Pistoleer Archive
Thread: IMPORTANT TEST CENTER UPDATE
As a pistoleer, I'll get a defensive bonus against any ranged attack?
So I get no bonus against critters? Just against NPCs/Players who are shooting a weapon?
So now I'm having to learn which NPCs will attack melee and which will attack ranged?
Philosopher1976 wrote:
2) HAM SYSTEM CHANGE TO COMBAT SPECIALS: This is a MAJOR change, and is something you should all try to test if you have time to head over to TestCenter. The change is that all ham costs for combat moves are no longer damage. With the old system, you would spend 100 points and it would be identical to damage. With the new system, the HAM points are removed from maximum value, not the current value -- so your HAM bars will actually shrink as you use specials but you won't actually be DAMAGING yourself. The ham costs have a SIGNIFICANTLY accelerated regeneration rate -- it's much faster than healing.
Did the devs lose sight of the concept of an "action pool" somewhere? If it doesn't cost action to do something, then why do we have an action pool in the first place? The very idea behind the pool is to represent a character getting tired from activities, and taking "damage" to the action pool from being shot made sense (I know if I got shot in the arm, I'd be feeling less like waving a sword around with it). Someone dropped the ball somewhere.
"No, Sir, I don't like it." - Mr. Horse
W.O. II Vilkata Grazioso
SueDenim wrote:
Which tree is Mitigation in? You say "Techniques," but all the online references I see don't have a tree by that name. Did they change the name at some point, so a bunch of references haven't caught up? I'm at work, so I can't check the game itself, but my refs have Pistoleer trees called "Tactics", "Marksmanship", "Stances and Grips", and "Special Abilities".
Yes, they did change the name at some point. Techniques used to be Stances and Grips.
sysfailur wrote:
Yeah I was just thinking... last ditch costs me anywhere from 71 to 80 points--I can fire 1 shot a second, so let's say 75 points a second... and It gets healed what, 15 points a second? Umm... no thanks?And for whoever said now it's going to take more strategy... well, what about healing yourself when you're getting low health? That is strategy... you gotta time it perfectly or you could get incapped by an action shot.
But it is strategy. Do you knock somebody down with PMD then hit one stopping shot (hurting your HAM) or just take comfort in the 1.5x Damage doubled.
The intent of HAM cost shouldn't be to cripple you with damage, that doesn't seem realistic to me at all.
Now granted the Medical business may take a hit, but at least you get back to using Stims for what they were meant to be used for. I'm going to be holding on to all my medical skill so I can still use stims, it's still an advantage in the long run.
I'm not sure I like the HAM change. I'm guessing that this means that you can't heal the reductions caused by specials. This is going to have impacts on all people with medic skills, but also on doctors and combat medics too. It seems like it would beused asa powerful inducement to not spam specials. I see this as the main reason to make a switch like this. I wonder if dancers' specials do the same thing? Oh, the medics might be getting a double XP whammy here. The dancers may not even be able to twirl enough in five minutes to give a decent buff.
I heal myself in combat if there are no medics nearby, until my mindpool is shot. I also use as many specials as I can during combat. not being able to heal away the special damage is going to be a pain. I can't believe the regen rate is anywhere near what it would need to be to allow a combatant to use frequent specials for any length of time. Take for instance a pistoleer who can fire stopping shot every second.
I'm cynical. Every patch for the past month seems to deal with weakeningplayers of every kind. That ranges from pets to power handlers to tissue drops to enhanced NPC specials.
I guess since the player population is maturing and more and more elite masters are being created, we are all being taken down a few pegs. It is never the same game two weeks in a row is it?
rufus102 wrote:
Please clarify:
As a pistoleer, I'll get a defensive bonus against any ranged attack?
So I get no bonus against critters? Just against NPCs/Players who are shooting a weapon?
So now I'm having to learn which NPCs will attack melee and which will attack ranged?
You'll get a Damage Mitigation bonus against ranged only ... but your other defenses work against both melee and ranged. Yes, it will only be good against ranged mobs and NPCs (e.g. factional PvE) and in PvP.
Guys ... I just got back from Thanksgiving, and I'll try to test this out more in the upcoming week.
The Brawler Correspondent is reporting that the new changes made him MUCH more powerful than before ... let's get on TestCenter and give a report of how it's affecting us comparitively. If we can figure out exactly how the system works for us, we'll know whether this is a good change or not.
One thing he said that is interesting is that his HAM regen rate was affected by WHICH special he used. Apparently some made his HAM regenerate faster than others.
I'll report more info once I test some more ... if anyone else is testing on TC, report what you find here.
What worries me is that they are putting the damage mitigation in before they fix the specials. It makes me wonder if the devs have their priorities straight. I would think they could get better feedback if the specials were fixed, then put the mitigation in. But I guess some have been broken since day onefor all combatprofessionsand nothing much has been done, oh well just my 2 cents.
Mercenary