FC.31.20140919.1/.2/.3 PTS Update

lordgar

This build will hit PTS at around 7:00pm Pacific Time, 9/22/2014.


You can find release notes for previous unreleased PTS patches by using the link(s) below:

FC.31.20140919.0


Release Notes for FC.31.20140919.3:


Mechanon Event:

• Fixed a problem with Mechanon trying to spawn in after the timer runs out.
  
  
• Raised the target cap on the Mega Destroids' Destroyer Blast.

Release Notes for FC.31.20140919.2:


Mechanon Event:

• Fixed an issue that caused two sets of billboards to appear on top of each other.
  
  
• Minor tweaking to the event.

UI:

• The "reloaded" loading screen image has been replaced with a Mechanon-themed loading screen image.

Steel Crusade:

• Heat Wave: The Cryogenic Spray no longer tries to auto-equip itself when you receive it.

Costumes:

• Mechanon arms: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly. Added glow to the 3rd and 4th color channels.
  
  
• Mechanon legs: Added glow to the 3rd color channel.
  
  
• Mechanon Shinguards: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly.

Release Notes for FC.31.20140919.1:


Steel Crusade:

• The "Mechanon's Greatest Foes" Lore is now available in the Cislunar Mechanon mission, fixing a bug where duplicate Lore was offered.
  
  
• The ADIS Platform in UNTIL HQ will now allow more than one player to interact with it at a time.
  
  
• In Brain Freeze and Project Clockwork missions, one player finishing the expository cutscene will no longer complete other players' objectives.
  
  
• Added a missing message to the recognition vendor's costume store.

Costumes:

• Added several new "channels" to the Junkbot TV screen. Most of these are courtesy of Kaizerin!

Vehicle Mods:

• Regenerative Biosteel: The Bonus Ammo Regeneration was activating unexpectedly often. This stat has been changed to activate once per second, and scaled appropriately. Note that energy gains in your combat log are rounded up from their decimal values. This is a display bug we're looking into.
  
  
• Regenerative Biosteel has been put on the Debugger for testing purposes.

Please format any bugs you find in the following format:
Bug
Where it happens
What happens



Please stay on topic in this PTS thread. We use bug reports from this thread to decide whether a PTS build is ready to go live, and so we need to make sure we're seeing everything in it. Please do discuss the changes, but if you find yourself writing about something that isn't specific to what's on PTS, then that should probably go elsewhere.

In particular, do not report bugs from the live game in this thread, unless they are impacted by changes in the PTS build.

crypticbuxom

Regenerative Biosteel: The Bonus Ammo Regeneration was activating unexpectedly often. This stat has been changed to activate once per second, and scaled appropriately. Note that energy gains in your combat log are rounded up from their decimal values. This is a display bug we're looking into.

We told you about this when Vehicles 2.0 was being tested and when it went live. You insisted that it was working as intended. We bought Vehicle Tune Up Kits based on this information

If you are going back on this at least fix vehicles never critting ever as compensation. Don't say vehicles crit when we have dozens of accounts and data parsing that prove they don't. When they do crit it only happens one out of a hundred times you get into the vehicle.

nbkxs

The defensive penetration on the scanners doesn't work either. Please look at this.

Edit: tested the biosteels; they seem to be working to spec as per the tooltip.

XS

stellariodragon

Are you guys going to have a PTS event for the Destroid Attack Mechananon takeover before it goes live? Not sure if anyone ever played through that on PTS yet.

crypticbuxom

stellariodragon wrote: »

Are you guys going to have a PTS event for the Destroid Attack Mechananon takeover before it goes live? Not sure if anyone ever played through that on PTS yet.

We tried with about 20+ people and failed but there was one left. This was before two waves of nerfs. We should test it with a bunch of people again since Plasma and Regen is dead.

jimhsua

crypticbuxom wrote: »

We tried with about 20+ people and failed but there was one left. This was before two waves of nerfs. We should test it with a bunch of people again since Plasma and Regen is dead.

Was that before or after the anti-vehicular beam changes? There was the problem that as stacks continue to grow, the encounter becomes more unmanageable even to people who are not in vehicles, which could be a problem.

stellariodragon

• Regenerative Biosteel: The Bonus Ammo Regeneration was activating unexpectedly often. This stat has been changed to activate once per second, and scaled appropriately. Note that energy gains in your combat log are rounded up from their decimal values. This is a display bug we're looking into.
  
