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PTS Update (10/13): FC.20.20111001a.3
Archived Post
Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
FC.20.20111001a.3 Patch Notes
ETA: 2:00 PM PST (GMT-7)
General Gameplay:
PvE Queues
Archetypes:
Powers:
Heavy Weapons
Martial Arts
Munitions
Unarmed
Telekinesis
Items:
UI:
Known Issues (Please write in red text when submitting bugs to this thread so issues are easier to find.):
ETA: 2:00 PM PST (GMT-7)
General Gameplay:
PvE Queues
- Dr. Destroyer's Robot Factory: Mission can now be completed properly.
Archetypes:
- The Master and The Fist are now available for testing. Most of the character selection UI for these 2 Archetypes is still missing, and will be added in an upcoming PTS patch.
Powers:
Heavy Weapons
- The audio for these powers have been polished.
Martial Arts
- Rising Knee: Flowing Strikes (New!): This 2 point advantage causes your next 2 Melee Crushing attacks to deal an additional 10% damage to the target.
- Shuriken Storm: Radius reduced to 30 feet, down from 50 feet. Energy costs reduced ~25%.
- Shuriken Storm: Floating Butterfly (New!): This 2 point advantage increases your Dodge and Avoidance while you maintain this power.
- Way of the Warrior: Now also grants a lesser damage bonus to all non-physical melee damage.
Munitions
- Lead Tempest: Updated the description to state that the bonus Dodge/Avoidance is increased if you are currently Enraged. This is just a description change.
Unarmed
- Vicious Strikes: Should now allow you to purchase Rank 3 of the power.
- Vicious Strikes: Activate time of all 4 attacks reduced to 0.3s.
- Vicious Strikes: The opening attack will now deal additional damage and generate additional Energy, like other Energy Builders.
- Thundering Kicks: Buff duration increased to 15 seconds.
- One Hunder Hands: Hit reacts should line up more appropriately with this attack now.
- One Hunder Hands: Ghostly Strikes (New!): This 1 point advantage replaces every other tick of damage this power deals with Dimensional Damage. These strikes deal an additional 10% damage, and penetrate through half of a target's resistances.
- Elbow Slam: Falling Hammer: (New!) This 2 point advantage causes your Elbow Slam to deal an additional 30% damage to Knocked or Stunned targets.
- Backhand Chop: Activate Time reduced to 0.5s, down from 0.67s. Cost increased ~10%.
- Backhand Chop: Stinging Bee (New!): This 2 point advantage grants you a stack of Focus whenever you strike with Backhand Chop.
- Leaping Uppercut: FX has been revisited.
- Leaping Uppercut: Chi Flame (New!): This 2 point advantage adds a small amount of Dimensional damage to the attack, and will apply a short Dimensional DoT when the power is fully charged.
- Open Palm Strike: Maximum charge time increased to 1.5s, up from 1s. Cost and damage increased accordingly, max knock back remains unchanged.
- Open Palm Strike: Charge damage was not working properly for Ranks 2 and 3 of this power. This has been corrected.
- Open Palm Strike: Focused Chi Blast (New!): This 3 point advantage turns Open Palm Strike into a 25 foot Cylinder attack that deals half of its damage as Dimensional Damage to all targets in the Cylinder.
- Shuriken Storm: FX has been revisited.
Telekinesis
- Ego Surge: Changed the tool-tip to state that it grants a bonus to all damage, not just Paranormal damage. This is just a tool-tip change.
Items:
- Bags should no longer drop from the alogorithmic drop tables. This means no more Large Medicine Bags, Simple Utility Webbing, or Expanding Storage Satchels in place of that Blue drop you were looking forward to.
- Special Edition Action Figure: Foxbat Zombie: This item is no longer bind on pick up.
- Envemoned/Poisoned Shuriken: Now uses the updated Stun template instead of the old one. Tool-tip was corrected to display what the power actually does, instead of reading the default Shuriken tool-tip.
UI:
- Tailor: Creating a new costume in the tailor now functions properly again.
