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Did Power Revamps Slow Down?
spinnytop
Posts: 16,450 Arc User
So lately many people have been feeling like framework revamps have slowed down and that it's taken an unusually long time for new ones to come out. I wanted to find out if this was true, and if it was just how true it is. So I went digging through old PTS patch notes, specifically looking for the first time that patch notes were posted for a given revamp. Here are my results:
Heavy Weapons_________________March 2016
Bestial__________________________May 2016
Whole Bunch____________________July 2016
Sorcery_________________________September 2016
PA/Laser Sword_________________November 2016
Munitions_______________________January 2017
TK______________________________June 2017
Electric_________________________Augest 2017
Fire____________________________November 2017
Unarmed_______________________January 2018
Single Blade____________________June 2018
Darkness______________________February 2019
Might__________________________August 2019
***List last updated 5/17/2019***
Note that the "whole bunch" entry refers to that one time that we got like 3 pages worth of power changes to a great number of power frameworks all at once, and that it also includes the things that Darkness and Infernal got, which really nails home that those were not revamps, which is why I'm not listing them separately. I'm also including it because of just how big it was, and because it added a lot of changes to things that affected all frameworks simultaneously, so I would say it effectively counts as a revamp of its own. So let's throw some numbers around.
2016 - 6 revamps - 1 revamp per 2 months
2017 - 4 revamps - 1 revamp per 3 months
2018 - 2 revamps - 1 revamp per 6 months
2019 - 2 revamps - year not complete yet
Yup o3o that's a pretty decisive downward trend, especially considering we're only halfway through the sets. However it does put a question mark on the theory that the subscription change caused things to slow down. 2016 also brought us the cosmic revamp, the qliphotic warzone, TA, and the nightmare invasion. 2017 brought us High Noon. It's clear that the downward trend in activity had already started in 2017, and by the time 2018 hit things were already in low gear. We had already gone many months without a power review by the time the subscriptions change hit and overall the year was already looking like it was being devoted mainly to updating events.
So yes, power reviews have definitely slowed significantly, but the reason why is still likely unknown to us. Maybe they decided to devote a year to "under the hood" changes. Maybe they changed their process and are spending more time cooking things before putting them on PTS. Maybe DOOOOOOOOOOM O3O. Or some other possibility.
Heavy Weapons_________________March 2016
Bestial__________________________May 2016
Whole Bunch____________________July 2016
Sorcery_________________________September 2016
PA/Laser Sword_________________November 2016
Munitions_______________________January 2017
TK______________________________June 2017
Electric_________________________Augest 2017
Fire____________________________November 2017
Unarmed_______________________January 2018
Single Blade____________________June 2018
Darkness______________________February 2019
Might__________________________August 2019
***List last updated 5/17/2019***
Note that the "whole bunch" entry refers to that one time that we got like 3 pages worth of power changes to a great number of power frameworks all at once, and that it also includes the things that Darkness and Infernal got, which really nails home that those were not revamps, which is why I'm not listing them separately. I'm also including it because of just how big it was, and because it added a lot of changes to things that affected all frameworks simultaneously, so I would say it effectively counts as a revamp of its own. So let's throw some numbers around.
2016 - 6 revamps - 1 revamp per 2 months
2017 - 4 revamps - 1 revamp per 3 months
2018 - 2 revamps - 1 revamp per 6 months
2019 - 2 revamps - year not complete yet
Yup o3o that's a pretty decisive downward trend, especially considering we're only halfway through the sets. However it does put a question mark on the theory that the subscription change caused things to slow down. 2016 also brought us the cosmic revamp, the qliphotic warzone, TA, and the nightmare invasion. 2017 brought us High Noon. It's clear that the downward trend in activity had already started in 2017, and by the time 2018 hit things were already in low gear. We had already gone many months without a power review by the time the subscriptions change hit and overall the year was already looking like it was being devoted mainly to updating events.
So yes, power reviews have definitely slowed significantly, but the reason why is still likely unknown to us. Maybe they decided to devote a year to "under the hood" changes. Maybe they changed their process and are spending more time cooking things before putting them on PTS. Maybe DOOOOOOOOOOM O3O. Or some other possibility.
Post edited by spinnytop on
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As much as I want certain other powers to exist, I agree that claws needs the most attention, with Might being second and Archery as a possible third.
I have Shadow Strike, why do you say is it bugged?
While I might agree, it has been stated that those sets are not next. I say I might agree, because an argument can and has been made that there are sets that need attention way more.
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If claws isn't next, I hope it's Earth because that powerset is severely underwhelming compared to the earth powers from the other superhero MMO.
