CM diary #4 - 03/21/2021

News
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Hello, hello!

For this special episode of Purple Hell, we’re happy to announce that our video transmitters have been miraculously repaired. Our marketing department thus insisted that we call it “Eye candy extravaganza”, but we objected fiercely. 2 videos don’t justify this, we said, and we’d be opening ourselves up to false advertising lawsuits.

Ahem. Regardless, on to our correspondent.

Where’s the patch?

Cutting right to the chase, the patch is almost ready now. My personal hope is that it should be hitting live by this time next week, but let’s maintain some cautious optimism. There are a few things to discuss, however, so let’s break the news down.

The good

We’ve made tremendous progress across the board, as our dev commandos have been exploring new depths of Hellgate’s… unique innards. We’ve taken up quite a few ambitious routes, which means future work in those areas will be extremely faster. To conceptualize this with some eye candy, I present you with a sneak peek into our much-advertised Shield tree rework.

Disclaimer #1: This is work in progress, so it may not be identical to the final version.
Disclaimer #2: The shot at 0:20 takes extreme skills and psychic powers. Please do not try this at home.

The bad

Having mentioned our hurdles, then, the bad part.
Because of said hurdles, we’ve had to somewhat scale the patch down. Between testing each addition and addressing each unexpected issue, we simply couldn’t keep withholding the patch to tick every box. Much of what we outlined in the second diary entry has made it in, but we’ve had to postpone the following:

  • Gear bundles
  • Quest restructures
  • A large Shield revamp

For transparency, blueprints for all of the above are on our desks. However, polishing them all enough for release would take more time, and this patch has taken long enough as it is. We’re thus pushing those as the first priorities for the next patch, work for which will begin… just about the day this one goes live.

The ugly

Part good, part ugly, we’ve had our share of hurdles. To visualize this through a specific example, let me share some new insights into the ancient, elusive, annoying shield bug.

Having pinpointed some more consistent underlying factors, we may now begin applying shortcuts that may reduce this bug’s frequency. Until it’s found, of course, deep in the bowels of the code, and slain in glory eternal.

Is this thing on?

Now, on to your feedback. Yes, our feedback receptacles are open 24/7. I cannot stress this enough, for the few naysayers here and there and all the rest of London’s survivors alike. This is a passion project, and your feedback is its lifeblood. We cannot always act on it, practically or contextually, and we absolutely cannot satisfy everyone at once. Hell, we can’t satisfy the whole team equally at once. But we do listen closely, because it’s a game for you, the players.

From small, practical HCE suggestions to large, thematic class revamps, we’ve collected immense feedback to inform our course. To outline a few of your thoughts and suggestions, excluding bugs and AI improvements:

  • Cursed materials and crafting options
  • More storage
  • DoD zombies exp gains nerf
  • Crit nerfs
  • Crit buffs
  • Ravager Rounds nerf
  • CH auction expirations and filters
  • Mass analyze options
  • Fun events and raid events
  • Better player and enemy stat screens
  • More substantive guild perks and content
  • A damage dummy
  • An sfx system revamp
  • New achievements and titles
  • A character selection screen

As you can see from these examples alone, we have our work cut out for us - and that’s before our own ideas and creativity outlets. All this has to be smashed against our tight schedules as well, like the sun being smashed onto 314’s face.
That’s why we must constantly ask for your patience; there is always something to do, and there’s often a roadbump in the way. Nobody likes the s-word (soon), but a famous man said “the road to Hell is paved with bugs”. But another famous bald man said “patience, always patience”. And we admire the latter man more - and hopefully you do too.

So this should be all. Thank you for your time and continued dedication, and thank you for filling London’s streets with demons’ corpses after all this time.
All the best, and happy hunting.

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I ll do a copy/pasta from our guild discord as i didnt have the space on the google sheet to express my opinion on the matter of DoD XP.

“funny enough, while i agree on most of what s being talked, the dod xp nerf is taking the problem the opposite way i feel. Dod xp feels high simply because it s the only activity we have where we kill mobs. Every other farms, we tend to rush without killing anything to maximize reward/hours. Abyss rifts for exemple : one runs into it, rest PP, rinse/repeat. Molloch, we PP and bug reset the boss. Dod is good because we dont have a choice about killing most of the things. They give good XP but no loots( which balances things out imo). Trash mobs never have anything valuable to loot for the most part so we skip them.”

I ll add to this that while DoD is good, it requires better gear/team to get that said XP. A dedicated XP farming team can get could results in Abyss or AB grinding. Yes DoD is good, but i dont think it requires a nerf. It’s simply more efficient than other methods simply because of choices and goals/playstyles.

