The Broken Brutes Effect (please buff them)

[RCU7115]

On 2/23/2020 at 4:34 PM, Troo said:

 

Can folks really handle start to finish on a more challenging level?

 

Lets take the training wheels off and see how it goes.

• No P2W
• No base teleport macro exploit
• No startup funds
• No Architect Entertainment farming
• No temp powers

Feel free to use travel powers, pool powers, epic pools powers, side kicking, inspirations, enhancements, etc.

 

Maybe we should have an option at startup that enables this mode. It would be great to then kick it up and have Master mode. You die, you start over.

 

 

I do like your ideas but not sure it would work.

P2W - as long as I can keep Ninja/Beast Run sure. They are my preferred and favorite travel powers. 

Base Macros - I don't use seeing how I have never understood macros. I  still Ninja/Beast run and fly everywhere unless a TT, ATT or Oro Portal appears. I use my trusty corded trackball mouse, spacebar and the W key to go everywhere.

Start up funds ??  Does that also include no base storage access. All you have to do is put a few hundred SO's into storage to fund a toon at start up.

No AE - There is no difference between an AE farm and PI farming Fire Demons, Council, Bobcat, Battle Maiden etc as  each one is catering to your strengths.

Temp Powers - just take away the Envenomed Dagger. That will slow down the solo tf's a little bit.

 

 

[MunkiLord]

6 hours ago, Burnt Toast said:

Unfortunately I have seen people create "Healers" and I refuse to play with them... Empathy + Medicine Pool + Sorcery (Spirit Ward)... and their tier 1 secondary attack. Even ran into one who had all this PLUS the temporary powers to rez and heal. The entire mission they had healing aura on auto and did nothing but heal... no buffs. So when people say "I'm a healer..." I just shake my head and lose interest in teaming with them. 

They're as useful as most Tanks. If someone wants to rock the aura and spam heal, I don't care if the team isn't struggling. If we're mowing through mobs, they can go invisible and do nothing but use dance emotes in the middle of mobs as far as I'm concerned. 

[RCU7115]

On 2/24/2020 at 7:49 AM, Infinitum said:

Yeah I'm not sure how ive missed all that but its a rarity unless we are just in a hurry for a badge or run, to run below +2

Most of the teams I've been on that run the Posi 1 & 2 and the Synapse TF's prefer running them at 0 or +1. I'm not saying that I  haven't been on teams runing them at +2 an up but most prefer the 0 or +1.

[MunkiLord]

2 minutes ago, RCU7115 said:

Most of the teams I've been on that run the Posi 1 & 2 and the Synapse TF's prefer running them at 0 or +1. I'm not saying that I  haven't been on teams runing them at +2 an up but most prefer the 0 or +1.

I think that's because most people don't seem to like those and want them over as fast as possible. 

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, RCU7115 said:

Most of the teams I've been on that run the Posi 1 & 2 and the Synapse TF's prefer running them at 0 or +1. I'm not saying that I  haven't been on teams runing them at +2 an up but most prefer the 0 or +1.

Nah I run them at min of +2.

[MunkiLord]

I think it would be fun if a lot more enemies had confuse and prioritized Defenders, Controllers, and Corruptors. Things could get real interesting. 

[Myrmidon]

21 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

I think it would be fun if a lot more enemies had confuse and prioritized Defenders, Controllers, and Corruptors. Things could get real interesting. 

That suggestion has to definitely be a difficulty option, otherwise, I promise to “Tank” the pitchforks to give you time to run.🤣

[Dark Current]

8 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Because its not too easy, we who want it easy choose to do so by investing a very high degree into a character and its build to negate the challenge, That is not an accident, it is by design and beloved by likely the majority of the coh playerbase.

 

Because challenge is easy to find, the idea that their should be challenge for the very top end builds when their power factor is many times greater then a baseline build is the height of absurd selfishness as there is no reason to make content for an extreme minority. When games make the mistake of doing that it bleeds players.

