AoRP bug

cptmassive1

I just left yet another team mission because of this power bug, as did at least one other valuable player. Devs, if you're going to make difficult content, fine, but how about letting our powers work as intended?

"Just unslot it." Yeah, I can do that and be frustrated by it but I won't. I will leave instead if I am a liability to the team. I don't need the rewards and I was only there to help others.

"Don't build with AoRP." I got rid of this power on every toon that had it, save one and it is by far the best choice for the remaining one.

I have a better answer. "Fix the power." Or if it cannot be fixed, please remove it from the game and replace it with something that does work. "But that costs time and money." Fine, I've paid you (insert wildly inappropriate amount) in the ~7 years I have been playing. Consider that my payment toward the solution.

I see bug mentions going back to at least 2013. Why has this not been addressed?

aesica

Generally when calling for bug fixes, it's a good idea to state what the bug actually does instead of just "fix this bug." I have AoRP on at least one of my characters because I really liked the idea of a classic-wow-era paladin type support character who helps their teammates partially through protective auras. With AoRP and Inertial Dampening Field, I can give mini-Invulnerability to everyone and that's pretty awesome. However, if it's bugged, I'd like to look into alternatives.

So what exactly is wrong with AoRP?

kallethen

If I remember correctly, AoRP can cause Blocking to not work (as if you didn't Block at all). The most commonly cited situation this happens is if you have more than one teammate giving you an AoRP bonus. Not sure if that's accurate though, I seem to recall people saying it's happened in other situations.​​

chaosdrgnz43

kallethen said:

If I remember correctly, AoRP can cause Blocking to not work (as if you didn't Block at all). The most commonly cited situation this happens is if you have more than one teammate giving you an AoRP bonus. Not sure if that's accurate though, I seem to recall people saying it's happened in other situations.​​

I thought they fixed this in one of the previous patches. Or is limiting the number of teammates didn't actually fix the bug as intended?

flowcyto

Yeah, the only bug I know of w/ AoRP is the blocking one, and that should only be happening if >1 player has it. It should be fixed, but it could be worthwhile for AoRP users to keep their last power/adv slot free in the meantime and use it for one of the other auras (MN, AoPM, AoAC, or AoED). If its ever fixed, you can cheaply train outta the 2nd passive.

cptmassive1

Sorry, I should have been more clear for forumites who have not experienced it. However, the devs know exactly what is wrong and have known for a long time. It has been submitted by multiple players including myself.

If two players on the same teamup have AoRP running, it can show your block animate when activated but not mitigate any damage (it won't even say "block" even though your toon is clearly animated as blocking). Likewise, if two players using it within 100' of each other on a mission it can also happen.

There's nothing like going through the entire mustering process and getting into the mission and then realizing you have to either give up your DR or leave so as to not kill others in the group. Or worse yet causing a wipe because you didn't realize someone else has it and the tanks just died. I've done missions several times without the use of the block and gotten used to working around it but others have not built their toons to handle "OK suppose you have no damage mitigation from block for Qwyjibo's AoE."

Interestingly enough, under this bug the block still eliminates the Dinomom's poison DoT but not the damage from the spike/dart thing.

I'm saying it has been years. Even when CO was in maintenance mode this qualifies as, um, maintenance at least. If it can't be fixed then lets at least admit it and eliminate the power from the set.

spinnytop

*puts on tinfoil hat* I think they know how to fix this, but they haven't fixed it yet cause they wanted people to start trying out auras other than AoRP cause AoRP is super over powered and makes content a lot easier by making everyone in the group a tank o3o

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deadman20

kallethen wrote: »

If I remember correctly, AoRP can cause Blocking to not work (as if you didn't Block at all). The most commonly cited situation this happens is if you have more than one teammate giving you an AoRP bonus. Not sure if that's accurate though, I seem to recall people saying it's happened in other situations.

