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

[Monos King]

22 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

You want challenge you make a challenge build, not a meta build. You make a poor man build not a half a bil build.

You had me until that one, that just comes off as deliberate self-limitation that can't be considered in creating a scale for difficulty. It's one thing to deliberately make a weaker set in exchange for a desired quality, doing some cost-benefit analysis. For example making a stealth illusion troll rather than a CC one. But suggesting the way to deal with the rising apprehension towards ease of "high end" content is to just make yourself weak is really, really silly.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

3 minutes ago, monos1 said:

You had me until that one, that just comes off as arbitrary self-limitation that can't be considered in creating a scale for difficulty. It's one thing to deliberately make a weaker set in exchange for a desired quality, doing some cost-benefit analysis. For example making a stealth illusion troll rather than a CC one. But suggesting the way to deal with the rising apprehension towards ease of "high end" content is to just make yourself weak is really, really silly.

From this statement you make me think your from the 3E+ era of pen and paper D&D rather then the older eds. The big difference between 2nd and 3rd can be summed up that in 2nd ed a fair bit of the challenge is playing a character who was largely dictated by the luck of the dice. You want to be a bard, a paladin, a ranger, a druid or the like you better have dice that love you or those wont be on the menu. 3E + put all the control really in the hands of the players. sure rng dice stat gen still existed but most from that generation on seemed to prefer point buy stat systems so everyone was essentially equal.

 

To say self limiting is silly really isnt. Especially in video games be they single or multi, A great example is when I replay a classic like elder scrolls 4 oblivion, I use tons of mods, but I also basically remove leveling up and building states by using console commands to put my lvl and stats to max. Then lower base health so that even in top armor it only takes about 3 arrows from a avg town guard to kill me. So that no matter the build I use, I also have to always be wary and ready to kill quick or flee quicker.  Helps keep an old game like that causing my heart to beat faster when danger lurks near.

 

In CoH you can make plenty of fun and effective characters that are still very far down on the meta and can still play and be useful in the high end content. granted I basically ignore I trials outside of maybe once per character for kicks. They are really rather dull content. However when I ran a doc Q yesterday despite having team mates basically working against me and got me killed just about every time I stuck with the pack, every time I went off solo I was basically untouchable. That was rather amusing to me considering several of them got on the case of the energy blaster, but none of them recognized how a dark melee/bio needs to get first strike in a rush to maintain their dps and regen rates. Sometimes the self gimping in coh is from being with a team funny enough;)

 

I had one character back on live I intentionally never updated to inherent fitness. He was another batmanesque scrapper I made and also avoided powers that felt to super human in his 2ndary. For example he was a WP but I skipped the beloved rise to the challenge as it was too much regen for my concept. I also intentionally didnt give him top end sets and in fact made sure all his dmg powers didnt have more then 60% enhancment increases. As I wanted him to feel more mortal, more human. Yet despite those self gimps I routinely performed so well on him I had people frequently compliment my play and my character and would if asked about my build have their mind blown when they understood how much stronger he could of been.

 

Its doing things like that imo that actually do warrant a sense of pride and accomplishment in a video game. not simply being good at the game meta. but by being damn good when going against the meta. Batman isnt meta and that is why he remains the true Icon of the costume vigilante.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

20 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

We are in agreement and that is what this proposal is about. That's what't this model is, a system to add a combat statistic that makes some archetypes and power sets better at handling multiple opponents than others. 

 

You seem to believe this is about finding a way to kill players unfairly. Maybe that's a problem with how I worded it In fact its about a way to kill them less often and in ways that are fairer.

 

Here's a math question. If a player is at 45% defense and against 16 enemies and I reduce his defense by just 5%, how much extra damage does that character take?

 

The answer right now is double damage against every single enemy. What that means in effect is that even the tiniest reduction in a character's defense will squash them in seconds. That puts a content developer in a real quagmire.

 

The source of this math problem goes back to what was actually originally an oversight in City of Heroe's dodge chances. The oversight is so embedded in the game now that addressing it would require a City of Heroes 2. To put the problem into old school tabletop terms, all of the enemies are kobolds swinging axes that will hit on a natural 20 and miss on a 1. 

