Galaxy Brain

Edit: Awesome job on this!!! Only thing that would be awesome to add is a dropdown or even page with all the Power Categories listed out. For example, I can get to here: But I do not see an easy way to get a list of all Power Categories if I were to look up various enemy groups?

I do think this sentence could be highlighted a bit more, as what some people have been pointing out is that changing balance would just shift targets on the next best risk/reward thing.... Well, until Fire Farms are nuked from orbit I think any concern about that is out the window when it comes to "normal" content.

I think AH may actually have a bigger factor than we may give credit for given there are several mandatory boss fights + an EB fight in the test mission. With several sets that ended up being where they slowed down. For damage procs, I didn't plan on proc-monstering but more looking at the comparison of who can slot what. As a Blaster, end redux could be replaced by an extra proc on some powers if they can take it with all the recovery we have, and then you start eyeballing 1 damage proc on Rad Blast + normal slotting vs Fire Blast which cannot take any "extra" procs. Not only can certain sets take different procs, but the chances of them firing differ for many powers set to set. The question for me is not so much who is better, but rather how much is X better over Y. For example, if you could proc out your Rad Blast character a bit + normal slotting, and it is like within 15% of the top builds then I'd say "oh cool, this isn't the best but it's in the ballpark". If it's like, 50% worse then we have issues.

I guess I should rephrase and say at end-level, not so much end-game.

This is false. SC at base is -35% end drain. With essentially max enhancement, it can be boosted to about -70%. Very few enemies in the game outside AVs have specifically end drain res to boot. It cannot be judged 100% alone no, but you have to look at the pairings. Every other blast set "works" paired with every secondary, but Elec Blast essentially NEEDS 2 secondaries else it doesn't "work". If elec blast is "bad" unless you go out of your way to pair it with only 1/7th the available secondary sets... that is an issue. This is true, for the T1 and T2 powers. Where it goes out the window though is when you look at Freeze Ray, Bitter Ice Blast, etc, in conjunction with the rest of Ice Blast's kit. The fact that elec blast attacks hit instantly is actually really cool, as is the pure energy Damage... its just that those X factors only apply on the "basic" attacks that all blast sets get while the rest is questionable. There is a lot of nuance that goes into it for sure, but as somebody who has run every blast primary with the clear intent to make them compete against each other across hundreds of missions.... Elec Blast has base issues. Fire, Dual Pistols, Rad Blast, Water Blast, Archery, Beam Rifle, and possibly Energy and Dark Blast with adjustments (mitigated KB) all performed better than Elec Blast across multiple tests where I simulated x8 "team" content to measure offense, which included mobs + boss fights to test AoE and ST output. For defense, Elec Blast *NEEDS* to be paired with Power Boost or Power Sink to "work" in the split seconds where you are either fine or defeated, while other blast sets can either out-damage it in AoE or have better immediate side effects like Knockdowns/ToHit/Slow. The ST damage is also very poor in practice, though in longer fights it does have an edge if you can maintain the drain. Its weird, come to think of it the set relies VERY hard on SC to do it's thing while the rest of the attacks really do not do much when it comes to Sapping, and since Sapping is really only relevant when enemies are at 0% for extended periods it turns into that synergy catch 22. Its ok, awesome even that Elec/ pairs amazingly with /Elec and /Nrg, but it is not cool that it in contrast flounders with other secondaries by comparison while all other primaries can basically do "their thing" without *needing* synergy. I am not saying elec is *awful* by any means. It's a blast to play when it works, and especially paired with Elec or Energy as mentioned in the OP. Like I said, my main for a long time was an elec3 blaster! However, it is a shame that Elec blast is one of the few sets in CoH that gets kind of shoehorned into needing synergy while other sets are in the camp of "oh cool! We synergize and it's better" instead of "oh, I need to pair this with something that clicks else it is worse". Those both sound like two different ways to say the same thing, but the difference is there. On top of this, Elec's AoEs tend to take a bit more time to apply their damage due to DoT's, and the lack of a "true" 3rd blast hurts the set (Tesla Cage buff pls). Sparky is unreliable as you said, and the end drain is super focused on one power. Honestly the set could get by with basically "Number Tweaks" where: Tesla Cage buffed to be a "real" attack. Even if it's similar damage to the T1/T2 that'd be a big boost. Voltaic Sentinel should be more user friendly. The guy works when he works, but the short timer + long cast time (on a power that is perma out of the box) is compounded by how he likes to target random people / has issues following you around. Either it should just last way longer/be a toggle, or maybe allow multiple of them and keep the other downsides. the DoT application on the AoE's sped up a tad (3s and 4s for Ball and SC, shorten those by half?) End drain across the set should be more consistent, or at least offer more "Key Drain" powers. Thunderous is awesome here but is not up all the time, SC is up more often but you gotta get closer / animation time / you still need another power to pair with it. If Elec Blast's "Aim" was changed to "Charge Up" or something, where it lost some +ToHit in exchange for +End Mod that'd be cool, or even take away some of the end mod from SC and TB and give it to the other powers so that combined it makes more sense? To me it just feels like a set that's *almost* there.

