Firefall Catch-All

Had a fun time playing with Kehama and Wizkid last night. Encountered two side by side warbringer's and proceeded to take them out with a few random pubbys. Bigred with hindsight wishes he had taken a screenshot of the two warbringers but failed.

Yeah that was fun. They were also by the melding, so we were getting meld spawns too. I got a ton of XP out of it though.

Stress test again this weekend - the theme this time is "Chosen Invasion".

Red 5[/url]]The Chosen have rallied their forces and are making their push into New Eden to crush the remnants of humanity. Band together, explore the world, find enemy Chosen patrols, and decimate their forces before they overwhelm New Eden.

I'm not sure how much more active they can make the Chosen without players being unable to leave spawn, but I'd really love for them to manually trigger a couple of invasions of Copa over the weekend.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Stress test again this weekend - the theme this time is "Chosen Invasion".

Red 5[/url]]The Chosen have rallied their forces and are making their push into New Eden to crush the remnants of humanity. Band together, explore the world, find enemy Chosen patrols, and decimate their forces before they overwhelm New Eden.

I'm not sure how much more active they can make the Chosen without players being unable to leave spawn, but I'd really love for them to manually trigger a couple of invasions of Copa over the weekend.

I don't think I would complain about blasting chosen from behind a spawn force field. I need the easy xp.

Seriously, chosen take out engineer turrets in about 0.35 seconds. This could get ugly, but I would love to finally see an invasion. I'm hoping one triggers at set intervals of like every 4 hrs.

Bring on the rivers of exp!... or chains of insta-deaths if I'm by myself and playing a recon.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Seriously, chosen take out engineer turrets in about 0.35 seconds. This could get ugly, but I would love to finally see an invasion. I'm hoping one triggers at set intervals of like every 4 hrs.

My strategy when fighting chosen as an engi is to find a rock to place them out of LOS. Then I'll aggro the Chosen a few at a time, pulling them past the turrets.

beachb usually is a good predictor of upcoming patches, but he's a little stumped on this one. Expectation is we'll get at least one patch before Christmas, which will include PVE milestone 3. It's not clear to what extent there will be new content in this patch, but there are some PVP changes coming.

* Sabotage (Orbital Comm Tower) will launch a match at a minimum player count of 5 vs 5, it will be able to go up to a maximum of 7 vs 7 as confirmed by FadedPez here. (Maximum Game Size 10 to 14 Players)
* Harvester (Blackwater Harvester) will launch a match at a minimum player count of 8v8, it will be able to go up to a maximum of 12 vs 12. (Maximum Game Size 16 to 24 Players)
* CTF (Capture The Flag) isn't coming soon, It will probably be next year.

I'm less interested in CTF, though I understand that's effectively mandatory for them to add. I'm much more interested in seeing gameplay variations that explore new directions (like the "Thumper Derby" suggestion I was kicking around earlier this year).

[Edit to add: luring Chosen a few at a time is viable in the open world, but for stuff like Tower captures that just doesn't fly, in my experience. Would love to hear pointers on that, since I'm struggling to knock the dust off my Bastion frame.]

I would really like to have it clearly shown that I am queueing for Tier 1 or 2 as it seems they removed the check boxes for that. It would also be nice if any / all T1 frames you had previously used were available in pvp.

Thumping tonight in Shipwreck Cove with Bigred and Kehama, since we found a decent blue Bismuth node in a spot with good sightlines.

In between thumps, while Kehama's up at Sunken Harbor swapping to BioTech, random pubbie walks up, starts knocking around with his hammer.

I immediately drop an improved thumper, pre-emptively.

Sure enough, he starts fussing and demanding I send our thumper right back up.

Then he calls us sluts.

Not sure that aggravation is what the Stress Test Weekend was supposed to focus on.

(Also: Coralite has apparently re-rolled and is now white quality again. Hopefully this means other resources are not far behind. Maybe we can get some better quality Silicate?)

Dimmerswitch wrote:

(Also: Coralite has apparently re-rolled and is now white quality again. Hopefully this means other resources are not far behind. Maybe we can get some better quality Silicate?)

