macskull Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 22 minutes ago, Ukase said: The only thing I can think of that will alter the course is a cohesive, logical argument about why something might be a bad idea. You can only make those cohesive, logical arguments so many times before you start to get tired of doing it. For what it's worth, I don't exist only to criticize the devs, despite what some reading this thread might think. The non-powers portion of the dev team has been absolutely crushing it with new content over the last five years. Even if some of it is not content I'm personally interested in, I know others might enjoy it and that's good enough for me. The powers team has definitely had some wins too - the Trick Arrow, Force Fields, Assault Rifle, Stone Armor, and Battle Axe reworks are all great. Marine Affinity is hands-down the best new set HC has made. I'm more than happy to give praise where praise is due, but these successes just make it all the more frustrating when you see things like Fiery Aura getting kneecapped in exchange for a single point of KB protection, or Titan Weapons having the way it plays completely changed yet still being just as clunky, or sets and powers that could be excellent but are held back by deliberate design decisions (looking at you, Seismic Blast and Storm Blast). 9 1 1 1 "If you can read this, I've failed as a developer." -- Caretaker Proc information and chance calculator spreadsheet (last updated 15APR24) Player numbers graph (updated every 15 minutes) Graph readme @macskull/@Not Mac | Twitch | Youtube Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biostem Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 18 minutes ago, macskull said: You can only make those cohesive, logical arguments so many times before you start to get tired of doing it. It's also possible that those arguments aren't as cohesive or logical as the one making them thinks they are, and they just can't see that, which is why they become frustrated and feel a need to inform everyone that they're leaving... 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ukase Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 11 minutes ago, macskull said: You can only make those cohesive, logical arguments so many times before you start to get tired of doing it. All any of us can do is what we think is right. Some folks are never going to be convinced, regardless of logic. Maybe when we encounter such people, turning around isn't the worst thing we can do. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ukase Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 Just now, biostem said: It's also possible that those arguments aren't as cohesive or logical as the one making them thinks they are, and they just can't see that, which is why they become frustrated and feel a need to inform everyone that they're leaving... More often than not - at least for me, it is usually a miscommunication between the two. Perhaps the arguments (philosophical ones) were cohesive and logical, but the person hearing/reading the argument wasn't smart enough to follow the logic trail. Fortunately, I am not in a position to be judge, jury or executioner. At least, not yet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biostem Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 3 minutes ago, Ukase said: the person hearing/reading the argument wasn't smart enough to follow the logic trail Or it was flawed logic from the get-go. Without specific examples backed up by evidence, we'll just navel-gaze till the cows come home! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 On the proposed changes mentioned, I'm not as much into figuring them out as well, so I was glad Ston spoke up. From my point of view, I was just dreading having to dig into the changes and figuring out how many fricking respecs I was going to have to schedule. I have liked a lot of the changes, but I still haven't gotten some of my older characters redone to use how the stealth powers now work for example, so I was fully expecting to park a bunch of characters for some time. I did like what the release wound up being though I still haven't done anything with Marine or Arsenal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glacier Peak Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 (edited) 1 hour ago, macskull said: Marine Affinity is hands-down the best new set HC has made Absolutely champion this statement and I think it's worth replying to. When I play my Marine Affinity Corruptor, it's like I'm playing the game for the first time again. It feels so refreshing and unique and breathes new life in to the same content I've played countless times. At the same time, a lot of the bugs for this set made it to the live shards, and as a tester that frustrates me very much, but as a player I can't believe it was made so well and still got through some of the ego/echo chambers that exist in small portions of the community. As Ston alluded to in the original post, it's as if there is a fear by the powers development team that making a powerset "good" is a bad thing - and making a powerset sub-par, or even mechanically challenging, (but unrewarding in current gameplay), is the standard being chased. Edited August 29 by Glacier Peak 3 I lead weekly Indom Badge Runs / A newer giant monster guide by Glacier Peak / A tour of Pocket D easter eggs! / Arena All-Star Accolade Guide! Best Post Ever.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macskull Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 1 hour ago, biostem said: It's also possible that those arguments aren't as cohesive or logical as the one making them thinks they are, and they just can't see that, which is why they become frustrated and feel a need to inform everyone that they're leaving... Of all the people this might apply to, Ston is probably not even on that list. 1 3 1 "If you can read this, I've failed as a developer." -- Caretaker Proc information and chance calculator spreadsheet (last updated 15APR24) Player numbers graph (updated every 15 minutes) Graph readme @macskull/@Not Mac | Twitch | Youtube Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troo Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 4 hours ago, lemming said: figuring out how many fricking respecs I was going to have to schedule. bingo 2 "Homecoming is not perfect but it is still better than the alternative.. at least so far" - Unknown (Wise words Unknown!) Si vis pacem, para bellum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lhanis Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 It's sad to see you go, Ston, but I do understand. Thank you so much for your hard work with crunching the numbers for folks like me, who only hear white noise when trying to do so ourselves. I've even discovered entirely new sets and playstyles I rather enjoy that I likely wouldn't have otherwise without your many informative posts here! 