Coyotedancer

The design direction really does seem to be "Yeah, these are just little pool powers, so *of course* they're Not All That", doesn't it? I was a little reluctant to just come out and put it like that, but... well, the overall trend looks like it looks.

My player-character Oranbegans are not down with this. 🤣

No one has granted you the authority to squash other players' concerns, dude.... And there *are* obviously some people who are concerned by this change. Their opinions are as much a part of this discussion as yours, rather you agree with them or not. Those concerns are why we need to be pretty careful about testing the revamp with everything and the kitchen sink... high-power, low-power and the whole nine yards. Personally, I can see why the people who just want some mindless smash-fodder are unhappy. As I said, even at +1 there's a notable difference in difficulty with these new mobs. It's not more than either of us are comfortable with at that level, but I can still see where they're coming from. Maybe you can't... but hey, we don't all have to agree. What we don't get to do is tell other people, essentially, that their Objections (rather opinions or concerns-) are invalid just because we don't like them. Judge Joe can take that mallet and shove it up his nose. 😝

Sorry for the double post here, but I just got kicked off of Brainstorm by the server shutting down, so I may as well talk about what I've found out so far this afternoon from running my lvl 45 Brute around in New Council missions... Running at his usual +1x4 difficulty, they're definitely no slouches. Like the revamped Circle I sent him after yesterday, they're not impossible for a Brute to handle, but they definitely hit him harder than the Live version, and two groups at a time can turn inro an absolute disaster faster than you can say "three guys rezzing and a big, snarly warwolf". On anything squishier than a Brute, I'd have to turn down the numbers, I suspect. Anyway, they're in rough-but-not-impossible territory for a not-finished/mostly-SO sub-50 soloing melee.

Running with my lvl 45, mostly-SOed Brute at his usual live-version "cruising speed" difficulty of +1x4, I didn't have too much of a problem with these goons.... UNTIL I hit a group at the end of a mission that included both a 'typical spawn' Death Mage and a named boss who ALSO happened to be a Death Mage. As I expected might happen, that group plus a layered dose of double Tar Patch just flattened him. I haven't run into a double Earthquake situation with him yet. Overall, just from what I've seen so far, these guys actually can be pretty hard on an unfinished under-50. They weren't impossible by any means... at least not on a Brute... but there was a fair difference between them and the current Live version, even at +1. And I *still* say that Double Tar Patches SHOULD NOT BE A THING. Double Earthquakes likewise. If mid-level Spectral Lords and Earth Thorns don't get to double up their Quicksand and Darkest auras, then these yahoos shouldn't get to double up their F--- You effects, either. And yeah, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see similar changes made to the Incarnate Circle goons in DA in Page 8. As it stands on test now, they're much less nasty than their comrades in PI and Grandville.

Good! I've done the last few runs with a lvl 45 Brute who's mostly on SOs, too. We just need to get more people out there checking them with characters like that instead of focusing exclusively on high-end finished 50s.

Sure they can... AT LEVEL 50. At the sub-50 levels where these mobs start to show up? Not so much. That's the point of needing to test them with more than just our over-engineered Incarnate Badasses and smash-teams. Don't assume finished characters are the only ones who have to deal with these guys. It's tempting to design for the high end and forget everything else. I'd prefer we didn't make that oversight while we're trying things out.

Just another reminder of something that's way too easy to forget... THESE CHANGES ARE *NOT* JUST LEVEL 50 CONTENT These new mobs are going to start showing up in any Council missions a character takes in their level range, which starts well before level 50 and is in no way limited to Radio missions. Non-Incarnates will be seeing them on a regular basis. They're not limited only to what smash-fest steam-roller teams will encounter. The new Circle likewise. Don't get so wound up in what smash-teams are doing that you lose sight of everything else. They aren't all we have to consider when asking "Are these changes generally fine, or are they potentially over-compensating for one high end situation to a point that's troublesome for everything else?" Yes. A non-50 can turn down the difficulty. But is that actually enough to make them manageable? Is it reasonable to tell a soloing 46 on SOs and a few procs that they're stuck at.... say. +0x1 with no bosses? Maybe? That's something worth asking.

