Patch Notes for June 17th, 2025 - Issue 28, Page 2

[twozerofoxtrot]

There you have it folks. 

Pylon times are out. GM Arcanum times are in. Start clocking those defeat times!

[Widower]

Following up on my earlier post:

• You will receive one free respec upon logging in. Hope you enjoy. Sorry we didn't do it yesterday morning. (Blame @Arcanum!)
• There are issues with the badge tracker that will render it inoperable until next week. (I guess you can blame Arcanum for this too.)
• There is no third bullet point. (Yes, that's Arcanum's fault as well.)

Any other questions, please submit to Arcanum's solar plexus. Thanks!

[Bionic_Flea]

Dang it, Arcanum!

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, SpookTheHerd said:

So commands were added to controller pets, but not the equivalent pets for dominators?

 

Naturally I would love my Doms to be able to command their pets, however I understand that Controllers rely more on their pets taking advantage of buffs and debuffs, so their position is more important than it is to a Dominator.

[Sorena]

Why not just make TK a quick, location based, inverse repel that does minor smashing damage? I feel like with this change, and all the other changes over the years, the concept of it being a stationary levitation immobilize is just dead now.

Edited Thursday at 03:56 AM by Sorena

[Rikmach]

23 hours ago, Ukase said:

Maybe this is by design? 


My character, level 50, vigilante doesn't see 28.04 in ouro. Makes sense, I suppose as the character hasn't done this content yet. 
But this tip mission it's not in the SG computer, either. 

If I have to start clobbering randoms on the street, and hope I get that specific tip, I don't think that's a good thing. 

I think you're guaranteed to get it rapidly if you're the right alignment and level range, similar to previous tip-introduced contacts.

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Rikmach said:

I think you're guaranteed to get it rapidly if you're the right alignment and level range, similar to previous tip-introduced contacts.

You know, I did. And I joined a team that suggested I change alignments...and then when I changed back it was gone. But you were right, I got it quickly. 

[Faultline]

On 6/18/2025 at 3:47 AM, DeathMcKillenstein said:

Also looks like the City badge tracker machine is broken.  Not responding when you click on it.

 

It's been running out of memory in Excelsior and Everlasting; the max memory will be increased on Tuesdays' patch.

[Sovera]

As one of the five persons in the game who uses Monstrous Legs I appreciate the extra customization The Blacklight extrs look pretty cool though they don't mix very well because of the metal texture that doesn't allow to make the colors blend with other materials. Plus the glow ought to have been separate from the other colors. But, nitpicks, I'll take it and be thankful.

 

P.S. if shameless groveling is accepted I'd love to have Retro Sci3 added to Monstrous legs so my trousers can finally match the jacket.

[BZRKR]

10 hours ago, Sorena said:

Why not just make TK a quick, location based, inverse repel that does minor smashing damage? I feel like with this change, and all the other changes over the years, the concept of it being a stationary levitation immobilize is just dead now.

If you move while TK is active, do the gathered up mobs not move too?

[arcane]

My Psi/SS and my Pyro/Time are both done with IO’s and T4 incarnates! Loving them!

[Ukase]

Okay. So, we got a lot of new content. Some of the writing is very well done. Some of it is amusing. 

Now I wish I'd spent at least some time during beta testing these arcs. I didn't find anything new, other than a glowie that kept on glowing and making that sound even after it gave me the clue. (West arc, body bag)

But what has taken me by surprise is how HUGE KW is as a zone. And frankly, there should be a tram or something to get you from one side to the other quickly. 

One of the big things most of us despise is spending time traveling through a zone. I get that KW is alive now, and we probably should look around. But when we don't know where the plaques or badges are, we're doing plenty of that already. At least initially, until some kind soul posted them in broadcast, and possibly on the wiki or even the forums. 

But is it absolutely necessary to have these huge distances between the contact and the mission door? and from mission to mission? For all I know, there's no control over it, but I doubt it. Maybe there was a reason for having my character go all over the place. But whatever that reason is, it's not a good enough reason. 

And frankly, if that's my biggest complaint, I'd say you guys did great! 

[Puce Nonagon]

Thanks for your hard work. The new stuff is great!

[Display Name]

So!  Here's a spoiler for the Robert Kogan arc!

 

First, let me say this:
You can easily pick up the tip mish you need to start his contact mishs by completing other contacts' mishs. in the same zone.  It has *no* category so even if you're completely badged and tipped out like my badge toon with *all* categories maxed in Event tips and normal tips, you can *still* get the tip mish needed.

 

Spoiler

Be *very* aggressive during the interview with the press after finishing the mish to embarrass the... "what's-their-name" group about their incompetence.

 

[Display Name]

Also, I appreciate the opportunity to tell the 5th Column that they're lame compared to the Council!  Lol!

[CaffieneNirvana]

Trigger warning: words. I TRIED to trim it down, but...I felt I had to explain my thoughts. Sorry if it still seems too 'extra'.