Yes we can! It's blue-quality now (564). Brimstone is also blue (562). Quartzite is still green but a little better (492). Azurite is still green, but a little worse (362).

Apologies to Granite and Kehama for my having to drop suddenly last night just as we got started.

On a more-upbeat note, the Locust Warpaint has unlocked for all founders now. Hello, my new Recluse color scheme...

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8337/8264309290_485f6f5627_c.jpg)

PVP and PVE will be getting split in terms of equipment and frames next year.

I see this as only good considering how much hand wringing that was going on over balancing for both and the concessions they were making.

Other notes from today's Firefall Live:

* Constraints (power / CPU / weight) are going away in Tier 2. You can equip whatever the hell you want. It wasn't clear listening to it live whether or not it'll return at a later point. I kind of hope it does - I thought the constraints had the possibility to set up interesting tradeoffs, though it was incredibly poorly surfaced in the UI.
* PVP frames will be complementary-but-separate. So, when you unlock a Mammoth frame, you get PVE and PVP variants. The PVP one won't have any ability for upgrades, and their goal is to have much stronger differentiation between each of the unlocked frames. It almost sounds like they want each frame variant to be it's own class, at least in the PVP context.
* PVP queues have been overhauled, and it the player counts for OCT and Harvester have been lowered, so hopefully those will pop more often.
* Glider pads will now automatically launch you up, deploy the glider wings at the top of the bounce, and give you a small speed boost. You do not have to hit (or hold) the space bar. In fact, hitting the space bar will fold up your wings and let you fall.
* There will be ammo with elemental effects. Fire, melding, electrical, and toxic I think? Sounded like they'd be done as call downs, not sure what kind of timer or cooldown they might be on. These will only work in PVE though - they won't do any additional damage to other players.
* Baneclaw will be significantly changed. Any number of players over 25 will scale down the XP rewards. Baneclaw will have new abilities, and will scale in difficulty based on the number of players present. You will be able to re-enter the dome if you begin the fight and then die, but other players will be kept out, and nobody can shoot in from the outside.
Hellclaws should also now be less trivial when spawned. Players who summon and kill Baneclaw will have some kind of reward - speculation was that it'd be a mini-Baneclaw pet, or possibly cool warpaint. Red5 didn't disclose what it was, and Phobos said he wanted people to discover it on their own.

Overall, positive about the changes. Glider will take some getting used to, but think that's the right choice for new players, and veterans can adapt.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Other notes from today's Firefall Live:

* There will be ammo with elemental effects. Fire, melding, electrical, and toxic I think? Sounded like they'd be done as call downs, not sure what kind of timer or cooldown they might be on. These will only work in PVE though - they won't do any additional damage to other players.

I hope that some of the ammo types will be called something more interesting, like: [color=red]Inferno[/color] rounds, [color=violet]Melding[/color] rounds, [color=blue]T[/color][color=#FFCC00]h[/color][color=blue]u[/color][color=#FFCC00]n[/color][color=blue]d[/color][color=#FFCC00]e[/color][color=blue]r[/color] rounds, and [color=green]Virulent[/color] rounds for example.
Also, I will be curious if Melding Rounds just do more damage or, if they interact with non-melded creatures, transform their targets into their melded counterparts creating some interesting creature interactions. Or if they act as explosive rounds... It will certainly be interesting to see what they do with this system.

Looks like the constraints will be back after some tuning, however.

Here's another Thumper status addon made by Granite who we've played with before. This one can show you all nearby thumpers, not just your own or squadmates'.

http://www.firefallthegame.com/commu...

Patch notes up:
* New Items Available in New You and Luau Larry's
* * Celebrate the holidays with these special new items for a limited time.
Updated the installer to be more streamlined.
* If you are still having problems with the installer, we are testing a new version and could use your help.
* Please check out the Beta Forums for more details.

