"Multi Opponent Combat" Stat, or, How to Handle Players With Runaway Survivability

[oedipus_tex]

Interesting conversations. It's good to hear from various perspectives. 

 

Not replying to anyone in particular, one thing I hope we can all agree on is that there should be no limitations on what new or "exotic" content might look like. There is a "main team game" out there that might loosely be said to consist of these elements:

• Radio missions
• Task Forces
• Trials
• Rikti Raids
• Zone Events 
• Arcs (in particular the Maria Jenkins arc)

Each of these types of team events is valid. In my opinion, the addition of new team events does not detract from the existing ones. 

 

I admit one thing that I find mildly frustrating is when players take the position that "My character is already designed to be ideal for the existing content; you can't create new content where that isn't the case." While I'm somewhat sympathetic to the feeling that a build is invalidated, I also hold the opinion that no matter how strong, how amazing, or how powerful our characters ever get, there is still stuff out there that can kill them. I just think that content creators need to remember that those top level enemies need to feel dangerous and powerful--gods, lords, and monsters, not street thugs.

[Hyperstrike]

16 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Anyone remember taking a ship in Everquest 1?  

 

 

Never played Evercrack myself.

But I know some people who did.
Talking about ship travel, I'd have to quietly talk them down from slitting their own wrists.
And this was YEARS after the fact...

[Haijinx]

54 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

Never played Evercrack myself.

But I know some people who did.
Talking about ship travel, I'd have to quietly talk them down from slitting their own wrists.
And this was YEARS after the fact...

I thought it was cool .. the first time ...

 

[boggo2300]

17 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I thought it was cool .. the first time ...

 

the first taste is always free...  they didn't call it evercrack for nothing

[Infinitum]

15 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Interesting conversations. It's good to hear from various perspectives. 

 

Not replying to anyone in particular, one thing I hope we can all agree on is that there should be no limitations on what new or "exotic" content might look like. There is a "main team game" out there that might loosely be said to consist of these elements:

• Radio missions
• Task Forces
• Trials
• Rikti Raids
• Zone Events 
• Arcs (in particular the Maria Jenkins arc)

Each of these types of team events is valid. In my opinion, the addition of new team events does not detract from the existing ones. 

 

I admit one thing that I find mildly frustrating is when players take the position that "My character is already designed to be ideal for the existing content; you can't create new content where that isn't the case." While I'm somewhat sympathetic to the feeling that a build is invalidated, I also hold the opinion that no matter how strong, how amazing, or how powerful our characters ever get, there is still stuff out there that can kill them. I just think that content creators need to remember that those top level enemies need to feel dangerous and powerful--gods, lords, and monsters, not street thugs.

But you arent talking about top level enemies in your proposal, you are talking about a pack of council machine gunners being able to take out my Invul/ss tank if i take on too many.  And that should never be the case.

 

Do we need content to stretch the legs of our incarnates?  sure  like when the Jedi encounter the Yuzhon Vong (dont know if i spelled that correctly)  The Battalion come to mind.  Other Well of the furies stuff.

 

Do we need our incarnates to be challenged by content designed to challenge a leveling character?  I think not.

 

The problem again, is the fact we are playing a resurrected game with high level end game characters that never got the development on end game content realized before it was shut down.  The content that exists can be challenging even for incarnates if you dont set for easy speed mode.

[Galaxy Brain]

Does playing at the hardest difficulty actually give that much more reward / loot chances than blitzing easier content?

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Does playing at the hardest difficulty actually give that much more reward / loot chances than blitzing easier content?

I notice more purple drops when +4 vs -1 but i have never tracked it officially.

[oedipus_tex]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

But you arent talking about top level enemies in your proposal, you are talking about a pack of council machine gunners being able to take out my Invul/ss tank if i take on too many.  And that should never be the case.

 

No, I was talking about new content. I haven't said anything about existing content. I wouldn't change any of that.

Edited January 11, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

No, I was talking about new content. I haven't said anything about existing content. I wouldn't change any of that.

I wouldnt mind that as long as you could figure out a way to make it non exclusive or requireing a particular team makeup - thats where it would get tricky i think.  

