Test Discussion PCTest Update: Movement mode ability changes

The racing bug is notoriously difficult to reproduce. It has been in the game for several years now.

@JackFrost
Can you share any of the technical details about what changes you are going to make to movement mode powers for the Stealth/Invisibility damage proc? I'm just worried about the interactions with other Gadgets and Mental powers based on the solution.

I found some new bugs related to race and form changes while testing today. I don't think those are particularly relevant to this topic though.

Feedback
As LT mentioned, using Perfect Poise doesn't remove the Stealth/Invisibility form. There are a few powers that let you retain those forms while inflicting damage. I just wasn't expecting Perfect Poise to be one of them.

It would be really nice to be able to use Flight's Dustoff from Stealth, even if there is some animation weirdness. Both Superspeed and Acrobatics have utility Supercharges that retain Stealth. Superspeed has its healing Supercharge from and Acrobatic can use Perfect Poise. The only Flight Supercharge that can be used from Stealth is Vacuum Bubble. Unfortunately, Vacuum Bubble removes Stealth and does lackluster damage.

Bug Report
The Swooping Combos foot mod is not working for me when using any Flight Movement powers from Stealth. I can never do the follow-up Swoop combo. I always end up doing a regular weapon attack.

The Swooping Combos mod does work properly if I'm using a trinket like Form: Man-Bat. It is just Stealth that is giving me problems.

I'm also having the same problems when using Superspeed powers from Stealth with the Dashing Combos foot mod.

Hello JackFrost,

I am just making a comment/suggestion about the Movement Supercharge abilties "Dust off" (flight) and "Dash attack" (super speed), perhaps if possible and for consistency, can you make those two animations similar to "Perfect Poise" (acrobats) please.

I feel it would be much better this way as players will be able to run with these abilities without worrying about losing it if they are formed/movement changed. Losing these abilities only discourages their use and only allowing one movement to use theirs while excluding the other two movements from using theirs creates an advantage vs disadvantage situation and goes against consistency with the form/movement changes.

Keeping these abilities similar, since they are currently the same ability with just a different animation would make more sense. I noticed they perform similar and only have slight differences in their final animation move. Having them all similar to the "Perfect Poise" animation where it will bash the target(s) while granting its abilities of protection and swiftness will allow for more consistency in this movement/form change update.

I would really appreciate it and I am sure others will as well. Hopefully this will be possible. Please consider seeing if this can be done. Thank you for your time and dedication.

Sincerely: Brav

Hey again! Sorry for a few days of no replies. I've just submitted fixes for Swooping Combos and Dashing Combos not working while a player is Stealthed. Additionally, I agree that Perfect Poise should knock players out of Stealth, and made a change so that's the case. I suspect there may be some other abilities that should as well.

If you know of any abilities that feel exploitative (not busting players out of stealth), please feel free to flare them up.

These changes (and the others I submitted previously) should hopefully make it out to the PCTest server this weekend if all goes as planned *crosses fingers*.


As for a couple of your inquires:
The Stealth Damage proc won't trigger for many abilities that have delayed damage. The change I made should allow more of those to trigger the proc. The reason for this is that if an ability knocks a player out of Stealth, then they lose the proc as well. There's another issue that I was trying to track down that seems to affect certain abilities that fire a sphere at the player's target. I don't know if there is an easy fix for this based on how code handles things on a low level. But I hope the changes I made will make the Stealth Damage proc trigger more consistently and make it more viable to use.

Regarding the suggestion to rework Dustoff and Dash attack to utilize different animations... what you're suggesting is definitely beyond the scope of what we were intending to do for this effort; and sadly I don't believe that replacing the animations itself would solve the underlying issue we saw pop up which made us remove those abilities from being able to be used by alternate forms. Thank you for the suggestion nonetheless!

Thanks again for the help with testing!

Bug Report
It is possible for Dustoff to appear on your loadout when you haven't slotted it. Here is a demonstration:


At the start of the video, the only thing I have on my loadout is Serpent Call and Canine Form. After using the Form: Man-Bat trinket a couple of times, Dustoff appears on my loadout.

Bug Report
I don't know if this is related to this change, but Swoop Attack is being "weird" in open world. Here is a demonstration:


After using Swoop Attack, the camera shakes violently and a car about a block away explodes. There wasn't anything on the radar around that location.

The whole thing is weird. It is bad enough that the player disappears from the field of view for a couple of seconds.

