Test Discussion Episode 41: Allies Balance Feedback

Wow so Dom and resto increase its value and even more so on a fire tank o.o then that means Circe Mask also affects it.

There is an obvious bug where Allies are CCing bosses. The group was rotating Allies in Power Core Elite and the bosses were literally stunned half of the time.

I'm not on test, I was watching others, so I can't say which Allies specifically were stunning the bosses.

It's Flashpoint Batman

Your playing a mmo. That's how mmos work, the cool thing is nobody forces anyone to go out ands get everything a mmo offers.

I gotta say, it would be funny if it works for every one but superspeed.

Superspeeders: That's not fair!

Devs: This is intended but here's a free movement respect token so that you can change to a movement that utilizes it. Hell, here's another in case you change your mind. You know what, here's 10 movement respect tokens just in case you really have trouble deciding!

Superspeeders: Uhhhh, no thanks.

#Balance

If true, its actually good although maybe not intended. Flight/skimming always had a hard time to catch up in terms of speed to superspeed or acrobatics.

Abilities Overview:
- Calculate Bot, its abit inconsistent, also the description indicates that its a HOT(heal over time), but currently is just a single heal? (Would be more cool an increase of defense if a player succefully dodged a ranged attack:9 )
- Oracle Repair, could this abilty speed be slighty increased? I belive that this abilty should be able to repair a full broken set in about 2 mins wait time. After all some investement had to be made in order to get this abilty and is very welcomed to free to players
- House of legend bot, saddly this abilty will either be useless or straight broken, I would sugest that instead of granting power, it could provide a weak sheild to the caster:9
- Flash (Walk it off), I have mixed feelings about this abilty. Saddly, I currently dont see any major benefit in using this. However, if instead allowed other moviment powers the abilty to consistently travel the same speed as super-speed while on combat, I could see some usage. (Maybe a fix speed, lets say super-speed is 1.5x then this would give 1.6x)
-Batman(Solo Detective), well I know that the solo restriction is in the name of balence, but it would be great if it was allowed to be used by all players except tanks? (Again im a tank if i could use it, I bet this would be my go to 100% of the time). This minor change could allow players to finish alerts and in cenarios where there ins't a tank.

Thats my take in the current allies abilties.

Once things go on test they are set to go live. Changing abilities, or anything in general, generally doesn’t happen. It’s better to see where things are falling short or where things are over performing. For there are 4 key areas things are over performing. The robot restoring 100% of ones power, zoom hitting for millions within 6 seconds of him being out. Batman being able to cc bosses (according to chills) and aquaman being able to reset using multiple different supercharges.

When I tested aquaman he was only resetting every 45 seconds(ish) but I saw his video and using different powers he was able to reset it a second time. So it seems he doesn’t check across supercharges and just 1 at a time. I’m ok with this resetting but it needs to have the cooldown across all supercharges.

The robot shouldn’t heal for 100% maybe 10-20% max since it requires a CC to do and in alerts/raids healers and DPS wouldn’t normally be able to do it.

Zoom shouldn’t do that much damage.

Batman shouldn’t be CCing bosses.


While other abilities aren’t even working. Batman’s Prec heal, cyborgs power regen, aquamans pet buff, Diana’s both passives?, And zooms movement buff.


And others need buffs.
Calcs roll needs a buff to healing or a shorter cooldown
Batman’s defense buff needs an increase
Flash should just remove the movement penalty as soon as combat ends
And the damage of other allies should be brought up or standardized with other allies

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, in lieu of giving targeted responses to specific players I'll give a more general post

FP Batman Passive 2: This is set to activate upon using your weapon buff skill, I apologize about the tooltip and will rectify this in a coming patch
Zoom Passive 1: This should work for all movement mode types, I'll have QA & Engineering investigate this and see how I can fix it on my end
House of Legends bot Passive 1: I need to rebalance this passive, I missed getting it in on time and I apologize, it should be far less powerful in the future and provide a reasonable boost in combat effectiveness
Calculator Bot Passive 1: I need to refactor this one to make it less clunky
FP Aquaman Passive 1: I need to rebalance this one to make it less powerful, I apologize for letting you see the less balanced version
FP Aquaman Passive 2: Currently this activates only upon summoning Earth and Sorcery pets, I will meet with the team and decide if it should also extend to combat pets and henchmen

Damage
I'll preform another pass on this to ensure that AoE types do not out preform ST allies when attacking a single target.

