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

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

I'm sorry, but min-maxing is NOT playing the game on "easy mode".

I suppose I have to explain what "half admitting" means because people will only look at the words they are offended by and ignore the rest. And I also have to explain "it's like" in the context of the quoted subject because people lack that as well even when I put a contrary statement to what you quoted in the same post. 

 

Simple rationale here : if nerfing my build is the intended challenge mode in the game, shopping the forums for a build that checks off the min/max staples would then be the equivalent of putting the game in easy mode...that is, if you actually believe SO only build with only pool power attacks is a valid mode of challenge the game facilitates for your enjoyment rather than a painful player made trial of patience. 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

13 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. 

Well actually yes becuase yes power gamer/min maxxers are indeed driven to remove challenge. Example play a zelda game only with the base hearts and never get more or carry fairies, thats challenge mode. Getting all the upgrades and beign as powerful as possible, thats easy mode. Same thing here We dont make our characters min max so we feel challenge, the only challenge there is putting in the time to aquire inf, and understand the game well enough to know which sets to buy and how many slots to put in a given power. Nor am I insulting or being critical of that. I just prefer transparency in these discussions when people try to talk about adding challenge.

 

You know why so many especially tank players fear and loathe the shadow shard? Or those soft capping def via set bonuses and pools? Because the mobs there challenge them with things like psi dmg, def shredding, and phase shifting to remove them from the fight for periods of time in a way they cant resist. IE actual challenge. Hell in the trials the biggest challenge isnt the mobs, its getting the players to actually take down targets at the same time when needed.

 

And when one can use forum guides and build videos to make a toon without really knowing much about it, yeah most min maxxers are not the build designers, the forerunners that lead the way, they are copy and paste types.

 

I can honestly say every one of my toons is a personalized build, and each of them is pretty damn effective even the ones intentionally made less powerful to reflect being a mere human. And I never post nor share builds actively. Even when i help a new player who is asking for help I dont say drop this this and this and take that that and that. I say well hm maybe you might like mystic flight over normal flight, and snag a free teleport in the mix. Hm maybe only 5 slot your attack powers and take advantage of these strong 5 part sets so you have more slots to use on your other powers. I make loose suggestions and nudge them so they can explore and learn on their own.

[Leogunner]

47 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

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.

Or, it would just make a new "incarnate soft cap" like level of set bonuses to shoot for while introducing more danger to the support in the back that isn't at that cap who happened to draw aggro for a little bit. 

 

There are certain goals put forth in the OP proposal that your idea has ignored. It doesn't really introduce any kind of new tactical considerations either. Emphasizing buffs/debuffs isn't changing the simple formula of cluster and nuke which has de-emphasized a lot of other aspects of the game. 

[siolfir]

7 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

There are certain goals put forth in the OP proposal that your idea has ignored. It doesn't really introduce any kind of new tactical considerations either. Emphasizing buffs/debuffs isn't changing the simple formula of cluster and nuke which has de-emphasized a lot of other aspects of the game. 

The problem with the proposal is by making it based on the number of enemies it just promotes the simple formula of "nuke every spawn with as much AoE as possible." This thins the herd to below the threshold value, where it has no effect, and penalizes people for not using as much AoE as possible.

[Leogunner]

1 minute ago, siolfir said:

The problem with the proposal is by making it based on the number of enemies it just promotes the simple formula of "nuke every spawn with as much AoE as possible." This thins the herd to below the threshold value, where it has no effect, and penalizes people for not using as much AoE as possible.

That's the basic tactic behind all fights though. That's like saying "well it just promotes taking out bad guys..." yeah. Yeah it does.

 

AoEs have target caps and some challenges could be made that wouldn't simply play out to just spam a bunch of AoE's and hope it thins things enough that the tank doesn't have to kill himself so those nukers aren't dog piled. 

 

We've only scratched the surface of the possibilities here. I think the OP has some merit to at least brainstorm on a forum. 

[siolfir]

Just now, Leogunner said:

That's the basic tactic behind all fights though. That's like saying "well it just promotes taking out bad guys..." yeah. Yeah it does.

My point was that it hurts people who aren't steamrolling already, and does nothing to stop the teams that are. It doesn't fix the problem, it just gets rid of the middle ground.

[Leogunner]

20 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Well actually yes becuase yes power gamer/min maxxers are indeed driven to remove challenge. Example play a zelda game only with the base hearts and never get more or carry fairies, thats challenge mode. Getting all the upgrades and beign as powerful as possible, thats easy mode. Same thing here We dont make our characters min max so we feel challenge, the only challenge there is putting in the time to aquire inf, and understand the game well enough to know which sets to buy and how many slots to put in a given power. Nor am I insulting or being critical of that. I just prefer transparency in these discussions when people try to talk about adding challenge.

