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FC.30.20120913.19 PTS Update
nisdiddums
Posts: 91 Arc User
PTS update FC.30.20120913.19
This build is scheduled to hit PTS by 6:30pm PST on 9/28/12
Greetings!
Last Friday, we put up the first iteration of the "UNTIL Carrier Defense" mission; you all played it, and provided us with some great feedback.
Today, we will be reverting back to a previous data branch to begin testing Bloodmoon on PTS in anticipation of the Halloween Event which is set to kick-off later this month.
In addition to turning on Bloodmoon, we have aaddressed number of content, critter and stability issues that players have been reporting on Live - this is a part of our continued efforts to improve stability, and thus, your enjoyment of our game.
"What about the carrier mission", you ask?
That will come back in better form this Friday (and possibly a few more surprises along with it) as we take your feedback, and make the necessary improvements to the mission.
In the meantime, we really want to focus testing on Bloodmoon to be sure it runs smoothly once it hits Live.
Please note that this build contains a different code base, and thus, you may notice random issues while playing though content.
Please format any bugs you find in the following format:
Bug
Where it happens
What happens
Missions:
Whiteout: Doors now properly allow players to progress as a team.
Mission: Perfect Prey : Ambush Spawns correctly spawn and attack players.
RP Instance: WCOC is correctly set to be a static instance.
Items:
Items: Smoke Grenade is not being consumed
Items:?Backup Devices now have a shared 30 Minute Cooldown
Content/Critters:
Dark Witchcraft should not summon excessive numbers of rifts.
Shadow Destroyer (nemcon) should shift dimensions properly now.
Mod objects now grant skill points
This build is scheduled to hit PTS by 6:30pm PST on 9/28/12
Greetings!
Last Friday, we put up the first iteration of the "UNTIL Carrier Defense" mission; you all played it, and provided us with some great feedback.
Today, we will be reverting back to a previous data branch to begin testing Bloodmoon on PTS in anticipation of the Halloween Event which is set to kick-off later this month.
In addition to turning on Bloodmoon, we have aaddressed number of content, critter and stability issues that players have been reporting on Live - this is a part of our continued efforts to improve stability, and thus, your enjoyment of our game.
"What about the carrier mission", you ask?
That will come back in better form this Friday (and possibly a few more surprises along with it) as we take your feedback, and make the necessary improvements to the mission.
In the meantime, we really want to focus testing on Bloodmoon to be sure it runs smoothly once it hits Live.
Please note that this build contains a different code base, and thus, you may notice random issues while playing though content.
Please format any bugs you find in the following format:
Bug
Where it happens
What happens
Missions:
Whiteout: Doors now properly allow players to progress as a team.
Mission: Perfect Prey : Ambush Spawns correctly spawn and attack players.
RP Instance: WCOC is correctly set to be a static instance.
Items:
Items: Smoke Grenade is not being consumed
Items:?Backup Devices now have a shared 30 Minute Cooldown
Content/Critters:
Dark Witchcraft should not summon excessive numbers of rifts.
Shadow Destroyer (nemcon) should shift dimensions properly now.
Mod objects now grant skill points
Post edited by nisdiddums on
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Comments
That's their current cooldown.
It also doesn't fix the problem.
Having a team summon in one of these things each will still completely wreck just about any encounter. I normally don't really care too much about this kind of stuff, but... If you're gonna fix crap, at least do it right.
If anything, they should just be made into normal SK devices with an unlimited timer. The entire issue with them is that they're 20 levels over the highest level content. Even summoning in one of these things can nearly guarantee success at a Smash.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
Yay for bugfixes.
Then factor in that it's a 30 min timer on a bound device from a "very rare" drop from raid-level event. Doesn't seem too out of hand to me.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
They do 100-150k damage in their 15 second lifespan. Against Gravitar. So no wacky level scaling issues here.
Good to see they're finally a forced 30 minute cooldown (and shared among all of them).
And yes, where's the expected Vlad Halloween content?
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Let me put it this way:
I had a SMASH group where two separate people summoned in Kinetic.
The boss died before their timers were up.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
Champions For A Better Farmville
:biggrin:
This is why I didn't bind any of mine. Patience is a virtue.
How about the invasion of Mega Ds? Any news?
Is it the Vlad Dracul Halloween event?
The chains also came from being able to lower their cooldown, not just from being able to summon a bunch of them at the same time. I see no indication that that still can't be done but I suspect that doing so now would result in DPS that's less than dedicated damage dealers. Getting top DPS now, probably means summoning one of these devices then continuing your regular attack pattern.
I do agree with xao that it doesn't fix the problem that arises when multiple people bring them but at least the playing field is a bit more even in terms of damage dealt by an individual.
Snark never dies.
/signed make it so. (Although, I'd like it if certain devices had a major CD reduction, IE Heroic Resonances)
Trailturtle said it's turned off for good.
Also, the reason why Bloodmoon is on PTS? They want to test the Team Up function once more. Because it's used for all the 13 Heroes and Takofangs. It breaking again would be...bad.
