Update 58 Discussion

Roukan · 02/22/2008 19:33:20

Rarebit wrote:

Brommerz77 wrote:
Rarebit wrote:
Hm... Maybe we could just combine them all into one ability called "Hyper-Win"?

Or make it so you can actually have group pvp. Not not continue to make trees like Duelist or MA useless. Because all that happens now, and from the next patch, will get worse is; Interlock....get zerged by knifes and guns and not have any defense to it. And now hacker added on top. Like ex said, interlock now becomes a deathtrap and you push pvp and combat to use spy and hacker to win. Taking it further away from the matrixy feel.
Oh I dunno if it's quite that simple. Like a lot of stuff Dracomet does, it's all based on math and scary stuff like that... Anyway, let's not forget about this and this and this and this and this and this:

-- Deflect Bullets 1.0 has an additional 0.48 points of throw defense per level and adds +10 concentration.
-- Deflect Virus 1.0 has an additional 0.48 points of melee defense per level and adds a 4% negative condition sweep pulse per aura pulse.
-- Personal Firewall 1.0 adds an additional +10 resistance to non-viral damage types and heals about 75 health when terminated.
-- Personal Firewall 2.0 adds an additional +20 resistance to non-viral damage types and heals about 250 health when terminated.
-- Network Firewall 1.0 adds +5 defense to non-viral defense types and restores about 10 IS when terminated.
-- Viral Shielding adds 0.24 defense per level to non-viral defense types and restores about 25 IS when terminated.

Numbers and math aside dear friend, you must understand the ramifications of this change on not only level 50s, but every level character, especially solo. Most people when they first join the game want to try Martial Arts or Guns, fact. Hacker is kind of a backstep, and if they join a faction they'll know it's killer on IS at the beginning if played inadequately.

-Executing instant abilities while in the wrong style will now change styles and invoke the ability. This also fixes the problem with NPCs where sometimes their instant and delayed abilities wouldn't go off, which is especially noticeable in Nuker-types.-

If you were to add just the Hyper Deflect change, then only high level PvP would be affected on a large scale, but these two changes together make the game even deadlier for a lowbie missioning on hard. I don't know if you've ever missioned as a pistol/karate low level, but it's bad as is without being equipped by higher levels or getting insanely lucky with resistance drops beforehand. Obviously the most who will complain are the ones who like to run inside a zerg and take out one person before getting destroyed, which would include people like myself.

Trinite · 02/22/2008 19:35:48

The construct looks like it will be fun..

The email will certainly help with storing/sending items, but it would still be nice to see inventory capacity expanded as well.

As for the hypers,well, not sure if I care for that change or not.. Both sides of that debate have valid points

It would be kind of fun to see what would happen if *all* the hypers were stackable. I am not saying that is what *should* happen; just would be interesting...

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 19:36:28

LoTekGhost wrote:

I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D

I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

Delicho · 02/22/2008 19:37:16

The_Bruceter wrote:

Delicho wrote:
Oh, and my guess to the blue rez questions earlier in this thread..
They changed it now so people can rez people in the FFA zones.
Last night on vector they made 01 FFA. U couldn't rez any1 " width="15" height="15" /> and only area heals (team heals) worked.

Yeah man, I mean when the patch comes out. People were asking why they are just now changing blue rezzes on flagged players when people have been talking about it for a long time.

I'm guessing that's why they just now changed it. To rez people in FFA zones. (which is handy if they have frags and whatnot from datamining and got killed why people pvping >_> )

Brommerz77 · 02/22/2008 19:39:22

Rarebit wrote:

LoTekGhost wrote:
I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D
I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

I'm all up for Class balancing. So roll on monday, i'll be positive, the new area looks awesome, and you have done an awesome job in working on it, so ty. As for the hypers, we'll see how they work now.

Madbent · 02/22/2008 19:39:23

Rarebit wrote:

Hm... Maybe we could just combine them all into one ability called "Hyper-Win"?

Well, I don't think that is the solution.

I must say, I was very excited about the upcoming patch. Then, like many others, seeing the change in hypers has me concerned. I wondered initially why hyper-deflect was in essence a permanent passive ability when CR2 launched, but certainly it made sense after thinking about it due to the volume of AOEs or fast-launching arbalest hacks. You can just simply get hit much more frequently by the hacker tree in even small group situations.

