Cobalt Arachne

He was also given some Halloween spirit empowerment to be worthy of a badge; He's at least 150% more spooky now! Beware! 😱

Hmmm, possible, but there would be less reason to do it there. Between Statesman and Miss Liberty I don't think the mission content actually changed at all? The old version of the Lord Recluse Strike Force is quite different from the version currently offered in-game. The LRSF had numerous nerfs over time, the Hero AV's levels were dropped several times, some Hero AV's were removed, and some were not replaced. The final map is also different between the two.

Before anyone worries about this, what's being referred to is a new badge that's being added in Page 3 for completing the original un-nerfed version of Lord Recluse's Strike Force that's being added to Ouroboros with Incarnates disabled for the 'old school challenge'.

There's a new reward category we're working on and there is one of these new rewards locked behind the newer difficulty in Page 3 (not a badge); We're aware of issues regarding meaningful reward diversity and we've got stuff being worked on. It won't appeal to everybody, but very little can that is able to be locked behind higher difficulty without it becoming something more casual players will feel forced to do. There are also a number of challenge badges that can only be done in Hard Mode. But badge collecting is by its nature 'do everything', and these don't grant anything players will feel compelled to obtain for progression either. Doing Hard Mode will reward a much higher merit count than doing it normally, but even considering that, it still won't approach the time/merits/ease/efficiency of just running Heather Townshend's first Dark Astoria arc at -1 on repeat for 20 reward merits per complete. There's little room to complain when the easiest current farming method for their time is a competitive option for far less effort. Getting a character to fully built in this game is currently extremely accessible no matter how you play.

There's stuff in the works. The player powers devs (of which I am not one) have some Mastermind AT adjustments in the shop; There were some planned for Page 3 but unfortunately ran into some wider system issues that need to be addressed before they can proceed and so had to be pushed back.

This is fair and something we always consider in our design, new content will never be locked behind any higher difficulty. People who enjoy the game casually, can continue to do so, exactly as they have before. The new settings are to give options to the people who want a more engaging endgame, enjoy using their characters at their strongest (without self-handicaps) to overcome meaningful challenges, and enjoy designed difficulty since there is very little content left that is truly conducive to that style of playing the game anymore. We want everyone to be able to play City of Heroes and enjoy it how they like, which includes people looking for a challenge just as much as it includes casual players, role-players, badge hunters, PvPers, etc.

I wouldn't say it's an 'easy version' of hard mode. All the hard mode versions activate the 'hard mode' exclusive powers on the enemies, which is where the core of the difficulty comes from. The primary difference between the three is that they will lock you into +2/x8, +3/x8, and +4/x8 respectively, regardless of team size and the overall enemy stat baseline increases with each level.

It's a real thing and is active right now; Just a weird easter egg though, essentially. There's a Hamidon tentacle in Nova Praetoria that sits hiding in the trees somewhere outside the sonic fence, it waits for 12 Seers and 100 PPD to be defeated within 10 minutes of the first being defeated and if you get them all in time, it pops out of the trees and flails around a bit for awhile. If the event is successful, it goes onto a 30 minute cooldown before returning to the stage where it waits for the defeats. If the event fails, and you don't get the defeats within 10 minutes, it resets back to the stage where it waits for the defeats and the 10 minutes start again after the first new defeat. These are all internal timers, there's no way to tell in-game. As far as I can tell, kills anywhere in the zone should count.

This is a good comparison; Hard Mode (at least on the highest level we created) will be very difficult to rush through. It's going to take a little longer and require more tactical approaches to pulls and that will conflict with a lot of common 'Go-Go-Go' playstyles that are commonly seen right now, where the only real metric for success is speed, because the content rarely is dangerous. It also means requiring more time to play the content if you do Hard Mode, since speed will get you killed. People can certainly play the new Strike Force going fast, but they're going to have a rough time thinking they can rush Hard Mode as easily. But those who do Hard Mode will walk away with a hefty amount of goodies for that time spent.

Hard mode enemies will have higher baselines stats, but nothing unfair and no absolutes. Nothing like big special damage types or auto-hits. That being said, in a state of the game where a Defender can soft cap S/L/E defense with four power choices and minimal slotting investment, a new baseline was needed so that enemies can actually threaten players and was a requirement, but there is some new nuance and specifics regarding that, it will make more sense when the content is available on Brainstorm. Keep in mind that enemies that cannot in any meaningful way threaten a team of players means control and support roles have absolutely no value. Enemies will be dangerous again, but playing poorly is the real killer. In testing the primary culprit of most deaths was the team splitting and aggroing too many mobs at once.

