Haijinx

The ones I want to murder are the archetects. Who designed these damn office buildings? Can you imagine working on the 3rd floor in Paragon City and trying to go to Subway for lunch?

I've almost completely given up on any chance they are going to Nerf Regen.

Matrix really isn't cyberpunk either. Cyberpunk seems to be more a legend than anything we really see on film or even most books and games.

I think the Devs had come to the conclusion that we were full on Munchkin Power Creep way before any of us realized it. They are game designers after all. They do this stuff full time. But I do have to laugh at the idea that the Mender Ramiel arc was the final power level Players were supposed to have. I don't think that was the intent.

I don't think its by Design per se. But, It is the end result.

Thus I think IOs are basically untouchable. And any suggestion to overhaul Defense like the OP is DOA. So .. we cant touch Incarnates. We cant touch IOs. We cant change the game system. We can't add any power creep to the NPCs in general. They have/will add some special ultra chocolate modes/content. But with Tankers the way they are now, you should be able to leverage that to still steamroll stuff. 4 Tankers and 4 Support types probably could roflstomp almost anything they come up with. Thinking of the Tankgods thead.

Definitely agree, it would be a mess. You'd have to give the defense sets more resistance. A number of MMOs have done this for defense based mitigation though. Increasing chance to get hit and adding resistance. Which is interesting. I think a lot of games find that avoidance mitigation leading to avoiding debuffs becomes more powerful than they had anticipated.

I too have given up any hope that REGEN will get Nerfed.

You are of course correct in this. BUT ... since its easier to build for defense, you could argue than a Resistance build can easily be both 75% resistance AND 30+% Defense. Its the lack of DDR that is the real build challenge. And its the one that leads to these mass entrenched flame wars in support of the status quo I think. Since if you changed the 5% chance to get hit floor to a 15% chance to get hit floor All these IO defence builds will crumple like wet tinfoil against any DEF debuffs. As well as crushing most Defense sets. Leaving only SR and Shield Defense standing probably.

And yet, you will fight tooth and nail to block any possible reduction in the performance of IOs. I find that interesting.

I am not sure I follow. In the link you posted Hero system is called a decendant system from Champions, not the foundation. Champions being quite a bit older. In this case I am refering to the Chance to Hit concept, as applied in COX is directly like it is in D&D. They could have, if they chose easily modeled D6 with a computer if they had wanted though. But yes, the entire game is not D&D derived, just the to hit stuff. But that is a huge part of a game as combat focused as COX. And yes that system was also a derivative system. COX as implimented is vastly different than Champions though, simplified or otherwise. Of course. so is Champions Online.

That's the point. They had this hugely powerful computer availible to impliment a system you couldn't pull off easily on a Tabletop. And they went with a Tabletop level one anyway. They should have used a non-linear system. Allowing for diminishing returns. Thus reducing the unbalancing power of "gear" (or skills or incarnates or IOs or whatever)

No. I'm saying that COX is essentially based on Dungeons and Dragons. A really basic system from the 70s. Dungeons and Dragons balance counted on the DM to gate the system without mercy. DMs that didn't ended up with situations where the players were nigh unkillable gawds that could curbstomp anything. The original purpose of S1/The Tomb of Horrors was to perma-kill off the entire party and take all their stuff. It was literally an attempt to solve the same problem we have in COX. These big challenge settings the devs are coming up with are attempts to come up with more content that feels challenging. And it will to an extent depending on team composition. But if the problem were "solved" all your content would work again. And of course thats not going to happen. There are other ways to make games. Some easier to balance than the "Roll a 20 sider and see what you get..." A lot kind of suck for tabletop, because of all the math though ... you basically need a computer. HEH. But this is the one we have. They aren't going to change the mechanics now.

It depends on how many toggles you run.

Please stop editorializing my supposed calls for nerfs. My point is the new challenge effort has not "solved" the game balance issue. Becuase its inherently unsolvable. It was unsolvable 20 years before COX came out. They arent't going to magically solve it now. Its a game mechanics issue. The only times they tried to actually gate the system ED and the GDN, it was extremely unpopular. I want no nerfs. I want no changes to the core mechanics either. I dont even care about difficulty anymore. Without IOs the game is too boring. COX is too old for a different system. But, if Im playing in a munchkin campaign, I don't need to pretend its not one.

Except that they didn't. Not really. Besides it can't solve the mechanical problem. There isn't enough granularity availible.

True. IOs definitely are the problem with the game system as designed. Its the Munchkin syndrome. They handed out Hackmaster +12's to everyone. The problem is IOs are also the only thing that makes building characters interesting in COX (outside of a RP context).

Actually it sorta is. Not the only problem, but a big part of it. But its not going to get fixed by making the proposed changes in this thread. TBH its not going to get fixed. This game was designed essentially following the old Dungeons and Dragons roll a 20 sided die and see what you get. Thats why the last 5% is always a hit (Natural 20), and a 5% is always a miss (Natural 1). That sort of system was never intended to only live on one rail or the other. They figured the players would live more in the mediocre area. Which seems funny since it didn't work for the games they took the system from either, really. Not unless player powercreep was tightly controlled.

Ice being OK on Tankers proves nothing. They have great AT scaling on Fighting, IO ATO sets that add a lot of Resist, Huge HP and so on. Make it hit as hard AND survive as well as a typical SR build on Scrappers or EA on Stalkers, then I'll be impressed.

Rest

I was always a fan of the Gotham / Gritty / Dark Aesthetic in comics so I never found Red side all that grungy. Putting the bad guys in nice neighborhoods seems weirder to me I guess.

King's Row is the Best Row.

I agree with this. All MMO's with "Sides" eventually become so underpopulated that the sides no longer make sense. But anyone who might be annoyed over that choice in COH is kind of crying over fozzilized spilled milk at this point. It was done almost 20 years ago.

Bad in this case.

Nerf Regen Tanks!