Lockpick

Sure, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Have at it. I was just expressing my opinion that your suggestions would adversely affect those that feel the game is fine as is. I'm not sure why you think it is not civil for me to express my opinion, but it is okay for you to express your opinion. Sure, I am just stating my opinion as well. I didn't want to create 3 posts responding to 3 different posters, so I combined them into one post. I think the point is simple. There is a subset of people in this thread that think the game is to easy and a subset that thinks it is fine. Everyone is going to have different opinions. I think it is a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black to state I am being repetitious when I am responding to your repetitive posts stating the game is to easy. Sure, I have stated multiple times in this thread that I think the game is fine as is. I have also proposed solutions multiple times that would not negatively others that think the game is fine as is. I haven't responded since Sunday to this thread because I had basically said all I wanted to say. However, with the game is to easy crowd continuing to state the game is to easy I felt the need to again offer my opinion that I don't think the game is to easy. After all this thread is 54 pages now and I doubt new readers are going to read the entire thread. They may only read the last few pages and may get the impression that a majority believes the game is to easy. I am expressing my opinion again as a counter. Why is it " petty and argumentative" when I repeat that I don't think the game is to easy, but it is not petty and argumentative when you and others continue to state that the game is to easy?

That is your opinion. My opinion is the overall game difficulty is fine as is. So, you tried a buffed ITF and it was "much more difficult". Hmm, that sounds very similar to some of the suggestions people have made in this thread that if players believe the game is to easy they should use the in game mechanics to bolster their play experience to make it more challenging. I'm not sure why you would want to increase the base difficulty though because that would negatively affect all the players that think the game difficulty is fine as is. All of your suggestions have one thing in common: they negatively affect players that think the game difficulty is fine as is. It would be nice if people could come up with suggestions that solve their concerns without negatively impacting others that think the game is fine as is, but it looks to me that most of these players that think the game is to easy are only concerned about their needs / wants and could care less about the impact to the wider community. There is a word for that type of mentality, but I can't quite think of it right now... That is your opinion. My opinion is the overall game difficulty is fine as is.

I haven't dismissed it as a partial option. I think balancing makes sense if you have outliers, but I think this game for the most part is fine as is. My point is that when you balance you are always going to have some happy people and you will make some unhappy. Why not look at options that might make everyone happy first? On another note, it is incredibly insulting for you to suggest I leave because I am making suggestions that I think are for the betterment of the game. Why would I leave? I am incredibly happy with the game as is and have spent a ton of time playing here. I am not the one calling for wholesale changes that are going to affect everyone. When I want an easy experience I can have it, when I want a challenging experience I can have it, I can solo when I want, and I can team when I want. IMO this is the best MMO ever because I can play how I want when I want. My suggestions have no cons that I can see and provides new content for everyone. It seems to me like it should be a win for everyone where wholesale balancing is going to result in some winners and some losers. Like I said above I play with high end builds and I don't think the game is to easy. I'm not looking for another job. I want my game experience to be enjoyable. If I want to do something challenging I can find challenging things to do. Maybe you are just a better gamer than me. All my 50s have high end builds and on some of them I can do +4/8 if I am careful and some I can't and I am fine with that. It sounds like you have a concern with the mechanics then and not the content or the mechanics make the content trivial in your mind. I don't suppose my suggestion would help with that then. You would have to change some fundamental mechanics of the game I guess.

