Messages

1

General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Helping with Patron Power Unlock Mission Should Give Unlock

« on: September 08, 2023, 08:49:42 am »

In the long run, "gimmie all the good stuff for minimal effort on my part!" rarely improves Player retention rates.
The less effort it takes to accomplish something, the less value it has to start with and the less value it will retain over time.

There's a reason why "boosting" garners less respect than actually doing the work (and P2W garners even less).

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General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Helping with Patron Power Unlock Mission Should Give Unlock

« on: September 07, 2023, 08:29:50 am »

If anyone does the final patron pool unlock mission, regardless of whose mission it is, they deserve to get the badge and the unlock.

I would disagree on the grounds that the Patron Unlock is the entire Patron Story Arc, not just merely the last mission in that arc.
Not sure what the "under the hood" coding is, but I can easily imagine it being one where each of the missions in the arc needs to be completed as a prerequisite to achieving the Patron unlock reward.

Over a decade ago back on the Virtue Server, I remember running all 4 Patron Arcs on a single character in order to unlock each Patron Pool "just in case" I ever wanted to respec into an alternate build using powers from a different Patron.

I'm a redside native; I want to help other members of my endangered species have fun, and when I can help people get the badge early, I save them the trouble of having to respec when they can't take the power they want at 35.

The simplest solution to that particular problem (the respec part) would be to make the Patron Arcs available to be run @ Level 34 ... not 35.
The powers that completion unlocks remain 35+ as normal, but the opportunity to unlock them is made available starting at Level 34. That way you can run your Patron Arc and achieve the unlock "in time" for advancing to Level 35 and you can choose a power from your Patron Pool without needing to respec for it.

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General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Third Email Test: Checking it One Last Time with the new server now!

« on: August 26, 2023, 08:21:03 pm »

Received Inbox @ Sat, Aug 26 at 10:13 AM (local time)

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General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Global Power Duration Enhancement Set Suggestion

« on: August 10, 2023, 08:40:09 am »

this will not be an easy implementation.
Consider it a casual endeavor. as you go through the code to do other things

Where's my facepalm image?

Just because something is easy to SAY ... does not ipso facto mean that it would be easy (for someone else) to DO!
That's like saying that "overhauling the Rules Of Reality" ought to be a "casual endeavor on the side" while working on the physics of nuclear fusion.

NONE of what you are proposing is a "casual endeavor" ... especially if you want it done RIGHT in ways that don't screw up something (everything?) else, leaving you with a mess of codebase that doesn't work anymore because you "casually" screwed things up that shouldn't have been messed with.



If builders built buildings the way that programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
- Murphy's Laws poster

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General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Global Power Duration Enhancement Set Suggestion

« on: August 08, 2023, 08:50:52 am »

Sounds easy.
It's even easy to say.

Actually DOING IT would be an almost herculean effort of rewriting fundamental spaghettified hardcode.

There's a reason why the Paragon Studios devs publicly described how trying to modify the game's codebase was like trying to play Jhenga WHILE THE BLOCKS WERE ON FIRE!



Can it be done?
With enough Time, Tools and Tech Manuals ... almost anything can be done.

Would it be WISE to invest that amount of resources into such an endeavor?
That's a very different question ...

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Video Games / Pay 2 Win: The Tricks Exposed

« on: August 02, 2023, 11:49:21 am »

I recommend watching this 14:10 youtube video in its entirety (including the credits!) before looking at any other online game with microtransaction features in embedded in it.



And if that isn't good enough for you, Asmongold watched the P2W game video and liked it!

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General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: 2nd Email General Test "I DID NOT GET THE EMAIL"

« on: August 02, 2023, 09:40:10 am »

Email received 1 Aug, automatically routed to spam folder.
Wouldn't have known to even look for it without seeing this thread first.

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General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: FOCUSED FEEDBACK: Issue 6 - Power proliferations and tweaks

« on: July 02, 2023, 09:12:07 pm »

Have you considered adding Attract "resistance" to the Kinetics powerset?
Specifically the Increase Density power ...?

9

Developers Diary / Re: Dawn of Genesis: Martial Prowess Epic Power Pool Proliferation

« on: June 28, 2023, 02:31:54 pm »

Tanker and Brute both have their own unique power available to them in Martial Prowess. Here are those powers in detail.

