Today's

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

06/03/04

Missions

The Vahzilok disease issue has been fixed.

Task Forces

All remaining issues with Task Force missions have been fixed.

Task Force Story Arcs are among the most interesting and challenging tasks in City of Heroes . We have adjusted the levels of these arcs so that they will spawn villains at the highest level possible to receive the mission. Positron's Story Arc will now always spawn 15th level villains, for example. The rewards will match the greater risk however. Continuing the Positron example, if your group wants a challenge, they may try the Story Arc starting at 10th level. You will receive rewards as if you were a 15th level character. Here are the levels we consider appropriate for each Task Force:

o Positron: 15

o Synapse: 20

o Sister Psyche: 25

o Bastion: 30

o Manticore: 35

o Numina: 40


Good luck with the Task Force Story Arcs and remember...if a signature hero is asking for your help, the task will likely have a high degree of difficulty.


Balance

Increased the difficulty of fighting villains that are much higher level than you. Fighting villains within you range +/- 0 to 2 levels have not changed; Fighting villains +/- 3 to 4 levels changed somewhat; Fighting villains +/- 5 levels changed significantly. This was done to have the risk represent the reward, especially at the higher character levels.

Hehe brickstown bye bye! <--

Raised the Max cap of most attributes at lower levels. This will prevent you from reaching a cap at early levels with Enhancements.

Fixed a bug where players were dead and managed to travel through a door got double XP debt. This could happen when they click on an exit (usually in an attempt to flee) and are defeated by a villain immediately before the transfer takes place.

Powers

Auto Turret: Decreased number of bullets in a burst from Auto Turret and increased the damage of each bullet in the burst. Auto Turret was firing too fast, and the system chat messages and overhead numbers could not keep up with its fire rate. This gave the impression that it wasn't doing much damage. The reduced number of bullets will allow you to see its true damage. Actual damage was not changed (except for the overall change to Pets Range Damage).

Fixed Katana Whirling Sword not reducing targets defense.

Reduced End Cost of Claws/Shockwave.

Slightly Reduced Recharge Time of Hasten.

Slightly Reduced Recharge Time of Accelerate Metabolism.

Telekinesis is now an AoE: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Hold, Repel - "Lifts a foe, and any foes, off the ground and repels them. The targets are helpless, unable to take action, and will continue to hover away, picking up any passing targets, as long as you keep this power active. Keeping up this level of concentration costs a lot of Endurance."

Increased Energy Manipulation/Conserve Power Duration.

Fixed Battle Axe/Swoop Short Help fixed Battle Axe Damage type (it was doing Smashing damage instead of Lethal damage).

Removed Dimension Shift from Singularity.

Increased damage of Fire Blast/Flares (it was about 40% too low for its recharge time). Reduced END cost of Fire Blast/Fire Blast power.

Updated Short Help of Caltrops.

[Drem]

Balance

Increased the difficulty of fighting villains that are much higher level than you. Fighting villains within you range +/- 0 to 2 levels have not changed; Fighting villains +/- 3 to 4 levels changed somewhat; Fighting villains +/- 5 levels changed significantly. This was done to have the risk represent the reward, especially at the higher character levels.

Hehe brickstown bye bye! <--

Its worse than you think. Anything that is red/purple to you almost cant be killed.

[XunilTlatoani]

Does this affect lieutenant/boss/av effective levels too? For instance, if I'm level 17 and take on a level 18 boss (which would be a red con), would I see a change in difficulty since he is effectively a level 20 (which would put him in the +/- 3-4 level range that they adjusted), but in actuality is a level 18 (which is in the +- 0-2 range that hasn't changed).

[masteen]

The level-dif adjustments kinda puts grouping with friends a couple level higher than you out the window as well, unless all you're doing is missions for the lower level character.

I understand the problem, but this sounds like a wicked fucking nerf.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

I guess they are going to have to use the SK feature more to be able to do those groups.

[Keverian FireCry]

I dunno if this change will last. At level 27, I had a mission last night with a level 30 boss at the end, which is already friggin insane, now it will be impossible without bringing in my level 30+ friends.