 

So the way you address this is the way you deal with it in a 1d20 system. You add flanking so that each individual enemy has a somewhat different chance to hit. Then, to make sure characters who are supposed to be good at dealing with multiple opponents do so, you use a Multi Opponent skill or statistic to offset the disadvantage. The result is some characters who deal better with Multiple Opponents. And a system where adding or taking away 1 point of defense (5% in City of Heroes terms) doesn't destroy a character instantly.

 

The system isn't something I invented. It's widely used in the gaming industry to address the curse of the "miss on 1."

Uhm bud as someone whose first capped toon was a kat/sr I am very familiar with defense and its strengths and weaknesses in this game. But that isnt what your really talking about or complaining about, its soft defense and defense failure spirals when facing mobs that debuff it. You also go on about incoming dmg and how a slight decrease in defense leads to a massive increase in incoming dmg. All of that is good. Soft defense from pools and sets is a newb trap and always has been. I only ever give a fig myself about defense when on a defense set. I prefer dmg res from sets and pool powers far more then soft defense for a reason.

 

45% def is so low to me when it comes to def users that anyone depending on such a low number as to may as well not matter. but here is what happens if I am surrounded by 16 mobs, they walked right into my trap and they die. Does not matter what toon or build I am on, they die. They die because I dont waste time with spread sheets and character builders. i envision a character I build the character i play the character, I fine tune the character to suit my playstyle and fit into the concept I have created for them. So by the time I am facing huge mobs I know a given characters abilities and limits and how to use tricks to reduce the risk to my character.

 

If your character suddenly becomes easy meat because of a mild def debuff it means you didnt have enough def in the first place. Or relied too much on pure def. There is a reason for a power like elude on SR its so you can stack up such high lvls of def that even a ton of debuffing wont eat through to a critical level.  Its also handy when fighting mobs that use leadership and vengeance like nemmy bots. As someone who has stood against the crystal titan without ambrosia trusting in his elude to see me through, as someone that survived the rularuu invasion on the same kat/sr, and to this day loves going to the shadow shard and facing them def shredding giant eyeballs etc I just think you see a problem where I see as close to balance perfection as a game can be.

 

Also D&D hasnt really used the always miss on a one rule in about 20 years. The alternate 1 is -10 and 20 counts as a 30 for adding up numbers and determining a hit replaced it around the time that optinal rule was put in a 3E book and made a standard option to choose. Most RPGA run events Im familiar with use that rule as well. because while yes we want critical strikes and fumbles, both of those should require abit more then 1 bad luck roll. Hence why 3E added critical confirmation rolls, and when you roll a 1 and it calculates as a miss only then do you roll on the possible fumble chart and really even on that chart the only 2 really fubar moments are hit a near by ally, or toss your weapon more feet then you can reach with a single non provoking step. Granted I play kenzerco's hackmaster myself these days and consider it the ultimate pnp rpg. Now there is a system so complex it begs to have a pc version made.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Bentley Berkeley

[Galaxy Brain]

31 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

They die because I dont waste time with spread sheets and character builders.

But... the game does 

 

Edit: 

That response was kind of crass, but the DnD comparison has an issue here when comparing to a Video Game: the Human Element. 

 

In DnD you have 100% control of "what" you do and how to do it in ways that circumvent traditional game mechanics. In DnD, your creativity can allow you to attack anything with any weapon at your disposal, not just the NPCs in front of you. Wanna cut the rope holding the chandelier? Wanna break opena  door and go in? Wanna try to talk it out with the enemies instead of fight? You can do all that with the same character in DnD albeit with the dice gods having influence on how the story progresses, but even then the DM / etc can change everything on a whim with little restriction.

 

A Video Game does not have that luxury, and under the hood it really is ruled by a "spreadsheet". Loot Tables, NPC Spawns, the health they have, what attacks they use, etc, etc, etc, are all run by a script and a table that essentially works out to a fancy spreadsheet. So, when it comes to the general combat of the game outside of very special objectives, its like running a function in a spreadsheet. 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Hyperstrike]

Interesting.  But there are already powers in the game (Invincibility, Against All Odds, RttC) that directly stack based on numbers of enemies.


 

[Leogunner]

4 hours ago, nihilii said:

As a deterministic scaling -def -res per added mob, you should have perfect predictability on what happens to you according to the size of the encounter. Hence the Excel spreadsheet in my perspective, you're down to minmaxing the number of mobs you want to engage.

