Not trying to be too cynical here, but an AT release (even before the Celestial or Sorcery passes) makes sense from the point of view that it will be something to sell in the C-Store during a period in which content production and powerset reviews are on hold.
The Radiant will be a free AT.
And there are some power changes coming to the powers on the AT, so please keep the feedback coming!
Also: Radiant looks like a fairly viable support type. Nice cross section of abilities, with definite room fora a true celestial build down the line. Even gets a tier 4...AND a Rez. One minor nitpick for me though, Soul mez is okay as a pick, but I'd have gone for another heal instead. Possibly Palliate, or maybe even divine renewell. I'm definitely happy to see another support class though, and making it silver will really help with grouping ingame.
Edit: It sure would be nice if you took this chance to give AoAC some actual usefullness as a passive, and saved Seph for the Celestial build though. Probably a pipe dream there though, eh?
BUG:Shift key always activates Block, even when it is not defined in the UI.
I tried to ask around and make sure this wasn't a messed up interaction with my keybind config cropping up on characters who didn't have the problem before, and someone else seemed to confirm this issue.
Oops, looks like we can do the whole "trigger multiple AOs at the same time" thing again.... Possibly also re-breaking the use-drag cooldown exploit for items/devices as well, though i don't have any myself to test.
Are the alert info windows activated only by a button click now?
I mean the ones inside the mission at the very start just before the cut scene.
On the Vibora mission there was a button, and either I didn't get an info window in some
other alerts ( I suspected because the main alert window was open), or I didn't see the button there.
Queued in my hideout, went to alert, but alert returned me to Millennium City when it was over.
I guess to spend my hard earned street cred.
Also I experienced the stuck in the wall bug when I got slammed by Black Talon in the tutorial, again.
I recorded a demo file of it, if you want me to upload that somewhere.
Only the being stuck in the wall part not the unexpected super knock that causes it.
Its like the back wall of the HQ, is made of glue trap glue.
Black Talon's kill shot was, well, it was in a very personal place. It looked all kinds of wrong.
Aura of Arcane Clarity needs a huge boost to be on par with the other Aura passives. I think it should constantly feed you and your team energy, raise everyone's equilibrium and reduce power costs. Maybe help break free of paralyse-holds in the same way powers like Unbreakable and Ego Surge would?
Of course with the team bonuses scaling on Pre like the others.
Oh, and this wouldn't actually bring it on par with the others. But it'd be a step in the right direction, I think.
Oops, looks like we can do the whole "trigger multiple AOs at the same time" thing again.... Possibly also re-breaking the use-drag cooldown exploit for items/devices as well, though i don't have any myself to test.
The Roin'Esh Shoulder pads are missing from the tailor. I have them on a toon i copied over but when i go to edit the costume they disappear and i can't find them to add back.
The Roin'Esh Shoulder pads are missing from the tailor. I have them on a toon i copied over but when i go to edit the costume they disappear and i can't find them to add back.
It happens to purchased travel powers, as well. Got Distorsion Acros on Live, copied the character on the PTS and while I could use the TP before going to reset my powers, as soon as I retconned, I couldn't get any purchased TP anymore. Their selection screen acted as if I never bought them.
By the way, will the C-Store be back on the PTS soon, pretty, please?
I seriously can't support the Radiant getting Arcane Vitality as a valid healing power unless it is getting some major tweakage. Of all the healing powers I have experience with, AV is one of the less great ones. The only thing that makes it ok is that it is a cone heal but even then the ticks are pretty weak....
I seriously can't support the Radiant getting Arcane Vitality as a valid healing power unless it is getting some major tweakage. Of all the healing powers I have experience with, AV is one of the less great ones. The only thing that makes it ok is that it is a cone heal but even then the ticks are pretty weak....
Especially in this build of the game, where they have weakened Healing even more. But they can't use the Celestial heals because most of them require combination with Conviction or Palliate.
The whole set needs reworking, this AT is badly timed.
Can we please get either a Celestial block power or a tweak to Eldritch Shield: Imbue With Power so that it provides some sort of benefit if you have Seraphim? As things stand, there's virtually no benefit to giving the new AT Eldritch Shield as opposed to, say, Force Shield.
Especially in this build of the game, where they have weakened Healing even more. But they can't use the Celestial heals because most of them require combination with Conviction or Palliate.
The whole set needs reworking, this AT is badly timed.
How is Vala's Light? I actually have zero experience with that one, but AV is just horrible -.- Well the AT does have Rebuke so that works ok as a healing power too, not ideal but still better than AV imo. There's at least that I suppose. Agreed though, hoping to see what the changes to the powers the AT uses are. I hope they make it work. As a whole the AT isn't bad but it's heals are kind of gank. Needs a little more synergy overall from what I've seen as well.
It's been mentioned The Radiant's powers will be getting tweaked. This is good as the AT is somewhere between "steaming pile of poo" and "almost useful but not really".
Eldritch Bolts - One of my personal favorite EB's actually. Proc for a root and can adv for a stun, which sadly isn't useful for The Radiant AT as it has plenty of holds/stuns built in. The Celestial EB may be a better choice.
Rebuke - A good example of poor design. It functions as a heal or damage and therefore fails at doing either well.
Vengeance - Decent AoE with an adv that paralyzes the main target and stuns secondary targets. A slight boost to dps is probably in order. Sadly, stuns are more valuable than paralyzes and at this point there is little reason for paralyze/stun powers anyway. Also just stacks resist which may prevent paralyzing/stunning when you really want to (like when a Brickbuster is using a charge attack).
Seraphim - Good damage/heal passive.
Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary - Marginal at best buffs for damage/CC resist and poor stealth tacked on. Given CO's very mobile gameplay most players will likely pick the other option of the Radiant summon.
Ritual of Radiant Summoning - Much like the Celestial set as a whole, this pet neither excels at damage nor healing. However, it is likely more useful than the Radiant sigils. Unable to select Ritual of Radiant Summoning in power selection at this time.
Eldritch Shield - A decent shield which means it's not really that great. The only "real" shields in CO that matter at the moment are Force Shield w/ Sheath, Ebon Void w/ Voracious Darkness, and if you're melee either Energy shield w/ Laser Knight or Parry w/ Elusive Monk. I agree with Dataweaver that Seraphim should provide some benefit if the adv is selected. Otherwise there may be some annoyed players when they realize they wasted 2 adv points completely.
Expulse - PBAoE damage+knockback that requires a full charge and has a snare adv. Poor selection choice since...