 

Okay, so... I really enjoy a lot of things about page 2. I want to say that up front. Regen is fun now, and feels like it has a separate identity from Willpower finally. Pyrotechnic Control is a hoot. The Dark Armor changes were long overdue, and fixed something I pitched an absolute fit over before (re: Cloak of Fear). And exploring all the secrets in Kallisti Wharf has been a blast.

 

I still have two points of major contention, certain bugs notwithstanding. The biggest? Heal resistance.

 

Now I get the intention. People have been on about the game feeling too easy, and you wanted to add challenge. What can games do to add challenge? Make it harder to heal. I mean, DARK SOULS did it, so it must be a good way to make things *challenging*, right?

 

Well. No.

 

So specifically in situations like that in Dark Souls, you have workarounds. Can't heal? Fine, just focus on your dodging until the effect wears off. Play more defensively, or just run away until the Lloyd's Talisman wears off. ...This is not really an option in an MMORPG. A number of ATs have no real choice but to take the damage they now cannot mend, EVEN with Inspirations. And obviously you don't want to run away when you're on a team; that's kind of a jerk thing to do.

 

Not to mention how badly this hurts healers. It is not fun in the slightest when I use Cauterize on a friend, and it does absolutely bupkiss. That isn't challenging, that's just... 'Why am I even here?' 'Why are we even doing this?' 'Maybe I shouldn't bother playing a support character at all and just get more damage so that encounters end before we're wiped out.' And worst of all, there's little to no skill-based workaround, unlike what I mentioned above. If you don't have one of those max HP buffing powers, you are hosed. And it's REAL disheartening that not every archetype gets at least SOME protection from heal resistance. We can't manually dodge most attacks, QED being able to heal is critical.

 

If possible, I'd like it for powers to instead have parts of their healing be unresistable. Maybe half or 45% for single-target powers like Cauterizing, and 33% for PBAoE heals, with a middle-ground of 39% for non-max-HP-buffing self-heals if possible. They should NOT ever do 0 healing. In an MMO, making a healer utterly pointless is not challenging. It's just punishing them for playing support instead of more damage. And ideally make Inspirations 60% to 75% (depending on size) resistant to this, if not resistant to it entirely, because...seriously. They're limited consumables. It's not like this is Ragnarok Online and Yggdrasil Berries, CoH balanced out consumables just fine.

 

Or. Y'know. Maybe give powers like [Clear Mind] and the like the power to cap/partly protect against Heal debuffs. I'm sure the average support toon would find that peachy keen. And/or make it a funny sadistic choice for Masterminds who might skip/delay getting those powers~

 

Secondly...I still really don't appreciate the removal of arc changes to Tanker. Like, a lot. So for some powers, most notably stinkers like [Breath of Fire], that arc change took a power that was AoE in theory only and made it actually pretend to work as one. And for an archetype meant to be the 'best at AoEs', that was certainly in line with that idea. The 'over target' changes should be enough to balance that out just fine.

 

Honestly, if just these two things could be amended, if in part or altogether, it would make this page into a total bop of a victory for Homecoming as a whole. And...maybe just remember what I've come to call the Freedom Unite rule: 'Just because it makes things hard on the player doesn't mean it's an enjoyable challenge they'll feel was worth doing.'

And I know it's a pain in the cheeks to only get this sort of feedback now, rather than while it was on open beta. But some hiccups you just don't notice until it hits the main player base. Still, I'm sorry to potentially put more work on you all.

Edited yesterday at 02:43 AM by CaffieneNirvana
formatting derp

[twozerofoxtrot]

14 hours ago, Ukase said:

At least initially, until some kind soul posted them in broadcast, and possibly on the wiki or even the forums. 

Badger has been updated, and every location-based badge has a grid location associated with it. You can search by the badge name, then copy and paste from the site with /thumbtack.

https://n15g.github.io/badger/homecoming

If you haven't used it before, despite being on github you don't download a thing. If you choose to actually interact with the badge-tracking application on the site, it merely creates a local .txt file on your computer (which also means it doesn't track progress automatically across different machines).

Edited 22 hours ago by twozerofoxtrot

[Ukase]

23 hours ago, Faultline said:

It's been running out of memory in Excelsior and Everlasting

This amuses me. 

[Glacier Peak]

10 hours ago, CaffieneNirvana said:

Trigger warning: words. I TRIED to trim it down, but...I felt I had to explain my thoughts. Sorry if it still seems too 'extra'.

 

Okay, so... I really enjoy a lot of things about page 2. I want to say that up front. Regen is fun now, and feels like it has a separate identity from Willpower finally. Pyrotechnic Control is a hoot. The Dark Armor changes were long overdue, and fixed something I pitched an absolute fit over before (re: Cloak of Fear). And exploring all the secrets in Kallisti Wharf has been a blast.

 

I still have two points of major contention, certain bugs notwithstanding. The biggest? Heal resistance.

