style="font-style: italic;">City of Heroes
was one of the first massively-multiplayer online games to venture away
from the
standard fantasy path. Instead of sword and shield,
style="font-style: italic;">City of
Heroes focused on super heroes and heroines, their powers,
and what a
city full of super beings would be like.
Now developer NCsoft is ready with the game's thirteenth
update, Issue 13. Among the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/45139">many
enhancements to the game, Issue 13 focuses on balancing the
powers players wield in player-vs-environment settings. Ten Ton Hammer
has details for power changes straight from
style="font-style: italic;">City of Heroes
Senior Designer, Floyd "Castle" Grubb.
Preface: Issue 13: Power and
Responsibility includes a whole host of development. Not only are there
significant new features, but there is also ongoing development to the
existing game. A big part of the game is the balance of all the
Archetypes, their respective power sets and how they compare.
Maintaining a level of equity between everything is a continual goal.
In this article, NCsoft NorCal Senior Designer Floyd "Castle" Grubb
gives us the scoop on some proposed powers changes that will be in
testing with Issue 13. Please keep in mind that there is still the
entire testing and revision process to go through with these changes.
The team is excited to see how these refinements stand up to player
feedback, datamining, and the beta process.
Introduction
For Issue 13, we have a rather wide selection of PvE (Player vs.
Environment) related powers changes. These changes focus on either
Quality of Life concerns or on powers which were not quite in Balance
with others. Below is a breakdown of what we are doing, with the aim to
provide insight into the thought process behind it.
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You and
your friends may notice some changes to your powers.
Energy Aura
Let's start with Energy Aura for Brutes and Stalkers. Energy Aura has
had a poor reputation from the start, and while it is "balanced" with
the other protective powersets using the original metrics, it has been
shown that those metrics did not take certain key factors into
consideration - namely Regeneration and Healing effects. Energy Aura
lacked any sort of mechanic which could increase the Health or
Regeneration Rate of the character, and did it have any active method
of restoring Health to the character using these powers. Additionally,
the set had more protection holes than others. To address these issues,
the following changes are being made:
- Energy Protection: This power gained a 1.25 scale Toxic
damage resist attribute for Brutes and a 1.00 scale Toxic damage resist
attribute for Stalkers. Energy Aura, being a typed defense set, had no
protection against these types of attacks unless they were 'packaged'
with a lethal attack of some sort. - Energy Drain: Added a 2 scale self heal to each target
affected by this power. Un-slotted, the player will recover 2% of their
maximum HP per target affected. This can be enhanced to up to about 4%
per target. This change was made to offer the power set some minor
healing ability to increase their survivability but not offer an
overwhelming heal.
Invulnerability
Invulnerability has a few issues, mainly stemming from lack of special
resistances and "weak" power choices. Here are the changes that are
being made:
- Unyielding: We removed the Defense Debuff from this power.
While we still believe it fit thematically, the impact on low level
characters was more severe than desired. - Invincibility: Reduce per target Defense Buff to from scale
0.15 to scale 0.1. The overall result of this and the Unyielding change
is, if you have the maximum number of targets in this powers radius,
you have the same protection as from Issue 12, but if you have fewer
targets, your net defense is higher. - Resist Physical Damage: Added 25% Defense Debuff
Resistance. Increased damage resistance scale from 0.75 to 1.00. - Tough Hide: Added 25% Defense Debuff Resistance.
- Resist Energies: Added 25% Endurance Debuff Resistance.
Increased damage resistance scale from 0.75 to 1.00. - Resist Elements: Added 20% Movement Slow Resistance.
Increased damage resistance scale from 0.75 to 1.00.
Kheldians
Peacebringers and Warshades, as Archetypes, have an interesting history
and reputation among players. It seems as if no one is neutral about
them they are either loved or hated. This isn't much of a surprise;
they were always meant to require more player decision making and
compromise than the base Archetypes. However, certain technological
restrictions combined with the "facts" of high level play ultimately
proved that the Kheldians were even harder than originally expected.
