golstat2003

The thing is a lot of the changes you just mentioned were mainly NOT HC. Alot of that was the devs from live, Paragon Studios. And softcapping was happening during that time. I remember numerous discussions and arguments abut the game being poorly balanced and too easy even back then. This isn't new. EDIT: There used to be posts after posts of people ALSO arguing that Controllers, Defenders, Doms, support needed wholesale buffs. They didn't and they still don't today. There are a few sets or powers that need changes but nothing as radical as some are alluding to about Support in this thread. This is coming from someone who mostly plays support sets. (if I didn't make that clear before about what types of toons I play).

There have been multiple posts over the last two years pointing to the "good ol days". Not just in this thread. Like the game was somehow better balanced at some mystery point in time. It wasn't.

Oh I have no doubt we're talking about months of work. I think some folks in this thread and in the Suggestions forums need to temper their expectations greatly. The team we have isn't Paragon Studios. And this was before COVID was involved. With the expectations that things won't get back to normal worldwide till about 2022, I can't see us getting much released yearly for some time. All this talk by everyone is nice, but people need to keep it real. Now let's figure out how long it's taken us to even get to talking about Page 6 in this climate. HC committed to getting Page 6 out in 2020. I don't expect even that any times soon. Which is why I keep going back to the idea of targeted (and not wholesale) changes. EDIT: Also I would expect disclaimers on the new difficulty options telling folks exactly what they are getting into. Other games do this. The folks asking for those options I think already know what they'd likely be getting into, and expect to bring to the table. If you don't know what an all av, all elite boss missions would be like . . . you need to play the game more. Or try it in AE.

See this is why I find it funny where people long for the old days where they claimed things were better balanced. You exmaple and the large changes it lead to are exactly my point. The game has never been well balanced at any point. Huge changes (both global and targetted nerfs AND BUFFs, see Blasters) have come to try to force it towards that balance pretty much every year of the game being live.

We will need to agree to disagree. I'll leave it there.

I don't think you need a full scale rebalance of the game period. There simply isn't the man power for what folks are saying or asking for. There IS the manpower for smaller harder content and difficulty options, and very targetted buffs and nerfs, released in an agile fashion over many months.

That . . . would probably make it even more complex.

Yeah that suggestion would be problematic. Since there are different levels of +recharge dependig on the level of IOs. I mean level as in reguar IOs versus, purples, versus attuned. It wouldn't be simple swap. They would have to evaluate ecah of them carefully and make sure they don't intro any major bugs. That doesn't sound simple at all.

To be clear I'm fine with new difficulty options. I am not fine with making the base game harder. I've said this in various other suggestion threads over the past two years. I am fine with a buffs to some support sets that need it. I do not agree that Support classes needs as much extreme help as some in this thread are stating. I am also fine with nerfs where needed. I am not fine with extreme nerfs that make us "need" this or that. 8 random players should continue to be able to form up in any composition to get missions done. Especially radio missions. Needing more support sets in harder high level content is fine. (Radio missions of council are sure as s%$# not high level content lol). A re-balance around IOs isn't happening, we don't currently have the dev manpower for that. And I for one think it's better to spend dev time on new content, power-sets, new tfs, new iTrials, new incarnate powers, new costumes then wasting time on an IO balance that could take years to decades due to the side of the current team. Let's keep our expectations realistic. This isn't paragon studios from live. There I think I have a good summary of my position. Carry on. LOL

For reasons already stated in this thread balancing the game around IOs isn't realistic. Higher level content sure, a full on rebalance of the game around IOs . . . you wouldn't see any new content or anything else till 2060.

The game was never balanced in how it handled ATs. You're looking at it with rose colored glasses. There have been certain points where dominators, controllers and blasters were terrible to play. And the devs had always had to make changes to fix it. There was never this good ol'd days nerva of balance that folks keep referring to. It never existed as COH has never been all that balanced in the majority of it's time.

I want increased difficulty modes. Besides outliers like TW, I don't think there is much nerfing (or buffing, besides the few things I pointed out pages back) is needed. I like the difficulty of the base game where it is.

If they could have the AE missions have doors in different zones like regular missions that would be fun.

I would play the hell out of this mode. As I mentioned, I'm interested in high level play/content, not making the base game more difficult.

Grandville is where I go when I want to feel like I'm playing in a dystopian slightly depressing era. It fits in with Lord Reculse's theme for his organization. With that said I don't visit Grandville often, even after all the fixes to the memory leakage that used to happen there.

Pretty much where I am. I literally nowadays even with power leveling spend at most a week or less in that range. Yes, many folks don't have 50s, but I don't think they spend all that long in that range even if they don't have 50s. With altitis a thing I'd say more spend it in the PRE-30s.

Even if the problem is the vast majority of the game (I don't agree with that at all) there is no way a team this size of unpaid volunteers will be able to tackle even the 30-50 part of the game. It's simply not realistic. Well they could, if we're willing to wait for anything new until a decade or two from now.

Yeah I don't think they're going to be able to tackle the problem IOs bring to level 30+ content. (I actually don't consider that we can steam roll anything from 1-45 a problem). I think they're focus is going to be on the higher level areas. There is only so much dev time we have with such a small team. I don't see a team this size being able to tackle all of the level 1-50 game. It simply isn't realistic.

My 50s with IOs pretty much only do them when I want to relax. When I want to progress (aka get merits for the items that can actually improve my characters---aka I'm playing seriously) I do TFs and iTrials. I don't consider blazing through mission after mission of council as anything serious. Which is a great strength of this game. If I want to have a relaxing time I pop on radio missions for an hour or two. When I want to get serious I bump the difficulty all the way up and get on a high level ts, sf, itrial. I would hope the upcoming changes don't do anything to damage that possibility. When I'm doing raidos I literally couldn't care less what's on the team. Or who I'm playing with. Team leader wants to bring nothing but blasters sure, nothing but support classes sure. Mix of everything in between, sure. Either way I don't care since we can't fail a radio. You CAN fail ACTUAL high level content. EDIT: Even in the last week i've seen folks fail the BAF, which is the easiest of the iTrials. The later iTrials you most certainly can fail spectacularly also. The Underground Trial and the Reactor one (I forget the name--the one with Positron's Praetorian Doppolganger). I consider that and things like the ITF high level content. Not radio missions of council at level 50. LOL.

I think the issue here is that when you exemp down depending on what level your IOs are you lose alot of that power. I think that's why there is such a distinction of what is and isn't high level content.

Honestly I don't know what FF needs, was just pointing out one suggestion made. Yours seems pretty good. lol My FF toons (2) aren't played all that much as I don't like the look of most of the set's powers at all.

I think this was the point I was making. I don't consider a radio mission where 90% (unscientific research number here lol) are player blazing through council, to be high level missions.

Force Fields is one that comes to mind. There was a suggestion in the Suggestion forums to give their shields absorb and a few other things. That's fine. If you're going to tell me Cold Domination needs major help, I'm going to laugh in your face. LOL

Ah. Yeah I'm of the opinion that support sets are fine as is generally. They DON'T need any major nerfs or buffs. I think there are a FEW that might need some targetted help, but not to the level that some people were saying in this thread. AKA, Support sets in high level play in need of major help. They are not. I say this as someone who has multiple level 50 defenders, controllers, corrupters, dominators, etc. I play support sets at high level more than the non-support sets. MMs I would say is one group that could use some help though.

I don't think much buffs are needed at all actually for support sets. I think they are just fine in most content. A FEW need help like Force Fields or maybe Empahty in higher levels. But that's all I can think of. (Probably some help for MMs too). I was throwing a bone to BitCook (and others position) that SOME support sets need help.