My solution revolves around the players creating the hard mode content, not the devs. I don't see how that is a bad option. The problem with MMOs is that no MMO can create enough content to keep the player base happy. Here, with some tweaks, we could have all the content we could ever play with the appropriate rewards. Of course, if we relied on the devs to create the content it would take forever. The solution I am advocating would require minor updates from the devs. My solution (provided previously in this thread, but re-added here with some additional points): Devs would adjust AE to add more tags and filters, so players can find appropriate content Devs should probably clean up AE and disable or tag missions where the creators are no longer active and the mission is not getting traction HC Team volunteer would create Community AE mission contests with the help of community volunteers Devs would create reward badges and and provide reward merits for players creating and testing content to incentivize players HC Team volunteers would take the content that is lore based and fits the parameters of what the HC team believe are appropriate from a complexity, lore, difficulty standpoint and tag it as Canon content HC Team would set parameters that limit the ability to game the system for inappropriate rewards Only provide rewards at completion of the mission Ensure that there are different enemy types in each mission and sets of missions, so if doesn't become a defacto farm Other parameters as needed Maybe have a monthly contest for canon story arcs that are accepted as Canon content and have quarterly Task Forces added as Canon content; that gives you 4 new TFs per year and 12 new story arcs per year in addition to additional content that may be selected as Conon Content Maybe do something similar for Incarnate content Once content is tagged as Canon it becomes Dev content, so the creator can no longer make adjustments not approved by Devs Give Canon content the same rewards as TFs and Incarnate missions (i.e. reward merits, threads, shards, Astral Merits, EMPs. etc.) Balance the rewards based on appropriate reward levels and adjust as needed If you find that everyone is playing the Council AE mission over and over because they are a weak enemy, lower the rewards The Devs can also make some of the AE Content WSTs to get players to play it Optional Features if possible: Have the player created content be accessible through contacts that are in various zones as opposed to the AE I think this might be much harder than it sounds, but it would be nice to get the player content out of the AE if possible These adjustments will provide many benefits: It should be relatively easy to implement because most of the work is focused on getting the Community to create and test the content It should be relatively easy to maintain (Devs may have to balance rewards occasionally if the data calls for it) It puts more focus on AE and players will realize it is not just for farming Content of many different levels of complexity will be created that should alleviate the concern of players that think the game is to easy because they will be able to play the hard mode content they crave You will never run out of new content, which is always the issue with a MMO People will likely play the content because they are getting the rewards they need for progression It will bring the community closer together because we will be working together to create and test content The Devs will not have to worry about creating content and can focus on incremental adjustments, bug fixes, new power sets, etc. Players will be able to more effectively "own" their play experience as opposed to expecting the Devs to manage their play experience It doesn't cause anger from balancing ATs/power sets to get to some whole game balance (which is impossible in this environment, IMO) that will negatively impact what I would think are a large percentage of the palyer base that are not power gamers and min/maxers looking for challenge

I know in at least one case because I asked the question specifically and was told no by one of the advocates to make the game harder. I also asked again in that post you quoted. No one has provided a reasonable answer (IMO) as to why balancing the entire game is a better option than focusing on players creating hard mode content. One side wants to rely on the Devs to do wholesale balance changes impacting the entire player community and I would prefer to focus on solutions that have no negative impact to the entire player community, but provides new player created content that will provide new content for everyone. If people in this thread advocating to make the game harder are using the existing mechanics to make the game harder I am sure they would be saying why the existing mechanics don't work. They are not saying that, they are just pointing to the game not being hard enough. My perspective is very simple. There is no consensus that I have seen that the game is to hard, to easy, or just right. Just different opinions of a minority of players in this thread. I don't believe wholesale balancing will work because you will get some people that like it and some that don't. What happens if you do all the balancing and then all of a sudden you get a mass of players flooding the forum with threads that the game is to hard? Do you go back and balance again? These players were likely playing the game, having fun, and had no idea that the game they enjoyed was to easy. Then all of a sudden it was much harder and now they are pissed. As a side note I was in game this morning and I was watching the Help channel. Quite a few people were asking for help. Do you think those players feel the game is to easy? It was obviously hard enough that they needed help getting an answer to their questions. You will alienate some group of people no matter how you do wholesale balancing. Again, I am not advocating for no balancing. Some balancing needs to happen, but should be rare and should be for outliers. I am not sure why people are opposed to using the existing mechanics and focusing first on a solution that has limited reliance on the Devs. We should always try to solve our own problems before expecting someone else to solve them for us.

