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FC.31.20140919.10 PTS Update

lordgarlordgar Posts: 267 Arc User
edited October 2014 in PTS - The Archive
This build will hit PTS this evening, 10/14/2014.


Release Notes for FC.31.20140919.10:


Cosmic Knight:

  • Added a second smaller scepter.

  • Several pieces were missing categories. Fixed.


Vehicle Weapon Systems:

  • Plasma Beam has been redesigned. It no longer places debuffs on the target and no longer generates Plasma Shear damage.

  • Anti Aircraft Missile's damage buff is now 10% at all three ranks. Damage has been reduced and energy cost increased.

  • Heavy Cannon now has increased damage, no recharge time, reduced AoE radius and reduced knockback distance. The target cap is 10.


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.
Post edited by lordgar on
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Comments

  • crosschancrosschan Posts: 920 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Now this will be an interesting test I must say. I am curious to see how this plays out.

    <skips off to PTS> :biggrin:

    Ok, I'm back. Yeah....while I am personally dancing in the street at the loss of Plasma Sheer...the cost of PB is now such that it kinda feels like strangling a level 5 toon to try and fight a cosmic. I would suggest easing off on that aspect so the power can be used in a way where it doesn't feel so sluggishly boring for people who wish to use it.
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  • baelogventurebaelogventure Posts: 520 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Oh look, more vehicle nerfs.

    Nothing new here, move along.
  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    So with all of the nerfs happening for vehicles, it'd be really nice to get unbind tokens or something. It's costing me more Q to redo them all than I care to express.

    For that matter a full unbind would be nice. I'm not even sure this is a system I want any part of anymore, I'm getting rather sick of redoing my build every few weeks when something else gets nerfed or fiddled with. Just sayin, if these were character powers we'd be calling for retcon tokens by now.
    In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008.
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  • crosschancrosschan Posts: 920 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Taco, honest questions, you've been redoing your builds because of the PB and Biosteel stuff? To what? I'm asking because my experience differs from this. I didn't use biosteel and I still do use PB on my Fire Ant that I actually use for some stuff. You have much more "stuff" in this aspect of the game than I do so...please ellaborate?
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  • ace10007ace10007 Posts: 33 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Ok this is really a lot to change for vehicles

    Increase the energy cost of AA missiles when as it is they already don't cause that much damage.

    On top of that you have completely change plasma beam, wasn't the original idea of this weapon meant to be use for those big wordly bosses? you have already easily implemented ways already to make plasma useless (IE Mechanon) but now you taken it a step further and destroyed its use. if your gonna take away plasma shear and the debuff you might as well buff up the damage of it a least somewhat. if not that weapon is about as powerfull as using your regular energy builder.

    I have to agree with taco somewhat here. as changes have been made on vehicles, those that use them have had to redesign their load outs and lost on a good amount of resources they spend on building them. why not give tokens available to those that have some of these weapons so maybe they can remove them or exchange for another weapon of the same rank.

    :frown:

    Ingame under @AceMcCloud1007 leader of Heavy Artillery.

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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I hate to say it, but this might be an overnerf. Testing (broadhead, R6 biosteel, R6 targeting computer), what I managed (all tests against Mega-Terak, who has 20% damage resistance)

    pbmk3: 1300 dps (against a target with 20% damage resistance)
    aa missile 2: 460 dps (r3 would probably be 550)
    heavy cannon 2: 740 dps (r3 would probably be 900).

    Vehicles are still really tanky (said bike can absorb a 24k hit and tank about 600 raw dps), but I'd be more comfortable with about a 50% increase to those numbers (or a lot more for aam). I didn't bother comparing to any other weapons except grav pulse (1,000 dps), so they might be competitive.

    Possibly changing percentages on mods, rather than base damage; vehicles have odd interactions with buffs, and giving them higher base damage bonuses would cut down on that. That might cause issues for a couple of vehicle powers that are still very good, but there are a lot of iffy vehicle powers that could afford to be buffed.
  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    What the f**k are you doing, Cryptic?

    People had to pay to retool their vehicles from the last nerf and now they have to do it again. Do you plan on removing all mods and powers from vehicles in game and letting players return their useless powers for their questionite back?

