Consolidated CoH difficulty thread (Includes Poll!)

[Klaleara]

4 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

No, that absolutely is not the case, it wad making a small profit actually.

 

They pulled the plug to try to corral more of a player base into some new game they had coming out.

Considering that NCSoft literally tried to sell CoX, which would completely thwart that plan, I'll wrap that up as "hearsay".

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Cut it out with the personal attacks. Trying to "out" each other solves nothing, as does bringing up why CoH got shut down.

 

Anyways, bringing up certain power combos or even ATs as "Easy Mode" points more toward a balance problem than an overarching difficulty problem. If Rad melee makes the game easy... what about  Dark Melee? Does that make the game hard? Should DM be buffed to RM levels or RM be nerfed to DM levels? Either choice is bad, in theory.

 

The better option would be to help the sets that are not in that list be closer to said list via buffs, and then throw a bone to what these newly powered sets will be fighting.

 

 

There isn't a set out there that cant solo +4/8. Its not a balance issue the game is rightfully so easy when setted out and fully incarnate, we just need more content like dark Astoria and tin mage/apex. Apex is the kinda strategy I think we are looking for not just arbitrary desk smashing difficulty.

[Ruin Mage]

The issue is a lack of end game, and that comes from the cut short development.

Which we really can't be asking for right now until we have more of a development team or more of an idea what is possible and what isn't.

[Infinitum]

6 minutes ago, Klaleara said:

Considering that NCSoft literally tried to sell CoX, which would completely thwart that plan, I'll wrap that up as "hearsay".

They were never serious about selling it, come on now, even steam was interested and got shot down.

[Troo]

"The issue is a lack of end game"

 

This is always curious to see.

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Troo said:

"The issue is a lack of end game"

 

This is always curious to see.

i wouldnt call it a lack of

Just an incomplete end game.

[Galaxy Brain]

Lets not derail into the game shutting down.

 

Anywho, I brought up DM as it is the worst performing melee set in a vacuum. There are certain synergies that are nice sure, but overall it's kinda odd when compared to other sets in similar circumstances. The metric chosen of course was average clear time of a standardized mission with standardized difficulty settings for SO's. With an IO'd out build it was still the slowest, being outperformed by TW on SO's.

 

Time to take down mobs is an important metric as faster clears = less time to them to fight you and more rewards/time. Dark Melee provides some safety with how you can lower tohit on enemies, but with the abysmal AoE it has trouble applying that -ToHit to groups of enemies (which outside of a boss fight are what actually pose threats) on top of dealing with those enemies efficiently in more direct terms. In a one on one fight it does well, but then you can't effectively leverage soul drain + Purple Patch hurts ToHit debuffs when it counts. Buffing it to be better would be awesome, but it would technically make the game easier given it does have many strengths... 

 

Nerfing other sets down to DM's level would make the game harder, but just try selling that one.

 

This is not to say that DM is bad either! Its really cool conceptually and we all know the couple of godly powers it has. Its just as a kit by itself it is not as efficient as other melee sets. Which is sorta the same "problem" I see as the root of the difficulty conversation: why play DM when you could use War Mace / etc for more power?

[Galaxy Brain]

8 minutes ago, Troo said:

"The issue is a lack of end game"

 

This is always curious to see.

 

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

i wouldnt call it a lack of

Just an incomplete end game.

 

These points also roll into the other where "Any combo can solo 4/8 when decked out". We can deck out all characters to where we eclipse all challenges in the game, so what we need is something challenging for those who are decked out.

[Ruin Mage]

Got a question for people going "the game is too easy."
Have you tried anything past a +4/x8 mission stomp against Council?

EDIT: Sorry if that comes out as like rude but there's several things still tough about the game

• Getting people to do a successful Magisterium badge run. Any of the badges besides Shadow Master
• Loves a Challenge/Avoid the Green Stuff Keyes trial badges
• Underground bomb badge

Try those.
Try soloing a TF or an AV.

Boom, there's your challenge.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Shadeknight

[Infinitum]

6 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

 

 

These points also roll into the other where "Any combo can solo 4/8 when decked out". We can deck out all characters to where we eclipse all challenges in the game, so what we need is something challenging for those who are decked out.

Ok so to be more specific, any combo can solo +4/8 normal content when decked out.  That's working as intended.

 

You can't solo a magisterium or cathedrial of pain.  You could solo dark Astoria, maybe - MOT and the final missions can get dicey.

 

But the fact it can be done solo I don't think is the norm just more of a carnival trick, because all of that is a ton more fun on a huge team with heroes and powers flying all about.

 

We just need more of it, but not on homecomings limited budget and staff.  Im content to continue rehashing it with teams of different characters because each one is a totally different look and feel.

[Galaxy Brain]

Just now, Shadeknight said:

Got a question for people going "the game is too easy."
Have you tried anything past a +4/x8 mission stomp against Council?

There is some great stuff out there if you wanna crank up the challenge (Night Ward anyone?). But, why do that when you could just stomp council in PI for the same price?

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

There is some great stuff out there if you wanna crank up the challenge (Night Ward anyone?). But, why do that when you could just stomp council in PI for the same price?

