f13.net forums - Geko speaks on balance etc

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April 24, 2024, 10:06:41 AM

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Highlights on promised changes....

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* Telekinesis is now an AoE: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Hold, Repel - "Lifts a foe, and any foes, off the ground and repels them. The targets are helpless, unable to take action, and will continue to hover away, picking up any passing targets, as * long as you keep this power active. Keeping up this level of concentration cost a lot of Endurance."

* Increased the duration of the Sleep/Disorient protection from O2 Boost.

* Increased the Accuracy of Storm Summoning/Thunder Clap. It now can affect more targets.

* Chat system messages will now display decimal points. You can now see more accurately how much damage a power is doing, and the effects of level and enhancements for small DoT powers. The numbers overhead will remain rounded. Actual Damage was not changed.

* Increased the difficulty of fighting villains that are much higher level than you. Fighting villains within you range +/- 0 to 2 levels have not changed; Fighting villains +/- 3 to 4 levels changed somewhat; Fighting villains +/- 5 levels changed significantly. This is a significant change, so please be very cautious fighting ‘purples’ now.

* We are taking a good hard look at snare powers and dropped DoT powers (like a fully enhanced Caltrops and Ignite). This has become a significant exploit, but as I mentioned in a previous post, we will do out best to make a change to these powers so as to not affect their individual effectiveness (We may add a [minimum] movement speed to slowed targets, so you will have to use an immobilization to root them and not an enhanced slow. Secondly, a power like Burn or Ignite may free foes from slow or immobilization effects after a few seconds so this combo cannot be exploited. Again, this is still on the drawing board, but you should expect some change here.

* I know a lot of you are talking about Defenders. Let me clear one thing up. Defenders do not pay more for their powers. Their END cost is the same as everyone else’s. So a basic blast from a Defender cost the same as a basic tanker punch. END costs are only indirectly related to Damage. So lets say you have a 4 second recharge power. Whether you are a defender of a tanker or a scrapper, your end cost is 7.5. At level 1, you do about 10 pts of damage with it. Now, each Archetype has a class modifier that is applied to that damage scale. The higher level you go, the more you approach that class modifier. So at level 10, everyone is no longer doing the same amount of damage, but the power still costs the same for everyone. Now one of the features of a Blaster is that they have an inherent END discount. This is to compensate for their complete lack of defense, we want them to keep firing off more attack powers than anyone else. So Defenders don’t pay more end, but Blasters do pay less. I know is just sounds like a spin, but it’s the truth on how it got to the way it is. Bottom line, we will take a look at things and see if there is a problem.

Full text...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=archetypes&Number=510701&bodyprev=#Post510701

I'm expecting we'll see more of the sort of stacking caps Geko is considering for slows before too long.

Decimal points? Fuck. Now I have to turn on the damage shit in my windows again. I was having so much fun with zero chat spam.

Normally I'd say "GEKO IS THE MAN!!" and that'd be the end of it, but his royal screwing up of Telekinesis has gotten my goat.

So the power needed a nerf. Dr. Vahzilok is no-one's bitch, and my ability to hold him as a giant jiggling punching bag with Telekinesis is overkill. So they nerfed the power twice over, by increasing it's already taxxing endurance to ridiculous levels and also by preventing it from working on bosses, monsters, and arch-villians.

Only problem is, the power no longer has a place in my Controller's bag of tricks. I already have Mezmerize, Mass Mezmerize, Dominate, Mass Dominate, Confuse, and Mass Confuse powers. The minions and lts are no longer an issue. The only reason I ever used that Telekinesis ability was for those bosses that just couldn't be hit consistantly with Dominate, and that's been taken away. Making Telekinesis area of effect, cost scads of endurance to use, and only effect minions and lts I can already remove from the equasion with my other powers means TK is still functionally useless.

Welp, that would be the end of my Main "Pyrocide" then.

No longer can I drop caltrops (dropping caltrops is hella dangerous as an opening move because of the initial ranged damage), then drop a rain of fire....

You could, it just wouldn't immobilize them outright so much as make them move very, very slow.

The problem is people are skyrocketing to level 40 by first immobilizing with caltrops and then blowing the shit out of entire groups of mobs several levels higher than them with AoE DoT abilities such as Ignite. Then they just run out of LoS and let the targets burn to death. Repeat for any survivors.

Something has to be done, and removing total immoblization from 'snare' powers is probably the best shot, given that snare should not equal immobilize. Web grenade, there's your immobilize. Caltrops is your snare.

Quote from: MrHat

Drama queen.

Funny that my blaster has no problems soloing groups of 10+ 2 levels higher than him and he does not have caltrops or any other AOE slow or snare at all.

