Category: Resources & Rules

Controllers: A bit of increase in the duraction on AoE holds (yay), and a significant “perma” increase on pets (which sounds keen, but which may lead to some aggro problems).
And a fun review of the I5 power sets.

The new “organization” of comments seems to be working. At least, I’m seeing more coherent notes and explanations from folks about the different I5 changes than before:

• AoE Limits: The game starts with targets at the center of the effect, or the centerline of the cone, and checks TH on each one, stopping when it runs out of targets in the AoE or when the max number under the new nerfs is reached. So AoEs will continue to center about where told; it’s just the fringes that will be most likely to be unaffected.
  Since Taunt is auto-hit, it will affect the targetted mob and the four nearest (since there’s a limit of 5).

• Enemy accuracy: AVs will have their accuracy reduced from the current 90% to 75%. Minions won’t be decreased because they “already have the worst accuracy in the game.”
• Various previously unlisted bits: The Paragon Dance Party will now have contacts that sell Inspirations (which carries the drug analogy perhaps a bit too far). There’s now no distinction between Range and Cone Range (a single set of enhancements, which is nice). Enemies (wave/ambush) may follow you through elevators and doors (yikes?!). Various other clarifications, bugs, and stuff worth reading.

Dev feedback to the official I5 threads is beginning to come in.
On Controllers, they’re monitoring very closely the assertion that the AoE Duration and Recharge nerfs are too heavy in the face of what a Controller is all about. Statesman says he’s doing actual playtest of a Grav/Storm controller.
On Tanks, the Unyielding nerfs are being rolled back somewhat. The Defense debuff will be back at I4 levels. The Energy/Elements resists are being “doubled” (can’t recall the fraction they were originally reduced). Other indications, though, are that the Tanker stuff (esp. the aggro bits) are working as intended (to the Devs’ minds), and that Tanks that stick around to protect the squishies should be able to do their job.
Also, Taunt may only do five mobs, but it’s only five at a time. There’s no upper limit (aside from death) to the number of folks a Tank can taunt (Taunt, PAoE, punch-voke) over time.
More out there over time, I’m sure.

The “dev comment” forum posts are up — each commenter getting to post once, leave space for the devs to react. As such, the discussion is a bit more studied as to the various I5 issues (and informed by an intensive weekend of testing on Test).
My reactions:

• Mission Customization: Good ideas (escorts, rescues) that may suffer from clumsy AI and poor documentation. We’ll see.
• Blaster Defiance: As blasters drop below 40% HP, their blasts do more damage. Fun idea, but the cries have gone from “Yikes! Horribly imbalanced! Overpowers the blasters!” to “Yikes! Horribly useless!” Shrug.
• XP Changes: Something you’d think nobody’s complain about, except that people manage to somehow — either dismissing it as unecessary or as evil because it’s a reaction to all the other nerfs. My thoughts: unmitigated goodness, and just what the game needs to ease things through the lower levels and create more reward for more even-conning (and now more dangerous) mobs.
• Tanker Changes: A bit miffed over the Taunt limits. More critical are the nerfs to the defenses/resists. Um, like, guys, tankers are supposed to be, well, difficult to damage. And you’d think a power set called “Invulnerable” would be, well, even moreso. From what I read, though, the proposed INV changes — Unyielding in particular, but all of them in toto — go way beyond some level of balance and into the nigh-unplayable. Which is bad news for Velvet, I fear.
• Controller Changes: I think the reductions on AoE holds are extreme, too. Fortunately, that doesn’t affect Psi-clone all that much, largely because (a) he hasn’t taken any AoEs and (b) he’s been orienting towards being a confender (or a detroller, or something like that). The only bright spot is that, strictly read, it doesn’t look like Group Invis took as big a hit from the nerf bat as Invis or Superior Invis or Stealth (knocks on wood).
• Scrapper Changes: More damage is all good, right? Except, of course, the nerfs to defenses (in particular Lynn‘s Invuln or Mr. Azure or Amorpha‘s Regen) make the class much squishier — closer to a melee version of Blasters with more HP.
• Defender Changes: And there goes P-siren under the nerf bat with changes to all the FF powers. 12.5% vs 20%? Swell. Every little bit will help now, I guess, but I worry that she’ll be too vulnerable as a team member. Rrg.
• Power Pool changes: Thank goodness they’ve nerfed the defense from Hover. I mean, that 5% was such an imbalance to the game …

I remain guarded optimistic that not everything foretold will come to pass on Live, and that the actual changes will involve an evolution of tactics, not a revolution of some ATs simply not being worthy playing. But …

What they look like (and descriptions of the sounds). Consensus of the folks I’ve heard (heh) is that the powers are keen but the fx aren’t.

