Smaller teams? YES!

[Shred Monkey]

Call it power creep or game design, or mature player base, but I feel like most content in this game provides no challenge for 8 man teams.   I don't mean to get into why, or complain.  I just think this is true and starting my post with that as my initial premise.

 

So last night I ran a +4x8 ITF on my blaster with a 5 man team (not my idea, but I liked it).  It was still pretty smooth run, but felt better.  It was closer to the difficulty/challenge I want to play it.  I felt like we were all adding value and contributing to our success.  There was a reason to stay together and use all of my powers instead of just 3-4 big attacks.

 

I guess I'm posting this is because would like to see more people doing this.  I would like to see 3-5 person teams more common.   I'm not suggesting the team size cap be reduced.  I'm just encourage player base to go outside the box and not fill every team.

[DougGraves]

I find playing over level 32 in teams has no challenge.  So I just play lower level characters.  But I'm glad you found a solution for you.

[Twisted Toon]

I'm fairly sure that ITF wasn't designed with tier 4 Incarnates, with multiple level shifts, in mind. So, I would say that it's a combination of all three reasons (Power creep, game design, and player knowledge) in why it is so easy for a team of 8.

 

most of the time I've seen people post complaining that the game is too easy, not that I think you are complaining, is because they are fully incarnated out doing non-incarnate content. My suggestion to them is usually to turn off their incarnate stuff. Especially the Alpha slot that gives them the level shift for all content. They tend to get offended at that suggestion for some reason.

[iBot]

Members of the SG I'm in do this quite often.  We'll broadcast that we are doing such and such TF but if we don't get a full team we just run anyway.  Sometimes it makes the final boss fight take a bit longer than it should but it never decreases our fun.  I've been a part of TFs with 2, 3, or 4 members.  Especially fun when doing sub 45 content this way.  It turns off all the incarnate stuff automatically and allows us to run at our base power levels.

 

We've also had a suggestion to do a SO only build for the original TFs just to up the challenge even more.  Granted not everyone wants to turn TFs into a slog but it is fun to some of us to prove we can still do the content minus the power creep.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Funny enough the fact is especially if speed is the goal smaller teams make TFs easier as long as you have the stopping power for the end AV. I find the sweet spot is around 3-4 man teams. a good trio will shred through content so fast its almost absurd. And I dont just mean post 50. want to make something like a synapse or moonfire feel less mind numbing go in with a small team that can all stealth. Even the kill alls wont feel that bad because the mob size will be so small as to allow everyone to just spread out and clear their own areas on the kill alls in a very timely manner.

[Oubliette_Red]

1 hour ago, Shred Monkey said:

Call it power creep or game design, or mature player base, but I feel like most content in this game provides no challenge for 8 man teams.   I don't mean to get into why, or complain.  I just think this is true and starting my post with that as my initial premise.

 

So last night I ran a +4x8 ITF on my blaster with a 5 man team (not my idea, but I liked it).  It was still pretty smooth run, but felt better.  It was closer to the difficulty/challenge I want to play it.  I felt like we were all adding value and contributing to our success.  There was a reason to stay together and use all of my powers instead of just 3-4 big attacks.

 

I guess I'm posting this is because would like to see more people doing this.  I would like to see 3-5 person teams more common.   I'm not suggesting the team size cap be reduced.  I'm just encourage player base to go outside the box and not fill every team.

☝️  This are things I've recommended to other posters that no longer find the standard content challenging, then go on to propose changes that would affect everyone.

 

• Increase your Noteriety
• Run smaller teams on TFs/SFs

 

Glad to see you've discovered your own path in making the game challenging for yourself again. 🙂

 

 

Edited October 22, 2019 by Oubliette_Red

[Blastit]

I personally like smaller teams because there's more room for you to use all of your powers. Crowd control becomes more important, people with big AoE attacks get to feel more important, and healing/buffing an individual is more important because each loss is felt more sorely.

