Luminara

I still have my first edition rulebook.

Rewriting the difficulty scalar specifically for T/SFs and trials is what I consider to be inflated expectation. There are less resource intensive ways to accomplish the goal.

Shadowrun used shamanic city magic concepts in several novels, back in the 90's. The implication was that a building, neighborhood, or even a facet of the city experience had a spirit which the shaman could use to channel mystic energies, or even call upon the entity itself. You could create a pollution shaman using Dark Miasma or Radiation Emission, or use Nature Affinity to represent the spirit of a park, for instance. With power customization, I'd reckon that most of the ranged powersets could be thematically envisioned as shamanic city magic. Some of the melee sets would work, as well.

This. It's 2020. Difficulty needs to be more sophisticated than extra absorbent bullet sponges.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9NVlpVL

Will never be valued because it gives the impression of rapidly diminishing returns, due to the additive nature of the +Damage equation. Half the ATs are halfway to their cap when they have their attacks slotted to ED limits, and every 1% increase beyond that visually presents less and less actual increase. Some ATs don't even need +Damage set bonuses because they can approach, reach or surpass their caps with native tools (inherents, buffs within powersets, Incarnate abilities, red Skittles). Increasing Defense by small percentage feels rewarding. It has a measurable impact. So does increasing Recharge, especially when even 1% knocks several seconds off of a long recharge timer. Increasing Damage, after reaching SO quality enhancements, doesn't. It feels disappointing, and the impact is effectively beneath notice for the majority of the fights in the game. It doesn't actually matter if you dealt 73 points of damage or 90 points of damage to a critter with 24 hit points left, defeated is defeated. Until the +Damage reaches that plateau of enabling you to defeat the critter with one fewer attack usage, or you're adding up the seconds you've saved while fighting that AV, you just don't notice it. +Damage needs to bring more to the table to be worth pursuit. You could recycle some. Perhaps even all. Take critters from other enemy groups, fold them in as loaners, or dealers caught in a bust, or whatever explanation of their presence fits, as long as they stand out in some way. Simply copying a critter in an enemy group, giving it buffs/debuffs and flagging it to pop in at set scalar values, though, would be a mistake. If your challenging spawn has two visually identical critters in it, and one has buffs/debuffs while the other doesn't, it's no longer challenging, it's confusing and frustrating. The original maps in Left 4 Dead are an excellent representation of this concept. They were limited in size, but had multiple routes to the safe room. The most direct path was emphasized by lighting the maps appropriately. You knew that dark alley was either a dead end, a trap or a pointlessly circuitous route, because it wasn't lit. You also knew that passing specific points on the direct path spawned ambushes, but those points were specifically highlighted, too, through effective lighting. Also, some of the critter models might not have animations for powers you want to use. You could still make them use those powers, but they wouldn't animate that usage. It would be confusing and aggravating. Simple visual cues make the difference between playable and unplayable in these situations.

No Marc Singer. No Tanya Roberts. Disappointed.

Right. The smaller the team, the fewer lieutenants spawned (default behavior of the engine), so the people soloing the affected content at x1 would experience little or no difference from unaffected content. Push it until, say, 3 buffing/debuffing lieutenants crop up in every spawn, and it becomes a different experience. Max the scalar and you're looking at spawns with the potential to negate your soft-capped Defense, bottom out your Regen, reduce your damage output significantly (through a combination of +Defense spawn buffs and -ToHit, -Recharge and -Damage on you), etc. Critters have always been comparatively restricted in what they could do. Technically, they have access to every powerset, pool and *PP that we do, but they were deliberately under-utilized. The original developers tried, a few times, to broaden critter challenge by giving them notable buffing/debuffing abilities, but they always approached it from the perspective of one buffer/debuffer with large buffs/debuffs. Those attempts proved to be wildly unpopular or ultimately fruitless. And they were trying to make different enemy groups feel unique by not replicating abilities between them (fearing a sense of homogeny between groups), so they limited interaction to the now standard "lock down or defeat this one critter (or one type) and you're on Easy Street" approach. The Paragon team just didn't have the resources to revisit the critter design philosophy when the game was handed off to them, so they stayed with the "one 'dangerous' critter" approach. Obviously, a handful of volunteer developers aren't going to have the resources to do this either, but imagine trying to solo a spawn at +4/x8 with several Radiation Emission lieutenants, rather than a spawn with the primary "threat" being one or two summoned Force Field Generators which you can and always do target and obliterate immediately, or one or two Sappers which are easily locked down and ignored while you AoE the entire spawn to ash. AoE status effects would be the most effective approach to the new spawn paradigm, so to even the playing field, I'd go so far as to suggest giving critters status effect resistance. That way, status effects would still be capable of tipping the balance in the players' favor, but not the all but guaranteed pwnage they currently are, nor relegated to useless (as they would be if critters had status effect protection).

