Stats Revamp 1.3 (Continued!)

AVAIR, in the last 1.3 thread you said someone was wrong for claiming you are completely starting from scratch and that each patch seems to not have any connection to the other. I want to point out a few things that are driving these comments and the reader of the post can determine for him/herself whether the OP was wrong:

THINGS CHANGED:
1. Multiple abilities removed across powersets
2. Multiple abilities added across powersets
3. The effects of multiple abilities changed across powersets
4. No more power over time ability
5. Passive power regen added
6. Defib/Psychic Empowerment power back significant changed
7. Supercharge generator abilities added
8. The power costs of powers changed across power sets
9. The damage for abilities changed across powersets
10. Supercharges changed across powersets
11. Control effects removed from certain powers
12. Control effects added to certain powers
13. Some power interactions removed
14. New power interactions added
15. Based healing lowered
16. Shield strength lowered
17. Length of shields lowered
18. All might-related buffs removed
19. Weapon mastery removed
20. AM removed
21. Trinket buffs changed

These are just the things off THE TOP OF MY HEAD that changed - AND notice NONE of this directly relates to STATS!

In addition, each new version on test tinkers with all of the above that takes some feedback into account - like strengthening shields - but then ignores others like putting shield length back to what it is on live. Or adding the PI synergy back to biocapaciter. Or what you giveth you taketh away - increasing base heals while significantly increasing power costs.

Thus, IMO, it is more than fair for the OP to claim that it sure feels like the game is being re-created from scratch and it sure feels like each update is just a dart thrown at the dartboard.

There are endless posts about other routes to take in the name of balance and not only have none of those routes been taken but there has been no explanation as to why.

Also, this is the last round of testing I am doing. Already with the latest update, it is still such a mess that all I get out of it is continued frustration and convince myself more and more that there is no way that this is going to end up at the right place.

I will just go play another game and when you finally release this live, I will play and see if it is in fact a train wreck.

took the survey skipped the powers page as my feedback wasn't about a specific power but it turned out that there is nothing more than the specific powers to give feedback about..so it submitted even tho i didn't even provide any feedback and got locked from retaking it,

its not like i intend/want to retake it as iam in a *Meh* phase towards dcuo right now just for future references for any 1 else who intend 2 will keep what ever i had to say to myself.

General Feedback:

• Not happy with PFTT at all, it's a big mess that still needs help.
• First Problem: Power-regeneration needs work, I'm fully modded, have 104 sp into power and I still have to resort to using weapons.
• Second problem: On test with(PftT) If I want to play continously, I can only use two powers. So instead of going "1-2-3-4" on Live, on Test your going "1 and 2". This will make PFTT very repetitive and boring.
• Third problem: As mentioned before, PftT is way behind the other two playstyles(Weapons focused and Hybrid) Yet PFTT demands you have so much more stats just to play it.
• I'm able to beat content so much easier with Weapons Focused and Hybrid, I don't need to mod, I don't need power, I need precision and I'm good to go. I also maintain power much easier with these playstyles.
• PFTT requires me to mod, spec heavily into power, conserve on power, and limit myself on what I can use. At this point I'm asking myself"Why bother with PFTT If it's so far behind and so lacking on variety?"

i was kinda hoping to read some good things here

I'm not a fan of the PftT either as I will most likely be using the good old Hybrid build.

However, for those testing PftT the thing I understand is the higher your power pool, the more damage you'll do despite how much might you have. So if you get all your crits (60sp) and all the power (175sp). Mod with Pure Power, Might & Power, and Health & Power. Even use a Power Buff Soda for the content. You should have strong build right there. And lets not forget that you have generator mods. Having Pure Power and Might in your homebase makes your build even stronger. Something Hybrid players really cannot do as the Hybrid/Weapon builds don't get stronger based on their power pools.

I'm not on test so I can't testing things to know how it working. That is the general idea the devs are trying to do with Play from the Tray.


Now Hybrid build is completely different and when you make your build for that it's not even good to try to balance your might and precision. It's best to put all 175 points in one of those stats. Pick either Might for powers to be stronger or Precision if you intend for your weapon to be stronger as a Hybrid.

Weapon focus is obviously pure precision along with power buffs/weapon buffs. Maybe a few dot powers and a shield. And Robot Side kick. I do think the robot side kick should get a little buff you're using weapon focus. That is just my thoughts. Not like weapon focus will be using powers for their damage out all the time. I see them using the least power to be honest.


Hybrid build should get more power back from using weapons.