You said it, not me (I just implied it). 

 

Personally speaking, I min/max because I like to progress. A character builds and builds over time and once you cap levels (and sometimes before) the only way to make the character progress is to get some purple IOs out some incarnate powers. Either that or the character is complete and there's not much reason to play them except maybe to get some badges or modify their costume. 

 

The problem with player made challeng like that are, sometimes they can take away fun. Completing Zelda with only base hearts removes the fun of finding them or the incentive to complete those quests. Playing FFX with the no sphere grid challenge might be hard, but it also divorces the game from progress incentives. I'm not saying these things aren't hard, I'm saying it's a flat pointless thing to bring up here as I'm sure we all know you can nerf yourself. We aren't discussing what we can do to challenge ourselves but rather what the system should have done so you wouldn't need to nerf yourself like that. It'd be a different story if it was like Undertale where nerfing yourself opens up new parts of the game, but it doesn't... 

[DrRocket]

15 minutes ago, siolfir said:

My point was that it hurts people who aren't steamrolling already, and does nothing to stop the teams that are. It doesn't fix the problem, it just gets rid of the middle ground.

Good point, also the suggestion affects Archtypes disproportionally. The melee types are endowed with good resistances, so if they hit more often, so what? The support classes can get some resistances but never as great for obvious reasons, so when you apply this to a support type, not only they loose defense (their primary form of survivability) but you also hit hard the modest resistance they have, which is far more devastating to what would happen to the melee types.

 

Maybe, the table shown with dfense and resistance penalties only affects melee types and a more "lighter" version used for support types?

 

Once again the two table format, and use the OPs suggestion as a difficulty choice setting with badges would be appealing, and a good topic to be discussed by team members.

 

V/R

[Leogunner]

46 minutes ago, siolfir said:

My point was that it hurts people who aren't steamrolling already, and does nothing to stop the teams that are. It doesn't fix the problem, it just gets rid of the middle ground.

People that aren't steamrolling are the ones that pull, that die and use rezzes, that wipe and start again. This really wouldn't change that. 

 

Those that steamroll this is one means of actually giving them a speedbump or tripwire when they engage too many. The point is to make it more possible to bite off more than you can chew. Since the game is aggro capped, that's going to introduce a different paradigm. But you SHOULD be able to streamroll when fighting within your means. 

 

So I disagree with your assumption. I think people who don't streamroll are going to be just fine. In instances where the game thrusts challenge at them, they will fall just as they would have fallen with the current system. 

 

And going down the nuke discussion, again, we've only scratched the surface of the proposal. 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Leogunner

[Infinitum]

23 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

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.

There is an AE map by Flaremare that has ambush spawns when attacking a certain enemy that's like a WWZ zombie rush by default it increases the amount of enemies around you in seconds.  That would be a fun design to put in game.

 

Gimping builds not so much.  As soon as this stops allowing you to do super powered things and requiring every challenge to be team specific is when this will taper off and die.

 

The inclusivity is one of the greatest things HC has going for it.  Doesnt matter what type is wanting to join right now.  "Sure buddy come on board, we can make it work"  that would go away with this.

 

There is a thread on this in Suggestions about call for help, but I think that's more the way to go than what you are suggesting IMO.

 

There's a few directions lately people are seeking to make this more grindy, and then exclusive will come by default.  On a ressurected game where time is more important to most of us reliving the glory days when our lives have changed in the last 12 years, I think for the most part we like the ultimate power, inclusiveness, and being able to run Tin mage or Apex in 13 min.  Some days we don't have hours to grind or get frustrated by 10 minions mopping the floor with a build that previously could take on 100 if it could gather that many.

 

Like others and myself have said, tailor your challenge any way you want, make a whole SG of like minded people too.  Every Avenue is open to do that to make this as hard as you want it to be, and this way our avenues to be ultra powered easy buttons stay open as well. Everyone gets to play the way they like.

 

More content like Apex and Tin Mage - and especially the dark astoria Arc is all the game really needs.  

 

Wouldn't even be opposed to have this as a check box TF option, but as the rule for the masses?  No that would help kill inclusiveness and ultimately the game.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

You said it, not me (I just implied it). 

