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1

(Almost Tested) Bug Reporting / Hypothermia does not put enemies to sleep on PTS - 08/09/2021

« on: August 09, 2021, 01:51:44 pm »

Already mentioned on discord but felt it was important to report here as well. The new hypothermia water control power fails to put enemies to sleep on PTS. I tested with both a controller and dominator and got same results. When casting hypothermia (and no other powers active) on a random set of hellions in AP they were slowed and showed the ZZZ above them but continued to run around and fire their guns at me confirming they weren't actually asleep.

2

Player Help/Guides / Set Enhancement pricing list

« on: June 23, 2021, 02:48:58 pm »

So since the pricing revamp a few weeks ago, the wiki needed to be updated. Researching prices, and consulting with devs, I found that (intentionally or not) all enhancement sets can be put into one of a number of different pricing categories. These categories, and current prices are listed below. Be aware that there are in-game exceptions to these costs but according to Bee these are mistakes that need to be corrected in the game itself, not exceptions intentionally placed. Note: Anything with a cost of 0 means it can not be purchased using that merit type, not that it's free. I'm also using the wiki abbreviations since that is how this all got started.

PU = Purple and PVPIO
Merit Cost = 0
Alignment Merit = 8
Astral Merit = 0
Empyrean Merit = 30

HE = "high event" event IO's with a proc
Merit Cost = 125
Alignment Merit = 2
Astral Merit = 24
Empyrean Merit = 0

LE = "low event" non-proc event IO's
Merit Cost = 75
Alignment Merit = 1
Astral Merit = 12
Empyrean Merit = 0

HA = "high ATO" ATO IO's with a proc
Merit Cost = 125
Alignment Merit = 0
Astral Merit = 70
Empyrean Merit = 0

LA = "low ATO" non-proc ATO IO's
Merit Cost = 75
Alignment Merit = 0
Astral Merit = 55
Empyrean Merit = 0

HA = "high ATO" ATO IO's with a proc
Merit Cost = 125
Alignment Merit = 0
Astral Merit = 70
Empyrean Merit = 0

LA = "low ATO" non-proc ATO IO's
Merit Cost = 75
Alignment Merit = 0
Astral Merit = 55
Empyrean Merit = 0

HR = "high rare" rare IO's with a proc
Merit Cost = 125
Alignment Merit = 2
Astral Merit = 24
Empyrean Merit = 0

LR = "low rare" non-proc rare IO's
Merit Cost = 75
Alignment Merit = 1
Astral Merit = 12
Empyrean Merit = 0

HU = "high uncommon" uncommon IO's with a proc
Merit Cost = 60
Alignment Merit = 0
Astral Merit = 0
Empyrean Merit = 0

LU = "low uncommon" non-proc uncommon IO's
Merit Cost = 30
Alignment Merit = 0
Astral Merit = 0
Empyrean Merit = 0


Edit: Another thing to note, there are no "High Uncommon" recipe's in the game. Recipe's with those prices were mentioned in the patch notes, which is why it's included, but I was unable to find a single one in the merit vendor in-game.

3

Blaster / The Blasters Litany

« on: June 05, 2021, 03:45:04 pm »

"I will not fear debt. Fear of debt is the DPS killer. Fear of debt is the little death that doesn't bring total obliteration. I will embrace my debt. I will permit it to accumulate in me and when it has been paid I will turn to see my path. Where I have gone there will be nothing, only my enemies corpses will remain."

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General Suggestions and Feedback / Possibility of Forum Calendar showing game schedule?

« on: June 01, 2021, 07:45:13 pm »

So I noticed our forums have a calendar option, which is honestly a bit useless as I have a million other ways of knowing the date and when major holidays happen. However if the calendar was to automatically show scheduled Rebirth activities, like the reset, weekly PvP, itrials, etc. then I could see myself actually using it. Sure the Event Herald is useful for knowing what's coming up but that requires either Discord or logging into the game. If all that stuff was in the calendar then users could more easily know whats going on. I admit even if it was done by an admin or something that it probably wouldn't be widely used but I think it would be convenient for some people.

