(Repost from here)
OPEN BETA RELEASE NOTES:
March 17, 2009
COMBINED
Architect Overview
Issue
14 takes City of Heroes® another giant step, allowing players to design
their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of
Heroes community across all of our live servers.
Using an
intuitive interface, players can browse through other player created
missions and create their own missions from the ground up. Players will
determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and
enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue; giving their
stories nearly infinite depth and personalization.
Creators can
pick from hundreds of maps and thousands of characters. They can use
existing characters or create their own custom enemies. They can get
even more detailed and create full enemy groups, giving each enemy
unique costumes and powers.
Players can write all of the dialog
for their story as well as decide on level of difficulty and enemy
placement. Players have the ability to trigger one mission goal off of
another, creating a chain of events within a single mission. Each story
can have up to five chapters or missions and each mission can hold up
to a maximum of 25 achievable goals. As people play content, they'll be
able to rate that content from one to five stars. Creators will
actually get in game benefits for making content that gets highly
rated. We even offer a Dev Choice and Hall of Fame standing for the
best of the best.
- Create Stories
- Present your story to other players in the game through the story
title, description, and character dialogue. Stories can be as short as
a single mission and as long as five.
Create Characters
- Use existing characters from City of Heroes lore or create your own
characters from scratch using the costume creator and a robust powers
selection interface. Create individual characters which can be used as
enemies, allies and contacts or create whole enemy groups to fill your
missions.
Write Dialogue
- Every character that you place into a story or mission has its own
dialogue. Whether it's the contact that directs characters to their
mission, the hostages that you rescue, or the enemies that you must
defeat, they all speak through text bubbles at various points during
your encounters.
Define Objectives-
Defend, collect, defeat, destroy, rescue, and more. Mission architects
can string objectives together making missions as simple or complex as
desired, using up to a current maximum of 25 objectives per mission.
Use Advanced Options
- For characters and missions select alignment, placement, difficulty,
animations, behavior and more. Every mission objective has multiple
advanced options, allowing you to truly customize how you want your
story to play out.
Test and Iterate Before Publishing
- Take as much time as you want to create your content and test it by
yourself or with others. Once your masterpiece is complete, you can
Publish it for other players to enjoy and rate.
Find / Browse Other Stories
For
people who just want to play the user created content, players have
access to the mission browser that shows all the generated content.
Players can sort these stories by name, highest rated, lengthy and
recently added. Players can also filter content to show only those with
specific ratings, arcs they have or haven't played as well as the
alignment of the story.
- Sort Stories and Search for Key Criteria
- Players can use the Mission Browser to sort published stories by
rating, date, length, and title, or search for content using key words
like the character who created them or the subject matter within the
stories.
Hall of Fame
- Stories that have achieved a critical combination of high player
ratings and number of views will be elevated into Hall of Fame status
and will be listed under the Hall of Fame section.
Developer's Choice
- Stories that are hand-picked by the developer will be deemed
Developer's Choice and listed within the Developer's Choice section.
Players
create content in-game through a computer terminal within one of the
Architect Entertainment buildings. Architect Entertainment is the name
of an in-game company that's developed this type of ‘simulated
experience' for heroes and villains of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.
- Architect
Entertainment Buildings are located at Atlas Park, Galaxy City, King
Row, Steel Canyon, Skyway City, Faultline, Talos Island, Independence
Port, Croatoa, Founder Falls, Brickstown, Peregrine Island, Rikti War
Zone, Mercy Island, Port Oakes, Cap Au Diable, Sharkhead Isle, Nerva
Archipelago, and St. Martial. All Architect Entertainment buildings
have map icons.
- The Ticket award system: Each type of
enemy has a chance to drop a small, medium and large value of tickets.
Harder enemies will grant more tickets than weaker enemies. Also,
enemies that you defeat that are higher level than you will drop more
tickets than enemies that are lower level than you. (Example: Bosses
drop more tickets than minions).
- **Keep in mind that items in the store may have their prices fluctuate throughout the beta to adjust to this new reward system.