Chosen Encounter Changes
* Reduced frequency of drop pods
* Increased length of time towers remain under Accord control before Chosen can take them back.
* Volume for watchtower defense systems VO turned town.
* Players are no longer blocked from thumping in Chosen space. That was a temporary mechanic we had in place to prove tech that we’ll be using in more interesting ways in the future.
* Temporarily disabled Docks Watchtower in order to keep the newbie area a little less hostile for the time being. Will be turned back on in the future.

Chosen AI Improvements
* Chosen Assault
* Reduce damage per bullet slightly
* Reduced clip size by half
* Increased reload time slightly
* Chosen Juggernaut
* Reduced damage slightly
* Increase splash damage radius slightly
* Reduced clip size slightly
* Increased reload time slightly
* Various bug fixes and navigation improvements

Map / UI
* Watchtowers have their own icons now
* Accord controlled POIs / Watchtowers have a blue icon now instead of a white one

PvP Matchmaker Changes
* Orbital Comm Tower will now start with 5v5 and backfill up to 7v7.
* Blackwater Harvester will now start with 8v8 and backfill up to 12v12.
* Prioritizes backfilling games still in warmup mode to prevent long delays in starting matches.
* Changed the algorithm for skill search to hopefully create better skill-based matches with players inside the same skill range.
* Removed the XP bonus from Team Deathmatch maps.
* Increased the XP bonus for queuing for Blackwater Harvester.
* We will no longer backfill games that are near completion.

Battleframe Changes
* Increased Tier 2 constraint limits to 1000 and decreased all constraints to 1/10th of previous meaning there is effectively no more constraints system.
* This is a temporary change to allow players to test out all types of equipment while we fix the constraints system and separate PvP from PvE gear.

Dreadnaught
* Damage per bullet increased from 30 to 35.
* Clip size increased from 200 to 250.

Engineer
* Tesla rifle miss penalty has been modified to incentivize better aim.
* Increased the time it takes to fully charge a tesla rifle from 1 second to 2 seconds.
* Removed the small(700ms) delay before Tesla rifle reloads.

Gameplay Changes
* Gliders will now automatically deploy at the apex of the jump and will boost you forward slightly.
* Elemental damage types are now available.
* You can craft Ammo Chambers that will appear in your calldown menu to change your ammo type for a limited time.
* Ammo Chambers are not usable in PvP.
* Squad members can now invite to squad. The request is sent to the squad leader to confirm.
* Squads are now limited to 5 maximum players.
* Replaced many of the starting missions to provide a better "tutorial" experience for new users.
* This is still a temporary mechanism while we work on a full-featured new user experience.
* The Melding Acolyte returned to the melding. Fear his return.

Baneclaw
General
* Base health increased to 1.5 million (from 1 million)
* Time to ramp difficulty increased to 25s (up from 15s)
* Gained a new ability “Energy Drain” ability - draining all player energy and stopping all energy regen for 3 seconds
* Meldingmatter shielded FX changed to look more different than non-shielded state
* SIN card now says, “Shielded” when the Baneclaw is shielded
* Killing the Baneclaw rewards the player who used the Melding Anomaly Neutralizer a very special reward.
* Killing the Baneclaw rewards all players 1x Melded Calcium Carbonate (will be used in future printing)

Melding Spikes Attack
* Now hits targets 26 meters above and 26 meters below his position
* Damage increased to 900 (up from 800)
* Improvements to the pre-activation-warning visual effects
* Changed the timing on when spikes are used

Hellclaws
* No longer grant XP rewards
* Now look more melding-ish
* Health increased to 1250, up from 435
* Now spawn in the entire dome rather than only right next to the Baneclaw
* Base number of spawns reduced to 12 down from 18

Melding Dome
* Players can now re-enter the dome after dying
* Cannot shoot in

Scaling
* XP rewards are now 35k per player if a group of 25 or less kills him, but ( 875,000 / # of participating players) if 26 or more players do so. (Ex. 25 players kill him, each gets 35k XP, if 50 players kill him, each player only gets 17.5K XP)
* Baneclaw now gains 5% bonus health for each player above 25 players
* Difficulty ramping occurs faster for every player above 25 (Max ramp speed is once every 3 seconds. Putting him at max difficulty in about 1 min)