The highlight is really my goal here with how I start these at SO-level, the performance-floor if you will lol. However, the point with Energy is solid as it made an EXTREME jump, but it also had SA slotted literally everywhere compared to the other sets which had at most 2 powers slotted so it's kind of an outlier there.

The difference is that FF adds power directly while Sudden Acceleration is sort of a side-grade, if that makes sense. You can slap FF over a Recharge enhancement and odds are it is straight up far better, whereas you need to give something up slot-wise to fit in SA unless it's Overwhelming Force. If I open the door to FF, then Achille's Heel, Damage Procs, etc are on the table too.

Ok, so that opens the door to all IO's then?

at end game level there should be no more training wheel mobs

What if we just buffed council. Semi joke, semi serious.

Setting the hard cap there does far more harm unless there are downright overhauls to every defense set across the board (not just armors, straight up any power with +def) as well as defense bonuses. Gonna be a hard pass just due to sheer complexity, let alone player reactions.

Tbqh, I do feel like there should be a slight something done about that. AoE is waayyyyy too valuable IMO, and having enemies that specifically mitigate it a bit could be nice where it gives ST specialists more to do and lets you swap tactics.

And that alone can be a big difference for a lot of sets!

Yeah! That and the Yin TF where its basically the same deal are actually super fun changes of pace where you're actually defending something. More missions like that (hell, revamp the citadel TF and have a mission halfway where you defend his database or something) and you'll be sure to find different strategies highlighted from builds and players who are not as adept at the "go go go!" Style

I think the highlight is the reason they are hated, since its like 30 waves and there is a solid minute gap or more between the waves. If it was something like "5 waves incoming!" and a 30s timer per wave before the next stacks onto you that'd be more exciting, but still break the pace of "we chase the bad guys" to "oh damn we're pinned and theyre coming!"

While true, it is all about increasing variety, which I think is what a lot of us really mean by "Difficulty". Most content right now is very same-y, and it leads to the strategies we have now + the meta where just raw damage is king, and building for self defenses on top of that. If there were enemies in missions that circumvented that with how they say, needed to be controlled in some manner else they're a pain to take down, or different objectives that require some coordination, etc, all these things can compound to make tasks more meaningful for more builds. Certain builds are "bad" just by the context they're in. A mission where the goal is to hold a line would be amazing for sets that rely on setting up whereas today they often get left behind as a team blazes through a mission for example. Switching things up in that regard opens the door to more viability.

I think this is a good way to put it. By its very nature, "different" will be "difficult" compared to what we have right now. Anything that would make you change tactics from "mow them all down" may not be intrinsically harder from a mechanical level (choosing a specific target instead of shotgun blasting everyone indiscriminately), but the addition of different decisions with pros and cons would shake things up.

