PTS update FC.31.20121005.1
This build is scheduled to hit PTS by 6:30pm PST on 10/05/12
Hello, everyone!
As promised, we are bringing back the "UNTIL Carrier Defense" mission back to PTS.
This version of the mission includes changes make following your feedback and internal playtesting.
In addition to the mission, we're excited to preview the new vehicle system(and new vehicles) on PTS!!
The Hover Tank, and Jet-bike are two, all-new vehicles with unique powers that are modifiable by players.
-There are two variants of each vehicle.
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
UNTIL Carrier Defense-The mission is now accessible thought the queue(fist) icon in the minimap.
-Update engines to not be fish trucks
-Increase enemy damage output
-Engines glow red when critical(and during cutscene)
-Announcements of when things are going critical during mission
-Cutscene art updates
Hover Tank and Jet Bike vehicles:
-Four new vehicles are available in the debugger near the PowerHouse.
-In addition to the new vehicles, the debugger also offers mod-packs for you to tweak your vehicle powers!
-Enjoy!
Known Issues:
-Vehicle art (models, power effects, etc.) are still a work-in-progress
-UNTIL Carrier Defense mission art is still a work-in-progress
Comments
I believe this face will show many of our feelings on this : :biggrin:
Deliciously nutritious!
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
It was stated in the first patch notes about the Carrier Defense that there would be temporary vehicles provided, similar to the Nighthawk mission I suspect.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
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Just like the Nighthawk event, having a vehicle of any sort is not required. In fact, when I last tested it, all ten of us stayed out of our vehicles and completed it just fine.
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Understood and thank you for the response. However, my question was,
"Will there be any option for non flying characters who do not use vehicles to play this content ?"
Thank you very much for this.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Ok excitement passing, hover bikes, not exactly what I was hoping for but its still a win, hover I'd like to suggest to make the vehicles have multiple travel methods, like land mode/flight mode, this is really only an aesthetic request, because I'd love to just roll around MC, you know, being badass.
Well, one person had Swinging. He wasn't that useful for the first two stages, but the final two he could plunk himself onto the top part of the Carrier.
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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The one who can't shut up formerly known as 4rksakes
About the @handle - it's a long story.
Profound quote.. "I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing."
Power 3 Heavy Cannon
The power works just fine but the zombies go flying, die and damage floaters go up just before the explosion animation.
Guess this is a bug... My system is great btw. wish everybody could play the game full on as I do
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The one who can't shut up formerly known as 4rksakes
About the @handle - it's a long story.
Profound quote.. "I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing."
Snark never dies.
I do not think this is true.
From what I understood of it, some of the mods you slot in determine what your powers beyond the first four will be.
---
Also, I have discovered something that may be working incorrectly with one of the vehicle mods:
Bug: [Reinforced Coating 3] energy increase not working.
Where it happens: Tested on a [Become Fast Attack Hover Tank], in MC.
What happens: regardless of whether or not I slot the mod, max energy stays at 100, despite the mod's +10% max energy tooltip.
Here's a screenshot of what I mean.
[SIGPIC]Or am I?[/SIGPIC]
This loony is also known as @Derangement.
As stated in the next post - yeah, we can't mod in slots 5 and 6, and word on the street is that those will be different powers. Best guess based on how many different mods can go into each slot as is, we could see 6 powers or so per vehicle type (of which you can choose only two).
And BTW - once you craft R3 mods, they all have two different abilities. So your +Crit Chance now has +Avoid as well on it.
BUG (maybe): Slotting two of the exact same Mod of the same rank causes no additional effect. Two different ranks (or two different Mods that cause the same effect) stack just fine however.
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Actually, considering we've been told that the FX and the artwork for the vehicles isn't finished yet, it may just be the intent of the art team to render your character sitting in the bike. I mean, otherwise, why design it to be an open-air vehicle, but leave the seat blatantly empty? Give it some time, it's probably a tricky thing to work out.
Anyways.
The Vehicles themselves are pretty neat. Though I'm quite surprised the "hover" tanks get as much air as they do. I fully expected them to gain only modest altitude, and not all-out fly around. My bad.
