Galaxy Brain

I'd say there should also be a way to combat it if you fall into one of those categories via GM discussion. You're gonna be unable to play? You can submit a request to reserve the account perhaps that would be viewed by a person. Before folks say that would be abused: 1. The vast majority of inactive accounts are people who would not be active in this way 2. People who would do this just to troll are doing some very advanced trolling if they go in to reserve a ton of names, then say to keep it active... which by them going in to make names gives them that (x amount of time) buffer lol

Side note: should Controller and Dominator versions of control sets be the same to begin with?

Agreed @Six Sixand @Solarverse, though I still think it's probably fair to start looking at accounts where there's been NO activity.

That's just not true! A set like Super Strength has a bunch of damage + mez effects to boot. This very much depends on the mob. If they had 0 or even Negative mez protections this would be a non issue. It is an on-off switch where at a certain lvl of self or group defense it becomes unnecessary, and its often why those mez powers in attack sets are skipped as the AT's that get them often: A) Have enough personal defense to not need it B) Have enough raw damage that they can just defeat mobs in the time it takes to animate the mez C) Have complimentary buff/debuff to emulate the above Outside of specific mez powers that help with actual crowd-control, the utility of Mezzing is kind of at the wayside in today's game. Giving it some use like with Hami in a small scale could open up some creative encounters. Exactly this! I'm not suggesting "this enemy is invincible until you stun it"; I'm suggesting "this enemy takes 50% less damage unless you stun it, then it takes 50% more damage". You can still muscle through them, but the more effective method would be to mez first, similar to other games where you have enemies that turtle up unless you do something first.

Thats what I get for reading when I first wake up lol. I just saw the list of incarnates at the start!

Basically every set sans fire blast has a dedicated mez power, and tons of powers have mez as a side effect. The opposite is sort of true now where mez is very undervalued.

Well, the test had incarnates, full use of energy melee and I would assume pool powers/epics and set bonuses? This test, and others, are meant to show sort of the skeleton to work with I suppose. Shield is very similar to Invuln but you trade some defense for offense. If you patch up the defenses to match then you're gonna have a great time. I used clicks as much as possible with setsbthat had them. Certain ones (dull pains, big heals) i waited until below 50% or more, but with Elec and Fire i tried to shoot off their heals as soon as I lost 30%ish. It's just that unfortunately by itself it wasn't enough.

@ForeverLaxx, simple: certain enemies have a toggle power that grants decent regen and resistance to all damage that gets shut off when mezzed. We even have an alternate LT class called Sniper that is super super underused, and could possibly be tweaked.

Thanks for the feedback Pizzamurai! Yes, this test does slice out a lot of stuff but it is designed to in order to isolate the armor itself as much as possible to try and eyeball which primary offers what level of "base" protections. Including other factors like secondary combos, particular pool or epic powers, and so on would multiply the time it takes to go through everything by a huge factor, and thats just too much for one guy lol. What stands out to me though through this is that a number of armor sets appear to be rather self sufficient vs "basic" content. Even cranking it up to x4/x8 on just SO's and standing there a few were able to achieve immortality! A few performed admirably compared to that, and a few didn't really stand up vs the incoming damage. What could be learned from this is exactly what you said though where different aspects of tanking patch holes in certain sets. However, from what I can see here when factoring in secondaries: how much would it *relatively* matter? Take Invuln vs Fiery Aura. Invulnerability proved it could stand there at max difficulty with basic slotting + some common pool powers and be immortal. Fiery Aura far from that with a low survival average without use of other tools. If both sets have access to the same tools to supplement them, outside of an all-psy map, Invuln would still be wayyyyyy tougher by a similar magnitude, no?

This comes up often, and I think basing it off account activity then character level is most fair. If the account itself is inactive for 90/120 days, characters under lvl 10 get unlocked for naming rights. Another ~40 days, under lvl 20, and so on. If you log in and play any character though it re-locks all your names. Even lvl 1 Wolverp33n that has been offline 400 days as long as you are actively playing. Going after truly inactive *accounts* I think is fair as 3 months + extra time per level bracket is plenty to play at all. It shouldn't even wipe names as @Player2 mentions, which gives good odds they'd still be there.