    I'm going to start contacting customer support for Zen refunds on all my vehicles, weapons, and mod upgrades now. I'll hold onto all I get back and wait for the next few vehicle nerfs to pass and the inevitable R3 Vehicles.

    If you wanted to kill off vehicles, please just do so now. We rather you use your dev time to buff all the useless powers in game for our CHARACTERS.
  • kaiserin#0958 kaiserin Posts: 3,078 Cryptic Developer
    edited October 2014
    Tests done against mega terak on a r2 bike.

    PB Mk3, no other buffs: 1300 dps.
    PB Mk3 without energy constraints: 2200 dps.

    I think the damage is good where it is. Buffed with damage boosts and debuffs it'll be doing about 3k against boss targets. However, the energy cost went overboard. I can get 2 maintains before I have to reload on a bike. Energy cost should be reduced.



    AA Missiles 3: 590 dps
    AA Missiles 3 without energy constraints: 900dps

    Seems okay for a damage buff. Energy cost could be reduced a tad as it makes maintaining the buff quite difficult.



    Heavy Cannon Mk3: 1100 dps

    Energy costs are quite low, with a quick reload (and 2 r6 biosteels) I don't think I'd ever have to use actual reload. Damage seems a bit high considering its energy cost.
  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 766 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Are you going to provide a way to switch out these extremely expensive mark 3 weapons for others now? After the adjustments to the missle, I really don't like the power at all anymore, and I've invested a small fortune in several copies for several rides that I have. And I want to change them to other mark 3s.

    XS
    [NbK]XStorm
  • thelastsonofzodthelastsonofzod Posts: 658 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Well, the new scepter looks good. I'd still like to see it available in single blade, but at least now its not too freaking huge :P Any chance of getting glow on the orb?

    As far as the vehicle stuff goes...I have to bow to Crosschan and the others for damage stats on the nerfed weapons. I trust their judgement, and honestly I can't figure these things out to save my life. I had Plasma Beam on my main's vehicle for 2 years and never even knew plasma sheer existed :P

    I would caution against this steady nerfing of vehicle weapons. Its a bad road to start down. I'm not saying that they don't need work, but bringing out the hammer for anything that so much as looks at you funny is setting a bad precedent.

    In my opinion, vehicle weapons should really be worked on as part of an overall pass, not on an individual basis. By doing it that was, you'd have a chance to address important issues effecting them, such as the fact that vehicles cannot apparently crit or dodge. Doing it from that perspective would also allow you to adjust vehicle weapons as a whole, setting their damage, energy, and special properties on the same scale. I feel like a lack of proper scale might be why you're having these issues now.

    I also think some of the players who have asked for a 'retcon token' for vehicles are on the mark, though I'm uncertain how you would accomplish such a thing. Letting people trade in vehicle weapons for questionite at reduced prices might be a workable solution.
  • kamokamikamokami Posts: 1,633 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    This is not going to be well received. Please consider a carrot and a stick approach. So far it's been repeated stick.

    Fix crits, fix vehicle mods (hello hull scanners' def pen).....then make adjustments based on benchmarks that are not based on bugged mechanics.
  • stergiosmanstergiosman Posts: 717 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Nice one Cryptic!

    This adjustment was needed.


    Perhaps you could offer us something in return too tho.


    I would love to see rank 3 vehicles and rank 4 weapon mods ( which should deal a little more damage than the current, unnerfed version of vehicles on live )

    Also, how about a vehicle event like the old sky races? Perhaps add a way to get a rank 3 upgrade kit through that? Say...if you win 100 races and have 50 Drifter salvage you can get 10 vehicle tokens whereas the upgrade should cost 25 vehicle tokens.

    Also add a bundle for 5 vehicle tokens up on Z-Store for 150 zen each.

    That would give everyone incentive to play, and force casual players to have average vehicles, finally giving us some sort of reward for playing more and paying more and more.


    This is a step towards the right direction. Thank you!
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,022 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Hooooraaaaaaaaay~!