And as I said in the post earlier thanks a bunch for your feedback and comments

Hey, I know you’re super busy, but is there any chance we could get further clarification on the differences between rarities? We know legendaries have two passives, and… that’s pretty much it. Should higher rarities be parsing higher if they have comparable attacks (Multi/Single target, stun/no stun, etc)?

Generally speaking (although this can vary by the damage type of the ally and several other factors) Since lower Tiered allies have less levels, they don't scale as high but I am trying my best to make sure the divide from a Rare ally and a Legendary Ally is not a wide divide. But to simply put it, the more rare allies will generally be stronger at max level.

I hope this provided the desired clarity, and again thanks for the feedback.

Aquaman Passive 2 should at the least, be for all power pets. (Turret, RSK, etc.) As it pigeon holes his utility for a very expensive rank up to acquire.

Edit: Also, Ranmaru, why don't you show up in the Dev Tracker? D:

I have tried the Batman passive with the weapon buff and still was not getting any bonus health or any healing. We were able to figure that part out from the other post which described the passive. The issue was that the bonus was not activating. Also, I believe chills tested the cyborg power regen and he found that the power regen was also not working. As said by bumbleB the aquaman passive should at least include robot sidekick and turret.

As for the other aquaman passive. Could you elaborate on how it will be adjusted? Will it be made to reset combat skills but not across multiple skills or will it give a lower cooldown when a SC is used?

And finally, when can we expect these changes to hit the server? Since test servers are only up for a very limited amount of time we would all like to test them as soon as we could

I have to admit that at First glance..... the Allies seemed underwhelming.

There is this Gotham Signal trinket that allows us to summon Batman for a few seconds....then Batman leaves.
It was a cool idea.... for about 5 minutes..... untill we realised how week an ability it was. So other then for the cool factor..... I don't see many people using it.

And the Allies seemed to be similar.
Even worse seeing how in the case of the Allies.... you need to use a LOT of ressources to level them up.... especially all the Ressoures to bring the Legendary to rank 10.... not to mention that we will need to buy the Legendray Allies from the MP with $$$ making it even worse.

Lets look at them Allies...

Batman

Combat. seems Ok in combat. Cool... but not that powerful.

Extra Defense when playing solo??? When you can already play the solo content without him... not very usefull.
Even worse with the Clamp. Unless we get the Clamp.... and then we get the extra 1800 Defense?? and even then..... we should be able to play the solo fine. So.... pretty useless sadly.

And the healing Ability?? Useless if you do not use a Weapon Buff.
What about Group Weapon Buff?? does that trigger the Healing ability?
And how much healing are we even talking about?? could be not very useful depending on how much healing.

Again..... seeing how we will have to spend $$$+A lot of Ally resources Lot of Catalysts like 250 I think???
That is a LOT of resources used for something that will not really be usefull.
other then the cool factor then summoning Flashpoint Batman for a few seconds... that will get very old real fast.

Zoom
The best Ally in combat... which sadly pretty much means he will get nerfed.
How about instead of nerfing Zoom.?? why not give a buff to the other Allies?? so that they can be a match for Zoom as opposed to nerfing Zoom?

Faster movement out of combat..... a nice quality of life idea..... but other then with races..... I would use Zoom in combat.

Flash
A bit weak in combat but nice attack ability.

His support...a small quality of life thing.... very small.

Calculator
Not great in combat.

Rolling to heal a bit??? Clunky is one way to say it.
The firs Ally that will be pretty much useless right off the bat that no one in their right mind will use.

House of Legends Bot
OK in Combat. He does stick around longer then most.

His support ability could be useful.. IF you use a stun move...... and depending on how much power he will give.
Obviously.... useless for people who do not use a stun move.

Flashpoint Wonder Woman
Combat... hard to tell her Taunt does not seem to work most of the time.

Her Pull support move..... useless if you do not use a Pull move.
And how much weapon debuff are we really talking about?? nd ods are it will not work against bosses.... so probably pretty useless in the end?