 

We just dont need to IMO go back to the days of "Need a Rad for TF"

[Leogunner]

Do you think this might be something for some AoE's? That is, the whole limited effect on crowds. If we're talking about a mode that makes crowds dangerous, the solution is usually nukes. 

 

If we remove target caps for some AoE's like nukes, but in turn, re-introduce part of the crash per foe hit over a certain limit (set to like 14 foes, if a 15th foe is hit, you'd get like an additional -10 END and -20% recovery for 20sec).

 

The funny thing is, Blasters already get a ridiculous amount of base recover so dipping into 18 foe nukes would be a hit in END but they'd still be in the green for recovery. It would be the likes of Corruptors, Defenders and Sentinels that would need to really be careful. 

 

Of course this is only for nukes, haven't touched on what you could do with other AoEs yet. Maybe a diminishing effect after reaching their limit? 

[oedipus_tex]

Whether nukes are effective would depend on what kind of enemies populate the trial. Packs of minions would be vulnerable to AoEs, but packs of bosses, elite bosses or even AVs tend to be more vulnerable to focused single target. There's no reason the composition of a trial would need to be similar to typical radio missions. You could even have some enemies who are very high HP, very low reward, where the goal was not to fight them but to use repel/knockback to avoid them.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

iirc longbow seem to be the only foe that have healers/debuffers mixed well into mobs.....maybe we need more of this?

[Shazbotacus]

I’d like to see more enemy groups with supporting combatants in their ranks, perhaps if they can somehow disrupt/slow the current build meta with IOs. Something to throw a curveball at everyone’s softcapped defense.

[oedipus_tex]

The reason I proposed a Multi Opponent Combat stat (or possibly 2) is that just giving a few enemies in the stack +ToHit penalizes all player archetypes equally. It also adds penalties to lightly/un armored characters, which is something we want to avoid.

 

Part of the current conundrum is the gulf in how armored a highly IOed character is versus one who is not. Mechanics designed to threaten highly IOed characters tend to flatten unIOed characters unless the mechanic takes into account relative amounts of defense.

 

Someone in the thread mentioned Rularuu as an enemy faction that threatens IOed characters. This is true, but the elements of Rularuu that make them so dangerous make them even more so for characters with no or limited armor. At least when you have some base defense, you have a chance to dodge most -Defense attacks, making you survivable until someone rolls 20 on 1d20. If you have low defense to start though the -Defense is almost guaranteed to hit, and once locked in, you can't use Purples to recover because your defense is somewhere in the negatives.

Edited January 11, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Saiyajinzoningen]

this is when strategic targeting comes into play. Pre-ios require strategy, post io's not so much

[Leogunner]

32 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

this is when strategic targeting comes into play. Pre-ios require strategy, post io's not so much

And I think that's a shame. 

 

The reason I put forth the idea of doing something (my suggestion is just a prelim) is because just like IO def/res stacking minimalizes other aspects of a build or team, AoE minimalizes aspects of tactics and target prioritization. 

 

The funny thing is, the moment you propose something to put a hurdle for either (IO'ed builds or cluster nuke strategies) people assume you're trying to kill the game, kill farms, remove being super, ect. It's an odd accusation considering it's mostly hypothetical but the actual intent is right in your face. I don't believe anyone here has nefarious intentions here, just looking at aspects that might lead to something engaging and fun. If you believe the suggestion would have an adverse effect, we can discuss that (like the alternate plan of giving foes +ToHit and damage auras instead). But all the accusations and strawmanning isn't productive. For example, pointing to individual circumstances like Council gunners vs an Inv tanker. 

 

In that last example, the OP is talking about specific content but when I'm participating, I'm generally incorporating as much of the game the idea could be applicable for. Even the Inv vs council one. 

[oedipus_tex]

By the way, we haven't talked about it yet, but a Multi Opponent Stat also provides a way to make those T9 armor powers much more useful other than just having them throw more Defense and Resistance on the character. The T9 could allow them to shift the Start Line for number of enemies before penalty begins and/or reduce the debuff experienced per extra enemy. 