- Characters with pets will get credit for their pets' kills in architect missions.
- Profanity
filter works on all aspects of the Mission Architect but do make use of
the report function if you spot anything reprehensible.
Architect Reward System
Among
other rewards, architects who create extraordinary content will garner
acclaim and reputation. Community feedback will be paramount and some
missions will elevate in status, unlocking new rewards and benefits for
their creators.
- Account
wide architect rewards have been implemented. You can buy tokens in the
store which will unlock architect options for every character on your
account.
- If the mission server is not running, you will
not be able to access this content (you can tell the mission server is
down if you cannot search for published missions or publish new
missions).
- Random recipe drop rewards have been
implemented and can be purchased from the Architect Ticket Vendors with
Architect Tickets. These random rolls come in 3 categories:
- Bronze Reward Roll:
This random reward will award both uncommon and rare recipes that are
normally dropped from defeating enemies. The likelihood of receiving an
uncommon recipe is 8 times greater than that of a rare recipe. This is
consistent with rewards granted from defeating enemies. This reward
table does not include purple reward drops, nor does it include
temporary powers or respec recipes. The Bronze Reward Roll is the least
expensive of the three random reward categories.
- Silver Reward Roll:
This random reward will award both rare recipes that are normally
dropped from defeating enemies and recipes earned upon completing
missions. The likelihood of receiving a rare recipe is 50% greater than
that of a mission complete recipe. This reward table does not include
temporary powers or respec recipes. The Silver Reward Roll is the
second most expensive of the three random reward categories.
- Gold Reward Roll:
This random reward will award recipes that were previously dropped upon
completing taskforces and trials and now very rare drops off bosses and
purchasable with merits. The Gold Reward Roll is the most expensive of
the random reward categories as the rewards granted are very powerful.
- Note
that ticket prices for awards the ticket vendor are subject to change
during beta. These random reward tables are "weighted" differently than
tables from defeating enemies and completing missions. Recipes that are
can be slotted into more powers and/or are slotted more often by
players will have a greater chance of dropping. (Example: the
Devastation ranged damage IO recipe set would be more likely to drop
than the Trap of the Hunter immobilize IO recipe set. This is because
Devastation can be slotted into a greater percentage of existing powers
and is more often slotted by players than Trap of the Hunter.)
- Unlockable costume pieces are now available.
- Unlockable items should have icons associated with them.
- A pop up window should appear upon earning your first ticket. This window will explain what tickets are for.
Architect Custom Critter Creation- Custom
Critters' Toggle powers should suppress when Held, Stunned, or slept,
exactly the same as player powers. Defense/Resist and other aspects of
powers suppress. Status protection aspects of powers do not.
- Mastermind pets to mastermind sets: they are summoned when the NPC is attacked.
- Minion
Masterminds Summon 1 minion at -1 level, LT masterminds summon 2
minions at -1, and a LT at -1. Boss Masterminds and above summon all
henchmen as normal.
- Controllers summon pets when attacked.
Arena
New Arena Features- Swiss Draw:
An 8 to 64 player tournament that will have players duking it out 1 vs
1 until the top 8 combatants are chosen. After this point there will be
three rounds of single elimination to determine the winner of the
tournament.
Pre-Match Buffing Period:
Upon entering an arena map a "Waiting for Players" period will begin.
It will wait until all players are on the map or until 1 minute has
passed, whatever happens first. After this there is a brief "Buff
Players" phase which allows players to turn on their toggles and buff
themselves and their teammates. During this phase all players can only
affect and be affected by their allies.
Improved Respawn:
Arena matches now have a 15 second global respawn timer. When that
timer is up, all defeated players respawn at the same time. After
respawning players will be phased out and can only affect and be
affected by friendly players, just like during the Buff Players period.
In addition to this all teams have a static spawn location. This means
that each time a team member is defeated they will respawn at the same
location.
Improved Victory Conditions: Two new types of victory conditions have been added:
- Individual Kills:
Each player has a number of times they must defeat another player. The
first player to reach this set number of kills is declared the winner.
