Rifleman Archive
Thread: PvE CU/R/B
At this time I cant stay logged into TC for more than 10 seconds
Also at last loging they have still yet to balance the "upper level" content.
Im going to be trying to focus on Rifleman Soloing white con mobs (lvl 54 and lvl 80)
Also going to test group PVE enviorenments in DWB,Corvette, Krayts. NS etc as soon as I am able to play
Atobusarragra wrote:
How is everyone going testing PVE?
So far I'm finding it sucks!
I've taken numerous NPC and creature misions on Tat at lvl60, and get incapped usually before getting their health down to less than 80%. These mobs should be pretty much a breeze, and should be able to be handled in multiples. If I get attacked by more than one - even quicker incap. Their action almost never drops and health regen is just stupid.
I wonder why they keep making things harder?
Right now in the CU PvE is all over the board and, mainly, is not good.
The hidden damage modifiers of the CL system, coupled with the drastically increased Action costs on specials make PvE very difficult fighting against mobs of the same CL. Even fighting 2-3 mobs of 20 levels lower than your CL can result in you winding up on your back before seriously damaging them. We can fire off our highest damage specials maybe 4 times before becoming a heavy bag or a shooting target. Taking missions scaled to the level of your character or your group is pretty much suicide right now.
Cover/Conceal is borked for PVE still. Creatures mobs will train on your first shot fired without cover breaking. Some NPCs will do the same while others will stand there and allow themselves to be killed while still exotic dancing for their companions.
Please note this is all from my experience on the test server. It is not balanced right now at all. There are 10 days left before the deadline.
*goes to sacrifice a chicken*
Roscannon wrote:*goes to sacrifice a chicken*
I like mine "original" as compared to "extra crispy" please.
Roscannon wrote:
Please note this is all from my experience on the test server. It is not balanced right now at all. There are 10 days left before the deadline.
*goes to sacrifice a chicken*
NPCs will also switch to longer range weapons if you root and and try to fight them from outside their firing range. Previously they would just stand there and take a beating because you were outside the range of their equipped weapon.
All in all, from the brief testing I did on TC, this latest patch is an absolutely massive improvement. Combat was actually fun, my choice of specials really had an impact on the battle and I was able to take on a level 79 opponent as a level 80 character with no armour, no buffs, no food and tactics made up on the spur of the moment with the specials I had on my toolbar and come within a whisker of defeating him without having to heal. With a single stim-d it was a very easy victory.
EnigmaBSc
Now this is something I wanted to hear! Excellent news - the ai got better. Now how about creatures? do they still charge? (off to test and get more feedback)
EnigmaBSc wrote:
With the new patch NPCs react fairly sensibly to Conceal Shot. On first hit they will run towards you for about 5-10m, then stop and turn to different directions as if looking. You can get off three or four shots before they "discover" you and rush to your position, breaking your cover.
NPCs will also switch to longer range weapons if you root and and try to fight them from outside their firing range. Previously they would just stand there and take a beating because you were outside the range of their equipped weapon.
All in all, from the brief testing I did on TC, this latest patch is an absolutely massive improvement. Combat was actually fun, my choice of specials really had an impact on the battle and I was able to take on a level 79 opponent as a level 80 character with no armour, no buffs, no food and tactics made up on the spur of the moment with the specials I had on my toolbar and come within a whisker of defeating him without having to heal. With a single stim-d it was a very easy victory.
EnigmaBSc
Atobusarragra wrote:
EnigmaBSc wrote:
With the new patch NPCs react fairly sensibly to Conceal Shot. On first hit they will run towards you for about 5-10m, then stop and turn to different directions as if looking. You can get off three or four shots before they "discover" you and rush to your position, breaking your cover.
NPCs will also switch to longer range weapons if you root and and try to fight them from outside their firing range. Previously they would just stand there and take a beating because you were outside the range of their equipped weapon.