Actually, in our previous tests, we found that the AoRP bug reverses the block layer's bonuses, making you take MORE damage as you are blocking rather than less. We aren't quite sure why that is the way it is. The bug doesn't always appear when multiple AoRPs are up either, but the more of them there are the more likely the bug will appear.​​

kamokami

This is a pretty mean bug...it causes for a lot of yelling and is generally pretty unpleasant on all sides. Please fix asap.

cptmassive1

So when I am healing tanks (in a group, conservatively at 2.2K+/sec or individually at 3.8K+/sec, not counting a stray AoPM) and giving +~125% DR through AoRP+Sentry aura they should never, ever die. Yet they somehow manage sometimes. They shouldn't even have to block so maybe its the devs' way of saying "Sack up, n00b! In my day, we never had block and we liked it. We LOVED it! And we smacked down all three cosmics at the same time with nothing more than a single shared energy builder for all three powersets, which were all archery. Uphill!"

Ahem. What I mean is that aura is not as effective as the % numbers would make it seem even when it is working. I don't consider it OP. For non-endgame content, easy mode is putting everyone with CON SS and Invulnerability, turn on EB and go have a sammich. For endgame content, people with maxed out AoRP die just like everyone else.

spinnytop said:

*puts on tinfoil hat* I think they know how to fix this, but they haven't fixed it yet cause they wanted people to start trying out auras other than AoRP cause AoRP is super over powered and makes content a lot easier by making everyone in the group a tank o3o

spinnytop

cptmassive1 said:

So when I am healing tanks

spinnytop said:

by making everyone in the group a tank o3o

spinnytop

gradii said:

Try taking off the tinfoil hat before theorizing, it affects your ability to sound in any way convincing.

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

aesica

I should know better than to click "reply" to a spinnytop post, however this particular one is absolutely cringeworthy:

spinnytop said:

AoRP is super over powered and makes content a lot easier by making everyone in the group a tank o3o

AoRP is fine. It has a niche and that niche involves protecting your group with preemptive damage reduction. The other auras are all quite good as well, just in other ways. Using your "logic," one could say that all the other auras also make content easier by throwing in extra damage, lowering costs and cooldowns, or just giving everyone a nice lump of additional stats.

Saying that AoRP is "super overpowered" is bad for the game, because if the devs somehow thought you were onto something, it's possible they'd nerf it down into near-uselessness. But right now, AoRP should be the best defensive aura because that's all it does. Any protection benefits bestowed by the extra stats from AoPM or faster cooldowns and cheaper costs of defensive powers through AoAC deserve to pale in comparison because those auras also contribute offensive benefits to the group. The only other defense-based aura passive I can think of is Medical Nanites, but I have no idea how good it may be because I haven't really done much with it.

roughbearmattach

+125% resist to my Defiance tank (at 6 stacks) means he goes from about 250% resist to 375% resist.
With DR math, that means going from resisting 71.5% of damage to resisting 79% of damage. I hardly notice.

Squishy DPS, though, notice plenty. Many DPS are only starting at around 50% damage resist, and your AoRP toon (w/Sentry) really helps them a ton.

Just not the tanks.

spinnytop

roughbearmattach said:

Squishy DPS, though, notice plenty. Many DPS are only starting at around 50% damage resist, and your AoRP toon (w/Sentry) really helps them a ton.

Roughbear gets it. Defiance, with lots of Con, gives ~20% extra damage resist per stack. 6 stacks, 120% resist... AoRP with a good amount of presence gives 120% resist. Oh look, it's almost literally making everyone effected by it into a tank in regards to damage resistance.

Don't worry aesica, the devs have been onto this one for quite a while. I think you might be one of the few people who hasn't caught on to this fact yet.


PS - if you don't think AoRP contributes to damage then you're not thinking right. DPS who don't have to block and can just spam attacks do a lot more damage than dps that have to block. AoRP is still the best aura - luckily though, by the time that gets changed we'll all have been weaned off of it thanks to the bug.

And yeah, you should know better than to respond to a SpinnyTop post by now - you always end up looking pretty silly when you do that. Try to control yourself next time.

kamokami

roughbearmattach said:

+125% resist to my Defiance tank (at 6 stacks) means he goes from about 250% resist to 375% resist.
With DR math, that means going from resisting 71.5% of damage to resisting 79% of damage. I hardly notice.

Interesting....I notice quite a bit when taking the bigger hits. Small hits don't matter either way.

