Why do ANY T4/T5 talents function at all?

[Verain]

The list of bugs is high, and MOST of them are related to the talent tree. But some still work.

 

Why?

 

 

Is there anything in general about the ones that DO work versus the ones that DO NOT?

[DamascusAdontise]

I could be wrong but I noticed a trend:

 

Anything that provides a buff for the player or allies seem broken

 

Most things that affect enemies seem to work

 

Ability primary function (ie tensor field, repair probes) seem to work, but any additional buffs like added evasion or engine regen, or ammo regen don't..... thoughts?

[Fractalsponge]

But if we look at passive "buffs" the behavior is inconsistent. Double volley for clusters works just fine, but proton torps no longer have their speed upgrade.

[Ryuku-sama]

I could be wrong but I noticed a trend:

 

Anything that provides a buff for the player or allies seem broken

 

Most things that affect enemies seem to work

 

Ability primary function (ie tensor field, repair probes) seem to work, but any additional buffs like added evasion or engine regen, or ammo regen don't..... thoughts?

 

Slows don't work on everything but Interdiction baseline effects.

 

But otherwise you're right

[btbarrett]

But if we look at passive "buffs" the behavior is inconsistent. Double volley for clusters works just fine, but proton torps no longer have their speed upgrade.

 

The Proton Torpedo one is the one that gets me. I had thought it was just that all "passive" abilities were unaffected (i.e., those that were active at ALL times, not just when an ability was used), but by that logic ProTorps ought to remain functional. Do we know of ANY active ability whose T4/T5 buffs/debuffs still work as intended?

 

It may be useful to split things into 4 categories: definitely working, definitely not working, unknown but easy to test, and unknown and hard to test. The last category would likely be things like "costs less energy to use" or "regenerates more quickly" or even "does some percentage more damage". This also may just be me grasping for some sort of agency in this whole debacle.

 

What do we KNOW works?

 

+Crit talents on primaries

Double Volley

+Ammo on secondaries (Rocket Pods and Clusters)

Shield Piercing on primaries

Armor Penetration on primaries

Ion Railgun AoE

-3s Regen Delay for Direction Shields

Slug Railgun Crits

 

What do we know doesn't work?

 

Protons: Speed Boost

Targeting Telemetry: T4 evasion boost and T5 crit bonus

Tensor: All T4 and T5

Repair Probe: All T4 and T5

Repair Drone: Both T3

Distortion Field: Missile Break

Concussion Missile: T4 Slow

EMP Field: Missile Break

Booster Recharge: Both T5

 

Unkown, but testable:

 

Armor Pen on Railgun Drones

Extra speed on Thermites

Extra Duration on Distortion Field

All of the other T4/T5 Concussion abilities

Both T5 of Rocket Pods

Seismic wave for Seismic Mines

Both T5 of Seismic Mines

Either T3 Charged Plating Ability

All +1 mine abilities (people probably already know this one, but I can't remember)

Speed Boost for T3 Hyperspace Beacon

Ion Railgun: T5 Slow (I am PRETTY sure this doesn't work, but I would like someone else to verify)

Edited December 8, 2014 by btbarrett

[MiaowZedong]

Unkown, but testable:

Slug Railgun Crits

This works. I had slug crits yesterday.

Ion Railgun: T5 Slow (I am PRETTY sure this doesn't work, but I would like someone else to verify)

It's hard to be 100% certain because icons have been known not to show up and I have only flown an ion GS once since the patch, but I strongly suspect this does not work.

 

I could probably comment on most of the others, but I've been mostly flying stock. I'll try and check on a few things tonight though.

Edited December 8, 2014 by MiaowZedong

[Verain]

On the ion railgun slow, I will point this out: at some point, the ion T5 talents reverted to a prepatch state. This means that at best the slow is 40% for 6 seconds, and to be sure you would need to be pretty close to someone, as the bug where stuff is progressively less likely to show up as you get further way from someone has been pretty much accepted as just The Way Life Goes.

[btbarrett]

On the ion railgun slow, I will point this out: at some point, the ion T5 talents reverted to a prepatch state. This means that at best the slow is 40% for 6 seconds, and to be sure you would need to be pretty close to someone, as the bug where stuff is progressively less likely to show up as you get further way from someone has been pretty much accepted as just The Way Life Goes.

 

We just need to get into a match together on Bastion at some point in the near future and I will "let" you hit me with a ion rail and see if it feels at all slower. Anecdotally, I cannot recall being slowed by a rail shot since 3.0 patched and when I have used it myself I could not perceive any difference in the target's speed. But like I said, that is totally anecdotal.

[Verain]

I'm not interested in testing this absurd mess of bugs in an organized fashion tbh. If we were in a situation where things were SUPPOSED to be working, I'd be down for the individual functional tests. That's how we found the list of bugs we had since May+, after all. But this farce of a patch is so disruptive that it's clear that the details aren't even relevant. Plus, we KNOW that the ion railgun isn't behaving as documented, and we don't know whether it is behaving according to dev intent or not.

 

Assuming that there is a dev to have an intent.

[btbarrett]

I'm not interested in testing this absurd mess of bugs in an organized fashion tbh. If we were in a situation where things were SUPPOSED to be working, I'd be down for the individual functional tests. That's how we found the list of bugs we had since May+, after all. But this farce of a patch is so disruptive that it's clear that the details aren't even relevant. Plus, we KNOW that the ion railgun isn't behaving as documented, and we don't know whether it is behaving according to dev intent or not.

 

Assuming that there is a dev to have an intent.

 

I can see that viewpoint. For me, I am still going to play GSF while I level characters up: it isn't much skin off of my teeth to try different components or get shot to see if something works or not (I was probably going to get shot anyways).