5

General Suggestions and Feedback / On group fly and group TP

« on: May 31, 2021, 12:33:39 am »

Even on live group fly and group teleport have always been... less popular then other pool power choices. Their cost is so high to their benefit to be almost useless and what uses players do have for them are essentially niche. They are used so rarely that often when I do try to use them I get asked not to because it messes players up despite usually being high enough they could have long since visited Null the Gull. These suggestions are just the ideas I've come up with so far and am really curious if anyone has other ideas.

Group Fly - I think this one is the "simplest" to fix (sans spaghetti) is to make group fly a map wide power.  This would make it the way I think it was meant to be, allowing one char to allow others to fly. However given the current range it is too easy for those following to "fall out" of the range. Especially since the char using group fly probably has a faster fly speed. By having it be map wide it allows player to grant their entire team flight capability (if they want it) and also allows MM's to not worry about their pets dropping out of flight behind them.

Group Teleport - This one is trickier. The only real option I can think of is to turn it into "recall all" where it behaves like assemble the team but with a much shorter CD. I might increase the CD of ATT to balance it out. I'm not really thrilled with this idea but it's the best I've been able to think of. One thing I would change though, assuming group TP is essentially replaced, is to make regular teleport affect MM pets so that melee MM's can use it to still jump into a group without having to worry about minions closing in.

6

General Suggestions and Feedback / On the "tanker touchup" mentioned in the roadmap

« on: May 27, 2021, 12:42:48 am »

So with the newly proposed "tanker touchup" mentioned in the recently posted roadmaps I wanted to get a conversation going about some concerns I have about it. Overall I like the idea of increasing the aggro cap on tankers, makes them better tanks then brutes, however it brings up a possible issue I've noticed with tankers, namely that they're the one AT that's good to have 1 of in a group, but having more isn't as useful. With almost any other AT having more of that AT is useful to a group. However tankers are heavily defensive and focus on keeping others alive by keeping all the aggro on them. The problem is that there is only so much aggro a team is likely to encounter and generally having just 1 tanker is enough. Adding a 2nd tanker doesn't usually make the team any safer then 1 and the DPS of the 2nd tanker is pretty minimal compared to other AT's. Bruising helps a little bit by giving a out -res to some of the enemies but a debuffing defender can do that even better.

By increasing the aggro cap by itself this will exasperate the problem as 1 tank by itself can protect the team even better, making a 2nd tanker even less useful then they currently are. Some other servers (most notably Homecoming) "fixed" this by removing bruising and increasing the damage tankers do which I would oppose here. While that change does make Tankers more useful, it also makes them too similar to brutes. Now the roadmap does mention possible changes to bruising, which I'm hoping the dev discussions are taking this issue into account. Sure any team can work, even a team of all Tankers, but it would be better to not have an AT that's "redundant" if you have more then one on a team.

I admit I don't really have any suggestions or solutions right now, if I think of any I'll add them, but I just wanted to get a discussion on this going and see what others think. Does anyone else think having more then 1 tanker on a team to be redundant, especially if the aggro cap is increased? If not why? If yes then any ideas on possible changes to tankers to make extra less redundant without making them too similar to brutes?

7

General Suggestions and Feedback / Proposed long term alignment revamp

« on: May 18, 2021, 06:06:03 pm »

So this idea came about after a *really* productive brainstorming session on the discord. I'm not even the one who came up with the original suggestion (kudos to Erpmario!) and it still needs a lot of details figured out but I like the overall idea enough I'm posting it here to keep the discussion going and to avoid it getting forgotten on discord. In a nutshell the basic idea is that we take the how alignments work in Praetoria/goldside, and expand that to work throughout the entire game.