Long text for a small line in a post that isn’t about this, sorry ><

On the main topic though: I can’t wait to try a shield guardian. I like this class but not as a tank and with gundians out of the equation, it might give me something to try with them. Keep up the good work guys <3

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Hey, this is feedback in a post that’s about feedback :slight_smile:
Fair points on exp, I think. I think the major gripe is that it’s distinctly easy to hit the current cap this way, and there’s nowhere to go afterwards. It’s a method for the few, yes, but for them it makes the progression curve odd. So personally I wouldn’t rush to nerf it, at least not before considering the alternatives and finally raising the exp ceiling more.

Same here. I do like the tank gameplay, but I’ve never had a proper shield build before. Closest I came to that was using Shield skills with 2-handed swords in Global, so perhaps it’s high time we did this.

By the way, general disclaimer.

All of these bullet points in the last section are your ideas. They’re things we’re discussing and exploring, not a roadmap set in stone. Just explaining this here, because it seemed to create the impression that we’ll plow these down one by one exactly as they are.
We definitely can’t do that. We need to figure out exact values for nerfs (which are fixes, in, say, RR’s case, not sadistic nerfhammers for the lols), prioritize what happens and how, and somehow both nerf and buff crits. Only half-kidding on the last part.
But yeah, please don’t panic. Not you on this subject specifically, just in general.

<3

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I definitely need to inquire on that RR “nerf”, one of my builds rely on it’s proc chance to even function in late game.

The rest of the changes look amazing though!

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Most certainly :slight_smile:

The feedback we got focused on how well it performs, and it asserted that it works too well. “It makes Thermo Cannons OP” and “Cannonades overperform”, to quote the two latest pieces we got. That’s why I’m listing it as a “nerf” above, to more accurately communicate the sentiment of the feedback we got.
On our end, we’re mostly concerned with why it performs the way it does with specific gun types. I’ve joked about it before, and Alternalo has provided great footage to showcase how it looks. This is roughly how it performs internally with exploding projectiles as well, as one can assume by the haywire firing visuals. Clearly, this behavior is unintentional and inconsistent with how it affects guns without sustained projectiles. Ergo, a bug.

That’s why I’ve been dubbing this a “fix” instead of a “nerf”; the goal is to remedy this bugged interaction, not nerf the class. Of course fixing it will damage the class, but only because it was not supposed to be able to do what it did. But there are many ways to compensate for this loss (within reason - we won’t compensate, say, Summoners when fixing the Demon CD bug), and we absolutely will if MMs find themselves unable to perform or have a class role without it.

That’s the situation in a nutshell. Rest assured we never intend to nerf MMs for no reason. The boss is one, so we couldn’t if we wanted to :wink:

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I was running a Thermo Cannon build on my main (because it’s my favorite weapon in all of Hellgate) and even though it can hit insanely hard when you get RR, it still struggles against late game content (stuff for lvl 50+ players) Mostly due to being poorly effective against bosses, and that’s with a modded Bunkport’s Tsunami and Tyler’s Pistol. Regular mobs it can cut through with minimal effort -IF- the proc goes off where it is multiplying the shot fired which is about 30% chance. But yeah, I really hope it doesn’t wind up being unplayable cus it was the most fun build to play. How often do you get to hit a group of mobs so hard that they can go flying 50+ ft into the air, that can only be done with a Thermo Cannon. lol

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This is how it performs with the interaction showed above (thx for digging that up Bryan)

We’ll intend to fix this by making a missile damage the same target only once, so it will perform significantly worse on single targets but will still devastating on crowds due to overlapping effect, however the performance on crowds will drop a bit too because of this change.

This is already done for cannonades so expect nothing more or less.

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What in the hell, how did you kill that guy within 5 hits?!

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I feel that the Abyss area itself can be the one to blame. The walls are so weirdly placed in there that it sometimes create weird bounces with projectiles.
Not to say that the gear isn’t the reason either keep in mind.