To be honest, I have no idea of the percentages of people that think the game is fine as is, who think it is to easy, or who think it is to hard. I have no clue if the majority agree with me. I suspect that there is no majority leaning in one direction and that all the players are split across several opinions. That is why I suggested doing some data analysis on certain data sets. My suspicion is that the people that think the game is to easy are the power gamers. These people plan out build (which you do quite a bit), spend the inf to get billion inf builds, and then incarnate to T4. I do this as well. For all I know, the vast majority of our player base are power gamers and the existing player base are vets from Live, so they have the knowledge and enthusiasm to make these builds. This could be the case, but I doubt it. And even if it is you are still have some of these power gamers (like me) that think the balance is fine. The Live devs added IOs, IO sets, and incarnates with the intention of building harder content, which would have likely solved all the concerns about the game being to easy. They are no longer here, so that means we either have to rely on the small volunteer HC team to solve our concerns or take matters into our own hands with the tools we have available. Exactly. And the Devs planned to address this with new content, not mass AT and power set balancing. I am not sure you can make that conclusion from this thread. From this thread I see a few of the same people arguing that the game is to easy and I see a few people saying that the game as fine as is and you can use the existing mechanics to make the game harder. From a dev perspective I will just say that just because they are devs doesn't make them right or make their plan reasonable. I would suspect looking at the idea of fixing AE and doing the community outreach around it to drive significance new content has not been looked at by the devs in the details I have mentioned previously. Remember the complaint here is that the game content is to easy. Again, I suspect these complainers are power gamers and no one has suggested otherwise. Therefore, it seems to me that we need to create harder content to address the characters that have invested in power gamer builds (as the Live devs intended). You tell me which is more reasonable and provides more benefit: Spending your time balancing ATs, IOs, IO sets, proces, incarnates, etc. with all the various testing that will be required or Spending your time making adjustments to drive more player developed content that can address the need for players to have Hard Mode content, which has the added benefit of exponentially creating new types of content for all players To me the answer is clearly the 2nd answer and I mentioned the benefits in a separate post. If you focus on balancing it will take forever and will likely lead to some ATs and sets over performing (see Tanker changes).

Maybe an in game poll would be good. I alluded to this earlier, but I will add to it. My bet is that people saying the game is to easy are the ones that planned out their builds to be min/max and are incarnated out. Basically, they made their character into a godlike character and the character plays like a god. Then we are being told the game is to easy for these gods. Maybe a good way to check is do some data analysis on the characters being played. I would look at data around character play time, types of IOs, incarnates, etc. You can then at least see if the majority of active players are incarnate gods. That should lead to some data supported decision making.

I don't know. If the game was super hard and I wanted to play easier content and I had the option to create easier content I would create it. Let's try to remember that we had old school CoH and the Live team set about making it easier because that was what the players wanted. Now we have a much smaller player base with a much smaller team supporting it. You don't have the scale to make the game harder for everyone because many people will get upset and leave. I would really be interested in the percentages of people that believe the game is to easy, those that think it is to hard, and those that think it is just right. My suspicion is that the people that think the game is to easy will be in the minority because they are the ones that have min/max builds, the time to play the game to get the build components, and the inf to buy what they need. Many players don't have those things and work off of SO / IO builds. I have a friend who plays maybe 2 to 3 times a month. His highest level character is about 35 and his build is a basic IO build with some set IOs. He doesn't think the game is to easy. By contrast I have 16 50s and few more on the way. All of them played to 50, not PL'ed. So I play a ton of hours and can afford my builds to be min/max. I think the game can be easy if you min/max, but I also have characters that I build to be mere mortals and I get a challenge when I play those characters. I think the game is just about right. This happens in every game it seems. The minority of power gamers come through and get really vocal that the game is to easy and the voice of the average players are not heard because they don't see a problem and aren't on the forums.

