Feedback Thread · Items Overhaul Public Test

[Vesperion]

As mentioned, the attack droid is still not good enough, one of its main problems was it extremely high cooldown time and this has not been resolved yet. I have been testing it on the PTR and it takes too long to recharge, and even more because it can be destroyed.

Exactly. Its still an improvement, but feels like it goes away too quick

A possible solution i could see fitting here (depending on how hard it is to code that is) would be that items/enemies when they get destroyed early during their runtime the remaining runtime will be decreased from the CD accordingly 1:1.

Let´s as example take the Taunt with its 88 seconds of CD vs 25 seconds of runtime.
Player uses Taunt on the enmy and CD starts with 88 seconds. The enemy that was taunted is destroyed within 5 seconds. So we would still have 83 seconds of CD and 20 seconds of runtime that bring nothing anymore. In the moment the enemy was destroyed the remaining 20 seconds will be reduced from the CD so that the remaining CD is 63 seconds instead of the 83 seconds so that it would be usable faster again in return


In case of the Lightning Chain i´m a bit confused cus most other games that have some sort of "chain/jump between enemies" effect it normally is the way that the initial hit has the higest damage while every further dmg decreases until the max chains/jumps are reached so that the last enemy gets the lowest amount of dmg in return.

Also LC is sometimes hard to predict what target it will jump next to and seems not to be consistend so that we could rely on it to much to hit the "target with the most HP last" to make the last jump worth. I think against groups of enemies with low HP it would make a difference if the weak units can die quicker with the later jumps.

 

[ben1982]

you guys remember when stun used to fully paralyze you ?
good old times
while the buffed stun may not quite be as strong as the old stuns pre 2017, the strength increase was uncalled for in my opinion, it is very hard to actually use prots if u are stunned . i found that most of the time u have to pre emptively use prots or you will be extremely vulnerable to being stunned and then bursted. In cqs it will increase the incentive to hold prots to save stunned targets, in 1v1 is really unberable to get stunned. there has not been colossus but i imagine ships without prot will be even more pain to use there.
Stun dome aoe and duration buff was really good, i was clamoring for buffs to dome aoe for very long. However i think the strength buff was uncalled for, the dome has too much stopping power able to shut down the entire enemy team if they havent already got protector active. Long stun dome lasts longer than strong afterburner, you cannot even escape from enemies with ab anymore if u are domed.
In my opinion, the better buff to the dome wouldve been a cooldown reduction
corruption cloud still the best item though probably ewe
the beacon changes made it very good in a cq setting , it can actually somewhat do the job of forcing people to shoot it even though it technically doesnt...
my biggest issues is the change in functionality completely changes how it will work in existing use cases (for ifrit event reactor and whoever else may be TC bg enjoyer)
Since the beacon does not last nearly as long nor have nearly as much HP it seems like using it to stall bosses on the ifrit reactor or using it to hold waves of bunnies for easter may not work the same anymore.
I kind of wish there was a way to change the beacon such that it didnt change its core functionaility tbh, right now its used like a sustain item, being that it basically instant full heals the caster if used on a crowd of enemies
By the way i noticed this, the r5 units stun domes are really powerful now as well, i thought mantis stun domes werent supposed to be getting buffed?

 

[NosferatuZodd]

About the stuns, especially stun charge , I agree with the post mentioned above, and I think they went a bit too far with the stun strength... Currently on the official servers, if you are stunned , you can at least get out of the main focus of the fight with the afterbuner , and good players use the stuns after the ab to neutralize it as much as possible, being this a question of reflex and skill. In the tests I did with the stuns on the PTR, there is practically no question of skill anymore, it doesn't even matter if you use a strong afterburn after the stun or not , the effect is so heavy that is imposible to escape or reposition by yourself even with a strong ab. I believe that at least the afterburns should have its effect maintained so that the stunned player can at least have an option to reposition himself,as it is in the official servers actually, and not have to pray for someone to give him a protector.

 

[Fission]

I kind of wish there was a way to change the beacon such that it didnt change its core functionaility tbh, right now its used like a sustain item, being that it basically instant full heals the caster if used on a crowd of enemies

Would say the Long Aggrobeacon does fit a job like the one you refer for PVE, since it has very high duration compared to strong and a very decent HP.

This combined with not stacking makes it so in PvP most likely the strong/normal will be prefered for while the Long would be used for the typical "stalling" on PvE.