  
• Regenerative Biosteel has been put on the Debugger for testing purposes.

Does it still have purple floaters to the right of large vehicles? In my hawk 2 the energy recover is a bunch of 2's almost off-screen. It was a slight annoyance.

canadascott

Folks, I'm going to try to make a run on the Destroid/Mechanon fight tomorrow night. If you can meet me at 650 or so outside (server time, just before 10 eastern), I'd appreciate it.

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aiqa

If energy management is to play a role in vehicle combat, having circles (or necrullitic elixir for that matter) work on vehicles is probably not intended either.

gradii wrote: »

Consider removing the combat speed restriction to give us back the hit and run tactics of hit hard, run, reload, hit again. this will make the change to biosteel bearable.

Also consider changing the boost back to the old version which in most cases was superior.

Agreed with that, I've always thought the full mobility in combat was the mechanic they were designed for. The first vehicle event was a good example how vehicles could be made a requirement just by using that.

crypticbuxom wrote: »

We told you about this when Vehicles 2.0 was being tested and when it went live. You insisted that it was working as intended. We bought Vehicle Tune Up Kits based on this information

I don't remember it being brought up, and being confirmed to be working as intended. Do you have a link?

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kaiserin

Tested the biosteels. Change is significant and appreciated but does not address the problem with Plasma Beam.

Using Quick Reload does a good job mitigating this, and you can double them up. Swapping out vehicle weapons is fairly inexpensive so you're not gimping your ride doing this. There's also running multiple vehicles with different purposes.

If you don't want to do that there's Circle of Arcane Power for infinite energy. Could also team up with a AOPM user and make those Quick Reloads do even more work.

Would like to see Plasma Beam actually be addressed.

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quasimojo1

I don't know how this all going to end up with respect to the vehicles, but if these Mark 2 vehicles that people have been buying for the last 6 months end up being even less useful than the Mark 1's used to be, how do you think that's going to be perceived?

I think Cryptic needs to have a plan for what the role of vehicles is in the game (other than revenue generator). Is it ok for vehicles to have certain advantages in specific encounters, or does "balance" mean equal in all combat parameters (while usable in only a subset of encounters)?

I agree that mod effects should match their tooltips, but while we're going down that road, let's fix vehicle crits and hull scanner.

thelastsonofzod

quasimojo1 wrote: »

I don't know how this all going to end up with respect to the vehicles, but if these Mark 2 vehicles that people have been buying for the last 6 months end up being even less useful than the Mark 1's used to be, how do you think that's going to be perceived?

I think Cryptic needs to have a plan for what the role of vehicles is in the game (other than revenue generator). Is it ok for vehicles to have certain advantages in specific encounters, or does "balance" mean equal in all combat parameters (while usable in only a subset of encounters)?

I agree that mod effects should match their tooltips, but while we're going down that road, let's fix vehicle crits and hull scanner.

I think this is a relavent issue to consider. Whether it was intended or not, vehicles get used alot in these sorts of world boss encounters, and having a firm idea of where vehicles should fit into them will go a long ways towards balancing them. I honestly don't have much desire to do the Destroid event at this point, because very nearly every person to this point has been using vehicles, and with the manner in which they've been nerfed, we're not going to win.

I won't say players Can't win, but I will say this is going to make it harder on casual players.

Sidebar: Thanks for the smiley face Kaiz, now Scrapheap has a smile

thelastsonofzod

Double Post.

flyingfinn

How did we manage to beat them before Vehicles?

riverocean

I played around with Regenerative Biosteel last night. I don't have hard numbers, but it's still darn good. it still gives a good deal of energy, and it still provides tons of defense and regeneration.

It's far from ruined.

On quick tap of reload (and I barely had to use it) fills the energy bar back up.


I'd be interested in seeing what someone who is more math inclined has to say. But seriously, other than occasionally having to use the reload function (which no one was using at all before), there's not much of a difference.

This is a pretty modest change.

kenpojujitsu3

quasimojo1 wrote: »

Is it ok for vehicles to have certain advantages in specific encounters, or does "balance" mean equal in all combat parameters (while usable in only a subset of encounters)?

That's been a concern of mine for quite some time now.

canadascott wrote: »

Folks, I'm going to try to make a run on the Destroid/Mechanon fight tomorrow night. If you can meet me at 650 or so outside (server time, just before 10 eastern), I'd appreciate it.

