Focused Feedback: Devices, Stealth and Misc Power changes

[Captain Powerhouse]

8 minutes ago, csr said:

And presumably Superior Invisibility will do both?  Heck, it may even be justified in having a small movement speed buff. 

 

Superior Invisibility should have a much stronger stealth than Invisibility, at a lower end cost, and should retain some defense while in combat. It will cost more endurance than just Stealth.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Errants]

On 8/11/2019 at 12:48 PM, Leandro said:

Powers - Misc Changes & Bug Fixes

• Gravity Control > Propel: Adjusted physics parameters on objects to make them feel solid and not bounce around like rubber toys.
• Night Widow & Fortunata Vengeance: Now triggers on league members. The buff will still only apply to teammates.
• Burn: should no longer ignore accuracy enhancements.
• Beta Decay: FX now anchors on the player and not the world.
• Pool > Leaping > Spring Attack: now does Containment damage when used by Controllers.
• Pool > Sorcery > Enflame: Should now do damage for Sentinels
• Kheldians > Inherent: Should now see Sentinels the same way they see Blasters and Scrappers, for the purpose of their inherent powers.
• Controller > Ice Control > Flash Freeze: should be properly flagged as a Targeted AoE, not a Point Blank AoE.
• Stalker > Savage Melee > Shred: This power erroneously said it consumed Blood Frenzy stacks. The text has been corrected. This power generates one Blood Frenzy stacks instead. All other AT versions of the power had the correct text for Shred.
• Dominator > Feral Charge: Fixed a bug where sometimes it would do no damage if executed from maximum distance.
• Dominator > Savage Assault > Unkindness: This power erroneously said it consumed Blood Frenzy stacks. The text has been corrected. This power generates one Blood Frenzy stack, and it's DoT becomes stronger the more Blood Frenzy the caster has. This bonus to Unkindness makes up for the set's lack of Savage Leap and Hemorrage.
• Sentinel > Ice Blast > Chilling_Ray: Should now accept Slow enhancements.
• Sentinel > Regeneration > Dismiss Pain: Increased amount of MaxHP granted to 24% from 6%, should had not been that low to begin with.
• Beam Rifle > Disintegration: Should [hopefully] never linger after the target dies.
• Earth Control > Animate Stone: should no longer stop to reconsider it's life choices for about 6 seconds after using Hurl.
• Mu Mastery Epic Pool: Zap now uses Melee Damage Modifiers
• All versions of Beam Rifle's Penetrating Ray now has a 55% chance of spreading disintegration.
• All versions of Beam Rifle's Lancer Shot now has a 100% chance of spreading disintegration.
• Fixed a bug in the no-redraw version of fast-Archery's Snipe.
• Psionic Lance's quick FX was completely broken and out of sync. FX has been resync but this required a slightly slower animation (1.33 seconds.)

@Captain Powerhouse or any other responsible party...

 

No fixes for Warshades yet? I had bugged and posted on the boards about some of these issues earlier.

 

Gravimetric Snare (ST Ranged Immobilize) - Flagged in Detailed Info as AoE, Smashing Negative Energy, and checks against AoE Defense in combat. Can that get reflagged to Ranged?

Gravity Well (ST Melee Hold) - Flagged in Detailed Info as AoE, Smashing, Negative Energy, and checks against AoE Defense in combat. Can it get reflagged to Melee?

 

Shadow Bolt and Ebon Eye - No detailed information, no way to see damage for either power. Suspect this is related to their extensions to the forms?

 

Dark Detonation - Short help says knockback, description states "Some foes may be knocked down.", and detailed info shows 50% chance for 3.74 mag KB on target... While I'd love for the KB to be converted to KD/U instead, especially for an AT like Warshades which thrives on targets (dead and alive) close by them (Mires, Eclipse, Damage/Mez Auras)... That's been asked for years, with no avail. Could we get the description consistent with the function of the power and other information?

Quasar - No errors in description here, just another plea to change the KB to KD/U, especially with the changes to nukes to make them a more desired and used power.

 

Dark Sustenance - No mention of Sentinel AT in the Description "...Your Damage will increase for each nearby Scrapper, Stalker, Brute or Blaster teammate...." It is working as intended, though, adopted a Sentinel, got close to him, received 20% Damage buff.

 

And since I'm here... Peacebringers!