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Videra Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 8 hours ago, biostem said: It's also possible that those arguments aren't as cohesive or logical as the one making them thinks they are, and they just can't see that, which is why they become frustrated and feel a need to inform everyone that they're leaving... If there is anyone in this thread who that applies to, I promise you - it certainly isn't Ston lmao. 1 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maelwys Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 10 hours ago, Troo said: It seems like a strange choice to alienate players over existing sets Going to weigh in briefly here in this bit - Some Nerfs and Buffs are always inevitable. And if there is something big in the mechanics of a game that gets overhauled? (I'm looking at you, Enhancement Diversification. And at you, the foretold Aprocalypse) then I can accept that happening and it hitting some sets harder than others. But at least Castle's old cottage rule on live was rooted in common sense - the entire point of this game is "players build characters which they invest time and effort into and grow attached to" so it should be sort of obvious that someone logging in to find that their character's abilities have been changed drastically without their approval can be absolutely galling. Personally, so far my HC characters have been affected by only "minor" changes (my Bot/Kin Mastermind suddenly found that their henchmen were no longer able to reach the defense softcap and had the effective mitigation granted via Bonfire drastically reduced) - which by themselves triggered manys a respec... but if I suddenly logged in to find my EM/Rad Scrapper or Bio/Staff Tanker were completely changed and required a full redesign? Yeah, that would very much suck, regardless of whether the changes were objectively a "nerf" or a "buff". And it may well result in me leaving HC. I'm no longer the carefree twentysomething I was whenever CoH came out. Currently I'm in my mid 40s, with a wife and two kids under 4 years old, and a Full Time Job with mandatory 24/7 on call and overtime; and a detached house in suburbia, and several close relatives that require a lot of physical support. I do not have the free time anymore to spend endlessly poking at builds which have become badly broken through no fault of my own. Maintaining the game and providing bugfixes and new content and new options? Fantastic. But don't completely break and reinvent things, please. I would have thought the name "Homecoming" was a bit of a give away about the intent here - returning back to the comfy home we've grown to love over the years. If it's been given a lick of paint and has a few cracks plastered over? Fine. But if that home has been suddenly ripped down and replaced with a "better" block of flats? Nope. 15 hours ago, Ston said: There have been many, many threads on Discord and these forums on what can be done to address the pain points of those powersets and none of those points were included in these proposed changes. It simply crushed the trust I have in the power development team's process of determining what is healthy for the game. Honestly, it's this bit that most concerns me. Much of the old CoH community had gathered here; and IMO that combined with the NCSoft recognition is a major draw to playing on HC... so it'd be a shame if after all the effort people ended up being driven away via too much "meddling" with their existing characters. I realise we're not paying for the privilege of playing here (beyond donations) but you'd like to think HC still value their playerbase enough to listen occasionally. 5 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Fabulous Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 Bye! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmrasNotHere Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 13 hours ago, macskull said: For what it's worth, I don't exist only to criticize the devs, despite what some reading this thread might think. The non-powers portion of the dev team has been absolutely crushing it with new content over the last five years. Even if some of it is not content I'm personally interested in, I know others might enjoy it and that's good enough for me. The powers team has definitely had some wins too - the Trick Arrow, Force Fields, Assault Rifle, Stone Armor, and Battle Axe reworks are all great. Marine Affinity is hands-down the best new set HC has made. I'm more than happy to give praise where praise is due, but these successes just make it all the more frustrating when you see things like Fiery Aura getting kneecapped in exchange for a single point of KB protection, or Titan Weapons having the way it plays completely changed yet still being just as clunky, or sets and powers that could be excellent but are held back by deliberate design decisions (looking at you, Seismic Blast and Storm Blast). Well said, sadly a lot of people will still miss the productive portion of the criticism. 1 Build Benchmarks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridiculous Girl Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 sorry, i could not help myself... 😁 3 1 2 "I'm not crazy, my reality is just different than yours" the Cheshire Cat "Ce n'est rien de mourir; c'est affreux de ne pas vivre" (It's nothing to die, it's terrible not to live) Jean Valjean "وطن المرء ليس مكان ولادته و لكنه المكان الذي تنتهي فيه كل محاولاته للهروب” (Home is not where you were born, home is where all your attempts to escape cease.) Naguib Mahfouz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScarySai Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 (edited) I think whoever is running the show needs to have a long, angry talk with a certain two people on the power team. Frankly, Cobalt is hard carrying hc's content development and it's only being squandered by the constant meddling with the vehicle players experience the game through. It's insane to me how two people can have such a profound impact on the game and seemingly have no checks in place against them beyond us hard rioting. While marine is great, it took a lot to keep it that way, and everything else on the docket is pretty horrific. I half expect it to rear it's head back around December, but hopefully I'm wrong with that. Edited August 29 by ScarySai 4 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PyroNugget Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 we've never spoken or interacted in game or anywhere else. but your comparison testing spreadsheets have been an invaluable tool that i have gone back to many ,many times when building my next alt(and i have made LOTS). just wanted to say thank you for that,and i'm sorry to see someone with those kinds of skills leaving the game. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Without_Pause Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 I think the thing of interest to me is that someone is leaving in part due to 'insane changes to regen.' 2 1 Top 10 Most Fun 50s. 1. Without Mercy: Claws/ea Scrapper. 2. Outsmart: Fort 3. Sneakers: Stj/ea Stalker. 4. Emma Strange: Ill/dark Controller. 5. Project Next: Ice/stone Brute. 6. Waterpark: Water/temp Blaster. 6. Mighty Matt: Rad/bio Brute. 7. Without Hesitation: Claws/sr Scrapper. 8. Within Reach: Axe/stone Brute. 9. Without Pause: Claws/wp Brute. 10. Chasing Fireworks: Fire/time Controller. "Downtime is for mortals. Debt is temporary. Fame is forever." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerio72 Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 44 minutes ago, Without_Pause said: I think the thing of interest to me is that someone is leaving in part due to 'insane changes to regen.' My toon Nerf Regen agrees...😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maelwys Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 17 minutes ago, Without_Pause said: I think the thing of interest to me is that someone is leaving in part due to 'insane changes to regen.' I'm not in the Closed Beta group... but most of the long-term playerbase are aware that Regeneration has been beaten with the nerf stick so many times over the years that it's become a running joke, and currently (on non-Sentinels) it's generally regarded to be one of the overall weakest defensive sets. It simply can't compete with the sheer performance ceiling of certain other sets even whenever it comes to "Sustainable Hitpoint Regeneration per Second" (Bio easily wins there!) so I can certainly understand a desire by the devs to "adjust" it. However if you're not looking at the Regeneration powerset in isolation then things look much less dire. Decent levels of Defence and Damage Resistance can be gotten via pool powers and IOs; and if you happen to take one of the melee powersets with a +Defence-granting attack; hitting the Melee softcap barely impacts your build (my original namesake character is a Katana/Regen Scrapper; and they're considerably more survivable than my Invul or Rad Armor toons!)... which is a good thing; as adding more damage resistance or defence to the core powerset itself wouldn't be thematic. So honestly IMO all Regen really needs is a method of negating MaxHP reduction debuffs and some +Absorb. And perhaps it could use some additional protection to a few extra status effects such as confuse/fear/taunt. And if you're feeling really generous.. maybe a smidge of passive +recharge. Whilst my own opinions might just be a drop in the ocean; surely before a Dev decides to tinker with an existing powerset they'd have some kind of player consultation beforehand on what changes players who use that set actually *want*... rather than just pulling the lever on the "random cool idea generator" a few times and sending the results directly to implementation on closed beta...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 48 minutes ago, Without_Pause said: I think the thing of interest to me is that someone is leaving in part due to 'insane changes to regen.' I only did a little testing of it. At first, there was some yay factor, but a lot of stuff that made it just changes without making it actually better. My Regen brute that does well enough on Live I took thru and noticed that overall, it performed nearly identical over long term, but wasn't really any better and it didn't address what most players thought would fix it. Iirc, the devs don't like +Absorb which I don't understand the why. Ston and others pointed out the issues with the changes in much better detail. None of the changes to the other sets was insurmountable, but they definitely needed a lot more work to get them into an acceptable state, The testing that Cobalt got involved in was in my opinion great. He listened, modified stuff he agreed with and explained why if he didn't. I know the other devs were involved as well, but since I got more invested into Lab work than any of the other stuff, no comment there. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twozerofoxtrot Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 Thank you Ston, for all of your hard work and patience in helping us all understand our powers better over the past few years. We've never played together or even talked, but I'll miss you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScarySai Posted August 29 Share Posted August 29 3 hours ago, lemming said: The testing that Cobalt got involved in was in my opinion great. He listened, modified stuff he agreed with and explained why if he didn't. Cobalt is an actual developer. If he goes indy at any point, I fully intend to support the projects he's on. More than proven himself as HC's greatest. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoboKnight Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 Did they say why they're implementing changes that the majority of the player base doesn't want? If it's not broken, don't fix it. We have a right to know why. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bionic_Flea Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 8 minutes ago, RoboKnight said: Did they say why they're implementing changes that the majority of the player base doesn't want? If it's not broken, don't fix it. We have a right to know why. A) They didn't implement "those" changes B) How do you measure the majority of the player base and what they want? C) I'm on board with the don't fix it if it ain't broken. D) No, we don't have a right to know, while I would certainly appreciate more transparency and reasoning behind changes. 1 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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