Art of War - Tanker Exclusive, Available level 41 with 1 power pick
Auto: Global Chance of +DMG (all), +End Discount
Your practiced moves allow you to get into a rhythm that blends a perfect combination of offense and defense. Every attack you make has a high chance of increasing your damage (all) and endurance discount for 10 seconds as your rhythm makes your attacks more efficient. This effect stacks 3 times. You must be level 41 and own Throwing Dagger or Battle Hardened to purchase this power.

Design Notes: Scrapper's Shukuchi allows them to briefly emulate a Stalker by teleporting into a group of mobs with a very short, very high stealth buff that also has a moderate damage buff to emulate the hidden effect. It is not nearly as potent as an actual stalker by design. Art of War allows Tankers to emulate a Brute's bonus to sustained attacks, aka fury. I didn't want to just straight copy fury however, that's Brute's thing! This is where a stacking global enhancement proc came in. This was made to thematically represent that you're less getting angrier as you attack and more that you're just really good at hitting things. This originally had Resistance bonuses instead of endurance discount as you attacked but that was scrapped as Tankers are durable enough.

Reckless Abandon - Brute Exclusive, Available level 41 with 1 power pick
Self +Fury, +Res (all)
You succumb to your rage and begin fighting with no regard for your well-being. This power gives you a large amount of Fury and increases your damage resistance to everything for 30 seconds as you become too angry to feel the damage. You sacrifice a portion of your own health in your ferocity.  You must be level 41 and own Throwing Dagger or Battle Hardened to purchase this power. Recharge: Long

Design Notes: This was the power that was the hardest to design by far. It was originally meant to be the Tanker emulation power for Brutes. I kept running into the issue of how to do that. Just as I had to impose strict limits on Art of War so Tankers wouldn't do more damage than Brutes, I couldn't let Brutes become as durable as Tankers. This would overpower the balance of the two. This power used to have no self damage effect, gave +regen, and did not give as much Fury.

After playtesting, this clashed with the name and proved to be too powerful in terms of durability. This made me change gears on the idea of the power. I dropped the regen, upped the fury gain, and gave it a self damage effect. It went from a Tanker emulation power to a unique choice for a Brute. The ideal time to use this power is when a Brute is in combat and is secure enough that they can lose a large chunk of health to get a bunch of Fury right there. The +resist stayed as it offers a little extra security and played into the theme super well.

Counter-proposal (for both).

Pound Into Submission (Auto)
Every Brute Primary damaging attack power and every Tanker Secondary damaging attack power has a proc chance to inflict Fear, Immobilize, Stun, +1 Mag to control effects and Psionic damage.

Basically "borrow" from the Hybrid Control Core Embodiment and Hybrid Control Radial Embodiment effects, but those effects only boost the Brute Primary and Tanker Secondary attack powers (instead of applying to Pool/Anciliary/Patron/etc. attack powers) and are Always ON (rather than having a 50% uptime at best). Can be stacked with Hybrid Control slotting for even more powerful stacking of these control effects.

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Off-topic / Re: Hardware upgrade ...

« on: June 28, 2023, 09:13:25 am »

One problem that WON'T be rectified by an apple silicon/mac os launcher for Rebirth is ... mids style character planning and calculations.
We're really beyond the point by now when the functionality of mids really ought to be migrated into a web page.

Use the data hash output of the build as a "feature" that continuously updates the data hash for the URL in order to "record" info. That way, if you have the URL with data hash in the URL, you just paste the URL into your web browser and up pops the character build.

Yes, it would be a massive Refactoring Effort to do this ... but it's really something that ought to be done (already, by someone with the skills and the time to do it).
If nothing else, the result of such a Refactoring Effort to migrate mids over to a web page would necessarily make the entire thing easier to modify than the archaic and byzantine database features used for the legacy mids system.