No, see I really don't think the majority sees it that way.

 

Night ward is awesome, and I rarely run easy stuff, my teammates know when they sign on with me something terrifying and amazing is probably going to ensue.... lol

 

The people I see are more interested in the adventure and the experience than the rewards.

[Galaxy Brain]

4 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

No, see I really don't think the majority sees it that way.

 

Night ward is awesome, and I rarely run easy stuff, my teammates know when they sign on with me something terrifying and amazing is probably going to ensue.... lol

 

The people I see are more interested in the adventure and the experience than the rewards.

That may be with your crew, but look at LFG on any given night or even in SG chats where people opt to have people join in on farms / etc.

 

If you have a close knit group of people, awesome! You can run with whatever however you all seem fit. This does not address Random group #9832457 or the populace as a whole though.  I would like to see efforts rewarded to where a bigger portion of players may be encouraged to try the hard stuff outside of those who actively aim for it for sheer glory. 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Infinitum]

9 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

That may be with your crew, but look at LFG on any given night or even in SG chats where people opt to have people join in on farms / etc.

 

If you have a close knit group of people, awesome! You can run with whatever however you all seem fit. This does not address Random group #9832457 or the populace as a whole though.  I would like to see efforts rewarded to where a bigger portion of players may be encouraged to try the hard stuff outside of those who actively aim for it for sheer glory. 

But on that same token if thats what they prefer to do, who am I to say thats wrong?

 

But also its not just my group, we are coalitioned with 4 other groups that seek the challenge.  We farm also, but thats only to level something we want to get up quickly to kick emperor cole right in the nutsack again.

[Parabola]

I've a thought experiment. What if we logged on tomorrow and the game had been changed so that at level 50+ the +2×8 difficulty had been made exactly as hard as +4×8 is today. But also the rewards had been changed so that +2×8 gives what +4×8 does today. The game experience you have smashing through your favourite mission is utterly identical, the only difference is that you are doing it on +2 and not +4 and there are a whole 2 more levels of ceiling. What have we really lost if the only difference is the colour of the enemies?

 

This is a simplified example obviously and isn't actually what myself and others have been asking for but I think it illustrates a point. It seems odd to me that we consider it normal that anyone can solo any of the game on +4×8 no matter how easy the content. Where is the room in the game experience for teaming when individuals on that team could solo the same content at the same settings?

 

I don't want to lose any of what makes this game great. The last thing I'd want to see is mandatory trinity gameplay or having only favoured powersets being viable at the high end. But I'm pretty sure that it should be possible to raise the ceiling a little in one way or another without these dire consequences.

[Wavicle]

The question has been answered. The answer is more incarnate content, and more difficult incarnate content.

 

None of the rest of the game needs to be changed. There just needs to be more high-level content created that actually challenges people with fully kitted out end game builds.

Edited February 5, 2020 by sacredlunatic

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

We just need more of it

Player created content is the quickest way to make that happen.

 

On 2/2/2020 at 4:01 AM, The Philotic Knight said:

An offline Mission Architect Mission Builder, where you can create and edit mission files through a basic non-pretty (I'm not a graphic artist, so I really can't make things pretty) user

Spoiler

 

When that's available, new content might be easier and could matriculate to a formal higher reward level similar to a weekly tf/sf. Give another 'special' badge for high level awesome new content.

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Troo
added spoiler

[skoryy]

Upping levels and HP doesn't make content more difficult, only more time consuming.

 

Think mechanically.  Bosses that can spawn Battle Maiden's blue fields.  Cimeroran bosses with AoE heals and +Res.  Freak bosses with AoE rez. Enemies that can only be defeated if you activate their weakness.  Ideas like that. Content that makes you feel more heroic when you overcome instead of 'thankfully that's over'.

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, skoryy said:

Upping levels and HP doesn't make content more difficult, only more time consuming.

 

Think mechanically.  Bosses that can spawn Battle Maiden's blue fields.  Cimeroran bosses with AoE heals and +Res.  Freak bosses with AoE rez. Enemies that can only be defeated if you activate their weakness.  Ideas like that. Content that makes you feel more heroic when you overcome instead of 'thankfully that's over'.

Yes, man those are great ideas!

[Galaxy Brain]

AE would be a nice option if it were possible to have dynamic rewards. 

 

Custom enemies is something that is tracked, but then looking at:

Multiple damage types

More than 2 powers chosen

Armored enemies

Enemies with support powers 

Etc

 

That way a typical "farm" map with easy enemies made to cater to a specific build would be less rewarding than a diverse, challenging set of enemies.

 

Edit:

Or even just weighing certain individual powers on custom enemies!

 

I played an arc based on a DnD campaign on test that featured "electric wizards" running the Elec Control aura. A few of those in a crowd are sure to make you think twice about your approach and would certainly be harder than an enemy with say, Fast Healing.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Troo]

Yes, I believe the mechanics and the infrastructure are there.

Diversity and length of an story arc should impact rewards if it doesn't already.

Flagging player created content for bonus rewards should be done by other than the mission creator.