Huge slew of “consolidated discussion” threads for I5 changes, for your info:

• XP Changes: “No experience debt until level 10; half experience debt in missions; experience awards for defeating enemies level 25+ increased.” Sounds encouraging.
• Mission Customization: “Many existing missions have been updated with hostage escorts, friendly heroes who fight by your side, villain wave attacks and more.” Sounds interesting.
• Sonic Powers: Blast, Debuff. Sounds (heh) fun.
• Blaster changes: “Blaster hit points increased. Overall increase in the damage output (and thus survivability) of Blasters.” Sounds like better days for blasters.
• Max targets: “Set a maximum number of targets that can be affected by most offensive powers: AoE Debuffs, Ranged cones, and Melee AoE (PBAoE) are set to 10. Some Large PBAoE (like Nova) are set to 16.
  Melee Cones are set to 5. Ranged AoE damage powers are set to 16.
  Taunts (including Tanker inherent Taunt – ‘PunchVoke’) is set to 5.” Sounds questionable. Intent is to reduce herding, which is probably good, but if it hurts abilities while in actual melee, it’s not so good. The numbers seem pretty decent to avoid that second possiblity, though — except that the Tank Taunt seems way too low (unless we’re talking about *just* Punchvoke, as opposed to the Taunt power or the Taunt aura from INV, etc.); that’s going to definitely hurt Tank abilities to protect the party.

• Controller changes: “Controllers will do double damage to a target (non pvp) that is Immobilized, Disoriented, Slept or Held. … Controller AoE Holds, Disorients and Sleeps (and a few others like Quicksand and Ice Slick) recharge times have been doubled and duration cut in half. AoE Immobilize and Phase Shift powers were not affected. … Controller Pets … can no longer stack. … Illusion Control/Phantasm can still summon multiple decoys; always summons 3 Decoys.” Sounds irksome. As a controller, I don’t particularly care about doing damage as much as controlling. Reducing AoE far outbalances the extra damage done during.
• Villain powers: Reduced Lt./Boss/Elite Boss Accuracy (ToHit). Reduced Boss Accuracy (ToHit). CoT minion and power changes. Sounds “meh.” Nice, but not compelling.
• Instant Healing: “Changed Regeneration/Instant Healing from a Toggle Power to a Click power. Gave it a new animation so it activates faster.” Lower END, higher recharge time. See also Integration nerf.
• Scrapper Changes: “Scrapper damage increased for all powers.” Sounds scrappery!

And many more (than I have time to go through right now).

New Paragon Times article lays the groundwork for the new “spooky” zone in Ish 5. Sounds fun.

Update to the live servers today. A fair number of items, but here are two that deserve major highlighting:
Fixed bug that made it impossible to target enemies through some open doors.
Most frustrating. Bug. Ever. Thank God it’s fixed.
All Task Forces and Trials will now accept any player who has reached at least the minimum level of the Task Force or Trial to play it. Players above the maximum level of the Task Force or Trial will be auto-exemplared to the highest level of the Task Force or Trial. They will remain exemplared until they are no longer a member of the taskforce or trial.
A lot of huzzahs for this one, too. It will make it a lot easier to build TFs, for folks to retrospect back to catch content again, etc. The only drawback I can think of is that it now enables bands of very-high-levels to TF lower without getting level-appropriate people involved. Will this reduce the impetus for that sort of — well, exemplaring that the IC explanation implies?
There’s also this:
The /hide and /ghide commands are no longer linked. /hide makes you appear offline to others in local chat. /ghide makes you appear offline in global chat. The commands are canceled by /unhide and /gunhide respectively.
That’s probably a good thing — lets you fine-tune your visibility a bit. I don’t do a lot of hiding/ghiding, but I’ve done a bit of it, and it’s nice to be able to do it more cleanly.

