Liquid

Love the Claws changes. Good work.

The pistols are fantastic. The only problem I have with Thugs MMs is that none of the secondaries seem to fit, and I can't even think of one that would.

I really, REALLY hope you guys consider Pistol Scrappers. I'm aching for some Equilibrium style Pistols/SR with these awesome animations. Make it identical to Spines, with all the melee attacks as pistol whips, and probably trading Quills for one more 20-40' ranged attack.

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I checked in a few Hurricane changes today that QA is going to look at. In Theory, these changes should mean that for PvE, Hurricane acts Exactly as it did before the previous change, while in PvP, it should act exactly as it does currently. Hopefully this change will get a green light from QA -- I've spent quite a bit of time on it over the last few days.

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Thank you very much Castle, for your effort in trying to keep PvP balance issues from harming the PvE game. It means a lot.

I hope you are right, Starsman, I just want to make sure. I'd rather not assume so much.

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10% is 10%, no matter the AT.

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Castle, maybe this post is a little unclear to me because you may just be directly arguing with Arcanaville's analysis, but I'm getting the impression that you think all of the self-heals that work like Healing Flames (endurance cost, recharge, toxic resist) also have the same scale for other ATs. Either they don't, or they are getting some extra benefit from somewhere. Reconstruction, Kuji-In Sha, Reform Essence, and White Dwarf Sublimate all provide a 25% heal. I believe you'd refer to it as a 2.50 scale heal.

The problem is that Healing Flames has a lower base value than near-identical powers, not that it only has the same value.

One of the primary reasons I get the impression stated above is that you are saying Healing Flames only might get a boost, and you aren't even specifying how much of a boost. Healing Flames should, for your own balance reasons, heal 25% of the hitpoints of any AT that has it, because that is how you seem to be balancing these heals in the game: the MaxHealth takes care of the balance in self heals.

I apologize if I am misunderstanding you, or if the "might" and lack of specifics on the boost are simply you protecting yourself in case Geko or whoever says no.

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Castle, is there are reason that HF has such a long animation time compared to the other self heals and heals for less?


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This was actually addressed in another post about Healing Flames on the Tanker forums, it says Castle is asking the Animation department to fix this!

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EDIT: I think I found a bug. Stay tuned for more info! The info below is INACCURATE.


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Thanks a ton for looking into this, Castle!

Thanks for all the responses Positron.

I'd like to add something to this:

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As for Accolades and Exemplaring, it might seem unfair that you lose Accolade powers when you Exemplar, but to others it seems unfair that you HAVE Accolade powers when you Exemplar. Since Exemplar is you "playing yourself at a lower level" it makes sense to take away your Accolades. I don't see this changing.

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Is there a way you could make respecs assign them to the lowest possible level you can get them at, then? Like, the Crey Pistol would be level 35 because of the Eden exploration badge.

I ask this because the current system encourages something that feels like exploitation (for new characters) or punishment (for those that existed before Issue 2): if you want, you can get a group of friends together to sidekick you to have the Eye of the Magus at level 21, making it usable in all 3 PvP zones, *way* before anyone would have it without high level assistance.

Even worse, if you want to be able to use the Crey Pistol in Warburg (which is totally reasonable to have by level 38), but you hit 39 before Issue 2, you need to delete your character and start again from scratch.

Respeccing removes the need to restart characters from scratch because they made bad choices due to lack of information. It would be nice to have a way to not only make things fair for pre-Issue 2 characters, but to remove the incentive for a group of level 50s to sidekick a level 21 so he can have an advantage over those who don't or can't do the same.

The latter seems like something you guys would want to fix, and maybe you hadn't considered that angle. I know someone who is trying to do just that: get Eye of the Magus at 30 so they can have an advantage in Siren's Call.

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Either way, earlier usage is a reward for earlier dedication to being an Explorer.

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Not if you were level 50 when Issue 2 hit.

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My main can’t use most of his Accolades prior to Level 50, but this is a rather trivial matter as they don’t make THAT much of a difference in most cases.

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Which is why I don't think the request is unbalancing, it would just be nice for people who didn't have a chance to be able to use this stuff when RSKed. It's not like there is very much level 50 content that allows them to use it.

Any possibility that Accolades will be modified to be usable at any level when RSKed? Currently, people who were 50 when they were introduced can't use their Crey Pistol when rsked to level 47, when others can use them much earlier.