 

Of course, differences between sets are also felt more strongly so depending on your combination it may be a bit of a double-edged sword if one out of the three other team members just does more and better than you could. But overall I like smaller teams.

[HelenCarnate]

6 hours ago, Twisted Toon said:

I'm fairly sure that ITF wasn't designed with tier 4 Incarnates, with multiple level shifts, in mind. So, I would say that it's a combination of all three reasons (Power creep, game design, and player knowledge) in why it is so easy for a team of 8.

 

most of the time I've seen people post complaining that the game is too easy, not that I think you are complaining, is because they are fully incarnated out doing non-incarnate content. My suggestion to them is usually to turn off their incarnate stuff. Especially the Alpha slot that gives them the level shift for all content. They tend to get offended at that suggestion for some reason.

Very true. When it first came out, teams regularly failed the last mission. 

[Lines]

Yeah, 4-5 is a really comfortable team size. It’s great to have the option to be able to start most content with smaller groups. I can’t remember some of the minimums from live, but they certainly became overcompensated by the end.

 

 

[Felis Noctu]

To be fair, I would like to see the introduction of content designed for Incarnate'd characters. Paragon never really got around to adding stuff meant to be run by that level of power. Though, I guess it's difficult to find challenges for pseudo-gods 😛

[ILIWAPCT]

Or try playing Red Side.

You'll find it much harder to find a team.

[Itikar]

4 hours ago, Felis Noctu said:

To be fair, I would like to see the introduction of content designed for Incarnate'd characters. Paragon never really got around to adding stuff meant to be run by that level of power. Though, I guess it's difficult to find challenges for pseudo-gods 😛

I wonder if the Architect Entertainment tools would support creating such kind of content.

[Felis Noctu]

5 hours ago, Itikar said:

I wonder if the Architect Entertainment tools would support creating such kind of content.

Not quite sure if that's sarcasm or not, but regardless that's really not the point. We were given the incredible power increase, including level shifts, which I would assume meant Paragon was planning on going somewhere in-world with it. I have a hard time believing they'd be so shortsighted as to build us up like that without some sort of forward movement. Paragon didn't even got to finish the Incarnate system.

 

Unfortunately, unless there's something laying around in the resources we have to indicate such a thing, it'd be up to the HC team and the community to follow through. In which case, yeah, I guess we've got the AE system.

EDIT
You know, I haven't really looked much into it with whatever changes have been made. I wonder if it's possible to create AE content for more than 8 people at a time...

Edited October 23, 2019 by Felis Noctu

[Lines]

8 minutes ago, Felis Noctu said:

Not quite sure if that's sarcasm or not, but regardless that's really not the point. We were given the incredible power increase, including level shifts, which I would assume meant Paragon was planning on going somewhere in-world with it. I have a hard time believing they'd be so shortsighted as to build us up like that without some sort of forward movement. Unfortunately, unless there's something laying around in the resources we have to indicate such a thing, it'd be up to the HC team to follow through. Paragon didn't even got to finish the Incarnate system.

We know some broad details from postmortem interviews with Positron et al. The next big plot development was all going to be all about The Coming Storm, which involved a new enemy group called the Battalion.

 

There’s not a significant amount of information more than that, and I’m certain no assets made it as far as the i24 build if they ever existed.

 

AE can be made extraordinarily difficult, if you so choose. I think mobs of AVs are possible, for instance.

[Felis Noctu]

3 minutes ago, Lines said:

We know some broad details from postmortem interviews with Positron et al. The next big plot development was all going to be all about The Coming Storm, which involved a new enemy group called the Battalion.

 

There’s not a significant amount of information more than that, and I’m certain no assets made it as far as the i24 build if they ever existed.

 

AE can be made extraordinarily difficult, if you so choose. I think mobs of AVs are possible, for instance.

I remember the mention of The Coming Storm, but they'd been talking about that for a while. The way it'd be hinted at, that sounded like it could very well have been the end of CoH's intended storyline. But yeah, while I can hope, I don't really expect there'd be much for a period of the game that's beyond the already incomplete content.