I never did do the Velvet respect I was talking about a month ago. Just never got to it.
But running around with her last night with Avocet and P-siren (and sucking wind on End and not doing a lot of actual damage) made me reconsider — especially with the Hess TF coming up this weekend (and having seen how Hyperthermian went through that).
Part of the problem I have is the conflict between being a damage-dealer and being a damage-taker. As a tank, my priority should be the latter, locking down the mobs and letting other folks pick them off.
What gets in the way of that a bit, mentally, is that when duo with P-siren, the numbers change. Her bubbles reduce my vulnerability dramatically (I usually don’t have to run with TI up, just Unyielding, esp when I’m in the Big Bubble), which makes my relative lack of damage dealing more irksome. It was very refreshing running with Avo last night, as mobs got cleared much more than 50% faster than just the two of us.
Okay, given that Velvet is now 24, and will be at 25 with another night of play, here’s what I’m looking at (from CoH Planner):
01 : Jab acc(01) dam(3) dam(17)
01 : Resist Physical Damage damres(01) damres(5) damres(7) damres(11)
02 : Punch acc(02) dam(3) dam(17) dam(19)
04 : Dull Pain recred(04) recred(5) recred(7) recred(19) recred(15) recred(15)
06 : Combat Jumping endred(06)
08 : Unyielding damres(08) damres(9) damres(9) damres(11) damres(13) damres(13)
10 : Taunt tntdur(10)
12 : Swift runspd(12)
14 : Super Jump jmp(14)
16 : Health hel(16)
18 : Invincibility defbuf(18) defbuf(27) thtbuf(27)
20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(21) endrec(21) endrec(23) endrec(23) endrec(25)
22 : Temp Invulnerability endred(22) endred(25)
24 : Boxing acc(24)
26 : Tough damres(26)
28 : Weave defbuf(28)
I actually just changed that from the respec I’d suggested previously, not maxxing out RPD in favor of slots (recharge) to Dull Pain (on 2 minutes, off 90 seconds); eliminating Haymaker (sigh) in order to more quickly get through the Fighting pool (and its defense boosters), and adding a couple more slots to Invincibility. I also take Health rather than Hurdle, at BD’s suggestion.
Still sucks wind, Endurance-wise, though, and still is weaker to Elements/Energy. And the combat damage is no better (a bit worse, in fact). On the other hand, it still gets me Invicibility, it gets me to 98% damage resistance on lethal/smash (hitting the 90% cap) by the time its up to this level.
(All the above numbers are with even-level DOs; I can selectively SO some of them, too, but I haven’t fine-tuned things quite to that level.)
That 98% may be overkill with Invincibility (at least for big mobs). If I go back to Haymaker, that sets me up for either taking the fighting things thereafter, or else going with Tough Hide and Rage.
The key to this build seems to be going for the Invincibility, but it would be nice to beef up the damage a bit, assuming that I’m going to be bubbled (I hope).
Continuing to ponder (and read).

The 5th Column News Reel goes the extra mile to discover what’s upcoming in CoH. This can include hacking into the PIGG files, or posting screen caps from E3 …
… such as this one, which shows a bunch of the archery powers:

Defender Primary: Trick Arrow
Entangling Arrow
Ice Arrow
Glue Arrow
Flash Arrow
Poison Gas Arrow
Acid Arrow
Disruption Arrow
Oil Slick arrow
EMP Arrow

Defender Secondary: Archery
Snap Shot
Aimed Shot
Fistful of Arrows
Blazing Arrow
Aim
Explosive Arrow
Ranged Shot
Stunning Shot
Rain of Arrows
Fun stuff to dig through.

Hokey smoke! Preview info on Issue 5! Yowzers!

New Zone

Coming to the test server soon (if not already), and, one hopes, to the real servers shortly thereafter …

All Task Forces and Trials will now accept any player who has reached at least the minimum level of the Task Force or Trial to play it. Players above the maximum level of the Task Force or Trial will be auto-exemplared to the highest level of the Task Force or Trial. They will remained exemplared until they are no longer a member of the taskforce or trial.
This will make life a lot easier for people who have levelled beyond given TFs and Trials. No worries about exemplaring and/or losing the member you’re exemplared to. I have an odd sense that it might homogenize things a bit (no need to put together mixed parties — all your level 45s can just gang up and auto-exemp down to do Positron) — but I’m not sure that’s not a bad thing, just … different.
Still, I think it nets good.