Melding Anomaly
* Melding Fields have been renamed Melding Anomalies
* Melding Anomalies respawn after 5 minutes, up from 1 minute
* Updated Melding Anomaly spawn location area so that it cannot spawn behind walls or on cliffs

Bug fixes
* Fixed a bug where certain abilities would move the Baneclaw causing unintended behavior in the encounter
* Fixed a bug where Baneclaw's Melding Dome could take damage
* Fixed a bug that was causing the melding field not to trigger the fight
* Fixed a bug where you wouldn’t get hit by spikes when you were standing below them

Melding Repulsor
* Using a Repulsor Amplifier now costs an Amplifier Crystite Core, a crafted item - make some today if you want to go repulsin'!
* Can be used unlimited number of times without a large cooldown, but now require a short 90 second cooling period
* Duration increased to 5:45 seconds
* Repulsor Amplifier changed positions – the melding can be pushed back to the same max distance, but the melding collapses further into New Eden than before.

Item, Crafting, and Nanoprints
* Battleframe power, weight, and CPU constraints have been temporarily increased to 100,000 so that players can equip and test all of their gear
* AzuriteCY Terminal Core
* Nanoprint gives out 1x AzruiteCY Terminal Core (down from 5x)
* Cost changed to 1000x AzuriteCY, 50x Crystite, (previously 125x AzruiteCY, 250x Crystite)
* Mobile Battleframe Station nanoprint cost decreased to 5x Azurite Terminal Cores (down from 20x)
* Melding Anomaly Neutralizer (formerly Melding Field Destabilizer) costs changed to 100,000x Crystite, 1x Crystalline Crystite Engine, 10x Azruite Terminal Cores, 3x Advanced MPUs (from 100,000x Crystite, 10x Crystalline Crystite Engine, 5x Azruite Terminal Cores, 3x Advanced MPUs)
* Renamed the components gathered from melding creatures and those involved in destroying Melding Anomalies (formerly Melding Fields)
* Adjusted costs required to build Items involved in printing an Encapsulated Super-Melded Cell (formerly Melding Field Destabilizer Capsule)
* Low Grade Sonic Detonators name changed to Ratchet's Detonators
* New Recipe - Pack of Amplifier Crystite Cores (5) – costs 10k crystite, 1 metallic casing, 1 polymorphous fiber, 2500 Quartzite
* Fixed an issue where it was possible that the Melding Anomaly Neutralizer would consume it’s Encapsulated Super-Melded Cell even though there wasn’t a Melding Anomaly nearby
* Added new dynamic content, SIN Imprints. Find them around the world and interact with them for more information.
* Improved vehicle collision detection. Should help prevent unexpected damage and allow NPCs to be damaged by vehicles.
* Added a respawn camera that flies to the spawn point from the spot of death if the spawn point is different than previous spawn point.
* Surface deposits now have sin cards.
* Melding Tornado Updates:
* When a Melding Shard is destroyed during, the overall lifetime of the Melding Tornado is increased. This should allow the encounter to be completed by smaller numbers of players.
* Melding creatures spawned by the Melding Tornado now drop bits for crafting the Baneclaw bits.
* Added “Accord Ammo Credit” to all players. The “Accord Ammo Credit” is a permanent, low-grade calldown that can be utilized every 10 minutes.
* Secondary weapons have infinite ammo once again.

UI Changes
* You can now use [ and ] to rotate between calldowns in the 4th ability slot.
* Added an important message box to the login page to notify users of emergency issues.
* Tutorial tips will not appear if you have already demonstrated that you know how to do the action requested.
* Tutorial tips should no longer queue up any more.
* The player known as Juggernaught can now receive squad invites.

