FOCUSED FEEDBACK: Issue 6 - Power proliferations and tweaks

[MuonNeutrino]

Use this thread to post any feedback you have about the Power Proliferations and tweaks in Rebirth Issue 6. The relevant sections of the patch notes are reproduced below.




Epic Pool Power Proliferation: Martial Prowess
Martial Prowess is an Epic power pool that has been expanded to Tankers and Brutes.  Your experience in melee combat and your drive to improve have given you access to new techniques from various disciplines. You utilize skills from archers and warriors of the medieval age to ninjitsu techniques of the shinobi.




Throwing Dagger
Ranged, Immobilize, Minor DMG(Lethal), Minor DOT(Lethal) Foe -Regen

Scouts and warriors have used small throwing blades to distract and weaken since metal was first smelted. You throw a knife to strike at a vital point on your foe. This does Minor Lethal damage, immobilizes the target, and inflicts a minor lethal DoT that moderately reduces their regen. Recharge: Moderate

Battle Hardened
Auto: +Max HP, +Max End

Your experience in combat has given you strength and stamina! This power costs no endurance and increases your Max HP and Endurance.

Bodkin Bolt
Ranged, High DMG(Lethal), -Def (All), -Res(All)

You employ a crossbow to launch an armor-piercing bodkin bolt at your target. This will strike for high damage and leave the enemy with less resistance and defense for a short while.  You must be level 41 and own Throwing Dagger or Battle Hardened to purchase this power. Damage: High, Recharge: High

Art of War (Tankers only)
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.
^{Note: This power is exclusive to Tankers}

Reckless Abandon (Brutes only)
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 health in your ferocity.  You must be level 41 and own Throwing Dagger or Battle Hardened to purchase this power. Recharge: Long
^{Note: This power is exclusive to Brutes}

Valiance
Toggle: Self +Regen; Ally +Regen, +Res (Fear, Confuse)

You prefer to lead by example; inspiring others by your presence and bravery. While this power is active you will gain regeneration. Allies in your vicinity will gain regeneration and resistance to fear and confuse effects. You must be level 44 and own two other powers from Martial Prowess to purchase.



Epic Pool Power Proliferation: Munitions Mastery
Munitions Mastery is an epic power pool that has been expanded to Guardians. Your Mastery of weapons and Munitions gives you tools to blast your foes and increase your capabilities.



Taser Jolt
Melee, High DMG (Energy), Foe Disorient

Blasts the target with a high-voltage discharge from a powerful handheld stun gun. This melee attack deals high Energy damage and will Disorient most opponents. Damage: High, Recharge: Slow

Attack Munitions
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG (Lethal/Smash OR Lethal), Knockback, Special

You have access to a variety of munitions to blast groups of foes. By default this power will throw a hand grenade at your foes, dealing moderate Smashing and Lethal damage to all foes within the blast radius and potentially knocking them back. If you are trained in Military Assault, this power will instead fire the grenade from under the barrel of your Assault Rifle. If you are trained in Gun Fu, when using this power you will instead use specialized ammo and your training to fire an arcing Bullet Rain from your pistols, dealing moderate Lethal damage to all foes in the attack's radius and possibly knocking them back. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Slow

Superior Conditioning
Auto: Self +Endurance

Your Superior Conditioning has increased your maximum endurance by 5%. You must be level 41 and have Taser Jolt or Attack Munitions before selecting this power.

Targeting Drone
Toggle: Self +To Hit, +Perception, Res(DeBuff To Hit)

When this device is activated, the small Targeting Drone hovers around your head and emits targeting laser sights. The lasers can dramatically improve your chance to hit and increase your perception, allowing you to better see stealthy foes. Targeting Drone also grants you resistance to powers that debuff your chance to hit. This is a toggle power and must be activated and deactivated manually. Like all toggle powers, Targeting Drone costs endurance while active. You must be level 41 and have Taser Jolt or Attack Munitions before selecting this power. Recharge: Slow

Surveillance
Ranged, Foe -DEF, -RES (All)

When this power is activated, you focus your senses to analyze your target's defensive capabilities and discover their weaknesses.  By sharing your knowledge of the target's weaknesses with your team mates, you effectively reduce their defense and resistance to damage. Your Combat Attributes Window will also show the combat attributes of the target. You must be level 44 and have two other Munitions Mastery Powers before selecting this power. Recharge: Slow


Broadsword and Katana Proliferation



Power Set Proliferation has made Broadsword and Katana available to the Tanker Archetype.

Quality of Life Changes

Vigilance: Defender's inherent now receives a 10% endurance discount for the first three teammates and reduce the per health discount to 0.55.