So just like in Praetoria, a character would actually have two alignments. The external/public alignment, and an internal/true alignment. At the beginning of the game players would choose their internal/true alignment, just like you currently do when starting in Praetoria. Though unlike Praetoria's binary loyalist/resistance choice players can choose the current 4 hero/vig/rog/vil alignments. As players go through the game they are given moral choices that are affected by, and can change, their public alignment just like happens in Praetoria. Also just like Praetoria, this does *not* change your true alignment. If you're a true hero and turn public vig/rog/villain then like Praetoria certain options open up for doing things a little differently. For example a true hero that is a public villain may have the option to secretly report back to the Freedom Phalanx about what's going on in the rogue isles. Or a true vig but public hero needs to arrange an "accident" when taking out Lord Bloodthirster the Genocider instead of simply executing him like a public vig would.

One big difference though between the current Praetorian system and this new proposed one is that there has to be a way for players to change their true alignment as well. Characters evolve, players come up with different ideas to play existing characters, and eventually there is going to be a point where people are going to want to change the true alignment so that they can continue to go undercover for their new alignment and not forever be stuck only doing undercover work with their initial alignment like with Praetoria. With Praetoria this isn't too bad because it's only the first 20 levels and then it's a non-issue. With this suggestion you will have a true alignment all the way to the end game and it would be bad for people to get "stuck" without being able to grow their character as they want.

Doing this would not only open up a LOT more options with how alignments, swapping sides, and AM's work, but it also give us the possibility of breathing new life into old missions. Now instead of just being a hero rescuing Fusionette yet again as you go through the Faultline arc on your billionth alt. Your public hero could be doing secret stuff *while* rescuing Fusionette in order to arrange smuggling Sands/Nocturne/Castillo (which one determined by your true alignment) into Faultline. Then at the end you have the option to *choose* who you give the PsychoChronoMetron to, either Yin, Sands, Nocturne, or Castillo (with corresponding public alignment change) at the end! Your true villain public hero decides he doesn't care about his cover anymore but also doesn't care enough about Arachnos to give it to Nocturne (villain choice) so you sell it to Sands (rogue choice). Now you're a true villain public rogue because the world sees publicly that you're looking out for yourself and will be treated accordingly. Now imagine lots of little stuff like that throughout all the various arcs in the game. It would be absolutely awesome and glorious.

Now, is this idea very ambitious and going to take a ton of work? Absolutely, there is no way this is going to be RI2 or even RI4, But I'm hopeful that this idea will gain traction as a long term goal and that with a bit of luck we'll see RI7 "Undercover Alignments" for the overall alignment revamp itself and RI8 "Stories Retold" for the mission rewrites.

Edit: A few details to consider and need resolving. What about tips and collecting AM's? I'm personally leaning towards 4 types of AM's, one for each alignment type. AM's are not lost if you change your public or private alignment, however each type of AM can buy things slightly unique to the alignment type (alignment specific signature summons being an obvious choice IMO) and don't convert, or if they do there's a fee. So if you have 7 vig AM's and 1 hero AM then you're still not buying that 8 cost purp until you get 1 more vig AM. I also think you get AM's based on what kind of tips you do as it's representing people treating you based on how they view your actions, regardless of your internal reasons for different actions. Want that vig AM? Better start doing vig tips and publicly start acting like a vig.

Another question is, what, besides alternative side stories in missions, does a players true alignment give them? The public alignment is obvious since the game treats them as that alignment similar to what alignment does now. But what, besides RP reasons, does a person have for being a true hero public villain rather then a true villain public villain? I'll be honest, RP is good enough for me but I feel like there should be some sort of gameplay change around it. Maybe you always keep the alignment power of your true alignment regardless instead of your public alignment? Maybe you can use any saved up signature summons of your true alignment? So if you're a true villain public hero then Captain Mako will be willing to help since he knows where your true loyalties lie, though that may be a little odd on teams if your fellow teammate "hero" turns out to be close pals with Lord Recluse.

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(Almost Tested) Bug Reporting / Economy revamp review

« on: May 14, 2021, 02:16:49 am »

So I've been going over the proposed economy changes based on the sheet Bee posted. I can tell there's been a lot of work and number crunching done on this already (honestly I'm quite impressed) assuming much of this has been reviewed gone over "behind the closed doors" but I want to go over this a bit. I'm only going to focus on the reward and alignment merits, not the incarnate stuff, since I'm more familiar with them.