For the Fast Attack Tank, may I suggest tweaking the firing speeds of its weapons? Since it's supposed to be a "fast attack" tank and all, it seems somewhat counter-intuitive that its guns should fire so slowly.
The Interceptor Bike's Singularity Bomb? Fantastic. The Support Bike's Decoy Drones? Not so much.
Really, the only thing that somewhat bugs me overall is the fact that the movesets for these vehicles is so... limited, compared to the Hawkwings'. I mean, do we get gear that rectifies this? Adds in full and complete new powers? I mean, otherwise, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how these new vehicles are supposed to compete with the arsenals of the "prototype" jets.
I could make some suggestions.
In fact, I think I will.
For the Fast Attack Tank: Give it a power that resembles the player Gatling Gun power, but allows you to remain mobile. It'd be a neat maintain cone spray of bullets.
For the Heavy Attack Tank: Maybe give it something like the Heavy Hawkwing's Force Shield? I dunno, seems appropriate.
The Interceptor Grav Bike: Tough call, but it needs something!
The Support Grav Bike: Something that SUPPORTS??!! How about that neato Medisteel Beam from the Command Hawkwing? Or give it a Medical Nanites Passive or something?
Oh and will they ever be more than just become devices?
As it stands, they're already different from Become Devices, despite functioning in a similar manner.
Because in case you didn't notice, the Hover Tank and the Grav Bike can be modded with a new type of mod piece.
I imagine more rare Vehicles will probably have more slots for more mods.
Simple Become devices they are not.
That's like saying "moddable items are different from items", mhm but they are still items!
Yes these vehicles are still become devices, only now they have mod slots.
My questions still stand!
Technically this is all still prototype, the final versions will be customizable too.
That would be nice if true, but I would like to see this confirmed by the developers themselves.
Just like having to click to use strafing run, i do not click, I have no cursor when I'm playing. So i have to go through the trouble of toggling off mouselook, dragging my cursor from wherever it is to target, and then clicking then toggling mouselook again to go back to normal play.
Snark never dies.
No, they aren't become devices. Definitely not.
A become device, there is one and only one way of playing with it.
The heavy fighter will always be a tank, the command will always be a support, and the interceptor will always be a dps.
You won't change any one of their properties to do less damage but be more tough, or more damage and be more fragile.
No customization.
Here, you can choose what the mods you can put in the vehicule, you can customize it to have the gameplay you want.
There is 6 slots. Two slots for "defense", 2 slots for "support" (not support as the role, this is the name of the slots but all the mods you put in these slots aren't support mod) and two slots we don't know exactly what their purpose at this time.
And there is 14 mods, 7 mods for the 2 "defense" slots and 7 mods for the 2 "support" slots.
At rank 3, the mods have two properties.
3 properties at rank 5, 4 properties at rank 7, 5 properties at rank 9 ?
You want your vehicule to be more tank, more dps, more support debuffs, some of each ?
You choose with your mods.
This is definitely not become devices. You have customization of their stats. Some tell that devs have said we will choose some powers or look with the others slots we can't see at this time.
What do you want more ? Waiting to see the final system is the only way to do, if you want judge the system.
This remember me the "on alert" iteration on pts where all cried because their characters were nerfed, this was dooooom.
And one month after, all characters had a lot more power than before the patch. This was just funny to read for me.
@Cryptic:
1) I find these new vehicules have a really good manoeuvrability improvement than the hawkwing prototypes. It's a very good job for this.
2) The look of the vehicules is good.
3) But... These vehicules are overpowered !!! 150 ft range, 10 max targets, a speed with or without turbo i wish to have in my superspeeder character.
Hey ! Flash or superman can't run more quickly than a jet ? Or this is the opposite? (i read comics since so many years, don't tell me a lie, i know the answer)
4) The game content which was already too much easy. With the vehicules it's just... How to say that ? Zzzzzz is a good resume. You must really do something to having challenge in this game. Really. Each year It's worse than the last year. I know that the players don't like to see the word "nerf" but seriously... NERF THEM !!!
The bloodmoon bosses were a joke, a HP bags who aren't dangerous, i can watch tv at the same time without no fear because it's impossible to die. With the cycle, not just the hover. 0/10 for this part.