Bear in mind that the same developers also pushed us to value +Recharge so highly. They made it very effective. They made powers we wanted to use as frequently as possible. They gave us customizable attack chains, dependant on recharge times to achieve fluidity. They gave us powers with long recharge times, and said, "Hey, don't sweat it! Slap some +Recharge in this baby and she'll never let you down!". They always had the option of changing the +Recharge formula, or moving Recharge enhancements to schedule B, or doing what they did near sunset, flagging powers as unenhanceable by +Recharge. But they ran with it the way it was originally designed. And, honestly, the game is so much better for it. I do agree with you, it's egregiously abused, it's far too prolific in availability... but it's one of the biggest things that makes this game different from any other. Not only MMOs, but any game. We have so much freedom and flexibility in how we play because we have +Recharge. That's a good thing. That's the best of things. For all of its flaws and overuse, I still wouldn't have the recharge mechanic changed in any way, because it's a cornerstone of what makes this game so good. And Defense, again, you're right, it's been made abundantly available, probably too much so. But Defense can be countered. Resistance can't. If they'd saturated IO set bonuses with Resistance instead, they'd have had far worse problems. We also use status effects for damage mitigation, but they already knew what would happen if they gave us +Mag set bonuses (City of Statues). Regeneration is tricky, too. If you have "enough", you're practically immortal when you couple it with some Resistance and/or Defense, so that couldn't be a widely-distributed attribute. With more difficult content and a higher-but-not-higher level cap (Incarnate) in the plans, they had to give players something to improve survivability. So they gave us Defense, because it has a limit. You always have a chance to take a hit, and they could control that. They did, in the final content, increasing critter base hit chance, and that was the direction in which we were heading. Improve survivability in general (because few people pay to have their asses kicked), then counter it in specific content so it felt rewarding to complete. Massive quantities of Recharge and Defense do screw with the balance in older content, but let's be honest, it was never that difficult. I soloed a Kin defender to 50 with melee attacks in I5. I soloed a TA/A to 50 before I7. Frankly, I believe the problem isn't that Defense makes the current end game too easy, or that it trivializes older content, it's that there's no new content. If this were a Paragon Studios resurrection, we'd have had a couple of new Issues by now, and people would be hammering the forums with complaints about how hard the new TF/SF is and how this critter needs to be tweaked or that new mechanic is too unforgiving... People have been playing the same end game content for... what, a year now? You can faceroll anything when you've had a year to practice and build the perfect character. Conversely, players can react. Players are thinking, reasoning entities. All that critters can do is follow a script. Without something to give them an edge, like powerful debuffs, they're just punching bags. THAT should've been in the game from day 1. In fact, it should be applied to more challenging critters in general. The current (nearly two decades old) design has trained players to focus fire on the Big Bad and rely on AoE splash to deal with the lieutenants and minions. Giving other critters, like lieutenants, small stacking buffs and debuffs would really go a long way toward improving the challenge. Having to deal with the lesser foes while holding off the boss/EB/AV, because those smaller threats are piling buffs on the Big Bad and debuffs on the team would be a good starting point. And it fits within the archetype non-discrimination policy of Co*. A tank/brute/mastermind/Kheld could pull the Big Bad away from the little guys, or a controller/defender/corruptor/dominator could lock down Big Bad or the little guys, or stalkers/blasters could murder the little guys quickly, etc. Just running in and swinging at whatever is closest, or launching AoEs, would be less effective. Increased challenge achieved, tactical teamwork encouraged. Tailored buffs and debuffs for lieutenants, pseudo-pet powers without targeting mechanics, and there are plenty of unused powerset combinations to experiment with. A bit of tweaking to some powers, too, so we could have some critters using things like Radiation Infection as a PBAoE instead of targeted AoE. That would shake things up.

Asking what happens when pick-up groups have to face more challenging enemies when they increase the difficulty scalar and they don't want to fight them really shouldn't need any response. Asking for clarification of the purpose of isolating a means of adding more challenging critters to spawns when players jack up the difficulty scalar, in a thread focused on the perceived lack of challenge due to the abundance of +Defense which makes end game content comparatively easy, shouldn't require explanation either. So yeah, I was rude. My time is no less worthwhile than anyone else's, and if someone's rude enough to believe his/her time is too valuable to spend reading the thread so he/she understands what we're talking about, then I can be rude, too. Now get this shit back on topic. I resolved your problems with implementing tougher critters. What's your plan to make them tougher? More Buff and Debuff powers would be a good place to start. If you make them bigger bags of hit points, you're fired.