Known Issues (Please write in red text when submitting bugs to this thread so issues are easier to find.):
- Known issues will be posted here.
Post edited by Archived Post on
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Comments
/cue heavenly chorus!
Also, the new VB arc is coming out next week according to the calendar. I take it we won't be testing it beforehand.
To clarify: does this mean that the various random item crafting recipies available from the UNITY and Nemesis vendors will now NEVER drop a bag? If that's true (and I'm on my knees praying here) then the tool tips for those recipies should probably be updated with this GLORIOUS news.
Looking at the new advantage for One Hundred Hands I can't help but to be a bit disappointed, because even if DW is considered out of line, it's in most ways superior to this power because not only is it effectively 25% penetration to DW's 50% due to it being every other tic of damage it then gets hit again by the fact Dimensional is not buffed as much as physical by Quarry or WotW which are the two most used MA passives.
Unless by some unicorn rainbow magic the numbers work really weird, any time you do something like sticking Dimensional on a power that's going to be used with a physical boosting passive slapping a 10% damage boost on it isn't going to make up for the loss it gets from not being boosted fully by the passive. Effectively, this means that the build it's being used in would get more total value from going with a defensive passive instead of offensive.
Honestly, I get the reason for doing things for flavor and it's kinda cool and all, but it seems kinda double standard-y after stuff like certain powers in Infernal being changed to Toxic to make them more compatible with the rest of the set.
>_>
Carry on.
Still holding out for it becoming a Rush applier, though. And Challenging Strikes/Crippling Challenge on more of these powers. My inner tank is saddened by Inexorable Tides being the only CS power for Unarmed.
Already Dead - This 2 point advantage causes a large amount of damage to targets hit by One Hundred Hands 3 seconds after fully maintaining the power.
Really? You think this 1pt advantage that adds damage as well as penetrating resistance is underpowered? Even when you consider that WotW now grants additional non-physical damage buff? Even when I crit for 1k x 2 every 0.5 seconds in an arc in front of me?
Hmm, I guess I better refrain from saying things like "This advantage should be 2 points!" then.
No more saiyans... please!
It just needs to not do dimensional damage, or something needs to be done to make it be buffed fully by the passives it's likely to be used with. No matter how you try to sugar coat it, you're spending one advantage point for 25% defense penetration, which is situational in PvE and is likely to just get eaten by Invuln anyway in PvP, and a reduction in total damage done if you happen to be an offensively oriented build.
Until I see it proving otherwise in action, I'm going to remain skeptical that it's good for anything else than flavor.
Looking so up it's not even funny~.
Yeah, I think saiyans are the least of the issues here.
...still awesome, though.
That and the Dimensional damage advantages allow the Unarmed attacks to work crossways with things out of Mysticism. Spirit Reverberation is as valid for Unarmed, after this pass, as it is for Shadow - you've got a lot of options for ticking it over now, as opposed to just Burning Chi Fist. The advantages also allow a player to invert their moves if they want - Ghostly Strikes actually makes One Hundred Hands just as valid for Ego Form as it is for Way of the Warrior or Quarry. Frankly, mixing OHH in with Ego Blade attacks - and, of course, Open Palm DOOMBLAST EDITION - could be an interesting/entertaining way of actually making a hybrid build work well enough to not be a waste of time.
Matter of fact, that's what I more or less intend to test, once the PTS gets done patching. Or at least one of the things thereof.
Honestly, I'm all for the unusual damage additions in Advantages. I find them more interesting than +X% damage to Y'd targets or the like. They let you change the actual behavior of the power and can open up entirely new build opportunities, which is more than a little cool
That all being said...while PTS is patching for me, FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Rising Knee: Flowing Strikes seems utterly worthless when one remembers that Arc of Ruin gets No Quarter. +10% Melee Crush on my next two attacks...or +10% Physical damage for the next however long the debuff lasts. That said, I actually like the idea. Rising Knee's a quick, cheap move that can be mixed pretty seamlessly into any melee set, and the Knock provides you the opportunity to charge up something juicy enough to make that extra 10% damage bite deep.