Pillar of Poz - PBAoE damage+knockback on tap that has a disorient adv. While I may not like Expulse or Pillar of Poz, a bit of damage+CC is a good thing for this squishy AT.
Arcane Vitality - A buggy cone AoE heal. Buggy since the graphic follows the target while the healing does not. It's also prone to getting bogged down and healing significantly less when healing 3+ targets even if only one target needs the healing. Vala's Light is a better choice for AoE healing.
Binding of Aratron - Due to the nature of maintained paralyzes this might actually be useful in PvE if content is made where holding mobs is useful. Is one of the PvPer holds of choice, however the Radiant does not have the spike to make the most of the hold.
Soul Mesmerism - May be entertaining due to the adv, but most will probably swap back to Binding of Aratron since Soul Mez must be fully charged.
Circle of Radiant Glory - I see this as the devs acknowledging that the Radiant is so bad it needs a self rez every 2 minutes. Maybe if the AT had Redemption or some other rez other power Circle of Radiant Glory wouldn't look like such a terrible pick.
Planar Fracture - Damage/debuff AoE with no target cap... on a 1.5 minute cooldown. The debuffs are selected randomly and usually make very little to no difference. The damage is marginal at best since the Radiant is stuck in Support role.
To sum it up... the only good things going for the Radiant AT is Seraphim and the super stat picks of PRE with INT/EGO. I sincerely hope the powers selected get buffed/changed before it goes live.
Quite honestly, all supporty powers need a pass and rebalance against each other, especially healing, auras, and the resurrections.
Completely agreed. I only really find a choice handful truly useful... and of them, I'd say Emp Heal is on top, especial on a dex/pre build with a dash of ego.
Concerning Rebuke, the dual attack/heal is one of the main selling points of the Celestial power set. While I agree that the current implementation doesn't do either well, I would prefer that the solution be to buff the attack and healing capabilities to make them almost as good as their dedicated heals rather than to turn Rebuke into yet-another-attack. The awkwardness that comes with having a power which can affect any target, friend or foe, means that Rebuke can be nearly as good of an attack as other Starter Powers and it still won't dominate the Starter Powers.
I have a PvE toon who uses a combination of the Bindings and the Radiant Summons to great effect against single foes: the toon maintains a binding on the target while the Spirit whittled away the target's health.
I just wonder what sort of redicuous interal test did they do would lead this redicuous improvement. :eek:
To Compensate 50% DMG nerf from SS? No, really - tanks got gimped dmg rise from SS now and no self healing increase like Hybrid do, so pumping up Healh AND Defence makes sence.
You become walking wall of meat who just eat dmg, while doing weak attacks (but not as weak as Support thou). That reminds me of.... tank? OMG! This becomes Holy Trinity! HOW SO?! (kidding).
I think idea is too also rise Gold value here (abiliyu to switch roles), since all roles exept Hybrid are specialized ( and IMO overspecialized in some cases) and while running Solo you dont need such specialization and will be fine with Hybrid overall beter perfomance, while switching to your special role while in teams.
So much of me wishes they never had a "hybrid" role and balanced the game from there. You can't complain about something you never had.. but now that they've given it to you its an open can of worms
So much of me wishes they never had a "hybrid" role and balanced the game from there. You can't complain about something you never had.. but now that they've given it to you its an open can of worms
It always existed there. Honestly hybrid just needs some down tweaking. It's a little too utilitarian as it stands, making it too good at everything when it's suppose to be a jack of all trades role, decent at things but no where as good as someone who specializes. That's a problem, IMO. Some down tweaking and things should work out better for it.
But I agree, deleting it would probably be worlds better, but it's a can of worms and the over sensitive "I hate roles" types would probably get up in arms.
I think in terms of game design people accept that the trillogy is a (not the) good way to palance MMORPGs.
Roles could have been a NEW way to look at the trillogy.. but they took away that potential genius with Gaurdian/Hybrid role. It goes against this concept of balance they areq trying to create. Traditional Tanks did not hve the ABILITY to heal others or to buff themselves with great damage boosts.. with exclusive powers and trees a hybrid role is good.. OR with freeform powers and trees a hybrid role is SUCK toward balance.
If a tank wants to do DPS they should do so through the buffs available in power selection and stats.. not in hybrid role.
I think in terms of game design people accept that the trillogy is a (not the) good way to palance MMORPGs.
Roles could have been a NEW way to look at the trillogy.. but they took away that potential genius with Gaurdian/Hybrid role. It goes against this concept of balance they areq trying to create. Traditional Tanks did not hve the ABILITY to heal others or to buff themselves with great damage boosts.. with exclusive powers and trees a hybrid role is good.. OR with freeform powers and trees a hybrid role is SUCK toward balance.
If a tank wants to do DPS they should do so through the buffs available in power selection and stats.. not in hybrid role.
Not really. People hear trinity and they think forced teaming that's all they hear. It isn't that roles are bad or even hard to balance, they never have been, people, especially here in Champions, are afraid to team and afraid to rely on others for help. They want to be able to do everything themselves without issue and they think it is unfair if they can't solo Kigatilik, Teleiosaurus, Therakiel and any other Cosmic level entities you can think of themselves.
From my own observations, this mind set has actually been devastating Champions, because not only is the game too easy, there is nothing for those who do enjoy teaming to do or go after. In fact, in many situations, especially in the end game area, teaming is actually detrimental. This is not good game design, especially for an MMO.
And as far as doing something different, people have always said there are other ways to do these things without roles, but frankly, no one has actually offered a realistic solution or idea that just wasn't renaming and restating what specific roles already do.
the issue is that this game has never been about trinity play and the ones complaining about these changes the most are the top 10% or veterans who understand the current build system, these changes will allow the devs to create more dynamic and engaging content. Unfortunately the issue is not the role changes, but the stat changes as well. the 2 different types of changes are compounded having a greater affect on character than people currently realize. pre with soft cap on healing at 20% has destroyed most self healing rates and the effectiveness of some powers, the ego change has resulted in almost every crit build being obsolete and needing complete re-gearing. Its not just the roles spar its the stats as well. Trinity play also feels like its being forced on people and no one likes to have things forced upon them its just human nature.
I think a lot of these changes will make more sense once more information on specialization come out, until then we are looking an at incomplete picture.
As for ego... my main is a crit build, though not the super min/maxed kind. I have actually found better, and more consistent, damage on her now then I do on live.
I think a lot of these changes will make more sense once more information on specialization come out, until then we are looking an at incomplete picture.