Thread. Read.

Go back, note the comments to which I was responding, read those, refer back to my responses. Questions answered. Next!

There are 40 increments on the difficulty scalar. +0 foes/*1 team members +0 foes/*2 team members +0 foes/*3 team members +0 foes/*4 team members +0 foes/*5 team members +0 foes/*6 team members +0 foes/*7 team members +0 foes/*8 team members +1 foes/*1 team members +1 foes/*2 team members +1 foes/*3 team members +1 foes/*4 team members +1 foes/*5 team members +1 foes/*6 team members +1 foes/*7 team members +1 foes/*8 team members +2 foes/*1 team members +2 foes/*2 team members +2 foes/*3 team members +2 foes/*4 team members +2 foes/*5 team members +2 foes/*6 team members +2 foes/*7 team members +2 foes/*8 team members +3 foes/*1 team members +3 foes/*2 team members +3 foes/*3 team members +3 foes/*4 team members +3 foes/*5 team members +3 foes/*6 team members +3 foes/*7 team members +3 foes/*8 team members +4 foes/*1 team members +4 foes/*2 team members +4 foes/*3 team members +4 foes/*4 team members +4 foes/*5 team members +4 foes/*6 team members +4 foes/*7 team members +4 foes/*8 team members It's not binary. 40 increments. 40 possible variations of spawns, ranging from easy mode to ZOMGWHY. You place your Sky Raider Impossiboss at the +4 range, let the Assault Bot Boss spawn at lower ranges. Or flag the Impossiboss to spawn based on team size, with the Assboss spawning if the team has fewer than X members. Third time saying it, the tool to do what you want is already there. Fully functioning, highly adaptable and even almost entirely automated. If a team runs at default difficulty, the engine automatically selects one of the +0 increments. So teams can fight Assboss by running at normal, or they can choose to fight Impossiboss by cranking up the scalar. Here's another tool you can use in conjunction with the difficulty scalar: the Kheldian flag which triggers Nictus replacements and/or additions in spawns. It needs some work, to iron out that bug which causes some players to encounter Nictus after Kheldians leave the team, but it also exists, and it does what it was designed to do, spawns a unique enemy based on a flag, and respects team member count and scalar selection. It would be less simplistic to use, as it would require adaptation (changing the flag from "Kheldian" to something else, such as a badge, then applying it to that something else), but it's there. You'll have to start making critters. They have to be modeled, textured, animated, given entries on specific tables, have power data entered, be scripted appropriately... Some of that can be copied from existing critters. But you still have to give your critters unique appearances, so they're identifiable. You have to give them appropriate dialogue. You have to test them thoroughly, in every type of map and every variation of team composition. That's the real work, and the reason new or unique enemies were so rare on the original servers, but once you have your Impossiboss Posse built and working, actually making them spawn will be dead simple.

As I said, the mechanic is already active and in use. Bosses aren't lieutenants with hit point increases and one or two additional attacks which deal more damage, they're entirely distinct critters. Nor does the difficulty mechanic require specific individual names to substitute lieutenants, it's based on generic categorization. In the cases involving named bosses, lieutenant versions were specifically created in order for the difficulty scalar to work on them. Presuming proper scrutiny, there would be no issues with using the scalar to replace standard critters with more challenging ones. Carnie Linkers, to extend your example, could be spawned in place of standard Carnie lieutenants when the difficulty scalar is set to +2 or higher. I say presuming proper scrutiny because I still remember the Council Warwolves bug, which involved certain Council lieutenants self-defeating when their hit points reached a set limit and spawned bosses in their place. The bug was an oversight in the implementation of the difficulty scalar which allowed those bosses to spawn even at the lowest setting. Basically, the scalar couldn't replace those bosses because they didn't exist when the setting was applied (when the spawn was generated). The lieutenants had to be specially flagged to spawn lieutenant versions of Warwolves when the scalar value was 1. So as long as you're not creating Carnie Linkers who explode and spawn AVs, or you flag your exploding critters, they would work just fine with the scalar. No new code, no other special caveats, just create your critters and give them appropriate scalar values (and flags where necessary).

Don't add them directly. Add them via the built-in difficulty scalar. They don't appear at default, low end builds aren't forced to encounter them. Increasing the difficulty manually or by joining a team of <insert minimum here> allows them to spawn. Pushing the difficulty higher allows numerically more, or challenge-wise more difficult, critters to spawn. This mechanic already exists and is in use. Bosses are replaced with lieutenants at the lowest difficulty level. Link the tougher critters to the same code. No-one adversely affected, no-one more challenged than they choose to be.