[Herotu]

19 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

Call it power creep or game design, or mature player base, but I feel like most content in this game provides no challenge for 8 man teams.   I don't mean to get into why, or complain.

I can explain why. It's because people complain when you make their gameplay complicated. If the AI was smart and all the mobs spread out and attacked from all over and then ran away when their health got low, people would be fed up and complain. Players want the mobs to be stupid and stand in a nice AoE blob for easy kills.

[mcdoogss]

I think just buffing lvl 54 mobs would go a ways towards providing some more challenge on the original, non-incarnate endgame story arcs/TFs/Trials, without the HC devs having to develop too much 'new' content.  Even with 4-5 lvl 50s pre-inc x4/x8 is trivial, and becomes a face roll once they get their alpha level shift.  Maybe giving all 54s a buff across the board (or even make all 54s  whatever the few incarnate mobs are with their extra to-hit/etc) will introduce a little more fun to the endgame.  

Edited October 23, 2019 by mcdoogss

[Oneirohero]

Generally the reason why 8-man teams tend to be easy is because the powers system relying on the fact that all/most effects including debuffs and buffs stack. Any team with enough buffs or the enemy with enough debuffs can end up making any fight rather easy. The reason that folks who are in 4-6-man teams finds more challenge is because there is potentially 1-3 less buff/debuffers in a team to skew the odds. And yes, even if a team is mostly made of melee/non-(de)buff types, the fact there's more people to beat on singular targets also makes it easier to wittle down mobs of any size and thus minimise the danger of the numbers being against you.

 

The example I always used was in an 8-man team four were going to be the ones carrying the fight, 2 would be around for support and 2 would end up being stuck with clean-up including stragglers. 8-mans are good for XP but hardly the way the game was meant to be played. I would say that 5-6 is about as many people you can fit into a team before people start feeling superflous, six being a magic number for role distribution (divides neatly into 2-2-2, 4-2, 3-3, 3-2-1...ect). But considering randoms are in it for the XP, you're most likely not going to find <8-man teams unless it's with friends or an RP team that isn't stuck in the 8-man mentality as well.

[Itikar]

7 hours ago, Felis Noctu said:

Not quite sure if that's sarcasm or not  [...]

No, it was a genuine question about whether it was possible to create epic content missions with the AE tool or not.

[Sakidave]

Since HC became available to the public, I’ve played 5 or 6 toons to level 50 because they were power sets I never played during Live. But, I don’t have a single Incarnate. Why? Because after level 38, it gets boring. All it is is button mashing. I now have about 10 toons sitting between 35-38. I play to get the TF Commander and usually run an ITF. Then I park the toon and start another. I have more fun with less powers because it’s more challenging. Team size doesn’t matter as long as it’s a good mix to get the job done. 

[Lost Ninja]

Apart from TFs/Trials I do pretty much all content on a three man team...

 

Mostly as I multi-box them and don't want to deal with other people who don't want to play at my speed (or somehow take offence that I want to play three characters at once).

 

I do TFs/Trials as and when I feel like it solo (in a team), eventually I'm going to do some of the harder ones on my own (ITF I managed on live not managed it yet on HC).

[Felis Noctu]

6 hours ago, Itikar said:

No, it was a genuine question about whether it was possible to create epic content missions with the AE tool or not.

Ahh! Well we're in the same boat then, honestly. While we can use EBs and AVs, I don't know what differences there are between the pre-shutdown AE and the current version. With the SG base upgrades I would hope the AE is the same, but I haven't gotten around to checking it out yet. Really I think the biggest thing I'd be interested to see is raid-style AE content. Not sure if that'd be possible though, depending on how the system was designed.