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Developers Diary / Re: Dawn of Genesis: New Challenges, New Master of Badges, & New Alpha Compon Incarn

« on: June 27, 2023, 07:30:42 pm »

Forced Indoctrination

Forced Indoctrination is the first ever Universal Control Duration set with effects available from levels 10 to 50.  It can be slotted into any power that accepts immobilize, sleep, stun, hold, fear, or confuse. This unique enhancement set features Control Duration which enhances the power of any control effects, and also enhances a power's Damage, Accuracy, Endurance Reduction, and Recharge Time Reduction. Its proc is a chance for Psionic Damage, further increasing the set's damage-mindedness.  These enhancements can be obtained by completing the Secret Master of the Lady Grey Task Force.

Enhancements: Control Duration/Damage Accuracy/Control Duration/Damage Control Duration/Damage/Recharge Accuracy/Recharge/Endurance Accuracy/Control Duration/Damage/Recharge Chance for Psionic Damage

Set Bonuses: 2-piece: 1.8% Maximum Endurance 3-piece: 2.5% Damage 4-piece: 6% Immobilize and Sleep, 3.3% Fear, 3% Confuse, Hold, Stun. 5-piece: 11% Accuracy 6-piece: 8.75% Recharge Time

While a Psionic damage proc may seem like a good idea at first blush ... it is fundamentally flawed with respect to Sleep and Confuse powers. Adding damage to Confuse will negate the value of powers that do not automatically draw aggro (and the same is also true for some Sleep powers too!).

Additionally, why are you mixing Damage into this set? NONE of the mez sets mix damage into their enhancements! A significant fraction of mez powers do not do any damage at all. So building damage enhancement into this set is inherently "wasteful" in terms of potential for a lot of mez powers.

Speaking just for myself, you could turn this set around by removing the Damage buff from it ... and replace those modifiers with RANGE (think about it!).
Likewise, drop the 3-piece global damage buff in favor of a global range buff.
Remove the Psionic Damage proc ... and replace it with a hybridized Build Up/Power Boost proc (+to hit and +special, instead of +damage) that has 1/2 the (usual) buff value and 2x the duration (10s instead of just 5s) of the Gaussian's Build Up proc (so as to make it different) ... which would have ALL KINDS OF INTERESTING SYNERGIES with Snipe attacks and other powers that have variable behaviors under different thresholds of +tohit as well as enhancing buff/debuff values and mez durations temporarily (10s).



So my preference would be for something like this:

Forced Indoctrination

Forced Indoctrination is the first ever Universal Control Duration set with effects available from levels 10 to 50.  It can be slotted into any power that accepts immobilize, sleep, stun, hold, fear, or confuse. This unique enhancement set features Control Duration which enhances the power of any control effects, and also enhances a power's Damage, Accuracy, Endurance Reduction, and Recharge Time Reduction. Its proc is a chance for Psionic Damage, further increasing the set's damage-mindedness.  These enhancements can be obtained by completing the Secret Master of the Lady Grey Task Force.

Enhancements: Control Duration/Endurance Accuracy/Control Duration/Range Control Duration/Range/Recharge Accuracy/Control Duration/Range/Endurance Accuracy/Control Duration/Range/Recharge Chance for Power Up

Set Bonuses: 2-piece: 1.8% Maximum Endurance 3-piece: 2.5% Range 4-piece: 3% Confuse, Fear, Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, Stun 5-piece: 11% Accuracy 6-piece: 7.5% Recharge Time

= (0.625 SO * 1) + (0.5 SO * 2) + (0.4375 SO * 2) = 2.5 SO Control Duration
= (0.5 SO * 2) + (0.4375 SO * 2) = 1.875 SO Range
= (0.5 SO * 1) + (0.4375 SO * 2) = 1.375 SO Accuracy and Recharge
= (0.625 SO * 1) + (0.4375 SO * 1) = 1.0625 SO Endurance
= 2.5 + 1.875 + 1.375 + 1.375 + 1.0625 = 8.1875 SO equivalent

Remember that for PPM Procs, increased Recharge Reduction enhancement (direct on the slotting, not global set bonuses) reduces the chance to proc when the power is used ... so you actually want LESS recharge reduction on the enhancement values and MORE recharge reduction from global bonuses. Arrange things such that this set can be slotted multiple times in a build because none of the enhancements are unique single only "1 per build" ... so Controllers and Dominators can slot up to 5 of this set into their build ... and we'd be off to the races! 

