all day every day" because only home-officed imsomniacs had time for otherwise, the "haaaardcoooore" model thing was long abandoned in MMOs (and good riddance for that). MMO's target demo in general (and CoX' in particular) is adults, BUSY adults with disposable income. We don't have time to grind all day every day, and this is not even an ARPG, so don't even start with "durr hurr git gud."

 

I solo almost exclusively, and nearly always with Defenders, and have like 12 level 50s at this point (and only like 3 of them even have an IO build), and I've almost never encountered any standard content I couldn't do on my own. The main exceptions are missions with a few frustrating EBs. I genuinely don't understand the complaint that things are becoming too hard? The enemy revamps just feel like attempts to bring factions that are showing their age up to the difficulty levels of the newer Praetorian factions.

[WindDemon21]

On 8/8/2024 at 8:07 PM, golstat2003 said:

Nothing of the new content released I've seen forces trinity gaming. Any group of players can jump into an LOF league and kick Mino's ass. Marine is probably the mostly solo friendly set released. And the new story arcs are easily soloable.

Marine has a lot of things for teams and self that help, but it's far from the MOST solo-friendly lol. The defense it offers is pretty low, with low absorb, resistance/hp/regen is, Ok, but mez is going to be a big issue with it. the hp/regen is nice and damage debuff is good, but the mez is going to be a pretty deciding factor on its soloability. I'm certainly NOT saying it's terrible to solo with by any means, just that it's definitely not the "MOST solo friendly" set. Time, traps, and dark all beat it out for solo-ability pretty easily. That's still a pretty big problem with most squishies in general and wish there were more options that don't run out via breakfrees so you can rely on them more for dealing with mez on squishies, especially with every enemy group revamp including more mezzing from even the minnions. They should all at least have IW at 35 in the psy epic like controllers can, but aim/bu should also come with mez break/protection in them for example, and the suppression of toggles after being mezzed is still entirely dumb IMO as well (especially since they still cost you endurance while you're held too)

 

On 8/8/2024 at 9:03 PM, WhiteNightingale said:

When they buffed Crey.... ok, they're supposed to have a private army with experience in metahumans, but when EVERY SINGLE FACTION above level 30 has the damn Triple Threat (holds, KB, blinds and/or some equally crippling debuff), the message is clear: Trinity or GTFO.

This is annoying, especially the mez and such as mentioned. I still don't think the "holy trinity" is required though, but the solo-ability and especially the fun factor of it gets really annoying in general though and makes it much less fun to play against them. The problem especially though is, we have had fun with these enemies for decades, and they shouldn't have been touched. Creating new and harder content is more than fine, but the fact that they ruined what many of us have found fun for so long, is the real issue.

 

On 8/8/2024 at 9:03 PM, WhiteNightingale said:

What's even the point of the Concealment pool existing if the devs buffed all factions' perception to the point rikti drones are redundant now? No, now you want real stealth? Stalker/Illus or GTFO (and even proc slotted, don't even think about sneaking past any faction with drones). Why not just REVERT that messup of being able to toggle several travel powers at a time? THE DEVS themselves created the "over concealment" problem, and then "patched it up" by nerfing stealth into near oblivion.

This part makes no sense to me though, they buffed stealth to basically equal invis and stealth combined. I do think it's dumb that you can't stack stealth powers especially in PVE if anything but not in PVP, but stealth definitely was not nerfed. Enemies like drones, and snipers have always been able to see through standard stealth (at least long enough that it doesn't matter now, issue 2 or something maybe it was, but it's still not as much of an issue, can't remember if they can see stalker/superior invis levels cause it's been a while since i've done that, but standard stealth in the power pool is more than enough for most things.

 

On 8/8/2024 at 9:03 PM, WhiteNightingale said:

TL;DR: Creating exclusive hardcore content is ok, creating new difficulty modes is ok (since those are optional), raising the bar of the whole game experience is NOT ok.

This is the main part though. Create new and harder stuff for us sure, but things we've had fun with for a while now shouldn't have been changed. That's the direction why Veracor left, and I agree fully with it, I'm just not leaving yet, but it is still another notch on the bad column that would confirm that could solidify that decision one day. At either rate, it definitely makes the game less enjoyable than it was before, especially when there is still so much of the game that DOES need actually fixed first.

