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DangerDan posted:
I'll never forget the Keyes Reactor I led where I was constantly giving instructions in all caps and we still failed cuz 75% of the people who were hit with Disintegration never called it out and the remaining 25% who did call it out did not receive a single heal. Granted that was only once and in the last days of the game I led multiple successful Incarnate trials but that one still made my soul hurt
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Apr 15, 2023 23:11
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the current compromise for AR is they buffed Beanbag a ton (10s base recharge which is pretty lol tbh, also a bit more damage) and some kind of hybrid thing for Ignite (it does a DOT on the primary target and also a fire patch that causes fear/flee in secondary targets?) kind of OK with that I guess, it's interesting to have an option to slot a stun set and eventually have a 100% stun power recharging in like 4 seconds in the late game 
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Apr 16, 2023 00:56
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It amazes me that they went through on bringing back Beanbag despite the wild ratio of "god no gently caress off" replies that post got. But 3 people who play the game and meticulously stun every lieutenant while they play +1x4 (this was a real forum post) won over the developers, because it was such a nerf without that behavior. Why can't they just put the stun on Slug? Because gently caress you, I guess. Goes to show how insanely different people's perspectives are that there's anyone actually playing the game like this. CoH really is a game where if someone describes something as "busted" or "OP as gently caress," you absolutely need to interrogate that sentence because they might be describing a murder machine that puts up 60 second pylon times and clears Trapdoor in 3 minutes... or they're describing how strong Beanbag is. In a similar vein, there've been some posts about Storm Blast and its pseudopet rain power. It has a long-ish activation, lasts for 60s, but it's slow and the AI tracks poorly. Uptime was a primary concern, leading to this gem, and an even harder ratio than Beanbag got:  Thankfully this one didn't go through, but man the disconnect is real
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Apr 16, 2023 01:43
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I mean, straight up removing Bean Bag violates some old school power redesign principles of not totally upending the current use case for a power. Using Bean Bag in tandem with Taser to stun bosses is a legit tactic that just evaporates if you go and remove one of those powers outright. Obviously things are hosed up in terms of the overall set design thanks to janky decisions made by Cryptic decades ago, but I much prefer to see creative solutions to those problems instead of ripping out powers wholesale and slapping Generic Minor Damage Buff in. It's a lazy fix. (Honestly even as someone who is plenty tired of Set Gimmicks thanks to the endless number of them introduced towards the end of the game, you could easily whip one up for AR that would cover the same needs that Aim fulfills.) Ignite is also funny because I remember when it was secretly broken and grossly overpowered but it flew under the radar because "everyone knows Ignite is poo poo". In a world where everyone and their mother has access to immobilize and especially on teams where people spam that poo poo constantly, it's not like the enemy avoid effect matters nearly as much. The compromise seems sensible enough. I mean, the funny thing to me is that when I think of reasons why I don't care for AR so much, none Edit: Reading the actual patch notes now. quote:If the target is currently under the effect of -defense debuffs, the DoT is extended to 7.1s, for a DPA of 70.82 (Blaster values). The gently caress is this nonsense conditional effect crap. Edit: And it's already gone. Good. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 09:22
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I can't fully picture what Psi Blast even looks like now, but the changes sound fun at least. I can't help but feel like sometimes they're making change just for the sake of making changes tho. Edit: Okay, now that I've digested the notes more fully the changes are way less fundamental than I thought they were. Basically just injecting some missing AoE into the Blaster version, cleaning up and tweaking some numbers and tier assignments on a bunch of other powers, and then making Scramble Thoughts more interesting. Fair enough. And I'm still waiting for Psi Melee to be finished. <  >
John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 09:39
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John Murdoch posted:I mean, straight up removing Bean Bag violates some old school power redesign principles of not totally upending the current use case for a power. Using Bean Bag in tandem with Taser to stun bosses is a legit tactic that just evaporates if you go and remove one of those powers outright. This was actually the exact combination brought up that got the Aim change reverted, and it just makes me wonder. You're playing the highest damage AT that also has built in sustain. Why would you meticulously use 2 powers to stun every boss you come across for a few seconds as opposed to just... melting them with your very high damage? Damage you could boost by 2.5x with Aim and a Gaussian's proc, even. Even more with the tohit benefiting Sniper Rifle! I get that designing by committee isn't always a great move, but going against the majority voice to revert a change that was already in place, all because someone showed up to complain about the unoptimal way they play being ruined??? That's nuts. Their solution of "put some damage on Beanbag" isn't any more or less creative than putting in Aim, either. The thread's flooded with way better suggestions like a ranged Follow Up or just... slapping the stun somewhere else and keeping Aim, which makes them catering to such a minority voice even weirder.