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It does
Emergency Tier - Claws
Priority Tier - Earth, Archery
In Need Tier - Wind, Force
QOL Tier - Telepathy, Might, Gadget, Dual-Blades, Celestial
Or she's being postponed by the higher ups.
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Devs cause whenever I say it here on the forum my comment is deleted.
You um... hm... there was a uh... there was a bit of cheekiness intended in beeze's comment I believe... sort of a winky face situation.
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requested by @spinnytop
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I kinda agree with most of this, but would make a few changes:
Priority Tier - Claws, Earth
In Need Tier - Archery, Wind, Celestial, Telepathy
QOL Tier- Gadget, Dual Blades, Darkness, Might, Force
Claws and Earth both are priority but for very different reasons.
Claws is a set that has been overperforming for the longest while. It is a mistery why it was left alone for so long when PA was immediately revised when it was overperforming. Dragon Claw builds, even when done wrong, can hold their own against optimized Ranged DPS builds, the damage vs charge time is way overpowered, and it has no energy problems. Nerfing Dragon Claw however (which is what I interpret Stone meant with Emergency Tier) would leave the FC tree in a state similar to the QOL tier, ie. the FC tree only has what 3 or 4 powers? none of which have synergy with each other and one of them having an inbuilt harmful mechanic for raids. If FC is tackled at all I'd rather it's done properly by adding a debuff, some manner of AoE/Utility and an Ultimate.
Earth on the other hand...for the longest time I thought either Gadgeteer or Archery were the sets in most need of a revamp, but after recently messing around with the Earth tree trying to make a DPS...it's an absolute and complete mess. It's just a disaster from conception alone. It's only saving grace is Quicksand, and even then there are other equivalent more mobile options available.
If we were to stick to in-frame only, then Earth currently:
-has half it's powers tagged as melee (meaning they scale with Str) and the other half, including it's strongest attack Cave In, tagged as ranged (meaning they scale with Ego.)
-has a form (Enraged) that increases the damage of Melee attacks primarily and ranged attacks by a lot less
-has no EU, nor does any of it's powers proc any other existing EU (with the exception of MSA), and it can't make good use of Unstoppable due to it incresing Melee and Bleeds foremost
-it's block has no additional effect by itself (only minor synergy with Fissure)
-it has no Ultimate
-if we were to assume it's intended as a Tanking set, it possess no additional threat generating potential, and the only Tanking utility skill it has, Fissure, is very underwhelming
Thus, if you want to make a semi-reliable DPS build you have to:
-Stack Ego or Int
-Take either Concentration or Chilled Form
-Take either MSA or an attack that would proc another EU
-Take NW (cause Earth Form is very lackluster and follows the progression curve of Ranged Passives) or Quarry
-Take a frigging grenade or pistol power or run up close and elbow slam/kick/punch to apply a crushing debuff since the set doesn't have one
All options that are not intuitive at all with what you would expect from a powerset from the BRICK tree.
The In Need Tier all need their damage brought up to what's currently the meta standard
The QOL Tier needs to get some additional powers to vary the options available a bit, and perphaps also work on the synergy of the set.
Granded FORCE has actually GOOD DPS thanks to Force Cascade (and only FC )
Just replace Earth Form with Kinetic Manipulation which is still the WORST passive in the game since it penaltize it's own Alpha Strike attack, everything stays the same
Force needs to take Passive, Energy Unlock, Debuffs from other powerframes because nothing in it's own powerframe works
But yeah Earth still sucks and is full of sadness
There has been a lot of "under the hood" changes this year, so I imagine that's been their focus. Cleaning things up and optimizing will likely make it easier to pump out the more player-facing changes like event content and power reviews. Lately there hasn't been much, but I feel like this is all to gear up for something bigger. Only time will tell what that something is though.
I'll remain an optimist for CO. I know I wouldn't be fixing things up unless we were planning long-term. So, let's see what they've got in store for us, yeah?
And I will always be @DZPlayer122.