[WindDemon21]

On 8/9/2024 at 12:29 PM, Trickshooter said:

 

I solo almost exclusively, and nearly always with Defenders, and have like 12 level 50s at this point (and only like 3 of them even have an IO build), and I've almost never encountered any standard content I couldn't do on my own. The main exceptions are missions with a few frustrating EBs. I genuinely don't understand the complaint that things are becoming too hard? The enemy revamps just feel like attempts to bring factions that are showing their age up to the difficulty levels of the newer Praetorian factions.

"Showing their age" isn't the problem, on a game that was old and revived, when that was part of why we enjoyed it so much in the first place. Again, new harder content fine, ruining content that already existed that many enjoyed causing people to leave because of it, is bad. Why specifically do you think it is that many people generally avoid those harder enemy factions in the first place. For me, this is a game to come and try to relax playing, so these changes heavily weigh on the fun, relaxing factor of it. There are many other games that are harder out there, and even harder content IN this game as is anyway, so there is no reason to ostracize those who enjoy the easier content just because the devs and some others want harder stuff. when there is enough room in this game for both.

[Rudra]

18 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

but things we've had fun with for a while now shouldn't have been changed.

 

9 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

ruining content that already existed that many enjoyed

I'll do my best to remember these next time you make another thread asking to take away powers from existing power sets.

[WindDemon21]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

 

I'll do my best to remember these next time you make another thread asking to take away powers from existing power sets.

This was in regard to changing enemy factions as is what this thread is about. Use context. Regarding what you just said, that goes on a case by case basis, and is *generally* why the devs try to stick to the cottage rule, which is why major changes are generally avoided. My suggestions almost always involve TWEAKING existing powers to be better (not worse), not removing them outright except in certain fringe cases where it's warranted.

[Glacier Peak]

5 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

certain fringe cases

Oh mirror where art thou.

[Lazarillo]

9 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

not removing them outright except in certain fringe cases where it's warranted.

Like, to be clear, I'm also in the camp that most of the villain group upgrades have been net negatives and probably shouldn't have been done (or at least, not the way they did), for a variety of reasons, but one person's "warranted" is another person's "don't toucha my toot-toot".

[WindDemon21]

3 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Oh mirror where art thou.

Fringe cases for the entire changing of a power, not just tweaking it's values (as the sentence stated) Power TWEAKS though, yeah there are a lot of them I'd suggest lol.

[WindDemon21]

1 minute ago, Lazarillo said:

Like, to be clear, I'm also in the camp that most of the villain group upgrades have been net negatives and probably shouldn't have been done (or at least, not the way they did), for a variety of reasons, but one person's "warranted" is another person's "don't toucha my toot-toot".

Right it's subjective, but that's the point. In a game where you can have both, why remove one option when you can just make more of the other.

[DrRocket]

On 8/8/2024 at 8:03 PM, WhiteNightingale said:

 

Yes, in the Everlasting Taskforces Discord, in the announcements section. And they explicitly say they leave because they no longer agree with the direction the devs are taking the game.

 

And I can't say I blame them.

 

When they buffed Crey.... ok, they're supposed to have a private army with experience in metahumans, but when EVERY SINGLE FACTION above level 30 has the damn Triple Threat (holds, KB, blinds and/or some equally crippling debuff), the message is clear: Trinity or GTFO.

 

What's even the point of the Concealment pool existing if the devs buffed all factions' perception to the point rikti drones are redundant now? No, now you want real stealth? Stalker/Illus or GTFO (and even proc slotted, don't even think about sneaking past any faction with drones). Why not just REVERT that messup of being able to toggle several travel powers at a time? THE DEVS themselves created the "over concealment" problem, and then "patched it up" by nerfing stealth into near oblivion.

 

What made WoW (and then CoX) great back in the day was the promise of "you can solo your way to lvl 50 and you don't need to grind all day every day" because only home-officed imsomniacs had time for otherwise, the "haaaardcoooore" model thing was long abandoned in MMOs (and good riddance for that). MMO's target demo in general (and CoX' in particular) is adults, BUSY adults with disposable income. We don't have time to grind all day every day, and this is not even an ARPG, so don't even start with "durr hurr git gud."