* Increased the difficulty of fighting villains that are much higher level than you. Fighting villains within you range +/- 0 to 2 levels have not changed; Fighting villains +/- 3 to 4 levels changed somewhat; Fighting villains +/- 5 levels changed significantly. This is a significant change, so please be very cautious fighting ‘purples’ now.

Yeah, but so much for carefully soloing groups of reds...

Quote from: Alluvian

Funny that my blaster has no problems soloing groups of 10+ 2 levels higher than him and he does not have caltrops or any other AOE slow or snare at all.

Congradulations?

The point is moot anyways, because my 4 alts are only a few levels behind, and all so fun.

Come to think of it, I really would like to see rain of fire w/ build up :-D

Pyrocide isn't completely dead, just going to have to change my tactics a bit, still looking forward to smoke gren, trip mines and timed bomb.

Quote from: Aslan

* Increased the difficulty of fighting villains that are much higher level than you. Fighting villains within you range +/- 0 to 2 levels have not changed; Fighting villains +/- 3 to 4 levels changed somewhat; Fighting villains +/- 5 levels changed significantly. This is a significant change, so please be very cautious fighting ?purples? now.

Yeah, but so much for carefully soloing groups of reds...

So much for farming Vahz. I ge the feeling that the first peeps to try it after the patch are in for a world of hurt.

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My concern with this is that unlike other MMOGs, the power curve is set up so the number of levels gap between you and a 'purple' mob does not widen as you level up; it remains at anything greater or equal to your level +4 (at least as far as level 21).

I'm not sure how much of a problem this is, but it certainly feels like a problem.

Quote from: eldaec

I'm not sure how much of a problem this is, but it certainly feels like a problem.

It sure felt like a problem when my L3 joined a party led by a L10 for a team mission, and the purples were shrugging off my attacks while decimating me.

(Their fault for not sidekicking people properly, but still.)

The decimal thing is mainly for those obsessing with numbers. The damage will not be changing the game was always counting those numbers as the damage being delt. If you felt comfortable turning off your battle spam before then there is no need to change that now as your powers are doing exactally the same thing they did before.

Some good changes and needed balances there. The aoe snares being enhancable enough to work like a root is an obvious oversight. Basically the change will be a minimum speed cap where you cannot drop mobs below which will likely be very slow but still moving.

The combo of ground targeted aoes that pretty much always hit + aoe snares enhanced to negate movement that always hit was a combo that is just to exploitable.

This does not ruin caltrops+aoe it just makes it a bit more reasonable. The caltrops will still make mobs stay longer in the area effect and thus allow you to get more bang for your aoe buck.

One great change is upping the durations of the single target force fields sheesh with shields lasting 120 seconds it was a bit of a pain to keep more than a couple people fully shielded.

I will be interested in seeing how the changes to the jumping physics with super speed work. I really like the jumping as it is and hope it does not make it less fun. From what it sounds though is that it will be a case of just getting more hang time.

Kaid

Quote from: kaid

The aoe snares being enhancable enough to work like a root is an obvious oversight. Basically the change will be a minimum speed cap where you cannot drop mobs below which will likely be very slow but still moving.

The enahnce slow to be a root thing is fair enough - the side effect is a stacking nerf though.

Which has other consequences on the effectiveness of working together.

This doesn't talk to whether it shoudl happen anyway - but it's worth thinking about.

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Pyrocide isn't completely dead, just going to have to change my tactics a bit, still looking forward to smoke gren, trip mines and timed bomb

Exactly. See, much less drama queenish.

That initial kneejerk reaction you typed out made my spleen hurt.[/quote]

I just got Build Up with my Katana/Regen scrapper. I picked it up as I didnt have any thing else I really wanted. Man, I never thought a skill that lasted 4 seconds or so could be so great. I love it.

Oh yeah, Im glad they are fixing parry in the patch, also doing some other sight tweeks to Broadsword/Katana scrappers.

Anyone think that the cons/level ranges are a bit too tight? Ie - I dont have a problem missing oranges/reds a lot - but it seems a bit harsh that a minion only 2 levels above me is orange - and thus I seem to only hit him 30-40% of the time (and thats with 1 DO accuracy in each of my primary attacks).

I was on a mission with a friend today - Im lv 15, hes lv16, doing one of his missions which was a tough one, so it was full of lv17 mobs - yellow to him, but since they were orange to me I was damn near worthless to join him. In fact, more than worthless, since I doubled the number of mobs on the mission (and incurred a nice collection of debt from always getting pounded).

I'm not sure, this idea only came to me after that mission, but it feels like making a con colour 2 levels instead of every level might help spread out the challenge curve...