In a larger sense, if you meant to argue unpredictability makes for difficulty, I can't disagree with that. But getting oneshot also makes for difficulty. Having 19 chances out of 20 to miss also makes for difficulty. Difficulty in itself isn't inherently interesting. It's no surprise computer RPGs eventually moved away from their dice roll tabletop roots. Winning through random events (whether true randomness or something you can't control in practical terms) just isn't as satisfying as winning through deliberate choices.

Global mob buff through dynamic stat change is likely to result in everyone sticking to the same fire farms or council radio missions, maybe taking a little more pain, probably bitching at other players more often. The game used to be harder by virtue of player characters being weaker, and that didn't encourage better behavior. If anything, we had more healbots and tauntbots then than we do now.

Enhancing rewards for harder mob groups stands a greater chance to push players towards harder content. TFs are highly popular thanks to the merit system. Mothership raids went bananas when Homecoming had fantastic Vanguard Merits -> Merits conversion rates.

Even with say, -20% def and -30% res, a Council map isn't remotely as threatening as an Awakened or Praetorian mission.

I was arguing your prospect for immersion doesn't make sense. It's like saying if I can't predict how everything will go, it breaks my immersion when in reality, not many things are predictable in combat. Well, technically they are but we don't have dynamic combat that allows for split second reaction to attacks to capitalize on prediction. 

[oedipus_tex]

3 hours ago, summers said:

Part of the thrill of this game is fighting hordes of enemies at once, and for a Superhero game it is fitting to fight off packs of henchmen or against impossible odds. So sadly I can't say I like this idea at all...

 

The current game cuts you off by force after the 16th enemy. This would be a way to have more than 16 enemies attack at once. I think the current system where, when a player aggros the whole map, three quarters of the enemies stand around and patiently wait their turn is more jarring.

 

The existence of a Start Line means for some sets and archetypes the penalty may not begin until the 16th enemy. I didn't post exact numbers because I don't have them. This post was a theory about incorporating Flanking mechanics found in some other RPGs into some encounters of the game. In those other RPGs you can still face hordes at once. They just don't (typically) cut you off after too many enemies get involved.

Edited January 8, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[nihilii]

59 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I was arguing your prospect for immersion doesn't make sense. It's like saying if I can't predict how everything will go, it breaks my immersion when in reality, not many things are predictable in combat. Well, technically they are but we don't have dynamic combat that allows for split second reaction to attacks to capitalize on prediction. 

Gotcha. Yeah, this is a long-standing debate and I guess we sit at opposite ends of the spectrum. I believe in determinism and not in free will, which doesn't help. 😉

 

Still, I find it easier to stomach pseudo randomness than dynamic stat changes.

"Enemy may hit or miss" is easy to justify as the simulation limitations in CoH, as we don't target enemies manually. It can even be satisfying as a mechanic.

"Your stats go up and down in a predictable manner according to the number of foes you're facing" kind of takes you on a longer loop for the system to make sense. Are we being flanked? Is this supposed to reflect the increasing chaos of combat as headcount goes up? Why are *our* stats debuffed and not the mobs buffed?

I think that last one is a sticking point, too, if psychological. Turn player -def/-res into enemy +tohit/+dam and it doesn't seem so bad. 🤔

[Galaxy Brain]

The same-ish effect could be achieved by giving all enemies weak leadership boosts. 🤔

[johua]

No thanks.

This idea just sounds like a punishment for people who like min-maxing and building their characters, and that's my favorite part of the game. I want my characters to be able to mow down hordes of enemies once they're built.

[oedipus_tex]

Just so we're clear on the intentions, when you give all enemies in a stack the same +ToHit, you end up with them all still having the same Defense roll. This kind of like how in the iTrials the soft cap is raised to 59 for all enemies. If a character in an iTrial drops from 59 defense to 52, the double-damage-from-all-sources factor reappears.

 

 

Under a Flanking system, the soft cap in a zone with a 45 soft cap looks more like:

 

1   45

2   46

3   47

4   48

5   50

6   52

6   54

8   57

9   60

 

 

And so on. The number on the left doesn't mean "1 enemy" by the way, it means number of enemies past the Start Line. The Start Line would be adjustable by archetype. It could be the 17th enemy, Or the 3rd. Or whatever number seems appropriate for the nature of the mission style you're creating. Importantly, only the enemy in that position fights with those advantages. Each enemy has a slightly different combat roll. This is intentional to smooth out the cap.

