Patch 5.3.0.125 Discussion

[Psolace]

Firstly, who is writing these patch notes? The language is either vague, confusing or incomplete in nearly a third of the notes - there's even a spelling mistake. Surely you can hire someone with an ounce of linguistic competency for something like patch-note writing, as it's clearly something requiring clear communication.

Nice to hear about the new ability-modifier loot, I look forward to seeing some of them in action.

Attractor Bomb is now even more useless, rendering my Seraph back to her (or his) auto-attack build, or the cooldown-reduction-gear turret spam style, ah well.

I look forward to checking out the new lvl, nice to get a change of scenery - I hope the bugs already reported on this thread will be addressed soon.

The controversial Tork changes: well, I can see what they were going for, in that reducing the potency of his group ability may start to undermine the 'must-have-a-tork' mentality (all 3 of my squads were using him before this patch), but is this really the way to go about it? Am I going to be running with a Meditron in each of my squads instead? If so, the situation clearly hasn't been properly addressed.

The main issue at stake here is not how good Tork's group ability was, it's how few healing abilities there are in the game. Sure, you've got the Necro leechy abilities, and, obviously, Meditron and Sage, but this still didn't feel like enough.

Survivability is clearly an important consideration in this game, unlike some others where max-dmg saved you the hassle, and I love the way you can stack Resistance and Dodge combos (Maldri with Blitz group ability, par example), but there was always a need to 'top-off' after heavy fights, or when facing a deadly-frenzied elite, some in-combat healing. By adding such a particular condition to Tork's heal (or should I now call it a cleanse), some fights are going to be brutal. I dread to think how my ravager teams are going to get through debuff-less Boss fights now.

It's also going to throw a spanner in the group-play works. I used to be able to take a nice mix of physical and energy damage with a group heal in any of my squads. I fear that to be able to provide the necessary healing for some of the larger hordes in multiplayer, a Sage or Meditron is going to be required in the team...all that's happening is shifting the 'need-a-tork' mentality to other characters.

I agree with ElecManEXE_555's earlier post in this thread - Once you've released some new heroes with some more solid healing options this change will be much more viable. It'll provide an interesting healing style based around debuff management, etc. Until then, however, we now only have access to one group-ability-heal (that is somewhat lackluster), and one other char with any selfless healing.

Hidden elite bonuses seem a little counter-productive too, let's just hope it's a bug.

Nice to hear that the destructibles in Cyber lvls are doable now, that was a right pain if it was the daily.

[Oblivionbringa]

Firstly, who is writing these patch notes? The language is either vague, confusing or incomplete in nearly a third of the notes - there's even a spelling mistake. Surely you can hire someone with an ounce of linguistic competency for something like patch-note writing, as it's clearly something requiring clear communication.

Agreed. Seeing as how the patch notes are the only way Maxis communicates with the community now, I don't think its too much to ask for them to make it clear and descriptive.

[Chadwixx]

Should be -50% with no debuffs, 100% with one and so on.

I cant imagine doing a later (^7+) corrupter without a tork.

[Kaedrin2011]

Nerfing Tork's heal where it won't work unless you have a debuff essentially kills the game for me. I play solo and it's already challenging enough without screwing over the only decent squad healer. Ahh well, it was fun while it lasted.

[Mysteryem]

Hehe, thought it was another typo in the patch notes, it's DB's Palace, not DB's Place.
It's a lovely map that uses many new features. I hope we'll see more similar maps headed our way in the future.

Edit: Small bug on yet to be activated Tork Gamma's profile:

After activation:

[typhin]

So, the Tork "fix" basically makes him completely useless from what I can see in my solo tests. Since Meditron is a pretty poor team healer (yeah, try to use his ability to heal the target you actually want), this pretty much breaks the game for me. Too bad.

Is there a way to get email alerts when they release the patch that undoes this fiasco? Maybe I will come back then...

[ZeroEdgeir]

Best bet it to keep an eye out on the forums regarding it. Cause they could wind up hotfixing it, which wouldn't even involve a patch.

Looking at this patch, pretty much all goodness, minus one massive blemish.

Fixed most small bugs from last patch (healing displays for example), and older ones (Cyber level destructables).
New loot to find, yay!
New map for people to get (something people been asking for alot).
The change to the enemy XXXXX Resistant elite tag, and seemingly not our own hero's XXXXX Damage Reduced tag error, giving us a nice break (and really, is a little more fair to solo gameplay, so you don't get that stupid 3-resistant elite that matches all 3 of your heroes) in smashing some elites. I think this one should stay as is, may just need to tweak how much damage % it resists on each difficulty.
Seeming improvement on validation system not hogging ALL your RAM for very long.

And we all know the huge welt on this patch.

[mmver]

on wich planet is this verdanth? or an other

[quasar23]

Verdanth is the forest planet, where biogenesis guys come from.

[Renevent42]

I think maybe it could use some tweaking...but I like the change. His healing was so out of power with every other character made it feel kinda cheap and I had him in every single squad. Now Sage, Meditron, and even Arburus (healing sprite) have a decent role in groups.