Some powers have become a lot more Attractive.

Added Attract to powers that thematically fit.

Black Hole (Controller, Corruptor, Defender, Mastermind, Ghost Widow)

• Now attracts foes inward towards the center of the black hole.
• Radius increased from 20 to 25.
• Allies that step inside the radius of the Black Hole will be phase-shifted like foes.
• Now accepts Immobilize enhancements.

Whirlwind (Wind Control Vortex, Synapse, Cyrus Thompson)

• Now has a 25ft Attract radius.
• Vortex's Attract radius is 20 ft.

Quicksand (Controller, Dominator, Guardian, Tanker, Brute, Mobs)

• Now attracts foes inward towards the center

Singularity Pet (Controller, Dominator, Mobs)

• Now attracts foes inward towards the center from up to 20 ft away.

Warshade Powers:

Gravimetric Snare (Normal Form Only) - Now attracts foes toward the caster
Gravitic Emanation  (Normal Form Only) - Exchanged its knockback to attract affected foes toward the caster
Gravity Well (Normal Form Only):

• Now has a 15 ft Attract radius, pulling foes towards the original target.
• This power's hold and slow effects now hit up to 5 foes within 15 ft of the target.

Clear Mind (Controller, Defender):

• Now provides a minor amount of defense to Psionics to the target and nearby allies.
• Mez protection effects only apply to the target.

[Redlynne]

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

[brw316]

Attract resistance and protection have not been proliferated to PCs or NPCs outside of objects, doors, and AVs. It is coming, but will likely be in a future issue when Attract is proliferated to NPC enemies and allies.

[Cinnder]

Just to make sure I understand correctly, is the Singularity pet now meant to both attract and repel?  So it pulls them in and then bounces them back out?

Also, what is the range for the Community Info Kiosks?  Are the stats game-wide, blue/red/gold-wide, per zone?  I could have sworn in the old days they were per-zone, but I could be wrong.

[Joshex]

I'll add this here as well, Quicksand and perhaps other attract powers are applying too much Force to the pull though the linear velocity of the pull is slight and gradual, the force is causing it to be impossible to actually escape the pullforce by any means. essentially turning it into an Immobilize.

Attract should have some status resistance or status protection for powers that provide status res or protection to Hold and Immobilize, as it's essentially a sibling effect at this point. AKA tankers with enhanced anti hold and immobilize should be oblivious to the fact attract even exists unless a player is using it and has enhanced the attract.

a guide to how I'd balance this in a servo controller:
given a normal movement of 7 Linv  with a max force of 35 and a min force of -35. here we will merely subtract from the Max and Min Force applied to reach  7 LinV keeping in mind the minimum force to achieve 7 LinV is 7 force and that will be slow and over time.

[spoiler]so the math for Attract only, should go something like this:
Attract (applied to player)= player Max force -((Max Force - Player LinV) *0.9) = Max force, Player Min force -((Min Force + Player LinV) *0.9) = Min force
the outcome with my illustration of 7 LinV and 35 Max force and -35 Min force is:
Attract = 35 -((35 - 7) *0.9) = 35 - 25.2 = 9.8 Max Force, -35 -((-35 + 7) *0.9) = -35 - -25.2 = -9.8 Min Force. 35 and 7 are illustrative insert the actual player servo LinV and force there.

So in this illustration instead of the player having 35 force to push them to a linear velocity of 7, they now have only a force of +/- 9.8.[/spoiler]

if attract + slow: half the outcome of applied/subtracted force/movement of each effect.

so instead of a multiplier of 0.9 use 0.45 instead and drop the -speed to -45%

They need to share 90% of the player's movement. More if enhanced, but mobs shouldn't be able to do what they can do now.

Edit:

an 0.45 multiplier when combined with -speed would probably be like a mag 8, 0.9 on it's own is a mag 8 to 10

The reason I'm specifying this is because right now Attract is subtracting >= 100% player movement Force.

keep in mind if the Force of the attract Exceeds the player's Movement Force, then in most cases (except in the preferred direction, if this game's physics has one) then the player will not be able to move directly away from the Attract.


hmm in that case the player needs to retain 50.1% of thier movement force at minimum to be able to move away at all! so the calc should change.