Individual Lives:
Each individual entering this type of Arena Match will be assigned a
specified number of "Lives". The match ends when all but one player or
team has had their lives depleted. The player or team with the most
kills is declared the winner.
New Arena Matches: - Villain Pentad:
This match is much like the Hero Pentad; however it instead allows two
teams of villains consisting of 1 member from each core archetype
(Brute, Corruptor, Dominator, Mastermind and Stalker.)
Villain Septad:
The Villain Septad match is just like the Villain Pentad except that it
requires each team to have 7 members. One of each archetype villain
side including members of the Villain Epic Archetypes (Arachnos
Soldiers and Widows).
Hero Septad:
This match is similar to the Hero Pentad except that it now requires
each team to have 7 members. One of each archetype hero side including
members of the Epic Archetypes (Warshades and Peacebringers).
Versus Pentad/Septad:
These matches will have 2 teams: the first consisting of 1 member of
each hero archetype the second consisting of 1 member of each villain
archetype. The Versus Pentad match will have 5 members on each side, 1
member for each core archetype. The Septad match will have 7 members on
each side, 1 member for each archetype including epic archetypes.
Scheduled Matches:
These matches have had their start requirements clarified. These
matches require a minimum of 8 players to start. Mousing over the
number of players for each match will display the number of players
needed to begin the match. Once the minimum number of players has been
met all players will be moved into a waiting room for two minutes while
it waits for more players to join the match.
In addition to these features there have been a number of Arena bug fixes as well:
- Fixed the bug where players weren't always being dropped from their Arena teams when leaving an Arena match.
- Fixed the bug where players weren't always being dropped from their normal teams when entering an Arena match.
- Improved
the Arena teaming code to group players on the same side into the
fewest teams possible, maximizing the size of any team before starting
a new team.
Fixed the bug where arena matches that lasted 30 minutes didn't display their timers in the nav window.
- Altered the arena list User Interface to default to displaying "Best Fit" matches instead of "Eligible" matches.
- Added
more stat tracking under the hood to keep track of unrated wins,
losses, and draws. Later issues will take advantage of this data.
Badges- Badges
earned through Mission Architect that are granted to all characters on
the same account will state this in their badge description.
- Number of required kills for the final badge in the Virtual Victor line of badges while in test mode: 50,000.
- Number of story arcs a player must play in order to earn the Gamer line of badges: 1, 10, 25, 50 and 100.
- Number of tickets a player must earn to obtain the Ticket Taker line of badges: 100, 500, 1000, 5000 and 25000.
- Number of times a player must play an author's content in order to earn the Author line of badges: 10, 25, 50, 100 and 250.
- Number
of clickable mission objectives a player must interact with to earn the
Poor Impulse Control badge: 10, 25, 50, 100 and 250.
- Number of overflow tickets a player must earn to obtain the Virtual Ticket Taker line of badges: 10, 50, 100, 250 and 1000.
- Number of non-required mission objectives required to earn the Workaholic line of badges: 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100.
- Number of rescue/kidnappings required for the Extractor/Kidnapper line of badges: 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50.
- Number of destructible objects required for the Destructive line of badges: 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50.
- Number of custom enemy defeats required for the Eliminator line of badges: 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 5000.
- The Energized badge now requires 500 inspirations.
Bases
In
an effort to bring more supergroup management powers to players, we
have recently developed a new Super Group Rank #6, named ‘Super Leader'.
Here is a list of what Super Leader can do:- Super Leader has all permissions available to leaders.
- Super Leader can modify permissions of leaders, and can demote or promote any rank.
- Super Leader can promote another leader to their position, and self demote themselves back to Leader rank.
- Super Leader position can be named to be in line with SG/VG tastes and motif.
- Super Leader position will always be filled by active user and Rank 5
leaders will no longer be demoted unless the SL designates.
- Super Leader will be auto-demoted if inactivity period set by permissions is reached.
- The highest ranking member with the most recent log-in time will be auto-promoted once Super Leader position is vacated.