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Apr 16, 2023 10:15
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Ooh a ranged follow up would be super cool, as would putting stun in slug.
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Apr 16, 2023 13:48
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Abroham Lincoln posted:This was actually the exact combination brought up that got the Aim change reverted, and it just makes me wonder. You're playing the highest damage AT that also has built in sustain. Why would you meticulously use 2 powers to stun every boss you come across for a few seconds as opposed to just... melting them with your very high damage? Damage you could boost by 2.5x with Aim and a Gaussian's proc, even. Even more with the tohit benefiting Sniper Rifle! Because despite their minor amounts of sustain, bosses can and will look at a Blaster funny and make them explode. Because some bosses (or lieutenants, or minions) do very annoying things if you don't keep them locked down. Because not everyone is playing super optimized soft-capped Blasters that can just run around alpha-striking mobs every 8.7 seconds. Also let's be real here. This is the set that, as per this very conversation, lacks burst damage by way of Aim (and no Build Up either if we're assuming Devices, just whatever buff they threw on Targeting Drone) and has at least two wasted, useless power slots. It's also got a bunch of its damage wrapped up in DoTs and is otherwise primarily Lethal damage. How the gently caress is AR ever murdering things fast enough that stunning big threats is totally pointless? And we're talking pointless on a level where you can't even conceive of it? You never, ever want for CC on a Blaster ever, for any reason? This is also the classic question of what and where you're playing. Solo? Small team? Large team? Raid? -1x0? +4x8? Level 10, level 30, level 50? SOs? IOs? Saying Beanbag doesn't mean poo poo to your 50+4 shitripper 200 billion inf build isn't surprising, but speaking as someone who played a lot of Archery/Dev (same exact stun combo) in the middle levels and on small teams, I'd be pissed to lose the ability to lock down bosses at will. Ultimately, turning Beanbag into a real attack is not creative either, but it's consistent with how similar powers have been handled elsewhere both on Live and on Homecoming. Hell, they're doing this in the *exact same patch* to other ranged sets like Dual Pistols. The number of times a power has been outright removed and replaced is damned rare. Like I said, it was a core design rule back in the day to not pull that kind of poo poo. To me it has far less to do with them kowtowing to some rando on the forums and more that they failed to properly justify the change in the first place. Beyond the obvious goal of buffing AR I see no clear vision behind what they're trying to accomplish, which fits with them buckling almost instantly and going off in a totally different direction of mildly overtuning BB and especially Ignite. Also the change wasn't "already in place" because it's the dang Test Server. And now that I'm actually reading through the feedback thread, there's a wide mix of opinions ranging from "how dare you remove it" to "good riddance" with lots of inbetween takes so I'm not sure why this is being characterized as the devs pivoting around one lone, sad weirdo running a niche and *gasp* unoptimized build. Same exact case with Ignite, where it's less rabid determination to keep The Bad Power and more pointing out that 1) it's a unique ability so replacing it with a generic ST DoT is lame and 2) its replacement also apparently sucks rear end anyway, so why not just properly buff Ignite? The general vibe seems to be that sloppily homogenizing powersets is...bad actually?  TBQH, the craziest post to me is the person claiming that the only thing holding AR back from viability/popularity with build jockeys is access to Aim. I think I've said before that Aim and Build Up have created an insane precedent for set balance and design, and I guess there's some clear evidence of it. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 15:27
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drat that's a lot of words about a stun they could just throw into Ignite or Slug or Sniper Rifle or really just anywhere. The set being good or bad doesn't hinge on a mediocre power existing, and plenty of other blast sets (including the very best one!) get by a-okay without a stun. The cottage rule and things like are old tenants of design, but that old design also included things like: cast times don't matter, so have a 3 second Thunderstrike animation. The cottage rule is probably a good idea to adhere to, but breaking it isn't a criminal offense. My point was that the feedback was demonstrably against the change to roll it back to a point of mediocrity (adding more damage to Beanbag got announced later.) Brainstorm is also the open beta, meaning the changes sat on closed beta and went through rounds of testing already; having full power changes is something the devs had spoken against doing because it's nearly finalized, to the point of the community asking "maybe we should just rename the feedback threads to bug report threads." The mean ol Build Jockeys aren't holding down the underclass, I promise. Hell, AR looks really good with the other changes in mind and I look forward to trying it out; AR/Tac looks like a particularly brutal combo, and some excellent Trapdoor times for it were already videoed. Looks like a better version of Archery/Tac, which was already one of my favorites. Abroham Lincoln fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 20:59
