Friday with Means - Light at the end of the tunnel - February 26th, 2010

[bitnykk]

nice recheck idea on LE nemesis. i suppose the image is a new engine live light render ?
anyway welcome to the germans !

plus i felt like giving you & people reading this topic a list of links to the "hot" subjects on the forum this week, to summarize what's going on in debates (i'm sure some have the time to browse, but some don't). here it is :

- 2 different posts on high level PVP range fix : number one and number two ; wether using title or min-max solution, most people agree TL7 at least must be tighter than now considering past years power added (esp LoX & LE)

- some discution to limitate notum war to 1 org vs 1 org conflict (wich i'm 200% against but debates are interesting and passionate)

- some lolable add more hecklaz ffs kikoolool wich turned to interesting debate on howto balance hecknoob farm with other ways of levelling (quest, instances, etc ...)

- the unavoidable icon rework by doca of course

- some cool ideas about yalm/phase speed and fight (as i know racetrack is inc from test)

- something needing fix for sooooo loooong for low War/Pvp : trader debuff level lock on PVP target at least

- my personnal take on froob upgraded weapons cause i think at least 3 lines need recheck

- too many "nerf game moarr kthxbye" or "gimme AI combined in shop plz" or "gief me more powa or i l00t ya" to be summarized here. in general forum assidues (and/or trolls) take care of this well, so that sometimes forum ARKs need to take care of it too

- a lot of other subjects ... this list is non exhaustive ...


nice week end to all

[Ellarisa]

the pic looks nice, though i'll need better sunglasses.

gth: change looks good to me, although i havent had much problem with gth yet

BR: couple questions there.
- local cool down?
- stacks with rrfe?
- player only target? (aka no using pet as reflect drain totem like now with normal drains)

either way, time to check if i've got the lower reflect buffs to use in pvp.

Greetings,



Ellarisa

[Baja69]

Great changes, does that mean GTH & BR will get fixed before the rest? If so please, oh please fix defeat righteousness at the same time.

And nice pic, cant wait !!!!

[Solidstriker]

Or.. just make the nemesis nanos go away? :>

EDIT: 2 posts up, I see what you did thar

[MstrBstrd]

I posted again

[Mekh]

Hmmm.... Seems I may start to join BS again now and then...

Still quite a mean nano, but at least now it seems it may be worth to run off rather than preferable to get killed.

I will wait with my final verdict on GTH changes till I've tried the effect, but so far it seems an OK'ish change to me.
Anyways... a LOT, LOT, LOT better than before.


Engine teaser pic..... Awsome stuff!!!

[Grim-One]

Looks awful bright in that screen shot. Will there be a client side option to adjust brightness from in game with new engine?

How do all the different Shadowlands zones look with new engine?

[Klod9003]

Borrow Reflect:

This nano in its current state simply removes the reflect (entire defense) of the soldier and enables God-Mode for the Trader for 30 seconds (100% reflect.)

The adjusted version of this nano going to TestLive today has been altered in a few ways:

1. This nano is now usable on ANY profession who currently has more than 24 ReflectMeleeAC at the current moment. (Has reflect to "borrow")
2. The Debuff component of this nano is now -30 to all Reflect types. The Duration is now also reduced to 15 seconds. Significant...but not the complete removal of a professions defense that it was before.
3. The Buff component of the nano now grants +30 to all reflect types to the Trader for a period of 60 seconds. Again...significant and nice to have...but not the god mode the previous encounter offered. With the opening up for more professions this should be generally more usefull and less situational.

OK, but...

If it doesn't overwrite RRFE (and lower versions), this makes just another practical "Shield of Zset" effect (≈60% reflect). The question is, do we really need another SoZ-like tool (ability to use offense at the same time in this scenario - SoZ doesn't offer that, at least)? This so requires some kind of cooldown and a long one, not just for a minute or two.

And also, I predict usage of Lesser Reflective Field (Extended), or engie version Reactive Harmonic Cocoon - (24% reflect nanos), to avoid getting hit by this, so its use is also questionable (soldiers will again suffer the most, a bit less then today though ).

