Nul the gull kheldian toggle please.

I think the void hunter and quantum mobs are obnoxious and unnecessary for non-kheldian story arcs.  Can we get a toggle on Nul to get the kheldian flag turned off so when I help a friend out in their mission there aren't suddenly skulls with riffles that just do obnoxious damage?

If I am honest I think the whole flag idea is interesting but a relic of older design philosophy, as evidenced by the VEATs not having uber longbow or whatever in every mission they do.  Some people may still like having a random enemy just hit crazy hard in a large group mission and only have eyes for them, but making it a toggle would allow people like me who simply have no desire to deal with it the ability to play the game like every other non-kheldian gets to play it.

Thank you for your time.

You object to getting extra XP/Inf for bonus kills?

You object to getting extra XP/Inf for bonus kills?

They object to the addition of enemy types to non-Kheldian mission arc mob spawns that serve as a deliberate hard counter to HEATs, when both the VEATs don't have similar issues, and when Kheldians aren't so powerful that they warrant the addition of such enemies to keep them in check.  XP and inf don't factor into it; quantums and Void Hunters replace enemies in mobs, they aren't added to their numbers, and even if you do get more XP for punching quantums and Void Hunters it's a pittance in the long run and arguably not worth the risk.

I can't speak for everyone, but for all the teams I've been on that have encountered Shadow Cyst Crystals, nobody has expressed happiness.  Nobody goes, "oh boy, we can get a lot of XP from this."  They all just silently regret their life choices.

I'm one of the people who think Quants are too cool and lore-rich to do away with entirely.  I'd like to see Cysts make a comeback, too.

But you're right that it's rather misplaced as a tool of game balance.

So I think a better kheld-specific effect for quant attacks would be something like a regen and/or recovery and/or defense and/or damage debuff that "saps away" kheldian strength...

...and I think that strength should be enough to warrant having something that takes it away.  I'd change basically all Kheldian defensive toggles into auto powers, remove the end cost on the few that remain (eg kheldian 'hover'), tune up damage and effect strengths very slightly across the board, turn most of their KB into KU or KD (with one or two strong KB powers for fun, herding, and range mitigation), and give them bonus slots somehow.  I'd also probably change their inherent a little bit with an eye towards making status protection easier to obtain... and on top of all of that, I'd make some Kheldian EPP choices.  Kheldians are meant to be the Superman/Green Lantern of CoH.  Right now they're more like Krypto the Wonder-Dog.

which for the record would also be a great EAT.

If all of these changes were made, the Quants really *would* be a balancing factor, and so I'd be opposed to the OP suggestion.  If Khelds are going to languish as-is forever, instead... yeah, the toggle sounds fine.

I think the void hunter and quantum mobs are obnoxious and unnecessary for non-kheldian story arcs.  Can we get a toggle on Nul to get the kheldian flag turned off so when I help a friend out in their mission there aren't suddenly skulls with riffles that just do obnoxious damage?

 

If I am honest I think the whole flag idea is interesting but a relic of older design philosophy, as evidenced by the VEATs not having uber longbow or whatever in every mission they do.  Some people may still like having a random enemy just hit crazy hard in a large group mission and only have eyes for them, but making it a toggle would allow people like me who simply have no desire to deal with it the ability to play the game like every other non-kheldian gets to play it.

 

Thank you for your time.

I'm going to vote no on this, as the quants are awesome. When a keld joins, this is part of the dynamism of the game. I love keldians, my favorite toon, and I do not want the quant hoping up removed.

FWIW, quants and voids do not replace existing mobs, they are added in, and always have been added in.

I'm one of the people who think Quants are too cool and lore-rich to do away with entirely.

I totally agree.

I'd like to see Cysts make a comeback, too.

They removed Cysts from the game?

FWIW, quants and voids do not replace existing mobs, they are added in, and always have been added in.

Oh, okay.  Thank you.

Of course the argument isn't "get rid of Void Hunters and quantum guns," it's to give people the option to choose for themselves whether they want them around.