It should be possible to modify the base game by adding new enemies to existing factions at the least. For example, IIRC it should be possible to add Zoombies to vahz missions if they really wanted to. Something as simple as that can shake things up and spice up old content. Its not just the "moar harder" crowd either, I keep going back to the example of enemies where it'd be more efficient to use a mez on first to defeat them as something that would be harder to deal with as it requires a different line of thinking, but it also opens up opportunities for Control powers and AT's to shine brighter when they currently aren't. A lot of people PL to 50 after having already gone through a ton of content on (multiple) characters and just want to play with all their tools available asap. Refurbishing the mountain of old, dusty, not as popular content would get people playing those again in some capacity IMO. On this note, adding new mobs to existing groups already has precedence (Super Stunners!) and people were pretty quick to adapt. In my mind, spicing up older groups that have become too routine here and there (like Warriors getting Shield powers), and likewise possibly editing annoying groups a bit + making them a bit more worth it (Lets say Carnies get a bit less intangible.... or hell, make it turn off if you CC them or make it cost endurance for them + they give more Inf for defeats or something compared to [Council]) would help even things out a bit and encourage different content. One of my goals is to join a pug and really do whatever, not have everyone look at carnies and just go "ugh no". Again, part of the issue is looking at why simply being a tankmage is the best bet. That is because hitting hard and taking less hits/damage is the solution to 99.99% of problems CoH throws at you. If there were different problems with different solutions, you'd see a lot of different builds and strategies. By definition, that'd be more difficult though.

Also @Black Zot, but in my post on the last page I address this directly. Its not a matter of throwing "moar numbers" at players, but changing behaviors that would be more difficult. In my examples, I offered up a time-attack setting for Oro missions where, like Mayhem Missions, you are on a strict clock and you can add time back to it via objectives. That would inherently be more difficult than a normal mission we see now. Or adding in unique side effects to Players and Enemies directly sort of like you can add on in Rogue-Likes. No need to get all Dark Souls-y. Another example would be offering up more unique enemy types that cannot be traditionally "brute forced". I went into more details, but say there is an enemy that is really resilient unless you CC them. That would immediately put more thought into the game where CC powers would have an actual offensive utility as certain enemies go down way faster if you lock them down instead of just attacking. Stuff like that could be implemented.

Tbf, those folks are the type to care and engage in such a survey as they are more engaged with the game by going into the communities. @GM ColdSpark, is there any way to get a bigger poll out there out of curiosity?

Double post, but I shared that poll on Reddit and Discord too IIRC so its not *just* forumites. Also looking at it again, 25% said "Just Right", and then: 30% a smidge easy ~14% combined for conditionally easy 17% for too easy in general A combined 61% erred on "easier" to different degrees.