- Super Leader can pass leadership to a Rank 5 Leader at any time as long
they are online, this transfer of leadership occurs in the SG/VG screen.
- There is a confirmation screen before this transaction occurs to eliminate errors.
- Customer Service can promote any on-line player to the Super Leader position, if the petition warrants such action
- There is only one Super Leader.
We
understand there may be some general concern over this new rank, how
leaders will be selected, and how and what our Customer Supports role
is within the SG/VG setting. Due to these concerns we are announcing
this feature now and will be giving some advanced notice to the
community on the launch date for Issue 14: Architect.
Just like
any shared leader position, the SG/VG as a group can determine how this
position should be used and what rules apply, outside of permissions.
That way if the current player in the position violates those rules,
they can voluntarily give the rank to someone else, or the case can be
made to CS to resolve as needed.
The position is affected by
auto demotion, and it is the only rank now affected by this design.
When that occurs, it will pass to the next highest rank member that has
logged in most recently. Any player that has been logged out for longer
then the auto demotion time is not eligible to be promoted, regardless
of rank.
Also note, there has been a change to the auto-promotion process:
- The Last leader to log out will be promoted when I14 goes live.
- There is a 24 hour tie-breaker, if multiple leaders log out at the same time.
- If multiple leaders log out within 24 hours of each other, the leader with the earliest join date will be promoted.
This
allows players to better choose which leader will get promoted. We will
give advance notice of the approximate live date for Issue 14, in order
for SG members to determine which leader should log in before that time.
If
the wrong person does get promoted, there are 2 options: The current
super-leader can promote the correct person using the Super Group
Screen and they will then be moved back to leader rank. Otherwise,
petition a GM. They can review the case and take appropriate actions to
resolve and possibly put the correct player in the position.
Day Jobs
The
Architect and Experienced Day Job powers should be granted additional
time by logging out in an Architect Entertainment building.
Invention- Enhancement:
Touch of the Nictus: Chance for Negative Energy Damage – Fixed a bug
where this enhancement would cause damage to the player and his allies.
- Fixed a bug that would cause the Achilles Heel proc to
show the resist buff continuing effects instead of the resistance
debuff continuing effects.
Localized Text (Europe)
This
build contains the most current localised Text. French and German
speaking players should not be seeing any P-Strings, and should /bug
any areas (i.e. Mission Architect User Interface) that have any
P-Strings or problematic text.
Macintosh Version
[Architect Missions – Known Issue]
Mac players may not being able to see their Architect missions
immediately after publishing them persists. While looking for a
permanent solution, we have added a ‘Refresh' button to the mission
search window. Using it will cause your missions to appear without
having to log out and back in.
Merit Vendor
Random Large Inspirations are purchasable from levels 5 to 50.
Powers
Flight:
Made adjustments to Hover and Flight powers. The minimum speed for
these powers is now higher. This includes Kheldian Flight powers.
PVP Changes
PVP Phase Changes:
-Any player in a phased state, including Phase shifted or Dimension
shifted, can be attacked by other phased players. Hibernate and Cage
effects are still impenetrable, since they do not phase the player.
Powers that can be used to attack other phased players include:
- Phase Shift
- Dimension Shift
- Quantum Flight
- Nebulous Form
- Black Hole
- Manifold Resonator
- Hyper Phase
- Phase flight
- Ethereal Shift
- Players under the Ghost effects of Spirit Potions can only attack other players under the effects of Spirit Potions.
PVP Elusivity bonus:
The elusivity bonus on Melee Defense Armors and Personal Force field
has been reduced slightly. We are adjusting this carefully since the
elusivity bonus is intended to keep Aim, Build-up, or To-hit bonus from
negating defense armors. Overall, Defense armors are performing well
when compared to Resist based armors, and the intention is to keep them
a strong contender in PVP.
Melee AT Ranged Attacks:
Melee archetypes (Tankers, Brutes, Scrappers and Stalkers) had their
ranged attacks in their primary, secondary and Epic (Hero
Ancillary/Villain Patron power) pools reduced slightly. Since Melee
archetypes use ranged attacks that are set on the melee damage table,
they do much more damage then they should with ranged attacks. We're
reducing this slightly, but overall we're comfortable with the range
attacks being very useful.