All in all, from the brief testing I did on TC, this latest patch is an absolutely massive improvement. Combat was actually fun, my choice of specials really had an impact on the battle and I was able to take on a level 79 opponent as a level 80 character with no armour, no buffs, no food and tactics made up on the spur of the moment with the specials I had on my toolbar and come within a whisker of defeating him without having to heal. With a single stim-d it was a very easy victory.
EnigmaBScAs far as I can tell armour makes no difference in PvE at all because of the level and damage multiplier thing. Seems to be nothing more than expensive clothing! Try it. I've been testing it and found it to be the case. In PvP however, it helps!?I'm gonna hunt nekkid and hairy..../sigh
Id disagree about the armour.
As a rifleman /Ch I went to the nightsister stronghold last night, with a couple of other people.
We could take on multiple rangers level 84 (3 at once was the worst case we had, pulling isnt very easy with the new AI) , and when I did get hit by a ranger, the armour certainly did make a difference, and when we killed a spellweaver(level 125) I absolutely guarantee none of us would have lived long enough to kill her without armour.
Just to emphasise how the damage multiplier system has been somewhat changed (im still unsure the exact way it is working now, Ill try and get more data) I solo killed a nightsister protector, level 100.
2 days ago that would simply have been impossible, also note I was only using an exploding shell sniper rifle, fresh from the frogs, and I dont have any uber pets to help.
In fact, I was using natural tamed greater sludge panthers.
Ive been a critic of the level multipliers all along, but last night it was workable, and, as I have said all along and stand by, more fun than live.
On Dant I took quenkers, pikets, and mokks. These conned, blue, yellow, and white respectively. Blue=lvl79; yellow=81/82; white =80. I am MR/MBH/pistolier x/1/3/4 @ lvl80.
I could kill all these one on one. Two quenkers were easy too. Two pikets were tough and thankfully one disengaged otherwise I would have been incapped or had to get on my bike to flee. One mokk got eaten by voritors so I only got to test one on one. The first piket I fought, lvl82, incapped me, but my tactics were just stand there and tank. For the next one and subsequent mobs I used tactics of kiting and standing, and occasionallly to begin prone. These proved far more effective tactics and I hardly needed stims, and didnt get hit onceby that first piket. Let me say here that I had no buffs whatsoever, and had only 2800health due to wounds...doctors I feel could be hard to find Anyway, the con colours seem to be 'fairly' accurate, however, it seems to take alot of time still to kill the mobs. I can two shot kill a blue conned mob preCU with no buffs using no special moves. A yellow conned mob, preCU,is also down in 4-5 shots unbuffed, no specials and is not that hard. The above mobs were much more 'difficult'.
One thing I did do, was disengage the autoattack. I found this to be draining my action and firing when I didnt want it to and wanted to use another special but didnt have the action pool to do so. I think doing this is effective.
One thing that does concern me is that at MBH I should be able to tank...yet I was incapped using this tactic. I had to use rifle tactics to win...hehe, rifles for teh win!!
Now some specific riflebugs:
Rifle abilities broken are 3 (not happy about this!)
1. Aim :This skill increase accuracy, but upon use and examination of toon (ctrl+C)and skill (ctrl+S)sheet, no bonuses are registered.
2. Cover : simply cant get into cover at all anymore. I spent a couple of minutes pressing the button and nothing.
3. Sniper shot : doesnot shoot. Goes through the warmup, but then does not fire. Tried again and again.
Using /ex to examine a mob gives almost no info. (not specifically rifle but helpful...)
Range is no longer indicated. Until I get in range with a weapon a 'Out of range' message appears above the mobs head. It is very handy to know what range a mob is, please put this back in. Also, add the range next tot he targetted mobs name on screen.
Now to test in small groups and/or in twos!
2 days ago I would have said exactly the same comment about armour as well, the CU is definately coming together now.