Will try to make it but it will be a stretch for me. I'll head home promptly after BJJ class ends tonight (unless you mean tomorrow as in Wednesday in which case it should be easier for me to get things squared away on my end to participate).

crypticbuxom

Are you guys ever planning on letting Aspect of the Machine grant energy with its stacks like all the other Form toggles in the game?

soulforger

Just going to keep reposting this until the bugs are fixed:

BUG: Mechanon Arms do not have glow and the leather and metal textures are broken.

Bug: Mechanon Feet Accessory leather and metal textures are broken

jimhsua

soulforger wrote: »

Just going to keep reposting this until the bugs are fixed:

BUG: Mechanon Arms do not have glow and the leather and metal textures are broken.

Bug: Mechanon Feet Accessory leather and metal textures are broken

Screenshot of these might help.

Unknown

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quasimojo1

Here's some data from 39 Lemurian Invasion encounters in March of this year. I'm comparing the overall DPS for the encounter of Plasma Beam vehicles users vs everyone else. The average difference is ~10%.



I'm not sure off-hand if these runs were before or after vehicles Mark 2, but I think before. I wouldn't say this is particularly conclusive one way or the other, but some may find it interesting. It will also give a baseline for comparison after the latest nerfs.

pantagruel01

quasimojo1 wrote: »

Here's some data from 39 Lemurian Invasion encounters in March of this year. I'm comparing the overall DPS for the encounter of Plasma Beam vehicles users vs everyone else. The average difference is ~10%.

Your select statement appears to be leaving out plasma shear, which does not have an attack type of plasma beam mark X and accounts for 80-90% of the dps of plasma beam.

quasimojo1

pantagruel01 wrote: »

Your select statement appears to be leaving out plasma shear, which does not have an attack type of plasma beam mark X and accounts for 80-90% of the dps of plasma beam.

Bzzzt. I'm selecting the combatants whose set of attacks include Plasma Beam. It is not possible to have Plasma Shear damage without Plasma Beam.

pantagruel01

quasimojo1 wrote: »

Bzzzt. I'm selecting the combatants whose set of attacks include Plasma Beam. It is not possible to have Plasma Shear damage without Plasma Beam.

You sure? Your reported dps is consistent with not having plasma shear included.

quasimojo1

pantagruel01 wrote: »

You sure? Your reported dps is consistent with not having plasma shear included.

Thanks for your expert opinion. Results are no different if I match on Plasma Shear or Plasma Beam; it's not possible to have one without the other.

jimhsua

quasimojo1 wrote: »

Thanks for your expert opinion. Results are no different if I match on Plasma Shear or Plasma Beam; it's not possible to have one without the other.

If I still understand SQL, the query is selecting the EncDPS of the player based on whether he/she uses plasma beam, not the DPS of any particular weapon. Those results are also consistent w/ my own testing (and will fall further when the recon biosteel changes make it to live).

Anyways, I've decided to exercise my right to self-censor and refrain from further comments on this topic. Thank you for the discussions so far.

pantagruel01

quasimojo1 wrote: »

Thanks for your expert opinion. Results are no different if I match on Plasma Shear or Plasma Beam; it's not possible to have one without the other.

Interesting. I'll need to grab some logs, we'll see if LI actually pops.

quasimojo1

jimhsua wrote: »

If I still understand SQL, the query is selecting the EncDPS of the player based on whether he/she uses plasma beam, not the DPS of any particular weapon. Those results are also consistent w/ my own testing (and will fall further when the recon biosteel changes make it to live).

Correctomundo.

jimhsua

quasimojo1 wrote: »

Correctomundo.

Since you have 39 encounters, I assume you have enough datapoints. Can you plot frequency-binned histograms of the data? I think though the means are close, the pbeam data will have a bit more positive skew than the non-pbeam data, but that's me guessing again.

quasimojo1

jimhsua wrote: »

Since you have 39 encounters, I assume you have enough datapoints. Can you plot frequency-binned histograms of the data? I think though the means are close, the pbeam data will have a bit more positive skew than the non-pbeam data, but that's me guessing again.

Unfortunately, the data I moved over to SQL is not quite that granular, i.e. I don't have individual attacks, or time periods smaller than "encounter" because the disk space requirements get large. I do expect you're right about the skew.

soulforger

jimhsua wrote: »

Screenshot of these might help.