5) I hope for a good customization of powers with the two last slots.
6) The system of fusion is always boring for players. Must farm and take a lot of time to do a mod R9, ok.
But to have less and less chance with any rank to fuse a mod and loose one of them is just frustrating and boring. The players will do as they do for the other mods. Rank 4 or 5 for the majority of players.
I understand that the game is F2P and you want to sell catalysts but this is all but a good gameplay design for the players who plays at your game. Be serious, the CO community aren't hardcore gamers, they are RP players and their major occupation is the tailor and the clup caprice.
A simple smash alert is often a fail because the players don't know how to create a build, don't have any gear, don't have any teamplay. Rush and zerg is their way of life. Hello, i'm a squeechie, i pull the mobs. Splouch. Even gravitar says it's pathetic...
You should choose because, you can have the two community in this game. Not enough challenge for one of the two population. Already no challenge for normal players, then... This fusion failure is inadequate for this game (i hope this is good for your profitability because this is the only good thing the fusion can do for the game).
You should choose between the mods and giving challenge to have a chance to please at the 11M of players who plays at mmos (because every of them is a lot harder than here) or continue with the few players who plays at co and continue to do RP instances and take back your fusion system.
7) Good job for the new alert too. I'd do it, i don't have seen any bug. It seems to need some teamplay, i love that.
You slot the device under you devices bar, and once activated your character literally becomes (as in morphs into) that vehicle, YES they are still become devices, now with the ability to slot mods (that do not change the become device's appearance).
Vehicles should be something you call out for you character to get into (onto in the case of bikes), and they should have some level of appearance customization.
Considering the vehicles aren't final and the mods, according to Crush, will alter the vehicles appearance, it's one thing or another. A vehicle is a device, and how you are asking it to work would probably be more trouble than it's worth. This is, to be blunt, probably the best solution, and one that can work for everyone.
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Though I was hoping that the powers would be separate with a familiar design to how power replacers work. I was hoping for a more in depth window to click your mods to on the left and the powers on the bottom. A simple add on to the character window.
All they did was take one of the most moronic gimmicks ever, become devices, and applied the WORST grind mechanic that has ever been seen in CO to it: Mods. Quite literally crafted travel power grind but with 10x worse drop rates AND the ability to lose components.
How or why any player accepts this as is, is entirely beyond me. Are you really all that desperate for anything new that you're going to have this spoonfed to you?
I think I give up...
Snark never dies.
-Four new vehicles are available in the debugger near the PowerHouse.
-In addition to the new vehicles, the debugger also offers mod-packs for you to tweak your vehicle powers!
-Enjoy!
I KNEW IT! I knew saving my ZEN was a good idea >:3
My inventor and Invincible are gonna rock this look so damn hard.:biggrin::cool:
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Pretty much this ^^
I hope that they function like Hover Disc
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did They Fix the Dаmn C-Store Yet?
Lies. Your hope rating is still 2/100.
First off: not everyone wanted all flying vehicles
second off: of all the vehicles you could've chosen, you chose a tank that looks like it was from star wars, what was wrong with say the VIPER anaconda tank design
And Finally: Where is the 'colour customization' you guys promised...
My main character is Blackflight
.... okay, how the hell do you expect a Vehicles System to work in a video game like this one?
Seriously? "Push a button and get into the vehicle"? Uhm, how does that translate into a video game, I wonder? Could it be something like, "Push a button, have your current character model replaced with a specific vehicle model so as to simulate the act of entering a vehicle"? Gee, I wonder how THAT would work, visually and mechanically?
You're just repeating the same nonsense over and over, without really understanding how basic mechanics work, and honestly you're coming off as somewhat obtuse about the entire affair.
What you're asking for is, in essence, an animation of the character "entering" the vehicle when it is activated. But mechanically speaking, when you activate your vehicle, your character is replaced by the vehicle. This is how it works in video games.
The Vehicles function similarly to Become Devices. They are not Become Devices.
And as the devs themselves pointed out, this is far from the final iteration of the Vehicle System.
Meaning, it's not done yet.
Also, this: Says who? Seriously, who sets this as necessary, definitive criteria? You? No, that's not how things work.
