Game Update 27

Test Server Notes Taken from: https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/next-on-pc-test-game-update-27.158277/

Tides of War Summer Event! The battle for the throne of Atlantis continues! Ocean Master, Aquaman's conniving half brother, has rallied a force of mutineer Atlanteans in an attempt to displace King Arthur and take the throne! The Atlantean civil war has breached the waters of Metropolis. Track "Tides of War" in your Mission Journal and check the Events tab in the On Duty menu to battle for the Atlantean Outpost. Fight for your side, and reap the rewards, including a new Diving Helmet and Atlantean themed base items.

Combat Improvements We have taken significant steps to improve and tighten combat mechanics to ensure our combat system was reaching its full potential. These changes affect combat game wide, specifically in client/server synchronization, NPCs respecting suppression game effects properly, NPCs’ breaking out rules more closely resembling players, and counter immunity improvements. While some of these changes may be subtle, we believe the overall effort will deliver a better feeling combat system to all players.
 * Combat Synchronization:
 * Many of the presentation elements of combat (such as particle and sound effects, reaction animations, physics actions, damage numbers, and loot spawning) have been synchronized together to create a better sense of impact. What you see should now closer match what’s happening.
 * NPC Breakout and Suppression Changes:
 * NPCs that can be crowd controlled should behave a lot more like players when breaking out. They now play a breakout animation and particle effect, so it should be easier to tell when they do this. They also have to finish the breakout animation before they can act again. NPCs will no longer breakout immediately after being crowd controlled; they now have more human-like reaction times.
 * Suppression is now more effective on NPCs, and is quite useful at stopping combos and jump, charge, blink, and spin attacks.
 * Counter immunity improvements
 * Successfully countering an NPC with a Block Breaker, Interrupt or Block will now immediately apply the “Counter Immunity” effect.
 * Counter Immunity will now be applied the instant the counter attack hits, instead of being delayed for potentially as long as half a second.
 * Corrected an issue that would sometimes cause Counter Immunity to fail to activate.
 * Role Counter Improvements
 * The Confidence damage bonus received by Tanks, Controllers and Healers when attacking players of specific power types is now applied immediately when you hit them with a super power rather than having a chance of being applied on any hit.
 * Tanks: Using a super power against a Controller no longer removes “Power Over Time” effects. Using a super power against a Controller now reduces their Vitalization, reducing the overall effectiveness of Power Healing allies and themselves.

New PvP Reward Structure Daily rewards for Arenas and Legends have been split into winners’ and participants’. There are now rewards received for a victory (at the end of the match on a win), and rewards received for participation (at the end of the match, regardless of win or loss). Essentially, winners receive the both rewards for the match, and those who did not win will receive only the participation reward.

We have also returned to the idea of free or unlocked Mark of Valor rewards for both Arenas and Legends. These are awarded in addition to any other rewards and are added directly to your currency tab as marks, not as treasure boxes. These awards do not scale with PvP combat rating.

Quantum Consumables New consumables have been added allowing players to apply the Quantum power interactions. Chronometric Emitters damage, freeze, and apply Destabilized (Time) to all nearby enemies, while Graviton Accelerators damage, stun, and apply Graviton Charged (Space) to all nearby enemies.

Base
 * Players can now invite characters from the opposing alignment into their bases
 * Mainframe: The Core Strength mod when combined with the “Confidence” damage bonus now increases your total damage output from 135% to 145% for Tanks, Healers and Controllers.

General
 * Characters with Controller role power sets will now be able to complete the Theme Appearance feat "God of the North"
 * Bosses in Tier 5 content will now have a chance to drop the R&D plans for consumables
 * The timer for the Deserter Flag should be more accurate
 * Some NPCs will now always show their name and health
 * Fixed some issues where audio would stop playing
 * Changed the camera behavior when targeting tall enemies to no longer zoom in to frame that target. It can still temporarily zoom out to help make the target visible if the camera is zoomed in
 * Suppression is now more effective on NPCs, and is quite useful at stopping combos and jump, charge, blink, and spin attacks

Items
 * Fixed numerous problems with Lethal Zealot Gear
 * Added Chronometric Emitters as R&D consumables. These damage and freeze enemies in time, causing them to become Destabilized
 * Added Graviton Accelerators as R&D consumables. These damage and stun enemies, causing them to become Graviton-Charged
 * The Core Strength mod when combined with the Confidence damage bonus now increases your total damage output from 135% to 145% for Tanks, Healers, and Controllers

Legends PvP
 * General Zod's and Ursa's Crushing Lunge will now play the proper impact visual effects

Missions
 * Blind Eye: Thanks to repeated use of EMPs in the area, the invisible forcefield blocking access to a side tunnel from the first catwalk room has been weakened enough to be seen by the naked eye and will turn off once the nearby OMACs are defeated
 * South Gotham Agenda: These missions are now unlockable via Replay Badges. These missions are still bundled with one interaction on a terminal. To keep the same functionality, the missions can be reset for a bundle price. For 18 replay badges, you can unlock all 4 daily missions on this terminal. The price is the same if you have only 1 to 3 missions to unlock
 * Toyman’s Time Out: These missions are now unlockable via replay badges. These missions are still bundled with one interaction on a terminal. To keep the same functionality, the missions can be reset for a bundle price. For 15 replay badges, you can unlock all 3 daily missions on this terminal. The price is the same if you have only 1 or 2 missions to unlock

Powers Sorcery Nature Fire
 * Updated power tree descriptions to more accurately describe counter role effects
 * The healing, damage, pull-in, and spreading of Bad Karma effects of Shared Fate are now all applied instantly instead of being delayed up to 1 second. The healing and spreading of Bad Karma will now apply even if a target is KO’d by the damage of Shared Fate
 * The duration of Arbiter of Destiny is now 10 seconds when used in PvP arena zones
 * Equipping a Hand Blaster weapon while in Insect form will no longer cause issues
 * Updated the healing portion of Absorb Heat, Backdraft, Wildfire, and Fiery Weapon to work more consistently
 * Flashpoint: Objects will now be set on fire when Immolation is active as stated in the tooltip

PvP Arkham Asylum
 * Terror Crows nameplate is now directly above their head like other NPCs.

PvP Scrimmage
 * Scrimmage challenges sent to non-leader group members are now forwarded to the group leader to accept or decline
 * Increased messaging to group members when a scrimmage challenge is sent or received by their group
 * Players can no longer be challenged to a scrimmage while in the middle of a race
 * The pregame timer in short-sided scrimmages will jump to 30 seconds when everyone has zoned in rather than waiting two minutes for more players

UI
 * Fixed minor UI issue relating to exit locations
 * Fixed several typographical errors within the text displayed while characters spoke
 * Stat changes will now automatically update abilities effects

Weapons Ranged Weapons
 * Weapon Vitalization will now correctly update when items break or are unequipped
 * Ranged attacks from Bow, Dual Pistol, Hand Blaster, and Rifle will now properly hit the target in the chest