IL builds will be, as many have pointed out, a poor choice to use other than for duels. Solo PvP with an IL build versus any more than 1-2 opponents will be suicide. Many of us are discussing stathacking away from MA to be able to be effective in PvP before the patch is Live. As far as the changes to patcher tree buffs - unfortunately, having a buffer on your Team won't always be possible. And having doctor-backed wars isn't all that fun, in my opinion.

Now, if this change is planned as part of a series of changes, that would make perfect sense. Such as, boosting IS regen since it is ridiculously low now. Or, giving those in IL some type of automatic defense buff to all freefire attack types while engaged in IL. Now THAT would be logical.

As Ex has said, we will adapt. No mass exodus as some of the doomsayers are predicting. I'll still be around. But the decline in IL for PvP will sure take away some of my enjoyment.

LoTekGhost · 02/22/2008 19:40:18

Rarebit wrote:

LoTekGhost wrote:
I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D
I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

Cheers for the response, that's what I thought as well...just wanted to make sure there was no hidden agenda or anything crazy like that... >_> <_<

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 19:42:59

Roukan wrote:

...the game even deadlier for a lowbie missioning on hard. I don't know if you've ever missioned as a pistol/karate low level, but it's bad as is without being equipped by higher levels or getting insanely lucky with resistance drops beforehand. ...

Nah, the only lowbie levelling I've done was as a Spy, in CR1.0, and that was HAAARD.

How that compares to current conditions and other classes, I can't really say. One of the big design goals for CR2.0 was to make low-level PvE easier, and I think they did manage that. High level PvE also ended up being way easier, which wasn't intended...I think maybe buffed clothing wasn't done and taken into account when the calculations were being made. I wasn't in on all that stuff, though, so I can't say for sure.

What makes me curious about your reply, though, is that you seem to be implying that Gunman or MA is the hard way to level as a lowbie. But those are the two classes I always hear recommended to lowbies as the best ones to level with. Are you saying that they're harder to level with than Spy, Hacker, or Coder (hm Coder might be a good one with the sims I guess, I dunno)?

Trinite · 02/22/2008 19:45:23

Rarebit wrote:

LoTekGhost wrote:
I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D
I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

Ok..I can see that, but not every one is going to have an Upgrade Master available to help compensate for the loss of the hyper deflect, And if you are going to class balance, then the hacker vs ma issues need to be addressed.

The hacker clothes need some additions too For example there are some hacker clothes for females that are on the master list, but which I, nor any one else I have talked to, have actually seen. Would be nice if those were reintroduced to help balance things out.

Mercio · 02/22/2008 19:46:07

Can I get my Zen Master tree now? SMILEY

I think this wil definitely make things more challenging. Different PvP tactics will soon surface, and we'll see how things end up. I personally don't like the change, but hopefully we can see Zen Master finally come in to play. SMILEY

NightTrace · 02/22/2008 19:46:26

Hacks can already tear up a lot of classes that are running hyper-deflect.

It is an ignorant change and is just going to make there be more and more hackers...
hmm...

flagged while dead....bulldog......hackers being made OP...

their trying to bring back CR1 SMILEY

Bring back multilock and I'll forgive the ignorance of the hyper change.

Roukan · 02/22/2008 19:46:27

Rarebit wrote:

Roukan wrote:
...the game even deadlier for a lowbie missioning on hard. I don't know if you've ever missioned as a pistol/karate low level, but it's bad as is without being equipped by higher levels or getting insanely lucky with resistance drops beforehand. ...
Nah, the only lowbie levelling I've done was as a Spy, in CR1.0, and that was HAAARD.

How that compares to current conditions and other classes, I can't really say. One of the big design goals for CR2.0 was to make low-level PvE easier, and I think they did manage that. High level PvE also ended up being way easier, which wasn't intended...I think maybe buffed clothing wasn't done and taken into account when the calculations were being made. I wasn't in on all that stuff, though, so I can't say for sure.

What makes me curious about your reply, though, is that you seem to be implying that Gunman or MA is the hard way to level as a lowbie. But those are the two classes I always hear recommended to lowbies as the best ones to level with. Are you saying that they're harder to level with than Spy, Hacker, or Coder (hm Coder might be a good one with the sims I guess, I dunno)?