While I don't care about PvP, this also brings up the idea of new characters getting useful accolades like Archmage and Vanguard that can be used in PvP zones, while old ones cannot, and never had a chance to try for it. I only bring this up because it seems like PvP issues get a lot of attention.

P.S. I once PMed you about this, and you said you'd ask Poz. After several months and no word, I PMed Poz, and he said he'd look into it. I don't mean to pester you guys about it, but I'm hoping you won't forget it either.

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ACcording to TopDoc's Movement Guide, the enhancements in Hover enhance the base flight speed (different fromt he base Fly speed!) which is 21 feet per second. Hover is very slow because there is a penalty applied to its movement after flight speed is enhanced.

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Ooh, thanks. This makes a lot more sense than the crazy values put forth by the other guy.

Here is the link for those who are too lazy to search for it.

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Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I thought this was a pretty darn good idea.

Make flight speed enhancers Schedule D, so that you get a 60% buff, and then I think most flyers' woes will go away.

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I suggested that when CoV was still in beta. Good luck, though. It's probably a workable idea.

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I seem to remember someone doing some testing a ways back, and determining that flight speed enhancements in Hover were insanely high. Like, an SO was +200% or something.

Think about how slow base hover is. When 6 slotted hover matched flight, there is NO way that was only 3 times base hover.

Edit: Sevael's Hover Speed Guide, though it isn't working for me at the moment, so...

Here is the google cache, and the important excerpt:

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Hover's base speed is only 1.3 yards per second (2.66 miles per hour). However, each Training Origin enhancement added increases the base speed by 41.67%. Dual Origins increase the speed by 83.33%, and Single Origins increase the speed by a whopping 166.67%. These are for even-level (white) enhancements. Each level higher or lower than your fighting level in a Flight Speed enhancement increases or decreases that enhancement's effectiveness by 9%. For example, a +3 Flight Speed SO will increase Hover speed by 211.67%; a -3 SO will increase Hover speed by 121.67%.

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It's a SHAME it took 4 issues to FINALLY deal with that TERRIBLE, risk vs reward exploit in PvE with the Travel Power Suppression compromise.

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Great post, but is this one sarcasm?

I never understood the claims that jousting gave an advantage in PvE. I did it a few times early on and noticed that they got a melee attack on me just as I got one on them, and they got to hit me at least once per pass with a ranged attack too.

When supression hit, someone said something about people soloing Countess Crey using jousting. What I didn't get was, jousting caused a MASSIVE hit in DPS, to the point that I don't believe anybody that claims they could beat the Countess' health regeneration while doing it. Meanwhile, I soloed her during this period while standing right in front of her, barely beating her health regen with a near constant attack chain.

Can someone explain to me how jousting could be used to give any significant advantage in PvE?

For my money, I don't know if it gets any better than when he sings, "When a Man Loves a Woman".

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A decimal point screwed Michael Bolton's calculations on his bank software so that his virus stole thousands of dollars.

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Michael... Bolton?

...

Is he related to that singer guy?

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So what you are saying is that we now will floor (or near-floor) *any* mob's accuracy with two lucks, one luck and 3 slotted SR/Ice/Ninjitsu/Bubbles, or any combination that works out to a 50% bonus.

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It depends on what you mean by "nearly floored."

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7.5% definitely qualifies as "nearly floored" in my mind. It's a 90% reduction in damage over time, which is the same reduction you have from flooring an even con minion. And you get this for 60 seconds from two 50 influence inspirations. To get that same amount of damage reduction from Sturdies, you have to eat 18 of them.

I think Lucks are going to be hit REAL hard soon after this change.

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Maybe you will get how we feel about a 3 Acc slotted attack only having a 10% (or is it 5%? When is the floor applied?) chance to hit a bubbled Rikti Drone.

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Remember he clearely stated this only applies to players being hit, not players hiting NPCs.

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This is how it has always worked for players hitting NPCs when you are using accuracy enhancements and not tohit buffs. I'm not referring to the proposed change.

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So now to put the issue completely to rest, all of the accuracy buffing powers (aim, buildup, focused accuracy,etc) all need to have their base values brought into line with what the average defense power can push out.

I think 12.5% base buff for Aim and FA, and a 5% buff from Buildup sounds fair. Or even double those values for the non-constant buffs since their durations are so short.

(I know, I'm slightly exagerating how bad they need to be nerfed. Slightly.)

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That would make the to-hit bonus from these powers damn-near unnoticable in PvE, just because they are overpowered in PvP.

