Issue 4 is now on the Test server

[schmoo]

I'm applying the patch now. 

[HaemishM]

How does one play on the Test Server again?

[schmoo]

How does one play on the Test Server again?

Copy an existing character to the Test server here:

https://secure.cityofheroes.com/cgi-bin/coh_transfer.pl

Then read the sticky in the Training Room forum about how to set up the software, cuase I dont remember how I did it. :)

But since the Arena server is down 'for an extended time' don't bother just yet.  And I just got disconnected, so the Test server is probably overloaded at this point.

Edit:  I believe you can just make a copy of your existing CoH folder (mine is called 'CoHtest') and then make a shortcut with a target of "C:\Program Files\CoHtest\CohUpdater.exe" -test. 

It seems one will be able to buy temporary powers to use in the Arena, there are vendors selling them in the buildings.
 

[Signe]

woo hoo!

[Big Gulp]

Captain Pansy heads out for some Thunderdome adventure!


And finds out that all the arena servers are down.   

I did go to the costume shop, though, and the scales are pretty cool.

[schmoo]

Okay, in the brief time the arena was active and more or less working I got in a team match, 4 against 4.  After wandering around looking for the enemy, we ran directly into them, where I was immediately held, put to sleep and killed in about 20 seconds, along with the rest of my team. 

The arena is now down again. Bah.

[Signe]

I logged into the test server amongst a sea of male ninjas and anime school girls. 

[eldaec]

Notes

Highlights...

LOTS of balance changes including...

o Villains can now knock you back, instead of just knocking you down.
o Removed the base -30% Damage Resistance debuff from Kheldians and decreased their base HP by 12.5% (this gives them an effective net increase in HP).
o Increased Gravity Control/Propel damage.
o Updated villain Propel damage.
o Significantly increased the Max HP of Kheldians while in Dwarf form.
o Radiation Emission/EM Pulse now also drains Endurance and accepts Endurance Drain Enhancements.
o Radiation Emission/EM Pulse now also debuffs targets’ Regeneration rate.
o Increased the Damage buff of Leadership/Assault and Vengeance by 50%.
o Modification to Perception attribute: Increased Perception will now allow you to see stealthy foes or resist powers that reduce your Perception (like Smoke Grenade).
o Accuracy Inspirations now increase Perception.
o Leadership/Tactics now offers increased Perception and resistance to Confuse.
o Increased based movement of pets.
o Modified Spectral Terror attack power so it tends to make foes run away less.
o Gravity Control/Wormhole is now an AoE (Wormhole applied a Disorient, so now Gravity Control has another AoE Control power). Recharge Time was increased to compensate.
o Reduced the amount of Regeneration Buff that can be enhanced in Instant Healing and Integration (base values were not changed).
o Dark Armor/Murky Cloud, Stone Armor/Rooted, Storm Summoning/O2 Boost, Radiation Emission/Accelerate Metabolism, and Force Field/Insulation Field now offer resistance to Endurance Drain effects.

PvP only...

o Brawl has a chance to turn off a target’s Toggle powers.
o Suppression: You cannot chain control your opponent. If you are affected by a controlling effect (Sleep, Hold, Disorient, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse, Knockback), you will tend to have an immune to that effect for a fair amount of time (approx 15 seconds, but this time may vary). So if you are Held, you will tend to be immune to Hold for about 15 seconds, however, you will not be not immune to Sleep or other effects.
o In PvP, your foes can see you sooner than villains can if you are stealthed.
o Most Controller powers now do triple damage in PvP if the target is already Held, Stunned, Slept or Immobilized.
o Most Defender debuffs are not resistible in PvP
o 30% of most Blaster damage cannot be resisted.
o Damage from Scrapper Critical hits in PvP cannot be resisted.
o [various powers] have a chance to knock off toggles.


Coalitions

o Coalition chat can be accessed by clicking on the Coalition button in your Supergroup menu, or via slash commands.
o Invites a player's Supergroup to form a coalition. You must be the leader of your Supergroup to do this.
o Also accessible by right clicking on the player.
o Sends the invite to the leader of <player_name>'s Supergroup that has been online the longest.
o Your Supergroup can be in a coalition with a maximum of 10 other Supergroups.

[eldaec]

The grav changes (particularly wormhole) look pretty good - aoe wormhole would allow my grav controller to pick up a whole group, and teleport them into a corner disoriented, all ready for the group to keep them pinned down with knockback and aoes.

[eldaec]

The arenas also include a store that sells temporary powers (which work outside the arena as well as in)...

Hummingbird Pack - Hover, lasts 5 minutes
Jaunt Initializer - Teleport, 5 charges
Low-G Pack - Super Jump, lasts 2 minutes
Raptor Pack - Fly, lasts 2 minutes
Stealth Suit - Stealth, lasts 2 minutes
Stun Grenade - ranged disorient, 6 charges
Web Grenade - ranged immobilize, 6 charges

They all cost 10000 (so free for anyone > lvl 30). You can only hold one of each at a time.

[Glazius]

Some more undocumented improvements.

Improved Seek Team. Not shown: You can edit that description. Also not shown: what the icons will actually look like.

Steel Canyon EN FUEGO! A Storm Elemental is currently moonlighting as the flames, God knows it needs the screen time.

Shoulder pets! (this one's for the ladies) Not shown: panda. Also not shown: The envy of 50,000 big dumb lugs who want to call it George. Also also not shown: An armada of pirates in search of a parrot.

Best. Badge. Ever. Test server fun thing or actual live plan? I'm hoping it's just the former, there are some in-jokes that should never see the light of day.