I wasn't referring to primaries which floor critter hit chance by design. I was referring to the combinations of primaries, secondaries, pools and APPs/PPPs which grant every AT the opportunity to soft-cap Defense through concerted passive and active manipulation of different sections of the critter hit chance equation. Trick Arrows is most definitely not, by any definition, a set which was designed with "not get hit" in mind. But it was one of the tools I used to do just that, rebalance the critter hit chance equation in my favor, "not get hit". I didn't even intend to build toward soft-capping, it just happened. My initial goal was the same as most TA fans at that time, reducing OSA's recharge as much as possible. Coincidentally, that goal reduced TT and Nightfall's recharge times to their animation times and initiated, on my part, a deeper examination of the game's mechanics and a reassessment of my build and goals, which led to a greater comprehension of the possibilities the developers freely gave to us in regard to our play style and character concept choices. Extreme ToHit Debuff values aren't necessary. I didn't slot TT or Nightfall for -ToHit, I slotted them with damage procs, and even optimally slotted, Flash Arrow has never been a particularly strong debuff on its own, but in concert with a seemingly small amount of +Def, these sources add up to... soft-capped Defense. Stacking of -ToHit, from multiple sources or rapid recharge of a couple of self-stacking sources, is all that is necessary to manipulate part of the equation, and it is, by no means, difficult to achieve, nor even particularly restricted. Every AT, with the exception of Kheldians and Arachnos Soldiers (who have their own unique mechanics and play style, and are tank-mages in their own right when played well), has at least one primary or secondary with ToHit Debuffs (or, in rare cases, Accuracy Debuffs). Almost all of the ATs have two or more primaries or secondaries with ToHit Debuffs, which opens up dozens of potential combinations per AT, and in almost every case, there's also either an APP or PPP which offers more options for -ToHit (defenders and corruptors being the exception, and they already have the widest variety of primaries and secondaries with -ToHit), or fills that hole in the tool kit. Even Arachnos Soldiers are given two AoE ToHit/Accuracy Debuffs (one of each) in PPPs (specifically, Soul Mastery). That's all it takes, if you have sufficient +Recharge, just a couple of debuffing attacks. And that +Recharge? Despite significant controversy over nearly a decade, they didn't nerf Hasten to the degree some people feared (and others hoped). They didn't flag it to ignore +Recharge. They didn't increase the recharge time to the point that it couldn't be made perma. No, in fact, not only did they allow us to continue using it as a a perma power, they dumped insane amounts of +Recharge in IO set bonuses, and in multi-aspect IOs themselves (Acc/Dam/Rech, as an example, which, when used with other multi-aspect enhancements, allows players to maximally enhance powers using fewer slots), and in IOs like LotG Def/+Rech... which stacks, rather than being unique (could they have made this +Def/-ToHit/+Rech interaction any more obvious without putting it on billboards in the game?), making it even easier to achieve perma-Hasten, or skip Hasten entirely and still gain the benefits of the same level of global +Recharge. They even made a proc which granted near-Hasten +Recharge just for KB powers, and, even more indicative of the design philosophy behind the game, included that proc when they refactored the way procs triggered, so it could be reliably used (when they redesigned the PPM math). Oh, and they tacked on Incarnate Abilities which enhance global recharge. And bypass part of ED. Intentional, knowing, deliberate design choices. The other part of the equation, Defense, never required IO sets, either. Yes, I absolutely agree that they do make it easier to obtain, but I was playing with an absurdly low Defense total, easily achievable by melee ATs, and eventually achievable by squishies, without IO sets, because it was given to squishies in pools and APPs/PPPs in sufficient cumulative quantities to effectively layer with -ToHit. The developers knowingly and deliberately gave everyone access to not-insignificant (when viewed from this perspective) amounts of +Defense (typically Smashing/Lethal, which also, not by coincidence, happen to be the most common critter damage types) in the *PPs, just like they gave (almost... sorry, Kheldians) everyone access to -ToHit/Acc. They didn't lock Defense into melee ATs, or give squishies a lower soft cap, they laid it out on a silver platter and presented it to us with a smile. That didn't come about months or weeks before sunset, either, it was very, very early on, when APPs were created and released, and expanded upon in the design of PPPs, and still further when *PPs were proliferated. Further exploration of this from a design perspective reminds us that critter spawns reflect AoE target limits, in the number of critters spawned, the proximity to one another within a spawn and the diameter of the spawned group. Spawns almost never contain more critters than can be hit with an AoE (16 target limit). Spawns almost always consist of all critters standing within a specifically definable area, which is, concurrently, almost always within the radius limits of most AoEs. And individual critters within spawns are almost always generated in close proximity to one another, in order to enable efficient and effective use of cones and AoEs. These design choices were intentional, and are they lay a foundation for soft-capping through manipulation of the critter hit chance equation. Another design aspect is the self-stacking nature of most powers with a ToHit Debuff component. While there are limits, primarily the unenhanceable durations of the debuff, these powers were intentionally allowed to self-stack. Consequently, one does not need five or six or nine powers with -ToHit to floor critter hit chances, or a single power with -25% ToHit, it can be achieved with as few as two with sufficient +Recharge. By design, the game allows, even encourages, players to stack appreciable percentages of -ToHit before a spawn can retaliate to any significant degree (defeat the player), simply by attacking or debuffing... which, again, by design, is how we play this game. Pew pew, stab stab, win win. Continuing with the design analysis, there's powerset and APP/PPP proliferation and expansion. ToHit debuffs were, early in the life of the game, generally restricted in availability to Dark * scrappers and specific defenders/controllers/blasters, but with powerset proliferation, that availability broadened significantly. Not only were powersets with -ToHit given to ATs which lacked them, but more -ToHit was offered in the APPs and PPPs, and still more when access to those was expanded. Typed Defense Buffs were given similar treatment. Whereas originally, pre-I3, one had to play a melee AT or a specialized squishie (FF defenders and controllers, for instance) to acquire viable +Def, the options were significantly expanded, several times. Again, with the exception of Kheldians, no ATs were excluded from access to Defense in either primaries, secondaries or *PPs, and the developers explicitly stated that this was intentional. At any point over the course of 9 years, the developers could have made adjustments to hit check calculations or stacking mechanics or recharge, to curb layered soft-capping, or restrict that approach to specific powersets, or define a harder limit to how much each mechanic could be manipulated. Instead, they verified the math for us and gave us ever-increasing ways to manipulate it. And, as @macskull mentioned, IO set Defense bonuses were even buffed, with the developers going so far as to spoon-feed players extra positional Defense to complement the typed Defense in the bonuses, and vice versa. That wasn't a typo in one field of a spreadsheet, they actually went into the set bonus tables and manually changed dozens of entries, a deliberate action intended to increase general availability of Defense for players, and to make Defense as a mechanic more effective and even less constricted. None of this was accidental, or the result of multiple oversights. If this wasn't actively mapped out as one of the design parameters before I3 was released, it was adopted as the direction the developers wanted to take the game toward very soon thereafter. Every design choice they made over the years makes that evident. Every AT has access to +Defense, without IOs, and in sufficient quantity to layer with -ToHit to effectively soft-cap (once again, except Kheldians). Every AT has access to -ToHit (and again, Kheldians), with at least one primary and one secondary powerset which uses it, as well as in APPs/PPPs, giving players a very, very wide array of potential combinations (hundreds) to fulfill the design goal of allowed soft-capping without restricting it to rare or niche builds, or builds which force players to make unpalatable choices. And everyone has access to nearly capped +Recharge, without the need to sacrifice anything. But what of those sacrifices we "have" to make to accomplish this? Having to give up a choice *PP, or skip some primary/secondary powers in favor of pool powers, or deal with fewer slots to go around, or decide whether a character concept is compatible with layered soft-capping? Some of those sacrifices aren't actually sacrifices. Frankly, I have yet to see a powerset with 9 perfect powers, primary or secondary. Let's be honest, some of them are just garbage. Damage is too low, or the status effect is of too limited utility, or the animation time is too long, or the penalty for using the power is too high, or the power is just too situational to justify taking or keeping, etc. We're not giving anything up by skipping some primaries and/or secondaries, and we have enough power selections by level 50 to justify adding a bit of +Def or -ToHit. Heck, I my soft-capped "proc monster" TA/Dark still had all of the Fitness pool as selections. I never respeced her to change them to inherents and free up the power selections. And slots are abundant with IO sets and their multi-aspect IOs. So, realistically, we're only talking about conceptual limitations, and I have little doubt that our few thousand current Co* players can find concepts for a few million characters among the hundreds of potential choices of +Def/-ToHit combinations available. And there are hundreds combinations across the ATs, multiplied still further by *PP options, which accomplish this. Soft-capping isn't something restricted to a handful of primary/secondary combinations available to specific ATs within narrow parameters, such as "only melee ATs", or "only Rad/FF/Dark squishies", it is widely available through the fundamental pairing of primary/secondary powersets and the APP/PPP "fill the gaps" design. This isn't the result of little quirks which couldn't be controlled, or bugs in power interactions, or developer design mistakes, it was intentional. They did this purposefully, built it into the game from the beginning. So, no, my point wasn't that specific combinations within specific ATs have always been capable of "not get hit" play, it was that there are sufficient options in both primaries and secondaries, not one or the other, for all ATs, which open up vastly more potential for players and removes numerous concept-oriented restrictions. Selecting a primary or secondary with -ToHit and tacking on +Def from an APP/PPP, or selecting a primary or secondary with +Def and coupling it with an APP/PPP with -ToHit (or, in a rare few cases, -Acc), and minor supplementation with pools to round out +Def totals, is achievable to everyone (except Kheldians, as noted previously), is capable of reaching soft-capped levels (presuming the player foregoes IO set Defense bonuses), and is not unduly restrictive in either character concept or actual mechanics. So reducing, restricting or even outright removing IO set Defense bonuses wouldn't make one bit of difference. We've had what they amount to since I3. What those bonuses have done is remove the last minor restriction to reaching the soft cap, that of character concept, so no-one has to feel "forced" to select a combination of primary/secondary/*PP which mate +Def with -ToHit. And all of that is ignoring the ridiculous ease of completely and utterly sidestepping critter hit checks via hard controls and knockback, which are both far more prevalent and egregious "abuses" of the game. As long as +Def, -ToHit and +Rech are so freely available, the critter hit equation is nothing more than another guide to character construction, and IO set Defense bonuses are merely one ICBM in the silo. This is the game. This is what was intended. This is by design.