Additional PvP Changes- Teleportation Resistance was being affected by Diminishing Returns in PVP. This was an oversight and has been corrected.
- Fixed Nectar Temp power in PVP, now only has a 2 second duration.
- Adding a forced respawn to players in pvp zones after two minutes have passed from when they died.
PVP Origin Enhancements
PVP Invention Origin Enhancement recipes have a
small
chance to be earned in all PvP Zones and Arena matches by defeating
another player. Once a PVP IO recipe has been earned, there is a 10
minute timer before the player that earned the recipe can have a chance
at earning another recipe. PvP Invention Origin Enhancements have two
groups of set bonuses PvE bonuses and PvP bonuses. In a PvE zone/area
the player will not benefit from set bonuses marked with (PvP). While
in a PvP zone or arena match the player will benefit from both PvE and
PvP set bonuses. Below is a list of the new IO sets being introduced by
this feature:
- Fury of the Gladiator (Melee AoE Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
- Javelin's Volley (Ranged AoE Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
- Gladiator's Armor (Resistance Buff Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
- Gladiator's Javelin (Ranged Damage Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
- Gladiator's Net (Hold Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
- Gladiator's Strike (Melee Damage Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
- Panacea (Healing Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
- Shield Wall (Defense Buff Set) (Recipe Level Range 10-50)
Additional PVP IO Notes:- Gladiator's
Armor: +Defense and Teleport Resist now has a 20% chance to grant
immunity to teleportation for 10 seconds instead of always on total
immunity.
- Shield Wall: +Resistance and Teleport Resist
now has a 20% chance to grant immunity to teleportation for 10 seconds
instead of always on total immunity.
- Panacea: Chance for
Heal/Endurance: This enhancement will function normally in PvE zones,
however in PvP zones this power will grant a regeneration bonus much
like Numina's Convalescence: +Regen/Recovery. This was done to prevent
healing suppression from being triggered by this effect.
Tasks
Fixed
the case where in the final fight in the second mission of Lady Grey's
Task Force (Four Horsemen), the Famine rider spawns stuck in the
geometry.
Tailor- Many
gloves now have an offset value associated with them to allow shields
to fit better with them and have fewer clipping issues.
- With
the "City of Heroes Mac Special Edition" version or the "City of Heroes
Mac Special Edition In-Game Item Pack" purchased - Valkyrie Swords will
now be available to Archetypes with the Dual Blades powerset.
CITY of HEROES
Powers
Blasters- Psychic Blast/Telekinetic Blast: Corrected a bug that would cause this power's damage to ignore resistance in PvP.
- Electrical Mastery/EM Pulse: Fixed a bug that would display that this power could be slotted with Hold IO sets
Controllers- Illusion Control - Superior Invisibility no longer detoggles when player is held.
- Sonic Resonance - Sonic Dispersion no longer detoggles when player is held.
Tankers- Pyre Mastery / Char: Damage Vs NPCs increased slightly, and damage in
PVP decreased slightly. This is a bug fix rather than a deliberate
rebalancing of the power (part of the damage that was supposed to be
applied in PVE only was being applied in PVP).
Warshades- Umbral Aura / Orbiting Death does not detoggle when mezzed.
Rewards
"The Break Up the Clockwork and the Skulls" mission had its rewards reduced from 4 to 2 merits.
CITY of VILLAINS
Powers
Mastermind- Mastermind/Thugs/Call Bruiser à The Bruiser's Hand Clap power was using
the wrong table for Knockdown, so it was still doing Knockback. This
has been corrected, and he should always do Knock ‘DOWN'.
Stalkers- Stalker/Dual Blades/Thousand Cuts: Increased this power's range from 7 to 10.
PVP- Brute Practiced Brawler now correctly grants status resistance instead of status protection in PvP.
Badges- Fixed a bug that allowed villains to get a progress bar for the Spellbinding badge
---
The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."
>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