No Problem. Thank you for your reply. I only suggested it because it seems to work for "Perfect Poise" and would only bring consistency for those similar abilities. Perhaps some time in a future update it may be possible, once you guys figure out how to over come what ever obstacle is preventing you from making the change. Thank you again for your time and dedication.

Bug Report
Just based on some quick testing, I'm seeing a couple of things from the Flight tree.

Swooping Combos:
When executed from Stealth, only the Whirlwind combo works for me. Otherwise, nothing happens. Here is a demonstration with High Pressure:


Stealth Proc:
Almost everything in the Flight tree triggers the Stealth proc now, EXCEPT for Downdraft. I was hoping Downdraft was going to trigger the proc following the update. Even Vacuum Bubble is triggering the Stealth proc now.

Feedback
Acrobatics seems to fair the worst when it comes to the Stealth Proc. Here is a list of Powers that DO NOT trigger the Stealth proc:

• Grapple Line Attack
• Forward Flip Attack
• Throwing Knives
• Perfect Poise

Bug Report
Dashing Combos is not working very well for me when going from Stealth form for certain powers. Here is a demonstration using Vortex Trap:


I do a non-Stealth Vortex Trap->Dashing Combo at the start. I then try to do it from Stealth and it fails. Ordinarily if you tap the appropriate button at any point during the Vortex Trap animation, the Dash Combo will play out after the Vortex Trap animation finishes. That works just fine outside of Stealth. When I try to do it from Stealth, I get a regular weapon attack.

EDIT:
Dashing Combos works if I use Whirling Dervish or Phase Dodge from Stealth.

Bug Report
I'm seeing the same issues with Sorcery's Aribter of Destiny as what I'm seeing with Gadgbets Stealth. Swooping Combos isn't working with most Flight powers while in the Arbiter form.

Arbiter gets its own animation for most moves. I wouldn't be surprised to find a lot of problems with it.

From Mental's Invisibility there seems to be no change in terms of which abilities get the extra damage proc. None of Mental's own abilities proc other than Ambish pain. The Super Speed attacks all get an entra proc. The Acrobatics and flight ones do not.

I can no longer add abilities to my invisibility load out that can't be used. Check in the good column there.

New bug: Acrobatics' backflip attack now has no animation and does not carry you away from the target when used from Invisibility. The same for devastating flip-- you get a damage burst, but no backflip away from the target.

Ice Elemental seems to work as expected. And I have to say it's more than moderately awesome to see the Ice Elemental do forward and back flips.

I've noticed that no iconic abilities are allowed inside ice elemental. While I can maybe kinda sorta see that from a damage balance perspective, HL Shield, Amazon Lasso, and Amazon Deflect should definitely be allowed at least in Tank Stance.

As it's a relatively short supercharge, personally I think all the iconics should be allowed. Especially Frost Breath, which fits the theme and applies a helpful PI.

From invisibility, the swooping combos foot mod seems to work for whirlwind attack, but not for any of the other movement abilities.

The Acrobatics Tumbling Master foot mod seems completely broken inside of invisibility-- doesn't work at all.

Bug Report
Just to repeat some of what LT observed, Mental's Invisibility is not receiving the damage proc for almost all Flight and Acrobatic attacks. That's in contrast to Stealth where most/some things are working to trigger that damage proc.

Hello all! First I'm very excited about the new movement mode abilities. Secondly, I want to report a bug in mode reset that has been happening since TT release, maybe a bit before as I recall. In the mech suit, upon entering I would have one movement mode of flight in my tray and a different after exiting the suit. Always in the same default pattern. This still happens as of today. Otherwise, I read the test server notes on the mode update and when in to set up the playtest. I took two avatars one flight and the other super speed and deducted I would need to use a supercharged form, hence ice elemental. The load-outs are in place and I've yet to test and will report back soon. Good day!

Hi all. Once I realized exactly what the new movement mode is and how it applies I set out to test it. Today I discovered in Gadgets/Stealth with flight, the stealth definitely needs more time before expiring. One flight mode would not come to fruition before stealth expired, others would work fine within the given time but not all would make it to full animation. And I checked the Ice Elemental tray to make sure the flight modes did fit in. They do, and after giving it thought it occurred to me Ice Elemental is a supercharge hence it'll last longer than Stealth within reason. Thus a possible solution to the Stealth expiration would be to make it a Supercharge while balancing cost with cool-down in correlation to overall group, (doa) damage over the area and balance it with other Supercharges. Lastly, shortly after getting off the Test server today it turns out we're in for a bit of downtime and due to the EDT it looks like it's for the graphics. And I'm looking forward to resuming testing ASAP!