    More Bait-and-Switch Vehicle Nerfs and yet no Fix for Vehicles Critical, Dodging and Defense Penatration and Costumization (Paintjobs to change their colors would be nice)

    I'm Glad I never really bothered to take Gearing seriously with the few Vehicles I own, I didn't even Upgraded them to Mark 2

    At least Cosmic Knight got a Proper, Useful fix! that's something
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I would note that changes to vehicles make it essential to change the bleak harbinger fight -- even ignoring the boredom part, the bleak harbinger is a frame-rate crashing mess when it's got multiple status effects on it. Shrink the model, if nothing else.
  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    lordgar wrote: »
    [*]Added a second smaller scepter.
    Well, the new scepter looks good. I'd still like to see it available in single blade, but at least now its not too freaking huge :P Any chance of getting glow on the orb?

    Yeah, the new smaller sceptre is a better size. I would have liked it a bit smaller though.

    The handle is still ridiculously wide though......that needs to be reduced by at least 2/3

    I didn't check, but if there is still no glow on the orb then that needs to be rectified. It's a no brainer
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  • jonesing4jonesing4 Posts: 800 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    If you wanted to kill off vehicles, please just do so now. We rather you use your dev time to buff all the useless powers in game for our CHARACTERS.

    ^^here^^

    After you finish nerfing vehicles into uselessness and leaving half of the available mods broken and dysfunctional, can you please turn your attention to adding or fixing things that relate to superheroes?
  • eiledoneiledon Posts: 1,287 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    If you are looking at vehicles maybe you could look at why the darn powers switch their tray location every time you get on the thing or change zones - doesnt happen for players, doesnt happen for become, SHOULD NOT happen for vehicles which for the most part cost as much as an AT or Becomes.
  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    crosschan wrote: »
    Taco, honest questions, you've been redoing your builds because of the PB and Biosteel stuff? To what? I'm asking because my experience differs from this. I didn't use biosteel and I still do use PB on my Fire Ant that I actually use for some stuff. You have much more "stuff" in this aspect of the game than I do so...please ellaborate?

    6 of my 19 vehicles were using specifically a plasma beam/anti aircraft/biosteel combo. 6 more were using one or the other, I had AA on a lot of my vehicles because there weren't many options for debuffs. With the state they're in now, just for those 6 vehicles, it's overall going to cost me about 200k q just to redo them. I'd already blown 100 beginning a mod reset, and now I'm going to have to redo those AGAIN, because at this point I'm getting hesitant to do much more than healer vehicles.

    I'm not even gonna comment how much Q I've dumped into the weapons, many of which I probably won't be able to give away if they're launched with the current specs. And note: I'm cool with a rebalancing. But this is pretty darn far in the opposite direction. I was already starting to have energy issues before this, if it goes live as is many of my vehicles are legitimately going to become worthless until I can dump enough q into them to fully redo all of their mods.

    I echo what others have said, and I've mentioned it myself: If we're going to get weapon and mod nerfs, the mods that don't work need to be fixed first. Right now it kinda feels like the vehicle system is being decimated. Truth be told, this is the first and only thing in this game I've ever had buyer's remorse for.
    In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008.
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  • quasimojo1quasimojo1 Posts: 642 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Nothing new to say about this really but...

    Four iterations of balancing now on Plasma Beam says to me that there's something wrong with this development/testing process, and shows a lack of respect for your players that put forth money, time, and/or trust in the system by buying these things.

    Please just retune the LI and Sky Command alerts now in this same patch, so that they can be completed by a team of players without vehicles in a reasonable amount of time (like under 10 minutes on average).

    And let's just forget vehicles ever happened. Stop upgrading them and then nerfing them, marketing them, and wasting any more development time on them.
    LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.

    "Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
  • highrealityhighreality Posts: 402 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Why are vehicles so important ? Why do they get so much attention when their uses are already scarce and when so many other things are broken ? And why nerf only the things that you made people pay for ? It's kind of baffling. Balance is so screwed in this game but yeah, let's nerf vehicles. You know, the thing you give to people who pay to support the game. Yeah, let's turn those people away.

    (°∇° ) #megalodon2015
  • wingedkagoutiwingedkagouti Posts: 565 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    avianos wrote: »
    (Paintjobs to change their colors would be nice)
    That's called buying another vehicle with the same base model but a different color scheme and then maybe use an Upgrade kit (to get the right amount of mod slots).
  • ealford1985ealford1985 Posts: 3,582 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Cryptic has me nervous now that the dealership I bought my car is gonna come remove the steering wheel.