12

Developers Diary / Re: Dawn of Genesis: New Challenges, New Master of Badges, & New Alpha Compon Incarn

« on: June 27, 2023, 06:36:54 pm »

Imperial Might

Imperial Might is a Knockback set with effects available from levels 17 to 50. This enhancement set features higher Accuracy, Endurance Reduction, and Recharge Time Reduction than other Knockback sets in exchange for not enhancing damage. Its unique proc converts Knockback into Knockdown.  Additionally, it possesses the signature 6th set bonus Total Might which converts all Knockback enhancements into Damage enhancements in the slotted power. These enhancements can be obtained by completing the Secret Master of Imperious Task Force.

Enhancements: Knockback/Accuracy Knockback/Endurance Knockback/Recharge Recharge/Endurance Knockback/Accuracy/Endurance Recharge/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown

Set Bonuses: 2-piece: 7.5% Movement Speed 3-piece: 3pts. Knockback Protection 4-piece: 9% Accuracy 5-piece: 3% Damage 6-piece: Total Might Bonus: Converts all Knockback enhancements into Damage enhancements in the slotted power.

Counter-proposal (changes in bold text).

Imperial Might

Imperial Might is a Knockback set with effects available from levels 17 to 50. This enhancement set features higher Accuracy, Endurance Reduction, and Recharge Time Reduction than other Knockback sets in exchange for not enhancing damage. Its unique proc converts Knockback into Knockdown.  Additionally, it possesses the signature 6th set bonus Total Might which converts all Knockback enhancements into Damage enhancements in the slotted power. These enhancements can be obtained by completing the Secret Master of Imperious Task Force.

Enhancements: Knockback/Accuracy Knockback/Endurance Knockback/Recharge Knockback/Accuracy/Endurance Knockback/Accuracy/Recharge Endurance/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown

Set Bonuses: 2-piece: 7.5% Movement Speed 3-piece: 3pts. Knockback Protection 4-piece: 9% Accuracy 5-piece: 7.5% Recharge 6-piece: Total Might Bonus: Converts all Knockback enhancements into Damage enhancements in the slotted power.

= (0.625 SO * 3) + (0.5 SO * 2) = 2.875 SO Knockback
= (0.625 SO * 1) + (0.5 SO * 2) = 1.625 SO Accuracy and Endurance
= (0.625 SO * 1) + (0.5 SO * 1) = 1.125 SO Recharge
= 2.875 + 1.625 + 1.625 + 1.125 = 7.25 SO + Proc

Remember that for PPM Procs, increased Recharge Reduction enhancement (direct on the slotting, not global set bonuses) reduces the chance to proc when the power is used.

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Off-topic / Re: Hardware upgrade ...

« on: June 17, 2023, 01:40:24 pm »

Writing up a guide to play the game on Mac has been my unicorn for a while now.

ORLY?

The problem I've run into time and again had to do with Apple dropping 32-bit support completely.

To be fair, intel is moving in the same direction.

However, curiously enough ... almost 3 years ago, the Island Rum Launcher for Homecoming was somehow able to incorporate a 32 to 64 bit emulation layer into the wineskin used for Macs. It worked ... on intel chips. Never found out if it could be made to work on apple silicon.

I'm hopeful that DX12 emulation would be the key to it all.

You and me both ...

However I'm still keeping my eye out for any options as they become available.

Nice to know I'm not the only one who is interested in such things.

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Off-topic / Re: Hardware upgrade ...

« on: June 16, 2023, 12:41:12 pm »

Looks like Apple pulled off a low-key coup at the WWDC that has flown a bit under the radar for gaming.
The next OSX version (Sonoma) that is due later this year looks like it is going to include an emulation kit for DX12 ... meaning that it becomes a whole lot easier to run windows games on apple silicon through emulation (and not needing to resort to Crossover or Parallels to do the job).

It'll be curious to find out if this means I'll be able to return to playing on Rebirth later this year ...

15

General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: What went wrong with Mids' Reborn?

« on: June 07, 2023, 10:19:17 am »

Found a new problem with the updated Mids Reborn.
Tell me if you can see the issue.