You're right, So I'll post screen shots....once I update the PTS.

aiqa

So where do we actually stand on dps now on PTS? Soloing in a vehicle without using buffs that are designed for PCs (but that are much more effective for vehicles) it does not looks all that OP. But it is kind of hard to test, with PB only really working well on a team, and all the bugs with crits and mods on vehicles.

soulforger

Ok, got the screen shots. So once again, the Bugs:

BUG: Mechanon Arms do not have glow and the leather and metal textures are broken.

Bug: Mechanon Feet Accessory leather and metal textures are broken

And below, the pictures.

Here are the Mechanon Arms with cloth textures:


Here it is with leather and metal textures:


As you can see, the leather and metal textures are broken compared to the cloth textures. Also the 4th color channel should have glow options like the other mechanon parts.

Here are the Mechanon Feet Accessories with cloth textures:


Here it is with leather and metal textures:


Again, as you can see, the leather and metal textures are broken.

aurasonic12

soulforger wrote: »

Ok, got the screen shots. So once again, the Bugs:

BUG: Mechanon Arms do not have glow and the leather and metal textures are broken.

Bug: Mechanon Feet Accessory leather and metal textures are broken

And below, the pictures.

Here are the Mechanon Arms with cloth textures:


Here it is with leather and metal textures:


As you can see, the leather and metal textures are broken compared to the cloth textures. Also the 4th color channel should have glow options like the other mechanon parts.

Here are the Mechanon Feet Accessories with cloth textures:


Here it is with leather and metal textures:


Again, as you can see, the leather and metal textures are broken.

Thank god i'm not the only one noticing this this needs to be addressed because if there are bugged mechanon pices whats the point of farming them? Also tested biosteel today not really happy with energy returns but i am happy to not see numbers flashing on my screen now when my energy is full. Lets just say higher costing energy weapons like full battry barrage and incendiary rounds are going to be harder to use without hitting reload

theravenforce

Might be a stretch to ask this but...could the King Sekhen cybernetic arm pieces be looked at? They seem to be clipping horribly on female models, showing bits of skin and flesh instead of a smooth cybernetic arm.

Unknown

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lordgar

We are currently updating PTS to version FC.31.20140919.2.


Release Notes for FC.31.20140919.2:


Mechanon Event:

• Fixed an issue that caused two sets of billboards to appear on top of each other.
  
  
• Minor tweaking to the event.

UI:

• The "reloaded" loading screen image has been replaced with a Mechanon-themed loading screen image.

Steel Crusade:

• Heat Wave: The Cryogenic Spray no longer tries to auto-equip itself when you receive it.

Costumes:

• Mechanon arms: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly. Added glow to the 3rd and 4th color channels.
  
  
• Mechanon legs: Added glow to the 3rd color channel.
  
  
• Mechanon Shinguards: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly.

vladcul

BUG: Mechanon did not completely despawn after the event timed out (failed).

Before the .2 update, we were testing the OM with Mechanon spawning. The event failed since there was only a handful of us.

After the event failed and all the mobs faded out, Mechanon started to flicker in and out of view (at his spawn point) and several of the Champion NPCs responded (did see whether they faded out at the failed time out or not). Witchcraft and Nighthawk stood at Mechanon's feet and kept yelling "Mechanon!" and other of their phrases. The did not attack but reacted as if they had been hit by something and spit handfuls of the buff orbs.

soulforger

lordgar wrote: »

[*]Mechanon arms: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly. Added glow to the 3rd and 4th color channels.


[*]Mechanon legs: Added glow to the 3rd color channel.


[*]Mechanon Shinguards: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly.

Awesome! That is perfect! And the new glow channels on the 3rd color is different. Will have to check them out.

All I can ask for now at this point is the following: Suggestion: Add glow to the Junkbot Work Light 4th Color (the color of the light bulbs).

aurasonic12

lordgar wrote: »

Costumes:

• Mechanon arms: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly. Added glow to the 3rd and 4th color channels.
  
  
• Mechanon legs: Added glow to the 3rd color channel.
  
  
• Mechanon Shinguards: Fixed an issue that prevented the textures on the metal and leather materials from displaying properly.

Finally. nice quick updating the bugged costume pieces

sterga

lordgar wrote: »

The "reloaded" loading screen image has been replaced with a Mechanon-themed loading screen image.