Her Support Buff Might... could be usefull in a Group but conditional to breaking out to activate... and depending on how much of a buff we are talking about....
But of course... pointless when playing solo.

Cyborg
Seems ok in combat. Especially Good for single target it seems.

His support power ability.... depends how much power it really gives back... how big a bonus are we talking about?

Oracle
Not great in combat.

And her support ability to repair gear over time?? Pointless. Repairing is not even close to being an Issue... and soon even Premium will have unlimited $$$ to repair..... and Free2Play will have $50 000 to repair. This ability is completely useless.
The second character that will be useless from the start that no one in their right mind will ever use.

Aquaman
Pretty good stun in combat.

His supercharge move was the one ability that is actually very useful. and sadly that will get nerfed. Very sad.

And his pet ability..... useless unless you play Earth or Sorcery.
And it activates for a short while when you summon the pet?? But..... you don't wait for battle to cast Crystal or Brick. You cast them right away and they follow you around.

The same with the Sorcery pets. other then Grand summoning..... you don't wait to be in battle to summon your pets.

So even with Earth and Sorcery.... not sure how useful that will really be???


Sorry for the loooong post.

I don't know what your guys' intent are for the future of Allies..... and what other Allies abilities we might get in the furture....
But this first batch of Allies are a bit underwhelming....
And the few bright spots there are are going to be nerfed sadly.

Some of these will require $$$ and a LOT of resources.
You would expect some powerful allies for all that $$$ and effort that will go into upgrading those.

Hope this post made sense.

I see these as basically orbitals with a side of artifact. They can be useful depending on how you spec them and which you use in what spots. The fun will come when there are several dozen to choose from. None of them are going to win fights for you outright (except maybe Zoom, who seems a little OP to me) but they might give you an edge when you need it if you know how to use them.

I almost feel like the in-game fun will be more from collecting them than using them. I'm not sure that's ideal, but at the moment I do not see them as a game changer, just something else interesting to do in the game.

Not sure if this is the right place for this but the Allies aren't attacking enemies that are directly above my head within the red reticule.
Tested this with a friend in a duel and seemed like the Flash Ally cant bend upwards to attack in an upward direction

At first i tought it wouldnt work for any movement mode, so i was reverse engineering it.
The results been flying and skimming increase from 16.875 to 21.09375 (25%) while Acrobatics been at 16.875 and Superspeed at 18.7792511 base speed without getting the passive ally increase.

So you´re right that Superspeed always been a little faster compared to flying, skimming and acrobatics.
From a developer perspective flying and skimming are pretty much the same thing, except for animations.
Superspeed and Acrobatics make use of multiple value factors like jump (in air speed, if not grounded etc.)

Im also with you, movement modes should have same speeds, and ally passive effect + 1/3 instead of 1/4...since its out of combat anyway but that´s only my opinion.

If they intend on making profit off them they need to bring them up to zoom level and the legendries more useful cause currently nobody going to be pressed to level them right away for what they offer.

The important question that came to my mind yesterday was, does it affect your movement also with your drawn weapon?
I mean the purpose of this passive is to make it possible or easier to catch up to others in hallways between add groups faster, right? So if it doesnt work - since youre still as fast as in combat mode with your drawn weapon although youre not in actual combat mode anymore - what would be the point then...

Can you test that too?

Since only flying/skimming working for now with Zoom "Hotfoot", it doesnt affect speed with drawn out weapon, even when not beeing in Combat.
And let´s not get things mixed up, there is Flash´s passive "Walk it off" which does affect the speed from combat/weapon drawn to normal by 50% and that´s working for all movement modes. Movement speeds also differ with drawn weapons (Superspeed 9.375, Flying 7.5, Acrobatics 8.25) Values are from low to max with drawn weapon, depending on combo and obviously if you´re walking forward or not.

The point behind "Hotfoot" is probably more an Iconic feature, for people who might wanna be little bit faster like Flash etc.

Btw, feel free to ask me other things to reverse engineer. Seem to be beneficial for players and development team to have a white hat hacker testing/investigating more detailed Obviously only on Test-Server, if you wanna ask me something ingame add "Code" to your friends.