Granted, the devs already mentioned quite a while ago that they would try to give us limited control over the Vehicles physical appearances. It is on their plate. But honestly, I find that entire aspect secondary in nature and not completely necessary. As long as they get the basics down for the vehicles, such as allowing us to tweak the actual stats of the things, I'm cool. Everything else is just gravy.
My main character is Blackflight
Which I cited, and also pointed out that it is not a necessity. It's even in the quote box you got from me.
To you and everyone else who is looking for more out of these vehicles, I point you towards the patch notes:
Known Issues:
-Vehicle art (models, power effects, etc.) are still a work-in-progress
This is a TEST server for a reason. These JUST came out! Give it some time!
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I remember them stating the same thing about the Hawkwing vehicles when they made their first appearance on the test server and look what happened, no appearance customization whatsoever.
All that "known issue" statement means is that they may need to tweak the model and power effects in upcoming updates, nothing more.
What we need is a statement stating that vehicle appearance customization is coming soon!
Just having slotted mods better not be some cheap way to escape making vehicles into something more than moddable become devices.
Well stated and good questions!
I wont be buying any. The models look ugly to me.
- -
I say the same for the Queue system.. lots of programming and nealy zero benefit. In the future I hope you take these "how will the player view the work we're doing 6 months from now"
Frankly I think you're going against your own niche. I can't see the merit of either of the two systems in the Champions Online universe.
Sigs have a delayed update.
Snark never dies.
About the Tanks: 250 feet on their attacks. With those I managed to solo the blood moon bosses with ease, no return fire or threat to me. While the overall damage may be low, which is good, the range is to much.
About the Bikes: The support bike does not feel fun or supportive. What are decoy drones supposed to do anyways? Besides just sit there? The gravity pulse on both is fun, but, a 100ft range SPHERE?! Isn't that a bit much? And the fast attack bike feels more like a slow attack bike due to the long cd on its good attack...but....that attack has a 150ft range...which is a bit much imo.
Reduce the ranges to more reasonable ranges. Like for the cannons and fast attack bike: 100ft. For the gravity pulses...maybe 50ft?
Also, despite them being "hover" and "gravity" vehicles, I feel that they should be limited to the ground. We have flying vehicles already, plus, with the absurd range on their attacks, if they are limited to the ground, at least mobs can try to hurt them.
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^^^This^^^
I think this is an AI issue, AI need to be able to react to 150' attacks.
Will those of us who ended up with prototype vehicles (i.e., Hawkwings) get the chance to upgrade them to honest-to-goodness vehicles, complete with appearance and customization options?
When I heard about jet bikes, what I was hoping for was something that my toon rides on, rather than in. Are you exploring the possibility of such vehicles? (I know that there are technical issues involved; but you have managed hover disks and flying carpets.)
And let me second the motion for ground vehicles. Admittedly, what I call the Lemurian issue would have to be addressed; but still...
Telepathy is still mostly useless in my eyes. The new powers (barring the pets which buff, and even some of them) do not have any real role in CO. Absurdly low damage DoTs which give some stacking effect after the DoT expires is laughable. Worse is the new blast power to detonate said effects. Even the cosmics don't live long enough against a high dps team to make full use of all 10 stacks.
But hey, they interrupt! That's good right? Well, not so much. To make these powers as they are now worthwhile would require bosses/mobs to be buffed to the point where interrupting is essential. Otherwise teams will pass over a very low damage character in favor of a higher damage one. It also brings up the question as to how Cryptic will handle interrupts on a larger scale. Will it be possible to make a punching bag out of any mob with enough interrupt spam?
The pets that buff should have something in the tooltips stating they scale with Endurance.
Vehicles! I didn't like them before, and nothing I've seen yet has changed my mind. They're clunky and ugly in both looks and functionality. The addition of yet more mods to farm/grind is not appealing either. My personal take on vehicles should be taken with a grain of salt since I've been against them from the start. I'd MUCH rather dev resources be spent on new zones, content, power sets and costumes.
The Devs need to look at individual powers,
not just as whole powersets.
This is a freeform system, endless combination, not to say you can't make innerset synergies, just you need to look at each power.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
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