PeregrineFalcon

I never saw that one coming. 🙄

Here's what I believe will happen over the next year: Challenge Mode will be proliferated to all Task Forces and many level 50 storyline missions. A major rework of Sentinels will make them not suck. Assault Rifle will have some 'fixes' applied, but will still suck. Mercenaries will be fixed and no longer suck. Scrappers will still not have Super Strength. Tankers will still not have Energy Aura. .

No lie in my life. I've always known that my fireballs don't have a stun setting. Men get arrested. Skulls get put down!

Yes. Because: I want people who love using the system to make their characters über still be able to do so. I want the ability to make my characters über if I have the time and desire to do so. The developers are in the process of proliferating a new difficulty mode that will require your characters to be über just to survive. So nerfing defense and/or IOs right now makes no sense. That being said, after the developers have proliferated the new difficulty mode more, and more people have had a chance to spend a great deal of time with it, then we should talk about whether or not defense and/or IOs and/or Incarnate abilities are still too powerful. Until then? Motion denied! 😁

I specifically said SOs or level 25 non-set IOs, not TOs. Way to use hyperbole to dismiss the point that I made. Pro tip: people aren't going to want to respond to you when they see that ignore the completely legitimate points they are making. What part of the "devs are proliferating this system" did you miss? It's been mentioned in this thread at least 3 times. It's going to take some time, just as implementing any suggestion will. If the devs do decide to nerf IO sets just as you want them to, that'll will take time to code and implement too. And at no point did I ever say that I am content for challenge seekers to have only one TF to play. I even suggested other challenges as well. At this point you're not even responding to the statements that I'm actually making. Instead you're deliberately twisting every point I make. That being the case I'm done wasting my time responding to you. That may change if you ever decide to start responding to the words that I've actually written instead of just making stuff up as you have been in this thread.

The developers have already developed a new difficulty system that they're in the process of proliferating throughout the entire game. Do you seriously want them to create a third difficulty system on top of all of that? Maybe what would be better is if people either went and played the Aeon SF with the new difficulty system and/or AE 801 missions and stopped spending time on the forums complain that "game too easy, bruh!" There are ways to challenge yourself that do not involve unslotting your Incarnate abilities and/or set IOs. How about you all use those systems instead of starting another "game too easy, bruh" thread?!?

See, that's where the problem lies, @arcane It's the perception that you, and a lot of people like you have. Not everyone uses set IOs or even IOs at all. I regularly play CoH with a group of 2 - 5 close friends. Of them I'm the only one that has any set IOs slotted at all. And in my case it's usually just a Performance shifter proc and/or a Panacea HP/End proc. Most of my friends don't have more than 1 level 50 character, and even that level 50 usually still has just level 25 non-set IOs slotted. And only then because I make the level 25 IOs, fill up the base storage with them, and I keep reminding everyone to not waste Inf on SOs and just slot the IOs once they reach level 22. I can play at +4 x8 on exactly 1 character. My main, a tank with set IOs. But without other characters with me even that character will die eventually or take forever to complete a mission. I have another 50 with set IOs. A blaster. And that character isn't at the soft cap, having only 38% ranged defense. The point being that a lot of people, including myself most of the time, and all of my friends, play this game casually and don't use the IO system at all. People have told me that it's more effort than they want to put into it and they'd rather just play on +1 x4 and have fun.

From the patch notes: Ok, see that part that I bolded and underlined? The developers are in the process of either adding more content which uses the new difficulty options, or adding the difficulty options to existing content, or both. This new difficult content requires defenses and IO sets and Incarnate abilities just to survive this content. Asking for nerfs to defenses and IOs right now, while the developers are in the process of addressing this issue, just makes no sense. Why don't you all wait until the developers have proliferated this new difficulty setting to more content before you claim the game is too easy and defense and/or IOs need to be nerfed? Maybe once these settings are more widespread in game you won't think that the game is so easy. Unless of course you decide to not play with the new settings on, in which case the problem won't be with defense and/or IOs.

In the reality where I'm clearly mistaken. I thought Claws was the worst at single target damage. But what do I know, I thought that Fiery Melee was still the king of melee AoE damage. Thank you for correcting my misinformation. Anyway, I'll stop derailing the thread. OP, if you want great regen set, my suggestion is to just play Willpower. It's greeaaaat! 😁

Wait. So the best single target Tanker damage set does the same amount of damage as the worst single target Scrapper damage set? That sounds like how it should be to me. And are you talking about a damage proc build? If so then that invalidates your argument in its entirety, because you're talking about the procs' damage not the ATs' damage.