Ultimately, we wanted an alternative progression method that had the appeal of being extremely engaging. At the end of the day, nothing we add will come close to the speed and ease of running Heather Townshend's first Dark Astoria arc over and over and over for Empyrean Merits and Incarnate rolls, so we aimed for Hard Mode's added rewards to appeal to those who find it rewarding to fight for their rewards. If people want fast and easy (if extremely boring? lol) there are better progression options then any new content we could possibly add. Playing on Hard Mode is a big change in how you play the content, players who think it's going to just be more of the same that takes a little bit longer may find themselves surprised.

Despite it being called Hard Mode (the final name may yet change, but for discussion purposes that's where it's at right now) the focus was on active player engagement, universal role value (tank/damage/support/control), and feeling like you're contributing to the victory of your team no matter what you're playing. The goal wasn't to be brutal or punishing, but to bring back meaning to roles that currently had little/no value or purpose in the current difficulty endgame such as support and control. Playing a control or support AT will feel very rewarding again in Hard Mode. It does this organically as well, nothing silly like hard-requirements such as enemies that can only be held, etc... Enemies being held is desirable because they aren't hurting your team when held. We really tried to hone in on the basic core system designs for City of Heroes as a whole with our design approaches.

This is also extremely relevant, in a non-commercial server environment, the only thing Homecoming players pay with to play the game is their free time they spend on it. To that end, it's crucial we respect people's time investments and expand the variety of ways people can play the game without unnecessarily restricting them with things like time gates, long grinds, or other methods that are pretty uniformly found in commercial MMOs. If you want to play the brand new Strike Force on a lower level toon on SO's you'll be able to without any problems. But by the same degree, the super vets who've played this game for decades will have a fair and furious fight ahead of them if they are looking for that in the new Hard Mode options. We want everyone to play the new content, and play it in the way they enjoy.

We're hoping to mitigate that by having the content be very flexible and able to be enjoyed the way any player wants. Ultimately, I'm sorry if any players were expecting the difficulty ceiling (ceiling not floor) to stay the same forever. As we pioneer into new major content updates we are going to be taking Homecoming's balance and power level into consideration. Homecoming players have very accessible Very Rare IOs, Incarnate Powers, Enhancement Boosters... Our content design approach will be taking that into account as we design new challenges and ensuring that powerful players have sufficiently powerful challenges to test themselves against. That being said, we aren't taking away the option to do content at the level that's always been available, these are new options not replacements. Edit: We're very dedicated to ensuring casual players are never left behind, this won't ever be something that removes the ability to play any content.

It's a little different than the difficulty options we have currently... We're re-writing the entire challenge settings code to accommodate our future plans. For instance, things like 'Master of the Imperious Task Force' will be a singular toggle you just turn on from the challenge mode settings interface, and sets the 'no defeat' and 'no temporary powers' criteria automatically. There's also the new 'Hard Mode' difficulty toggle which is likewise selected from the Challenge Settings interface and greatly changes the content itself; Enemies will do different things, have different powers, require different tactics to succeed, etc. At the outset of Page 3, only the new Strike Force will have Hard Mode as it is not a blanket system, but something we hand-crafted. We'll be looking into expanding it to other content in the future, and adjusting based on reception and feedback. There will be three degrees of Hard Mode to choose from, each making things tougher and changing the content further. Of course, they come with more rewards the higher you go, things like earning Astral/Empyrean merits per AV defeat, Incarnate salvage rolls, or some badges that need mechanics you only can access in Hard Mode to earn (though you can select the lowest Hard Mode level for them). It should be hitting Brainstorm in the near future, I hope everyone will check it out when it does! 🙂 EDIT: Hard Mode is exclusive to level 50+ and is content balanced around players using max Incarnates and IOs. Though the new Strike Force that introduces this feature has a level range of 35-50, you will need to be level 50 to select Hard Mode, and it locks your difficulty settings into +2/+3/+4/x8 respectively.

New content and special difficulty options are coming that take all those Incarnate powers into account; In the not too distant future you will have the option to face enemies who are more than happy to stomp you into a fine paste even with your Incarnate powers and Level Shift. But as always, it'll be a choice, but those who endure the peril will get extra rewards for it.