New wallpaper?

pantagruel01

Okay, I did some parsing of a bleak harbinger fight. In the process I discovered that plasma shear counts the target of the power as being the source, and leaves the actual target null (target is fields 5-6, source is fields 3-4). I haven't used the new parser, but it may be worth checking if it works correctly. In any case, sources of damage to the harbinger (names masked)

P[11297084],:1370.22
P[11297084],Fissure:577.181
P[11297084],Wield Earth:679.702

P[11515699],Anti Aircraft Missile Mark 2:43966.6
P[11515699],Plasma Beam Mark 3:73181.2
P[11515699],Plasma Shear:544539
P[11515699],Raptor Bite:799.209

P[11526875],Gatling Gun:155425
P[11526875],Steady Shot:5366.87
P[11526875],Submachinegun Burst:1357.05

P[1353345],Plasma Beam Mark 2:52630.3
P[1353345],Plasma Shear:396748

P[5114350],Plasma Beam Mark 2:8580.58
P[5114350],Plasma Shear:64134.2

P[7093534],Plasma Beam Mark 3:54591.3
P[7093534],Plasma Shear:410332

P[73301],:575.835
P[73301],Burning Chi Fist:8497.95
P[73301],Clobber:2107.63
P[73301],Force Blast:1815.37
P[73301],Force Cascade:2517.41
P[73301],Inexorable Tides:1033.47
P[73301],Mighty Leap:1313.72
P[73301],Plasma Beam:14622.9
P[73301],Radion's Revenge:200.086

P[9379752],:17459.5
P[9379752],Clobber:10796.1
P[9379752],Haymaker:324924
P[9379752],Neuroelectric Pulse Generator:7160.71
P[9379752],Rising Knee:6859.85
P[9379752],Unleashed Rage:25684.4

The haymaker build did 380k damage. One plasma beamer did negligible damage (72k), the others did 450k, 460k, and 660k. I wasn't watching what passive the haymaker build was using, but it was either LR or an offensive (it looks like it might have been Night Warrior). It was almost certainly more difficult to play than the plasma builds.

sistersilicon

theravenforce wrote: »

Might be a stretch to ask this but...could the King Sekhen cybernetic arm pieces be looked at? They seem to be clipping horribly on female models, showing bits of skin and flesh instead of a smooth cybernetic arm.

The Pharaoh Arms show up in one or two odd places outside of the Robotic Arms categories. You might have selected one of those. (I don't remember off hand what they are.)

lordgar wrote: »

The "Mechanon's Greatest Foes" Lore is now available in the Cislunar Mechanon mission, fixing a bug where duplicate Lore was offered.

Where is that lore node? I want to see if Prime is on the list. :cool:

crypticbuxom

Has someone got any of the data of how sharply dps drops when the Mega Ds get 700+ stacks of Plamsa Shear?

flyingfinn

sterga wrote: »

New wallpaper?

http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=4406241&postcount=1 ?

jimhsua

pantagruel01 wrote: »

...

I think I have the parse you're speaking of (I saw you in LI, anyhow, and I almost always log rampages, by default). From looking at the "shape" of the dps curves, I'd fully expect vehicles with the recon biosteel changes to look more like the haymaker graph when in sustained DPS scenarios. However, that needs more testing as usual.

As far as external powers such as circles, etc: in a team situation, the proper way to analyze that is average DPS of the team, not maximum DPS.

pantagruel01

jimhsua wrote: »

I think I have the parse you're speaking of (I saw you in LI, anyhow, and I almost always log rampages, by default). From looking at the "shape" of the dps curves, I'd fully expect vehicles with the recon biosteel changes to look more like the haymaker graph when in sustained DPS scenarios.

The biosteel changes should cut dps by 15-30%, depending on how much energy is gained from the reload action. And yes, it's probably the same one.

jimhsua wrote: »

As far as external powers such as circles, etc: in a team situation, the proper way to analyze that is average DPS of the team, not maximum DPS.

Not sure what you're referring to. I wasn't parsing dps at all, I was parsing total damage done, and cases where damage owner differs from damage source don't need to be parsed any differently.

jimhsua

pantagruel01 wrote: »

Not sure what you're referring to. I wasn't parsing dps at all, I was parsing total damage done, and cases where damage owner differs from damage source don't need to be parsed any differently.

That part wasn't in direct reference to your post. There was a mention somewhere that team buffs, arcane circles, etc will make the recon biosteel change not "worth much". I simply beg to differ on this point.