Who is limiting them to 1 or 2 AE arcs? You can create thousands of hard mode AE arcs as well as non-hard mode arcs. There is zero limit. Try to envision a future where you have all the existing task forces but then you have player created Task Forces that have been tested and approved by HC management and offer the same types of rewards. You could double or triple the existing Task Force content in a year. Envision these same player created TFs in the LFG queue along the other content. Frankly I think the content might become better. We have some very talented people playing this game. I think people have an impression that AE content is just not very good. Some is horrible, but some is great. I envision the potential AE has to drive almost all new story / mission content in the game. It is extremely powerful and we as a community are not leveraging it fully. Other people have talked about being able to have contacts to get AE content and that would be great. It would be great if you could create missions and get them out of the AE building and have the 5 part story arc go across zones. We obviously can't do that today, but if I were allocating my resources I would be allocating them to making AE better, so player created content with HC management oversight becomes the source for the majority of new story / mission content.

Yes, you can. AE 801 proves it. People can turn up the difficulty, but they choose not to use the existing game mechanics to do it.

If you want the game to be harder why not use the in game mechanics to make it harder? I would have a lot more sympathy for the people saying the game is to easy if there weren't existing mechanics to make the game harder. However, there are existing mechanics to make the game harder and the people that want to make the game harder are refusing to use them. It's hard to feel sympathy for those people that want to make the game harder, which will also affect many players that do not believe the game is to easy or may believe it is easy, but like the game as is. I am being serious. Please answer the question. Why is it better to make the entire game harder as opposed to using the existing mechanics to make your play experience the hard mode you crave? I generally respect your posts and builds, so I am genuinely interested in your response.

I would hazard a guess we are all playing the same content over an over. I play the same TFs to get Task Force Commander, I play Smoke and Mirrors multiple times on all my characters for quick merits, I play ITF and other high level TFs for XP, and I play Incarnate content for Incarnate rewards. There is only so much of this to go around, so of course, you end up playing the same content over and over. As a matter of fact, you start running the same content based on reward per mission to be most efficient. I would argue that rebalancing the reward system is much more important than wholesale balancing of ATs and power sets. "Can we create the can we duplicate the large swath of content that exists in the game in the AE?" I believe we can. There are tons of good content already in AE, but my guess based on my own play style is people do not play it because the rewards are not good enough. I'll play AE missions occasionally, but that is mainly to see new story content. I certainly don't play AE missions for rewards (beyond Farming occasionally). That is why I keep harping on a solution around AE. If you focus on AE and provide the proper reward structure you will get people playing more of those missions. The things I would do are: Adjust AE to add more tags and filters, so players can find appropriate content Devs should probably clean up AE and disable missions where the creators are no longer active and the mission is not getting traction Create Community AE mission contests with the help of community volunteers Reward badges and merits for creating and testing content to incentivize players Take the content that is lore based and fits the parameters of what the HC team believe are appropriate from a complexity, lore, difficulty standpoint and tag it as Canon content Set parameters that limit the ability to game the system for inappropriate rewards Only provide rewards at completion of the mission Ensure that there are different enemy types in each mission and sets of missions, so if doesn't become a defacto farm Once content is tagged as Canon it becomes Dev content, so the creator can no longer make adjustments not approved by Devs Give Canon content the same rewards as TFs and Incarnate missions (i.e. reward merits, threads, shards, Astral Merits, EMPs. etc.) Balance the rewards based on appropriate reward levels and adjust as needed If you find that everyone is playing the Council AE mission over and over because they are a weak enemy, lower the rewards The Devs can also make some of the AE Content WSTs to get players to play it These adjustments will provide many benefits: It should be relatively easy to implement because most of the work is focused on getting the Community to create and test It should be relatively easy to maintain (Devs may have to balance rewards occasionally if the data calls for it) It puts more focus on AE and players will realize it is not just for farming Content of many different levels of complexity will be created that should alleviate the concern of players that think the game is to easy because they will be able to play the hard mode content they crave You will never run out of new content, which is always the issue with a MMO People will likely play the content because they are getting the rewards they need for progression It will bring the community closer together because we will be working together to create and test content The Devs will not have to worry about creating content and can focus on incremental adjustments, bug fixes, new power sets, etc. Players will be able to more effectively "own" their play experience as opposed to expecting the Devs to manage their play experience It doesn't cause anger from balancing ATs/power sets to get to some whole game balance (which is impossible in this environment, IMO) that will negatively impact what I would think are a large percentage of the palyerbase that are not power gamers and min/maxers looking for challenge

This seems like it would be a good solution for the people that have concerns that the game is to easy. They could set their difficulty settings to +4/8 with all Bosses and get the difficulty they want. Of course, they could probably get that right now by creating AE missions with these type of parameters.