There aren't enough relevant and worthwhile power choices to necessitate the kind of limitation you envision. Everyone has 24 power selections by level 50. Half of those are frequently used. Half of the remainder are occasional or emergency options. The last six are "I had to pick something". There are simply too many non-viable options available and little reason not to use them to obtain set bonuses. And of the first half, it's rare that any are so limited in slotting that they can't be slotted differently to achieve the same goal because set bonuses were widely spread across sets for all types of powers. There are no real sacrifices, beyond "Aw, I wanted to use that once per mission power once per mission. Oh, well, I'll take this other power instead and slot it for a Defense set bonus... and look a little less awesome. Woe is me." And the tactical variance you imagine occurring, refer to the previous sentence. Do you honestly believe it wasn't always prevalent, or easy? My TA/Dark hit the Ranged soft cap after three power usages on the original servers (only two of which caused aggro, with fast animations), and I only had 17% Ranged Defense. And I built for massive +Recharge, not Defense. That 17% Defense was unplanned happenstance. And this was before ATOs and Winter IOs. No mules for Defense bonuses, no crazy frankenslotting to squeeze a little more +Defense in. Soft-capping has always been possible for anyone who understood the mechanics of the game. Soft-capping was a given once IO sets were introduced, even if Defense bonuses had been flagged as Unique and non-stacking. Why is it suddenly worthy of attention now? And how can anyone believe the best solution is nerfing IOs, in light of the above facts?