    I know more people have wasted more resources than me but I bought a vehicle for like 250 just to get the rail run(I think it was that one) so I can solo resistance and kill mega-Ds, it gets nerfed, strike one.

    Spend a bunch or questionite on plasma beam R3, because I wanted to actually have fun in my vehicle. Strike two


    Now tell me....what am I suppose to use this freaking vehicle for???? It seems everything I find to have fun with it in gets ruined. Guess it's just a XP speed machine for missions.
  • flowcytoflowcyto Posts: 12,740 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    We could def use a better buff:nerf ratio than of recent.

    'Buff' also entailing fixing bugs that prevent things from working as intended- ala TC's LockOn or PFF's regen delay; OD, Manip, or TP Reverb; broken vehicle stats/mods, -->>THE RAMPAGE UI<<--, etc. All to boost morale for those still invested in the game.
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  • ruprechtvandoom1ruprechtvandoom1 Posts: 54 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    kamokami wrote: »
    This is not going to be well received. Please consider a carrot and a stick approach. So far it's been repeated stick.

    Fix crits, fix vehicle mods (hello hull scanners' def pen).....then make adjustments based on benchmarks that are not based on bugged mechanics.


    This signed a hundredfold. Many of the vehicle mods aren't fully funtional. Most weapons and mods are just terrible and and the few that are performing well are nerfed into the ground. I spend a ton of ressources and yes also actual money into improving my vehicles. I even bought an R9 Upgrade mod for Biosteel (those 3000 zen things, yeah I know, I must be crazy) which is in hindsight a terrible invenstment.

    I have had no complaints on the first nerf on Plasma Beam and Biosteel. It was a reasonable nerf, so I sucked it up. But continuously nerfing things that many people spend tons of Questionite,Globals and Hard Cash on, while not fixing stuff that isn't working like half the stats of the Support and Defense Mods and many weapons is something that I start to find highly frustrating.

    AA's energy cost already was hardly manageable, and I run R8 and R9 Biosteel. It is a weapon that is meant to be used in conjunction with others. Increasing the energy cost pretty much kills that.

    I'm not even gonna bother with the Heavy Cannon buff. Chances are if it tuns out to be decent its propably gonna get nerfed again...
  • zedbrightlander1zedbrightlander1 Posts: 3,797 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    eiledon wrote: »
    If you are looking at vehicles maybe you could look at why the darn powers switch their tray location every time you get on the thing or change zones - doesnt happen for players, doesnt happen for become, SHOULD NOT happen for vehicles which for the most part cost as much as an AT or Becomes.

    Hmm...

    All this time I thought that this was only happening to my bike. :tongue:

    Hasn't really bothered me too much since my main form of attack seems to be Incendiary Round (Mk 2). I just hunt for the one button among the five, make the switch, and burn to {bleepers} down.

    Does any one know if Gravity Pulse has been effected?
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  • sorceror01sorceror01 Posts: 210 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I feel like these last few changes to the Plasma Beam vehicle weapon are just a tad too much. It just costs too much energy now, and all of its usefulness has been negated. I mean, I can understand why it needed adjustment to begin with; it was way too overused.
    But now, it sounds like no one is going to use it anymore. It's just become an unviable weapon system.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    sorceror01 wrote: »
    But now, it sounds like no one is going to use it anymore. It's just become an unviable weapon system.
    It actually seems to have become an average weapon system; it's not really worse than things like micro missiles, and it's better than tractor beam.
  • notyuunotyuu Posts: 1,121 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    The plasma beam nerf is really going to hurt when doing things that were designed for vehicle use, such as sky command and lumerina invasion (it's gonna hit LI a LOT harder than SC though, fighting the harbinger with reduced plasma beam is going to suck, boring most players to tears, resulting in less people doing it, meaning less runs, meaning tokens are going to be harder to get, meaning we need a once per day vendor that'll seel you one rampage token of your choise at the cost of like 20 silver champion recongition)
    In all things, a calm heart must prevail.

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    Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Other than the fact that it allows vehicles, there's nothing about LI which suggests that it's vehicle content, and it ought to be sensible to do without a vehicle.