With Issue 12's introduction of the Villain Epic Archetypes, we took
some time to re-evaluate where the Kheldians were and what we wanted to
do with them. Here is what we are planning:
- Cosmic Balance: This power now functions while shapeshifted
Dwarf and Nova forms gain the same benefits as human form. - Dark Sustenance: This power now functions while
shapeshifted Dwarf and Nova forms gain the same benefits as human
form. - Gleaming Bolt, Glinting Eye, Gleaming Blast, Luminous
Detonation, Shadow Bolt, Ebon Eye, Gravimetric Snare, Shadow Blast and
Dark Matter Detonation: Increased base Range to 80'. This makes Human
form Kheldians ranged capabilities more useful overall. The 80' range
meshes more evenly with other Ranged AT's capabilities. - Peacebringer AT Multipliers: increased Human form Melee
Damage multiple to 0.85, increased Human form Range Damage multiple to
0.8 and increased Dwarf Form Melee Damage multiple to 1.0. - Warshade AT Multipliers: increased Human form Melee Damage
multiple to 0.85, increased Human form Range Damage multiple to 0.8 and
increased Dwarf Form Melee Damage multiple to 1.0. - Dwarf Form: You may now shift into Dwarf Form even while
Held, Slept or Stunned.
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The changes
are designed to make the player-vs-environment experience more balanced.
Toggle Powers
One important additional piece of development to mention, that is
especially relevant to Kheldians and their toggle powers is: in Issue
13, Toggles are no longer shut off due to Hold, Sleep or Disorient
effects. This is a major gameplay change, and it is not
restricted to Kheldians, but instead applies to all non-offensive
player toggles. As part of changes in Issue 13, when a
player is affected by a hold, sleep or stun, any toggle power they are
running will continue and will still draw endurance from the character.
However, some or all of its effects may be suppressed until such time
as the hold, sleep or stun is removed. For example, if you are held
while in Black Dwarf form, all of your Damage Resistance values, your
recovery bonus and knockback protection are suppressed, while your
hold, stun, sleep, immobilize and confuse protections remain in effect.
Monitoring your stats with the "Real Numbers" tool is a good way to
check which aspects of a toggle are suppressed and which are not.
War Mace
An ongoing project over the last several issues has been bringing War
Mace up to performance par with other powersets. The last set of
changes got us close, but still not to where we want to be. Here are
the changes:
- Clobber: Reduced Recharge Time to 16 seconds and alter
damage scale and endurance costs to match using the standard formula.
This means it it now a pretty hard hitting attack, with a damage scale
of 2.29 and a base endurance cost of 15.18. Since this is now
classified as a Damage power rather than a control power, the base
duration of the Stun effect was reduced from scale 10 to scale 5. - Shatter: Reduced Max Targets Hit from 10 to 5.
- Crowd Control: Increased Max Targets Hit from 5 to 10.
Misc
There are numerous smaller changes going into Issue 13. While you all
will get to see the final product in what makes it into the patch
notes, there are a few other changes I want to let you know about.
- Fiery Aura Temperature Protection: Now provides 20%
movement reduction protection. - Dark Melee Midnight Grasp: This power has been rebalanced
to provide the majority of it's damage as a front loaded sum (scale
2.21), followed by a shorter, small damage DOT. Overall damage has
increased, as has the amount of damage done on a 'Critical.' - Energy Melee Barrage: We increased the effectiveness of
this power by increasing Damage per Activation. We increased Recharge
time from 2 seconds to 6 seconds and change the damage and endurance
costs accordingly. The smashing component of the damage is now 2 hits
of scale 0.5 damage, and the energy portion is now 2 hits of scale 0.16
damage for a combined scale 1.32 damage.
These are the highlights, and there are several other changes
which are still in a state of flux (stalkers Claws, for instance.) I
hope you all like the changes. We are really looking forward for this
all to hit the Training Room so you folks can bang on them and tell us
how the changes feel! Your feedback is critical for these and other
changes that we make to the game.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our City of Villains Game Page.