Yes thermo canon + RR is good but for serious aoe i dont see any other good alternatives for MM. Nerf this combo to hard and you directly nerf DoD XP at the same time :stuck_out_tongue:

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not sure for that (if you remember when we entered dod with me, you, toxic after patch, it was still too much of dmg, it was on alpha but difference only in few ele % in mods), probably need more testing when will be next nerf, to be sure its not op anymore, because im pretty sure, right now i can equp triple eles mods in good stat globals and i’ll erase any zombies

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Nerfing dod exp was my idea, because you can get rank 50 in around 2 weeks (with active party), what seems too strong, before dod, exping to rank to 50 took much and much more time, which can stimulate you continue playing. Now you need 1 mm or 1 summy to run dod and get shitload of free exp (you can even dont do anything, just pres W button and kill last boss, which isnt really requre good geared players), if party can do 3-4 runs per talis thats just tons of exp

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back to cannonades… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abSMCUDKrIA

not full triple ele, not very good cannons, dps jump to 20-39k, seems enough to run dod, add here second mm, haste bot, active wall trick, better gear and it will be too easy process again

equp two 4 slot guns with +combat damage loaded with full combat dmg mods and you have good striker mm with good aoe (not enough to kill zombies in dod solo, but im pretty sure killing those zombies should be result of all team damage, not just single mm with bazooka like right now), you have to forget about ravager rounds (not enough skillpoints to have all needed skills and strikes) but its good alternative

… but sure there’s no point in it while we have working thermocannons and cannonades

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Thank you for reporting on this issue, honestly. The RR bug is among the peskiest ones to tackle, and it does seem that the last fix wasn’t complete.

That’s my take on it as well. I absolutely see Zeel’s point on DoD kills being mandatory, hence more rewarding in exp than other farming spots, and I do believe we shouldn’t rush to nerf exp gains themselves as the first step. I’m not against it either, but I’d begin with eliminating the factors that make DoD runs so efficient;

Speaking of, I would like to know what Summoners are doing now. I know they can tank it, but carrying teams sounds new.

That’s the idea. RR being buggy aside, it’s the effect it has on DoD that’s harmful; it expedites exp gains and affects the economy, for one thing.
MMs do have legitimate AoE options, at that. Between Strikes/Grenades and MS, especially with stacked Combat damage, the class should be better than most in this regard. And if it isn’t, we can buff those assets accordingly. That tab is designed for AoE, so it should work toward that end - and of course beat RR guns at it.

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My main concern was the single target performance with the combo which should be addressed by this fix.
DoD itself could be fixed in multiple ways, nerfing xp is one thing, and rising the mobs level by 2. I was suggesting lvl59 for start but then after lots of discussions we’ve toned it down to lvl57 which seems to made it too easy, even with the massive regens some of you made it possible to solo the content which wasn’t intended.
As i see this is a pretty narrow edge of having the best way to earn xp and endgame loot and make the content not worth doing at all. The intent is to have a solid party oriented endgame activity outside of abyss instead of the only thing worth doing.

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if you make DoD harder it will be “elite” area for ppl with these bugged weapons, other chars will not have chance. It is hard just enough if there is no tsunami / canonades. I think fixing these weapons would be enough. Besides, these weapons overperform everywhere :slight_smile:

As for how summy overperform - spamming ele novas on hordes gathered around carnagor - but it cause massive fps drops. I was once in party with two ele nova abusers and my fps was around 1 , mostly i was frozen.

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i cant play in dod with summies because of fps drop, but i heard many times, party with 1-2 summies does 3 runs per talis without mms in parties, so im pretty sure good geared sums can carry parties as well. So fixing mm will not change much (pick sum and fastrun dod)

one more thing about mm, before i started to use cannonaades in alpha i was playing with ravager magnum +ravager rounds, and it was really not bad to kill really big mobs groups and it wasnt too strong to be op, i didnt need any strikes, i really dont understand why you decrease splash radius of all magnums to 0.5, because that seems really good alternative to use gun as aoe after RR fix, instead of strikes, probably if you think about complety fix bug with projectiles and buff a bit ravager rounds (like increase bullet damage from 75 to 100% (right now in this patch it looks too weak)) and return splash back to guns like magnums, we could get one more way for aoe setup which will be equal to strikes. Cant say will that work good for sure, but worth as idea

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if you also interested in current gun balance its looks like this (full moded with optimal double ele ccm/cdb setup)
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cant calculate gau’s but its stronger than mags, tropicals doesnt seems high, but +boost on it makes them better, and as result 90% of mms playing with 1h guns, im sure endgame 2h and 1h guns should be equal in damage, you can easy calculate this and find best proportion of rof or base dmg to balance it - like simple decreasing rof of mags to 90 from 120 and you get this :
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which seems more than good, and same you could do with gau’s

or increasing base dmg of ravager by 50% and them close to gau’s/mags
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i dont know what to do with odin, its looks close to ravager at first look in game, but after you start to mod ravager with ccm/cdb odin feels weak becuase of only 2 mod slots

that all just example, i know most of people dislike crit modding, so this thing will be actual maybe for 10% of mms who using ccm (without crit mods (just triple eles) guns looks close to equal)
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but i dont think you going to totally remove ccm and cdb from game, so i think if you start balance guns you need to look at max modded setup firstly

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