Ok, I've made a few threads on this: Consolidated Difficulty Thread: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/14177-consolidated-coh-difficulty-thread-includes-poll/ Difficulty in CoH: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17103-difficulty-in-coh-community-discussion/ Both of these threads try to consolidate the opinions and options that have been brought up among the players. The two standout opinions have been that most would play difficult content if it were an optional mode, and most would prefer difficulty come from new (advanced) enemy types. Most also felt the overall difficulty leaned on the easier side but is *almost* perfect. New Mish+: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17526-new-mish/ Expanding on an idea from the Difficulty in CoH thread, this goes into the "new Game+" trope of recycling old mission content with new settings similar to Ouroboros settings, but with more perks and usability. Meta Tweaks: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/20349-meta-tweaks/ Lastly, this thread dives into some of the "meta" issues with CoH that could be blamed for the current game difficulty. My Thoughts: So, I get why this is a "VS" but ideally you could kill 2 birds with one stone. There is plenty of content in the game that is currently gathering dust for various reasons that "new" content would further push into the dusty attic. Conversely, that old content tends to be tedious with the same strategy being used mission to mission where the same mechanics are used to steamroll. Newer content has introduced new enemy types that can pose a threat, new set pieces, and new mechanics that require different strategy than the tried and true tank N spank. What may give the most bang for the least buck is to go over old content and refurbish it with the new bells and whistles we have available, as well as introduce new settings that can help out those with the itch for something harder. Brand New vs Refurbished: To expand on this some more, I think dev time may be best used on the existing content that is so often overlooked. We already have a great example of this working with the Positron Task Force being redone (albeit on live), with that facelift making it one of the most popular in the game. Doing the same with other task forces or whole story arcs would in theory be a LOT less work than coming up with 100% brand new content. I bet there are TONS of arcs alone that have not been touched compared to the daily ITF's, Peregrine Missions and the like (another example with the Portal Corps revamps!). If we are going by the cost of dev time based on the notion of the A or B choice here, I think it makes more sense to freshen up old content to make it worthwhile would be the most economic and allow us to use more of what we have in less time. Brand New Content is of course awesome as it's new! We can still add new elements to old content though. For instance, imagine a CoT arc that gets refurbished and some new magical interactable elements are added for this arc only or a select few missions that change up gameplay with zany effects. That'd be cool and fresh without needing to make an entirely new arc! Changing up some assets like a mission with the Warriors now having Shield Defense lieutenants with Phalanx Fighting + Grant Cover, etc, etc. This is me talking out my butt, but I would reckon that you could probably refurbish 2 arcs in the time it takes to make a brand new one. This goes double for zones where you could say have Boomtown revamped with existing content that uses it given a fresh coat, though it may be worth totally giving those zones new missions too depending. "Hard Mode" or "Advanced Mode" also gives you new content: Related directly to the New Mish+ idea, going back through existing content but with various tweaks can let you use existing content indefinitely. We already actually have this in place with the challenge settings found in Oro, but until now there haven't been many reasons to actually use them. IIRC, the tech to tweak whole arcs exist with: 3 different time limits 4 different defeat limits 4 different power limits The ability to debuff players and buff enemies, as well as disable Enhancements/Inspirations These could in theory be expanded for more specifics, such as: Stricter time limits / really fast time limits with the ability to add more time back to the clock with certain goals (per boss kill, per objective completed) Different kinds of power limits (randomly disable a few powers, go nuts!) Mix up the effects placed on enemies and players: Players under constant DoT Players have a recharge debuff Enemies under constant HoT Enemies spawn with special bosses / EBs Etc toss in an XP, Inf, or even Merit Multiplier per setting tweaked and you got yourself something interesting! As for more incentive to use this.... With Ouroboros... lets actually be "Menders"! : Something many games have now is sort of a "Random Challenge of the day" type of mission mode where you are sent to complete a task with various conditions, such as the ones highlighted above. The in-game version for Homecoming could be "Mender Tasks". The timeline has been corrupted by an unknown force that drastically changed the events of the past! Heroes and Villains acting in strange ways with different powers, new items out of time, and more are threating the very timeline! It's up to you as a Mender to tackle these challenges and mend the timeline before it's too late! Mender Tasks, much like the weekly task force target, would be select missions or arcs that have Randomly Generated / specifically set challenges placed upon them that rotate out every so often that can be tackled separate from normal Flashback missions and offer special rewards in exchange for the increased difficulty. These corrupt timeline tasks could have various settings: Light Mend: Enemies buffed, players under a time limit Normal Mend: Randomly pick X number of challenge settings Difficult Mend: Players under DoT and a strict countdown of X minutes. Healing and regen are disabled, but attacking enemies and completing objectives will restore HP and time on the clock. Any combo of these could work, but the options for scaling Challenges I feel would be a must. Like with revamping old content, adding challenge modes via existing Oro tools could add a ton of replay value to old content especially with rotating Task targets to encourage cycling through. How difficulty can actually bring balance : Tying some more things together, I'm going to spit a hot take and say a lot of the balance issues in the game are partially due to how the game is a bit easy. This is more in regards to the "big picture" balance such as whole playstyles being not up to snuff, but in general there is a lot of strategy and game knowledge that just becomes irrelevant due to the ability to just barge into encounters freely. Lets compare this to a fighting game, bare with me here haha. In fighters, you usually have this rock paper scissors: Attacks get beat by Block Block gets beat by Grabs Grabs get beat by Attacks Add in movement, and you get a ton of complexity off that basic structure! In CoH, you could compare it as: Attacks are.... well attack powers lol Block = defenses, armor toggles and the like. These beat Attacks as they mitigate damage Grab = Control powers, which shut off toggles and restrict options. Enemies rarely if ever get the ability to "Block", making them only have Attack/Grab. Players get tons of "Block", and with overwhelming attack power they can just blitz through enemies without having to account for different scenarios. This ends up with a meta where just being a High damage/high survival is the best bet, and anything that doesn't really fit that mold isn't up to snuff. This hurts Control archetypes a good bit too as there is no reason to "Grab" enemies if they never block, at least compared to "Attack", same with sets that rely overly on healing. Introducing new enemy types or scenarios where just raw damage is not always the best solution would be objectively harder, but could also open up avenues for a lot more variety. Take for example, suddenly we see enemies with Yellow HP bars. These enemies show up randomly and have very high damage resistance that is special to them, not related to "actual" resists (like the purple patch), but have Negative Mez Protection. If these enemies are mezzed, their armor shuts down and they instead become very easy to defeat! The presence of such an enemy would not only immediately give Control AT's more value, but it would also give a bunch of previously skippable powers value too such as the odd ST stuns in blast sets or the like. While you could of course barrage these enemies down with raw power (they won't be invulnerable), it is much better to try a different approach vs just these guys. We have slight examples of this already with things like Tsoo and CoT mobs that have Buff/Debuff auras where the best bet is to lock them down before proceeding, well until you get a ton of Acc bonuses. Another odd example, perhaps there are more environmental hazards at play that cannot be defended against with conventional means. Suddenly, healing is more welcome and if we wanna get fancy, sets like Force Field could be given special defenses vs these factors. I could go on, but these are just my thoughts on how the "Meta" of CoH ends up shaping a lot of how certain ATs or Sets are used, not even from a number crunching-min/max perspective either but from just how the game works. If you really only test offense vs defense then other 'answers' don't get as much value. By adding "difficulty" via challenging the player's choices at all times you can actually buff certain playstyles tremendously as they now have roles to play and gaps to fill in content where they didn't necessarily before. Putting it together: Wrapping this up, I highly recommend checking out the threads above for more details but it seems the consensus there is that the game leans towards the easy side and that optional difficulty would be welcomed, specifically with different enemy types to combat. My suggestions here should address those using existing mechanics via Mender Tasks, as well putting new uses on existing combat abilities via new enemies with varied strengths and weaknesses that challenge player awareness and shake up the standard composition. Likewise, I feel that if we are trying to be economic we can revamp old arcs with these new enemy types / a bit of polish to get the most bang out of dev time and to get players into the old stuff again. -Galaxy Brain