Updates to achievement UI.
* Changes to SIN card and waypoint displays in world space.
* Added the ability to set PvP video settings separate from PvE video settings.
* Added option to remove weapon and hands from first person view.
* Squad leader has a new icon.
* Cleaned up the minimap so that it doesn't show holes in the terrain and performs better overall.
* Chat will no longer fadeout if you are afk, it will fade out once you come back from afk.
* Updated art for achievement pop ups.
* Updated loading screens with new accord logo.
* You will now get a chat message and sound when friends go online or offline.
* Certification tooltips have much more concise descriptions.

Bug Fixes
* Fixed an issue with the sniper scope sensitivity not scaling properly.
* Fixed multiple client crashes.
* Missions should no longer be pushed while in a PvP map.
* Fixed issues with Eyefinity/Surround support.
* Challenge matches should no longer get mixed up with public queues.
* Fixes for multiple issues with AMD video cards.
* Fixed an issue where you would not be requeued if one person declined the match.
* Fixed an issue that was causing the Signal Scanning event not to start up properly.
* Fix for some keys not binding correctly on some keyboards.


Edit to add: AmnDragon (the lead Chosen dev) also has posted some thoughts about the current changes, and the direction they're moving.

NOTE: it says they now limit squads to 5 max. This needs testing, of course.

And it seems the funny camera shifting to a spawn point was intentional, just not implemented correctly as that's now 'added' it.

Check out my awesome new antlers

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/8u6Yo.jpg)

hmm timestamp thing's not working. Skip to 7min and watch. I chuckled. Stole it from a post in the glamour shots thread.

There's some stuff that makes me wish I had a better computer in there.

I managed to solo a few improved thumpers to full today. Haven't tried an advanced.

There's a database issue with items that were converted during the patch, so while I have enough to build my Melding Destabilizer (or whatever it's called now), I can't, because I get an error from the molecular printer.

Are the craftable Mobile Battleframe Stations a reusable call down or is it a one-time consumable?

Kehama wrote:

Are the craftable Mobile Battleframe Stations a reusable call down or is it a one-time consumable?

Unless it has changed in the last patch, they are a one shot use. That said, as long as someone is engaged with it, any number of people can use it.

So, Granite discovered that a handful of achievements will grant items (mostly PVP, but they will be listed in the UI with a small gift icon on the right side of the screen).

He also found a hidden one in the "unregulated" listings.
IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/866080546753310819/EE83D974FC4414BA8C6D91B5D4B5393B38A20E60/)

Spoiler:

Go stand in the fire at the top of that pillar in Copacabana. Wait for it...

Dimmerswitch wrote:

So, Granite discovered that a handful of achievements will grant items (mostly PVP, but they will be listed in the UI with a small gift icon on the right side of the screen).

He also found a hidden one in the "unregulated" listings.

Spoiler:

Go stand in the fire at the top of that pillar in Copacabana. Wait for it...

That would explain why I see someone do that regularly.. thanks for the tip...
Also, healing ball is an effective griefing option to delay the inevitable

Update: they moved the Copa spawnpoint out of Spicy Al's to near the fiery pillar.

Founders packs are 25% off for the holidays if anyone was on the fence. And for those not yet in, they give instant access. Also, asking any goodjer in this thread would also likely get you free access to the game.

Last night I got on to play for a while and got inspired to chase the daily. It ended up just wasting my time as it was bugged. I had to get 25 pvp kills and that tracked fine, but in between matches I filled out one goal to get 5 creature multikills, and when I joined the next pvp match, it erased that progress. At least I got some silicate 564 (1st time in forever it's been above double digits, it seems) and xp.

Also, crafted the elemental damage things and used one. It seemed to last until I went into pvp, which was like 2 or 3 partial improved thumpers. I can confirm it adds 5 damage per shot for the dreadnaught. Haven't tested with any other frame. More testing is needed.

We need to get a a group together and do some thumping.

Well, I'm back from a long holiday so I'll probably be hopping on starting tomorrow

I'll try to be around tomorrow night.

Traveling for the holidays, followed by crunch mode at work, has left me next to no time for gaming the past several weeks.

I miss Firefall and would love to join up with folks and kill things soon.