[oedipus_tex]

Another subject I haven't talked much about is mezz and how it impacts flanking in most games.

 

The usual rule is an incapacitated mob does not count against multi-opponent penalties. That's probably the rule I'd want to use here.

 

The benefit of this rule is that allows weaker mezzes in the player's arsenal to still be effective. We have a bunch of these in City of Heroes. For example, Thunderclap in the Storm Summoning set. It's only Mag 2, so most players skip it. If, however, a group had 16 enemies, 10 of them minions, Thunderclap would significantly reduce the Multi Opp penalty of all teammates.

 

The existence of the "mezz rule" is why I didn't want to post any actual numbers in the original post. There'd need to be some thought to how many uncontrolled enemies a player was expected to handle at a time. With the goal being 'team content' it's something you'd want to think about carefully.

 

Some people will no doubt say "well why not just nuke those minions" which is a fair point, but we haven't said anything about how much HP minions in this sort of content would have. Ideally it would be enough to survive an insta-gib.

[boggo2300]

18 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I notice more purple drops when +4 vs -1 but i have never tracked it officially.

this is only based on a vague memory from way back, but I seem to remember there are modifiers on the reward drop table for enemies that con higher to you, so +4 enemies giving a higher chance of purples seems logical if my memory isn't lying to me

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Another subject I haven't talked much about is mezz and how it impacts flanking in most games.

 

The usual rule is an incapacitated mob does not count against multi-opponent penalties. That's probably the rule I'd want to use here.

 

The benefit of this rule is that allows weaker mezzes in the player's arsenal to still be effective. We have a bunch of these in City of Heroes. For example, Thunderclap in the Storm Summoning set. It's only Mag 2, so most players skip it. If, however, a group had 16 enemies, 10 of them minions, Thunderclap would significantly reduce the Multi Opp penalty of all teammates.

 

The existence of the "mezz rule" is why I didn't want to post any actual numbers in the original post. There'd need to be some thought to how many uncontrolled enemies a player was expected to handle at a time. With the goal being 'team content' it's something you'd want to think about carefully.

 

Some people will no doubt say "well why not just nuke those minions" which is a fair point, but we haven't said anything about how much HP minions in this sort of content would have. Ideally it would be enough to survive an insta-gib.

I'd actually limit that too.

 

While I do see using mez as a means of shoring up being overwhelmed, mez in and of itself already does a lot to limit incoming attacks.

 

So I'd actually allow stunned foes to still count as enemies in your line-up, held enemies to have a chance to not count in that line up and sleep/placate to 100% remove an enemy from that line-up with immobilize and knockback never altering the line-up and confuse...I dunno.  I guess there isn't any choice but for confuse to remove a foe from your current line-up since it's changing targets.

 

Or you can go a step further and limit this effect by AT making it so ATs like Defender and Controller reduce numbers via nullification/control while ATs like Dominator and Blaster do it by HP (meaning a Blaster and Dom only have a chance of/no chance of changing that line-up).

 

As for the surviving insta-gibbing minions, some aspects you could think about playing with is perception/aggro range.  Currently, you can be around 50-60ft away from the mob sitting on the outskirts of a group and they not notice you.  What if just turning that corner and those mobs 90ft away will notice and start filing in at you?  @Saiyajinzoningen mentioned mixing more buff/debuff mobs in there and if they are triggered at a longer range, they will start using said buffs/debuffs sooner.  Maybe if it's tough enough, people might consider using ambush tactics like Team Teleport and/or some longer range in certain AoE control powers.

 

 

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

By the way, we haven't talked about it yet, but a Multi Opponent Stat also provides a way to make those T9 armor powers much more useful other than just having them throw more Defense and Resistance on the character. The T9 could allow them to shift the Start Line for number of enemies before penalty begins and/or reduce the debuff experienced per extra enemy. 