But looking through my cosmic logs, the Tanks take about 3-6X the number of hits that DPS do. And Tanks take about 10-25X the base damage that DPS does. So even if the benefit to a Tank is 10X smaller......it's still significant when accounting for the entire fight. I'm just talking about fights where it's even worthwhile to get into high-end enough stats to be talking about DR.

aesica

spinnytop said:

Defiance, with lots of Con, gives ~20% extra damage resist per stack. 6 stacks, 120% resist... AoRP with a good amount of presence gives 120% resist. Oh look, it's almost literally making everyone effected by it into a tank in regards to damage resistance.

"Literally" huh? So they magically get tank HP, tank defensives, increased threat generation per attack, etc with AoPM as well? Yeah no.

Anyway, if it really can go that high, provided you're comparing the same amount of con for Defiance to the same amount of presence for AoPM, then DRing the bonus given to teammates while leaving the rest alone is probably the best route to go. I'd hate to think that the self-protective benefits well as the team-member benefits for lesser-geared players had to suffer just because GCR stats are scaling everyone up into absurdity.

Being undergeared or low-level in this game sucks enough. Making things worse isn't how a game retains new players.

spinnytop said:

if you don't think AoRP contributes to damage then you're not thinking right. DPS who don't have to block and can just spam attacks do a lot more damage than dps that have to block.

Now you're really grasping for straws. The same could be said about healing and absorb shields. "Why block when I know this hit won't kill me and the healer tops me back off. It's a protection/healing/support function and will not change sustained damage unless the player stands in the bad. Besides, all of the real endgame content makes sure you block the important things with other cheap mechanics, such as dots, if you don't.

But if it makes trivial content like smash/grab/burst alerts easier, then yeah. Making things easier to survive in is kind of what a support/healing character's job is.

spinnytop said:

And yeah, you should know better than to respond to a SpinnyTop post by now - you always end up looking pretty silly when you do that. Try to control yourself next time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M

No, it's more about the fact that replying to your posts typically leads to "NO YOUR OPINION IS WRONG AND MINE IS RIGHT" nonsense because you're bullheaded and pretty much blind to any perspective that isn't your own. A totally unpleasant combination of personality traits.

So again, if AoPM really is "overpowered" and in the devs' crosshairs, all I can hope for is that they have the wisdom to change it in a way that doesn't make it totally awful for lower-level characters. I'd hate to think that the design direction for this game is "terraform everything for the endgame players at the expense of everyone else."

Edit: This site embeds youtube video links strangely...oh well.

spinnytop

aesica said:

Anyway, if it really can go that high, provided you're comparing the same amount of con for Defiance to the same amount of presence for AoPM, then DRing the bonus given to teammates while leaving the rest alone is probably the best route to go.

So now you're talking about nerfing it. That was a quick journey from "it's fine" to "nerfing is the best route". Looks like I'm done here o3o

aesica

spinnytop said:

So now you're talking about nerfing it. That was a quick journey from "it's fine" to "nerfing is the best route".

Uh, I didn't say that. What I said involved several if...then conditions. For all I know, you're comparing an average amount of con for Defiance's bonus to a presence level for AoRP's group buff that's only obtainable by GCR-wearing cash shop kings.

Here's some actual numbers from a level 40 character wearing only armadillo gear with no talents, specializations, or other stat modifiers:

1) AoRP Rank 3 provides the following benefits with PSS Presence, SSS [anything] x2 (I used End and Rec)
- Hybrid: 80% to self, 41% to party
- Support: 51% to self, 72% to party

2) Defiance provides up to 102% (17 * 6) to self with PSS Constitution. SSS doesn't matter in this case.

3) Invulnerability R3 provides 67% to self. PSS/SSS combination doesn't matter in this case. While lower than either, it makes up for this with its flat reduction and by being more flexible by allowing you to use any SS combination to boost its effectiveness.

In terms of stats, an all-5s bare character with only PSS/SSS selections and armadillo gear has the following stats:
PSS: 289
SSS: 155

So having said that, while I admit the party bonus under support might be a bit high, it's still a far cry from "literally turns everyone into a tank" because it's still lower than maximum defiance stacks and lacks the flat reduction offered by Invulnerability. (Plus they don't magically grow a bunch of tank cooldowns and abilities or bonus threat generation per hit) You need considerably more presence to boost the party damage resistance of AoPM R3 to a certain value than you would need for constitution to boost max-stack Defiance to the same value.

