Test Server Patch 166 Notes

[APU COMBAT]
- Line of sight verification will be used at the beginning of the cast - if the target is in line of sight, the damage will be generated in any case (even if the target moves out of LoS during the cast)
- Casts without targets will fail (and will not be ignored)
- Aiming penalty reduced: The maximum damage reduction for poorly aimed casts is now half (was one quarter)

[MELEE COMBAT]
- 'Paw Of Tiger' changed - new techlevel is 80
- New rare variation of brass knuckles added -> Perforator, Lowtech-Melee, TL 82 (will replace the 'Electric Tempest')

[VEHICLES]
- Use restrictions for driver seats changed: the INT mainskill requirement was removed, VHC subskill requirements have been adjusted

[BUGFIXES]
- Fixed a bug that caused fall damage when players shot each other from large height differences

[IMPLANTS]
- All penalties lowered to one third of their current values
- We are working on another concept for useful (but not painful) penalties on the implants

[POWER AROMR]
- New genotoxic power armor for Private Eye (M-C Orientation) changed to UseRestriction TL 80
- Lowered requirements for PAs 3 and 4 from 112 to 110 and 124 to 115 respectively. Also adjusted Tank P-C, R-C and PE H-C PA requirements.

[NPC HEALTH]
- NPC health is now group independent (i.e. Plants and mutants of the same combat rank have similar health) and has been lowered across the board - damage and armor values will stay the same (group specific)

[BALANCING MODIFIERS]
- Different damage modifiers changed (if a topic is not addressed it will stay unchanged)
- PvE Mod: + 5 Percent
- EvP Mod: - 5 Percent
- M-C Mod: + 5 Percent
- H-C Mod: + 5 Percent
- P-C Mod: + 5 Percent
- R-C Mod: + 5 Percent
- APU Mod: + 5 Percent
- VHC Mod: + 20 Percent

[GAMEWORLD]
- Decreased the monster spawn density in the following dungeons/caves:
- Abandoned Cellars
- Chaos Caves
- Swamp Caves
- Desert Underground City
- Regant's Legacy - Main Detention
- Juggernaut Facility
- Gaia Mines
- Worm Tunnels
- Dangerous Canyon Caves
- DoY Tunnels

PvE changes sound good , APU Los also... will have to test it out to see how significant it is for noob lvling improvement.

Theres some good stuff there, but going to discuss what still needs work IMO here. Specifically with regards to HC PEs (a pet issue, but an issue nontheless)

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

[MELEE COMBAT]
- 'Paw Of Tiger' changed - new techlevel is 80
- New rare variation of brass knuckles added -> Perforator, Lowtech-Melee, TL 82 (will replace the 'Electric Tempest')

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Nice, but could we please see something similar in HC? To give HC PEs a fighting chance, too.

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

[VEHICLES]
- Use restrictions for driver seats changed: the INT mainskill requirement was removed, VHC subskill requirements have been adjusted

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Good idea probably, although prepare to see tanks flying bombers. Any chance we could see gun STR reqs lowered as well to help out HC PEs? (either that or better +str imps availble)

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

[BALANCING MODIFIERS]
- VHC Mod: + 20 Percent

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Needs to be more like +100%, along with a boost to aim speed if you ever expect to see vehicles in PvP.

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

- New rare variation of brass knuckles added -> Perforator, Lowtech-Melee, TL 82 (will replace the 'Electric Tempest')

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if by will you mean hasn't yet, then you don't need to worry about retesting this :p

Just logged on my PE and everything about him has been nerfed :S i shall get back to my testing

Ok just did some noob testings.......the fixes are huge, its a lot easier then pre-patch (still harder then retail) but quite do-able.

Warbots IMO do a little too much damage but yes very much improved, off to DOY tunnels in a sec

That's what I've allways said - we can balance mobs easily to bull.... (but we won't :D ).

Please test all ranges of PvE to get a good feedback about that topic. In that case we can do more finetunings in a very detailed way.

Remember that Warbots are the boarder from less-single-content to more-group-content - this is the way we see these ranges of mobs. And check out our last loot-changes ...

The starter mc5 area is eminently doable now, bravo. And you fixed those bouncing/jiggling smugglers, well done :)

M-C Is still terrible! The damage in PvP is crap! Plus, M-C PEs need to use Rare Nightshade drugs to just reach the STR requirements on rare weapons..

Hmm there's a few things (pretty much tank-centred) that I feel are worth mentioning.