 

[hektor.barbossa]

• New Effects:
  • Added repair effectiveness reduction by 25% for all repairs towards the taunted target.
  • A taunted target will receive 15% more damage.

Great changes,but not much for pve.
Great have more damage from taunted target but as reduction repairs... Well on pve can use on mender ?
Maybe additional 10% less incoming damage when taunt is active ? [only on pve] Finally not much ship use it and mostly is tank.
Tank as tak should be more ... tank XD

 

[darklink3]

Added "Sentry Slayer" achievement for defeating the Mantis Sentry multiple times.

By the way, this feels like a slap in the face to me.
Anyone who farmed sentries can attest, it is a slow and tedious grind to obtain the two gold ships, as you'll need ~2000 kills in a party of 2 for everyone to get them. At 18 kills per hour on average, it's a 100+ hours grind.
I'm glad I did it, but I was also glad to be done with it.

Now you're telling me to go back to it for days, or live with the fact that I'll be missing that achievement forever despite already doing it?
If you're really adding this, please add completion for everyone who has the ship already, this just feels shit.

 

[Fission]

• New Effects:
  • Added repair effectiveness reduction by 25% for all repairs towards the taunted target.
  • A taunted target will receive 15% more damage.

Great changes,but not much for pve.
Great have more damage from taunted target but as reduction repairs... Well on pve can use on mender ?
Maybe additional 10% less incoming damage when taunt is active ? [only on pve] Finally not much ship use it and mostly is tank.
Tank as tak should be more ... tank XD

Keep in mind that Taunt on PvE is now WAY more consistent on keeping the target which gives a nice value on squads with a tank, as the damage increased affects all squad members, and therefore, this 15% more damage (normal version) is higher than what it initially could feel like in paper.

 

[Vesperion]

Keep in mind that Taunt on PvE is now WAY more consistent on keeping the target which gives a nice value on squads with a tank, as the damage increased affects all squad members, and therefore, this 15% more damage (normal version) is higher than what it initially could feel like in paper.

This can be seen relative i would say cus when the target gets destroyed the player who used the taunt has an item that is useless for x more seconds until it can be used again due of the CD and so in return doesn´t provides a buff for anyone.

If we now assume that with activation of the taunt everyone focuses on the affected unit it will be down within a few seconds. So at best it will be more usefull against units with lots and lots of HP to make full usage of the taunt duration while against the "normal units" it still is more or less "useless" imo.

So the true question should now be if the taunt should stay a single target item and if so maybe the CD time needs to be adjusted again by reducing it to maybe just 40 seconds instead of the current 88 seconds to make it "more reliable and usefull for players who use ships with a taunt" or maybe go the route to make the taunt an AoE item that creates a circle around the user and an increased runing time of let´s say 40 seconds so that the buff that is provided from the taunt stays for the remaining duration time providing a much better experience for the squad in return.

 

[Fission]

So the true question should now be if the taunt should stay a single target item and if so maybe the CD time needs to be adjusted again by reducing it to maybe just 40 seconds instead of the current 88 seconds to make it "more reliable and usefull for players who use ships with a taunt" or maybe go the route to make the taunt an AoE item that creates a circle around the user and an increased runing time of let´s say 40 seconds so that the buff that is provided from the taunt stays for the remaining duration time providing a much better experience for the squad in return.

Aren't you describing Aggrobomb? it is already a tool that does AoE taunting. It is really hard now to get the aggro removed from you after using an aggrobomb.

 

[Vesperion]

Aren't you describing Aggrobomb? it is already a tool that does AoE taunting. It is really hard now to get the aggro removed from you after using an aggrobomb.

If i would have talked about the bomb i would have stated it. As said the taunt only provides the buff/debuff against a single target for the squad as long as the target is still allive. Once the target is destroyed (what is mostly in just a few seconds instead of the full run time when not used against an high HP target like Harvs; Story mission "bosses" or the Sentinel) the buff/debuff vanishes in the same moment and the taunt user has an item rendered useless without providing any further buff to the squad.

Main difference between taunt and bomb is that the bomb is a dmg item while the taunt should now become a supportive item with new mechanics in mind. But as supportive item the effect is way to limited with just a single target cus once the target is destroyed the remaining enemies still receive normal dmg and heal without any buff for the squad in mind cus the taunt only works against a single unit every 88 seconds and lets be real most fights in PG don´t last more then 88 seconds in 99% of the cases.