Not when everyone else can change the other two thirds and return the result to it's previous value. The math still comes out the same in the end. 2+2 and 3+1 both equal 4.

((B + (T+ - T-)) - (PS - P - AP - TP - (IP + IT + IA)) * A = H B = Base Critter Hit Chance T+ = ToHit Buffs T- = ToHit Debuffs PS = Powerset Defense Buffs P = Pool Defense Buffs AP = Ancillary Pool Defense Buffs TP = Temporary Defense Buffs IP = IO set Defense bonuses (Position) IT = IO set Defense bonuses (Type) IA = IO set Defense bonuses (All) A = Accuracy Modifier H = Final Critter Hit Chance Reducing IO set Defense bonuses to half their current values without acknowledging T-, PS, P, AP and TP is pointless. Players will still be capable of soft-capping, they'll simply alter the meta to focus on more pool powers which offer Defense, more powerset combinations with ToHit debuffs, more IO set mules which allow comparable accumulated totals. Reducing I* variables by allowing fewer stacks will have no effect. Players can and will reslot with more varied IO sets to achieve comparable (or higher) bonuses. Players can and will drop infrequently used powers for set mules. Players can and will slot sets which grant Defense bonuses at 3 slots, twice in a single power. Players can and will substitute Hasten for previously accrued IO set Recharge bonuses, freeing up more slots to dedicate to IO set Defense bonuses. Players can and will slot for more Recovery and take Defense buffing powers like Maneuvers and other pool and APP powers (which are affected by AT modifiers). You can't change the game, end or otherwise, by altering the one third of the variables in a vacuum because the math doesn't work that way. As long as the remaining variables can be altered, the equation can always be rebalanced in the players' favor, at little or no cost. Nothing short of absolute dictatorial control of Defense and ToHit Debuff, every aspect of them which affects critter hit chances, will be effective. You simply cannot prevent players from flooring critter hit chances any other way without changing how hit chance is calculated (flagging every source of +Def and -ToHit as Unique, or reducing all +Def and -ToHit via lower AT modifiers, or limiting all +Def and -ToHit to the highest single instance from a given source (Maneuvers, Tenebrous Tentacles, etc.)), and then you have to rebalance multiple powers AND powersets to compensate for the decreases in utility and/or survivability. The good news is that you can download and modify the server code to do exactly that, be a dictator. Let us know how it goes and what your population numbers are when you've had it up and running for a while.

