Hey everyone – it’s time for another Combat Team update! We just pushed a major patch earlier this week and I’m sure everyone has noticed the combat is feeling a bit different.

In today’s post, I’d like to go over a few things that changed with the patch, where we are moving towards with future patches, and how your feedback and bug reports can help us get there.

PLAYER CHANGES

Advanced Modification Protocol (AMPs)

This was the most in your face update we made this milestone. The AMP system is one of the ways we allow you to specialize your combat play style. Since this is a new system we expect to have lots of feedback on it.

If you have general feedback or find a bug within the AMP system, please post here.

If you find a bug or have feedback for a specific AMP, please post in the proper forum for your class here.

Player PvP Damage

Issue: With the initial Winter Beta release, we had issues with late game damage versus player survivability in PvP. With the way it was set up, Player health followed more along a linear increase while Player DPS followed a more exponential increase. This meant that the fight times in low level PvP felt good, but as you got higher in levels, the kill times in PvP would get dramatically shorter. (At level 50, certain class combos could annihilate another player in the blink of an eye!)

12/10/2013 Patch Update: To resolve this we have modified the milestone system so that Health/Survivability and Damage both scale at roughly the same rate. This change should help keep our kill times in PvP closer to what we want throughout all levels in the game.

Feedback Route: If you have feedback or find a bug within the Milestone system, please post in the proper forum for your class here.

Player Secondary Stat Gains

Issue: Certain classes were receiving secondary stats on the Assault/Support Power stat that were much more beneficial to their role than other classes were receiving. This was once again leading to issues in the late game where certain classes became exceptionally better at performing their role.

12/10/2013 Patch Update: To resolve this we modified Milestones so that you no longer gain a secondary stat from anything that gives you Assault Power or Support Power. Additionally, we have also modified where each class gets their secondary stats from in the Milestone system. With these changes we can ensure that statistically all the classes are on more even footing.

Feedback Route: If you have feedback or find a bug within the Milestone system, please post in the proper forum for your class here

CREATURE CHANGES

With all of the changes we made to Player stats, we had to follow up and make changes to the Creature side of things. This is where I would expect a majority of the issues and feedback to be.

Telegraph Damage

Issue: Most telegraphs were not threatening enough leading players to not even bother attempting to dodge.

12/10/2013 Patch Update: Telegraph Damage has been modified. We have moved a large portion of expected DPS out of creature auto-attacks (white damage) and into Telegraphs. This means creature telegraphs should hit much harder, and auto-attack (white damage) should go down. Additionally, we are attempting to balance each telegraph individually based upon the following factors; How hard is it to dodge? How much reaction time do you have? How big of an area does it cover?

Feedback Route: If you run across a telegraph that is just destroying you, one that seems like it is doing too little damage, or any other issues you may encounter, please respond in this forum.

When you respond, please state the Creature Name, Telegraph Name, and a brief description of what is occurring. We will review each example and update it appropriately. If these are extremely broken, I will work with the live team and attempt get them hot fixed.

Example Report: Dominion Researcher - Mortar Barrage: This telegraph is channeled for 4-5 seconds and forces me to dodge the entire time. Additionally, it feels like I am being hit even when I am outside of the telegraph decal and when I am hit, it takes more than half of my health.

Creature Health

12/10/2013 Patch Update: Creature health updated based upon Player Power changes

Developer Note: It appears as though we did not adjust this enough, as creatures are dying much faster than we’d like. We will be addressing this.