My only concern is that many players learned how to adjust to having a Kheldian on their team.  If I have one, then I know I need to be scanning for Quants/Voids for holds/alpha strike/first target to protect the squid.  It clearly won’t be the end of the world if it becomes an option, but you will have a lot of players team with WS/PB wasting extra time for looking for foe that won’t be there.

Like I said, not a big deal, but maybe a consequence to ponder

vote nope, part of playing those classes is the possibility of seeing those mobs. myself the rate seemed quite low

It depends.

Below level 10? Absolutely, get rid of them quants, even if I’m barely equipped to fight them one can be a bit much and getting 6 in one mission is absurd. (Yes this happens)

Below level 30? They’re a pain in the ass but I can usually cope.

Above 30? Bring on the quants. As long as I’m attentive they’re easily doable.

There are absolutely moments in my PBs life where I would like to tell quants to leave and not return. Enemy groups with high-priority enemies for example - rikti comms officers, sky rangers engineers...

Voids and quants are good flavour and an interesting combat wrinkle, but kheldians simply are not so powerful that they justify having this constant mortal threat about, and opting out of it isn’t unreasonable

I don't like fighting against the Embalmed Vahzilok ... unless if I have a Confuse without drawing aggro power (because then they're fantastic!) ... and they're a pain to deal with at low levels, but they're also a part of the game.

Quantums and Voids, etc. should not be banished from the game so as to make a sacrifice upon the altar of CONVENIENCE.

The game's easy enough as it is.

How dare there by any "challenges" in it that rely upon situational awareness by the Player(!!) ... or at least a clever use of keybinds ...

/keybind tilde "targetenemynear$$targetcustomnext alive Quantum$$targetcustomnext alive Void$$targetcustomnext alive Cyst$$targetcustomnext alive Sapper"
/keybind ctrl+enter "em point$$say $target sighted."

Oops.  Looks like your excuse for not being able to pick these things out of a crowd just in order to deal with them ... evaporated ... aw, shucky darns!

I like having a weakness, though admittedly, the concept is more DC than Marvel (kryptonite being the biggest example), and in fact, I thought it was a concept that needed proliferation in CoX... Think of it, at character creation, you pick a damage type that you have a weakness too... You pick a scale to which you are vulnerable (1-100%), and based on your choice, your regular powers get buffed by a certain amount.  So if you take 100% vulnerability to smashing damage, you get a pretty uber character, but you die... a lot.  If you pick 5 % vulnerability to Toxic, you get a tiny bump in overall power. 

All that said, I agree, the Quantums show up at weird times... Like, how did they know I was coming?  Maybe the frequency increases as you move through an arc as the group comes to expect your presence?  That, I would understand.  Or just make Quantum damage a regular damage type if my idea above were to be implemented...

at character creation, you pick a damage type that you have a weakness too...

This is how the original armor sets all worked; they all have some kind of 'hole' or soft spot that has much lower mitigation than any other part of the set (invuln - psi; ice - fire and psi; sr - nonpositional; dark armor - energy; etc).

to make it fair we should add in longbow ballistas at random whenever a VEAT is on the team

You object to getting extra XP/Inf for bonus kills?

 

They object to the addition of enemy types to non-Kheldian mission arc mob spawns that serve as a deliberate hard counter to HEATs, when both the VEATs don't have similar issues, and when Kheldians aren't so powerful that they warrant the addition of such enemies to keep them in check.

I never liked arguments based on equality.

It's always a last ditch effort to appeal to the concept of fairness, flying in the face of reality which isn't fair.

The Kheld hunters are a lore-based addition to the game.  If you want to argue to change that, just say you don't care about their lore and let you play how you want.

It's always a last ditch effort to appeal to the concept of fairness, flying in the face of reality which isn't fair.

This is a game, which does not have to follow every rule of reality.

It's always a last ditch effort to appeal to the concept of fairness, flying in the face of reality which isn't fair.

 

This is a game, which does not have to follow every rule of reality.

The reality is that the concept of equality and fairness are steeped in the biases of those that it appeals to.

Meaning, what fairness IS will be different from person to person thus difficult, if not impossible, to reach.  Ever hear the slippery slope argument that the only way to make everything fair in a game is to make everything homogeneous and boring?