--GF

[MaceVanHoffen]

The regen changes are horrible.  I took Mace (level 50 MA/regen) out for a night on the town on Test yesterday.  I eyeballed it at about a 40% drop in overall regen rate.  Others who crunch numbers have calculated 50%, and I'm inclined to think they're right.  The worst part is that these changes are for PvE and PvP.

[Mesozoic]

When you say regen rate, are you referring to Health via Int/IH?  I kinda feared this, my DM/regen main was running missions on Invincible level and pretty much breezing through.

Holy crap, great time for me to put him down and start an Ice/Stone tanker.  I had no idea they were burying regen.

[eldaec]

Numbers remain unclear due to the amount of noise on the forums, but it would appear that hp regen on a regen scrapper has been reduced by somewhere between 25% and 40%.

This was necessary if they were trying to balance 1v1 or 2v2 pvp, but obviously it's causing problems in pve, where battles tend to be vs lots, and where total mitigated dps is less relevant but total damage required to kill is more relevant.

[MaceVanHoffen]

When you say regen rate, are you referring to Health via Int/IH?

Yes, Int/IH combined.  For reference, Mace has 6 heals in Integration and 2 end reducers / 4 heals in IH.  My observations were made by timing my regen with a stopwatch in lots of combat and after having jumped from huge heights several times.  Informal, I know, but still good for a rough feel for the change.

There's a litany of posts on the official scrapper boards that give the math, but basically the base rates of both powers were unchanged, but the effectiveness of heal enhancements was cut down.

eldeac: it's definitely more than 25 percent to the overall rate.  30% would be a lower bound, even accounting for the (admittedly huge) margin of error in my observations.

[eldaec]

On the regen thing, it's specifically a nerf to healing enhancers in Int and IH, so the exact amount depends on your build, I'm not on test (or on CoH at all this week) so I'm only working from posts.

Looking at pvp balance overall, as far as I can see from notes...

Rad/Psi Def
Rad/Psi Def
Kin/Psi Def
Dark/Psi Def
FF/Psi Def
Storm/Psi Def
Emp/Psi Def
Ill/Rad Con

All dressed up in a phantom army costume.

Beats everything.

Uber def, resist, accuracy, capped damage, and lots of unresistable debuffs, mostly with all new regen rate debuffing, plenty of repulsion to prevent melee (which not covered by anti-chain mez mechanics unless it's a knockback) and lots of toggle drop powers, also, invisibility and decieve.

[HaemishM]

The arenas also include a store that sells temporary powers (which work outside the arena as well as in)...

Hummingbird Pack - Hover, lasts 5 minutes
Jaunt Initializer - Teleport, 5 charges
Low-G Pack - Super Jump, lasts 2 minutes
Raptor Pack - Fly, lasts 2 minutes
Stealth Suit - Stealth, lasts 2 minutes
Stun Grenade - ranged disorient, 6 charges
Web Grenade - ranged immobilize, 6 charges

They all cost 10000 (so free for anyone > lvl 30). You can only hold one of each at a time.

This rocks ass. I've wanted them to sell temp powers for a while, especially ranged ones.

[Mesozoic]

The presence of the jump, fly, and teleport temp powers will certainly be a boon to the superspeed-only types, who will now be able to get over high walls without investing in a totally new power pool or taking the stairs like some Level 4 jackass. 

On the downside SS was popular enough already and omnipresent temp powers will somewhat dilute character uniqueness. 

At least its not going to lead to item camping and / or cries for an auction house.

[Furiously]

Some of the new clothes are kinda cool - ability to modify yourself is pretty nifty - still only like 8 faces you would likely ever use.

[eldaec]

Geko has posted regarding the regen nerf here:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=shibboleth&Number=2501307&bodyprev=#Post2501307

The numbers he gives on 6SO IH suggest a 27% nerf.

[Murgos]

Somebody post up a coupe of pics of the new clothes.  I wan't to see the shiney without resubbing.

[schmoo]

That's a panda...

[schild]

Ohhhhh man. I gotta resub.

[schmoo]

[Strazos]

Regen nerf seems right if you're running solo on Invincible...that's just not fair.

[MaceVanHoffen]

Regen nerf seems right if you're running solo on Invincible...that's just not fair.

Except that all scrappers and tankers can.  Quite a few controllers can, depending on power choice and slotting.  Regen is just the latest whipping boy :)

[eldaec]

As MVH points out, everyone post 32 can complete a solo invinvcible mission, bar a few powersets that are genuinely gimped when solo (Most blasters, empathy, gravity etc).

Regen was more powerful than the other secondaries, though the perception was of a more overpowered set than it actually was. I suspect this nerf is a slightly overdone, but a 10-15% reduction wouldn't, imo, have been unreasonable.

[Mesozoic]

Regen nerf seems right if you're running solo on Invincible...that's just not fair.

Its not that I was running Invincible solo - remember that missions already ramp the difficulty up with more teammates, so each difficulty level must be intended to be do-able solo  - its that while on Invincible I still wasn't challenged.  I was looking for teams just so that I could face a threat. 

[HaemishM]

I tried to get into the Arena on test this weekend, but they've apparently taken it offline, damnit. Anyone who actually reads the official forums know when it's going to come back?

Also, on the Live servers, Striga Isle is currently rocking my world as one my favorite zones ever. There's some really clever stuff hidden in the zone, not instanced, such as the "secret" tunnel into the Council base, and the base itself. Really nice, self-contained zone with some kick ass storylines. Kind of a combo hazard zone/regular zone.

[schmoo]

The arena will be back Tuesday at the earliest.  Don't hold your breath.