[modifying]

the calcs above were meant to show how much force the player has left (and consequently the opposite would be the amount of force Attract has. Forgot to mention that bit.)

but If I were to guess, I'd guess you are not modifying the player's movement force, but rather just applying Attract force. IF So, use these calcs:

Attract Force Added = ((Player Max Force - player Linear velocity) / 2) * 0.9

in an illustrative example with 35 force and 7 linv to the player's movement, our attract would have a force of: ((35 - 7) / 2) * 0.9 = 12.6 Attract force.

thats 90% of half of the player's movement force! enhanced you'll easily go over the half-way point to maybe 180% of the player's movement force.

with status effect protection or resistance et cetera, they would then need to have 80% protection to be able to move, slowly if the attract is enhanced. keep that in mind here.

Also remember *0.9 is  for Attract ALONE.
if doing -speed as well, lower the -speed to -45% and use a *0.45.

if this is not clear, let me know.


Ugh, I have to explain one more thing about physics don't I?

What is "Preferred Direction"?
Some people hypothesize that there may be a real world preferred direction, for example towards or away from an object in space. This has merit, in that as you are closer to a larger object (in example the Sun) there is more pullforce being applied to you if you are near Earth than if you are for example near Mars, so hypothetically if you move away from the sun towards mars it's subtracting your potential speed and you're fighting to get there. Where as if you were going towards the sun from Mars to Earth
1: there is less pullforce near mars prohibiting you from gaining speed, so you gain speed faster,
2: not only that, the pullforce of the Sun would be directing you Forwards in your journey so you wouldn't be fighting it, causing the time for example for light from Earth to reach Mars to be longer than it takes for light from Mars to reach Earth.

we know the distance is roughly 10 light minutes one way, so 20 light minutes total, but "Preferred Direction" hypothesizes that >50% of 20 minutes MUST be from Earth to Mars. in fact it could go so far as a clear 75%:25% ratio or; 15 minutes from earth to mars: 5 minutes from Mars to Earth. this is hypothetical. but it illustrates Preferred Direction.

In SOME Game Engines such as blender in example, preferred direction DOES happen. but for different reasons; it has to do with the Order that force is applied. typically it MUST be applied in GLOBAL force (on the Global WORLD/Universal XYZ axis'), so LOCAL Vectors are converted to Global Vectors and the force applied Locally is then applied by the same rules, Typically with POSITIVEs being applied BEFORE negatives.

this means positive force may have a few miliseconds of 1 frame more time to add Force than Negative has, causing Equal forces applied in exactly contrary directions to not result in no motion at all, but rather SOME motion towards the Preferred Direction!
in the game world this means in example it's impossible to get away from an attract by going south, you need to go north. because game physics.. I have tested this in blender and it took more than +10 force difference in the negative direction to counter 10 less force in the positive direction. again it really depends on how force is applied in the engine.

[Joshex]

New Problems Discovered with Attract such as quicksand.

I've confirmed there is a preferred direction in the CoH engine, that is to say a directional axis on which force is applied to first on each frame, giving that axis a tiny tiny bit more force per frame; which builds up to a differential of large amounts of force over time causing motion in that direction to work and motion against it to fail. this means escaping from attract is as easy as trial and error and picking a direction and trying to ninjarun or superspeed out, then when you find the 2 horizontal preferred directions pull hard towards that corner.

oh, but that's not necessarily a problem. what is a problem is that in such cases, only your graphic moves, your physics object stays put. meaning you can literally walk like 30 meters away and it still thinks you are standing there in a pile of enemies, you can cast melee powers on them and they can hit you at your former position. this is telling me the default un-enhanced power of Attract is WAAAAY too voracious, it's overboard LOCKDOWN kinda force..

On that note, Self-TP to the opposite side of the attract field causes your character graphic to be disconnected from your physics object and sent sailing to the farthest reaches of the map until the attract ends, oh, by the way your physics object wont move not even for SelfTP. now that's really hard coded immobilize.

Double attract at different locations will also cause this "character graphic sailing off into the sunset effect."

Oh did I mention the camera follows your graphic? so.. you'll be so far away you wont be able to see whats hitting you.

KB can also cause this effect.

We need to tone down attract. things like TP, KB and running away from the center NEED to work because they work for the graphic but not the physics object.

Yes, the graphic will reseat itself back onto the physics object when the sailing effect wears off because the attract ends.


Also the range of the attract is waaaaaaaaaaay tooooo biiiiiiiiig. I was on a CoT map with a very tall central rock pillar in the room. I jumped off with ninja run and combat jumping just as an earth caster cast quicksand and I fell maybe 50 meters down and almost to the wall so >= 50 meters away from the center of the attract, and IT WAS STILL DESPERATELY TRYING TO PULL ME TO THE ATTRACT, it actually stopped me mid-air >= 50 meters away as I pressed forwards to fight it, I did actually escape it. but sheesh that field is huge!