I didnt try cover, time was a little limited for me, and in a group cover is practically useless anyway, especially in the confines of the NS POI where we were.
tanking wise, I agree, I did post in the 10 issues thread, the biggest problem for us is the hate system.
It is being tweaked though, my pets were able to hold aggro much better than previous days, where one rifle shot on a mob would see it charge me, no matter how long I left the pets fighting beforehand.
More tweaking needed, although I know that the tka taunt isnt working too well at all, hopefully it will be addressed very soon.
Pulling is very difficult now, without a bleed attack, but that is a product of the better AI more than anything, I would think its more a matter of developing new tactics than changing any specials.
I havent tried yet, but i think a combination of cover and conceal shot(which does make the mob come 'looking' for you on its own)and a high damage attack when its away from its group may be successful, again its something to experiment with I think.
As a lot of things, pulling now it seems will need some though and tactics to achieve successfully, which is OK, but it still does need to be possible in some way.
KundoJet wrote:It's encouraging to know that they are making these changes - thanks for reporting on them. One wishes that throughout the CU they could have acknowledge specific concers and said they were being addressed, rather than throwing our feedback down what appeared to be a bottomless pit. This lack of effective and transparent communication more than anything I think has exacerbated the anxiety around the CU.I'll be back in to test, but not until later in the week. Maybe they will have addressed more of these concerns by then.*crosses fingers*
I do agree with the communication comments , however, I never thought the bug reports and feedback on level damage multipliers and other imbalances were falling on deaf ears, I guess its because I normally play on 2 servers , farstar and test center, and my time on test (from the creature mount publish, october 2003) has got me used to the one way communication on bug fixes.
perhaps that experience has enabled me to keep a little more posotive than most during beta, I have been as disolusioned with certain aspects as everyone, but as it wasnt just me thinking some parts were wrong, I did always beleive it would be changed at some point.(level mitigators being the main one, which do appear to have been toned down at least, if not removed above 80 ish, I cant work it out just yet)
Contrary to popular belief, 18 months of playing on testcenter and meeting both devs and the QA department on a regular basis have tought me one thing, they do listen to constructive criticism, they dont often respond verbally, and that is something that should indeed change, but it doesnt mean we are being ignored.
valetman wrote:
KundoJet wrote:
It's encouraging to know that they are making these changes - thanks for reporting on them. One wishes that throughout the CU they could have acknowledge specific concers and said they were being addressed, rather than throwing our feedback down what appeared to be a bottomless pit. This lack of effective and transparent communication more than anything I think has exacerbated the anxiety around the CU.
I'll be back in to test, but not until later in the week. Maybe they will have addressed more of these concerns by then.
*crosses fingers*
I do agree with the communication comments , however, I never thought the bug reports and feedback on level damage multipliers and other imbalances were falling on deaf ears, I guess its because I normally play on 2 servers , farstar and test center, and my time on test (from the creature mount publish, october 2003) has got me used to the one way communication on bug fixes.
perhaps that experience has enabled me to keep a little more posotive than most during beta, I have been as disolusioned with certain aspects as everyone, but as it wasnt just me thinking some parts were wrong, I did always beleive it would be changed at some point.(level mitigators being the main one, which do appear to have been toned down at least, if not removed above 80 ish, I cant work it out just yet)
Contrary to popular belief, 18 months of playing on testcenter and meeting both devs and the QA department on a regular basis have tought me one thing, they do listen to constructive criticism, they dont often respond verbally, and that is something that should indeed change, but it doesnt mean we are being ignored.
... and it's nice to see. I was very open-minded to start the CU testing, in fact. My concern didn't start to escalate until successive patches on TC-Ep3 would address one minor issue or another, but offer no change to fundamental problems. When that happens enough times, the launch deadline is approaching like a runaway freight train, and you STILL aren't hearing any response from Community Relations about the player base's primary concerns, you start to worry.
It's like any relationship - almost all issues are manageable as long as you have good communications. When those communications break down, even the smallestproblem gets magnified.