Lockpick

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.

I don't believe this to be true. I think many people are not using the existing resources to get the challenge they want. Instead they want the Devs to do all the work for them as opposed to taking ownership of their playing experience. A semi-quote from the thread about the AE missions: 801 is a Series: 801.0 Easy, 801.1 Intermediate, 801.2 Hard (My Benchmark), 801.3 Harder 801.2 is the Standard I judge my builds by, and was the original. If you can solo 801.2 +4x8 with-in the 2 hour timer or less, you are officially Linea Approved. 801.3 is because I had some teams just stomping 801.2. 801.3 departs from the "Soloable +0x0 on an SO build" benchmark. It was rare to have a team steamroll 801.2 like that, but it does happen. 801.0 and 801.1 are for the teams that were struggling too much in 801.2. If there's need I may or may not work on an 801.4 in the future. There are ways to get the challenge you desire without nerfing everyone else into the ground to satisfy your need for harder content. If you use the existing functionality you can create challenging content and invite similar minded people to do it with you. I don't think we should we be relying on the Devs to solve these types of problems that players have when there are ways of solving the problems yourself. Create your own hard mode content Play characters with only SO or basic IOs Don't go the incarnate route Develop a player network of like minded players and create a SG that imposes the limits you want, so you will feel the challenge you desire I meant to reply to a quote earlier where someone said everyone was Superman and no one was Batman. You can easily make a Batman character and I have done so. I limit my power selections to powers that are thematic and I play appropriate content for that character.

We do have that. The hardest content are the iTrials and Hami. In general, you need groups to do that content.

You are right, my apologies. That being said, I think the rest of the argument is legit.

The key phrase is This does not explain the variety of ATs and power sets being created and played though. Were this absolutely true, we would see nothing but tanks, brutes and scrappers and no one would team for anything. Reality and posted metrics say otherwise. " I would guess that most of the Brutes with Fiery Aura as a secondary were not played through; i.e. they played non-AE content and leveled through story arcs, task forces, etc.. My guess is that the vast majority were played in AE in Fire farms. I don't want to be rude, but your arguments are not very strong. Fiery Aura Brutes are well known to be AE Fire farmers, so if you are trying to see what ATs / power sets are logically the most popular it is perfectly reasonable to restrict Fiery Aura. Obviously the best way would be to have the entire data set, but we don't have that, so the option to remove Fiery Aura is reasonable.

I would create a new category beyond Dev Choice (maybe call it Canon Content) and add rewards that are the same as the in game rewards (Badges, Reward Merits, Incarnate Components, etc.). If you do that then I would bet you get more traction. You would also need to add more tags and filtering options to find the content. It would be no different than running Flashbacks, which I would guess a lot of people do. I know I do a lot of flashbacks. People can't complain about not having content when there is a ton of content available that provides the same canon experience and the same Live rewards. Also, you could make the player created Task Force part of the WST to get more people to use it. A ton of ways to get great content of varying levels of time commitment and difficulty. It would just need to be planned out and tested properly.

When you look at this data it does seem to indicate that the ATs are in general pretty close. I'm not surprised to see PB, WS, and SoAs at the bottom. As VEATs they may not have been played much on Live because you had to have a 50 to open them up, so probably less experience overall playing them. In addition, their build mechanics are a bit more complex. I'm also not surprised to see Stalkers so low when thinking back to how they were on Live. Here though I think people are missing the boat. I was a Scrapper on Live and here I play mainly Stalker for melee classes. It is a completely different experience from Live.

I'm not sure what you are trying to show with the chart. What does this data mean really? If you parse the data between AE content and non-AE content I would guess you will find a significant amount of the time played on Brutes is AE and more specifically AE farming. If you throw out the Brute numbers I would say that looking at the numbers seems logical to me. They seems to correspond with the number of posts in the AT sections (somewhat) which might indicate a level of popularity. I'm actually surprised Controllers are higher than Scrappers and Masterminds are as high as they are.

You have your opinion, ShardWarrior has his, I have mine, and many others have their opinion. You will likely have a hard time getting consensus on what should be the number of mobs a player can take on. And that's okay because everyone should play the way they want. That is why it is more important to focus on varying levels of content with varying levels of difficulty as opposed to focusing on buffinf/nerfing. If you have enough content with varying levels of difficulty then everyone can play the mode they find fun.