So all in all Taunt may be a fine item against high HP units but against most normal units it´s not really worth to start the taunt even when it would be for the sake of draging a single unit from the other units but the CD and runtime not really make it worth to be used for such strats.

 

[Jackal]

Overall this first PTR test was incredible, really well thought out changes in general, props to the team.

The only changes I would like to say are the following:

• Rockets: warm-up time reduction
• Shield: warm-up time reduction, with small increased active time, small decreased cooldown or both
• Aggrobomb: less minimum damage
• Resurrect: long, normal and strong variations should have different cooldowns
• Repair Turret: AOE logic removal
• Lightning Chain: additional target hits

All underused components are much better now and some of them feel really powerful, so that's a good thing.

There are only 9 main damage components in the game (not that many) so being able to use all of them is a big step forward, I could only think about the warm-up time of the rockets to increase its responsiveness in long range fights (this can help against SB spam a little bit) and maybe some more buffs to the lightning chain which will be the least powerful damage component for general purposes.
Aggrobomb would need a minimum damage nerf because it's the easiest module to land in the desired place.
Other resurrect variants see no use because the best is always the fastest one, so reducing the cooldown of the other variants makes sense.

For the other components, shields will feel less powerful not because they will be worse than before, but because there will be more stun and stun dome components in battle, so many players will choose a ship with protector instead of shield. Buffing the shield will incentivise using shielded ships as well.
Although this will be an unpopular opinion, repair turret spam is not affecting the spanish servers so nerfing the module just because 1 or 2 servers are overusing it makes no sense to me. Right now with all these changes, the AOE damage has been greatly increased against a big group of entrenched enemies, so turret spam should be even worse than before.

 

[KingSub]

@Z0ckt @darklink3 @TheData

I can only agree with the positive feedback, nothing can be ruled out. These changes have been implemented with a lot of care and ideas, and that gives us the feeling that the developers are listening to the players. The devs also came up with a lot of their own ideas so that basically all items were "improved" and "optimized" for the benefit of PvE and PvP players.

Now the old AnIn ships will also be of use. Dominator, Terrorizer.

The same applies to Panther and Bullfrog.

 

[ben1982]

Overall this first PTR test was incredible, really well thought out changes in general, props to the team.

The only changes I would like to say are the following:

• Rockets: warm-up time reduction
• Shield: warm-up time reduction, with small increased active time, small decreased cooldown or both
• Aggrobomb: less minimum damage
• Resurrect: long, normal and strong variations should have different cooldowns
• Repair Turret: AOE logic removal
• Lightning Chain: additional target hits

All underused components are much better now and some of them feel really powerful, so that's a good thing.

There are only 9 main damage components in the game (not that many) so being able to use all of them is a big step forward, I could only think about the warm-up time of the rockets to increase its responsiveness in long range fights (this can help against SB spam a little bit) and maybe some more buffs to the lightning chain which will be the least powerful damage component for general purposes.
Aggrobomb would need a minimum damage nerf because it's the easiest module to land in the desired place.
Other resurrect variants see no use because the best is always the fastest one, so reducing the cooldown of the other variants makes sense.

For the other components, shields will feel less powerful not because they will be worse than before, but because there will be more stun and stun dome components in battle, so many players will choose a ship with protector instead of shield. Buffing the shield will incentivise using shielded ships as well.
Although this will be an unpopular opinion, repair turret spam is not affecting the spanish servers so nerfing the module just because 1 or 2 servers are overusing it makes no sense to me. Right now with all these changes, the AOE damage has been greatly increased against a big group of entrenched enemies, so turret spam should be even worse than before.