 

Personally speaking, I min/max because I like to progress. A character builds and builds over time and once you cap levels (and sometimes before) the only way to make the character progress is to get some purple IOs out some incarnate powers. Either that or the character is complete and there's not much reason to play them except maybe to get some badges or modify their costume. 

 

The problem with player made challeng like that are, sometimes they can take away fun. Completing Zelda with only base hearts removes the fun of finding them or the incentive to complete those quests. Playing FFX with the no sphere grid challenge might be hard, but it also divorces the game from progress incentives. I'm not saying these things aren't hard, I'm saying it's a flat pointless thing to bring up here as I'm sure we all know you can nerf yourself. We aren't discussing what we can do to challenge ourselves but rather what the system should have done so you wouldn't need to nerf yourself like that. It'd be a different story if it was like Undertale where nerfing yourself opens up new parts of the game, but it doesn't... 

Nobody is holding a gun to yours or anyones head to min max though thats the point.

 

From IO sets to SOs the game suddenly gets a ton more challenging.

 

That option is always there without affecting how anyone else plays.

[Galaxy Brain]

9 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Nobody is holding a gun to yours or anyones head to min max though thats the point.

 

From IO sets to SOs the game suddenly gets a ton more challenging.

 

That option is always there without affecting how anyone else plays.

This circles back to: what is the average player building?

 

Inventions are promoted all the time by the game by getting recipes and salvage that you can look at as a casual player by just snooping around your menus and figure out how to make. The Help Channels, FB, discord, forums here and so on also promote IO's. When you hit 50, you also automatically start getting incarnate EXP by playing the game so people would naturally go to that.

 

Does this mean everyone is building IO'd to the gills characters with t4 incarnate everything? God no

 

Does this mean a sizeable portion just ignore everything actively and stick to just what drops in their ENH tray / Stores? Also probably no

 

The truth is probably in the middle somewhere where people probably have 1-2 mains that they incarnate out, and load up with a few sets + the useful procs / uniques, and then a bunch of other characters similarly "Lightly" Slotted with at least stuff like Perf Shifter and such.

 

 

If this is the case, the average power level of the game has indeed gone up at the "Basic" level of player, and swapping to SO only is an active challenge mode akin to the examples of Zelda speedruns and such that is not exactly something to balance around.

[Troo]

[Infinitum]

8 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

This circles back to: what is the average player building?

 

Inventions are promoted all the time by the game by getting recipes and salvage that you can look at as a casual player by just snooping around your menus and figure out how to make. The Help Channels, FB, discord, forums here and so on also promote IO's. When you hit 50, you also automatically start getting incarnate EXP by playing the game so people would naturally go to that.

 

Does this mean everyone is building IO'd to the gills characters with t4 incarnate everything? God no

 

Does this mean a sizeable portion just ignore everything actively and stick to just what drops in their ENH tray / Stores? Also probably no

 

The truth is probably in the middle somewhere where people probably have 1-2 mains that they incarnate out, and load up with a few sets + the useful procs / uniques, and then a bunch of other characters similarly "Lightly" Slotted with at least stuff like Perf Shifter and such.

 

 

If this is the case, the average power level of the game has indeed gone up at the "Basic" level of player, and swapping to SO only is an active challenge mode akin to the examples of Zelda speedruns and such that is not exactly something to balance around.

It's not really a balance issue though.

 

Either way, my point is you can incarnate and overslot everything like I do - I have 17 now and working on 6 more at the moment.  I like being OP.  There's nothing wrong with that.

 

Or you can slot for challenge and grind.

 

Either avenue is available right now providing for a very diverse and versatile game which is a good thing for a resurrected game 12 years removed.

 

All this would be interesting as add on difficulty options though.

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

You know why so many especially tank players fear and loathe the shadow shard? Or those soft capping def via set bonuses and pools? Because the mobs there challenge them with things like psi dmg, def shredding, and phase shifting to remove them from the fight for periods of time in a way they cant resist. IE actual challenge. Hell in the trials the biggest challenge isnt the mobs, its getting the players to actually take down targets at the same time when needed.

So you're saying it's not because it's a gigantic, mostly empty space that really isn't readily navigable without a flight power because all the gravity wells are borked?
And even with the requisite flight power, navigation is painfully slow?

By your reasoning, such players would avoid Incarnate content as well.
Yet we really don't see that happening...

[Hyperstrike]

56 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Nobody is holding a gun to yours or anyones head to min max though thats the point.

 

From IO sets to SOs the game suddenly gets a ton more challenging.

 

That option is always there without affecting how anyone else plays.