 

Cosmic Balance - No mention of Sentinel AT in the Description "...Your Damage Resistance will increase for each nearby Scrapper, Brute, Stalker or Blaster teammate...." Also working as intended, readopted the Sentinel, got snuggly, 10% Damage Resistance buff.

 

Gleaming Bolt and Glinting Eye - No detailed information, no way to see damage for either power. Suspect this is related to their extensions to the forms?

 

Whelp, that's it for my info dump/testing session. Once again, to all y'all working hard on our sandbox, thanks for bringing our City back. I'm just trying to help, if I can.

[subbacultchas]

18 hours ago, Replacement said:

Two power picks, probably.  My point was: no one uses the set outside of theme and perhaps some very particular builds (I feel like Traps folk used to take it a lot for toe-bombing?)  That's enough reason to buff it.

I dunno about that. Every non-melee ranged character I have uses stealth + stealth IO, and one or two of the melees depending. I have never (since live ended) taken more than Stealth out of this pool. I don't see that changing any time soon.

[Seale]

On 8/11/2019 at 7:48 PM, Leandro said:

Powers - Devices

 

• Targeting Drone now gives your first attack from out of combat a Built-Up effect (80% damage) and continues to provide a 20% damage buff while in combat.

basically /Ninja trade a targetting drone 18.5% to-hit buff for the same mechanics with way lower value (43.75% damage and 20% hit each 30 sec on the first hit going down to 5% hit and 6% damage in combat) looks quite weird...

 

(also having 20% damage permanently up no matter what is a bit too close to even /martial CHANCE to get damage of 37.5 that require a proc to actually work)......

 

i would lower the bonus to the same value as /ninja and give such set some sort of targetting drone aswell to balance it out....

 

does targetting drone actually even lose the to hit bonus with this change ? 

[Gorgar]

13 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

The current goal is for Stealth and Invisibility to be for each other what Combat Jump and Super Jump are for each other.

 

Stealth should be a low end, low magnitude, stealth that grants some evasion and is ideal for combat.

Invisibility is a high end, high magnitude, stealth that grants little to no benefit in combat. Currently it is granting some defense in combat, in a future build, no defense will be granted in combat.

Thanks for clarifying that.  In light of that, I probably won't take the power.  There'd be little advantage over just using Stealth and a stealth proc in Combat Jumping like I do now.  I tend to be close enough to the defense cap that the little defense Stealth gives wouldn't be worth losing to get better stealth radius.

[Chaos Ex Machina]

On 8/11/2019 at 12:53 PM, Sidney said:

I said it before when the change was originally announced and I'll say it again, I don't like the changes to Time Bomb.  Not because it didn't need a buff (it sure as shit did), but the direction the HC devs decided to go has changed it from a unique power with its own flavor to a generic delayed AoE.  The only thing that I would have changed was its redonculous CD.  Leave the long activation time and interrupt time and their concomitant massive bonus to Defiance.  The new version still has that 10 minute cooldown making it a hard pass for me.

Agree

 

A few of these are problematic cottage rule violations.

 

Especially propel which increased physics quality but dramatically nerfs the entertainment value!

 

Quote

 

Savage Assault

    Spot Prey: This power now grants +68% damage buff and +17 Tohit. Before: +42.5% damage buff and +42.5 ToHit. No longer grants a perception buff.

 

One thing to add functionality, but that perception makes it thematic and unique.

Quote

Changed Web Grenade to Toxic Web Grenade, now deals scale 1 toxic DoT and can be slotted for damage

Is there some alternative theme to sound less 'evil?'

 

Could interfere with thematic considerations on some characters.

 

15 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

The current goal is for Stealth and Invisibility to be for each other what Combat Jump and Super Jump are for each other.

 

Stealth should be a low end, low magnitude, stealth that grants some evasion and is ideal for combat.

Invisibility is a high end, high magnitude, stealth that grants little to no benefit in combat. Currently it is granting some defense in combat, in a future build, no defense will be granted in combat.

People would just skip invisibility completely with IOs.

 

Quote

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by Chaos Ex Machina

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, Chaos Ex Machina said:

Agree

 

A few of these are problematic cottage rule violations.

 

Especially propel which increased physics quality

Disagree

1 hour ago, Chaos Ex Machina said:

but dramatically nerfs the entertainment value!

...grudgingly agree.  

(Note, I still vote for fixing broke things.  The garbage is still hilarious).