As for ego... my main is a crit build, though not the super min/maxed kind. I have actually found better, and more consistent, damage on her now then I do on live.
I have Dex/Ego, worked very hard to grind out my gear, I built up a 40/100 crit/severity rate, now thats washed, i need to regear completely, oh, and my damage is lower, DPS and spike.
I am having an issue with the Radiant AT and Idk if it is just me or everyone else, but I can't choose the radiant summon. I am only able to choose the sigils. Is this a bug?
Before commenting on the radiant archetype I think it would make sense to hear whether it's going to be the 'official' archetype for celestial framework (like I assume), or if it's meant to be some kind of hybrid, with 'real deal' following.
This affects the perspective to some of the powers, for example in a 'real' celestial archetype arcane vitality wouldn't seem to make much sense when the celestial framework's trademark are the hybrid heal/damage powers. Using celestial conduit, and adding in 'illumination' to allow it into makeshift area heal would seem more fitting.
On the other hand if this isn't the 'real' celestial archetype, then I'd agree with earlier post that seraphim should be left out, and reserved for the actual celestial archetype.
I'd also agree it's pointless to give the archetype a block power from which you can't utilize it's advantage. Overall block powers aren't a big deal in themself, it's their advantages that make them useful. Making a block power for celestial framework would be good - it could perhaps have an advantage for aggro management. Maybe so that whenever you block an attack, you shake some of the aggro against the attacker - or perhaps a stacking buff that reduces your aggro generation (similar to how voracious darkness adds damage resistance), so with 10 stacks you'd only generate half the aggro you normally would. This would make it a nice block power for support characters in general.
Radiant Sanctuary is currently questionable in usefulness, it's elite lairs where you need your potential the most - and in there stealth is plain useless.. so it's a power that fails when you need it the most. Same of course could be said about any and all stealth-based powers.
Radiant Glory likewise is questionable. Circles in general are often frustrating to use, and this one in particular, when any knock attack will probably throw the flimsy character out of it. Primal dominion might be a more useful alternative, or simply ditch this power and take illumination instead - and then replace arcane vitality with celestial conduit.
Planar fracture suffers from same issue most of the 'ultimate powers' do - they are kind of lackluster for being 'ultimate'. It's probably not a bad pick as a power as such, but the power itself could probably use some reworking.
Also, agree with expulse/poz - charge powers are bad when you need something for situational protection. Poz on the other hand migh come handy with it's advantage to reduce incoming damage.
And why not use radiance as energy builder? It's framework's own power, and it actually works fine for healers - allowing you to keep it running even when you target friends to heal them.. which is what healers generally do. I don't see any real point to take what's essentially cross-framework energy builder. I know not everyone is a fan of radiance's animation, but that's an entirely separate issue.
Lastly, this archetype really needs a resurrect power. It's kind of a staple in many lairs, where it's the only way to bring a teammate back to fight, sort of having the whole party wipe and restart the encounter. It's kind of stupid for support character to have self-resurrect (and rebirth would functionally trump radiant glory so badly it's kind of embarrassing for anyone to take that circle to begin with) but no way to resurrect allies.
--
For a more extensive rework of the archetype I'd think of something like:
1 Radiance
1 Rebuke
6 Vengeance
8 Seraphim
11 Iniquity / Palliate
14 Eldritch Shield (or the new 'Radiant Siheld' )
17 Conviction / Circle of Primal Dominion
22 Arcane Vitality
27 Binding of Arathorn / Circle of Radiant Summoning
32 Redemption
40 Planar Fracture
Iniquity/Palliate because both offer a long distance 'flash heal', but with different functionality
Conviciton/Primal Dominion because both offer an alternate method for self-heal, which would become important in particular if you pick iniquity.. and conviction-iniquity is one of the synergies of the framework
Arathorn/Radiant Summoning mostly because not everyone likes pets - and arathorn might be useful on PvP side at least, although I don't claim any knowledge of it =P
I would still like to work celestial conduit in, instead of arcane vitality though, but that would also require illumintaion - perhaps with:
22 Celestial Conduit
27 Illumination
32 Binding of Arathorn / Circle of Radiant Summoning
40 Redemption
Not really. People hear trinity and they think forced teaming that's all they hear. It isn't that roles are bad or even hard to balance, they never have been, people, especially here in Champions, are afraid to team and afraid to rely on others for help. They want to be able to do everything themselves without issue and they think it is unfair if they can't solo Kigatilik, Teleiosaurus, Therakiel and any other Cosmic level entities you can think of themselves.
From my own observations, this mind set has actually been devastating Champions, because not only is the game too easy, there is nothing for those who do enjoy teaming to do or go after. In fact, in many situations, especially in the end game area, teaming is actually detrimental. This is not good game design, especially for an MMO.
And as far as doing something different, people have always said there are other ways to do these things without roles, but frankly, no one has actually offered a realistic solution or idea that just wasn't renaming and restating what specific roles already do.
Well, I think the game would be much better if it delivered painful electrical shocks to players at random. Clearly, this is such a good idea that only whiners and losers would disagree.
I'm glad to know that you're onboard with the idea of making sweeping changes to the game that other people might find objectionable.
Well, I think the game would be much better if it delivered painful electrical shocks to players at random. Clearly, this is such a good idea that only whiners and losers would disagree.
I'm glad to know that you're onboard with the idea of making sweeping changes to the game that other people might find objectionable.
Yes, because there is obviously a flood of people clamoring to play Champions Online as it is currently. :rolleyes:
Yes, because there is obviously a flood of people clamoring to play Champions Online as it is currently. :rolleyes:
Right now CO offers half the experience to silver accounts, at best - and silver account is generally what people would use to try out (and for many the subscription isn't really an option they'd even consider). What I think might remedy this to some extent would be if they roll out the freeform-from-c-store that I noticed was somewhere in the evaluation. It's something I said back in the F2P beta, and it's what I still think. CO's greatest asset is the flexibility you get for building your hero, and denying that experience from silver accounts doesn't do good.
I see the dilemma of course - on one hand you have lifetimers, many of whom might feel 'cheated'. Then there's subscribers, many of whom would probably buy a couple of freeform slots, and never look back. And then there's the silver accounts that would likely do the same, and never buy another archetype.
Obviously it's something that would take a fair bit of planning, but I think if done right it would help the game quite a bit. IMO the purpose of F2P is that you can buy yourself piecemeal to get the same experience subscribers will have, and obviously to get the full benefits of lifetimer would need to cost notably more than buying the 'whole thing' at once. And there probably should still be some extra perk for subscribers/lifetimers - vet rewards are one thing, the ability to color your powers might be another - it was never tied to freeform slots, since gold accounts can also color archetype powers.