 

A good example is DDO aka Dungeons and Dragons Online. even though on average only about 5% of their player base every partook of raiding, they kept adding raids, and putting the best loot in them. Creating a huge power divide between raiders and non raiders, and then kept balancing content around the power of those top end raid builds. So now days the game is a ghost town, supported by P2W whales and hard core raid guilds, and if your not into those things expect to play the normal content solo and struggle like no tomorrow if you dont drop the cash.

 

CoH has always been mainly the game of choice for the casual, the fun time gamer, and amazing enough the RPer, as no other MMO Ive ever played had an active degree of RP to compare with virtue and now everlasting. If people want to play at a level that stressed their builds and tests their gamer reflexes then there are places they can go to do that. I know very few who solo +4X8 council mishes who also willingly go out to the shadow shard to face ruls/wisps/ and storm els in even smaller groups lightly. Any mechanic that actually causes a challenge gets labeled an annoyance by such players and they call to have it nerfed because challenge is fine, for others, just not for their superman.

But you miss his point:

 

"...the game just feels kind of "meh" because you get into a team and just faceroll through +4 x 8 mobs like they're butter in a frying pan. It feels like the overall higher survivability of classes in general has devalued debuff mechanics, healers, and tactical game play."

 

He's already at the max difficulty in the game and it's easy mode. Several types of gameplay are devalued compared to raw DPS.

 

And he's not the only one who's brought this up over the last few months. But every time it is brought up, the response is a lot of hate and boils down to 'we don't need more challenge, so shut up'.

 

My caution to you and others is to watch what you ask for. If all those people start leaving, the population will erode and you may end up with a husk.

[Dark Current]

8 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Because its not too easy, we who want it easy choose to do so by investing a very high degree into a character and its build to negate the challenge, That is not an accident, it is by design and beloved by likely the majority of the coh playerbase.

 

Because challenge is easy to find, the idea that their should be challenge for the very top end builds when their power factor is many times greater then a baseline build is the height of absurd selfishness as there is no reason to make content for an extreme minority. When games make the mistake of doing that it bleeds players.

 

A good example is DDO aka Dungeons and Dragons Online. even though on average only about 5% of their player base every partook of raiding, they kept adding raids, and putting the best loot in them. Creating a huge power divide between raiders and non raiders, and then kept balancing content around the power of those top end raid builds. So now days the game is a ghost town, supported by P2W whales and hard core raid guilds, and if your not into those things expect to play the normal content solo and struggle like no tomorrow if you dont drop the cash.

 

CoH has always been mainly the game of choice for the casual, the fun time gamer, and amazing enough the RPer, as no other MMO Ive ever played had an active degree of RP to compare with virtue and now everlasting. If people want to play at a level that stressed their builds and tests their gamer reflexes then there are places they can go to do that. I know very few who solo +4X8 council mishes who also willingly go out to the shadow shard to face ruls/wisps/ and storm els in even smaller groups lightly. Any mechanic that actually causes a challenge gets labeled an annoyance by such players and they call to have it nerfed because challenge is fine, for others, just not for their superman.

But you miss his point:

 

"...the game just feels kind of "meh" because you get into a team and just faceroll through +4 x 8 mobs like they're butter in a frying pan. It feels like the overall higher survivability of classes in general has devalued debuff mechanics, healers, and tactical game play."

 

He's already at the max difficulty in the game and it's easy mode. Several types of gameplay are devalued compared to raw DPS.

 

And he's not the only one who's brought this up over the last few months. But every time it is brought up, the response is a lot of hate and boils down to 'we don't need more challenge, so shut up'.

 

My caution to you and others is to watch what you ask for. If all those people start leaving, the population will erode and you may end up with a husk.

[biostem]

[tongue in cheek] Simple solution!  Add a "disable IO set bonuses" option and cap all enhancement bonuses to that of a +3 SO! That ought to make things tougher for a good many people. [/tongue in cheek]

[SwitchFade]

8 minutes ago, Dark Current said:

But you miss his point:

 

"...the game just feels kind of "meh" because you get into a team and just faceroll through +4 x 8 mobs like they're butter in a frying pan. It feels like the overall higher survivability of classes in general has devalued debuff mechanics, healers, and tactical game play."