Grand Theft Humidity:

Current Live versio of this nano has the victim stripped of all nano (multiple times) for an extended period of 60 seconds. This nano can be cast repeatedly without respite for the victim. This nano ends if the Trader dies as the "Buff" and the "Debuff" are linked.

The adjusted version of this nano going to TestLive today has been altered in a few ways:

1. The victim (regardless of profession) will now be drained of 15%/second of their total Nanopool for a duration of 15 seconds.
2. The Trader will regain 10%/second of their nanopool for the 15 seconds of the duration of the effect.
3. Casting this nano will be subject to a 60 second local cooldown preventing this nano from being repeatedly cast.
4. The debuff component of this nano will stop if the Trader dies during the altercation.

Sound interesting, mostly because of the cooldown.

But, 15% per second is way too much still, even with such short duration and added cooldown. It still doesn't deal with problem some professions suffer when recovering from GTH effect (huge nanopool that takes minutes to refill in full). They will again lose all nano in, what, 5-7 seconds and it will probably be as frustrating for them as it (is now) was before.

Question about cooldown (sorry, I don't understand what does "local cooldown" mean). Does it mean it will lock on first try/counter, or only if it lands?

[Questra]

I'm glad to see it toned down and am happy to realize the team knows the extent that this is terrible for soldiers. However, if it's spammable, there's still going to be a major problem. Also, a soldier losing 30% reflect in TL5 is debilitating and I think BR should be locked to TL7, or a 15% version made for TL5.

Agreed.

BR should have a local cooldown to prevent anyone with reflects being constantly debuffed.

I'm not sure yet how long I feel the cooldown should be. If traders are going to become more able to tank in PvP, and their nanite drains, for example, are made less powerful, traders having a 60s mini TMS and 20-30s "downtime" seems possible for balance.

If trader debuffs/drains are going to remain the same, the length of time in between a trader being able to have 60% reflect should be longer than 20-30s imo.

[Autohead]

Looks awful bright in that screen shot. Will there be a client side option to adjust brightness from in game with new engine?

How do all the different Shadowlands zones look with new engine?

I'm starting to think the devs are all froobs since they've never shown us screens of the new engine in SL.

Sure the old Ogre video had a few short clips of SL, but nothing shown of the Dreamworld Engine yet.

[Shareida]

Grand Theft Humidity:

Current Live versio of this nano has the victim stripped of all nano (multiple times) for an extended period of 60 seconds. This nano can be cast repeatedly without respite for the victim. This nano ends if the Trader dies as the "Buff" and the "Debuff" are linked.

The adjusted version of this nano going to TestLive today has been altered in a few ways:

1. The victim (regardless of profession) will now be drained of 15%/second of their total Nanopool for a duration of 15 seconds.
2. The Trader will regain 10%/second of their nanopool for the 15 seconds of the duration of the effect.
3. Casting this nano will be subject to a 60 second local cooldown preventing this nano from being repeatedly cast.
4. The debuff component of this nano will stop if the Trader dies during the altercation.

Nice, but, no.

A diffrent approach to GTH would be:

- Either cancel the Nano completely, and give some of its power to yeeiyf, lower lockout respectively.

- Lower the effect and duration drastically, maybe just make it a nanopool wipe with no side effects. Again, lower the lockout.

- Keep it as it is, increase cast time and recharge.

- change the formula, make it nanopool wipe with +nanocost (maybe 500%) on target.

In all these scenarios another nano, namely Nanobot Defense needs improvement, as it is directly linked to GTH.

This one sided idea renders another part of our tool set useless. Don't push the bubbles on the carpet, fix the problem.


Little reminder. (damn, Yes, im pissed)

[Berinda]

BR should have a local cooldown to prevent anyone with reflects being constantly debuffed.

The more I think about it, I don't think the local cool down should be incumbent on an individual trader. I'd say lock it out 20s past their reflect buff, but give the victim a 5 minute blocker nano that doesn't show up in the target NCU window. That way a soldier that is hit with BR will be confident they can get a full uninterrupted AMS cycle in, while traders have to put forth some effort to pick targets instead of victimizing the same people over and over.