This is not really a bad idea. The reality though is the players saying the game is to easy are not interested in mechanics to make it harder at the character level. There are tons of ways to make content more challenging as it is. Nope, these players are more interested in tearing everyone down, so there is more equity. There is something else like that happening in the US currently. I can't quite think of it right now...

You keep preaching this issue and others don't see it as an issue because there are in game mechanics and community solutions to solve your problem. Frankly, your stamina in repeating your position over and over again is amazing. I had pulled away from this thread because I basically had said all I had to say, but you seem willing to continue advocating your position until everyone else gets tired of responding. I guess that is one way to get what you want, but you aren't really convincing people (me at least) that are opposed to your position.

Not true at all. Use AE to create Hard Mode content if you don't feel the current content is at the limits you want. Anyone can do it and it has been proven to work. Instead people just want to nerf / rebalance instead of owning their own game experience. Any character in this game can be powerful with the right build. Some will be more powerful than others, but so what? Superman is much more powerful than Spider-Man who is more powerful than Batman. You are going to have power tiers. Everyone should embrace it and own their game experience. Nothing could be more boring than having every AT at the same level of effectiveness. Guess what? Once you rebalance there will absolutely be an AT that is at a higher tier and will then need to be rebalanced. Rebalancing begets rebalancing and it is a no win situation for everyone.

I don't know I would call it a bad game design move. It seems the intent of the Devs was to create incarnate content where incarnate would not be OP. It's not poor game design that the game was shut down before they could do it. It might be poor timing I suppose.

I agree and it is mainly because AE was not given the support required to make it the focus for new content. If I was the lead of this game I would make a number of minor changes to AE and community outreach in the short term to get more focus on it. I don't think the short term changes would be complex and it would certainly be a lot easier than rebalancing all the sets, ATs, etc.

I am really curious how many players can really do +4/8 solo. I don't think it as easy as everyone makes it out to be as evidenced by the Scrapper +4/8 thread. Anyway, I am not opposed to an option to select allow / disallow incarnate powers for TFs like there are options for no deaths or no temps. It seems reasonable and more choices are always better.

So, you think there is a problem with game balance, but you admit you could be wrong about the problem. Other players (of which I seem to be the most vocal) have indicated that you are wrong about the problem, but you believe they are wrong. Therefore you have at least 2 groups of people on opposite ends of the spectrum who both believe they are right. Instead of trying to alleviate your concern by leveraging the existing in game functionality and community outreach to see if it might alleviate your concern you indicate that the Devs should solve the problem by rebalancing, regardless of how many other players that would impact. I will retract the selfish and lazy part of the comment because it was not really nice and I suppose I should be nicer, but I would respectfully suggest you really think about what you are asking for, how many people will be affected, the negative impact to those being impacted, and maybe look at other solutions to the problem you believe exists. My solution to the problem does not affect anyone in a negative fashion, does not require respecs or re-rolls, does not ruin the fun of people that enjoy the game in its current state. I think we should be thinking harder about those types of solutions as opposed to expecting the Devs to solve our challenges. Again, to be clear, I am not talking about not doing rebalancing where required; I am talking about wholesale rebalancing.

Exactly true. There is absolutely no win for the Dev team taking the rebalancing path. Rebalancing merely leads to more rebalancing which never ends. The better path is providing more avenues for player created content that provides the hard mode content people want. I think we already have a good base that can be used today and with a few tweaks and community involvement it would be much more effective than going down the rebalancing path. This is so obvious to me I am wondering why no one else seems to be able to see it. It's like looking at Tesla stock and wondering why all the big shot financial analysts on CNBC are not able to understand that Tesla is not a car company. Now I am having second thoughts and doubts. Is it possible I am wrong? Naw, can't be...