@arcane Listen. I understand your point of view. Telling players to stop using the uber purple gear is not the correct response to the statement "The devs should balance the game properly." However, the devs are in the process of balancing the game. They've added the new difficulty levels, along with improved rewards, and they've already said that they're planning on adding the new difficulty level to a lot more content. (I want to say they said that they're going to add it to all level 50 content, but don't quote me on that. It's too early and my memory's probably wrong. Need more coffee!) So once they get the new difficulty system proliferated then people will be able to up the challenge. Until that process is complete, there's nothing that can be done to increase the difficulty except to NOT play uber munchkined IO'd Incarnate Demi-Gods. It's not the best solution, but it's a solution, and it's the only one that we the players can offer right now. Also, trying to get defense caps and/or IOs nerfed while the developers are in the process of proliferating a system that will require a massive investment into IOs and Incarnate abilities just to survive, is utterly ludicrous.

That's kinda my point. While squishies can use the IO system to become as tough as a Scrapper (at least at range), players cannot use the IO system to give low damage characters similar damage output to a Scrapper or Blaster. But Scrappers, and only Scrappers, can use the IO system to both increase their durability to near Tanker levels while also significantly increasing their damage output. So it really seems to me that the IO system was specifically designed to favor 2 specific ATs.

I thought about this and did some number crunching last night. It looks like even if a Tank has a Tier 4 Musculature slotted Scrappers still do about 20% more damage on average. This is rough math on my part. And then the IO sets only have little 4% and 3% bonuses. So in order to get up to roughly Scrapper levels a Tank would have to have 5 of the 4% bonuses plus the Tier 4 Musculature slotted. Which is weird because it's fairly easy for a character with 0% defense, like say a Blaster, to get 40% Ranged Defense with IOs. But it's pretty difficult for a Tanker to get a 40% bonus to damage. It's almost like the IO set system was designed with softcapped Blasters specifically in mind.

Oh geez. Where do I start? This seems like a good place to start. Yes, the game can be very easy. A lot of us don't play optimized characters or teams. For example, just the other night me and two friends were running around doing tip missions with 3 Blasters. All under level 50, all with just SOs. Not every character is a Billion Inf Vet level 1000 super optimized god. If that's you're character then congratulations! You made Superman in a superhero MMO. Superman is really tough. Pretty much no one and nothing is a challenge for him. Go roll a new character and play Robin. This won't have the effect that you think it will have. If anything it'll make softcapping a blaster much easier. Why? Because then all of the IO set bonuses will also have to be changed from typed to positional. This means it'll be just that much easier to find enough sets to softcap a squishie's defense. So the squishie will have slots left over to devote to other things, like more ToHit and more Damage. So it'll just make the problem worse. There are 3 positional defenses: Melee, Ranged and AoE. Positional attacks and defenses are usually paired with a typed defense. So Council bullets are Ranged & Lethal. Parry gives you defense to Melee & Lethal. Fireball is Ranged & AoE. Frankly it makes it difficult to take your suggestion seriously when you demonstrate that you clearly don't have a full understanding of the subject. Ok, but remember that this will apply to players too. So I'll be able to reliably hit that Paragon Protector that's Mogged or that Fake Nemesis that's fired off Personal Force Field. So yeah, do it. It'll help me to steam roll enemies even faster. No it won't. Upping the Accuracy floor will make Force Field Defenders less desired and increase calls for healers, because defense buffs just won't be as helpful. Your suggestions will have the opposite effect that you want. If you really want to make the game less easy then play missions with the devs' new difficulty levels or play the 801 series in the AE. Now stop trying to nerf my characters, and get off my lawn! 🤬

Thank you for correcting me. I don't know why I thought it was .6. Here's a good question. Is it worth it to try to increase Tanker damage with IO set bonuses?