The double tap in theory should be super rare, you just notice when it happens due to the rarity. I think for everything else though, scaling resists starting way earlier + some sustain (regen?) In the set would be really nice to round it out.

One thing I'd like is for the scaling res to kick in much sooner.

A fixed mercs would be a new set 😄

I like this idea a lot, similar to Ninja's Smoke Flash, that works by actually granting a (temp) power to the ninjas to use and activate their buff. Doing the same with the mercs to command them to launch grenades would be fun.

The particle effects could have been changed to make it look the part, but honestly it looked to be a great change for the set that was not overly strong.

The damage type distribution does end up being about what I posted in that chart.... but in reality when it comes to S/L attacks it's more like 80% SL damage and everything else is crammed in the last 20% due to multi-type attacks generally having a S or L component and SL resists and Defenses almost always being paired.

The main reason for that is those bonuses are not unique to Regen. A sturdier / more offensive armor could in theory get the same slotted bonuses and then when you compare to regen the points remain.

Making Ice have the best AoE hold would be very thematic, whichever route that takes! As for the other examples though, I think you and I actually agree though with your suggestions. To take another ice set into consideration, I feel Ice Melee is a perfect example of a great set that is on the same field as its peers, but just playing a different position. It has really nice perks, and trades some raw output for great safety but still has the might to tackle encounters efficiently. That would be the same as speeding up AR and KM, allowing them to stay unique but also just do what they do better. A set doesn't have to become OP in order to be competitive, it just has to be allowed to fill its niche effectively.

Thats just the way it is, utilizing it as it is should be it's own reward 😉 On a more serious note, I agree that not everything should be 1:1 equal, but putting everything at least in the same field of play is a very healthy goal. As it stands, Ice Control has multiple aspects that keep it out of the same field as other control sets, much like how Assault Rifle or Kinetic Melee have multiple issues that bring them down compared to other attack sets. If its just one dud power that you can work with, by all means work with it. But when it comes to multiple powers and aspects of the set it can become a chore.

Regen def should have scaling regen as mentioned in the Bopper Post though, I feel that is a given. As for "Exotic" debuff resists, I feel regen is "exotic" as is and that fits right in. Its the only armor set that is dependent entirely on clicks and healing for survival with no offensive edge or static defenses. Adding in the theme of "you heal so fast that ailments dont matter" such as being slowed down, etc, makes sense to me.