This would be a good experiment for Incarnates, but going a step further and saying "hey, who wants to respec and run an SO only old school TF?" Would likely garner crickets unless we pull an oceans 11 style getting the gang together montage of folks lol. Part of this points to what BZB said where the carrot has to be there. It's not even too alien a concept as the current difficulty sliders do give increased rewards for your efforts. Its just that the current power level of players exceeds the hard difficulty (level shifts especially) and the current hard enemies use some nonsense that ends up being more frustrating than "difficult". That of course leads to super lawnmowers buzzing down the most efficient content since it its not "worth" trying to tackle the tougher grass.

What if we all bought out white salvage right before they short, causing a squeeze?

On a Tanker: 20% def (all but psy) > 10% def 50% res (all but psy) > 25% res Mag 10 KB/Mag 22 Stun/Sleep/Hold/Immob > Mag 5 KB/Mag 11 Stun/Sleep/Hold/Immob 43.25% DDR > 21.63% DDR -65% rech > -32.5% rech -30% dam > -15% dam -10mph run speed > -5mph (going off mids atm I dont see the real numbers) -10ft jump height > -5ft On a Brute: 15% def (all but psy) > 7.5% def 37.5% res (all but psy) > 18.75% res Mag 10 KB/Mag 17.3 Stun/Sleep/Hold/Immob > Mag 5 KB/Mag 8.65 Stun/Sleep/Hold/Immob 43.25% DDR > 21.63% DDR -65% rech > -32.5% rech -30% dam > -15% dam -10mph run speed > -5mph (going off mids atm I dont see the real numbers) -10ft jump height > -5ft

TBH, how would you all feel if Granite's stats were halved, both the good and the bad, but it allowed you to use some of the other earth armor powers?

Funny you post this just as I wrote up the one above showing how maps tend to keep people linear! I think you're spot on in that the only viable way to add more difficulty is to add more strategy to the game as you advance. We have *pockets* of this like with Tsoo and CoT LT's in certain levels where you WANT to lock them down or defeat them first specifically before they can cast their awful -ToHit auras, more things like that that give players tactical decisions mob to mob would be great. The only issue is that these tactical enemies would need to have some layer of anti-cheese, such as huge amounts of AoE def or being Taunt-Proof/Resistant (an idea I really like that I've never seen brought up, berserk enemies that will need to be hard CC'd or Defeated since they bounce around) else the problem of "my numbers are bigger lol" puts things back to square one. Even simple things in the maps like adding more hazards could be nice. A CoT map with lava you can yeet enemies into, or a locked door that needs keys on either side of the map or scouting to find, etc, etc , etc. There are a ton of options that are *possible* but would need to impact player decisions, not just stats. Well, with the advent of DO's and SO's being seen from lvl 1, as well as the ability to upgrade slotted enhancements on the fly, the drops in the game are in a weird spot. Yeah, SO's will drop as the primary "loot" from lvl 25ish onward, and that's about it. You have this progression every ~12 levels or so from TO to DO to SO, but then it abruptly stops. Why not have common IO sets be able to drop past lvl 35 or so? Something like you're playing, defeat an LT, and there's a 25% chance they drop a yellow IO into your inventory instead of an SO. It'd make the IO system much more accessible as what we have now is *almost* that but with the added time sink of having to just /AH and grab your goods to make the thing. I wouldn't advocate for that normally, but in HC we are already nearly at the point where they may as well be normal drops with how easy it is to make or straight up get certain drops. Higher difficulty settings / tweaks in turn could influence these drops. Lets say Oranges or Procs don't drop in normal difficulties (at least to your tray, you could still get recipes), or even different enemy groups have different IO drop pools based on their theme / difficulty?