 

TL;DR: Creating exclusive hardcore content is ok, creating new difficulty modes is ok (since those are optional), raising the bar of the whole game experience is NOT ok.

I had always had an issue with the devs idea on how they make things more challenged. As WhiteNightingale indicated challenge was issued as Holds, KB, Blinds or other crippling de-buffs usually Defense. My issue has always been that the devs idea of challenge always impacts the support classes much more than melee, while I have always advocated for an even challenge, as opposed to the mission got harder, because the devs killed the support much faster.

 

Incidentally, I do recognize and applaud the devs for introducing the Sheer Will Accolade, which it does partially mitigate the unbalanced challenge I was describing. 

 

Regards

[Seed22]

19 hours ago, DrRocket said:

I had always had an issue with the devs idea on how they make things more challenged. As WhiteNightingale indicated challenge was issued as Holds, KB, Blinds or other crippling de-buffs usually Defense. My issue has always been that the devs idea of challenge always impacts the support classes much more than melee, while I have always advocated for an even challenge, as opposed to the mission got harder, because the devs killed the support much faster.

 

Incidentally, I do recognize and applaud the devs for introducing the Sheer Will Accolade, which it does partially mitigate the unbalanced challenge I was describing. 

 

Regards

This aptly sums up my feelings on the matter.

 

It really only hurts ATs already affected by CC, and at best annoys but not outright disrupts bulldozer ATs or hell even the supports who have a caked in CC prot power in their primary/secondary.

 

But it'll probably be how they go about "touching up" mobs in the future so you all will have to either advocate against it or acquiesce into a "soft" teaming meta.

[WindDemon21]

20 hours ago, DrRocket said:

I had always had an issue with the devs idea on how they make things more challenged. As WhiteNightingale indicated challenge was issued as Holds, KB, Blinds or other crippling de-buffs usually Defense. My issue has always been that the devs idea of challenge always impacts the support classes much more than melee, while I have always advocated for an even challenge, as opposed to the mission got harder, because the devs killed the support much faster.

 

Incidentally, I do recognize and applaud the devs for introducing the Sheer Will Accolade, which it does partially mitigate the unbalanced challenge I was describing. 

 

Regards

The larger problem here is that there is a CONSTANT issue with mez on non-armor toons. So as soon as you use that on one mob you have every other mob to deal with so while it helps versus nothing, it almost hurts more as the devs would consider it "another tool" and think the mez issue is fine, where most of the root issue is still unaddressed which is the consistent skills mob-mob, as post 30 most every mob has continual mezzing happening. I think there is a larger issue as well with clarity post-50 where lots also think the mez issue is fine because they always go that route, and forget that the pre-50 game exists.

 

Removing that suppression of enemy affecting toggles and removing the suppression of non-enemy affecting toggles while mezzed, and even adding a "lockout" period after being mezzed, and especially adding mez protection/breakout to aim/bu type powers would all be great ways to reduce the impact of all the mez on squishies while still not being perma protection. Giving every squishy AT no just controllers/doms IW at 35 in the psy epic, would all be a great way to help address that for those who want to go that route and not be forced into clarion if they're needing the perma-protection for their build.

[tidge]

On 8/8/2024 at 9:01 AM, WhiteNightingale said:

 I just come from an ApeMage where our tank was repeately KB'd.... no scratch that, she was ragdolled by Malta, a TANK. Is mag10 protection now supposed to be "for gimps"? Do tanks now need to be followed by an Empath everywhere to cast Focused Mind or something?

 

Please share the Tanker's primary/secondary, because...

 

On 8/8/2024 at 12:01 PM, Uun said:

 Dark and Fire have no kb protection or resistance and must obtain it outside their primary (this has been the case since launch). IMO, a Dark or Fire tank needs at least mag 12 kb protection. The only tank that should be kb'ed at all in Tin Mage would be a Fire or Dark with less than mag 10 kb protection.

 

On 8/8/2024 at 4:57 PM, Uun said:

It is specific to powers that have unresistable knockback, i.e., Crimson Prototype/Nova Stomp, Crystal Titan/Foot Stomp, etc.

