golstat2003

That . . . sounds like setting something like that up would be a A LOT of work for any team of volunteers . . .

Alot of the old school things felt ridiculous even back then. I'm glad technology has moved on, cause if a lot of those "Features" had not been fixed I don't think the game would have lasted as long as it did live. Not with more modern mmos constantly niping at the game's heals.

Interesting. I've never heard that they may have been supposed to call for help. Actually that might be a long standing bug that was never fixed. I do remember them running all over a map even if they were the last mob. So not sure.

I literally shuddered in pain reading all of those "old school" things you mentioned.

My experience with it in AOE powers actually is "not very well at all". Nowhere near Seeds of Confusion (I have more than one plant dom and can compare). Which is a shame.

Or more like it was never improved from where the game started back in the day. lack of manpower and greater priorities and all that jazz.

Glad we finally agree on something. 🙂 EDIT: To be clear it NOT at all a fuck up to say the game is maintaining it's balance point around SOs.

With that said adding a setting of higher difficulty to remove minions and LTs probably (there's that word again lol) wouldn't be all that difficult. Or maybe even a mode of only AVs. (Call it nightmare mode).

What's the alternative? We not having any new content for several years while they re-balance the game around IOs? Making Set IOs available in stores as opposed to the market? I don't think it's realistic for a dev team of this size. I'm sorry but that's just a fact some folks are going to have to accept at this point.

This. This right here.

To be clear I'm not against nerfs (or targetted buffs) as long as as any 8 players can still steam roll the game. Things like more debuffs for mobs, more bosses in missions and many of the interesting things suggested over the years, though should only appear in the higher level difficulty that teams CHOOSE to undertake

I think from what I remember they had the future IO system (at least on paper) in mind while making some of those changes ED-related changes. But unfortunately there was no manpower to get it out anywhere near at the same time as ED.

Let's keep in mind that the devs have said more than once that the base game is still going to balanced around SOs as we discuss.

The comprise was the difficulty slider that the devs implemented for those that wanted harder difficulties. New difficulty options can be tacked on there. It's entitled to say the difficulty of the BASE game should change for everyone, whether they want it or not.

We'll have to agree to disagree. The game was always silly easy. I don't think anything has changed much. Teams were steam rolling during the SO age also. Saying I like the current base difficulty of the game as is is not a poor argument. It's a fact that the difficulty slider is built to give folks who want a higher challenge just that. The base difficulty is just that, the base. I find saying the game should be made difficult for everyone whether they want it or not to be an inherently selfish argument.

I doubt the balance pass will make it feel like the old days. I think it will just be balanced buffs and nerfs. Nothing to the scale people expect. This team simply doesn't have the manpower. I would advise everyone to temper their expectations.

Yes. You want a it to change from the easy mode it's currently in and the direction it's heading in. I'm saying that's fine, but do it as optional difficulty settings. You are asking for it to change from being easy mode, so you're asking for a change. I'm not sure what's hard to follow.

Expanding these would be a good idea.

As mentioned as a difficulty option to add them back, this would be interesting. I'd prefer they stay out of the base game.

No. Keep the base game AS IS. Give others who want it more difficult higher difficulty options. The ones asking for higher difficulty are the ones asking for a change. Let them be the ones to have the option to select the higher difficulty. As the devs have said in other threads it's completely valid to think that the base game should be left as is. Especially since the HC devs intend to keep SOs the main balance point.

It's just not going to happen. Not unless you are willing to take the hit of no new content for years. I'm not.

Depends on which trial.

Pretty much this.

I don't need the game to be easier or harder. It's fine to me as is.

More specifically if someone is using SOs only I would not expect them to find iTrials easy. At all. And the HC devs have already said in threads before this one that the main balance point of the game isn't changing from SOs. (Hence all the work on easily updating SOs that they have in beta). If that has changed they can let us know . . . but their recent work tells me that hasn't at all changed.