PftT should get a passive power regen back or something. I seen a few videos and the people doing this style tend to run out of power despite having like a pool of 24000.

The movement pulls still have a 3 second cooldown as well right now. May I suggest also converting Tornado Pull and Grapple Line to be turned into multi-target pulls to match Flight's Low Pressure?

Just say my name 3 times and I´ll log into Test

Just as a note, in order to even try a decent loadout as PftT during a decent boss fight you need 40-55k power pool in the cr ranges of 173-176'ish. Even with that power pool, you still run out but it'll be like meh ~10 seconds before your soder comes off cooldown depending on your loadout. In order to reach that amount you need to put 150, preferably 160-175 in power pool, ignoring your crits if you're low on sp. From the low 100's to 170'ish is like a 10k if not over power difference if I remember right. Of course, whether someone should need 225sp just to even try PftT and that it's not enough depending their cr is another argument.

Ok i hope everyone takes in the fact that electric healing could use more options electroburst needs to have its dot and hot returned with its 7m radius to keep it the same size as sorcery circle of protection and heals need to be made stronger when compounded on each other and a working electrified and polarized interaction and the healer supercharge builder as well

Feedback
Something has changed with respect to the breakout profiles of the NPCs in the Typhon's Monster Invasion Zone. Gorgons, Satyrs, and sometimes Cockatrices were good specimens for testing crowd control duration length. I used to be able to stun the named NPCs for at least 6 seconds in previous StatsRevamp builds. Now these NPCs are breaking out very quickly. I had to abandon using the area for crowd control testing.

I totally understand what you are saying and I appreciate your perspective on the issue. I did not mean to tell the player that his opinion was wrong, or even unfounded. I apologize if that is the impression I gave. I merely meant to reassure that we do have a plan and that we are working to operate in as steady and measured a manner as we can, given the complicated nature of our task.

Removing AMs and WMs, plus reworking the stat backbone of the game reveals many other issues that those mechanics helped to fix/ cover up. Here are a couple of examples of how they are connected:

#1 and #2 "multiple abilities added and removed from power sets"
Without AMs heavily directing gameplay, some abilities were duplicates, broken, OP, UP, or otherwise undesirable. This means we chose to remove them and replace them with abilities that we felt would provide more options. As an example -->

#7 "supercharge generator abilities added"
When we removed AMs and WMs it revealed that some abilities were pretty lackluster, SCs among them. We created SC generators to provide a loadout choice that would allow people to choose if they want to focus a little bit on SCs or not.

#15 and #16 "Base healing/ shields lowered"
We made many changes in order to create a situation where NPCs in raids and hard content no longer one shot any character that is not a tank. We did this because, again, we want to provide choice and skill to players. Getting one shot in a raid takes away many, many opportunities for skill to play out. Fort instance, if you get one shot it doesn't allow the player getting attacked to shield, dodge, block, soder, supply drop, or use any other ability in response. Getting one shot does not allow the controller time to CC, the healer time to burst heal, or the tank time to taunt.

Once you lower the damage of each NPC attack, you should lower the overall healing output so that healers do not completely make content irrelevant. Same goes for shields. One thing we did for shields though is take away the old constraint they used to have where they would drop off after 3 hits (meaning that they would never actually last the duration they said they would). In this case shields actually got a buff and now last for however many HP they say they will. We recently even made them stronger to help tanks keep themselves alive instead of relying on a spamming healer. Oh and they number of HP they have is stat based, hence stats matter for them.

#11 and #12 "CC added and removed from some abilities"
When trying to make players have a choice between super powers, it is important that they are not all the same. When combing through the database and playing the game we noted that almost every single ability crowd controls. This leads the content team to (rightfully so) create most raid NPCs so that they cannot be CCd, even with the proper Dominance. This means that almost every ability has functionality that doesn't matter in many, many situations. Also, to quote Incredibles, "When everybody is super, nobody will be super." If every ability does everything, none of them give you choice.

When we removed AMs it turns out that many abilities had the same function and purpose as many other abilities. Moving CC around allows us to give differences and meaning to abilities that may not have them otherwise. I do admit that we are not perfect and some abilities may not be in their best form at the moment, but game design is an iterative process and through testing and applying feedback, we will get there. We are taking our time and working through this to get it right and I hope that we can work together to get it right.

Outtro
While for each of these circumstances we do have logical reasons for each change, I do not currently have time to respond to each. I am sorry. I can say that most of the changes stem from the fact that AMs essentially bandaged a system that needed extensive adjusting in order to make work without them. It may not have been that way a long time ago, but many things have changed and that has fundamentally changed the game such that just removing AMs and WMs does not turn the game back to what it used to be.