I'm saying that with a low level it's definately hard to solo a hard mission with MA or Gun with this new change. I for one hate buffed clothing, even so.. I wear it (well when I COULD mission) on my R0ukan alt as I mission. Always a hacker would destroy me while 2 gunman fire on me, and one in interlock. With or without buffed clothing. Then again, one could bring a team member with, or have loads of pills, but it gimps the solo class regardless.

Roukan: Ever mission with a Sim? It's *CENSORED* awesome.
Brommerz77 - MxO- 4Life: nope
Brommerz77 - MxO- 4Life: run in and own it myself
Brommerz77 - MxO- 4Life: still hard at low levels though lol
Roukan: Now you can't, no hyper deflect
Roukan: Hahahahahaahah
Brommerz77 - MxO- 4Life: get owned so many times
Brommerz77 - MxO- 4Life: LMAO
Brommerz77 - MxO- 4Life: oh sigh
Brommerz77 - MxO- 4Life: its gunna be *poop*

Mercio · 02/22/2008 19:47:32

Rarebit wrote:

Roukan wrote:
...the game even deadlier for a lowbie missioning on hard. I don't know if you've ever missioned as a pistol/karate low level, but it's bad as is without being equipped by higher levels or getting insanely lucky with resistance drops beforehand. ...
Nah, the only lowbie levelling I've done was as a Spy, in CR1.0, and that was HAAARD.

How that compares to current conditions and other classes, I can't really say. One of the big design goals for CR2.0 was to make low-level PvE easier, and I think they did manage that. High level PvE also ended up being way easier, which wasn't intended...I think maybe buffed clothing wasn't done and taken into account when the calculations were being made. I wasn't in on all that stuff, though, so I can't say for sure.

What makes me curious about your reply, though, is that you seem to be implying that Gunman or MA is the hard way to level as a lowbie. But those are the two classes I always hear recommended to lowbies as the best ones to level with. Are you saying that they're harder to level with than Spy, Hacker, or Coder (hm Coder might be a good one with the sims I guess, I dunno)?

Rarebit is right. Spy, Hacker, And Coder are 30x harder to level with as a lowbie than MA or gunman.

Goligoth · 02/22/2008 19:51:50

Mercio wrote:

Rarebit wrote:
Roukan wrote:
...the game even deadlier for a lowbie missioning on hard. I don't know if you've ever missioned as a pistol/karate low level, but it's bad as is without being equipped by higher levels or getting insanely lucky with resistance drops beforehand. ...
Nah, the only lowbie levelling I've done was as a Spy, in CR1.0, and that was HAAARD.

How that compares to current conditions and other classes, I can't really say. One of the big design goals for CR2.0 was to make low-level PvE easier, and I think they did manage that. High level PvE also ended up being way easier, which wasn't intended...I think maybe buffed clothing wasn't done and taken into account when the calculations were being made. I wasn't in on all that stuff, though, so I can't say for sure.

What makes me curious about your reply, though, is that you seem to be implying that Gunman or MA is the hard way to level as a lowbie. But those are the two classes I always hear recommended to lowbies as the best ones to level with. Are you saying that they're harder to level with than Spy, Hacker, or Coder (hm Coder might be a good one with the sims I guess, I dunno)?

Rarebit is right. Spy, Hacker, And Coder are 30x harder to level with as a lowbie than MA or gunman.

Actually, i find Coder a lot easier to lvl with...

Roukan · 02/22/2008 19:52:05

Mercio wrote:

Rarebit wrote:
Roukan wrote:
...the game even deadlier for a lowbie missioning on hard. I don't know if you've ever missioned as a pistol/karate low level, but it's bad as is without being equipped by higher levels or getting insanely lucky with resistance drops beforehand. ...
Nah, the only lowbie levelling I've done was as a Spy, in CR1.0, and that was HAAARD.

How that compares to current conditions and other classes, I can't really say. One of the big design goals for CR2.0 was to make low-level PvE easier, and I think they did manage that. High level PvE also ended up being way easier, which wasn't intended...I think maybe buffed clothing wasn't done and taken into account when the calculations were being made. I wasn't in on all that stuff, though, so I can't say for sure.

What makes me curious about your reply, though, is that you seem to be implying that Gunman or MA is the hard way to level as a lowbie. But those are the two classes I always hear recommended to lowbies as the best ones to level with. Are you saying that they're harder to level with than Spy, Hacker, or Coder (hm Coder might be a good one with the sims I guess, I dunno)?