I see the dilemma of course - on one hand you have lifetimers, many of whom might feel 'cheated'. Then there's subscribers, many of whom would probably buy a couple of freeform slots, and never look back. And then there's the silver accounts that would likely do the same, and never buy another archetype.
There is only one constant of human nature; people hate change, and many don't want to believe that how things are currently working is not working well at all. It doesn't take an analyst to see at this point that the number of concurrent users that were playing this game have substantially dropped in the last several months.
Right now CO offers half the experience to silver accounts, at best - and silver account is generally what people would use to try out (and for many the subscription isn't really an option they'd even consider). What I think might remedy this to some extent would be if they roll out the freeform-from-c-store that I noticed was somewhere in the evaluation. It's something I said back in the F2P beta, and it's what I still think. CO's greatest asset is the flexibility you get for building your hero, and denying that experience from silver accounts doesn't do good.
This is an over estimation. While choosing your own powers might be a lot, outside of the three adventure packs, everything is offered in full to everyone. And if you are calling the choose your own powers a substantial part of the game then that's already a problem. Because as it stands then you are stating that Champions offers very little else. And quite frankly, that isn't that far off in my view of things. There is no endgame content, there is nothing really to feel like you've accomplished anything and when you are done, you are done. I know some people like to believe alting is its own reward and endgame, but that isn't going to be all that exciting when people just end up doing the same stuff over and over with little to actually show for it.
And another thing, despite claims to the contrary, people do play these games to actually team up with their fellow players. But the team game is so abysmal and pathetic in this game that it is actually the only game I've played in this genre (aka theme park MMO) that it feels like a punishment to actually team up with others instead of feeling like a rewarding experience. Which is kind of a complete 180 compared to Cryptic's last title, City of Heroes.
Obviously it's something that would take a fair bit of planning, but I think if done right it would help the game quite a bit. IMO the purpose of F2P is that you can buy yourself piecemeal to get the same experience subscribers will have, and obviously to get the full benefits of lifetimer would need to cost notably more than buying the 'whole thing' at once. And there probably should still be some extra perk for subscribers/lifetimers - vet rewards are one thing, the ability to color your powers might be another - it was never tied to freeform slots, since gold accounts can also color archetype powers.
They've been working at this for over a year now. I think it's obvious people get bored fast when nothings really happening. While the few die hard's who do speak out against it, endgame is actually a big part of theme park games. Champions has offered nothing new for endgame since Vibora Bay launched nearly two years ago, and even that really wasn't endgame content because the rewards were worse than what people already had.
The basics are in an abysmal shape. The system just isn't working as it stands on live. The devs even admitted they are basically in a corner because of how bad the system is that they need to dig out and rebuild the foundation before they can even begin to start moving forward again. And people can say making roles stronger, loot better or anything like that is a bad idea, but evidently from just looking, the current system isn't working either.
This is an over estimation. While choosing your own powers might be a lot, outside of the three adventure packs, everything is offered in full to everyone. And if you are calling the choose your own powers a substantial part of the game then that's already a problem. Because as it stands then you are stating that Champions offers very little else. And quite frankly, that isn't that far off in my view of things.
I'm not overestimating it at all, but I do give that it's just my own opinoin, and that of a few friends I play with and have spoken with about it. Obviously your powerset is meaningless if you don't have anything to use them on - you can't complitely separate them from game-content. They are the means by which you interact with the content, and to me personally at least it's a very big thing to be able to select the set I use. That was a huge part of Guild Wars to me, and it's also very important part of CO 'experience' to me.
Back in F2P when they introduced archetypes, and made clear the current 'freeform' characters were going to be for subscribers only, to me that was a total deal-breaker for F2P. It was either keep subscription or move on. My pick was lifetime subscription. If they had moved complitely to archetypes at that point, I would not have stayed.
That said I fully agree the game isn't in very good state right now. They've made improvements, but there needs to be more. Content and 'progress' is one of the things that are needed - and perhaps this re'itemizing' thing is one step towards making it so. I don't think the areas themself are bad - although of course it wouldn't hurt to have more of them. The problem is that so far running generator Bravo in Serpent's Lantern is basically the source of top gear, and that applies regardless of your level.
There's also no real point to 'gear up' until level 40, because the loot will be level-scaled (instead of area-scaled), so the result is you really just want to blaze to 40 so you can start farming your end-gear - and then you find yourself pretty much trapped into Serpent's Lantern. Once you finish gearing up in Bravo, you stop and look around to see what you have left to do - and you realize there's no real rewards left for you, save for perhaps some purple gear that might occasionally be a slight improvement. What's left then, is basically just running lairs for the sake of running lairs, with no real reward - and possibly farm for some rare stuff, mostly costume pieces and dark speed.
Contrary to what you say though, I do find teaming to be fun when I do it. It's kind of funny, because that's usually not the case in games. Frankly I think a good part of the reason is free powerpicks again - I find it fun and interesting to see what kind of combinations people have come up with, and how my own build plays together with them. But again that's of course just my subjective opinion there. For me though, it's huge part of the fun-factor.
And yes, I'm quite looking forward to these latest changes too - it'll be interesting to see how the specializations will shuffle the deck, too.
Actually Free Form tokens are a bad idea, the bread and butter of the community will likely feel duped into purchasing LTS or subs. I think for something to work, we could go back to the AT Rotation Idea and give a weekend out of the month for silvers to try Free Form. It easier to satiate the silver community and the Gold community by finding some middle ground. Don't forget most of payed for Free Form. That is what we really wanted. Don't pull a major business blunder and start giving away your prize for peanuts.
As for us old time Die Hards, Show some respect if it were not for the old timers and the Die hards you would be playing wow sippin from a slurpee in your parent's basement. :eek: You know you are picturing South Park right now.
I have Dex/Ego, worked very hard to grind out my gear, I built up a 40/100 crit/severity rate, now thats washed, i need to regear completely, oh, and my damage is lower, DPS and spike.
Yes, but if I remember correctly you focus on melee builds. My crit build is completely ranged and gets a nice boost from ego on PTS. So yeah, it kind of sucks for melee spikers, but I'm at least liking what I'm seeing on my own toon so far.
Actually Free Form tokens are a bad idea, the bread and butter of the community will likely feel duped into purchasing LTS or subs.