Yes and no. Yes, in that self-imposed handicaps have no limits or roadblocks. Want to unslot all enhancements and see how far you go? Cool! Want to skip/not use key powers? Go for it! No, in that you then have to get others to join in on that in the same way. To me, personally, I think it is an issue if multiple characters on a team can solo the hardest setting in team content at a decent pace. MMs are weird here in that at base they can tackle some very hard stuff without super special builds... but slowly and with clear caveats. Newer builds can surpass that to where a member of the team can just fly off and do their own thing in a 4/8, 8-man team (I know I do it often on my Claw/Ea scrapper or my En/Time blaster). Sure, it is easier with team mates around but it doesn't feel as necessary in most missions I participate in. However, like I mentioned before: everything is related. In a given mission, there is usually a clear path from start to finish with few places if any to "break things up". Looking at 4 random maps, (Large Rikti, Large CoT, Large Cimeroran, Large Office), there is pretty much always a clear path from start to where the main objective is with little variance. Theres a few spots with a branching option but the general flow sort of funnels everyone to the same spots. It's not like the Avengers movies where you see them really split into different groups at the same time to handle simultaneous threats. Due to this, teams are sort of corralled into sticking together (not a bad thing) even if they "could" split up, often its just blazing ahead to the next group in the line and then as they fight, the other part of the team leapfrogs them, etc. This is far too fundamental a thing to alter for the HC team, but I think everything put together is what leads to the topic of IOs / Incarnates / Difficulty / Etc popping up so often.

TBH, that kind of went out the window with the AE. As long as players can make custom enemies and gain rewards from them, there's no content that will actually match the risk/reward/time stats. Luckily, that is self-balancing in that the farm maps/missions are so far removed from "actual" gameplay that it's basically another game itself and it immediately turns a lot of people off. Going back to the comparisons of Council vs Carnies, it gets much more complex than Damage Types. Lets break down both groups at level 50: Yellow = Bonus Acc Blue = Mixed type attacks Green = Yellow + Blue Council breaks down with 8 different Minions, 5 different LT's, and 4 different bosses in a given mission. At x8, assuming a full team of players, the average group will contain 14 minions, 4 LT's, and 1 Boss group to group. Without going nutso looking into every single power, we can look at the ratios of damage from rank to rank as well as the base hit chance at even-level: Minions are damage mod 1, base hit chance 50% LT's are damage mod 1.5 (on average, LT attacks deal about 1.5x that of an identical minion power), base hit chance 57.5% (1.15 acc mod) Bosses are damage mod 2.7 (2.7x stronger than an identical minion on avg) , base hit chance 65% (1.3 acc mod) With this in mind, we can look at each attack and multiply it by the number of the rank on average, then divide it by the number of the rank in the group. Then, you multiply it by the rank's damage mod, and then the chance to hit you to get a final "portion" of incoming damage. For example, a Vortex Cor Leonis Fire is a minion, so there will be 14 of them in a group, but only a 1/8 chance of it appearing compared to other minions so it's Flamethrower power bumps up to a 14, and then down to a 1.75. Minions have a damage scale of 1, and a 50% chance to hit but the flamethrower has a 1.3 bonus accuracy modifier turning that 50% into 65%! 1.75 * 1 * 0.65 = 1.1375 as the final "Fire" contribution. Add those up, and then divide the result by the total and you get the following spread: I'm kind of surprised by the sheer amount of negative energy damage that council pack, but to be honest Smashing and Lethal may as well be combined as IIRC there are very, VERY, few protective powers available to players that only protect against one or the other: Lets do the same for Carnies: While having less damage types, they do have a significant portion as Psychic which is an explicit hole for many builds and will need to be dealt with spawn to spawn, whereas the negative damage from Council has no sets with explicit weaknesses to it. Lets actually take a look at these enemy groups vs Tanker sets: So uhhhhh, long story short here when factoring in the base Res/Def values it turns out that Council are actually Deadlier than Carnies on average, by about 1.1%. Two of note are Ice Armor and Rad Armor which had basically opposite performance vs either group. This is only part of the picture though as that is just raw damage (and only 1 AT's mitigation of it), and even then this is just spit-balling SUPER hard since I am ignoring recharge/attack cycles, etc, since I was sort of laser focused on damage types. That also said, the ratios of damage are important to note as Council while seemingly only having a *small* portion more SL than Carnies have many more attacks with a SL element when it comes to defense. Since I stayed up in a rabbit hole doing this, I may not have accounted for that. But that's not what matters between the two, the bigger issue is their special abilities. Council have: Council 39.85 Special # per Group Knock 9.2 Acc Bonus 6 -Speed 4.75 -Rech 4.5 Disorient 3.6 Self Resists 3.6 Self Heals 2.8 -Res 1.75 Hold 1.3 Immobilize 1.3 Sleep 1.05 Carnies have: Carnies 81.77 Special # per Group -End 19 Exotic Resists 19 Disorient 8.83 Knock 5.3 SL Resists 4.83 -Def 4 Self +Def 3.5 Sleep 2.33 Hold 2.33 -Acc 2.33 -Dam 2.33 Phasing 1.83 Flight 1.83 Burns 1.33 Heal Allies 1 Immob 0.5 Summons 0.5 -Regen/Rec 0.5 -Rech 0.5 Their damage spread may be comparable in terms of theoretical proportions, but the share of special effects blows Council out of the water. In the meta sense that SL defense is easier to come by, on top of the plethora of nasty side effects that Carnies have I think it is safe to say that on the whole Carnies offer more challenges than Council at high level*. *Interesting note, Council change radically based on level bracket and I'd argue certain brackets like 30-35 are far superior than the lvl 50 council due to their makeup.