Foce!

Ditto on SAD. I've spent most of my life incapable of socializing. Even without being able to play, Co*'s resurrection has allowed me to converse more in the last few months than I had in the previous seven years.

And still, there are key points which aren't addressed in this proposal. For instance, only a few of the Defense bonuses in sets are Defense (All), and those are unique. They can be obtained once, and they're small. All of the rest are Defense (Type) or Defense (Position). Consequently, the high Defense some players can accumulate is, ultimately, situational. Soft-capped Defense for two positions or types can, with some juggling, be achieved, but that still leaves numerous gaps. You're slashing Defense bonuses wholesale, at all levels, for the sake of preventing a blaster from soft-capping Ranged Defense, or a Dominator's soft-capped Smashing/Lethal Defense, at level 50. And to attain those high Defense totals, the player has already sacrificed in potentially critical areas. That was one of the original design parameters of IO set bonuses, you could select what you wanted to improve your character, rather than follow a predefined path, but it meant giving up other options. You can't build for massive global Recharge and soft-capped Defense. You can't have 200% Recovery and soft-capped Defense. You can't do a lot with set bonuses without giving up other set bonuses. Pursuit of specific set bonuses to achieve maximal potential also means you have to sacrifice efficient slotting, too. Your powers aren't going to have the best slotted attributes. You have to decide what's best for you, high Defense versus optimal slotting versus Recharge bonuses versus etc. Plus, when you've finished reducing all Defense bonuses, you haven't actually prevented most of the players from soft-capping, you've just forced them to change their approach. They'll change their set mules, they'll drop a couple of infrequently used powers to add mules, they'll switch to Defense-based or ToHit debuff-based powersets, they'll pick up those more expensive IOs they previously skipped, they'll squeeze in more pool powers which offer Defense (All), they'll keep rolling along... except, now, they're soft-capping to more positions and types, exacerbating the issue. The "nerf everything" approach has been tried, numerous times, and it's never been effective. Haven't we learned anything from the original development team's mistakes? Is it really wise to do to IO set bonuses what was done to Trick Arrows, for the same basic reason (too good in extreme outlier situations), when more elegant and appropriate solutions can and should be applied? How many times are we going to go down this road? The problem lies in the content, not in the approach to playing it. Treat the disease, not the symptoms.

September 5, 2017, I packed or disposed of the last of my possessions and moved into a tent. I lived in that tent for three months, while I built my cabin. I chose to do this. I spent ten years planning for it, saving to purchase the land and building materials. I knew my life would be more difficult, less comfortable, and require more physical effort than living in a house in a large metropolitan area, but I made the choice and stuck by it. In the same vein, players make choices about their builds, and many choose to accumulate appreciable Defense totals. Some difficulty is good. It gives people a sense of accomplishment when they prevail, or a goal to pursue if they have to try again. But, in truth, most people prefer the easy path. Why? Because they don't want their game experience to be comparable to living in an unchinked, unplumbed 12'x16' cabin without 120v electricity. They don't want to struggle. They don't want to have to try again. Some people want the game to be more difficult. I understand that. But that's a choice each person can make, and it shouldn't be an imposition on everyone else. You can challenge yourselves without forcing others to go through the same ordeals. Play "weak" powersets. Try less than ideal builds. Skip key IOs. Run Oro content with challenge settings. Build your cabin and live in it, without insisting that everyone else has to do it, too.