What they need to do is make it only their number level that matters, not their leiut/boss/monster extra lvls.

[Drem]

Caltrops was not changed!
All entities, villains and Heroes, now have a minimum run speed of 10%. So Slow powers like Clatrops, Snow Storm, etc., cannot Immobilize (Root w/ zero travel speed) no matter how many you stack or how much you enhance them. The more Slow Enhancements you put in the power will allow you to slow higher level foes to the minimul runspeed.
Again, this applies to villains and Heroes.


Now onto the new dificulty fighting higher level foes. Let me explain how it works now:

Foes your level have not changed. You have a 75% chance to hit and you powers are 100% effective.
Foes 1 level about you have not changed. You have a 68% chance to hit and you powers are 90% effective.
Foes 2 levels about you got 1% harder. You have a 60% chance to hit and you powers are 80% effective.
Does 3 levels about you, difficulty went up about 12%. You have a 49% chance to hit and you powers are 65% effective.
Foes 4 levels about you got about twice as difficult. You have a 25% chance to hit and you powers are 32% effective.
Foes 5 levels higher than you are now 5 times harder. You have a 8% chance to hit and you powers are 11% effective.
Foes 6 levels higher than you - You have a 8% chance to hit and you powers are 3% effective.
Foes 7 levels higher than you - You have a 8% chance to hit and you powers are 2% effective.
Foes 8+ levels higher than you are out of the ballpark. You have a 8% chance to hit and you powers are 1% effective.


As you can see, the change slightly affected foes 3 levels above you, but it doesn’t really kick in till about 4 levels about you.

The change had nothing to do with the conning system. Its not purples or red that got harder, it is purely level based, so Soloing a boss that is 2 levels higher than you will be the same as before (w/in 1%).

So why this change? We are not balancing the game for power gamers. There was a real problem with the game. Players were routinely fighting foes 10 levels higher than themselves. This was not an isolated incident, this was commonplace. You really should only be fighting foes 2 or 3 levels about you, and maybe have a fighting change against foes 4 levels about you (btw, you have a 25% chance to hit a for 4 levels about you, but that can be improved with buffs and enhancements). Allowing players to fight foes 5 or 10 levels about you is bad. It promotes power gaming, twinking, burning through content (which destroys replay-ability), and opens the doors for all kinds of exploits.

So we needed to tighten up the range of combat. It will make teaming up with players outside your range more difficult. We recognize this. Unlike other games, CoH has a sidekick system to allow you to play with players that are not your levels. In any evnet, like any change, we can loosen or tighen these changes if it turns out it is needed, or even make other changes to other systems to compensate.

[Keverian FireCry]

Ah goodie, glad it doesn't effect the conning system.

[kyoukan]

I realize they had a problem with players fighting higher level mobs. I still think they went about fixing it the wrong way though. Instead of making the fights so hard that lower level players don't have a chance in a group, they should have just made high level NPC killing less palatable. Capping XP for both what you can get solo and what you can get in a group to, say, a mob 2 or 3 levels higher from you would have fixed the problem. The issue was, people were killing mobs 10+ levels higher than them because the XP was retarded.

Now no one has a choice but to either group with people almost exactly their level, or sidekick. Sidekick is no good for levelling because you don't make very much XP. Therefore pretty much everyone who can solo is going to solo, and classes that can't solo or don't have a patient friend who will duo with them are just going to re-roll a class that can solo or quit.

[Pahreyia]

I just started CoH on wednesday, and I couldn't find a group that would stay together for more than 5 minutes in perez park last night because the packs of mobs were so much harder to hit and the exp was so low that most of the people would quit the team after one or two kills.

I'm with kyoukan on this one, they should have capped the exp to mobs that are 3, maybe 4 levels above the player or team. A pack of level 7-9 bitching because they don't want to kill level 8-10 mobs and would rather be killing level 15 hydras is asinine. They're damn near impossible to hit and although the exp is better per kill, I can solo clear out a pack of level 7 or 8 mobs in the time it takes to have a team kill a single hydra.

That's just my impression right now... but it's still only been 2 days.