Rarebit is right. Spy, Hacker, And Coder are 30x harder to level as a lowbie than MA or gunman.

Spinning Backsweep = 30 DPS
(Also with spy you can run in an elevator, sneak, and spinning backsweep another)

Iron Guard = 12 DPS

Logic Blast = 11 DPS

Coder = You have a sim with you.

Brommerz77 · 02/22/2008 19:53:09

Infinite sims! Just code up another if the original gets owned SMILEY

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 19:55:23

Delicho wrote:

The_Bruceter wrote:
Delicho wrote:
Oh, and my guess to the blue rez questions earlier in this thread..
They changed it now so people can rez people in the FFA zones.
Last night on vector they made 01 FFA. U couldn't rez any1 " width="15" height="15" /> and only area heals (team heals) worked.

Yeah man, I mean when the patch comes out. People were asking why they are just now changing blue rezzes on flagged players when people have been talking about it for a long time.
I'm guessing that's why they just now changed it. To rez people in FFA zones. (which is handy if they have frags and whatnot from datamining and got killed why people pvping >_> )

Actually, the timing of the fix wasn't related to the FFA zone. Hm... Seems to me that you still won't be able to rez people in FFA zones in update 58. I'll confess that's something that hadn't occurred to me--I had it in my head that you could rez enemies, forgetting that under current non-FFA PVP rules, you actually lose flag when you're dead. So yeah, all the more reason to try to stay alive in thar.

Brommerz77 · 02/22/2008 19:56:55

lol Thar?! Bit o yorkshire accent FTW

TonyJaa · 02/22/2008 19:57:48

Rarebit wrote:

LoTekGhost wrote:
I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D
I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

When we had CR,hackers were so overpowered that you did the unthinkable:CR2...And now you say this!!!I'll give you an example that happened to me yesterday..I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have a 50% chance to survive because i have hyper deflect.I manage to kill the ma and survive the hacker attacks.
Now let's see this example again(after the patch):I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have 0% chance to survive because i have NO hyper deflect.I get killed by the ma and hacker..
Now that's balance.O.o!!!

TonyJaa

Shinryu · 02/22/2008 20:00:35

While I can certainly see how this will aid in the balance situation overall, as someone who uses MA almost exclusively I just know it's going to hurt. As has been said, being "stuck" in IL was bad before, but with the patch it will get even worse. Personally, if there isn't going to be any sort of IL/MA buff, I'd at least like to see a set-up where any two hyper defenses could be running at the same time... but maybe that's just me.

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 20:00:59

Trinite wrote:

...if you are going to class balance, then the hacker vs ma issues need to be addressed.

You talking about hacker vs MA in general, one on one, or in a zerg situation? My impression has been that so far in this thread, it's hackers in a zerg that the MAs and gunmen are concerned about, not so much one-on-one.

Another question I have is, do people use Hackers as anti-zerg? I mean, I'd think that if you were being attacked by a gang of people, you'd want crowd-control, and the offensive AOEs in the Hacker trees would be a way to get that. But maybe it doesn't work out that way? Or is it just that these are the MAs and gunmen chiming in on the small-end-of-the-zerg side?

(^ The above example of ability-related ignorance is why I'm not involved in ability changes. ;)

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 20:01:24

Brommerz77 wrote:

lol Thar?! Bit o yorkshire accent FTW

Bah that's American West! =p

Roukan · 02/22/2008 20:03:47

Rarebit wrote:

Another question I have is, do people use Hackers as anti-zerg?

Yes, the point of hacker right now is to support your teammates by debuffing/DoT'ing your enemies.

You just made instant win for whoever uses hacker first.

Also, to balance it out, why were NON-VIRAL things buffed in the patcher changes?

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 20:04:07

yuenwoping wrote:

Rarebit wrote:
LoTekGhost wrote:
I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D
I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

When we had CR,hackers were so overpowered that you did the unthinkable:CR2...And now you say this!!!I'll give you an example that happened to me yesterday..I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have a 50% chance to survive because i have hyper deflect.I manage to kill the ma and survive the hacker attacks.
Now let's see this example again(after the patch):I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have 0% chance to survive because i have NO hyper deflect.I get killed by the ma and hacker..
Now that's balance.O.o!!!