So hold a gun to his head to prevent min-maxing?

Nah.

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Hyperstrike said:

So hold a gun to his head to prevent min-maxing?

Nah.

Who is doing that?  

 

Nobody is doing that.

 

That's a conscious choice that everyone has.  The games population will absolutely allow it too because it's so laid back and forgiving.

 

Theres probably a whole sector that would join just for nostalgia purposes, myself included.

[Troo]

On 1/6/2020 at 11:04 AM, oedipus_tex said:

In full disclosure, I was a developer on a game that had this mechanic and I think the system would work well for City of Heroes. I would not actually implement it in the main game for reasons described in the original post. It would be a way to make end-game content more exciting without destroying characters who haven't been armored.

If it didn't typically effect average/most players and was only there for outliers I'm okay with that. I like the idea of something that increases the challenge for choosing to increase the difficulty. It's reasonable for +4/8 to be more challenging than it is. It does seem like a lot of effort for a skinny slice of the player population.

 

I can also see where folks suggest it could add grind for many which would be a concern. COX is a pretty long game with high replay-ability.

 

 

[Infinitum]

11 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

So you're saying it's not because it's a gigantic, mostly empty space that really isn't readily navigable without a flight power because all the gravity wells are borked?
And even with the requisite flight power, navigation is painfully slow?

By your reasoning, such players would avoid Incarnate content as well.
Yet we really don't see that happening...

I think the shard is a non issue, it's not that people hate or fear it, it's just not an efficient way to spend your time. I personally love it, but it's hard to get people to want to invest the time to do the content there.

 

Even condensed DR Q takes at best 1.5 hours on average - from my experiences and that's if everyone is on board and everything goes perfectly.

[Hyperstrike]

6 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Who is doing that?  

 

Nobody is doing that.

 

That's a conscious choice that everyone has.  The games population will absolutely allow it too because it's so laid back and forgiving.

 

Theres probably a whole sector that would join just for nostalgia purposes, myself included.

What I'm saying is that proposed game mechanic basically is telling players who spend lots of time on their characters and tweak them out "You're playing wrong" and penalizes them for it.


 

 

4 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I think the shard is a non issue, it's not that people hate or fear it, it's just not an efficient way to spend your time. I personally love it, but it's hard to get people to want to invest the time to do the content there.

 

Even condensed DR Q takes at best 1.5 hours on average - from my experiences and that's if everyone is on board and everything goes perfectly.

Exactly. 

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

Nobody is holding a gun to yours or anyones head to min max though thats the point.

 

From IO sets to SOs the game suddenly gets a ton more challenging.

 

That option is always there without affecting how anyone else plays.

Like I said, you're then just divorcing the gameplay from progress and incentive. It's different from a static game that is complete once it goes on the market. 

[Infinitum]

28 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

What I'm saying is that proposed game mechanic basically is telling players who spend lots of time on their characters and tweak them out "You're playing wrong" and penalizes them for it.


 

 

Exactly. 

Agree 100% to both.

[Troo]

@Leogunner Makes me wanna ask.. so should folks not playing with IOs get higher rewards thus adding incentive for playing a more challenging.. okay I'm just joking but there could be something there.

 

To all:

To me the speed bump in COX has always been diminishing rewards.

 

Let folks go as fast or be as overpowered as they want. Let folks play the way they want. Shoot we'll even let you skip the majority of the game if you like. We just won't let players then abuse rewards or a game mechanic.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Troo

[Infinitum]

14 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Like I said, you're then just divorcing the gameplay from progress and incentive. It's different from a static game that is complete once it goes on the market. 

No, as usual you are missing the point.

 

The incentive remains the same regardless, and if you get more from harder difficulty and grind that's your incentive.

 

Its a game.  Create your fun any way you want.  It allows that.  These changes would remove that.

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, Infinitum said:

No, as usual you are missing the point.

 

The incentive remains the same regardless, and if you get more from harder difficulty and grind that's your incentive.

 

Its a game.  Create your fun any way you want.  It allows that.  These changes would remove that.

I'm not missing the point. What you just said merely dismissed someone's viewpoint and restated what you just said. Why not ask if intentionally nerfing yourself makes you want to play and replay content rather than make assumptions based on trying to trump a forum argument. 

 

I'm telling you right now, if I'm playing for difficulty and I make a build to intentionally nerf myself, at best, I'd participate just to prove something and never again. 

 

Have you looked into some of the challenge Final Fantasy no save runs that can push past 12hours of straight gameplay? I doubt they do that on a weekly basis for fun lol