 

Now I get the intention. People have been on about the game feeling too easy, and you wanted to add challenge. What can games do to add challenge? Make it harder to heal. I mean, DARK SOULS did it, so it must be a good way to make things *challenging*, right?

 

Well. No.

 

So specifically in situations like that in Dark Souls, you have workarounds. Can't heal? Fine, just focus on your dodging until the effect wears off. Play more defensively, or just run away until the Lloyd's Talisman wears off. ...This is not really an option in an MMORPG. A number of ATs have no real choice but to take the damage they now cannot mend, EVEN with Inspirations. And obviously you don't want to run away when you're on a team; that's kind of a jerk thing to do.

 

Not to mention how badly this hurts healers. It is not fun in the slightest when I use Cauterize on a friend, and it does absolutely bupkiss. That isn't challenging, that's just... 'Why am I even here?' 'Why are we even doing this?' 'Maybe I shouldn't bother playing a support character at all and just get more damage so that encounters end before we're wiped out.' And worst of all, there's little to no skill-based workaround, unlike what I mentioned above. If you don't have one of those max HP buffing powers, you are hosed. And it's REAL disheartening that not every archetype gets at least SOME protection from heal resistance. We can't manually dodge most attacks, QED being able to heal is critical.

 

If possible, I'd like it for powers to instead have parts of their healing be unresistable. Maybe half or 45% for single-target powers like Cauterizing, and 33% for PBAoE heals, with a middle-ground of 39% for non-max-HP-buffing self-heals if possible. They should NOT ever do 0 healing. In an MMO, making a healer utterly pointless is not challenging. It's just punishing them for playing support instead of more damage. And ideally make Inspirations 60% to 75% (depending on size) resistant to this, if not resistant to it entirely, because...seriously. They're limited consumables. It's not like this is Ragnarok Online and Yggdrasil Berries, CoH balanced out consumables just fine.

 

Or. Y'know. Maybe give powers like [Clear Mind] and the like the power to cap/partly protect against Heal debuffs. I'm sure the average support toon would find that peachy keen. And/or make it a funny sadistic choice for Masterminds who might skip/delay getting those powers~

 

Secondly...I still really don't appreciate the removal of arc changes to Tanker. Like, a lot. So for some powers, most notably stinkers like [Breath of Fire], that arc change took a power that was AoE in theory only and made it actually pretend to work as one. And for an archetype meant to be the 'best at AoEs', that was certainly in line with that idea. The 'over target' changes should be enough to balance that out just fine.

 

Honestly, if just these two things could be amended, if in part or altogether, it would make this page into a total bop of a victory for Homecoming as a whole. And...maybe just remember what I've come to call the Freedom Unite rule: 'Just because it makes things hard on the player doesn't mean it's an enjoyable challenge they'll feel was worth doing.'

And I know it's a pain in the cheeks to only get this sort of feedback now, rather than while it was on open beta. But some hiccups you just don't notice until it hits the main player base. Still, I'm sorry to potentially put more work on you all.

This was a good read. After participating in a few Hami raids, I found my unresistable MaxHP buff (Frostwork) still gives the same HP buff to the main tank. And Incandescence Destiny is still giving that 50% heal resistance. Even with those two things being true, I was surprised at the impact of the heal resistance on the armored ATs when they were hit by the attacks during the raid. This might be a case of something needing tested but there were enough players to do so on beta, so it's being live tested. Good feedback that I think will help the dev team understand the impact of the change.

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

This amuses me. 

Indomitable's City Badge Tracker has been up and running since Page 2 release. Sometimes it pays to play on Indomitable! 

[golstat2003]

14 hours ago, Display Name said:

Also, I appreciate the opportunity to tell the 5th Column that they're lame compared to the Council!  Lol!

 

Porque no los dos?

 

😄

[Troo]

12 hours ago, CaffieneNirvana said:

They should NOT ever do 0 healing.

 

With the exception of a character being at 100% I completely agree with this.

 

[Wravis]

The amount of yapping NPCs do in homecoming-written arcs is out of control. 1000 lines of dialog from a lieutenant talking trash just to get one shotted. And none of what they say is important.

Just because you CAN add a boatload of dialog, doesn't mean you should. Less is more. Especially in comics and comic-based media.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Wravis said:

The amount of yapping NPCs do in homecoming-written arcs is out of control. 1000 lines of dialog from a lieutenant talking trash just to get one shotted. And none of what they say is important.

Just because you CAN add a boatload of dialog, doesn't mean you should. Less is more. Especially in comics and comic-based media.

TLDR

[ForeverLaxx]

6 hours ago, Wravis said:

The amount of yapping NPCs do in homecoming-written arcs is out of control. 1000 lines of dialog from a lieutenant talking trash just to get one shotted. And none of what they say is important.

Just because you CAN add a boatload of dialog, doesn't mean you should. Less is more. Especially in comics and comic-based media.

You see this a lot with certain indie "games." The creator is bitter about being a failed writer so they use the player as a "forced" participant in their fanfic.