Anyways someone mentioned making his healing like -50% when no debuffs are present...probably a decent idea. I could even see -75% so he does low level healing no matter what BUT he is still the best "cleaner" in the game.

[tiat]

renevent42 has the idea about fixing tork so far

[Impious_Iron]

Other than the new ability modifiers, this was a stupid and pointless patch. Too many nerfs, not enough buffs. Thanks Maxis, now it's even harder to survive than ever before!

[kizoOo]

BUT he is still the best "cleaner" in the game.

Could be the best "cleaner" if it worked well every time... BUT it doesn't.

[Freggi-Lissy]

I've still not found the new place.. Okay one thing I have after the new patch. I play yesterday in 18-3 goes down to lvl and chain 17-1. I wanted to play through the chain, because i needed more DNA. When I had played through the chain, i saw later, that he haven't all counted the DNA. I know it because, I've previously written down the DNA (number) into my "Darkspore memo". If i play lvl for lvl ( step by step), the DNA counter is correct, happens only in chain..

[Crogenitor_Mario]

Another undocumented change: The infinite inventory bug is fixed!

Well, about Tork nerf: Sporegenesis was NOT OverPowered, other healing abilities were UnderPowered. The new change made it the WORST skill in the game. Well, still better than Reconstruct.

New Level: BEST LEVEL EVER! I guess it's the lab of a Crogenitor known as DB. Also, BEST LEVEL EVER!

30 New Ability Loot: YES!

Others: All good changes.

[konKart]

Why did the other thread locked??
We have PAID for this game and we demand to be heard!!!this patch was crap! ive been playing so long and now i lost my interest in this game! do something please NOW and roll it back!

[ZeroEdgeir]

Why did the other thread locked??
We have PAID for this game and we demand to be heard!!!this patch was crap! ive been playing so long and now i lost my interest in this game! do something please NOW and roll it back!

If you refer to the main feedback thread about Tork, I am pretty sure the mod staff, and even a couple players pointed out why it should be closed soon.

Once every point has been made, why keep it open with people just repeating the same thing over and over and over? "Tork is broken, you broke the game, I'm gonna quit" is hardly constructive feedback, and more a tantrum. While I can understand the reasoning behind it (boycott the game to make the devs listen type thing), this isn't a subscription-based game, so they aren't losing money from you not playing.

As well, you are basically asking devs, who work at MINIMUM 40hrs a week, Mon-Fri, to come in on their earned and deserved weekend off, to fix a problem to a game, that doesn't break it's playability entirely?

At this point, for everyone JUST crying "Tork is broken, I can't play anymore, he made the game possible!"... Adapt or die (For those who have given valid alternatives, understand why it was done but believe this was far too extreme a fix, etc. you are excluded). I had 1 squad using Tork ever since I unlocked him, so maybe it's just the fact I never grew to depend on him entirely. Nowadays, I run most of my heroes with some form of life leech (min 5% on everyone cept Lumin, Meditron, Wraith, and Vex, but Meditron/Vex/Wraith is a squad, so they got Reconstruct).

Yes, it sucks. But adaptation makes the game more interesting. If you were running Tork in every squad, just to play solo... that is kinda embarassing. I've officially beat 1-1 to 18-4 now solo, never did progress as a group, was always earlier chains helping people for group work. My 18-4 fight with the Corruptor was with Arborus/Lumin/Magnos... so NO healer, and I managed to destroy him quite readily.

[mmver]

Verdanth is the forest planet, where biogenesis guys come from.

what genisis is it then?

[Mysteryem]

Got a new modifier for meditron:

It gives the target a -25% damage from all sources for what seems to be 4 seconds, during the 3 second channel and 1 second afterwards.
However, it gets rid of the 25% max hp boost for 15 seconds.
~4 seconds of -25% damage vs 15 seconds of +25% max hp.
While I can see that it could be quite useful if an ally gets surrounded, they shouldn't be getting into that mess in the first place. The +25% max hp is the unique quality about meditron's heal, and gives a nice sponge of hp to any hero. This modifier is also rather useless for solo play unless you're healing while in combat, which wastes a lot of power since you'll need to use reconstruct multiple times due to the fact you're taking damage while channelling it.

For solo play, not worth it imo, for co-op, maybe, I think it depends on playstyle.

[Oblivionbringa]

While I can see that it could be quite useful if an ally gets surrounded, they shouldn't be getting into that mess in the first place.

Your kidding right. Have you never been in a horde trap, or fought the corrupter, or fought against multiple carapace elites at once? The entire game is "getting into a mess".

Some of the horde trap areas are tiny, leaving little to no room to maneuver...

Anyways thanks for the info, but I am very disappointed that it removes the 25% health boost. As that 25% health boost meant a reduced likely hood of being one shot at the higher levels (or from voltroids, or buffed elites). I suppose you could argue that the damage reduction does the same thing, but its 4 seconds compared to 15 seconds...

Honestly it should do the damage reduction by default, both meditrons modifiers suck, they need to be something different, more beneficial. I think their just paranoid to make it overpowered so instead make most of these modifiers just different or slightly worse than their default form.