Someone might feel that way, I wouldn't. I got lifetime sub when it was on discount, for what's worth about 24,000 c-points. I've had it now for.. over a year by now, which means a return of about 5,000 c-points. I have 27 freeform characters on my account, and I don't expect someone to be able to get 27 freeform characters with all bag slots unlocked on a silver account for 19,000 c-points.
Technically, there's also all the retcon tokens I've gotten from veteran rewards, which by now amount to 3 per character.. and another free character slot anytime I play another character to 40.
But sure, your opinion is every bit as valid as mine.
Top of my head, I'd say converting a silver character slot to freeform slot would likely cost around 2,000-3,000 c-points, seeing as the premium archetypes themself cost 920 points, and generally people buy the archetype to use it on just one slot anyway.
What comes to alternatives.. archetypes currently have 3 powers less than freeform characters.. so another possibility would be to allow purchase of free powers per-character - up to 3 maximum. Say for example 400 c-points per power slot. Those slots could be spread, say, between the last 4 powers - first at 24, second at 29 and third at 36 for example. With the upcoming changes to tier progression, that would make all of them freely selectable from any framework, including the 'ultimate powers'.
the changes to role also prevent the type of hero you want to be mentality the game has supported thus far, by forceing the heal changes and adding the additional bonus threat it forces tanks to go with the tank role in order to hold the agro(if they dont just go crippling and use damage) before you could make a tank that held agro simply by healing your allies or your self, healing was a viable form of threat generation for tanks now not so much. the changes to stats and the changes to roles are attempts at forceing the trinity play style.
This is a good thing for game development as it allows thedevs to create new and dynamic content for us that would be challangeing. But it changes an aspect of the game that we love into a generic mmo state. if thats why we are here is for the generic mmo experience we would be off playing something else, like SWTOR.
Change is inevitable. I don't want to see this become a trinity game. And most of us don't. I am fine with most aspects of the patch, except the crit severity. I have made my complaints about that already. I do feel the itemization aspect might make thing a little more interesting. I think they should add another slot for all the secondary gear though. this may help with the sting from losing our ability to do certain things with two secondary powers instead of 2 SS. I don't want to see this game turn into another pay to win game either. I got a sub because I enjoy it. Am I going to be regretting my purchase 3 months down the road. And FF tokens should be 10k Cp if they start selling them. Otherwise my sub is just worthless. I could drop 2000 cp on a token and then a couple hundred for the bags. Content I already have purchased so a past investment.
Point being Free Form should stay exclusive to Subs. The content is not what makes Gold worth the money period.
What does this converstation have to do with the patch?
True, it went on a tangent there. In regards to the patch, has anyone seen an answer to the question that was posed earlier on this thread - currently it's possible to pick a secondary superstat that's same as your primary superstat - e.g. you pick primary int, then you pick secondary con and secondary int again.. is this intentional or not?
Bonuses in this case work as you'd expect them - you get both primary and secondary bonuses from int, and int gets both level bonuses too (so it's +120 INT at level 40). It still feels like a bug, but would be nice to know.
Would also be good to see secondary stats highlighted in some color, perhaps different from the primary (yellow). It's helpful in picking talents, comparing gear and such, and also generally helps when you have a few dozen characters you play more rarely.
I haven't been around PTS for a while, so I don't know what patch brought the latest changes to the inventory panel, but current spacing of inventory slots seems to waste unnecessary amount of space. Colored borders on items are nice, but they could probably be made a bit more compact? If nothing else, perhaps a setting that lets you pick the spacing between cells? Some people may like the clarity that comes from distinctly separating the items from eachother, myself I generally like to keep the panels compact so they don't block more view than necessary when I keep them open.
The stat changes will affect the way Quarry works, especially when used by melee characters. As I recall it was changed earlier to become viable for both ranged and melee, now affecting all damage instead of just ranged. However, the way audacity boosts EGO, will only be useful for ranged builds, and even for them the effect might be pretty marginal due to soft cap. Perhaps instead of increasing EGO, it could give a direct bonus to critical severity, or have some other similar mechanic? Or possibly boost both EGO and STR to make it equal for ranged and melee?
Comments
The Radiant will be a free AT.
And there are some power changes coming to the powers on the AT, so please keep the feedback coming!
Woohoo! This is awesome news! Basic Silvers really need more support. Thanks for letting us know
Bug: It clips a bit on the left pec.
Also: Radiant looks like a fairly viable support type. Nice cross section of abilities, with definite room fora a true celestial build down the line. Even gets a tier 4...AND a Rez. One minor nitpick for me though, Soul mez is okay as a pick, but I'd have gone for another heal instead. Possibly Palliate, or maybe even divine renewell. I'm definitely happy to see another support class though, and making it silver will really help with grouping ingame.
Edit: It sure would be nice if you took this chance to give AoAC some actual usefullness as a passive, and saved Seph for the Celestial build though. Probably a pipe dream there though, eh?
I tried to ask around and make sure this wasn't a messed up interaction with my keybind config cropping up on characters who didn't have the problem before, and someone else seemed to confirm this issue.
This does not happen on Live.
Excellent. I wouldnt have held it against you to want to have something more in the C-Store.
Ego surge and Ice sheath popped at the same time: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/450596254251839839/6A31ADA7323F1EA03085614EA30A88C1B2231CAD/
Did it twice in a row easily just by hitting both keys at the same time.
I mean the ones inside the mission at the very start just before the cut scene.
On the Vibora mission there was a button, and either I didn't get an info window in some
other alerts ( I suspected because the main alert window was open), or I didn't see the button there.
Queued in my hideout, went to alert, but alert returned me to Millennium City when it was over.
I guess to spend my hard earned street cred.
Also I experienced the stuck in the wall bug when I got slammed by Black Talon in the tutorial, again.
I recorded a demo file of it, if you want me to upload that somewhere.
Only the being stuck in the wall part not the unexpected super knock that causes it.
Its like the back wall of the HQ, is made of glue trap glue.
Black Talon's kill shot was, well, it was in a very personal place. It looked all kinds of wrong.
Of course with the team bonuses scaling on Pre like the others.
Oh, and this wouldn't actually bring it on par with the others. But it'd be a step in the right direction, I think.
that's an old old exploit, and it's more ice sheath+any active offense.
It happens to purchased travel powers, as well. Got Distorsion Acros on Live, copied the character on the PTS and while I could use the TP before going to reset my powers, as soon as I retconned, I couldn't get any purchased TP anymore. Their selection screen acted as if I never bought them.