 

He's already at the max difficulty in the game and it's easy mode. Several types of gameplay are devalued compared to raw DPS.

 

And he's not the only one who's brought this up over the last few months. But every time it is brought up, the response is a lot of hate and boils down to 'we don't need more challenge, so shut up'.

 

My caution to you and others is to watch what you ask for. If all those people start leaving, the population will erode and you may end up with a husk.

His lack of challenge is more about his insistance on playing easy content with a pinnacle AT.

 

Plenty of the game is hard for most of the population, thus his experience is atypical.

 

That said, I would *eventually* be happy to have new, and tougher content. But no changes to the current content. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by SwitchFade

[biostem]

17 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

That said, I would *eventually* be happy to have new, and tougher content. But no changes to the current content. 

The question is how to make new content challenging without just giving enemies more HP and higher damage numbers.  Can the AI handle more complex power allotments?  Can enemies use tactics? 

[VileTerror]

Yes; but it's not an entirely simple measure, biostem.

 

The answer is now, as it has been for most things; the Homecoming Team -is- aware of the players' feelings on the matter.  They have limited time and resources (for whatever reason(s)), and they'll get around to it when they feel they've reached their personal bar of Quality.

 

Other Servers out there have already started toying with and releasing difficulty adjustments.  Just another difference between there and here.

[aethereal]

 

22 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Think you may be double adding.

 

At the cap, its the cap.  Your personal buff value influences how easy it is to get to the cap, but not the final result.

 

I am not double adding, and my example was well short of the cap.  You are correct, enhancements are part of the cap, if you have a kin or two, or eat a tray full of large red insps, or whatever, you will not see a difference between damage enhancements and no damage enhancements.

 

But, critically, the cap isn't that important unless you always play with someone casting fulcrum shift, or you're farming.  Most people, even on 8 man teams, will not be at damage caps unless that team includes a kinetic.

[MunkiLord]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

The question is how to make new content challenging without just giving enemies more HP and higher damage numbers.  Can the AI handle more complex power allotments?  Can enemies use tactics? 

Give them confuse powers and have them prioritize debuffers and buffers.

[Haijinx]

3 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

 

I am not double adding, and my example was well short of the cap.  You are correct, enhancements are part of the cap, if you have a kin or two, or eat a tray full of large red insps, or whatever, you will not see a difference between damage enhancements and no damage enhancements.

 

But, critically, the cap isn't that important unless you always play with someone casting fulcrum shift, or you're farming.  Most people, even on 8 man teams, will not be at damage caps unless that team includes a kinetic.

Kay.  

 

As I started that tangent about the cap, I think that was already part of the point.  

[Razor Cure]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

The question is how to make new content challenging without just giving enemies more HP and higher damage numbers.  Can the AI handle more complex power allotments?  Can enemies use tactics? 

Just dipped into this thread and saw this.

As a comparison..Borderlands 2. Totally LOVE that game and played it to death multiple times. But I only ever took ONE character beyond the 2nd Difficulty Tier (for those who dont know, the 'normal' diff game ends at about lvl 30ish, then you restart the game, but with baddies getting more hp, armour and shields. Then once Tier2 is finished, it restarts, again, with even TOUGHER baddies). The game in the hardest mode just was not fun at all for me, as the level of the 'challenge' just becomes totally stupid. The AI doesnt improve, theres no new tactics and powers...just EVERY single guy, boss to teh weakest minion, now becomes an utter bad of hp and armour and shields.

In that regard, it is one thing that CoX does really (well mostly) well with increasing difficulty. The DA arcs, and newer mob types (I-tsoo, knives, BP, cot, even Cim;s) all feel, at least to me, much tougher than standard mob types, and do NOT just have more hp or damage.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

Give them confuse powers and have them prioritize debuffers and buffers.