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Abroham Lincoln posted:plenty of other blast sets (including the very best one!) get by a-okay without a stun. Other sets get by just fine without a Hold, a pseudo-pet, or a PBAoE debuff-focused power too. But somehow Elec Blast got to keep those and they just buffed the crap out of them instead. Abroham Lincoln posted:My point was that the feedback was demonstrably against the change to roll it back to a point of mediocrity AKA like three people stuck around to piss and moan about how anyone who wanted to keep Beanbag was an idiot and AR will never be good now because the devs are dumb and don't know what they're doing. Not sure why those people get more of a say in things vs. the people who said they'd prefer Beanbag to remain. For the record, I don't even necessarily think keeping Beanbag as-is (even as a damage power) is the absolute best option out of all possibilities, but I also wouldn't even be aware of this minor controversy if not for posts ITT kicking up a fuss about how pubbies are all big dum-dums who don't build their characters right. It's what I said at the start - stacking stuns on bosses is a legitimate tactic and removing it wholesale from the set is baffling. I'm not actually married to the power itself (there's plenty of alternate avenues as has already been discussed) but you made a big point that there's never ever a point where a DPS class should have any reason at all to want to hit something with CC instead of damage, which I disagree with. Edit: Also if they literally never revert power changes like this (which I somehow doubt) that adds to what I said, which is that these changes were half-baked and didn't have a strong push behind them internally. Otherwise they would've said tough poo poo like they apparently always do and kept Aim. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Apr 17, 2023 |
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Apr 17, 2023 12:14
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What I've learned is that the most powerful and influential people for HC development are hosed up forums posters who use dogshit mag 3 CC powers with a 7 second duration in their day to day gameplay. It's why the first draft of Dark Melee's overhaul got shuttered because two prolific posters whined that Touch of Fear being removed meant their Dark/Dark Brutes couldn't fear bosses anymore. I'm eager to see when they try to touch up Kin Melee and a new type of guy who loves Concentrated Strike being on par with aT2 power (or worse in the case of Stalkers, lmao) leaping in to stop them from giving it real damage numbers.
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Apr 17, 2023 13:10
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Clearly they didn't go far enough. Should've gotten rid of that clunky Soul Drain power too and replaced it with Build Up. Midnight Grasp is also an immobilize and melee classes don't need pointless CC effects like that. Should've changed the name, the animation, the graphics, and given it a random recharge/damage adjustment just to be safe. Oh right, and everyone has IOs now, so who needs Dark Consumption? John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Apr 17, 2023 |
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Apr 17, 2023 14:23
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How difficult would it be to have classic and upgraded options as two different powerless? Like " legacy "ar and "modern" ar
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Apr 17, 2023 18:30
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In basic terms, probably not difficult per se, just a pain in the rear end w/r/t maintaining parity between versions. Otherwise it should be no different than plugging in any other new powerset. But there's a big lingering issue in that existing AR characters couldn't switch over to the other version. And it's just an awkward solution all around. For Sentinel SR they offered a mutually exclusive choice between old school Practiced Brawler or a new status protection power, but for whatever reason they've never done that again. Granted, the suggested choice of Aim vs. Beanbag is really, really weird even as someone who dislikes one and doesn't mind the other. Incidentally, Sentinel's version of AR has...Aim, with Beanbag folded into Slug and called Disorienting Shot or something. Incinerator was originally born there to replace Ignite as well. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Apr 17, 2023 |
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Apr 17, 2023 18:58
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a blaster set should have aim. it's really foundational to the AT, to the point that if we're still playing this game in ten years i think they might eventually just make aim and build-up inherent powers for blasters to free up design space in the sets themselves. if a set needs to do other things to retain its identity then there are ways to do that which don't involve axing aim.
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Apr 17, 2023 19:42
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not to mention aim is super thematically in line with ASSAULT RIFLE ffs
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Apr 17, 2023 20:04
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I finally got around to playing this after not playing since pre-Going Rogue and hell yeah, Homecoming is amazing! Is there anything I can read to get a feel on the relative power level of different powersets or when/where they should be used? A lot of things are different from how I remember and there are so many powersets now I'm getting choice paralysis. I've been leveling a Demons/Pain MM (/pain on an MM doesn't seem like a great choice because it's all short range and MM is so squishy), a rad/rad brute that owns but has END problems, and a plant/plant controller that is pretty dang fun. But I like having dozens of alts to swap around between in this game. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Apr 17, 2023 |
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Apr 17, 2023 20:49
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everything is an order of magnitude more balanced than it was on Live and there are genuinely very few "bad" set combos these days. you have a thousand slots and it is honestly hard to go too far wrong, pick something and go, if you don't like it put it down and pick something else. they even got the game in a state where farming is no longer super obviously the best way to make money so there's no more pressure to make a farmer to enable the other things you actually want to play.