    Unfortunately, doing it without a vehicle sucks, for three reasons. First, hunting down exocets is a giant PITA without the mobility of a vehicle (though the PB change doesn't actually do much to this; in fact, new PB is probably better; by the time old PB would be doing more damage, an exocet is already dead). Secondly, trying to fight the bleak harbinger with less than 100' range is incredibly annoying, because the model is so large that you can't see what you're doing. Third, bleak harbinger with negative ions, chill, clinging flames, and fire snake is a GPU-melting graphics nightmare, and that's what you'll get out of people who aren't using vehicles.

    Problems 2 and 3 would be solved by making the harbinger model smaller. A lot smaller, I can't actually see the entire model unless I set my viewpoint at 400' away, so I'd probably cut its size by 75%. Problem 1 might be fixed by just having fewer exocet phases -- say, rather than being timed, you just get one to start, one at 2/3 hp, and one at 1/3 hp.
  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 766 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Sky command, and Invasion are labeled as being designed for vehicles on the list. I've been testing the adjustments here; and the cost on plasma beam is way too high, even a bike can hardly get a couple shots off between reloads; a tank can only get one shot off before a reload. This needs to be looked at. The aa missles are much the same way; trying to keep them up with the huge cost is almost impossible if you're trying to shoot anything else.

    XS
    [NbK]XStorm
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    gradii wrote: »
    Just disabling power debuff FX on giant targets would solve the whole issue.
    It's got a lot of hit box problems as well. Big is fine and all, but you should be able to see what you're fighting, and with max camdist at 70', that's a problem even for the regular size cosmics.
  • notyuunotyuu Posts: 1,121 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Other than the fact that it allows vehicles, there's nothing about LI which suggests that it's vehicle content, and it ought to be sensible to do without a vehicle.

    Unfortunately, doing it without a vehicle sucks, for three reasons. First, hunting down exocets is a giant PITA without the mobility of a vehicle (though the PB change doesn't actually do much to this; in fact, new PB is probably better; by the time old PB would be doing more damage, an exocet is already dead). Secondly, trying to fight the bleak harbinger with less than 100' range is incredibly annoying, because the model is so large that you can't see what you're doing. Third, bleak harbinger with negative ions, chill, clinging flames, and fire snake is a GPU-melting graphics nightmare, and that's what you'll get out of people who aren't using vehicles.

    Problems 2 and 3 would be solved by making the harbinger model smaller. A lot smaller, I can't actually see the entire model unless I set my viewpoint at 400' away, so I'd probably cut its size by 75%. Problem 1 might be fixed by just having fewer exocet phases -- say, rather than being timed, you just get one to start, one at 2/3 hp, and one at 1/3 hp.

    While it can be done without a vec, it falls somewhere between a pain and a chore to do ti without any vecs there, and fighting the bleak harginer without PB is more slow and tiresome than alert end boss [did it once with nobody using PB and we had a fair few DPS's and it still took nearly 30 mins to take him down, which would be an accetpble time for an adventure pack end boss or even boss (invading mega Ds, mechanon, ect) but for an alert boss that's ment to be farmed....hell to the no.

    and you also raise a few good points about the rather annoying issue with bleak harbanger lagging most people's computers to hell and back, sideways witha rake.
    In all things, a calm heart must prevail.

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    Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
  • lovehammer1lovehammer1 Posts: 416 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Wait, so does going to PTS, mean this is a go?
    I thought these nerfs were just a test... am i missing something here?

    But, if these nerfs do pass... why on earth would people use a vehicle anyway?
    Might as well dump the idea and add more powers for the "Actual" heroes!

    Makes more sense to me.
  • quasimojo1quasimojo1 Posts: 642 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    The amusing part about all of this, to me, is that I'm sure Mark 2 vehicles with Mark 3 weapons are now going to be less effective overall than Mark 1 vehicles with Mark 2 weapons were earlier in the year. Next time around how about just auto-deducting the Zen and Questionite from our accounts, increment the Mark X name of everything by 1, and use the dev time on something worthwhile.

    The unamusing part is how this has/will continue to impact Rampage queues; LI and SC directly and the other two indirectly because people will give up on trying to get a complete set of tokens.

    P.S. You guys should really consider hiring/contracting with an entry/mid-level data scientist to help model this stuff ahead of time.
    LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.