I'm also not remotely surprised that it's being suggested.

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I look forward to a detailed explanation of how this will work.
Glad you asked. Basically, Level advantage in PvE, Lts, Bosses, AV's, and Monsters had To Hit bonuses. This made Defense not scale properly. We changed them so that instead of To Hit bonuses, they have Accuracy bonuses. What that means is, Defense is applied before their bonus, rather than after. Since Accuracy is a multiplier, it is multiplying a small base value than before.

For instance, an AV had a base To Hit of 75%. If a player had 25% Defense, the AV would have had a 50% chance to hit. Under the new system, the AV's has a base 50% chance to hit. The Defense is applied, reducing his To Hit to 25%. The Accuracy is then applied, giving a final To Hit of 37.5% -- a 12.5% improvement over the old system.

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So what you are saying is that we now will floor (or near-floor) *any* mob's accuracy with two lucks, one luck and 3 slotted SR/Ice/Ninjitsu/Bubbles, or any combination that works out to a 50% bonus.

I think this is going to finally show you guys the flaw in the tohit formula, with respect to Acc bonuses vs Def bonuses. Maybe you will get how we feel about a 3 Acc slotted attack only having a 10% (or is it 5%? When is the floor applied?) chance to hit a bubbled Rikti Drone.

I'm both excited and worried about how you will react to this realization.

P.S. You indeed rock, Castle. Thanks for the detailed info.

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First...I confirm that we're working on right now (as in pohsyb in the next room) to add CoV costume parts into CoH if you own both games....

Then we repeal the hated stealth nerf. The reason why: many well reasoned posts. It's that simple. You guys pointed out the problems.

AND now...we're changing the way Archvillains spawn. A ton of forum goers disliked adding so many AV's into missions a while back...so we've come up with a solution. If the team size and mission difficulty are ABOVE a certain level, an Archvillain spawns. Below that, players will face only an Elite Boss. If the mission is set on the first two levels of difficulty, it takes 4 heroes or more to spawn an Arch Villain. On the third level, 3 heroes or more. On the fourth level, 2 heroes. On the highest (Invincible), a solo hero will spawn an AV. Note this works in BOTH City of Heroes and Villains.

In order to incentivize larger teams, Positron is going to add a bonus to AV rewards!

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It's like somebody set the Wayback Machine to 2004!

The AV changes are simply fantastic. Thanks so much for listening to us on that, especially. Elite Bosses are a great option for challenging high level soloists, and AVs are great fun to fight in teams.

Really. This is great. I'm also thrilled that you are rethinking the stealth change, and glad for the confirmation on the CoV costume options.

You know, Venture, I'm still shocked every time I read your posts post-I6. If there is one thing that I5 and I6 did for the good of the game, it was to bring the board community closer together. :P

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The problem is they frobbed all the knobs at once, and now game balance is all over the map.

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I really agree with this. Compare Nerva Spectral Demon Lords with another, similarly leveled LT like a Freak Champion Slasher, and you know that things are out of whack.

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That still didn't do anything, so you lowered status protection for melee types.

Which was done on the sly, and never explained or justified.


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Yeah, that irks me still.

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If you really want to see the melee types get affected by status effects, how about you do this instead:

They could just cancel everyone's accounts instead; it would save time. The game needs less status effects, not more.

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But part of this deal was to lessen the status effect frequency, both by removing them from minions, and by adding status suppression to PvE, like there is in PvP.

But, as you said, you don't like status effects at all, so, I understand where you are coming from.

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Knockback is not fine.

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I understand most of your points, Venture, I suppose it's just personal taste. I really find getting knocked back to be fun, and it makes me feel like I'm in a fight with someone superhuman, or like I just took a rocket to the chest.

What I don't find fun is getting knocked back constantly.

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Sappers, for example, should be LTs, but shouldn't have 3 freaking endurance drains (one of which is AoE, and another is a melee hold!) that drain 75% of your bar. If you want them to have all those drains, make it 25-33% of a bar, and make their hold attack NOT drain endurance.

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The problem with this is, for most of my characters, once a sapper drains me I'm probably done for that battle, my choices are escape or examine the ground. That means I must one-shot them, or hold them. Lieutenants don't get one shotted and are slightly harder to hold.

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You wouldn't need to one-shot them if they couldn't drain you in one hit. That's why I suggest lowering the drain amount.

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4) The Sonic Concussion power blows through anyones Hold protection, but it only lasts 1/4 of a second.