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EDIT: Just saw, thanks. *more frownies*
Noooooooo
By now (1080 day veteran) I should have a Heroic resonance with the same CD length as a regular healing patch.
Snark never dies.
Sorry to hear. I guess I got fairly lucky on the drops despite playing mainly through maybe 8 or 9 runs. If that. From my perspective at least, the drop rates and such seemed pretty groovy. And then the G from dropping Mega Ds was a really awesome consolation prize, as it were.
Oh well, no more sea of Jets. Unless the Dark Aura Tako is around for this Bloodmoon.
Just remember, Devs, good consolation prizes!
The damage they do needs to be nerfed, a lot. If they would be doing 20k damage per activation, instead of 20k per hit, they would still be a very nice free damage bonus, and would still be a lot better then any comparable device.
Having one click cause a damage output of 200K will just never be balanced, no matter the recharge mechanics.
You are referring to 10 persons all using the devices. You are referring to 5 persons all using the devices. Let's change this around. How about 10 range toons launching an imbued (as in live) force cascade to do 20k damage each?
How many 10 persons can you find with these devices doing gravitar at the same time?
Not very often..... yet, now that everyone only needs one, they will get sold more if/when the event starts up again. I have gotten three of these in the short time the event ran. To balance them is not only to look at what they do now, looking at the future possibilities is important too.
Cascade is irrelevant, but if you consider that to be broken you can always ask the devs to change it. To have a build that does a 20K imbued cascade (for as long as that is still possible) we need to make choices, to be able to do that we can not do other things. Silver players can't do that either way, so the chances of having 10 people in our team who do a 20K cascade is miniscule.
These devices are added on top of our builds, we use them without any concession. We just get a massive damage bonus for free, every 30 minutes. The choice we have to make is to play this game and have time for farming during the event, that is all, nothing else is needed.
Also, consider someone new to this game joining a few months after the event, when all the devices have pretty much been sold. They will join a game at which they will have a big balance disadvantage they will not be able to overcome until the next time this event is available (unless these things are added for sale).
This is all still making way to much of an impact on the game, playing "summon champions online" is not what I would consider an improvement to the game.
I did not really want to quote the whole passage however I do wish to address some of the points you mentioned.
The fact that now everyone only needs one does not mean that more will be sold as they are bound to toons so unless they bring back the event which does not look hopeful atm or they have been storing up lots of backups, I do not foresee the market to be flooded with these devices. As and when the event does return, then make the drop even rarer to really differentiate the premium quality of the device. Your original concern was players spamming all 5. These players are now going to be severely penalised if you realised because they paid huge amount unless they were lucky enough like you getting 3 drops (really not that many of them). The fact that they now share cooldown basically make the remaining 4 backups useless for these people. If we nerf it further, they may become so useless that people will not even want them and we may end up with a gravitar situation where the rewards were so pathetic that no one is willing to queue for it.
As for imbued cascade, I have never had a problem with that. I use imbue, but never force cascade or a myriad of the other 100ft range spikes. It is true silver will not be able to use imbued cascade unlike the devices. However if we think about it, these devices can be used once in 30min? Not sure the actual cooldown. So they get to kill Gravitar once every 30min provided they can organise a group and provided that they have that many people who have a backup.
These are purple devices with an ultra-rare drop. Let them at least have some worth rather than nerf them to be like the other bloodmoon devices like Revenant of Fireflight which still had some use pre-alert but now is pretty lame.
We have seen how the nerf bats swing. Let's not take it there. The moment we swing it too hard, we may kill the power or device altogether and we have seen that once too often.
Oh? They are double nerfed? Then no, they have become as good as useless. If you want to remove revitalise effect on them then do not let them have a shared cooldown. If they have a shared cooldown, then allow revitalise to work on them.
With a 30 minute a use that gives like 100k damage is like 10k damage in 3 minutes. Equates this to 3.3k damage in 1 minute. Even an energy builder can do more damage than that. In what way is this too potent?? It is ridiculous for a purple rare device. Even fireflight will be better then.
Is the damage actually spaced out over the course of 30 minutes as you describe, or is it all applied during the device's duration ?
Can one's energy builder do 100k damage in a matter of seconds ? Can it do so while you are using your other attacks ?
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Then would it not be better if the device brings a back up which then does say a few hundred damage a sec over 30 minutes? That makes the device even more useful in more game context. So other than a burst attack within a 15 sec period. It does nothing for the rest of the time. Yay, great for fighting Gravitar like what, 5% of her HP? After this it then becomes useless until the fight has ended.
Even if the device does 500 dmg a sec, it will give 30000 damage in a minute and in 3.5 minute would have outdamaged the backup device.
If your concern is can you do so while using other attacks then take a look at fireflight.
Its a device. Not a part of your skill/build selection process. It functions simultaneously with your own powers. It does, during its duration, more damage than pretty much anything else in the game that is available for player use. When it is available it is a MASSIVE boost to a character's damage output. Really it overshadows anything except for some of the most intense DPS builds in the game.
Let me repeat that...
It overshadows player character capabilities...