 

Under such systems I've also sometimes seen where some single enemies are marked as multiple enemies to make them more interesting to fight. Giant Monsters in some games for example count for 2 or 4 or 10 flanks depending on their size.

 

Figuring out how much defense you ultimately end up with in such a system isn't usually much harder than figuring out how powers affect enemies who are higher level than you. It mainly changes the language a bit. "Soft capped to all enemies up to the 17th enemy."

 

In the current CoX system its not possible to fight more than 16 enemies at once, so I think the comments about limiting the ability to fight lots of enemies need some justification. You could use a system like this to severely punish players. Or you could use it to kill them less often but more fairly. 

Edited January 8, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

Let me use a possible example involving a Tanker (an archetype I envision having a high stat).

 

For this example, let's say the Tanker class has a Start Line of 12. Some powers in this set raise to 16, because this is a set that is intentionally "extra good" at handling lots of enemies.

 

This Tanker is in whatever this special mission is and aggros 24.

 

With a Start Line of 16, the first 16 enemies fight at the same strength they always would have in the live game. The difference is what happens with the final 8 enemies. 

 

With his Start Line exceeded, the Tanker fights these at the following values (super made up numbers on the spot)

 

 

17) 46

18) 47

19) 48

20) 50

21) 52

22) 54

23) 56

24) 60

 

 

Let's say this Tanker has 50% Defense to the main attack form of this enemy.

 

 

Against the enemy in positions, 1-20, the Tanker is soft capped.

 

Against the enemy in position 21, the Tank is 1 point from soft cap.

 

Against the enemy in position 22, the Tank is 2 points from soft cap.

 

...

 

Against the enemy in position 24, the Tank is 10 points from soft cap.

 

 

 

To determine what position any given enemy is at a time, the game just rolls 1d[number of positions]. This is easy to do because the game already keeps a list of aggroed enemies. Thus, when an attack comes in, the only real change is the attacker rolls to see what position he attacks from. 

 

 

* * * 

 

There's one more thing about this that I like about it for a team-heavy zone. It makes Tanking directly relevant to the mission. Pulling an enemy off a team member directly and immediately, rather than just implicitly, raises their survival.

 

I've already said repeatedly why I wouldn't put this in the main game. But for a zone-specific mechanic I think it is at least worth talking about. 

 

If I ever get the developer copy of CoX working I'd like to experiment with it. It's been a few years since I modded a combat system and I'm itching to try it out.

Edited January 8, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Leogunner]

6 hours ago, nihilii said:

Gotcha. Yeah, this is a long-standing debate and I guess we sit at opposite ends of the spectrum. I believe in determinism and not in free will, which doesn't help. 😉

 

Still, I find it easier to stomach pseudo randomness than dynamic stat changes.

"Enemy may hit or miss" is easy to justify as the simulation limitations in CoH, as we don't target enemies manually. It can even be satisfying as a mechanic.

"Your stats go up and down in a predictable manner according to the number of foes you're facing" kind of takes you on a longer loop for the system to make sense. Are we being flanked? Is this supposed to reflect the increasing chaos of combat as headcount goes up? Why are *our* stats debuffed and not the mobs buffed?

I think that last one is a sticking point, too, if psychological. Turn player -def/-res into enemy +tohit/+dam and it doesn't seem so bad. 🤔

I think either system (the current or the proposed) count as pseudo randomness. It just shifts the scales more when dealing with more foes. It's all the same, really. So why change it? Because it's been stated that more challenge is desired and this is another suggestion in the pool of challenge modes /content rolled around. 

 

And it's not quite like adding bufffs to the enemy. The point of the proposal is to either deincentivize or introduce a counter efficiently curve for aggroing to many foes. But if the aggro is split but all foes have +ToHit and damage, you merely created a new cap (like the incarnate cap) or if they all had leadership toggles, you just make the split aggro situation much harsher instead of easier to handle i. e. Using teamwork and tactics to alleviate one person from being overwhelmed. 

 

 

[Leogunner]

Further considerations, this can have other avenues when taking into account buffs and debuffs. It was mentioned that Force Field shield or the bubble could grant a bonus on engaging more foes while other defense buffs won't like fade. 

 

On the other hand, having certain debuffs like smoke slightly lower perception but also how many foes you engage safely would suddenly make those foes more dangerous. Or making it so each foes affected count as fewer enemies (a blinded foe only counts as half a foe). 