TonyJaa

Well, if you're saying that in a 2 on 1 situation, as the 1, you're going to get pwnt if you're there standing your ground, yes, I'd agree with you, and that's always been the way it's supposed to work. In fact I'm surprised that you'd say you had a 50% survival chance in a 2 on 1 under current conditions--that basically tells me that you weren't really worried about being hurt by the hacker at all.

ExternalError · 02/22/2008 20:04:21

ok all well and good with the viral defence reductions but dare i say it what about thrown defence increases as we stand only a handful of abilities actually provide a thrown defence bonus and lets not even look at the clothes with quicksilvers being the only thrown defence clothes. Now im gonna get all the MKT flamers saying MKT isnt over powered all i got to say is i can max out my defence using a combination of abilities for any load except thrown and that says it all

Tenshi · 02/22/2008 20:04:24

I don't like the sound of the additional notes, but I guess it can't hurt to see how it pans out. It's happened before where a wildly unpopular change to the game has been criticised enough to where the change was reversed so if it's really that bad we can always cry about it =P.

Example: double-click on hostiles

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 20:05:41

Roukan wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

Another question I have is, do people use Hackers as anti-zerg?

Yes, the point of hacker right now is to support your teammates by debuffing/DoT'ing your enemies.

You just made instant win for whoever uses hacker first.

Also, to balance it out, why were NON-VIRAL things buffed in the patcher changes?

Because since you have to respect Viral's offensive power now, you might actually have to turn off the Hyper for one of the other damage types, so the compensation was to raise defensive buffs to those types. At least, that's my guess.

Roukan · 02/22/2008 20:07:05

Rarebit wrote:

Roukan wrote:
Rarebit wrote:

Another question I have is, do people use Hackers as anti-zerg?

Yes, the point of hacker right now is to support your teammates by debuffing/DoT'ing your enemies.

You just made instant win for whoever uses hacker first.

Also, to balance it out, why were NON-VIRAL things buffed in the patcher changes?
Because since you have to respect Viral's offensive power now, you might actually have to turn off the Hyper for one of the other damage types, so the compensation was to raise defensive buffs to those types. At least, that's my guess.

I see. Valid change. I just hope they buff the actual defense, and not the %. I.E: So we don't have to turn on the buff to gain benefits.

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 20:07:12

ExternalError wrote:

ok all well and good with the viral defence reductions but dare i say it what about thrown defence increases as we stand only a handful of abilities actually provide a thrown defence bonus and lets not even look at the clothes with quicksilvers being the only thrown defence clothes. Now im gonna get all the MKT flamers saying MKT isnt over powered all i got to say is i can max out my defence using a combination of abilities for any load except thrown and that says it all

Not sure this is exactly what you meant, but these are all throw defense increases:

-- Deflect Bullets 1.0 has an additional 0.48 points of throw defense per level and adds +10 concentration.
-- Personal Firewall 1.0 adds an additional +10 resistance to non-viral damage types and heals about 75 health when terminated.
-- Personal Firewall 2.0 adds an additional +20 resistance to non-viral damage types and heals about 250 health when terminated.
-- Network Firewall 1.0 adds +5 defense to non-viral defense types and restores about 10 IS when terminated.
-- Viral Shielding adds 0.24 defense per level to non-viral defense types and restores about 25 IS when terminated.

Brommerz77 · 02/22/2008 20:07:53

Rarebit wrote:

Brommerz77 wrote:
lol Thar?! Bit o yorkshire accent FTW
Bah that's American West! =p

Oh man, it's a bit of the yorkshire! SMILEY

Put wood int ole - close the door SMILEY

.

As for hacker - Yeah, it's used on Vector as Anti Zerg sometimes, with the use of Destroyer/Howitzer for AOE pwnage. But a lot of people use it for DOT's as well, which is an effective load. The major worries are coming from the fact that the defense for hacker worked in the first place. Hacks still hit a decent amount, but sometimes you got the deflects too. With the added bonus of being able to have it running along side the other hypers.

Now, like tony said, there's going to be a difference there. And hacker as anti zerg, depends on having a few other team mates with you there to help out and interlock. But we're going to see a general decrease in interlocking pvp i think. Because it puts the interlockee at a greater risk, and with less of a chance of survival.