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Apr 17, 2023 21:01
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deep dish peat moss posted:Is there anything I can read to get a feel on the relative power level of different powersets or when/where they should be used? A lot of things are different from how I remember and there are so many powersets now I'm getting choice paralysis. I've been leveling a Demons/Pain MM (/pain on an MM doesn't seem like a great choice because it's all short range and MM is so squishy), a rad/rad brute that owns but has END problems, and a plant/plant controller that is pretty dang fun. But I like having dozens of alts to swap around between in this game. For demons/pain, don't bother trying to heal your guys mid-battle. Buff them, order them in, resummon any who fall, run if things start to really go south. Rad/rad brute is fun, and as for plants, all that really matters is Seeds of Confusion. You could use nothing but Seeds and your pet, and still kick rear end.
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Apr 17, 2023 21:10
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There's still a few powersets here and there that are noticeably lackluster, but 90% of the time you can pick something and it'll probably be fine. And the other 10% of the time at least some of those sets are merely sub-optimal rather than outright crap. There is still some outright crap tho. Did Beast Summoning ever get a single buff?
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Apr 17, 2023 21:14
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deep dish peat moss posted:Is there anything I can read to get a feel on the relative power level of different powersets or when/where they should be used? A lot of things are different from how I remember and there are so many powersets now I'm getting choice paralysis. I've been leveling a Demons/Pain MM (/pain on an MM doesn't seem like a great choice because it's all short range and MM is so squishy), a rad/rad brute that owns but has END problems, and a plant/plant controller that is pretty dang fun. But I like having dozens of alts to swap around between in this game. As long as you're having fun there really aren't any wrong choices. Except making a Regeneration character. That's a wrong choice. If you were interested in a different MM: Robots, Mercenaries, Ninjas and Necromancy were all very recently buffed with new powers/mechanics that bring them much closer in line re: relative power. Force Fields was also tweaked to be a lot better, and Electric Affinity is a new set that works well with MMs in particular. Should also be stated that Demons and Thugs are also considered top tier, and afaik Beasts are really the only ones that haven't been touched. For broad AT recommendations: Tankers also have a lot of new improvements that make them hit more targets with fatter cones/AOEs, and do more damage than they used to. Blasters have guaranteed high sustain in their secondary sets, and lots of new/revamped sets to play around with as well. Peacebringers/Warshades are still very tough to build and play, and Sentinels are new to Homecoming but still a bit on the "meh" side. For powerset recommendations: there's a ranking for melee sets off of Trapdoor times, which give you a sort of perspective for how they perform built typically, and a slightly more dated comparison of ranged sets that uses different methodology, but should still give you a ballpark idea. Other than that there's really too much to cover so I'm afraid you'll have to 
Abroham Lincoln fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 17, 2023 |
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Apr 17, 2023 22:17
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John Murdoch posted:There's still a few powersets here and there that are noticeably lackluster, but 90% of the time you can pick something and it'll probably be fine. And the other 10% of the time at least some of those sets are merely sub-optimal rather than outright crap. have never tried this set, mainly because I really dislike the mastermind AT (not an objective value judgement I just really don't care about the gimmick at all) e: regarding Blasters there really are no bad combos, one of the very few not-great sets Psychic Blast is getting a rather substantial buff. as mentioned all blaster sets have very good sustain (both endurance and health in various forms) and all nuke powers got their cooldowns dramatically reduced, for all blast sets including defender and corruptor and sentinel. blasters are in tremendously good shape now compared to how they were on Live, it's really a very different (and much better) AT now. Flesh Forge fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Apr 17, 2023 |
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Apr 17, 2023 22:55
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John Murdoch posted:
Yeah, the kinetics secondary  On paper, Beast Mastery has massive DPS. However, the attacks are all melee, so they waste a lot of time running from one target to the next. Kinetics solves this by making the doggies run at warp speed.
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Apr 17, 2023 23:46
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Is Blaster sustain good enough to actually use Martial Combat's melee attacks? Can I realize my dream of an Energy/Martial Blaster Goku? deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Apr 17, 2023 23:55
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easily, even if you don't slot endurance recover in the recover power (and you can) it's a ton of added recover. I slot a heal set on any of mine and it's plenty.