 

I think the funny thing is, when talking about difficulty, the main suggestion you hear is "buff the mobs! Just buff em!" and this suggestion does exactly that... It just gives the player a tactical path to circumvent it. I feel that's more interesting as it gives your team something more to consider when engaging and doling out buffs/debuffs. 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Leogunner

[srmalloy]

On 1/5/2020 at 3:06 PM, oedipus_tex said:

These games, in addition to a combat statistic for "Evasion" "Parry" and "Shield Block" (more or less our "Defense") have a statistic called "Multi Opponent" that registers the degradation of the character's defenses when engaged with multiple opponents. The idea is that a player character facing a single opponent should have high survivability, but as more opponents are added, survivability should drop.

This would, to be properly implemented, require an additional statistic for opponents, "Coordination". Particularly in melee, it is difficult for more than two or three people to attack one target without getting in each other's way. This value would be determined for the mob group as a whole; more-disciplined groups, like Malta or Longbow, are trained to work in groups, and would not suffer a decrease in individual effectiveness until the number of attackers on a single target was higher, compared to a more 'individualistic' group like the Trolls.

On 1/5/2020 at 4:20 PM, oedipus_tex said:

The reason it would help City of Heroes is that currently, if you increase your defense from 40% to 45% you reduce all in coming damage by 50%. If each attack had a different chance to hit you, though, you'd smooth out the soft cap. If the Start Line was 3 opponents, the decrease in damage taken would be 50% for the first 3 opponents. But it would be 40% for the fourth opponent, 30% for the fifth, etc. Overall damage taken would not cut in half like it currently does just because a character acquired 5% defense.

Cryptic chose a route that makes small amounts of Defense proportionately more effective than other defenses in the interest of simplification of combat. Unfortunately, one of the easiest ways to address this requires a sweeping change over a lot of powers in the game, as well as combat -- make Defense a separate check. Your attacker has their chance to hit; if their attack misses, it's done. If they roll a hit, then their target makes a roll against their Defense; if the target's Defense roll is successful, they dodged/blocked the attack, and it stops there. The rest of combat resolution remains as it is.

 

Obviously, this would mean rebalancing every single power that increases Defense of any type, the value of Defense enhancements, all Defense Debuff powers, and altering the "did I hit" section of the combat mechanics to include the additional RNG check. Would this add enough to the game to justify the coding effort? I don't know.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

im not gonna talk technicalities or use scientific jargon. 
What i will do is give a famous quote.

Not by a hero but by a generic no name minion

 

"It's just one guy, we can take him"

 

Anyone who has ever read a superhero comic recognized this quote and understands its implications.

[Leogunner]

12 hours ago, monos1 said:

You had me until that one, that just comes off as deliberate self-limitation that can't be considered in creating a scale for difficulty. It's one thing to deliberately make a weaker set in exchange for a desired quality, doing some cost-benefit analysis. For example making a stealth illusion troll rather than a CC one. But suggesting the way to deal with the rising apprehension towards ease of "high end" content is to just make yourself weak is really, really silly.

That and it's half admitting the min/maxers are actually playing the game on easy so what exactly do they have to brag about? 

 

I'd like to assume those that min/max their characters spend time and effort gaining knowledge but the message here seems to say otherwise. 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Leogunner

[oedipus_tex]

There's another detail I keep forgetting to highlight and kicking myself. Ideally the penalty only applies when you actually have the statistic. Like, if you have zero Defense, you don't lose more Defense. If you have an all Defense, no Resistance build, you don't lose even more Resistance. Working the math out of this is a bit of a challenge, but it basically means the penalty is actually a ratio to how much Defense and Resist you actually have. The less of it you have, the less percentage you lose. I presented the numbers as simply, -1, -2 etc, but in a finished model a multiplier works better.

 

The main idea is that characters with no armor of a certain type are already sufficiently threatened by large numbers of enemies. We don't want to kill them even worse.

 

This is an area where the current Defense Debuff mechanics can really get low Defense characters in trouble. Characters with low Defense get hit by a non-proportional debuff and lose the ability to dodge anything at all. The DDR and -Defense system is built mainly to get very high Defense characters with low DDR in trouble but sometimes forgets players with low/no Defense can also suffer the debuffs.