Basis is, Gunman has sniper, which can be out of IL, MA is pure IL. Anybody caught in interlock in a zerg now, is going to have massive trouble.

Tenshi · 02/22/2008 20:07:55

ExternalError wrote:

ok all well and good with the viral defence reductions but dare i say it what about thrown defence increases as we send only a handful of abilities actually provide a thrown defence bonus and lets not even look at the clothes with quicksilvers being the only thrown defence clothes. Now im gonna get all the MKT flamers saying MKT isnt over powered all i got to say is i can max out my defence using a combination of abilities for any load except thrown and that says it all

There are plenty of options for thrown defense clothing, you're probably just not looking hard enough. The issue is with the array of passive buffs that don't add anything to thrown defense. Personally, while a little more thrown defense would be nice here and there, I don't think it's really necessary.

And to clear myself as an MKT supporter, I have used MKT for a span of about 3 months, then proceeded to sell all three trees.

ExternalError · 02/22/2008 20:10:05

ok rarebit i take your points but how about some thrown defence clothing we have defence clothing for all the other classes

ExternalError · 02/22/2008 20:11:41

like what i scoured mxoresource when it was up and there was very little thrown defence resistance is another matter

TonyJaa · 02/22/2008 20:15:54

Rarebit wrote:

yuenwoping wrote:
Rarebit wrote:
LoTekGhost wrote:
I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D
I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

When we had CR,hackers were so overpowered that you did the unthinkable:CR2...And now you say this!!!I'll give you an example that happened to me yesterday..I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have a 50% chance to survive because i have hyper deflect.I manage to kill the ma and survive the hacker attacks.
Now let's see this example again(after the patch):I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have 0% chance to survive because i have NO hyper deflect.I get killed by the ma and hacker..
Now that's balance.O.o!!!

TonyJaa
Well, if you're saying that in a 2 on 1 situation, as the 1, you're going to get pwnt if you're there standing your ground, yes, I'd agree with you, and that's always been the way it's supposed to work. In fact I'm surprised that you'd say you had a 50% survival chance in a 2 on 1 under current conditions--that basically tells me that you weren't really worried about being hurt by the hacker at all.

It's not that i didn't worry about the hacker but a)Hyper deflect and b)Some of my ma clothes have viral defense.50% chance..And remember i said 30 seconds later.

TonyJaa

LoTekGhost · 02/22/2008 20:19:56

Just a bit of thinking out loud, but I wonder if some of the VD debuffs will have to be reworked to take this change into account. Most notable example that comes to mind would be Disruption Field, which has a base of -50 VD, and without Hyper Deflect, any hacker worth his or her salt should be able to nail nearly every hit with the proper chaining while proper debuffing was in play. Before, said debuffs were rather justified given that you could pair up Deflect at any time and the chance to miss was higher, but now with the current values on some debuffs, an updated FM/UM buff might be more mandatory. Sorry for the continued rambling, hehe.

Madbent · 02/22/2008 20:22:55

Rarebit wrote:

yuenwoping wrote:
Rarebit wrote:
LoTekGhost wrote:
I think I'd be in fair company if I asked what the reason was behind this Hyper change?

I'm not asking this with a negative intent, but am simply curious as what angle this was looked at and deemed a prudent change. Assuming the reason and such can be discussed, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only on that would appreciate seeing this from the Development's eyes, to see your reasoning as it were.

Hope that isn't taken the wrong way, it's just a genuine bit of curiosity. Thanks! =D
I think (and you'd have to ask Dracomet to get the non-speculative answer) that the reason was that we actually have this class, called Hacker, that was being discriminated against when it came to defensive abilities everyone can use. So that was straightened out to give the Hacker class a fair shake. And then, to compensate for the due attention that will have to be paid to hackers now, additional defense against the other attack types was added to defensive upgrade abilities; that also has the effect of making the Upgrade Master tree a little more useful than it has been. So, basically the idea as far as I understand it was class balance. It isn't surprising to me that people who primarily play the other classes, and who do a lot of PVP, are going to be concerned about this, but if we want to have the classes balanced--and that has always been the intent, even if it doesn't always work out--then it's necessary to work these things out.