By the way, will the C-Store be back on the PTS soon, pretty, please?
Especially in this build of the game, where they have weakened Healing even more. But they can't use the Celestial heals because most of them require combination with Conviction or Palliate.
The whole set needs reworking, this AT is badly timed.
Think of it as "the challenge of playing manual regen."
How is Vala's Light? I actually have zero experience with that one, but AV is just horrible -.- Well the AT does have Rebuke so that works ok as a healing power too, not ideal but still better than AV imo. There's at least that I suppose. Agreed though, hoping to see what the changes to the powers the AT uses are. I hope they make it work. As a whole the AT isn't bad but it's heals are kind of gank. Needs a little more synergy overall from what I've seen as well.
lol! You sir get + 1 internetz.
Eldritch Bolts - One of my personal favorite EB's actually. Proc for a root and can adv for a stun, which sadly isn't useful for The Radiant AT as it has plenty of holds/stuns built in. The Celestial EB may be a better choice.
Rebuke - A good example of poor design. It functions as a heal or damage and therefore fails at doing either well.
Vengeance - Decent AoE with an adv that paralyzes the main target and stuns secondary targets. A slight boost to dps is probably in order. Sadly, stuns are more valuable than paralyzes and at this point there is little reason for paralyze/stun powers anyway. Also just stacks resist which may prevent paralyzing/stunning when you really want to (like when a Brickbuster is using a charge attack).
Seraphim - Good damage/heal passive.
Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary - Marginal at best buffs for damage/CC resist and poor stealth tacked on. Given CO's very mobile gameplay most players will likely pick the other option of the Radiant summon.
Ritual of Radiant Summoning - Much like the Celestial set as a whole, this pet neither excels at damage nor healing. However, it is likely more useful than the Radiant sigils. Unable to select Ritual of Radiant Summoning in power selection at this time.
Eldritch Shield - A decent shield which means it's not really that great. The only "real" shields in CO that matter at the moment are Force Shield w/ Sheath, Ebon Void w/ Voracious Darkness, and if you're melee either Energy shield w/ Laser Knight or Parry w/ Elusive Monk. I agree with Dataweaver that Seraphim should provide some benefit if the adv is selected. Otherwise there may be some annoyed players when they realize they wasted 2 adv points completely.
Expulse - PBAoE damage+knockback that requires a full charge and has a snare adv. Poor selection choice since...
Pillar of Poz - PBAoE damage+knockback on tap that has a disorient adv. While I may not like Expulse or Pillar of Poz, a bit of damage+CC is a good thing for this squishy AT.
Arcane Vitality - A buggy cone AoE heal. Buggy since the graphic follows the target while the healing does not. It's also prone to getting bogged down and healing significantly less when healing 3+ targets even if only one target needs the healing. Vala's Light is a better choice for AoE healing.
Binding of Aratron - Due to the nature of maintained paralyzes this might actually be useful in PvE if content is made where holding mobs is useful. Is one of the PvPer holds of choice, however the Radiant does not have the spike to make the most of the hold.
Soul Mesmerism - May be entertaining due to the adv, but most will probably swap back to Binding of Aratron since Soul Mez must be fully charged.
Circle of Radiant Glory - I see this as the devs acknowledging that the Radiant is so bad it needs a self rez every 2 minutes. Maybe if the AT had Redemption or some other rez other power Circle of Radiant Glory wouldn't look like such a terrible pick.
Planar Fracture - Damage/debuff AoE with no target cap... on a 1.5 minute cooldown. The debuffs are selected randomly and usually make very little to no difference. The damage is marginal at best since the Radiant is stuck in Support role.
To sum it up... the only good things going for the Radiant AT is Seraphim and the super stat picks of PRE with INT/EGO. I sincerely hope the powers selected get buffed/changed before it goes live.
May I ask how did you do your interal test?
Completely agreed. I only really find a choice handful truly useful... and of them, I'd say Emp Heal is on top, especial on a dex/pre build with a dash of ego.
I have a PvE toon who uses a combination of the Bindings and the Radiant Summons to great effect against single foes: the toon maintains a binding on the target while the Spirit whittled away the target's health.
Well... it says so now on the tooltip for Tanking role "Damage resistance: 110%"
Also, the the displacement/distortion FX is not colorable on live. Other things in the power are affected but not that.
I just wonder what sort of redicuous interal test did they do would lead this redicuous improvement. :eek:
To Compensate 50% DMG nerf from SS? No, really - tanks got gimped dmg rise from SS now and no self healing increase like Hybrid do, so pumping up Healh AND Defence makes sence.
You become walking wall of meat who just eat dmg, while doing weak attacks (but not as weak as Support thou). That reminds me of.... tank? OMG! This becomes Holy Trinity! HOW SO?! (kidding).
I think idea is too also rise Gold value here (abiliyu to switch roles), since all roles exept Hybrid are specialized ( and IMO overspecialized in some cases) and while running Solo you dont need such specialization and will be fine with Hybrid overall beter perfomance, while switching to your special role while in teams.
It always existed there. Honestly hybrid just needs some down tweaking. It's a little too utilitarian as it stands, making it too good at everything when it's suppose to be a jack of all trades role, decent at things but no where as good as someone who specializes. That's a problem, IMO. Some down tweaking and things should work out better for it.
But I agree, deleting it would probably be worlds better, but it's a can of worms and the over sensitive "I hate roles" types would probably get up in arms.
Roles could have been a NEW way to look at the trillogy.. but they took away that potential genius with Gaurdian/Hybrid role. It goes against this concept of balance they areq trying to create. Traditional Tanks did not hve the ABILITY to heal others or to buff themselves with great damage boosts.. with exclusive powers and trees a hybrid role is good.. OR with freeform powers and trees a hybrid role is SUCK toward balance.
If a tank wants to do DPS they should do so through the buffs available in power selection and stats.. not in hybrid role.
Not really. People hear trinity and they think forced teaming that's all they hear. It isn't that roles are bad or even hard to balance, they never have been, people, especially here in Champions, are afraid to team and afraid to rely on others for help. They want to be able to do everything themselves without issue and they think it is unfair if they can't solo Kigatilik, Teleiosaurus, Therakiel and any other Cosmic level entities you can think of themselves.
From my own observations, this mind set has actually been devastating Champions, because not only is the game too easy, there is nothing for those who do enjoy teaming to do or go after. In fact, in many situations, especially in the end game area, teaming is actually detrimental. This is not good game design, especially for an MMO.