    "Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
  • theravenforcetheravenforce Posts: 7,065 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    quasimojo1 wrote: »
    Nothing new to say about this really but...

    Four iterations of balancing now on Plasma Beam says to me that there's something wrong with this development/testing process, and shows a lack of respect for your players that put forth money, time, and/or trust in the system by buying these things.

    Please just retune the LI and Sky Command alerts now in this same patch, so that they can be completed by a team of players without vehicles in a reasonable amount of time (like under 10 minutes on average).

    And let's just forget vehicles ever happened. Stop upgrading them and then nerfing them, marketing them, and wasting any more development time on them.

    ^ I'd like to echo this. Particularly all of it and the Rampage suggestions.

    As most in this thread have already stated, this isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows with the playerbase (well it might be for some).

    With the amount of vehicles I see around in game, it looks like a lot of players have invested heavily in the whole vehicle system and have used it to the max and actually enjoy the system.

    That being said...nerfing vehicles because of complains from testers/players needs to be put into perspective, in the sense that, the alerts/rampages which were created with vehicle usage in mind (at their power levels then) will need to be altered in various ways in order to make them (as quasimojo said) "completed by a team of players without vehicles in a reasonable amount of time."

    I'd like to think that it would be possible to remove these vehicle changes from this patch of the PTS UNTIL, both the Lemurian Invasion and Sky Command are addressed, as those are the two pieces of current content which will be most affected by these nerfs/fixes/alterations.

    Lemurian Invasion - As players have suggested in the past (some quite recently), in light of these changes which are currently on test and those on LIVE, perhaps change the immunity of the Harbinger to high resistance phase instead. This would allow the radiation cannon from UNTIL Barcelona to push the resistance values down to "normal" range so we can attack effectively. (Also considering how much longer this would take...it might be an idea to increase the drop rate of the tokens.)

    Sky Command - Personally I'd like to see the token drop rate improved, out of all four rampage instances, based on personal experience and based on the threads I've seen, it seems to be the most irritating alert to get a token out of. Perhaps allow engines to benefit from support auras? I'm sure other people will have ideas on how to adjust this alert...


    I'd like to back the suggestion/request to spend development time on things for our characters outside of Vehicles, especially since they are being "fixed" regularly.

    I personally would like to see another bug-splat-a-thon to address outstanding issues with a wide range of powers, missions, devices, mechanics etc. PLEASE CONSIDER THIS AND DO IT.
  • soulforgersoulforger Posts: 1,649 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'd rather see an update with more balancing of powers, bug fixes, new powers (but not for power armor), new power sets, new costume sets, and new zones/content. But an update just to nerf vehicles to hell? No, it is a bad update.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    This won't meaningfully affect sky command, as pbeam isn't especially useful there (its ramp-up time makes it marginal against black talon, defeating the mega-D is unnecessary and fairly pointless, everything else gets AoEed to death anyway). SC is an obnoxious and boring rampage and could be reassessed for that problem, but these patches don't cause a problem for it.
  • meedacthunistmeedacthunist Posts: 2,961 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    I don't see any reason for updating LI to be more playable without vehicles.

    Especially Leviathan is nicely big.

    It's fine as it is. :wink:

    /tinfoilhat
  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Point: I still don't have a single piece of justice gear. I run all rampages equally, an rather frequently. I at the moment have one single scale, an one token from sky command. I've got 16 of each of the others. They either don't pop, or when they do it takes forever comparatively. I can literally do 4 fire and ices in the time it takes to finish one sky command. This is pre-vehicle nerf, god only knows what happens after. What I *do* know is a ton of the rumbling I'm hearing on live leads to "I AM NOW NEVER TOUCHING SKY COMMAND OR LEMURIAN INVASION". A lot of that sentiment.

    If they're not balanced, I'm fully prepared for the eventuality that I will never get my hands on any justice pieces. I'm already having issues getting some, and they actually pop from time to time now. I expect Sky Command in particular is going to fall back to pre-rampage levels of activity.
    In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008.
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  • jimhsuajimhsua Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm going to completely ignore vehicles and focus on LI for the moment. Can we agree on the following changes?