[quixoteprog]

I would like to see missions with a puzzle mechanic of some sort. One, for instance, where you need to click mission glowing items, but they have to be done in a particular order. And when you click each one it spawns a patrol that will either be moving through the mission randomly, and you need to avoid them, or will be looking for your.

 

Each activation of a mission objective not only spawns yet another patrol it also sets off a timer that requires you to reach the next one in the series in time. If you don't make it then either the mission will fail, or maybe just a particularly difficult boss mob will spawn.

 

As you have more and more active the difficulty of the spawns will grow even as the timers decrease.

 

The thing that will make it easier, or maybe even doable at all, is that if you read the mission objective carefully you will be given clues as to what order you should  activate the objectives.

 

It might be that type of clue, or maybe as you work your way through the mission defeating mobs you will be given clues on what the objectives order is by the mob dialog text.

 

There are a million options, all of which could currently be impossible the the current technology.

 

I would just like for the decision I make during a mission to have some effect on the difficulty of and rewards garnered from the mission.

[Wavicle]

43 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 Bosses that can spawn Battle Maiden's blue fields.  Cimeroran bosses with AoE heals and +Res.  Freak bosses with AoE rez. Enemies that can only be defeated if you activate their weakness

So, incarnate content.

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, sacredlunatic said:

So, incarnate content.

Modern MMO content, but yeah.

[GamerRick]

On 1/13/2020 at 9:24 AM, Galaxy Brain said:

Given all the various threads that have popped up to discuss difficulty options in CoH as of late, I figure it is time to put together a thread to talk about all the various options and discuss the topic in general along with a poll with (iirc) most of the options presented as of late to see what we are in favor of going forward.

 

In my own opinion, I feel that the game gives a ton of options for you to become badass and it is awesome! However, over time it does feel like the economy of awesome has shifted and some things get left behind given the way the game works. One example being the chase towards the soft-cap for defense (45%). There are multiple ways for every single character to hit this nowadays while still being able to also get huge recharge, tons of procs, and in general keep the same effectiveness or better for their powersets on top of the multiplicative power boost that high defense gives to survival. Enemies usually cannot keep up with that scale of power, and neither can some sets even where +Def powers can become questionable in value if you are already at soft cap most of the time. Same with control and certain debuff powers falling to the wayside of raw damage as survival is taken care of. Ironically, being able to become super powerful narrowed the scope of builds IMO to where there are certain stats that are far, far more valuable than others and it actually puts a damper on whole powers and sets at a high level. 

 

How we got here IMO is that there is only so much that enemies can really do to challenge these stats / strategies. The 45% defense number really does cover most all content outside of very specific enemies even at +4, and if you have tons of recharge your offense and recovery powers outpace most all mobs abilities in the game. Let alone when you have 8 people who are relatively self sufficient and then able to boost each other into unstoppable territory. There are certain enemies out there that still pose a threat, but they are usually not worth tackling given that easier prey is available to take on for essentially better reward due to speed (not to mention farming vs custom mobs). Enemies also rarely have defense like players do, which leads to the best strategy being to boost your damage up (accuracy enhancements are sufficient for most all content) and just throw out tons of AoEs to win as fast as possible since enemies cant really stand up to that outside of certain gimmicks like Carnies phasing. This all pushes a meta where the best strat is to just build up your defenses and use sets with great AoEs, devaluing sets that focus on boosting other's defenses / controlling enemies / single target specialists.

 

Don't get me wrong, this is fun as hell! Though, after the 18th council map where you just fire your TAoE without much thought mob after mob and even afk'ing to see the combined might of your team can carry on full steam without you, it does make you pause at times. IMO, I would love to see more difficulty options added in so that there could be more active strategy involved. Those moments where you gotta pull enemies tactically, or target specific guys first in order to win the fight are always more engaging to me personally but you don't see that often in today's game since it really isn't needed. If there were advanced difficulty options (with appropriate reward to make it attractive) I feel it would open up way more builds than today's meta and allow more dynamic game play as suddenly there are more viable options than facerolling through with AoE's once you "figure out" your build. 

 

What are your thoughts on difficulty in general in today's game? Lets hear your opinions with the poll + comments below!

 

-Galaxy Brain

This pretty much covers how I feel. This is especially true post level 50 even if that level 50 is fighting with a lower level team.  Right now I rarely play my 50 empath or 50 dominator. After playing them both to hybrid unlock and more I have found myself bored. 
 

Once a team has a few 50+ members I feel I don’t contribute much in ways of why I created the characters. With both my empath and dominator I end up just adding whatever DPS I can as healing and control seems to be obsolete. A whole group of enemies can be wiped out within 5 seconds it seems (+4/+8). Unless some squishy gets hit by an alpha strike most of the time empath/heal is really not needed.  I think many of the AT’s have some form of self heal that contributes to the reduced need for an empath. Similarly with my dominator enemies die before getting to actually us any of my control powers.
 

This of course is not the case 100% of the time but it happens enough that now I am a full blown altaholic. I play my 50’s pretty much to buy stuff for my alts.