That brute of mine, who's only had part of what will be his final build done? He's mostly running on SOs. 😜

They toned down the autohit damage for pets quite a bit in the last update. That helps our MMs out a lot.

True that, but I'm one of those weirdos who prefers running with a "real" character. It's not entirely rational, but it's a preference.

As I said over in the Council Revamp thread, most of us seem to have been testing with teams anchored by 50's or solo with our finished, Incarnate characters.... We really *REALLY* do need to come at these guys with some lower-level, unfinished characters to see how they handle at less-than-optimal power points. Players are going to start running into these goons well before the point of being at their ultimate prime, remember. I only have one "unfinished", non-50 character in the right level range to try that with (a level 45 Psi/Shield Brute with a partial set build-), but I went ahead and moved him over to beta last night. I'll be throwing him at these goons and the new Council this afternoon. He doesn't run at +4x8 on Live yet, so I have a feeling that they're going to feel pretty brutal, if not just completely outright overpowered, with him even on modest difficulty. Especially if he hits one of those double-Death or double-Ruin groups.

Yep. That's my understanding as well... I ran six of my assorted-secondary, various-levels-of-defense Stalkers through the same +4x1 DA mission on live and on beta v1 yesterday, collected their Combat logs and tossed them over to Player-1. Hopefully that can help sort things out.

That most of us (Me included, here- 😅) have only been testing these guys and the new Circle either with teams anchored by 50's, or with our 50/50+ characters solo, is a good point... We need to try them out with more non-50 and non-finished characters. We know our stronger characters can handle them, but these things are going to show up "in the wild" well before everyone gets to that point. I'm a "serial alt-ist". I finish one character completely before I move on to the next one, so I don't have a collection of unfinished non-50s in my crew to throw at the new goons, but I've moved the one that I *do* have (a level 45 Psi/Shield Brute with a partially put together IO set build) to the beta server. My plan for this afternoon is to run him against both these Council guys and the new Circle, just to see how he holds up. He doesn't run at +4/x8 solo at this point in his life in the live game, so he's definitely not in "Highpower McBadass"-territory yet. He'll be a fair test of what they're like for a soloing non-50 Joe Average, I think.

The Bonfire adjustment is definitely better, at least on a Mastermind. I actually saw a few more of my x6-sized spawns bouncing this time around, and some of them even landed on their bums multiple times. It's a bit more helpful as a "runaway-stopper" now.

The new beta build is a definite improvement as far as New Council vs Masterminds is concerned... I ran Amtes and the monstrosities through a few groups and lost only one of the little guys this time. This actually felt fair for her.

Could be. I do spend a fair bit of time on the sketchy side of the game.

Huh. I thought Malta were more common than that... I guess you can tell how often I do PI radios. 🤣 How about Arachnos? Do they show up?

We've always got the Freaks... Or Malta, I guess, if you have a way to gib the Sappers.

The revamped Circle are quite a bit tougher to handle than the DA Incarnate version. It's not even much of a contest.

I still say that the Ruin and Death Mages need to be set to spawndef 1... Or their patches need to be one-at-a-time. The stacked Tar Patch or stacked Earthquake feels like too much, even if a high-end Incarnate build can still take it. We *do* need to remember that not everyone who's going to run into these guys is a finished, level 50+, fully kitted-out Incarnate character. These guys are going to be showing up in any higher-level Circle content... Not just murderball PI radio missions.

KM's Burst getting the Crit out of Hide was an intentional design choice the old devs made. I was the one who brought that up in the discussion when they were considering removing it, since I'd been in the original closed beta group that tested it, and remembered it being mentioned (and explained-) then. The phrase "consistency to the point of homogeny" does come to mind sometimes when these 'fix passes' happen.... But I don't think they're coming from a bad place as far as intentions are concerned. They just lose the proverbial forest while they're surveying all the trees.

That's a lake in Salamanca... 🤣 That said, I'd look towards the Shard zones as potential co-op areas, myself. They're huge, gorgeous and ridiculously under-developed. There's a lot of potential there.

As old as this machine and its video card are, I wouldn't bet on that one. I'm running in the stone age over here. 🤣 I'll try out OBS this afternoon.

I'll check it out... Though in general, I don't do the YouTube thing.