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Apr 18, 2023 00:00
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Oh my god the name Goku was even available. This is it. Thanks all  
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Apr 18, 2023 00:02
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deep dish peat moss posted:Is Blaster sustain good enough to actually use Martial Combat's melee attacks? Can I realize my dream of an Energy/Martial Blaster Goku? The sustain is primarily to reduce downtime because of a blaster's overall susceptibility to taking damage. Built out properly it does make them quite a bit sturdier, but you need substantial investment in the Not Dying category. A Goku build would do okay, though imo there's not that many melee attacks in /martial. Your energy blasts would also knock things out of melee range, which might be frustrating, but you have You might want to consider a MA/Energy Aura Brute or Scrapper, or a SR/MA Tank for the same vibe. You can take some blasts from a given epic set (Fire, Soul or Mu would look good with the right recolors) and try the new Combat Teleport for some more Instant Transmission action, which is really fun. No matter which way you go I'd also recommend picking up Tough, Weave and Cross Punch from Fighting to help your defenses and give you a good extra bit of AOE melee.
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Apr 18, 2023 00:10
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or you could do fire/energy blaster and throw some fuckin kame hame haaaa and occasionally get cratered e: really fire/anything, fire/dark is really powerful as well
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Apr 18, 2023 00:51
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Abroham Lincoln posted:As long as you're having fun there really aren't any wrong choices. Except making a Regeneration character. That's a wrong choice.  Un-nerf Regen!
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Apr 18, 2023 00:59
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deep dish peat moss posted:Oh my god the name Goku was even available. This is it. Thanks all The name was probably available because they still notionally police people making copyrighted characters. Yes, even on private servers. Pretty sure you can just name yourself Space Carrot and everybody who cares is going to get it, though.
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Apr 18, 2023 03:02
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when they bother to do that usually the name is banned so it doesn't have to be dealt with again
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Apr 18, 2023 04:34
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Coward posted:
Didn't they give Regen a bunch of absorb at one point to bring it more in-line, or am I imagining it? Been out of the game a while. Edit: Nope as far as I can tell I imagined that zzMisc fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2023 16:33
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The sentinel version of regen has absorb.
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Apr 18, 2023 22:31
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Coward posted:
Ya know what really loving irks me about Regen? They could make the power level just right by doing one tiny little thing... turning Instant Healing back into an unlimited duration toggle like it was at launch. It would take about four minutes of coding, tops.
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Apr 19, 2023 01:43
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Gynovore posted:Ya know what really loving irks me about Regen? They could make the power level just right by doing one tiny little thing... turning Instant Healing back into an unlimited duration toggle like it was at launch. It would take about four minutes of coding, tops. 
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Apr 19, 2023 03:56
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I feel like the fundamental problem with regen is that it only does one thing, healing, and the way healing works in CoH it's a thing where you either don't have enough of it or have way, way too much. So it swings wildly between "basically instantly dead" and "totally immortal" and the middle ground of "enough healing to reduce enemy DPS a noticeable amount but not enough to completely negate it" requires such specific circumstances as to pretty much never come up.
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Apr 19, 2023 04:48
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Gynovore posted:Ya know what really loving irks me about Regen? They could make the power level just right by doing one tiny little thing... turning Instant Healing back into an unlimited duration toggle like it was at launch. It would take about four minutes of coding, tops. Feel like Regen should also get itself a lot of regen resist, in the same way that SR is extremely one-stat-trick but does it well by basically being immune to defense debuffs. In fact, using SR's scaling resists to give Regen scaling absorb ticks would be really smart too. But at that point you're redesigning a set so they'd have to do something really stupid to compensate any good ideas. 
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Apr 19, 2023 04:54
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Abroham Lincoln posted:Feel like Regen should also get itself a lot of regen resist, in the same way that SR is extremely one-stat-trick but does it well by basically being immune to defense debuffs. My idea for a regen overhaul is about the same, really. Taking damage gives you a scar, your passives all make scar stacks resist damage, boost defence, and resist regen and recovery debuffs. IH and MoG both clear your existing scars on startup.
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Apr 19, 2023 17:37
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If I'm not happy with how my Storm / Elec defender is going, should I wait to remake it as a Storm / Storm corruptor or try Elec/Storm corrupting?
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Apr 20, 2023 02:52
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Fearless_Decoy posted:If I'm not happy with how my Storm / Elec defender is going, should I wait to remake it as a Storm / Storm corruptor or try Elec/Storm corrupting? Depends on what you don't like. Fwiw I have an Elec/Storm corr that I love. Go Energy/ for maximum KB and be super
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Apr 20, 2023 04:52
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