Anyway, in terms of "fixing" it if it really is in the devs' crosshairs, a good place to start would be to replace support's party bonus with hybrid's current party bonus, then have hybrid's new party bonus be about half that. If that still proves to be too powerful, DR it so it isn't complete trash for lower-level and undergeared players. And just for good measure, I'll repeat this: the personal bonuses are fine as is and should remain unmolested.

roughbearmattach

I find that vs. Cosmics, the flat reduction provided by IDF and Invulnerability matter very little.
I look at damage my tank takes from Cosmic main attacks: usually around 2000-3000 with blocking, 7000-10,000 without. Flat damage mititgation of 150 or 200 points matters quite little, especially if healers are tap-healing for 1500-2000.

It matters, but not much, for my tank.

Again, for squishies, who likely are only getting aura healing and an occasional active heal, the flat damage mitigation is more significant.

cptmassive1

roughbearmattach said:

+125% resist to my Defiance tank (at 6 stacks) means he goes from about 250% resist to 375% resist.
With DR math, that means going from resisting 71.5% of damage to resisting 79% of damage. I hardly notice.

Squishy DPS, though, notice plenty. Many DPS are only starting at around 50% damage resist, and your AoRP toon (w/Sentry) really helps them a ton.

Just not the tanks.

Yeah, that is what I meant above, by saying it is not OP. And honestly the DPS are still going to die vs. cosmics and TA if they don't learn to block, AoRP or not.

spinnytop

Just keep in mind that there was a time when a certain game mechanic was nerfed because it "made everybody have equivalent mitigation to a tank". precedent

darqaura2

spinnytop said:

Just keep in mind that there was a time when a certain game mechanic was nerfed because it "made everybody have equivalent mitigation to a tank". precedent

Yaaaawn.

And irrelevant to the actual point of this thread, which you somehow masterfully derailed. As usual.

The ACTUAL $%^&ing bug that had been around for ages, should be finally fixed by the devs.

williamkony

<.< >.> SO. Um...

Yeah. I'd love to be able to take this passive again, but now that I'm taking part in larger-scale team content, I can't do so without risking huge problems. Have there been ATTEMPTS to fix it, at least? Effort put into finding the source of the bug? I entirely understand if the solution has been elusive all this time, but it'd just be nice know whether or not it truly is a consideration of any sort. X)

chaelk

my recent bug with , was on a Mind at. The percentages went from high to low as you levelled instead of low to high​​

cptmassive1

I suggest when you encounter the bug, report it, just like anything else. Squeaky wheel and all that. Whether the squeaky wheel gets greased or replaced, I'm fine with it.

kallethen

williamkony wrote: »

Have there been ATTEMPTS to fix it, at least? Effort put into finding the source of the bug? I entirely understand if the solution has been elusive all this time, but it'd just be nice know whether or not it truly is a consideration of any sort. X)

I do recall they tried to fix it, and it did seem like they had it at first, but I've seen posts claiming that the bug still isn't fully fixed.​​

pantagruel01

chaelk said:

my recent bug with , was on a Mind at. The percentages went from high to low as you levelled instead of low to high​​

That's not a bug, that's just your stats not keeping up with your level. Most things work that way.

spinnytop

They should just change AoRP to instead constantly put a shield on players, instead of giving them +damage resistance. Same effect in the end, people take less damage.

reaperwithnoname

I support that idea.

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cptmassive1

I have encountered it recently in 2 cosmic fights, as in within the last week or so. My block was disabled (animation shows me blocking but damage was not mitigated and the word "BLOCK" did not appear next to it - this happened several times) in both a recent Qw fight and a Dino fight also. Tanks in these encounters mentioned it happening to them as well, though I cannot remember who they were.

I don't have AoRP anymore and two players near me did have it in both encounters. One of the players left the Qw encounter after I mentioned it and my block returned to normal. Also, when one of the other players in the Dino fight moved to heal the baby tank my block returned. I'm not saying that is absolutely the cause but it is a good bet it is still around.

aesica

spinnytop said:

They should just change AoRP to instead constantly put a shield on players, instead of giving them +damage resistance. Same effect in the end, people take less damage.

No. The damage resistance bonus will be just fine once the bug is dealt with.