Do the tier 9s not buff your stats to a ridiculous degree that it sort of doesn't matter if there are 2 or 20 foes surrounding you?  I suppose there might be edge cases, but how many foes would it take to get slotted Elude ontop of all your other defenses to below soft cap?  I guess if they also had buffs on the foes, but a lot of those tier 9s are super overkill.  Now for tier 9s like Rise of the Phoenix/Soul Transfer, I definitely think adding a +10 to that MO stat for a good 45sec or so.  

[Leogunner]

So some ideas about the MO stat specifically as per the brainstorm session from everyone in the thread:

 

• Some foes may count as more than 1 (like some Bosses, EBs, AVs and GMs counting as a lot of foes).
• Nullification would be an effect that acts to reset or remove the "line-up" and is usually applied by mez and some debuffs
  • Still considering how each mez could fit in this puzzle of Full Nullification
  • Partial Nullification could be like reducing how many foes a target counts as....like Smoke/Flash Arrow blinding foes, making minions that counted as 1 foe reduce to counting as .5 foes, Bosses that counted as 3 reduced to 1, AVs that count as 5 reduced to 3, etc
• ATs have different values of this stat at base:
  • Personally attributed values, I like the concept of having 3 value groups: Lower set at like 4 foes (Defender, Controller, Mastermind), Mid set at 6 foes (pretty much everyone else) and High set at 8 (Tanker and Brute)
  • Inherents can modify this value or be modified by the value (although ignoring partial nullification or buffs).  Gauntlet would add +1 MO stat per teammate over 2; Fury would add +2 to base and foes over the MO limit are counted as higher rank when granting fury (so anything over 10 and they grant Elite Boss or higher amounts of fury); Defiance gives +10 MO stat while mezzed; Scrapper get +10% crit rate for hitting that MO limit plus +3% for every foe above that limit; While NOT under the effect of Domination, mez effects have a chance of Nullification (think if you're Dominating people, they are still drawing your attention as you relish in their anguish while not in Domination mode, you're more collected and worried about your well being); Vigilance gives +5 MO stat when solo or when a teammate is under 50% HP; Assassination causes any foes hit with the demoralize effect to count as 0.25 foes for the effect's duration; etc etc etc
• Some powers grant +MO, such as something in Force Field, maybe some of those ally rez powers, the armor set tier 9s, etc.
• Overall, the MO stat is a product to base value, meaning it is a value multiplied by your buffed stats that doesn't exceed your base values.  So being overwhelmed reduces you to what you would be without buffs, not below (debuffs on you would be required for that).
  • Thinking about this further, would be kind of neat if passive powers were immune to this value.  Probably wouldn't do much but give a bit more value to those powers and a slight leg up for armor types that get passives.

 

Is there anything else?  Of course a lot of these numbers are just personal values and meant as a demonstration (such as setting the MO stat AT values intentionally low so that other means can be used to shore this up such as via Nullification, boosts from inherents, etc) and doesn't really delve into the core of how this actually maths out overall.

 

So what do you think? Anything I missed or misconstrued?

Edited January 12, 2020 by Leogunner
to add an extra bullet

[oedipus_tex]

1 minute ago, Leogunner said:

So some ideas about the MO stat specifically as per the brainstorm session from everyone in the thread:

 

• Some foes may count as more than 1 (like some Bosses, EBs, AVs and GMs counting as a lot of foes).
• Nullification would be an effect that acts to reset or remove the "line-up" and is usually applied by mez and some debuffs
  • Still considering how each mez could fit in this puzzle of Full Nullification
  • Partial Nullification could be like reducing how many foes a target counts as....like Smoke/Flash Arrow blinding foes, making minions that counted as 1 foe reduce to counting as .5 foes, Bosses that counted as 3 reduced to 1, AVs that count as 5 reduced to 3, etc
• ATs have different values of this stat at base:
  • Personally attributed values, I like the concept of having 3 value groups: Lower set at like 4 foes (Defender, Controller, Mastermind), Mid set at 6 foes (pretty much everyone else) and High set at 8 (Tanker and Brute)
  • Inherents can modify this value or be modified by the value (although ignoring partial nullification or buffs).  Gauntlet would add +1 MO stat per teammate over 2; Fury would add +2 to base and foes over the MO limit are counted as higher rank when granting fury (so anything over 10 and they grant Elite Boss or higher amounts of fury); Defiance gives +10 MO stat while mezzed; Scrapper get +10% crit rate for hitting that MO limit plus +3% for every foe above that limit; While NOT under the effect of Domination, mez effects have a chance of Nullification (think if you're Dominating people, they are still drawing your attention as you relish in their anguish while not in Domination mode, you're more collected and worried about your well being); Vigilance gives +5 MO stat when solo or when a teammate is under 50% HP; Assassination causes any foes hit with the demoralize effect to count as 0.25 foes for the effect's duration; etc etc etc
• Some powers grant +MO, such as something in Force Field, maybe some of those ally rez powers, the armor set tier 9s, etc.