[subbacultchas]

Good changes from what I can see, and I appreciate the few changes to Beam Rifle especially. I'll be checking those out tonight.

[Errants]

2 hours ago, Chaos Ex Machina said:

One thing to add functionality, but that perception makes it thematic and unique.

Is there some alternative theme to sound less 'evil?'

Caustic Web Grenade?

 

Though, I feel that in-universe, "toxic" is a damage type and not explicitly evil.

[Thezanman]

27 minutes ago, Eran Rist said:

Caustic Web Grenade?

 

Though, I feel that in-universe, "toxic" is a damage type and not explicitly evil.

It could be changed to Electrified Web Grenade and do energy damage. I don't really see the problem either way though.

[Keen]

I like all changes except Invisibility but this is subjective feedback. I feel that it shouldn't be another version of Stealth, and that it should retain its "Only Affecting Self" flag and non-suppressible defense.

 

EDIT: actually:

 

19 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

The current goal is for Stealth and Invisibility to be for each other what Combat Jump and Super Jump are for each other.

 

Stealth should be a low end, low magnitude, stealth that grants some evasion and is ideal for combat.

Invisibility is a high end, high magnitude, stealth that grants little to no benefit in combat. Currently it is granting some defense in combat, in a future build, no defense will be granted in combat.

 

If you're NOT giving combat benefits to Invisibility, then it makes no sense allowing it to be used in Combat (aka removing the OAS flag). That said, this feedback is no longer subjective. Please rethink this.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Keen
added quote from dev that I missed

[Thezanman]

23 minutes ago, Keen said:

this feedback is no longer subjective

I like this phrase.

[Errants]

3 hours ago, Thezanman said:

It could be changed to Electrified Web Grenade and do energy damage. I don't really see the problem either way though.

I'm a fan of the defenseless nature of it being toxic damage (it'd be flagged Ranged/Toxic versus Tactical Arrow's Ranged/Energy - There's no Toxic Defense in game, only Toxic Resist and Defense All). Honestly, I also find it more believable being toxic damage, versus electrical/energy, given the nature of some epoxies and adhesives out there.

 

Hey, can we change TA's (Both Tactical and Trick) to this as well?

[Rambolazer]

Currently experiencing issues with gun drone...

This power allows you to summon stackable gun drones when you have enough recharge. Latest update on beta seem to have removed the ability to do this without mention of it. Whenever I summon a new gun drone it destroys the old one. Additionally, damage procs do not seem to be working with it anymore. I've always used the chance for fire damage here and it no longer seems to proc,

[maleficent]

I do not like that you can only use one trip mine at a time. 

[Leandro]

15 hours ago, Keen said:

If you're NOT giving combat benefits to Invisibility, then it makes no sense allowing it to be used in Combat (aka removing the OAS flag). That said, this feedback is no longer subjective. Please rethink this.

I am not sure how much support is there for leaving the flag there vs removing it. I get the benefit of it while you have damage auras running, but I don't think that this is normal usage.

 

We could make the Invisibility toggle show a popup tray (like Mystic Flight does for the teleportation power) with a button that puts you in OAS mode and put some defense back in there, maybe. Call it "Infiltration" mode. "You are running in super quiet mode, and your powers will not affect any foes. You are harder to detect, and as a result, harder to hit if noticed."

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by Leandro

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 hour ago, Leandro said:

We could make the Invisibility toggle show a popup tray (like Mystic Flight does for the teleportation power) with a button that puts you in OAS mode and put some defense back in there, maybe. Call it "Infiltration" mode. "You are running in super quiet mode, and your powers will not affect any foes. You are harder to detect, and as a result, harder to hit if noticed."

 

Could even give that "Infiltration" power a Ninja-Run like speed/jump buff. Making Invisibility a hybrid-travel-power.

[Captain Powerhouse]

10 hours ago, Rambolazer said:

Currently experiencing issues with gun drone...

This power allows you to summon stackable gun drones when you have enough recharge. Latest update on beta seem to have removed the ability to do this without mention of it. Whenever I summon a new gun drone it destroys the old one. Additionally, damage procs do not seem to be working with it anymore. I've always used the chance for fire damage here and it no longer seems to proc,

 

9 hours ago, maleficent said:

I do not like that you can only use one trip mine at a time. 