Perfect balance is impossible.  Perfectly acceptable balance is possible, and a goal worth pursuing.

balanced as is. If it's too much to deal with log out then log back in. Flag removed and off you go.

Can we get a toggle on Nul to get the kheldian flag turned off so when I help a friend out in their mission there aren't suddenly skulls with riffles that just do obnoxious damage?

There's no such thing as a "Kheldian flag". You can check the source that triggers the spawns here: https://git.ourodev.com/CoX/Source/src/branch/develop/MapServer/generator/encounter.c

Line 2689 flags an EncounterGroup (a spawn point, in other words) to enable spawning Quantums or not. It does this by calling HasKheldianTeamMember, which returns true if either the player who triggered the spawn is a Kheldian, or if the team's "kheldianCount" is greater than zero (lines 6404 onward). The kheldianCount is set on this file: https://git.ourodev.com/CoX/Source/src/branch/develop/MapServer/container/team.c

When a player joins a team, teamAddMember is called which increases kheldianCount is the player is a Kheldian (line 283); when a player leaves the team, teamDelMember is called which decreases kheldianCount if the player is a Kheldian (line 405).

The myth of a "Kheldian flag" exists because it never actually counts how many Kheldians are on the team, it just increases or decreases that count without any real consistency checks. Check the file that declares the flag: https://git.ourodev.com/CoX/Source/src/branch/develop/Common/entity/teamCommon.h

Line 223 states "mapserver disconnects can cause this to be inaccurate". If a team has no Kheldians but is spawning Quantums, that's a bug. It's just an extremely low priority bug that nobody ever bothered to fix.

_{I have to point out that you yourself just used "flag" to describe the counter, Leo.}

Highly informative.  So -- what's the verdict?  Can you add something to suppress the HasKheldian check in most missions?  (It looks like a yes, since you could just add some other flag -- or counter, as the case may be -- enabled or disabled by Null which is checked first and exclusively if true.  But I'm pretty rusty.  The harder part would be ignoring that check in certain missions, as the OP suggested.)

And if you can... do you want to?

_{I have to point out that you yourself just used "flag" to describe the counter, Leo.}

 

Highly informative.  So -- what's the verdict?  Can you add something to suppress the HasKheldian check in most missions?  (It looks like a yes, since you could just add some other flag -- or counter, as the case may be -- enabled or disabled by Null which is checked first and exclusively if true.  But I'm pretty rusty.  The harder part would be ignoring that check in certain missions, as the OP suggested.)

 

And if you can... do you want to?

It sounded to me like (**sounded to me**)

1.) There isn't a flag - the check just actually counts the number of Kheldians.  And since being a Kheldian is a key property to the class, it can't be just turned on or off

2.) If you remove the check, it's for all Kheldians, not player by player basis

1.) There isn't a flag - the check just actually counts the number of Kheldians.  And since being a Kheldian is a key property to the class, it can't be just turned on or off

2.) If you remove the check, it's for all Kheldians, not player by player basis

static int HasKheldianTeamMember(Entity* e)
{
if (NullTheGullProposedFlag)  //EXAMPLE this doesn't quite make sense for the logic of this function since it actually needs to look at e,
	return 0;	      //EXAMPLE not some random bool floating out in nowhere, but it should be sufficiently illustrative
if (IsKheldian(e))
	return 1;
if (e->teamup)
	return e->teamup->kheldianCount? 1: 0;
return 0;
}

Jack, that makes sense (creating a flag where none exists today), but I think it still sounds deeper...

What if there is more than one Kheldian on the team?

There is no differentiation in that between TF and PuG...

What if the Kheldian invites me to their mission?  Suddenly all their Quants won't spawn, because now we are teaming?

And I am sure there are more considerations...

My only point is it starts to feel like it needs to be an all or nothing proposition or it gets more complicated to implement...It's moving from QoL enhancement to revamp of the Kheldian interactions with these types of enemies...

I'm not saying no or that I don't like it, just it's starting to feel like it would take a lot more work to implement than it sounded like..