Allow turning off minion spawn as a difficulty level

[DougGraves]

At high levels minions just melt and may as well not be there.  It would be nice like you turn off spawning bosses to turn off spawning minions.  Just spawn lts, bosses, and above.

 

I would not turn off lts as for many villain groups they provide critical roles such as healing, buffs, or controls.

[Shazbotacus]

I understand massive AoE damage becomes the meta at higher end gameplay. The best way to challenge this is basically what you're saying: doing quality over quantity by shifting enemies' ranks up, and basically getting rid of fodder.

[Captain Powerhouse]

OR making those minions (and everything else) sturdier and deadlier on incarnate difficultly.

[Shazbotacus]

Aye, that'd also do it. Possibly through a health modifier of sorts. Perhaps even an accuracy and/or to hit bonus to deal with the players' most common protection, stacked defense, if you're looking to do something about the "deadlier" part of that equation.

[Doc_Scorpion]

Myself, I would prefer smaller but deadlier spawns as an option.

[Cooltastic]

9 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Myself, I would prefer smaller but deadlier spawns as an option.

That's when you put it on Incarnate difficulty for team size of 1 lol

[Steampunkette]

... I actually REALLY LIKE THIS IDEA.

 

I would NEVER USE IT ON NEMESIS.

 

You'd need to have a switch in the spawning logic that caused LTs to spawn for every minion in a group, and possibly to have bosses spawn in the normal LT spot... but damn it if I wouldn't eat that up. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the feeling of POWER when I drop a Nuke or Judgement on a group of enemies and watch the minions melt away like wax under a blowtorch, just as much as the next player! But having the option to increase the difficulty by THAT DEGREE?!

 

Sign me up.

[Linea]

10 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

OR making those minions (and everything else) sturdier and deadlier on incarnate difficultly.

Run 801.1 solo +4x8 ... I used several ideas from Capt and others for changing the composition of spawns to try to create an incarnate class combat experience.

 ... the minions are still too squishy for heavy offense, but you are likely to find you have difficulty deciding who to kill first. 

 ... "You are likely to have difficulty deciding who to kill first":  This was the basic plan, nothing should be ignore-able, and there should be something to annoy almost any build.

 ... I really need to rollback some of the more recent changes and go back to more Beam Rifle to better balance for defense vs resist armors

 ... I can solo this +1x8 on a Tier 4 incarnate empath, but less than a handful of my builds can solo it +4x8 both offensively and defensively.  (Lower Offense is more often the issue with my build style)

 ... A team of 4 or more Tier 4 Incarnates should still stomp this into oblivion, but it should at least be a little bit more difficult than normal.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

Give certain enemies an aura that gives massive AoE defense, tactics then have to change up.

[merrypessimist]

Problem is that all-lieutenant and boss spawns changes the reward/time dynamics.  Killing 20 minions, half a dozen lieutenants and a boss in a minute (for example) is less exp and influence and fewer drops than a 20 lieutenant, seven boss mob in that same minute would be.  Even if it took say twice as long for that second example mob, it's still more reward/minute compared to the first one, which would only lead to more inflation and rapid leveling.

[Steampunkette]

It would be increased time and increased risk for increased reward. I feel like that's valid.

[MunkiLord]

I just want to try a real Carnie mission made up of +4x8 spawns of nothing but Illusionists and Master Illusionists. 

[Captain Powerhouse]

Honestly, the game is meant to be balanced against even enemies with SOs, and the level cap is level 50.

 

I think enemies starting at level 51 should be considerably deadlier and sturdier than they are right now, as it stand, they progress in stats much similar to how they do from 1 to 50.

[MunkiLord]

I think this would be an excellent approach. Especially if it were to be implemented and we get new shiny badges to show off beating up on newer harder level 51-54 mobs.

[ShardWarrior]

12 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

OR making those minions (and everything else) sturdier and deadlier on incarnate difficultly.

Would "Incarnate Level" be available for any mission/TF? 

 

Wonder what Reichsman would be like on Incarnate level...

[MetaVileTerror]

Please bear in mind that using the default difficulty settings, Level 51 enemies will still spawn in a Level 50's gaming experience.  So, perhaps your cut-off should be Level 52 for the difficulty ramp up, Powerhouse.

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

Would "Incarnate Level" be available for any mission/TF? 

 

Wonder what Reichsman would be like on Incarnate level...

 

To clarify: I am not saying any changes are being worked on, and my "department" is only powers and balance. Also, implementation of any new difficulty settings are outside my scope, my thoughts here are mostly just brainstorming and tossing things to the wind.

 

That said, main reason I posted above is because  the OP suggestion does not do much if anything for difficulty. One of the first things people did when AE started was make farms that had nothing but bosses, because rank alone does not mean the enemies are deadly, but removing minions and lts drastically boosts reward acquisition.

 

If anyone wants harder content, you start by making deadlier minions that don't die when sneezed at, not by removing them.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[ShardWarrior]

It wasn't my intent to say that anything was being developed.  My question was more thinking out loud about your idea. 

[Captain Powerhouse]

I understand, i just forgot to clarify that ahead of time, usually when I say something like the above some threads end up taking life of their own that I'm already working on whatever I casually spoke about.

 

That said: if done, an incarnate "setting" could be implemented the same way flashback challenges work. However, if done as a buff to critters above level 50, it would just be how 51+ critters work.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[MunkiLord]

I feel like this is still going to happen despite your clarification. Personally I'd use that to my advantage. Say something that comes across as a huge nerf, then when you do the small nerf you always intended, people will think you compromised and did what they wanted. Sure some will call that manipulation, but I think of it more as "Expectation Management."

[Moka]

Any way to disable the +1 Alpha boost without removing the Alpha Slot? As an optional thing, of course.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Moka

[merrypessimist]

3 hours ago, Moka said:

Any way to disable the +1 Alpha boost without removing the Alpha Slot? As an optional thing, of course.

Couldn't you just stick with a tier-2 or tier-1 alpha power? Those don't give level shifts.

[Moka]

5 minutes ago, merrypessimist said:

Couldn't you just stick with a tier-2 or tier-1 alpha power? Those don't give level shifts.

Yeah, but I'd like to bring on the benefits from the T3/T4 minus the +1.

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, Moka said:

Any way to disable the +1 Alpha boost without removing the Alpha Slot? As an optional thing, of course.

Ignoring for the moment the complexity of coding for the game effect of it, you could put "Disable Incarnate Level Shift" as a choice in the difficulty menu when you're adjusting notoriety.