 

Is there anything else?  Of course a lot of these numbers are just personal values and meant as a demonstration (such as setting the MO stat AT values intentionally low so that other means can be used to shore this up such as via Nullification, boosts from inherents, etc) and doesn't really delve into the core of how this actually maths out overall.

 

So what do you think? Anything I missed or misconstrued?

 

 

Nice list.

 

I'd add that ideally any penalties incurred would be multipliers and not hard values. That is, instead of -1, -2 etc they would be a value like -0.05 that reduce the armor stats by a ratio of their current value. Characters with no defense or resistance at all wouldn't be further penalized like they typically are in other-Defense scenarios in the game.

 

The subject of the aggro cap would need to be explored. I picture an aggro cap closer to 40 or so, way up from the current 16. But this would depend a lot on the design of the actual mission. 

 

Assuming this is level 50 content (it need not necessarily be), the enemies used should be of respectful strength so that players do not feel insulted. That is, hurling cars and not pebbles. The scenarios should make teams feel powerful at the end of the day.

 

Final note, careless play in a scenario like this would and should occasionally kill players who are used to being invincible. The developers need to have a thick skin at the ready. The goal is to kill players fairly. But some players will really not like it even if it's justa separate set of content set apart from the main game. If the developers need some tips on surviving scathing feedback, I can point them to the comments section of some of my mods. 😄

[oedipus_tex]

49 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Do the tier 9s not buff your stats to a ridiculous degree that it sort of doesn't matter if there are 2 or 20 foes surrounding you?  I suppose there might be edge cases, but how many foes would it take to get slotted Elude ontop of all your other defenses to below soft cap?  I guess if they also had buffs on the foes, but a lot of those tier 9s are super overkill.  Now for tier 9s like Rise of the Phoenix/Soul Transfer, I definitely think adding a +10 to that MO stat for a good 45sec or so.  

 

 

It is true that the the current T9s provide very high values. I haven't looked too closely at how high to be honest, which is why I've been avoiding providing hard numbers so far. But the reason I think they may need to also raise Multi Opp combat score is that disadvantage is applied as a percentage, so sets with very high values (Super Reflex) have the most to lose, unless the loss is offset by raised Multi Opp score.

Edited January 12, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

It is true that the the current T9s provide very high values. I haven't looked too closely at how high to be honest, which is why I've been avoiding providing hard numbers so far. But the reason I think they may need to also raise Multi Opp combat score is that disadvantage is applied as a percentage, so sets with very high values (Super Reflex) have the most to lose, unless the loss is offset by raised Multi Opp score.

For a soft-capped SR, Elude doesn't provide anything other than protection against mobs with tohit buffs (but not enough to make up for DE Quartz and Rularuu seers) and pushes the numbers high enough that using a multiplier would still leave you softcapped for a while even with the higher penalty. Taking your -0.05 per mob above the cap example, the +45% defense that unslotted Elude provides would mean that you would need 10 enemies above the cap to hit a 50% penalty, which would still only put you back at the soft cap. You would also have to be careful to check that the value before applying the multiplier is positive, otherwise you're simply providing defense debuff resistance.

 

Similarly, resistance above the cap serves to provide a cushion for the debuff, just a smaller one.

 

Based on this post...

...I think that the aggro cap increase that you're hoping for on this isn't going to happen, though.

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by siolfir