IMO the Devs are (like you) wrong bout the need to rebalance ATs, powers, procs, etc. Their time would be much better spent focusing on fixing bugs and expanding content. You have been cheer leading nerfs because you think the game is to easy. Do you think the vast majority of players think the game is to easy? Or is it a subset of power gamers who plan and optimize their builds that think the game is to easy. I consider myself a power gamer because I play for quite a few more hours a week than I should and I plan / optimize many of my builds to be as effective as possible and I don't consider the game to easy. So, I expect there is a subset of the subset of power gamers that disagree with you. My point is that I believe you are in the extreme minority of players that believe the game needs to be rebalanced. I mentioned previously that there could be exceptions like TW, but that is what they should be - exceptions. I could be wrong, but this is the internet and everyone has an opinion. Have you done any of the things that were suggested to alleviate the challenge you lack? Played 801 AE content? Created your own hard mode content? Play characters with only SO or basic IOs? Do you play characters in incarnate content without incarnates slotted? Done hard mode challenges? Have you developed a player network of like minded players and/or created a SG that imposes the limits you want, so you will feel the challenge you desire? If you have done all of these things and still think the game is to easy for the vast majority of players I will retract my selfish and lazy comment. It means you have at least tried to alleviate your own challenge issues. You didn't respond previously that you have done these things, so my assumption is you have not. I would also make the suggestion that you think about what you are asking for. If the Devs rebalance this game and make things harder for the vast majority of players; many of them will leave and go to another server or game. We don't have the population that we can afford to lose players because of rebalancing that IMO is not needed.

PSA Tesla had battery day yesterday and had some crazy news. I am not providing stock advice. Everyone should make their own choices and decisions, but I would recommend that people look at Tesla and envision where they will be in 10 years. You are welcome.

I never said there was sufficient challenging content for people like you that want challenging content or incarnate levels of challenging content. I agree to a certain extent. If the game had stayed Live I am sure the Devs would have added challenging content for Incarnates. They were doing so with the iTrials, so this seems a given. Obviously, they didn't finish because the game shut down, so there are limitations. What I have said is that there are mechanisms that exist in game today to fix the gap as a community without relying on the Devs to make wholesale changes to powers, ATs, procs, incarnate levels, etc. It seems that if you really interested in hard mode content you would explore this side before calling for changes that will impact a lot of other players. Have you run the 801 content? Have you tried creating AE hard mode content? You might be surprised if you tried it and you might find that things are not as bad as you think. We have an incredibly powerful tool in AE and it is a shame it is just being used for farming and power leveling. As has been stated in this thread (and I agree with it) many of the forum readers are power gamers in the sense they create and optimize builds to make the content trivial. I do this on many of my builds as well. I also have basic IO builds to simulate natural heroes. That is the beauty of this game. You can have it all if you want to try different ideas and content. I don't generally pick FotM builds and then complain the content is to easy. I look for ways to challenge myself. In addition, I already use the existing functionality to scale the content to my character's wants/needs. If I have a character that I want to run at 0/1 then I do it. If I have a character I want to try at +4/8 then I do it. If I have a godlike character I'll do challenges (take a look at @Werner or @nihilii for some of the crazy stuff they have done). Challenges or lack of challenges are there for the taking. If you want hard mode go do it. No one is stopping you. I can't quite grasp the idea of asking a volunteer Dev team to make wholesale changes to powers to try and rebalance the game for a few hard mode players especially when there are mechanisms in place to provide that hard mode content. Frankly it smacks of being lazy and selfish.

What is the problem you are trying to solve? The reason this thread has gone off the rails is that it seems everyone has a different perspective of what the problem seems to be. Some believe some power sets are OP, some believe Procs are OP, some believe the game content is to easy, some want to get rid of or limit incarnate powers, some don't see any major issues (I fall into this camp). Once you figure out the problem we should look at solutions that can be managed in game by the community. Leveraging Devs should be a last resort.