Okay, but what about the previous 49 levels? What about the sets with no Defense or Resistance, being played with moderate set bonuses to provide just enough mitigation? What about the ToHit and Damage debuffs that players at 50 are now using to compensate for the lack of buffs? And what about all of the other sources of Defense buffs, like the Concealment pool, Hover, Combat Jumping, etc.? You'll have to address those as well, because any reduction to Defense in set bonuses which doesn't equate to "nuke from orbit" will still be capable of accumulating to soft-cap levels when used in conjunction with those other sources. Buff the level 50 and Incarnate content, either directly, with increased hit chances, or creatively, with a wider spread of powers used and more intelligent scripting. Leave the rest of the game alone. The reason Damage buffs from IO sets are less valued is because of the way they're calculated. All Damage buffs are additive. Build Up, a damage SO, a 4% IO set bonus, it's all the same thing. It all goes into the same pile. Moreover, the cap for Damage is much higher than the caps for Defense or Resistance, the enhancements are on a different schedule (33% versus 20%), and by the time one can accumulate a 40% Damage bonus from IO sets, one is likely to have already slotted for Damage and potentially have extra Damage from other sources (Assault, Build Up or Aim, Rage, etc.), so that 40% is reduced in both value and real effectiveness (a 40% increase to base Damage is only a 20.4% net increase in damage output if you've slotted Damage to 96%). And that's not taking into account the fact that some characters can cap their Damage without IO set bonuses. Or that a single damage proc can provide a better increase in output than IO set Damage bonuses. Defense set bonuses could, theoretically, do with a minor reduction, as they do exhibit a greater return on investment than practically any other bonus, but realistically, it wouldn't make any difference because there are too many other Defense buff sources available. You would have to gut IO set bonuses, or reduce Defense in every non-primary/secondary source simultaneously (GDN 2.0). Alternatively, redefine all of them as typed Defense, removing position, so they're of much more limited utility, in concert with some rejiggering of critter attack types. That could work, without much disruption in the rest of the game, but it would be a hard sell.

The question is too broad in scope. It needs to be narrower. Example: Are Defense/Resistance buff totals too high at max level and accounting for IO set bonuses? Probably. But that can easily be countered with minor adjustments to critters. What can't be easily countered, and would be seriously detrimental, would be approaching the problem without recognizing and considering all of the variables. Defense and Resistance are only parts of a larger equation. Failure to account for other parts of the equation will create more problems, and in actuality, resolve nothing. Let's examine a hypothetical scenario in which the HC team reads this thread, looks at the server data and concludes that all Defense and Resistance buffs, from any source, need to be adjusted downward by 25%. Now everyone who built up significant Defenses and/or Resistances experience a moderate increase in difficulty... but those who relied on smaller amounts of these buffs, "just enough to make it through a tough fight", may be struggling significantly more. Additionally, you haven't reduced ToHit debuffs or Damage debuffs, the inverse portions of the equation, and consequently attached much greater emphasis on them. These debuffs become more powerful by comparison, and concurrently, more important, because they restore the previous status quo. You've also left out Regeneration, Absorb and Heal, which, while less effective than high degrees of Defense or Resistance, are still strong enough to allow players to sidestep GDN 2.0. And then there are status effects. Preventing attacks has always been the strongest and most versatile method of damage reduction. This is why, when the original developers decided that there was little challenge or risk in AV fights, they didn't increase AV damage, or jack up AV hit chance, they gave AVs partial near immunity to status effects. In the end, all that has happened in this scenario is a shift the meta. Fewer people bothering to play melee archetypes, more people playing debuffers and mezzers. And "healers"... God or gods help us all. We're right back where we started, asking if the game is too easy. The difference, this time around, is that when the entire equation is gone over and all of the variables are altered, the changes which were intended to "encourage teaming" and "improve the feeling of challenge" for the end game crowd will hit the entirety of the rest of the player base like a Mack truck and make soloing easy content a tedious, defeat-laden slog. And everyone who wasn't narrow-mindedly chasing IO set bonuses would have to now, just to play the game as it was originally intended. This is why I suggested that your question should be reconsidered and focused. You can't ramp up the difficulty for some players and not for others. You can't ramp up the difficulty across all levels to address a lack of difficulty at one level. You can't ramp up the difficulty based on IO set bonus availability without addressing the players who aren't building around those bonuses. You can't ramp up the difficulty for those who use buffs without doing something similar to those who use debuffs with comparable net effects. You can't ramp up the difficulty across the board to address outliers in edge case conditions. Frankly, I don't consider unilateral nerfs to be a solution to anything, unless the problem is game-wide, and even then, I believe there are better options than nerfs. Enemies can be buffed and/or given new abilities, scripts can be changed, creative solutions can be devised, resolutions can be implemented as targeted solutions which don't degrade the playing experience in a sweeping and unpleasant manner. If you succinctly identify the problem, you can tailor an appropriate solution without undue nerfs.