    • Harbinger should not have invulnerable phase. Rather, harbinger should get 100% damage resistance (50% DR), which is debuffed to 0% or -50% by the cannon.
    • Exocets should actively attack Barcelona or chase players.
    • Give harbinger a minor health nerf (15-20% should suffice).
    • Spawn groups for the first phase of LI should be decreased.

    Also, some of the cutscenes could use some shortening.
  • crosschancrosschan Posts: 920 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Meeda: This is why people are mentioning the hitbox and overall size of the Bleak Harbinger.
    jimhsua wrote: »
    I'm going to completely ignore vehicles and focus on LI for the moment. Can we agree on the following changes?

    • Harbinger should not have invulnerable phase. Rather, harbinger should get 100% damage resistance (50% DR), which is debuffed to 0% or -50% by the cannon.
    • Exocets should actively attack Barcelona or chase players.
    • Give harbinger a minor health nerf (15-20% should suffice).
    • Spawn groups for the first phase of LI should be decreased.

    Also, some of the cutscenes could use some shortening.
    I don't "mind" these suggestions really. I could go either way on them but I do not openly disagree with them. Now that bit about the Exojets being aggro to players I am definately onboard about.

    _______________________________________

    BTW. since everyone is bringing up SC/LI repeatedly, could I please get my R3 Hover Disk, which I assigned a travel power pick and adv points, upgraded to this Until Version? I don't think that's OP or gamebreaking in the least. There is just something kind of sad to me when I float my lil Hover Disk over to their hover disk, pick it up, and put my own away because it's inferior.
    _______________________________________

    Also, it's my opinion that SC is naptime easy without a single vehicle being there, especially now. There's a pathing issue with this where, regardless of what the voice says, the group that spawns out from engine 1-2 will attack that spot 95% of the time(it will randomly spawn correctly and go to the upper deck then it's supposed to do so but this tends to be an all or nothing thing from run to run from my observations). So I usually stand there with one of many AEs on different toons and murder them all the entire time, otherwise we lose those engines because most people are used to scrambling around. Then I pop up to help pick off the Mega D. After that I keep an eye out for the random 1-2 helicopters that might show up while everyone else hangs out up top and waits on the timer.

    The Issue, IMO, with SC is that it has the timers. People have figured out exploits, which I will not be naming on these forums because that's basically a "How to" on the subject, all but neutralize the "harder" elements of this rampage entirely. The only way I have seen this thing fail in 2014 is when someone parks the Mega-D ontop of the generator and it beats the thing to death with AEs. I do not believe I have seen even this happen in the last 4-5 months.

    My suggestion would be to cut the timers entirely and replace them with a mob kill counter/wave counter. Dr.D has X amount of robots. You smash. You win. No Timers. All triggers. You kill all the mobs and the Mega-D shows up. You smash him...game over. You win.
    IMO the main issue with SC is that regardless of the performance of the heroes who show up you're there for X amount of time no matter what.

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    As for the vehicle stuff, I'll say a few brief things which people may agree or probably very much disagree with on the subject.

    -As I previously stated I believe the cost on PB is currently too high. I share this opinion for AA. Originally, I felt the solution to PB was merely the removal of Plasma Sheer completely from Champions Online. I still have this opinion. I do not object to the repair of Biosteel. The added nerf to it was unnecessary but it is my opinion that biosteel is not mandatory for vehicle builds nor are those changes too bad in all honesty. It is my overall opinion that too many steps were taken in this process which could have been handled much much more simply just by removing sheer and fixing the broken aspects of biosteel only. Now having said that, I am going to guess a few people who picked up those Until Shuttles with the Heavy Cannon aren't too terribly sad that it got a boost.

    -Unbind them all. I do not agree that they're all "useless" so much as "Just not as OP anymore" but there have, IMO, been significant enough changes to where this would be a nice PR gesture at the very least. If people are done with their vehicles then give them the 1 time chance to sell/give/whatever them to people who might want them.

    -People want the Crits fixed. I can see this happening because it's obviously supposed to work BUT considering the current state of balance regarding vehicles if crits work...then severity is going to likely have to be pretty low. Like low low....or it risks the need to re-re-re-re-re-re-rebalance baseline damage on the majority of this stuff..and I suspect nobody really wants that. I do not want that because it would take more time away from things I put more value on within this game.