Elbow Slam: Falling Hammer is a cool name but a questionable addition. Obviously intended to combo with things like Rising Knee or Inexorable Tides, and perfectly serviceable for that, but it strikes me as a weird way to go about it. Suppose I'll have to see what the damage says to see whether it's worth it, but on the surface I'd almost prefer to just stick to R3.
Shuriken Storm: Floating Butterfly. ...really? Did ye have to give it Tread Softly, too? It was already too close to Lead Tempest for a lot of people's comfort. The range/cost reductions seem to fit better with the idea of the power, and I do want to see its new animation, but this strikes me as a quick fix more than a real advantage.
[o]Open Palm Strike: Focused Chi Blast[/i]. BY THE GODS, I WANT TO SEE FORCE CASCADE'S FX RECYCLED HERE. I'll find out in about five minutes, but this one has me terribly excited, even if my read of the advantage itself is mildly depressing. I may well use it just because, even if it bites.
Though I suppose it would be a good alternative for people using form of the master... but they should be focusing on having aggro and dodging lots anyways...
Kudos Ame.
It doesn't specifically say you need a form active. Maybe it's like powers that grant one stack of Enrage.
We have different definitions of free, I guess, as it replaces half your attacks with +10% damage ticks, which means a net gain of +5% - even less when you consider those ticks lost the main WoW buff and gain the "lesser" one. Changing the damge type of those ticks is interesting. Letting those ticks have partial penetration is also nice. But none of that seems like an spectacularly good deal for the advantage point cost, on a power that's pretty much DoA in the PvP scene
Would you consider it worthwhile if the dimensional fully pierced resist?
The fundamental rule of Champions is 1:1.2:1.44 in 2 advantage point intervals. So, a 1 point advantage should be offering an always applicable benenfit of 9.54%, or a greater situational benefit (ussally by a factor of 1.5).
Just eyebaling it, this looks way below the mark. Unless that partial piercing does a lot more than I think it does...
Only thing outstnding about it is the possibility of ranking up to 3 and taking this advantage.
Truthfully, I'd ask Pants for a factual numbers check, and be fairly interested in her analysis of the results also.
'Cause the new version don't work and the old version is no longer resident?
Or we just get rid of absorbs since its the one mechanic in game that doesn't work well with stacking or atleast remove it from IDF and replace it with a mini pff for all in range. Or something... Or guess just make all dots irresistable in any form but that still screws pet players over....
Edit: Typo
Right, but devs desided to go the wrong way, by adding more resistance-piercing attacks, instead of fixing the core problem. So we should work with what we have.
We've seen good suggestions on nerfing defiance\invuln before, and turning idf to +15% flat resistance, instead of absorb (which makes certain attacks and game mechanics useless, like dots\pets\weak maintains for example) but those got ignored i think.
Meh w\e, think we'll still be forced to play DW\Ruin clones just to have a chance vs unstoppable defiance or invuln users.
Fixing the core problem?
You mean buff stacking?
Because nerfing defiance or invuln isn't going to fix buff stacking in the slightest.
That said, I would have rather had an absorb ignoring effect instead of defense ignoring effect, simply because I believe everything needs a counter.
Well buff stacking in one sense is fine due to the often hated cryptic math. However the issue mostly comes from trying to get as many different types of protection as possible which is where issues tend to arise. That is mostly due not to the fact that say stacking resist and dodge is bad and broken but rather that there is a huge amount of powers that provide rather substantial buffs to self that AREN'T your passive which makes it possible to stack to insane levels in multiple areas, mostly in the dodge area making it possible to almost have 2 passives so long as you pick wisely. And that is what breaks things. And the only cure really is to well remove and replace alot of them, one or two here and there is fine especially if you can't perma but we simply have too many strong, 'permanent' defensive buffs and let passives and 'buff other' powers be the main source for those type of effects.