This is not an intentional change. Power is still flagged to allow stacking. Will have to touch base with the code people, may be something else in the pipeline messing with this.

 

Edit: code people let me know i [bleeped] up. Should be fixed in a future patch [not the next one, that one is in the can already]

Edited August 14, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Errants]

2 hours ago, Leandro said:

I am not sure how much support is there for leaving the flag there vs removing it. I get the benefit of it while you have damage auras running, but I don't think that this is normal usage.

 

We could make the Invisibility toggle show a popup tray (like Mystic Flight does for the teleportation power) with a button that puts you in OAS mode and put some defense back in there, maybe. Call it "Infiltration" mode. "You are running in super quiet mode, and your powers will not affect any foes. You are harder to detect, and as a result, harder to hit if noticed."

 

 

56 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Could even give that "Infiltration" power a Ninja-Run like speed/jump buff. Making Invisibility a hybrid-travel-power.

If we're going that far on it, could we instead change the pool? Have Stealth be the combat one - partial invis; little/no movement penalty; some defense. Invisibility be a new travel power - full invis; OAS for outgoing, but not incoming (need Phase Shift for that); Ninja/Beast run level movement buff, stacks with travel powers (a la SS+SJ).

Edited August 14, 2019 by Eran Rist

[ReverendScott]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

This is not an intentional change. Power is still flagged to allow stacking. Will have to touch base with the code people, may be something else in the pipeline messing with this.

 

Edit: code people let me know i [bleeped] up. Should be fixed in a future patch [not the next one, that one is in the can already]

Are they aware of damage enhancements and KB to KD procs not working in Trip Mine or Time Bomb as well? 

[Keen]

7 hours ago, Leandro said:

We could make the Invisibility toggle show a popup tray (like Mystic Flight does for the teleportation power) with a button that puts you in OAS mode and put some defense back in there, maybe. Call it "Infiltration" mode. "You are running in super quiet mode, and your powers will not affect any foes. You are harder to detect, and as a result, harder to hit if noticed."

 

This sounds like best of both worlds: keeping the current functionality for those who see usefulness in it and still allowing players to use the new functions.

 

7 hours ago, Leandro said:

I am not sure how much support is there for leaving the flag there vs removing it. I get the benefit of it while you have damage auras running, but I don't think that this is normal usage.

 

I think the OAS debate goes beyond Invisibility. As an example, I have a Elec/FF Controller with two auras: Conductive Aura and Repulsion Field. I also have Personal Force Field, an OAS power. When I turn PFF on, it disables the outgoing effects of my two auras. Usefulness might be debatable (I find it useful, but others might not). I'm sure there are other cases. If there's concern about damage auras + Invisibility, then we'd have to think about every other usage out there, because they'd fall under the same context. But I believe this is deviating from the main issue and should perhaps be addressed in a different moment (or not be addressed at all).

 

As for support for one or another:

 

1) leaving OAS:

* current behavior (no possible cottage rule violations)

* prevents stray damage from breaking defense and stopping the power from working like it has been used for.

* indeed doesn't fix the problem of players not picking Invisibility in favor of Stealth IOs.

 

2) removing OAS/DEF in combat:

* changes current behavior, will catch players off guard, make them wonder why they're getting hit while Invisible because they maybe forgot a damage aura on or had an auto attack active etc

* slightly more annoying to use (have to turn off damage auras and auto attack powers just so they don't accidentally hit things on your way)

* being hit by stray area effects or detected by high-perception enemies will prevent the power from working the way it originally worked, since it'd lower defense, become useless in combat, and -- to add insult to injury -- still use up endurance! (a lesser amount, but still)

* making it work like Stealth removes some uniqueness from the power

* still won't fix the problem of players not picking it because players are required to pick Stealth or Grant Invis (which has limited usefulness) so Stealth sounds like the obvious choice most of the time.

 

I personally don't see why removing the flag would be better. For me, it makes Invisibility actually worse and make me reconsider picking it. I primarily pick it for the LotG, but once I realized how useful the OAS flag was, I use it actively now.

 

Treating Invisibility like a travel power (adding a Ninja Run effect to it like it has been suggested) brings the possibility of another great change: it could allow Invisibility to be picked without the requirement of picking another power first, just like other travel powers. So I could go straight to Invisibility and not pick Stealth or GI at all. That way, it would make more sense removing OAS (and maybe in-combat DEF) from it. I am just not sure how a power called "Invisibility" is supposed to make me run faster, and why... Maybe a name change would be needed?