One thing to note first is the formula for the original awards which according to the wiki is: Task Forces give an average of 1 merit every 3 minutes of average time (20 merits an hour), Trials give an average of 1 merit every 2.5 minutes (24 merits an hour), and Story Arcs give an average of 1 merit every 7.5 minutes (8 merits an hour).

With the current ratio using purps (what most people want), an alignment merit will be worth about 50 reward merits (400 / 8 = 50). That means a task force earns an "alignment merit" every 150 minutes, or 2.5 hours. I estimate a decent tips team will complete a full alignment + morality run in about 3 hours so this is in a good place as it means the equivalent of an average of 1 merit every 4 minutes (15 merits per hour).

These numbers are good, it means a person jumping in to do a single TF or tips run per night will get a purple about once per week which I think is good. That means even someone playing super casually who only does this twice a week will still get a purple per month even without paragon rewards.

Which bring me to my biggest question with this all this is... why are we keeping alignment merits? The only reasons for having multiple currencies in a video game is to have special items that can only be purchased by one of the currencies but not the other. This is the reason for alignment merits in the first place back on live. You *had* to grind alignment merits to get purps as you could not spend regular merits for them. However with this proposed change that is no longer the case. The same items that can be bought with alignment merits can be bought for reward merits. There's even a consistent conversion between the 2 currencies. Keeping the currencies split doesn't really do anything besides encourage people to use the more efficient of the 2, in this case the reward merits, since you can obtain them faster and you never lose them if you change alignment.

My proposal now is to eliminate all alignment merits and when a player confirms their alignment, whether hero, vig, rog, or vil they get 50 reward merits. That puts keeps the reward equivalent in reward merits as what is proposed in alignment merits. It also takes out what is now an obsolete and irrelevant currency that isn't quite as good as the current reward merits are.

Edit: This is assuming rewards remain as posted. If something is changed so that certain items can only be purchased via alignment merits that are not available from reward merits then there becomes a reason to keep alignment merits.

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General Suggestions and Feedback / What should be our vision for the wiki and the obsolete user data?

« on: May 13, 2021, 04:04:58 pm »

Not certain where to put this, but "suggestion" is the closest I can think of so it's here. Basically I think we need a discussion about the wiki and our vision for the future with it. I've been going through the "links without pages" list, finding entries missing from our wiki that are on paragon wiki and then copying them over. While tedious I think it's worth it to have our wiki be complete and accurate with all the various missions that didn't initially migrate over for some reason. However I've started reaching links to players old characters from their user pages, mostly on ouroportal, that are missing.

While I do want the rebirth wiki to be complete and accurate, I don't think we need it to be a complete historical snapshot of what the game was like during sunset. My vision for the wiki is for it to be completely new, focusing on how the Rebirth server is now, and just using the old paragon wiki articles as a starting point. For this reason I really think all these old user pages should simply be purged from the wiki instead of trying update/include the missing data their pages are linking to. I do not have permission to completely delete an article, and even if I did I do not think that is an action one person like myself should take without consulting with the rest of the community and the mods.

So what does everyone else think we should do with these old user pages?

Also, I think having a "wiki" section of the forums would be a good idea too so people can suggest and discuss the wiki in general rather then taking over specific talk pages within it.

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AE/Mission Architect / Donkyhotay's AE missions

« on: May 11, 2021, 03:32:58 am »

Here is a list of my AE arcs if anyone is interested.


Name: The Many Lives of Lord Recluse
arcID: 774
Length: 5 missions
Level: 40-54
Description: Portal Corp has learned that 5 alternate versions of Lord Recluse from parallel dimensions are planning to invade Primal Earth. We need you to stop them before they do. Despite the warning there are no *mandatory* fights with any EB's, AV's, or GM's.


Name: Shining Stars: The Search for Dillo
arcID: 797
Length: 2 missions
Level: 35-54
Description: Dillo from the Shining Stars has been replaced by a Nemesis automaton! Find out what happened as you track him down and rescue him. This mission assumes your character is a hero that has completed all of the Shining Stars arcs.