I can say that we presented our design pillars and goals previously and every change we are making is covered under that umbrella and so the direction we are headed is the same direction we have always stated we are headed we might just be taking a slightly different route in some cases.

Also, I appreciate the time you have taken to playtest and give feedback thus far.

I absolutely can't wait to see the revamp hit live ! Ty u for all your hard work.

In regards to shields I can see where youre coming from, making them stronger to mitigate damage but by doing this and reducing the duration to such a low amount you've near enough removed the ability for shields to be usable for rallying group members, shields were a key mechanic that let you do this reliably because of the duration, now the shield lasts less then the duration it takes to revive someone it's basically impossible since you could also get ccd away from the rally.

In regards to Base healing, this isn't all you've done, you've fundamentally changed key components of the power sets, some which have been there since launch and had a key purpose to assist in how the power set heals, some additions were added later but they were done with the intention of improving the way you can heal with the power sets, what has been done on test has drastically reduced the healing potential in the functionality of a healers powers, sorcery utilised the golden soul aura to ensure its Hots would crit as if they didn't the healing from them were lackluster, bad karma from shard of life along with the other components it provided gave solid healing to those in proximity to it - you could rely on because it did all those things but the main weakness was it's range which justifies the strengths it provided. For electric you removed the bio charge pi which first required positional awareness as well as constant monitoring of group members to ensure they had the pi otherwise your powerful and reliable healing mechanic wouldnt exist. Additionally you've increased Cooldowns way beyond reasonable expectations especially if the ability requires a fairly unique scenario to be useful and isn't very strong.

Pretty much most of the changes you have done to healing goes way beyond adjusting the Base healing values or adjusting restoration. If you kept the way healing abilities worked and then adjusted the power costs and Base values then we could provide meaningful feedback but since there are abilities that were essentially nerfed and healing potential of what was reduced were basically dealing with less ways to heal, less reliability in healing through higher Cooldowns and reduced potential from abilities, lower Base values and extortionate power costs.

Healing didn't have the problems that required this level of a revamp, sorcery and electric needed increase potential in their abilities so that they could compete with nature and celestial healing but these changes just make them even worse than their live counterparts.

You have your points, looking up forums and youtube videos to learn your powerset takes no time to learn, that would be little to almost no Effort, that part I do agree with. The part where it gets me is unfortunately 1 hour 2 top a day is not enough anymore, it takes roughly 1 hour to get all your solo, duos and alerts done. Remember with 2 hours now you have 1 hour left to farm for feats in raids, lpve, pvp, farming for collections, farming for styles etc... Reality is how much effort can you really put in with 2 hours? At the end of the day effort is effort... I agree that you should be compensated on the effort you but on, but those that don't have enough time to put in the effort should not be punished for it...

Good post....needs more math

There is a bug with slotting powers using a mouse. If you scroll down and hover over your loadout it shows whatever power that is behind the loadout power. Kind of annoying.

I just wanted to chime in here. While I agree that changing CC around powers would make those powers unique to have, CC has been important in many ways:
-For tanks as surviability, for instance ( Fire -> Enflame, Ice->Bitter Winds, Rage -> Without Mercy, Earth -> Jackhammer, Atomic his stuns) (They do have more CC options but those are on the top of my mind.
-For solo/duo instances, either its for low level players or higher players CC in their powers provide surviability wether is dps or other roles,
Obviously the CC wasn't as strong as a troll but it still was there and it was helpful.

What was wrong: Powers like Harvest, Powers like Warped reality, that didn't require any dominance to CC the enemies, those are the powers that should be fixed not move arround a lot of CC around.

Yeah, this is known and is super annoying. Thanks for the heads up.

That still sounds like you are starting from the ground up. Maybe not from scratch, but you are messing with the core coding. Which I don't envy you, because I understand the core coding was very poorly designed initially and heavily bloated.

I do have to comment on healing and damage. One shots are not fun. Most people don't like them. They usually stem from just insane level of damage. But the fundamental changes to healing because of the lowering of them just seems odd to me unless you are looking how you were going to go for 2x4 setup. I feel that now that you have changed your view on forced 2x4, you should rethink how you want to treat the healers. Lower healing is fine, but removing the ability to heal not as much.

Unlimited battle rezzes bred lazy unattentive players. Why bother blocking or otherwise avoiding death when you can just scream for a pick up?

It would not bother me at all if the ability to perform pick ups during combat was restricted to healers only and required a spot on the loadout to accomplish.