This is correct, and also accurate to the archived game version. The defense was flagged as kStack and the mez was flagged as kReplace.

Just to be thorough, I went and pulled up one of the old archived versions of the game that was only ever touched by Paragon and looked at the power to make sure we didn't inadvertently make any numerical errors, and can confirm it's the exact same there as it is currently: +3% DEF (All but Psi) per ally and +3 magnitude protection once.

This was a bug fix in the last patch to rectify that it was temporarily disabled previously due to it being the primary suspect in a severe performance problem on the third mission of the Imperious Task Force. Later, the actual culprit was identified and fixed on that map, and it had nothing to due with Energized Shield (now Roman Armor), so the power was re-added and the group's difficulty restored to what it had always been for the entire duration of its existence on the live servers. The only thing done was the content being returned to the original difficulty. You can see the power in question, Energized Shield, in the archived Paragon Wiki: https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Cimeroran_Traitors The description on it is wrong of course, it should have had Phalanx Fighting's description, but it functions as intended.

The goal is organic inclusion; Content where bringing a Controller feels nice and you feel like you're helping your team win without it being 'These enemies cannot be defeated unless held'. We're working on finding suitable grey-tones that help accommodate vs. extremes that force hands. The goal is far more granular than 'make bad things desirable' and that has never been the goal; I don't work on player power balance, just content design, and things were designed with broad role value in mind, not necessarily with any kind of 'make bottom tier things better' mentality. Granted, I am sure some people will see anything that challenges the dominance of a meta they're comfortably sitting at the top of as exactly that. We can have 'support/control roles can contribute to a team in a worthwhile and rewarding way for players who enjoy those styles of gameplay' without it becoming a black/white issue. A space where the most valuable thing to bring might not be another Fire/Fire Blaster is healthy for the game as a whole.

We aren't changing the difficulty floors, and the new content has been tailored to fall into brackets depending on the experience you want to have, if anyone likes the way the game is right now, where they can play it without really thinking much, the option to do so will continue to exist.

Which is a fair concern! My design aim is not actually going for 'difficulty' as much as it's been content that 'every role feels like they're contributing to the win' while always keeping City of Heroes mantra of 'bring anybody who asks for an invite to the team' style at it's heart. Inclusivity is at the core of all my decisions, and part of that element has to come from the difficulty in order for it truly matter. I don't think there's any denying that in many cases right now the 'endgame' level content leaves very little to do for control and support roles, and those types of players often feel like they're contributing very little to their team's success when everyone has inherent defense caps and everything dies so quickly that controlling it serves little purpose when you could've brought a damage AT instead and helped more. The benchmark to achieve is a level of challenge players can choose for themselves that makes every member of the team's contributions worthwhile to some extent no matter what role you bring, and right now some roles are extremely unrewarding to play. What does support bring to the team when everyone on the team is already defense capped and will take no damage anyway? What value does a controller bring when the entire mob is dead in half a rotation and their control powers haven't even recharged before the mob after is nearly dead too? These roles don't contribute enough to the success of their team right now, and that hurts how rewarding they feel. Part of that involves enemies that are actually threatening and hardy enough that control/support players feel like they're contributing to the success of their team just as much as the blasters are because the team needs support to help survive and the team is glad the held enemies aren't hurting them. Edit: To make this on-topic; 😛 Many powers that are 'useless' right now are only so because the elements that they are very helpful against have been made nearly extinct at max level by how powerful players have become.

I've run Linea's arcs with them 1-on-1 and discussed it with them in voice chat. I'm very impressed with what they've managed to create within the limitations of the AE, but we both agree their method of difficulty isn't ideal for the mainstream content, but I'm very glad their content exists to fulfill that niche for the players who want that style of difficulty.

Fair enough! You're free to quote me on that when Page 3 goes to testing; I've been very explicit to ensure existing content's difficulty perimeters don't get impacted. Insofar as my new difficulty balancing work is concerned. That being said, what I said doesn't apply strictly regarding brand new content or future self-contained new difficulty modes of existing content that might be created down the road.

I've been roused from my den of evil. 👀 People who like a challenge and feel that the current the endgame has become too homogenized are in for lots of good news and things that will kill their Tier 4 incarnates and 50+5 IO builds. That being said people who like things right where they are now shouldn't be worried either. We're dedicated to ensuring that everyone can enjoy this game the way they like moving forward, there will be options to move the difficulty ceiling up for those who are looking for it, but the floor where it exists isn't moving.