 

FREEM! (IIRC Magnitude 20KB) can catch everyone by surprise, especially resistance-based ATs that have no meaningful KB resistance or KB protection.

 

I haven't played a Fire Armor set, but with Dark I typically build for 14 points of KB, as it is easy to get 2 x +3 (set bonuses) and 2x +4 from unique enhancements. 3x +4 is pretty much as viable from 3 uniques... I just feel like I get more mileage from the PVP sets that offer 3-piece +3 KB protection, and usually want that 3rd unique mule slot for something else. With 12 or 14 points, the SG base buff can put me at 22 or 24 points, which takes FREEM! off the table.

 

IMO It's crucial for Dark to build for KB because of the PBAoE powers, including the self-heals. This is IMO just one of those lessons that has to be learned, it isn't the Homecoming Devs being out to get players!

 

[Lazarillo]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

FREEM! (IIRC Magnitude 20KB) can catch everyone by surprise, especially resistance-based ATs that have no meaningful KB resistance or KB protection.

This was, incidentally, such a dumb thing to add.  None of my characters that didn't get knocked back before, get knocked back by this, so in practice, it's really just yet another KB attack, only difference is this has really silly poptext for absolutely no reason at all.  Because, y'know, it's like you don't know you've been knocked back by it, nor is there anything you can do about it anyway even if it is "special".

[tidge]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

FREEM! (IIRC Magnitude 20KB) can catch everyone by surprise, especially resistance-based ATs that have no meaningful KB resistance or KB protection.

 

11 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

This was, incidentally, such a dumb thing to add.  None of my characters that didn't get knocked back before, get knocked back by this, so in practice, it's really just yet another KB attack, only difference is this has really silly poptext for absolutely no reason at all.  Because, y'know, it's like you don't know you've been knocked back by it, nor is there anything you can do about it anyway even if it is "special".

 

If nothing else, the FREEM! popup lets players know if they'be been hit by a high-magnitude KB, and if they don't see the pop-text it almost certainly means that the KB they are experiencing is something they explicitly forgot to account for in their build.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if some fraction of players shocked to find themselves suffering KB have been skating by on nothing more than high (positional) defenses. If someone took a Tanker without an Alpha slot on Apex/Tin Mage, I can completely believe that the character was "ragdolled".

[Lazarillo]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

If nothing else, the FREEM! popup lets players know if they'be been hit by a high-magnitude KB, and if they don't see the pop-text it almost certainly means that the KB they are experiencing is something they explicitly forgot to account for in their build.

I mean, it's the same either way.  If they're hit by a KB, their build didn't account for that KB.  The magnitude is mostly unimportant because any build can be coincidentally be hit by enough stacked magnitude to be important.  But again, if you get knocked back, you know anyway, unless you're afk farming or something.  And even if they didn't, "FREEM!" tells them nothing.  By that justification, there should be a DONG! popup for every Stun and a "ZHWACK!" for every Hold.  Maybe players didn't realize they weren't protected, after all.

 

The game needs less inane and unhelpful poptext, not more.

[tidge]

 

9 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

I mean, it's the same either way.  If they're hit by a KB, their build didn't account for that KB.  The magnitude is mostly unimportant because any build can be coincidentally be hit by enough stacked magnitude to be important.  But again, if you get knocked back, you know anyway, unless you're afk farming or something. 

 

Well...  this thread does have at least one player that self-admits that they may have missed the difference.

 

On 8/8/2024 at 5:41 PM, mistagoat said:

The most repeatable instance (but not the only instance) where I've experienced this is when doing high level council/5th column. As a tank you run in first, get everyone's attention and they all fire off something at you at the same time. My best guess is that all the rocket guys firing off their rockets at the same time is stacking KB mag. Even had it happen on a Rad tank that had the 3pc PVP IO that adds another 3 mag to KB protection.

 

Like I said, thats just a guess because my buddy and I haven't been able to come up with a better explanation.

 

It's ok to not like the FREEM! popup, but it offers some value explaining the mechanics. I'm guessing there exists a player that feels the same about damage number popups. Take a Tank with a Taunt Aura into a PVP zone sometime... it is possible to get used to the mechanics popups.