I agree that nerfing the repair turret was unnecessary. No one is abusing turrets really.
The aggrobombs damage on aoe is an issue, its become actually quite easy to kill players in a group from as high as 50% if you have crit chance drone active and just get lucky. At least a 10% nerf is justified in my opinion. I did not test Orbitals as orbital was not included in the changelist, however since orbitals do not get this buff it actually gives a pretty good incentive to use bomb over OS since u can actually just kill the enemy team with bomb spam before the OS's cooldown could mean anything. Though of course this is just the ideal scenario since its hard to pull off a bomb combo when faced with magnets and stuns.
TLDR: being able to kill someone from 50% when they are hiding behind 10 other players feels a bit too much.
Also red graviton bomb? its not a real argument of course, i just found red gravi on bomb very funny xd
I also agree with the mat ideas, the long mat has no reason to exist, change it to rapid mat and reduce the cooldown. It wouldnt even really be that powerful because having to stand still for 24seconds to mat someone almost garuntees you will die unless you happen to have allies cover cloud rt rf and rd as well as asura to keep u alive. Counterplay options to mat ships are very good now, you can stun the person who tries to walk up to a pod and that guy will be unable to do anything for himself because stuns are so strong now. Also the stun on shield thing still exists which should be fixed. If u stun a heron on his shield, even if he gets protted the stun effect will linger, this is pretty hard to deal with tbh.
Now that aggrobeacon is so powerful, i see basically everyone choosing anin-10 over rdx-05 . The shield really is too selfish of an item to compete with the aggrobeacon now since players are almost forced to kill the beacon for 2 reasons - the aggrobeacon does a fair bit of damage actually its not a lot but its not negligible either , and for another, the beacon caster will literally be almost impossible to kill unless the beacon is down assuming they are using a strong beacon.
I think a shield strength buff is justified in this regard, if its going to be purely selfish item, it needs to just be that good. I think a good comparison now would be to the buffed version of the aim scrambler. Aim scrambler is one of only 2 items that you can actually use if u are stunned(since the stun is so powerful u literally cannot use a prot on yourself before someone bombs and kill u), 3 of u count afterburner but honestly afterburner doesnt work well as a response to being stunned anymore due to how strong stuns are. The aim scrambler is an example of how strong a selfish item needs to be in order to feel good. The inverter might be a bit of an outlier i dont agree with the existence of an "invincibility" item tbh but the comparison is there right. Shield just doesnt compete with scrambler and inverter overall.
As of the test, the prot is even more necessary to have due to the fact that stun is kind of just that strong tbh. Prot has faster cooldown on top of giving stun immunity. So if a strength buff is out of the question for whatever reason, perhaps a cooldown reduction to line up with the prot would be a nice gesture as well? So prot wont just be better in every way?
On an unrelated note, i would like to talk about the taunt , or rather the lack of taunt usage even on the ptr.
It seems the buffs the taunt got did not attract many players to use tanks and i would like to suggest reasons why this may be the case. Firstly being that taunt is single target debuff which puts it in direct competition with stun charge which is also a single target debuff. I think its clear the stun charge is basically better in almost every way. You dont need to deal 15% more damage to a target if they cant fight back you will kill them xd. The only ship to use taunt right now being tank doesnt contribute much to the team compared to granite with aggrobeacon to damage the entire enemy team instead of just a single player. And granite is a protector wielding ship as well.
I want to clarify by the way, i do not think taunt should get aoe. the tank class should specialise and tanking damage, not debuffing enemies.
I dont actually have any ideas to make taunt better at the moment, maybe it just needs new ships that can use it to see the light of day.

 

[hektor.barbossa]

Keep in mind that Taunt on PvE is now WAY more consistent on keeping the target which gives a nice value on squads with a tank, as the damage increased affects all squad members, and therefore, this 15% more damage (normal version) is higher than what it initially could feel like in paper.

Keep in mind that tauns is Single target with long cd and maybe 2% players use tanks nowadays where is a lot better rdx family ships to have.So even if taunt be more op i doubt there be a lot players start play tanks.
Also if you look for sq it looks good 15% x5 but what about solo players ?
Special that for sq exist way better ships with survival and dps so who cares slow tank with low damage and boring gameplay,eve if his taunt will have 15% buff damage to SINGLE target - who will use it on pve ? When can use brand new rdx ship with op items crush enemys 5 times faster still make no sense build tank for pve.
Tanks are now only for fun on pvp or high rare use by players who just enjoy tank class.
But compare to new rdx ships whole old class are nothing and for mostly players not worth buying.
When i see anln 12 or domi i make big eyes.Even new players "want rdx ships" and if you mention old parsecs is "hahaha good joke"
So sure no need make old items/parsecs better if only rdx ships must be the best XD

 

[FaiterLP]

Very good changes keep it up

 

[FaiterLP]

Is it allowed to stream the pts on Twitch?

 

[daniel48090]

Minelayers:

Suggestion for possible improvements.

The mine still has a terrible versatility problem in PvP. The changes I propose are the following:

1. Remove the marking on the mine mini map and destination panel.

Reason for proposal: Still extremely weak to create surprises in the Defender class ambush. Especially because of the classic target system that the game has.

or

2. Generate an accumulation system in the skills panel of up to a maximum of 3 mines to throw with a 1 second delay between each accumulated throw. Obviously maintaining the same cooling times for each mine that accumulates.