When we had CR,hackers were so overpowered that you did the unthinkable:CR2...And now you say this!!!I'll give you an example that happened to me yesterday..I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have a 50% chance to survive because i have hyper deflect.I manage to kill the ma and survive the hacker attacks.
Now let's see this example again(after the patch):I get attacked by an ma.I don't see anyone else so i believe that it's going to be 1v1...30 seconds later while in IL his friend comes(Hacker) along.Now i have 0% chance to survive because i have NO hyper deflect.I get killed by the ma and hacker..
Now that's balance.O.o!!!

TonyJaa
Well, if you're saying that in a 2 on 1 situation, as the 1, you're going to get pwnt if you're there standing your ground, yes, I'd agree with you, and that's always been the way it's supposed to work. In fact I'm surprised that you'd say you had a 50% survival chance in a 2 on 1 under current conditions--that basically tells me that you weren't really worried about being hurt by the hacker at all.

TJ is a top-tier MA, top 10 in MxO easily, and because of his ability, he SHOULD be able to kill another MA, then have a chance against the hacker.

I think it is interesting what you say about the Zerg situation - yep that is what us ILers are concerned about. Not 1v1. But this game isn't all about duels. Many of us enjoy PvP, and since it is not possible to be a great hacker and a great MA without restatting, those of us who like PvP will need to change our loads away from those builds to still be effective.

Like I said in my previous post, other changes could compensate, but if not, this is isn't a great thing for me.

Broin was ecstatic when I told him though.

Rarebit · 02/22/2008 20:24:21

ExternalError wrote:

like what i scoured mxoresource when it was up and there was very little thrown defence resistance is another matter

Those *are* supposed to be balanced, so yes an imbalance there is something we'd like to work out at some point.

ExternalError · 02/22/2008 20:28:12

nice to hear even if its specialist clothing like the commando gear i wouldnt mind heres an idea how about some specialist def buff clothing maybe giving 3% def and 30 resistance to all classes maybe that will work giving people the chance to go all defence instead of offence kinda like some aikido ma loadouts

MotorZ · 02/22/2008 20:38:58

Wow lots of people being whiny little **CENSORED**...

I have to say I love the additional notes, especially the NPC wandering thing.

I'd rather see MKT drastically weakened than hacker slightly strengthened, but whatever. It never made any sense to me to have viral+one other, especially with me being a hacker. If you aren't a hacker in PVP, you should probably shut your mouth until you see the effects of the change. Being a hacker solo, especially if more than one person came after you, was almost suicide up to this point. The only way hacker would truly pwn anyone is if hackers are hitting you from the bridge at Mara and you're stuck in interlock (or incapable of running away from the bridge). In one on one against an MKT, I get destroyed everytime currently. This should even the playing field.

It's kinda like raising taxes. You don't want them to hurt you, but who cares if other people get hit hard? Right now hacker is slightly underpowered, that's the reason for the change. I'd like to see MKT get a nerf, personally (as stated above).

Brommerz77 · 02/22/2008 20:41:40

Right ladies and gents, enough refreshing of this page for one night for me.

Its almost 5am and im a bit tired.

Enjoy, and gnight.

broin · 02/22/2008 21:32:35

All sounds good to me... Though I would rather see two hypers of your choice rather than just one.

As for the people complaining about not having the free hyper against viral... Maybe we won't see so many of you going to block tactics and casually strolling towards the hacker now while he unloads everything on you and it bounces. One hyper means you have to worry about that sniper, or mkt waiting in sneak to hit you as well.

I'd say all in all it's a good balance. I think some people are just a bit concerned that now they are going to have to really give the hacker his due, especially those who know what they are doing, and have made the system that was basically working against them work. Now the system is going to be on a more even keel, which means the good hackers job of killing and crowd control became a lot less complicated.

Tenshi · 02/22/2008 21:39:08

broin wrote:

All sounds good to me... Though I would rather see two hypers of your choice rather than just one.

Indeed.

RemagDiv · 02/22/2008 21:48:04

We will see who switches to Hacker now. Current hackers everywhere are rejoicing!

Not exactly sure what prompted the change, though. Hacks still got in pretty effectively with Hyper-Deflect. It's gonna be a pain to see a bunch of AoE hackers toss some DoTs and debuffs in group PvP. Looks like VD buffs will be a must now.

Mitrios · 02/22/2008 21:54:58

RemagDiv wrote:

We will see who switches to Hacker now. Current hackers everywhere are rejoicing!