 

9 hours ago, mcdoogss said:

I think just buffing lvl 54 mobs would go a ways towards providing some more challenge on the original, non-incarnate endgame story arcs/TFs/Trials, without the HC devs having to develop too much 'new' content.  Even with 4-5 lvl 50s pre-inc x4/x8 is trivial, and becomes a face roll once they get their alpha level shift.  Maybe giving all 54s a buff across the board (or even make all 54s  whatever the few incarnate mobs are with their extra to-hit/etc) will introduce a little more fun to the endgame.  

Buffing 54s would definitely be nice. Or even just the 50+ mobs in general. Make that curve a little more extreme.

[Doomrider]

On 10/22/2019 at 6:36 AM, Shred Monkey said:

Call it power creep or game design, or mature player base, but I feel like most content in this game provides no challenge for 8 man teams.   I don't mean to get into why, or complain.  I just think this is true and starting my post with that as my initial premise.

 

So last night I ran a +4x8 ITF on my blaster with a 5 man team (not my idea, but I liked it).  It was still pretty smooth run, but felt better.  It was closer to the difficulty/challenge I want to play it.  I felt like we were all adding value and contributing to our success.  There was a reason to stay together and use all of my powers instead of just 3-4 big attacks.

 

I guess I'm posting this is because would like to see more people doing this.  I would like to see 3-5 person teams more common.   I'm not suggesting the team size cap be reduced.  I'm just encourage player base to go outside the box and not fill every team.

100% Agree. Smaller teams are the way to go. I regularly run with only 1-3 other people and it's a lot of fun. Recently we ran a Tin Mage with just 3 peacebringers and it was a blast. I made a post in the Kheldian AT forum about it and posted a video of it.
 

We did a +4 x 8 ITF not long ago either with 2 blasters (Water/Atomic, En/En) and a 1 corruptor (Fire/Rad). We def white knuckled the whole thing but we all had fairly decked out builds. It was a blast.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 10/22/2019 at 2:55 PM, Felis Noctu said:

To be fair, I would like to see the introduction of content designed for Incarnate'd characters. Paragon never really got around to adding stuff meant to be run by that level of power. Though, I guess it's difficult to find challenges for pseudo-gods 😛

There is plenty of challenge for them. There are many players that even with a fully decked out character cant come anywhere near +4X8 solo. A great many powerset combos do not have the inherent synergy to push into such extreme challenge. A great many players even with the best possible build simply do not have the timing and understanding of the mechanics of their and the mobs abilities to do things like solo AVs let alone GMs.

 

Superman is the iconic living god of comics, His greatest fight was one on one with Doomsday. Doomsday was certainly a GM class foe. I really get tired of all these we need more challenge posts when its questionable if they can even build such a character on their own without a build guide, and play it effectively enough to defeat such powerful mobs one on one.

[Felis Noctu]

9 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

There is plenty of challenge for them. There are many players that even with a fully decked out character cant come anywhere near +4X8 solo. A great many powerset combos do not have the inherent synergy to push into such extreme challenge. A great many players even with the best possible build simply do not have the timing and understanding of the mechanics of their and the mobs abilities to do things like solo AVs let alone GMs.

 

Superman is the iconic living god of comics, His greatest fight was one on one with Doomsday. Doomsday was certainly a GM class foe. I really get tired of all these we need more challenge posts when its questionable if they can even build such a character on their own without a build guide, and play it effectively enough to defeat such powerful mobs one on one.

I'm seeing a lot of "solo" in there, but we're talking about team content in here. If you're "getting tired of challenge posts", you should at least double-check the topic first! Not to mention not talking down about people asking for such a thing with a comment that's unrelated. Myself for instance, while I can make those builds, I don't enjoy them. I'm a support player, I LIKE to play with other people, especially in a game as social as CoH. Solo bores me.

 

The subject of the thread is that people are running with smaller teams in order to increase the challenge and make things a bit more interesting. There isn't very much in the way of content that challenges a full team of 50s, let alone one that's full of incarnates. The incarnate system was leading up to content that was likely intended for them, or at least options for that level of power, but we never made it there.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Felis Noctu