Reason for the Proposal:

This version would make more sense of the purpose of the Defender and Hybrid classes that use the mine as a source of Damage. Also to block roads in a matter of seconds and create ambushes. However, this proposal would be maintained with the option of the Mines being marked on the mini map and destination panel.

 

[daniel48090]

Attack Droids

I think the Attack Droid's problem is based more on its controllability than its AI.

Suggestions to improve functionality in all game scenarios.

1. Add a scanning system that allows you to give orders to the Attack Droid. Scan the target "Attack" / Scan the Droid "Return"

Reason: This would give greater versatility when invoking it and being able to make corresponding maneuvers according to the caster's objective.

or

2. Add a "mimic" method between Attack Droid and the launcher. Adding the option that if the user uses Repair, Afterburner or Both, the Attack Droid also activates these abilities (Influenced by the type of Afterburner or Repair the caster has). However, it would still retain its current combat AI option.

Reason: This would increase the Attack Droid's combat strength without being diminished in PvP or PvE based on the circumstances it encounters.

 

[daniel48090]

Taunts

The taunt has had a lot of consistent performance irregularities within the game for many years and there seems to have been a considerable amount of complaints despite the "positive" changes, going from "useless" to "useful" seems to fall short of expectations.

I've always thought that the taunt needs a complete rework, taking into account the entire spectrum of the game (since there are several NPCs that use it) so my suggestion is the following:

Change the single target functionality to an aura around the launcher in the shape of a ring the size of the radius of the Magnetic Trap. (Visual example: Ancient Ra)

Effects:

The % healing reduction is retained for units within the area.

The caster benefits from % Armor

The caster takes a % Movement Speed penalty

Time:

Basic: 12.5s Active/ Cooldown 20s = Reuse 32.5s / Launch 0s
Heal Reduction 12%/Armor Increase 12%/Speed Reduction 2.5%

Gold: 14.5s Active/ Cooldown 19s = Reuse 33.5s / Launch 0s
Heal Reduction 15%/Armor Increase 15%/Speed Reduction 3%

Ancient Basic: 16s Active/ Cooldown 18s = Reuse 34s / Launch 0s
Heal Reduction 18%/Armor Increase 18%/Speed Reduction 3.5%

Ancient Long: 32s Active/ Cooldown 15s = Reuse 47s / Launch 0s
Heal Reduction 8%/Armor Increase 8%/Speed Reduction 2%

Ancient Strong: 10s Active/ Cooldown 35s = Reuse 45s / Launch 0s
Heal Reduction 25%/Armor Increase 25%/Speed Reduction 5%

Loss of effectiveness: -20% for each level of difference between the level of the Taunt and the level of the caster's ship.

I am aware that the following ships would have considerable benefit:

STAM SA-X Heavy Armor
AnIn-X Tank

That's why the Speed penalty seems reasonable enough to me for it to be a skill used strategically.

I am taking this suggestion into account conditioned by the few ships that have Taunt as a repertoire of abilities. I don't know how the "aggro" factor of the taunt works, but it would be up to the programmer to place the proper proportion based on its power.

PD:
I have read comments about modifying the characteristics of the Shield, thinking about it, I think that with this type of rework it would help the shield to remain unchanged since it would be conditioned by this ability.

For those ships that have Shield but do not have the "Tank class" category but are hybrid, I think they have a decent enough combination of abilities for the Shield to receive some type of additional improvement.

 

[hektor.barbossa]

daniel48090
You saw the point - Class ships.
So far i see changes for items,what mostly is great ^^
But there are no class changes.
Now problem is that mostly great ships is rdx.
No one want buy tank,storm,engie,defender or shock.Even small % players play neons.
If someone make them its mostly collection or nostalgia not fly every day like rdx.
No my question is - why game have more than 100 ships if only 5 maybe 10 from them players want have or use it.
Who need old parsec dominator if exist better rdx blackgranite.
Who need old constructor if there are at least 2 better rdx engie and so on ...
Some people says - new players who join have only option buy parsec for now - but they dont do it XD
Players already says them - wait for rdx event,xmas or sale and get much better ships,dont wast cryo for pasrecs.

So i really love see new changes on items,they really great but see old parsec as worth buy and play,as a great ships,will be also Awesome.