[Replacement]

Could always move Phase Shift to t1 and tweak it into a proper travel power (floaty jumps and enhanced run speed representing your ghostly form).

 

No matter which way you go, I always arrive at the same thought: the Stealth pool really only has enough to support 4 powers instead of 5. Moving Phase Shift down would make sense, but would invalidate invisibility. Combining the best of Concealment and Invisibility makes sense, but also leaves a gap.

 

If you are capped on Cottage Resistance, there's a lot you can do to improve the pool's fun and usefulness.

 

If I assume breaking the cottage is off the table, though, I'll pivot topic and note that I like the idea of OAS on Invisibility. I would go so far as to say that's the only thing currently swaying me towards taking Invisibility seriously. I'd rather have to deactivate invis in combat than remember my offensive toggles and still need to remember to turn off invis because it's hogging endurance.

[kenlon]

On 8/11/2019 at 10:48 AM, Leandro said:

• Gravity Control > Propel: Adjusted physics parameters on objects to make them feel solid and not bounce around like rubber toys.

 

Is this a property that is set per-object, or something global for everything the power summons? The more weighty animation works well for very heavy stuff like dumpsters, but some of the lighter objects look odd - especially crates.

[esotericist]

On 8/14/2019 at 5:27 AM, Leandro said:

I am not sure how much support is there for leaving the flag there vs removing it. I get the benefit of it while you have damage auras running, but I don't think that this is normal usage.

 

We could make the Invisibility toggle show a popup tray (like Mystic Flight does for the teleportation power) with a button that puts you in OAS mode and put some defense back in there, maybe. Call it "Infiltration" mode. "You are running in super quiet mode, and your powers will not affect any foes. You are harder to detect, and as a result, harder to hit if noticed."

  

 

FWIW: I was actually just recently contemplating the viability of picking up Invisibility in a build just for the Only Affect Self feature, because there's a bunch of builds that have toggles that can pick up a lot of hate while you're just cruising by. So it's a functionality with attractiveness. The popup tray idea is a neat one, though.

 

 

To later bits in the thread: the idea of pivoting Invisibility to be functionally a light-weight travel power (to achieve the Combat Jumping : Super Jump relationship with Stealth) is fairly compelling to me, although I don't know how you would theme it (as noted, the name "Invisibility" doesn't really scream "Getting Places Faster"), but this could help provide the right kind of purpose differential to help make them properly distinct.

[lokifireson]

On 8/14/2019 at 9:01 AM, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Could even give that "Infiltration" power a Ninja-Run like speed/jump buff. Making Invisibility a hybrid-travel-power.

After a long chat in the game, I decided to actually write this out here as a suggestion.

 

Thematically, making the "Invisibility" named power into a travel form makes it into something else.  What could be done instead (if possible in the engine) would be to rename "Invisibility" into "Phase Shift" and change the name of "Phase Shift" into something else.

 

This would then allow you to make changes to the proposed travel mode, notably, making it into a hybrid travel power like Mystic Flight.  This could be achieved by giving it base flight speed, and a greater stealth percentage than stealth, alongside no defensive boosts.  If something else is needed to make it stand out, lower the base speed of the flight, and give it a power like Translocate, but instead of a teleport, have it give a speed boost and an intangibility effect, but on a cooldown instead of on demand.  I don't know the mechanics of the game deep enough to give numbers to any of these suggestions, but hope that this idea can give a springboard to something unique.

 

TL;DR

[Invisibility] as is:

Toggle: Self Stealth

+Defense (All)

 

[Phase Shift] (Renamed Invisibility):

Toggle: Self Stealth, Self Fly, (Special)

(Special is new power "Shift", Self +Fly Speed, Self Intangible; Duration: X Seconds Cooldown: X Seconds; Non Enhancable)

 

OR

 

[Phase Shift] (Renamed Invisibility):
Toggle: Self Stealth, +Run/Jump, (Special)

(Special is new power "Shift", Self Fly, Self Intangible; Duration: X Seconds Cooldown: X Seconds; Non Enhanceable)

 

 

[Insert Name Here] (Renamed Phase Shift):
Unchanged from as is

 

EDIT: Added a non base fly version of remake

Edited August 16, 2019 by lokifireson