@Brutal Justice, the 45% defense soft-cap is not worth changing directly at this time. Not only is it far too drastic a change for the playerbase as it would require changing the ToHit mechanics entirely, but IIRC would not be possible without some jank for certain ATs getting certain modifiers based on your suggestion. That said, I get what you are trying to solve but this isn't the way to do it. The roles of Support and Control in particular are heavily affected by IO's due to the bonuses generally allowing you to become far more personally durable, which for many support sets greatly diminishes their ability to help a team in conventional means (healing gets devalued, +Def gets devalued aside from a buffer against -Def but that is weird, etc). It also lowers the need to lock down foes as much if they aren't gonna hurt too bad in the first place, let alone if you can just delete most enemies in the time it takes to apply controls. This leads to a good number of characters feeling like they are just being dragged along in a good number of teams, which isn't alleviated by trying to find other teams since the cycle continues for a number of sets that don't offer specific types of force multipliers. However, the solution to give these more relative value is not to widescale nerf most of the playerbase and mess with the most basic of base mechanics, mainly as that is treating symptoms and far more trouble than it's worth. Defense bonuses are sort of balanced around Def Debuffs existing, but by nature having a tiny chance to be hit in the first place it gets kind of counter-balanced + overwhelming offense can greatly mitigate the incoming hits in the first place. .... It's complicated. Taking away from players removes player choice and agency as they all just kinda get worse, its not like how in some games you can tackle certain challenges that are not the norm in order to get outside the norm benefits. Speaking of, a chunk of the balance talk about IO's that gets greatly overlooked is how they are obtained. It's easier than ever to get a hold of IO's even if playing "casually" (I'll define this as maybe like an hr a day or less) due to a bunch of factors, but in general it is relatively low effort to grab up materials or items straight up with minimal research and investment. In the before times, despite being a "haves vs have nots", there did exist a level of investment behind getting to these power levels that has been greatly diminished. This is out of necessity for sure, but I do feel it has been a source of power creep that has thrown off the ecosystem of multiple power sets in unforseen ways. I have half a mind to just open the floodgates as it were and make IO's just a thing that drop / you can buy from stores outside very rare/special ones as at that point it would be a massive base lvl power boost to the players that would in turn allow the devs to make more interesting enemies that don't feel as insurmountable. Superpowered characters fighting superpowered enemies sounds like fun to me! Nerfing characters wholesale though does not, and simply makes the game worse.