Edited January 9, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Leogunner]

1 minute ago, oedipus_tex said:

There's another detail I keep forgetting to highlight and kicking myself. Ideally the penalty only applies when you actually have the statistic. Like, if you have zero Defense, you don't lose more Defense. If you have an all Defense, no Resistance build, you don't lose even more Resistance. Working the math out of this is a bit of a challenge, but it basically means the penalty is actually a ratio to how much Defense and Resist you actually have. The less of it you have, the less percentage you lose. I presented the numbers as simply, -1, -2 etc, but in a multiplier works better.

 

The main idea is that characters with no armor of a certain type are already sufficiently threatened by large numbers of enemies. We don't want to kill them even worse.

 

This is an area where the current Defense Debuff mechanics can really get low Defense characters in trouble. Characters with low Defense get hit by a non-proportional debuff and lose the ability to dodge anything at all.

So then a % of base buff. I don't think it's that much tougher, but it would require a change in your numbers. 

[oedipus_tex]

1 minute ago, Leogunner said:

So then a % of base buff. I don't think it's that much tougher, but it would require a change in your numbers. 

 

 

Yeah. I went with flat values hoping it would add more clarity, but I may have made it more confusing. Ideally, it would be percent based, offset by your Multi Opponent Stat.

[Monos King]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

That and it's half admitting the min/maxers are actually playing the game on easy so what exactly do they have to brag about? 

Huh?

[Hyperstrike]

9 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

im not gonna talk technicalities or use scientific jargon. 
What i will do is give a famous quote.

Not by a hero but by a generic no name minion

 

"It's just one guy, we can take him"

 

Anyone who has ever read a superhero comic recognized this quote and understands its implications.

If you've ever read Parahumans, you realize how karmically destructiove the various permutations of "Meh.  I could take her!" actually are...

[Hyperstrike]

9 hours ago, Leogunner said:

That and it's half admitting the min/maxers are actually playing the game on easy so what exactly do they have to brag about? 

 

I'd like to assume those that min/max their characters spend time and effort gaining knowledge but the message here seems to say otherwise. 

I'm sorry, but min-maxing is NOT playing the game on "easy mode".
It's not a crime to factor out the cost-benefit spread for a game.
So you change the rules.
And someone else will just figure out the optimal cost-benefit spread for the new situation.

All this does is devolve into a game of "How badly can we screw over the players and not have them leave?"

All because someone ELSE'S play style doesn't fit into their concept of "The CORRECT way to play..."

Nah.  Don't count me "out".  Count me against this on the very basis of where it emerges from in the player psyche.

[DrRocket]

Darn it, I hate to be in the no side of arguments, even when they actually make sense.

 

A recommendation like this would spell disaster to tankers/brutes holding aggroe for a team, and the end of farming all together.

 

If a tank for instance in a full group is doing any TF, the number of enemy mobs attacking would reach saturation as described above and the tank will go down fast, very fast. The support archtypes are already very vulnerable, now you made them even more vulnerable when the AOEs are spammed in a normal battle. I am not sure an empath defender could keep up with heals for the tanker, and that is assuming that they are not mezzed by the flurry of AOE holds or what not.

 

Today I enjoy the freedom of teaming we are experiencing today, have we forgotten in the "Live" days when the group composition for a mission was very much cookie cutter, you got to have a tank and defender or you have no team? I can remember the old days, when the team leader was begging for a defender to join the team and all of us waiting and pleading for example. Today we don't even have to have a defender or support at all to be successful, it sure helps make it more comfortable, but is no longer a must have. I, groan, remember being denied a group invite because I was a Storm Defender and not a real support type class. I do not want to go back to those days.

 

Now that said, I don't disagree with the concept, but I would propose to have this as a difficulty option to be chosen at TF start and have special badges that recognize the achievement.

 

V/R

[Galaxy Brain]

The more I ponder this, the more I think this could be emulated in a better way by having enemies boost each other in minuscule ways. Like, each enemy has essentially micro-leadership that gives each other 0.5% Acc, Damage, and Defense. 

 

10 enemies in a group all then get +5% to all that, which makes them hit a scootch harder overall and pushes the soft cap to 50%, which puts value on support sets that boost defense in today's meta as well as debuffing enemies / taking out targets.

 

20 enemies in a mob of course push this all to 10%, or if we wanna go the advanced route we could have rank increase these bonuses to 0.5 for minion, 1% for LT, 2% for boss to make ST specialists valued as well.