And as far as doing something different, people have always said there are other ways to do these things without roles, but frankly, no one has actually offered a realistic solution or idea that just wasn't renaming and restating what specific roles already do.
As for ego... my main is a crit build, though not the super min/maxed kind. I have actually found better, and more consistent, damage on her now then I do on live.
I have Dex/Ego, worked very hard to grind out my gear, I built up a 40/100 crit/severity rate, now thats washed, i need to regear completely, oh, and my damage is lower, DPS and spike.
This affects the perspective to some of the powers, for example in a 'real' celestial archetype arcane vitality wouldn't seem to make much sense when the celestial framework's trademark are the hybrid heal/damage powers. Using celestial conduit, and adding in 'illumination' to allow it into makeshift area heal would seem more fitting.
On the other hand if this isn't the 'real' celestial archetype, then I'd agree with earlier post that seraphim should be left out, and reserved for the actual celestial archetype.
I'd also agree it's pointless to give the archetype a block power from which you can't utilize it's advantage. Overall block powers aren't a big deal in themself, it's their advantages that make them useful. Making a block power for celestial framework would be good - it could perhaps have an advantage for aggro management. Maybe so that whenever you block an attack, you shake some of the aggro against the attacker - or perhaps a stacking buff that reduces your aggro generation (similar to how voracious darkness adds damage resistance), so with 10 stacks you'd only generate half the aggro you normally would. This would make it a nice block power for support characters in general.
Radiant Sanctuary is currently questionable in usefulness, it's elite lairs where you need your potential the most - and in there stealth is plain useless.. so it's a power that fails when you need it the most. Same of course could be said about any and all stealth-based powers.
Radiant Glory likewise is questionable. Circles in general are often frustrating to use, and this one in particular, when any knock attack will probably throw the flimsy character out of it. Primal dominion might be a more useful alternative, or simply ditch this power and take illumination instead - and then replace arcane vitality with celestial conduit.
Planar fracture suffers from same issue most of the 'ultimate powers' do - they are kind of lackluster for being 'ultimate'. It's probably not a bad pick as a power as such, but the power itself could probably use some reworking.
Also, agree with expulse/poz - charge powers are bad when you need something for situational protection. Poz on the other hand migh come handy with it's advantage to reduce incoming damage.
And why not use radiance as energy builder? It's framework's own power, and it actually works fine for healers - allowing you to keep it running even when you target friends to heal them.. which is what healers generally do. I don't see any real point to take what's essentially cross-framework energy builder. I know not everyone is a fan of radiance's animation, but that's an entirely separate issue.
Lastly, this archetype really needs a resurrect power. It's kind of a staple in many lairs, where it's the only way to bring a teammate back to fight, sort of having the whole party wipe and restart the encounter. It's kind of stupid for support character to have self-resurrect (and rebirth would functionally trump radiant glory so badly it's kind of embarrassing for anyone to take that circle to begin with) but no way to resurrect allies.
--
For a more extensive rework of the archetype I'd think of something like:
1 Radiance
1 Rebuke
6 Vengeance
8 Seraphim
11 Iniquity / Palliate
14 Eldritch Shield (or the new 'Radiant Siheld'
17 Conviction / Circle of Primal Dominion
22 Arcane Vitality
27 Binding of Arathorn / Circle of Radiant Summoning
32 Redemption
40 Planar Fracture
Iniquity/Palliate because both offer a long distance 'flash heal', but with different functionality
Conviciton/Primal Dominion because both offer an alternate method for self-heal, which would become important in particular if you pick iniquity.. and conviction-iniquity is one of the synergies of the framework
Arathorn/Radiant Summoning mostly because not everyone likes pets - and arathorn might be useful on PvP side at least, although I don't claim any knowledge of it =P
I would still like to work celestial conduit in, instead of arcane vitality though, but that would also require illumintaion - perhaps with:
22 Celestial Conduit
27 Illumination
32 Binding of Arathorn / Circle of Radiant Summoning
40 Redemption
Well, I think the game would be much better if it delivered painful electrical shocks to players at random. Clearly, this is such a good idea that only whiners and losers would disagree.
I'm glad to know that you're onboard with the idea of making sweeping changes to the game that other people might find objectionable.
Yes, because there is obviously a flood of people clamoring to play Champions Online as it is currently. :rolleyes:
Yep, driving out a bunch of diehards will greatly increase subscription numbers.
Right now CO offers half the experience to silver accounts, at best - and silver account is generally what people would use to try out (and for many the subscription isn't really an option they'd even consider). What I think might remedy this to some extent would be if they roll out the freeform-from-c-store that I noticed was somewhere in the evaluation. It's something I said back in the F2P beta, and it's what I still think. CO's greatest asset is the flexibility you get for building your hero, and denying that experience from silver accounts doesn't do good.
I see the dilemma of course - on one hand you have lifetimers, many of whom might feel 'cheated'. Then there's subscribers, many of whom would probably buy a couple of freeform slots, and never look back. And then there's the silver accounts that would likely do the same, and never buy another archetype.
Obviously it's something that would take a fair bit of planning, but I think if done right it would help the game quite a bit. IMO the purpose of F2P is that you can buy yourself piecemeal to get the same experience subscribers will have, and obviously to get the full benefits of lifetimer would need to cost notably more than buying the 'whole thing' at once. And there probably should still be some extra perk for subscribers/lifetimers - vet rewards are one thing, the ability to color your powers might be another - it was never tied to freeform slots, since gold accounts can also color archetype powers.
You seriously over estimate how many die hard's are actually left or even happy with the current game as it stands.
There is only one constant of human nature; people hate change, and many don't want to believe that how things are currently working is not working well at all. It doesn't take an analyst to see at this point that the number of concurrent users that were playing this game have substantially dropped in the last several months.
This is an over estimation. While choosing your own powers might be a lot, outside of the three adventure packs, everything is offered in full to everyone. And if you are calling the choose your own powers a substantial part of the game then that's already a problem. Because as it stands then you are stating that Champions offers very little else. And quite frankly, that isn't that far off in my view of things. There is no endgame content, there is nothing really to feel like you've accomplished anything and when you are done, you are done. I know some people like to believe alting is its own reward and endgame, but that isn't going to be all that exciting when people just end up doing the same stuff over and over with little to actually show for it.
And another thing, despite claims to the contrary, people do play these games to actually team up with their fellow players. But the team game is so abysmal and pathetic in this game that it is actually the only game I've played in this genre (aka theme park MMO) that it feels like a punishment to actually team up with others instead of feeling like a rewarding experience. Which is kind of a complete 180 compared to Cryptic's last title, City of Heroes.