The base damage modifiers are 1.125 Scrapper, .95 Tanker, and .75 for Brute. However, Brutes get Fury, which increases their base damage as they fight. Scrappers get Critical Hits, which increases their damage output by roughly 20%. And Tankers get larger AoEs, which can help them do more damage if they're fighting large groups. If you want to always be running to the next group of enemies, be very tough, and do a lot of damage, play a Brute. If you want to be chill, do a lot of damage, and be moderately tough, play a Scrapper. If you want to be almost unkillable, and do ok damage, play a Tanker. Stalkers are a special case. Certain builds can be pretty tough, especially if you add a couple of special IOs. Playing a Stalker also allows you to almost always decide when you want to start the fight as only certain special enemies can see you when you're hidden. You do have to be careful when playing them because, after the opening attack, you're now the only target and you're not as tough as a Scrapper. This answer probably isn't as math heavy as you'd like but I'm sure that someone will be along shortly to fix that.

No.

You did not answer any of my questions though. This would take time to code. Time that the developers would not be able to spend coding other, game related, things. What would be the benefit to this? Who benefits from this? If there really is a benefit to this then these should be simple questions to answer.

Paragon City is set in the state of Rhode Island in the United States of America. Almost 70% of the US population is caucasion, aka white. So it makes sense that the majority of Paragon's population is white. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's ok to be white. So you basically want the devs to spend a bunch of time writing code with the purpose of tricking people into creating non-white characters? What purpose does this serve and who benefits from it?

I can see Granville looking the way it does. Lord Recluse is clearly a psycho with a spider fetish, and he's a stereotypical pulp fiction/golden age comic book villain, so that's to be expected I guess. However, the rest of the "Rogue Isles" should be clean and tourist friendly. More like San Angeles from Demolition Man, instead of looking like a war torn third world nation. This would not only provide Arachnos with a huge income but it would provide them with the veneer of affluence and respectability they would need to prevent the US from simply invading them and imprisoning or terminating all of the rogue personalities present on an island chain so close to the US borders. Also, why is it always overcast there? I kinda get what the devs were originally going for, but the idea that "people are bad so the sun never shines" just makes no sense to me. On top of which people don't like it when places are dull and gloomy, so players not enjoying being there is really not something that should have been much of a surprise.

I think the best way to handle porting Regen to Tanks would be to first fix it for Scrappers and Brutes. Once it's fixed, by turning Reconstruction or Instant Healing into a toggle, adding some more damage resistance and/or absorb, whatever the devs decide to do to make it not be the worst Scrapper secondary, then port it to Tanks. I think the question that we might want to ask is what's the devs' rule on these things? No, I'm not talking about the Cottage Rule. I'm talking about "how far away from retail CoH are the devs willing to go?" Honestly, if the devs aren't willing to significantly change Regen to make it not suck then I'd prefer that they don't port it to Tanks at all. If ported in its current state it will suck so bad on Tanks that it'll just be a horrible trap for the ignorant and unwary.

Funny enough, my main is an Invuln/EM tank. I wanted to make her as EA/EM, but tanks don't have EA. Back then Invuln was very shiny so I made her Invuln/EM. Then the live devs nerfed the shiny/glowie of Invuln. *sigh*

Would Regen really be that great on a tank though? On its own the regen would be great, given tank values, but would that be enough to overcome the fact that it has no defense and no DDR? Sure you could give it some defense with Combat Jumping and Weave and IOs, but without any DDR would that be enough to really matter once the defense debuffs start rolling in from everyone with a machine gun? I ask because I have no real experience with regen. I rolled a BS/Regen Scrapper once, got him up to maybe level 20, hated it and promptly rerolled him as BS/Willpower once Willpower went to the live server. Ever since then Willpower has been my default secondary for a scrapper unless I have something specific in mind.

I thought that one thing was Energy Aura.

I'll admit that that's probably really annoying when a level 50 doesn't know how to get to Peregrine Island or Steel Canyon. But is that rare instance of someone not knowing how to navigate to another zone really enough of an issue to reduce/kill XP in the AE or radio missions? The way I see it, the purpose of this thread is to advocate for a change that will either: Improve the knowledge of players so that PuGs aren't so bad, or: Force others to play the game the way the OP wants them to play it. This change won't solve problem 1, and 2 isn't a problem when people mind their own business and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing on their own free time. If some n00b got themselves PL'd up to 50 and they want to start enjoying the game now, good for them! Let them play the game the way they want to. They'll learn soon enough that they either like the game or they don't. If they don't then it doesn't matter cause they'll just quit playing. If they do like it then they're more likely to actually play their next character up to 50. Either way it doesn't hurt you. Just kick the AE Baby from your PuG and move on. Or, here's an idea, help them out and explain stuff to them and maybe they'll want to stick around and learn to actually play the game.