 I have to say, seeing both Transference and Fulcrum Shift go off in the middle of combat in favor of the mobs would be hilarious.😂

[RCU7115]

3 hours ago, biostem said:

[tongue in cheek] Simple solution!  Add a "disable IO set bonuses" option and cap all enhancement bonuses to that of a +3 SO! That ought to make things tougher for a good many people. [/tongue in cheek]

That Option is already there. You can have 3 different builds on every toon. you just have to visit a trainer and switch your build and slot is with TO's, DO's, SO's or Plain IO's.

[biostem]

14 minutes ago, RCU7115 said:

That Option is already there. You can have 3 different builds on every toon. you just have to visit a trainer and switch your build and slot is with TO's, DO's, SO's or Plain IO's.

Well, I meant it partly in jest, but also partly as a "hardcore mode" foisted upon all players...  😉

[MunkiLord]

53 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

 I have to say, seeing both Transference and Fulcrum Shift go off in the middle of combat in favor of the mobs would be hilarious.😂

You get it

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

8 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

I think it would be fun if a lot more enemies had confuse and prioritized Defenders, Controllers, and Corruptors. Things could get real interesting. 

Your not alone in this, in general in gaming the old concept of taunting and aggro have really moved on. Better AI does what we do, target dps and support/cc. low dps meat shields get ignored and such builds are more about personal survival rather then protecting others. Most people say they want better challenge, and talk about improving AI, but that is what that looks like, tanking phased out, and everyone having to cope with aggro especially when what they do is the actual threat to enemies.

[Galaxy Brain]

13 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Just dipped into this thread and saw this.

As a comparison..Borderlands 2. Totally LOVE that game and played it to death multiple times. But I only ever took ONE character beyond the 2nd Difficulty Tier (for those who dont know, the 'normal' diff game ends at about lvl 30ish, then you restart the game, but with baddies getting more hp, armour and shields. Then once Tier2 is finished, it restarts, again, with even TOUGHER baddies). The game in the hardest mode just was not fun at all for me, as the level of the 'challenge' just becomes totally stupid. The AI doesnt improve, theres no new tactics and powers...just EVERY single guy, boss to teh weakest minion, now becomes an utter bad of hp and armour and shields.

In that regard, it is one thing that CoX does really (well mostly) well with increasing difficulty. The DA arcs, and newer mob types (I-tsoo, knives, BP, cot, even Cim;s) all feel, at least to me, much tougher than standard mob types, and do NOT just have more hp or damage.

Unrelated, but you should try my Borderlands 2.5 mod I made which changes literally everything  😉

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/borderlands2/mods/235

 

Related to this topic tho, you're spot on in that the "ultimate vault hunter" max difficulty was merely a numbers increase and you could either stomp or be stomped depending on your build.  What I changed in this mod is altering all enemies to have much smoother stat scaling rather than suddenly being godlike, but then altering their strategies and gear. There are more enemies with unique attacks, attack patterns, shields, etc that cause the player to rethink their approach instead of just facerolling them when they get enough damage going.

 

In CoH, we see this with Sappers, Nemesis, Super Stunner, Battle Maiden, etc.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[VileTerror]

When you posted "Birderlands 2.5," I got all excited at the prospect of someone having mod'd bird heads on to every character in the game.

You have disappointed me, Galax.

[Grouchybeast]

13 hours ago, Dark Current said:

And he's not the only one who's brought this up over the last few months. But every time it is brought up, the response is a lot of hate and boils down to 'we don't need more challenge, so shut up'.

 

My caution to you and others is to watch what you ask for. If all those people start leaving, the population will erode and you may end up with a husk.

Actually, a lot of people enthusiastically agree that there should be more challenging optional and/or high level content.  The consolidated difficulty thread poll suggests that view is in the majority on the forums.  The only contentious part is whether there should be a global change to difficulty (most people seem to feel not) and secondarily whether there are enough players who would actually use such content to make it worthwhile developing. And one reason people question that is because the difficulty conversation cycle generally goes like this:

 

A: The game is too easy, we need a hard mode or harder content.

B: Okay, but meanwhile there are already lots of ways players can choose to challenge themselves.  Have you considered [SO only/Ouro with buffed enemies/AE challenge missions/etc]?

A: No, I can't find enough people who want to play like this to make up even one static team.