Firstly, as far as heavy weapons go, the creed lasercannon and the ionic shotgun cannon are just so much stronger than the alternatives. To the point where opting to use a CS or ravager will become a severe disadvantage come retail.

Secondly, there seems to be a disparity between hitpoints, damage dealt and the varying heal abilities. Again speaking only about tanks, using a combination of medkits and a nanite injection, it can take some 3-4 minutes just to get back up to full health after a fight. Therein lies another problem. Although we have the illusion of much higher health pools, with the harder to reach (in the case of tanks impossible) resist caps (and the relatively weak impact of armour resists), we are taking far more damage than ever before. I'm not entirely sure whether the blame can be placed on overpowered weapons or the new way of determining resists, but the current balance just seems off.

Oh yes and one last thing. Why did you feel the need to render some previously important implants so useless? Both the marine core and moveon are laughable now, leaving any tank who doesn't have access to the mc5 chips pretty heavily disadvantaged.

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

[APU COMBAT]
- Line of sight verification will be used at the beginning of the cast - if the target is in line of sight, the damage will be generated in any case (even if the target moves out of LoS during the cast)

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I'm not sure what to make of this.
APU spells suffer from low rof. This in itself isn't a problem, however the fact that low freq means a casting time before the 'weapon' fires is an issue.
Changing APU spells to cast at the start of the cast rather than the end (similar to normal weapons) would remove the necessity of this change and make APU's life less frustrating.[/quote]

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- Aiming penalty reduced: The maximum damage reduction for poorly aimed casts is now half (was one quarter)

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Ehhhh... dunno about this....

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[VEHICLES]
- Use restrictions for driver seats changed: the INT mainskill requirement was removed, VHC subskill requirements have been adjusted

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Good news about the int reqs.... though... what about str reqs?

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[IMPLANTS]
- All penalties lowered to one third of their current values

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While this change is welcomed, in some cases, this is not enough. Some malii simply have to go.

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- We are working on another concept for useful (but not painful) penalties on the implants.

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Please elaborate.

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[NPC HEALTH]
- NPC health is now group independent (i.e. Plants and mutants of the same combat rank have similar health) and has been lowered across the board - damage and armor values will stay the same (group specific)

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I hope it's enough.

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[BALANCING MODIFIERS]
- Different damage modifiers changed (if a topic is not addressed it will stay unchanged)
- VHC Mod: + 20 Percent

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The other changes seem... a little pointless, at least relative to cirtain weapon types *cough* WoC *cough*.
Will help against mobs though.

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[GAMEWORLD]
- Decreased the monster spawn density in the following dungeons/caves:
- Abandoned Cellars
- Chaos Caves
- Swamp Caves
- Desert Underground City
- Regant's Legacy - Main Detention
- Juggernaut Facility
- Gaia Mines
- Worm Tunnels
- Dangerous Canyon Caves
- DoY Tunnels

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Nothing really to say about this untill testing finds out how this affects things.

Ok my final testing comments for patch 166.

The PvE is a lot better, but the real test will come on Wednesday. However a group of 3 capped chars being being wasted by 52/52 LC's is still overpowered.

There are some line of sight issues with Monks, that just unbalance the game. An APU cannot hit a character if something is obstructing the hitbox around a player, even if the player can see the body clearly, which a rifle character can hit the person back.

Vehicle changes, ok I like the general a +5 increase to use the vehicles is fine. Not checked this out but low level vehicles like the Quad, Speedbike and Chainbike (And maybe the Hovertec) should be kept at the old 2.1 VCH requirements.

Also the prices for FSM vehicles are stupidly high. Drop them back down to the 2.1 levels please. (The same can be said for parts like NNPU parts)

There some settings originally used by neptune before - we will set Quan to retail-conditions on monday. After that we can check out the current prices.

If something is wrong with that - give us feedback!

Ive done a few runs on vechs and their damage is not enough. They need to be compensated for the fact that you are a sitting duck while in a vechicle.

It was raised to 120% from the original 100%

I would seriously encourage to try them at 150% or 200%

Also are you planning a change to the PE nanites? ATM i doubt any PE will spec em due to the huge nerf in their ppu (lower focusing to 50)

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Originally Posted by Thanatos

[VEHICLES]
- Use restrictions for driver seats changed: the INT mainskill requirement was removed, VHC subskill requirements have been adjusted

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You know this will being the age of every tank driving and gunning aoe rhinos or bombers right? You know they will just drive to the target, hop out and start gunning people....and that's not over powered? I liked the int requirement, ment you had to work with a spy/pe/monk