[Dancingrage]

This should be interesting, but I'll bet Nano Division will pose a bit of a problem, since it's been passed already by other parts of our toolset introduced later which are still problematic as it is.

Giving some professions baby NSD will be even more so. I think many if not all will need to be rewritten from the ground up if that's the case.

[Drakeep]

Shareida, if the BR positive effect does stack with RRFE and the like, you kinda trading a crappier NBG for a better almost on-demand regular reflect amount.

Need to check it ingame imo, with current proposition i think trader are winning long term defenses in the process. Higher regular reflect increase your heal efficiency, indirectly, as well, which will go from average to good.

[Shareida]

Shareida, if the BR positive effect does stack with RRFE and the like, you kinda trading a crappier NBG for a better almost on-demand regular reflect amount.

Need to check it ingame imo, with current proposition i think trader are winning long term defenses in the process. Higher regular reflect increase your heal efficiency, indirectly, as well, which will go from average to good.

NBD is used as an alpha perk soak-up and/or rootbreaker.

It is more the 45 second without-nano-period i cannot live with, because the duration of GTH gets reduced to 15 seconds.

Anyhow, I'll log on test and spank Means. Grrrrr

[Dimmufodr]

Interesting changes and a move in the right direction. I think BR needs a cooldown as much as GTH, to prevent spamming. GTH changes look ok to me, I don't mind traders having such a powerful nano - my main issue was the duration and the fact that it is not removable.

In my opinion all debuffs should be removable with VS when out of combat, in adition the Battlestation VS should be changed so that it can be used in combat and have execution time increased to 10 seconds. There are too many non-removable debuffs that can be spammed and at the same time have a rather long duration.

[rakhabit]

I think the BR changes are pretty dumb. All this will result in is everyone running around with <24% reflect to avoid being a target for traders. Perhaps it should be changed to do something like drain 50% of the reflect from a person regardless of how much they have and transfer that amount to the trader. That would incentivize the trader to save it for when he sees a TMS'ing soldier making it still a nemesis nano but also giving it some effect against other reflect buffs without making them useless. It would also allow for some strategy on the soldier's part when fighting a Trader(casting RRFE to make it look like he TMS'd for example) As an Engineer, I know I'm never running my highest reflect, or my reflect proc ever again if this change goes live.

[Dagget]

Nice pic but I do hope that was with 'Bloom' on as I would immediately turn that feature off and enjoy game lighting w/o sunglasses.

[Apothis1]

Traders have carried the "I WIN" torch for too long, and this may give us a chance to actually win.
TY

Now what could be done with RI?
Or Technical Incompetance which is the agents nemesis nano against engineers which has been broken since its inception? -750 to the pet required nanoskillz which has no effect since the pets are set on guard and any aggressive action makes them attack, once the pets attack any OE rule is negated. Therefor making the nano completely useless because even if the pets are OE they arent like weapons and they dont lose damage. WTB Fix, and while we're at it how about fixing the LE Agent ring proc, since its never worked either?

All in all good stuff i see, but we still have some issues.

I will compile a list of other broken/unfinished things one of these days and post it up :P

[schloops]

GTH will still be a pain for nts... but 15 secs instead of 1 min is a huuuuge difference.
I would say that gth and br are still nemesis kinda nanoes, since they still are way more efficient on some targets (deadly actually)... but that kind of design is needed (I mean more efficient on some toolsets)... nothing worse than using the same tools whatever your target. Plz keep in mind that there is also a ring and perks to sniff out nano and permanent nano will already be a thing of the past for most profession. But bbye gth from 40m and /laff for a min is definitively good.

The same can probably be said about br on soldiers. At least, now, with everybody targetable with br and its effects reduced, soldiers will definitively be able to use their main defense more often.

Funny thing is nts have a professional that never hid his dislike of le nukes and traders have a professional that doesn't want to link his profession to casting 2 completely ******** op nanoes. Dunno if a soldier professional has also disavowed current ri mechanics? Dunno because didn't check, but guess they have. And fc is is moving that way too. The future looks bright for a lot of professions. Definitively good news for everybody.


Very nice screenshot!!