Not exactly sure what prompted the change, though. Hacks still got in pretty effectively with Hyper-Deflect. It's gonna be a pain to see a bunch of AoE hackers toss some DoTs and debuffs in group PvP. Looks like VD buffs will be a must now.

Edit: Temptation is to great, stayed hacker.

Mercio · 02/22/2008 22:15:24

Really, the issue isn't 2 on 1 or even a 1 on 1. But when you are pvping with a mission full and you and 4 other people go in to interlock, and say you have 1 who is mkt or gunman, or even a patcher or hacker.

Everyone matches up with someone basically. Which means you'll have to switch to their hyper (going up against a MA then put on hyper-block) That leaves you exposed to people hitting you out of interlock. And that's always been the case. I mean you have MA, gunman, and knifers that can hit you as well. But only the hacker can go in to a pvp situation and do his attacks over 5 meters. So he can hit everyone instead of just one. (which would be the case with a knifer, MA, or mkt).

But really even more than that it's the crazy debuffs from the hacker tree that can mess everyone up. The hacker can make everyone powerless, and stunned while everyone is stuck in interlock. It's not just like one person. And even if it was one person, no other tree can launch the debuffs the hacker can, making it more lethal. Which is why a lot of people found it crucialto have the hyper deflect going 24/7. And even then, as of late hackers have been ripping everyone up on Vector. And that's with the deflect going 24/7.

I just think people are worried that Hacker will become too over powered. I'm going out on a limb on this one, but maybe it wasn't a bug where you could stack the hyper-deflect and the others. But it was actually intentional by the dev because that person knew it would be fair like that.

And like Madbent and I said before, it is not going to be the end all be all if we can't stack the deflect anymore. It will just be more challenging and require more complex strategies. I can already think of a few that may work.

mantra777 · 02/22/2008 22:27:23

broin wrote:

All sounds good to me... Though I would rather see two hypers of your choice rather than just one.

QFT&E. totally agree with that... That's what I thought It should have been.

Shadow-SK · 02/22/2008 23:14:12

Two Hypers would be win, but it might discourage use of the Hacker tree even more. I don't like Hacker, but I know there's people out there who hate interlock.

broin · 02/22/2008 23:37:51

Shadow-SK wrote:

Two Hypers would be win, but it might discourage use of the Hacker tree even more. I don't like Hacker, but I know there's people out there who hate interlock.

I dont' think it'd discourage at all, just the opposite. It would make hackers a bit more resilient in PVP. They could have have the choice to run with extra defense to MA/GUNS; Guns/MKT; Viral/MKT; any combination you could imagine. It would allow you to be able to survive a bit more with a gunmen shooting at you while in IL with a MKT, or however the scenario. Plus the choice I think would keep people more honest. Right now the free viral def really isn't balanced but if you had the choice to run with any two then if you get smashed by a hacker or MKT or MA then that was your choice to run without that defense.

CODEMAN · 02/22/2008 23:43:17

Glad to see the patrolling NPC bug fixed

Pylat · 02/23/2008 00:21:04

I've been a hacker for over a year and I think the change to Hyper Deflect is bad. If a hacker gets the jump on you then you are toast. I always saw VD Debuffs as a nice balance to the constant Hyper deflect and even though it was frustrating to see people bounce everything off there were other times where everything hit and I'd win a duel without the other person hitting me once.

With Hyper Deflect no longer permanent it's going to be too easy for a hacker to maul someone if they get the jump on them, you'll be able to hit disruption field and even if they do turn on hyper deflect their viral defense is gonna be down by about 80 points anyway and you'll be able to hit them with all the follow up moves. Or they can hit you with powerless and slam you with a pile of hacks while you can't even turn on Hyper Deflect. No players asked for only 1 hyper at a time, we all were saying any two hypers of our choice, Melee/Ballistic or Viral/Thrown, or leave them the way they are. I don't know why you chose the last option which was, by far, the least popular among the players.

Nearly all the players adapted to Perma hyper deflect and this change is DEFINITELY gonna make hackers OP for quite some time, if not forever. One big complaint about MKT's is the fact they can get the jump on you and clean you out soon after, now that hackers can too, with all those tasty debuffs and AOE attacks I really think this is a BAD idea.

Devs PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't make that change. Clearly the player base doesn't want it (Judging by the less than enthusiastic response) and to do it anyway is just rude.