They've been working at this for over a year now. I think it's obvious people get bored fast when nothings really happening. While the few die hard's who do speak out against it, endgame is actually a big part of theme park games. Champions has offered nothing new for endgame since Vibora Bay launched nearly two years ago, and even that really wasn't endgame content because the rewards were worse than what people already had.
The basics are in an abysmal shape. The system just isn't working as it stands on live. The devs even admitted they are basically in a corner because of how bad the system is that they need to dig out and rebuild the foundation before they can even begin to start moving forward again. And people can say making roles stronger, loot better or anything like that is a bad idea, but evidently from just looking, the current system isn't working either.
count me among the old and not happy.
now gerof my lawn :mad:
j/k
Edit: and on a serious note I'm actually waiting for this patch to hit live so I can play some more.
I'm not overestimating it at all, but I do give that it's just my own opinoin, and that of a few friends I play with and have spoken with about it. Obviously your powerset is meaningless if you don't have anything to use them on - you can't complitely separate them from game-content. They are the means by which you interact with the content, and to me personally at least it's a very big thing to be able to select the set I use. That was a huge part of Guild Wars to me, and it's also very important part of CO 'experience' to me.
Back in F2P when they introduced archetypes, and made clear the current 'freeform' characters were going to be for subscribers only, to me that was a total deal-breaker for F2P. It was either keep subscription or move on. My pick was lifetime subscription. If they had moved complitely to archetypes at that point, I would not have stayed.
That said I fully agree the game isn't in very good state right now. They've made improvements, but there needs to be more. Content and 'progress' is one of the things that are needed - and perhaps this re'itemizing' thing is one step towards making it so. I don't think the areas themself are bad - although of course it wouldn't hurt to have more of them. The problem is that so far running generator Bravo in Serpent's Lantern is basically the source of top gear, and that applies regardless of your level.
There's also no real point to 'gear up' until level 40, because the loot will be level-scaled (instead of area-scaled), so the result is you really just want to blaze to 40 so you can start farming your end-gear - and then you find yourself pretty much trapped into Serpent's Lantern. Once you finish gearing up in Bravo, you stop and look around to see what you have left to do - and you realize there's no real rewards left for you, save for perhaps some purple gear that might occasionally be a slight improvement. What's left then, is basically just running lairs for the sake of running lairs, with no real reward - and possibly farm for some rare stuff, mostly costume pieces and dark speed.
Contrary to what you say though, I do find teaming to be fun when I do it. It's kind of funny, because that's usually not the case in games. Frankly I think a good part of the reason is free powerpicks again - I find it fun and interesting to see what kind of combinations people have come up with, and how my own build plays together with them. But again that's of course just my subjective opinion there. For me though, it's huge part of the fun-factor.
And yes, I'm quite looking forward to these latest changes too - it'll be interesting to see how the specializations will shuffle the deck, too.
As for us old time Die Hards, Show some respect if it were not for the old timers and the Die hards you would be playing wow sippin from a slurpee in your parent's basement. :eek: You know you are picturing South Park right now.
WOW Fatguy
Besides if you want to get technical if it wasn't for us golden oldies, there would be no silver haired youngins.
Yes, but if I remember correctly you focus on melee builds. My crit build is completely ranged and gets a nice boost from ego on PTS. So yeah, it kind of sucks for melee spikers, but I'm at least liking what I'm seeing on my own toon so far.
Someone might feel that way, I wouldn't. I got lifetime sub when it was on discount, for what's worth about 24,000 c-points. I've had it now for.. over a year by now, which means a return of about 5,000 c-points. I have 27 freeform characters on my account, and I don't expect someone to be able to get 27 freeform characters with all bag slots unlocked on a silver account for 19,000 c-points.
Technically, there's also all the retcon tokens I've gotten from veteran rewards, which by now amount to 3 per character.. and another free character slot anytime I play another character to 40.
But sure, your opinion is every bit as valid as mine.
Top of my head, I'd say converting a silver character slot to freeform slot would likely cost around 2,000-3,000 c-points, seeing as the premium archetypes themself cost 920 points, and generally people buy the archetype to use it on just one slot anyway.
What comes to alternatives.. archetypes currently have 3 powers less than freeform characters.. so another possibility would be to allow purchase of free powers per-character - up to 3 maximum. Say for example 400 c-points per power slot. Those slots could be spread, say, between the last 4 powers - first at 24, second at 29 and third at 36 for example. With the upcoming changes to tier progression, that would make all of them freely selectable from any framework, including the 'ultimate powers'.
This is a good thing for game development as it allows thedevs to create new and dynamic content for us that would be challangeing. But it changes an aspect of the game that we love into a generic mmo state. if thats why we are here is for the generic mmo experience we would be off playing something else, like SWTOR.
Point being Free Form should stay exclusive to Subs. The content is not what makes Gold worth the money period.
That is not a constant.
True, it went on a tangent there. In regards to the patch, has anyone seen an answer to the question that was posed earlier on this thread - currently it's possible to pick a secondary superstat that's same as your primary superstat - e.g. you pick primary int, then you pick secondary con and secondary int again.. is this intentional or not?
Bonuses in this case work as you'd expect them - you get both primary and secondary bonuses from int, and int gets both level bonuses too (so it's +120 INT at level 40). It still feels like a bug, but would be nice to know.
Would also be good to see secondary stats highlighted in some color, perhaps different from the primary (yellow). It's helpful in picking talents, comparing gear and such, and also generally helps when you have a few dozen characters you play more rarely.
I haven't been around PTS for a while, so I don't know what patch brought the latest changes to the inventory panel, but current spacing of inventory slots seems to waste unnecessary amount of space. Colored borders on items are nice, but they could probably be made a bit more compact? If nothing else, perhaps a setting that lets you pick the spacing between cells? Some people may like the clarity that comes from distinctly separating the items from eachother, myself I generally like to keep the panels compact so they don't block more view than necessary when I keep them open.
The stat changes will affect the way Quarry works, especially when used by melee characters. As I recall it was changed earlier to become viable for both ranged and melee, now affecting all damage instead of just ranged. However, the way audacity boosts EGO, will only be useful for ranged builds, and even for them the effect might be pretty marginal due to soft cap. Perhaps instead of increasing EGO, it could give a direct bonus to critical severity, or have some other similar mechanic? Or possibly boost both EGO and STR to make it equal for ranged and melee?