I'm personally of the opinion that getting that level of power is fine IF it's a support type toon buffing the person to that level as that leaves a 'weak link' to aim at and kill in pvp and in pve it allows other types of support playstyles besides heal bot and yet also prevents said support toon from simply making themselves stupidly powerful by using buffs on self. That said, nothing like that is in the game so.... moot point I guess
As for the issue of absorbs, the reason they are so broken is that they flat out nullify things instead of reducing or buffering like all other 'defenses' in game. Thus if you fall into the area of what they nullify you are completely helpless against them. This is obviously a very bad thing and no one likes feeling useless, even doing 25% of normal damage at least feels like something but NOTHING sucks bad. This is further worsened by the above issue of being able to easily access other forms of defensive not to mention the biggest absorb power in the game ISN'T a passive thus allowing you to get the previous 'double passive' situation and THEN have Absorb too. So bam now those people who weren't in the nullified catagory before now are unless they are extremely high damage stackers in which case well they might be doing 25% damage.... Throw in self healing and well.....
And on this I am not personally for, nothing should nullify another as it just ruins the experience for the latter. The ONLY exception to this I can think of is when you lose control of your character, aka mez, and in this I am for losing control of your character now and then but never ever permanently or I'd say more then 25% of the time. I want to fight, I don't want to sit there and grab a bite of food while someone beats me to death knowing there is nothing I can do. For champs that'd mean having the 3 strikes your out protection fills that role, though I'd also let players naturally have a 50% duration cut to all mez effects... or I would if mez effects weren't so fragile, stuns aside. And I'd also allow a role for those who like mez effects to have double duration, in effect allowing them 'normal' duration in pvp and double in pve.
Yet I'm all for allowing tanks and sub tank like roles semi protection from mez effects as they will be the target of a LOT of mez in pve and if they are mezed they can't do their job of keeping teammates safe. But like I said it should be semi protected, aka you might shrug off one stun but that second one will get you, thus people/npcs who like mez effects can still get them it just takes a bit more effort. Making things harder is fine, even incredibly hard but NEVER EVER make something impossible.
Ofc it's defiance and invuln, try to stack as many defensive buffs as u want on top of any other passive, u would still be easily killable (ye, even LR, just 1 maintain user is enough to kill u)
And stacking is fun mechanic in itself, but when u start doing it with 2 said passives it becomes a god-mode, so ofc it's easier just to nerf invuln\defiance.
And your *counters* mechanic is what drives most people away from pvp, cos they are forced to play DW\Ruin clones just to have a chance vs unkillable god-moders, and everyone wants to play their own concept hero with cool attack, w\o need to take said 2 boring anti-tank attacks, only to compete. Rly, even i would like to stop picking those, but then i know if i'll do that, i should just ignore 8\10 players in every match, cos they just won't die.
pretty much this, im eager to try the advantage on open palm strike, sounds like something perfect for mah jedi
"Easier" but wrong, doubly so in the long term. That's the point. In fact:
That's BUFF STACKING. Buff stacking is what is driving people away from PvP. You take that away, and the molds will shatter. Heck, people use those powers in an attempt to get past all the rampant buff stacking!
But enough about PvP, because talking about that is just a waste of time considering changes like that don't get made for PvP unless they also break PvE. The point of having an anti-absorption power in PvE is to situationaly take out those annoying bubble using mobs. The ones with PFF and healing bubbles jump to mind, because of how damned annoying they are, the side effect of also being nice against invuln is just icing on the cake.
It's like people can't see the forest for the trees around here.
No, it's not buff stacking, read my posts before talking back. Try that *buff stacking* on any other passive, u won't archive same results like u will with invuln\defiance.