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One thing is for sure though, all this under the hood stuff needs to lead to the the power updates picking up the pace again next year. Otherwise, at the current rate, it's gonna take like 6 years to finish them n_n My hope is that during this year they were also spending time brainstorming about future power updates and basically have all of them planned out already. Would love to see another "Whole Bunch" entry in that list for 2019
As for why they're not doing Claws/Dual Blades power sets sooner rather than later... I have only tinfoil hat theories on that u3u to me it just seems like such an obvious meta to smash. They're also the last two melee sets so the idea that they're preserving them for their forms doesn't make sense either. Concentration/Chilled Form sticking around until the last ranged sets are done makes sense since there are ranged sets without their own form that still need them, but if they revamped claws and dual blades that'd be it for melee. Only exceptions are Chainsaw Gauntlet and Earth, but the former has Single Blade's form, and the latter... is Earth u3u
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I honestly don't care about the removal of subscriptions or updates to old broken dungeon missions or additions to alerts (like the terrible Save the Earth that was crammed into Vigilance for no extra Questionite) or updates to Eido that everyone mopes about. The thing we spend the most amount of time doing in this game is using attack powers to defeat villains, and since i've joined all my characters had their abilities nerfed while we haven't received a unique powerset addition. (just a rehash of existing powers made into new ATs)
Power sets are the thing we use the most, so as far as i'm concerned they deserve the highest amount of attention. The other superhero MMO had Beast Mastery, Staff Fighting, Water Blast, and Nature Affinity sets all made in 2012 before it closed. Four unique sets created in one year. The game's been dead 6 years and still had more powers to choose from than CO does today. But I guess kitten action figures take priority.
especially when you realized how far behind unrevamped powerframes are
Don't think I actually said that... so the question is.. what are you laughing at? o3o
However, with all the under the hood stuff, it's entirely possible that this year saw some of the most important updates to the game in many years. We complain about "spaghetti code" and "the engine can't handle it" and all those other memes we regurgitate year after year, but then they address that stuff and suddenly people wanna act like it's a waste of time o3o
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Force and Might being done close to Captain Marvel's release could be awesome. We got the aquatic lockbox with the TotallyNotOceanMaster pieces in time for Aquaman (which is just great, B-movie fun).
You cannot please everyone. Which is plain as day here in this thread with people complaining about how they done their updates. It was obvious to me this year they focused on under the hood stuff, which was needed, along with updating events.
The people complain because what they wanted changed/added/updated was not touched.
As for power sets that I really want to see updated, well, I have no tiers, they are all basically on the "NEED TO IMPROVE" list for me, even some of the ones they already did. I see problems with all the sets, some are just worse off than others.
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My characters
"Under the hood" and similar phrases have been used frequently this year - so much that I'm surprised there aren't more memes referencing it in the meme thread. At the very least, it can be said that they have spent more time this year making those sorts of changes than they have any other year. The Andrithal update was the most overt example of them doing something explicitly to update the "under the hood" stuff. The lair barely changed as far as someone running it could tell, but the implications for what did change are biggo o3o
I imagine they didn't mention the specifics because it's all coding stuff which wouldn't really be interesting to us, or useful for us to know. Stuff like formatting the code better, making various bits of content more modular, adding comments, producing documentation etc... it's all stuff that wouldn't make for particularly interesting patch notes, but is all implied by "under the hood".
^ yeah that too.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
That's even more exciting than what I thought it was O3O a tool that turns spaghetti into lasagna
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
All CO players learn to be patient but some of the missing items from sets like Force are so obvious and have been missing for so long that you have to conclude that they're just not going to do them before shutdown.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
This is assuming they addressed it. (And depends on what we're referring to as under the hood). Also a lot of their changes/tinkering in 2018 broke OTHER things in horrible ways. (Some fixed quickly, some still lingering).
Nothing I've seen tells me then really have been spending time addressing it, or at least doing so in a way that effective. Time will tell though.
v
Like I said. They now have a tool that turns spaghetti into lasagna. That's a pretty clear case of addressing it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Top priorities should be the more underpowered sets, like Wind, Earth, Gadgeteering, Celestial (dps) etc.
Thanks. I had somehow missed this post. If that's the case that's good on them. Hopefully that leads to some greater things this year.
All events from the 2nd half of the year that lasted more than 1 week (ie. Anniversary, Bloodmooon and Winter Event) all had their fully content patched in week 1, with the following weeks just being server restarts or minor fixes.
So yeah, I do agree that this year probably had a lot of under the hood changes in order to streamline the event progression in order to free some time up for the devs to move on and work on other stuff. The thing is that during this last stretch of the year the other things they had to work on were probably...more events!
But at least now that they've tackled this, this year they'll probably have more time to work on other stuff after they just flip the event switches on.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Or they'll do even more tweaking to events.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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It's an ongoing tally. I can update this one, or start a new one with the same content each time. Which would you prefer?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
2020 better be more about Power Revamping and filling the holes the unrevamped powerframes have and less about rehashing events
Shoot we past half ( even if they had to collapse 4 power sets into one to get there ) before I grew a gray hair anywhere so I call that a positive!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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