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This sounds like fancy-speak for "Toggle dropping in PvE" to me too. Renaming it doesn't make it any less annoying.

I think the point here is that you guys regret the current way that status protection works. In your attempts to provide some level of danger to Tankers and Scrappers before I5 and I6, you have made the high end game LOADED with status effects, to the point that playing any build without status protection is just a pain. That still didn't do anything, so you lowered status protection for melee types. And now that we are actually facing enemies with a good chance of killing us because of the defensive reductions in I5 and I6, you are trying to pass toggle dropping on us when it's not necessary.

If you really want to see the melee types get affected by status effects, how about you do this instead:

1) Add Status Effect Suppression to PvE for players. So if you get Held, Slept, Disoriented, Immobilized, or Knocked Back, you can't be affected by any status effect for 10 seconds from the time that it wears off, or 30 seconds if the effect is of the same type. Tweak time amounts as appropriate based on player testing.

2) Make toggles (all toggles) not shut off when held, slept, or disoriented, but instead be suppressed while the effect is on, so that we don't actually have to reactivate them. 90% of the issue comes from having to click the damn things again, go through the animation of 6 toggles, only to have them knocked off again or get held again before we finish.

3) Give bosses a high enough magnitude knockback to defeat Tanker/Scrapper/Brute/Stalker knockback protection, unless they are using one of the tier 9 overload powers (and give Ice, Dark Armor, and Fire one of those, please?) or an outside buff like Increase Density. Knockback is a staple of comic book melee fights, and knockback suppression should be enough to keep it from being annoying. Give all Tanker, Scrapper, Brute, and Stalker sets Knockback protection, so that Fire and Dark aren't knocked 100 feet back just so that an Invuln gets knocked back 10.

4) Lower status protection (but not resistance) levels on the basic (non-overload) Tanker/Scrapper/Brute/Stalker powers again, so that it takes maybe 2 or 3 of a type to break through, with the exception of Knockback with respect to non-bosses. In return, give them all some protection and resistance to slow, -fly, and -jump powers. It's ridiculous that one web grenade prevents a Tanker from being able to step up a small ledge to help his team. 2-3 web grenades? Okay. If you want to crank the magnitude on these in PvP so things are unchanged there, knock yourself out.

4) Remove hold/stun/disorient/immobilize/endurance drain effects from ALL MINIONS. Knockback is fine as long as it's considerably lower in magnitude than bosses, and isn't given to everyone. The only real difference between a minion and an LT or Boss should not be hitpoints, damage, and accuracy. LTs and Bosses should have power advantages. Sappers, for example, should be LTs, but shouldn't have 3 freaking endurance drains (one of which is AoE, and another is a melee hold!) that drain 75% of your bar. If you want them to have all those drains, make it 25-33% of a bar, and make their hold attack NOT drain endurance.

These would make status effects mean something when they are used, without being annoying to the person affected (having to turn on toggles or be permaheld), and it changes the game so that high level non-melees aren't constantly annoyed (yes, annoyed, not challenged) by status effects from minions even in solo heroic missions.

It's not fun to stand there with your head in your hands followed by turning toggles back on for 30-50% of combat. Lots of Defender friends of mine have dropped leadership because they got tired of turning it back on 1-3 times a fight.

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I'd kill for the "final boss fight" of a Strike/Task Force to be a team of 5 different Boss or Elite Boss level villains/heroes that have witty dialogue, as well as complimentary powers and fighting tactics, instead of just a giant bag of HPs with the ability to one-shot squishies (AVs/Heroes).

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That . . . would make for the coolest end battle of any TF/SF. Having a spawn made up of an elite boss for every member of the team. Do you have ANY idea how fun that would be?

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Awesome idea. I suggest that a seperate topic be made for it in hopes of it getting more attention.

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Done

Please edit your note to read "More hero groups, please", as others have mentioned.

You know what would be awesome? An actual hero team like the X-men or the JLA, but with the minions provided by a Hero with illusion or self-cloning powers ala the Multiple Man.

Seriously, both games are missing the "super team" aspect, it's all just gangs led by a couple of supers. Please find a way to do this sort of thing.

I'd kill for the "final boss fight" of a Strike/Task Force to be a team of 5 different Boss or Elite Boss level villains/heroes that have witty dialogue, as well as complimentary powers and fighting tactics, instead of just a giant bag of HPs with the ability to one-shot squishies (AVs/Heroes).