Okay, pretty radical respec on Velvet, based on (a) her Endurance drain sucks, (b) I really need to get Invincibility, and (c) Doyce’s preaching on the subject.

Continue reading “Velvet Respec”

I had a big long post on this all written up, but I seem to have deleted it. So … just read the article, an interview with Cuppajo and Statesman, about powers, features, zones, and other game attributes coming up with Issue 5 and beyond.

You can now buy the “All the stuff that came in the special edition Collector’s DVD CoH” set — without the CoH disc (but with 30 days free) — for just $20. In addition to the PvP comic and the Statesman Heroclix, you also get access to an exclusive Cape style, the VIP Badge, and (a-ha!) the Prestige Powerslide travel power — which I’ve always wondered about, when I’ve seen people using it.
Now I know.
Don’t plan on getting the package (though the Powerslide would be kinda cool), but now I know.

Via Statesman, stuff for I5 …

skills – unlikely
new zone – likely
new missions & task forces – likely
new power sets – likely
new events – likely
Cool.

The Devs agree that the SS/SJ Acc debuf is a problem — though not enough of a show-stopper to delay Issue 4 (huzzah). So they are experimenting with some stuff:

The Accuracy debuff, though only equal to Flight, has negatively impacted players’ gameplay. I challenged myself and our team to come up with a possible alternative to a flat out debuff – and yet still address the PvE and PvP issues with both powers.

Our solution: suppression. When someone attacks, they temporarily suppress their speed or leaping – making them temporarily vulnerable to attack (and we’ve removed the accuracy debuff). We’re playtesting it internally now and we hope to get it up to the Training Room server for your input ASAP.
The rest of the Statesman post has some interesting info on what the Devs consider as challenge/fun design goals. While one may debate over the particulars of how they go about those goals, that (a) the goals are articulated, and (b) the Devs are willing to change their course when things don’t work are both to their credit, and to the advantage of the game.

Per Doyce, LJ CoH, and just about everyone else who wasn’t stuck on a phonecon whilst repairing their Firefox installation …
Funny stuff is going on … and me stuck at the office, dammit. 🙂
Although — Margie tells me that most of the servers are showing as “Down” or “Unknown” — except the Test Server, which shows as doing just fine. Heh.
As for actual rules changes, I’ve mentioned some here previously, but a few other items gleaned here and about:

1. Costume/appearance sliders are available to all characters via Icon. Just send money …
2. Knockback! For (well, against) heroes!
3. Lots of new status effects for villains. Various new power protections from same. Lots of power changes, enemy power changes, enough other crap to apparently render every guide up on the boards obsolete …
4. Coalition Chat! That should help the Alliance of Champions quite a bit.
5. PvP Arena yadda-yadda-yadda.
6. Experience distance/map/mission limits yadda-yadda-yadda.
7. Construction on University Campuses has begun in Steel Canyon and Founder
   

Some CoH stats:

More than 10 million characters were created in City of Heroes, of those 10 million:

o 27 percent were of mutant origin
o 24 percent were of magic origin
o 18 percent were of natural origin
o 16 percent were of science origin
o 15 percent were of technology origins

The 10 million characters created in City of Heroes is equivalent to the combined populations of Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia.
And that’s not counting all the citizenry wandering around the Manhattan-sized burg. As one commenter put it, “I think that explains why every good name I think up is taken.”
And there’s more …

… but, if I read this correctly … a free respec for the First Anniversary of CoH (going into place tomorrow, though the anniversary is today).

In preparation for tomorrows Anniversary Respec being released on the live servers, we will be testing this feature today on the Test Server. We will be testing this feature in a few minutes. The Test Server will be brought down to enable this functionality.

NOTE: If you still have your free holiday respect, the anniversary respect WILL replace it. If you have respecs banked from running Task Forces or Trials, they will not be affected.

Thanks once again for a year of heroic testing!
Shiny!
This ought to seriously reduce a lot of the griping re “My power got nerfed with Issue 4!” once that goes into place (which looks to be fairly imminent). Especially if that means a respec using the new character design stuff, too. And for those who don’t think Ish 4 will “ruin” their character, it’s a nice gift (as well as the new Badge to be given to everyone who signs in during the month of May).