    -IMO the only valid statement when expressing the "cost" argument on "how much you spent" on vehicles is...how much you actually spent. Questionite, Globals, Trades, and such are another way of saying "Time" and that is relative and is simply how you chose to spend your time. Now real money, honest to goodness chashola, chedder, dinero, greenbacks, and so on...that's how much you spent. That is your cost. I do not consider the money you spent on the lockboxes as part of the cost no matter how you got the keys to be honest because that's the price of admission to that particular gamble that you chose to participate in with regards to that mechanic. IMO, if you want reimbursed for the lockbox expense then they credit you 100Z and you give the vehicle back. This might not be a popular stance but it's my own opinion and this is just what I see and where I am coming from on the subject.

    -I do not, in any way, subscribe to any form of the notion that this is all a deliberate ploy by Cryptic/Cryptic North/PWE to sell you P2Win only to yank out the carpet much farther on down the line and then resell you the power you lost for more money. It is my opinion that Cryptic designed vehicles poorly, CN did their best to improve the situation but missed valuable data during Vehicles 2.0 due to mostly 2 people spamming up the threads with the same regurgitated garbage post after post after post until Vehicles 2.0 went live. I see this as CN taking the time I wish they did not have to take to correct these oversights and it is my expressed hope that this is the end of it for a decent amount of time. Now I have no direct proof or information about this but I suspect had Vehicles 2.0 gone smoother and these issues been caught in the 1st place we might be testing some form of additions to the game for Bloodmoon 2014...but, sad as it might be, I find that cost worth the outcome at this stage.

    And that's all I have at this time really.
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  • gerberatetragerberatetra Posts: 821 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    That's called buying another vehicle with the same base model but a different color scheme and then maybe use an Upgrade kit (to get the right amount of mod slots).

    No, that's not changing colors at all.


    Here we are now going to the West Side
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    Some may come and some may stay
    Watching out for a sunny day
    Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm


    In game as @forgemccain
  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm going to keep encouraging players to ask for refunds on all their vehicle related items and purchases because of these constant nerfs.

    Cryptic, you keep pushing yourselves into a corner with these things. It is literally ruining the game with every minute away from working on powers and content to try and fix the inherent problem with vehicles. The fact that they exist.

    You need to do with vehicles what you should have done with them in the first place. Either make them a part of our characters or let us customize them on a per character basis where you sell us the skins, vehicles and mods that unlock account wide.

    Makes vehicles what the players want or abandon them already.
  • ealford1985ealford1985 Posts: 3,582 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    crosschan wrote: »

    -IMO the only valid statement when expressing the "cost" argument on "how much you spent" on vehicles is...how much you actually spent. Questionite, Globals, Trades, and such are another way of saying "Time" and that is relative and is simply how you chose to spend your time. Now real money, honest to goodness chashola, chedder, dinero, greenbacks, and so on...that's how much you spent. That is your cost. I do not consider the money you spent on the lockboxes as part of the cost no matter how you got the keys to be honest because that's the price of admission to that particular gamble that you chose to participate in with regards to that mechanic. IMO, if you want reimbursed for the lockbox expense then they credit you 100Z and you give the vehicle back. This might not be a popular stance but it's my own opinion and this is just what I see and where I am coming from

    Well I spent actual money to get zen and zen to get questionite. Money I work hard to get so I can enjoy my Champions Online, money I could easily spend someplace else. I am very unhappy that I was sold and item and now cryptic is changing their deal. I would not have bought it if it was a crappy weapon, bought it because it was it was an overpriced overpowered weapon. Now it's garbage.

    Plain and simple....I did not get what I paid for, I want a refund.
  • crosschancrosschan Posts: 920 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Fair enough then, Ratty. You have an actual cost then. ;)
    I think your "crappy weapon" will be ok if they adjust it's cost but that is merely my opinion on the subject. That you bought it because it was OP is what I could consider a "projected risk" since if it was that obviously OP then the writing was kind of already on the wall for it in the 1st place. It just took a lil too long for my personal tastes. It's kinda like playing MTG. The OP stuff is OP until it gets hit and isn't OP anymore. The key then is to ride that wave until it hits the beach.

    I do not believe you will get a refund for this but that is just my experience from working for another MMO. It is not concrete or anything so...good luck. :biggrin:
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