Perhaps a 500 DPS device will out damage the current implementation over a period of 3.5 minutes...but the current implementation out damages your suggestion by an order of magnitude (and then some) when measured over a period of 15 seconds.
Does Fireflight do 100k damage in a matter of seconds without tying up a power slot ?
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Hence my point to you in the other thread which is the functionality of this device. Because the backup will be way overkill in almost all other game content except against cosmic boss fights where it's damage then becomes insignificant since such fights drags out. Hence my comparison over time.
Might I suggest dropping it at "no level" like the BM devices and having it do much less damage than all the other lvl 60 devices in the game (hint: there are none) AND sharing a cooldown like all the other devices in the game?
Why penalize players for having the right build to use these items effectively when you don't for other "more-scaled to lvl 40 critters" devices?
Functionality exceptions are bad...mmmmkay.
People are broken. - Lum the Mad
Because it is a device, not a part of a build, so a build should not effect it.
The argument about whether or not a device is part of a build is irrelevant. From a thematic point of view, gadgeteers with high Int should be able better utilize devices. Just like those with high Dex are able to get more crits out of attack devices.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Even if the total damage output they do is cut in 10, they will still be useful and do more damage then any other device.
Agreed, and a well deserved nerf at that. Allowing some players to be functionally twenty levels higher than others was a bit much.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
So the purple dragon staff should not be able to crit.
You do realise your are asking for either 6X150000=900000 damage spike available every 30 minutes, or a 150000 damage spike available to some builds (and why should those builds get that option) every 45 seconds or so.
I know you are knowledgeable about the game mechanics, I honestly do not understand how you can think the current implementation on PTS is in any way balanced, much less what you propose here.
Refer to DPS calculation above.
Sustained dps is not relevant, the spike damage is still way over the top.
Agreed.
This is not a true statement. Not from a DPS perspective over time, for sure. And not even in an absolute sense--for example, the Jets can do 40K spikes every 10 seconds or so.
Edit: Quoted the wrong post. Need coffee..
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
900000 damage every 30 minutes equates to 30000 damage every 1 minute which equates to 500 dmg every sec. And yes I agree with ashensnow that there are limited usage of such short burst except in major boss fights like gravitar.
150000 damage every 45 secs equates to 3333 damage a second. This is certainly more powerful. However you do realise that builds with ability to spam the backups are primarily spamming energy builder throughout the game. This is equivalent to their main attack.
LOL. Sustained DPS is still important because no one is going to use the backups to kill mobs and their practicality comes in fighting cosmic bosses where the fight will be long drawn. So when we look at it over time, it will be even weaker than something like fireflight which is a blue device worth only a couple of hundred Gs vs a purple device which people have spent thousands of Gs buying.
They would still do 15k damage over 15 seconds at the click of a button, without any charge time, and working independent of any other things you do.
Comparing that to any other power in the game is still overpowered, but kept in check by the 30 minutes recharge.
No, devices are not for sustained dps, and should not be balanced for it. If there is concern about having 6 of these without use now, I would propose making them not bindable.
You do know how that would then compared to devices like Fireflight right? Which can be CD by revitalise and can be used like 60 times over or more in that 30 minutes. Even if all firefight does was 1k damage for its entire duration, it will have done like 60k dmg in 30 minutes with revitalise compared to 15k over 30 minutes.
The concern is not 6 of them without use. Devices are doing damage and hence they play a part in DPS. Since they can be used repeatedly over time and is not a once off use then they matters to sustained DPS.
They should be made not bindable but with only 1 or the other nerf. Meaning give them a shared cooldown but revitalise still works or revitalise do not work but they can be used independently without the shared cooldown.
The game should not be balanced around revitalize, devices least of all.
Err? Sorry you kinda lost me there not too sure what you meant. If we take out revitalise which is now being done with the shared cooldown and revitalise not affecting it, the device is even worse off then a blue bloodmoon device.
Fireflight last 20 seconds and is level 46 and if revitalise is allowed here then it will be more powerful. Are you suggesting removing cooldown effect of revitalise then on all devices? Then the devs will be needing to relook the entire revitalise which was already nerfed once such that the cooldown effect only takes place once every 2 seconds.
In my opinion builds/powers/specs should never have affected devices. Damage devices doing more damage for a dps character is silly, it is not like the time spent by those characters is more valuable.
Devices need to be balanced in a way that they do a bit more damage then normal powers and be unaffected by your build, and be balanced by their cooldown.
The reason for never bringing this up, was that most devices are underpowered (Daemonic Avatar :rolleyes:), but that did not break the game, so they could easily be ignored.
Well like I said, that will require a relook then of revitalise and devices as a whole because atm as we know revitalise does affect most devices. However you must also note that revitalise requires active use of energy builder which means to fully take advantage of revitalise, besides using energy builder there is very little one can do. This means a structural review of the intel spec tree and possibly retconning of builds which currently make use of revitalise and even devices. IMO, it is enough to nerf the backups with a shared cooldown. Leave the revitalise portion first. Take it one step at a time and see what is the effect. Also unbind the devices for those who have multiple equipped. The devices were released as such so players who have used them in such a manner (and spent time and resources building it) should not be further penalised.