And rly, even if we *may* consider stacking was a problem, why go a long hard way of fixing it instead of 2 passives that make that make that *stacking* truly overpowered? When u take defiance or invuln ALONE u notice ur surviviability skyrocket, but try taking lightning reflexes ALONE, and watch ur character die to 1 npc spawn. Not even mentioning that defiance gives u practically infinite energy and doesn't require ranking ur passive up and invuln counters all those small npc's turning them to useless meat fodder and making u notice existance only of hard-hitting master villains who still get their damage halved (and some pvp mechanics as i mentioned before)
And lol, actually those passives (and 1 broken shield advantage) DO brake PvE, they make it patheticly easy, or u think champions online is such a hard game that it doesn't need any changes to make PvE harder?))) Cos currently u can solo even Teleiosaur, Therakiel or that 5 man elite version of aftershock army (where u're supposed to get help from those npc's and plane crash, but in reality u don't need it) i've seen people do it, i've done it myself. THERE ARE NO ENCOUNTERS IN CO U CAN'T SOLO CURRENTLY, so it kills main point of PvE which is challenge, player communication and teaming. THOSE are the reasons champions online is losing a tonn of players (if u don't belive, look at WoW, a game which is all about challenge and it's success), it's god-mode defensive abilities which lead to lack of reasons to team up or to stay online for longer than some hours (so people less reasons to know each other and communicate, they don't get as much friends, so they have even less point to stay in game, meh, they have even less reasons to play for longer!) Basicly this game's ease is slowly killing it.
Yeah, this is kind of crazy.
I just wanna punch things while having at least some pretense of actually testing stuff.
Hey, one can dream.
I really hope it'll be up soon, I've got things to test.
Also even if they're working on it, a confirmation that they will update this post once the issue is resolve so I don't have to faceplant myself when trying to connect
Last note I have makes it sound like PTS should be up. I'll track people down and see what's up, sorry everyone.
While i would have to say that Buff/Debuff stacking is part of the problem in pve...
I have to agree with this for the most part. Lately i have seen a bunch of people on the forums talk as if "every thing is fine in pve" regardless of how strong the power is. Statements like this leave me asking my self, "where do we draw the line on player power?" Is it really supposed to be OK to just solo every thing on elite difficulty?
If people want to say its ok for super tanks to be able to solo rofl stomp any thing in pve regardless of mob rank and difficulty level then i think its time we have a discussion about where to draw the line on how powerful a single player should be able to be in this game.
To that i say:
Regardless of if you feel this way or not. There is a very valid argument to be made against game design that purposefully excludes challenge. I don't think there is a real argument to be made that standard game design often includes allowing a player to inter a game world and be virtually unchallenged and unthreatened by NPCs.
I fear for the balance and longevity of this game if we decide to take the attitude that "nothing is overpowered in pve".
I think you have to look at the big picture and see what the majority is doing, not the minority. There are always going to be people that cherry-pick and min/max to push the boundaries of what's possible. And with the level of customization in CO it's probably a greater issue than in other games (tho it still happens even in very structured-skill games like WoW and CoH).
BUT, this is not to say that everyone can or will do this. I have quite a few characters, and none of them can solo any of the more difficult content, because for me it's more about building around a theme or concept than it is to be Ub3rM4n. And I think the majority of people who play the game are like me. And you can't go around nerfing the hell out of everything to curb the upper 1% without lambasting the other 99%.
I truly believe that even handed adjustments to balance can bring balance in this game to an acceptable level.
I believe that discouraging cretin kinds of stacking can reel in the min maxers with out alienating the theme builds.
I believe that there is too much variance in the high end and low end of defensive passive performance and if we hold defensive passives to a stricter standard, then we can have a more balanced game play experience without nerfing defiance and invuln down to PFF level. I don't think the game would fall apart for theme builds if no defensive passive was more powerful then, say, LR.
I believe that we should acknowledge that certain effects interact in such a way that they produce extreme results. (like stacking resistance healing and dodging and damage absorption to certain levels all on the same toon)
I'm not saying that we should directly nerf the powers that provide these buffs. I'm saying that we should police the way they interact (for example if you have X amount of resistance, you should not be able to stack more than Y dodge chance/ avoidance).
Lets have a little faith in Ame. I don't think this is the limit of his balancing ability.