Difficulty in CoH: Community Discussion

[Black Zot]

6 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

I think the difficulty is just right. You can make it harder, you can take it easy. After a long day at work, you can go to the Rikti buffet in the RWZ.

 

However, one suggestion I haven't seen in this topic so far to increase difficulty in certain zones like Dark Astoria or the Hazard zones is this:

1. Make all (or some) hazard zones free for all PVP.

2. Introduce (cool sounding sexyschmexy) badges for:

Defeating 333 of each AT in any Free For All PVP zone

Defeating 1000 opponents in any Free For All PVP zone

Completing 333 missions in any Free For All PVP zone

 

Getting those badges should be pretty hard, especially if your chosen badger character isn't optimal for PVP. Maybe this kind of thing would promote dual builds?

 

 

/jfuckingranger.  Forced PVP has no place in any game let alone one as PVE-centric as CoH.

[BZRKR]

2 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

/jfuckingranger.  Forced PVP has no place in any game let alone one as PVE-centric as CoH.

Well, okay. I guess nothing like this has been brought up because it's a bad idea.

[Oubliette_Red]

20 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I thought of another possibility that might be a little more feasible.

Give Special IOs, Set Bonuses, and maybe even Incarnate Powers each a score, invisible to players, that stacks.
Then have mission difficulty (probably via mob Damage, HP, and Accuracy, but not ToHit) scale with that score.

This way the game stays as it is for people with SO builds but gets harder for everyone else, and scales with their actual Builds.


You could even make having your missions react to this score an optional setting.

I think they should export the difficulty options from Ouro flashbacks to general play for players seeking more challenges in the normal content, including TFs/SFs.

 

4 hours ago, Blastit said:

Are tankers, brutes, scrappers, stalkers and blasters mandatory?

About as mandatory as the 'Holy Trinity or "healers" rocken the aura.

[Oubliette_Red]

31 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

Well, okay. I guess nothing like this has been brought up because it's a bad idea.

Yeah, PvP has never been a big thing in CoH, wasn't even included in the original game. Arenas were introduced in Issue 4 and PvP zones in Issue 6 and a rebalance in Issue 13.

 

Want to hear about how much CoH players like PvP? Ask any badger about being forced to enter PvP zones for exploration badges. 🙂

[Galaxy Brain]

I do want to touch on what @ZeeHero was saying. CoH combat is honestly a bit shallow on average with how you really only need to account for your own defenses + having just enough offense to defeat enemies before they defeat you. Mez in all its forms are a form of Defense on average where you hamper incoming damage to you and your allies, while buffs and debuffs increase your ability to either take or dish damage faster.

 

Stuns, Holds, Knockdown, Sleeps, and other mez effects which effectively remove an enemy from play temporarily are all essentially the same mechanic with a bit of variance. There is no say, combining a Stun and an Immobilize to create a full-hold for more duration / etc. Or if they are slept, they take a critical hit from the next attack, or if knocked down their defense becomes 0, etc. For the most part, the depth fizzles out at "These powers stop enemies attacking in some way", which makes them carry different efficiencies in how they do this (Hold is the best as it immobilizes and shuts the enemy down, Stun is next best as they cannot take actions except stumble about slowly, the rest either get interrupted immediately / relocate the target or last only a short time, etc). 

 

Stopping enemy actions is a really cool ability, but since there is little depth beyond that for most mez powers (there are exceptions), they have to compete with self-defense and damage. Starting with the latter, the ultimate way to stop enemy action is to simply kill them. The more offense you bring to an encounter, the better the odds you can take out key sources of incoming attacks to bolster your own survival. Boosting your own defensive power has very attainable ceilings in this game as well, which further bites into the usefulness of Mez past a certain point. If a character can wade into content and essentially last forever vs incoming offense, what need is there for Mez effects over Damage to simply finish the fight? Some ATs get by with doing both at the same time, but in general with the way you can build this facet of the game can be pushed aside more often than not as it can not be worth the effort. (Not to mention the truly dangerous encounters ignore mez anyways for a good while)

 

On a similar note, several buff-sets get overshadowed by these same mechanics. Healing has always been overshadowed in CoH, but when characters are hit infrequently and have decent regen rates of their own it gets even more overshadowed. Buffing defense similarly has diminishing returns when players can self-cap that stat, if not spread the love with easy access to Maneuvers. If mobs are wiped in seconds, then there isn't even enough time to apply debuffs or even use certain buffs. 

 

This is combined with how the enemies in the game are not usually very interactive. Most stand about in groups or occasionally walk about the map, but when combat starts tend to dogpile and just use attacks in vein before they're beat up. Some do have dangerous debuffs, some do have mez of their own, some even buff each other, but those all can be defeated by the same tactics as any other fight. Debuffs dont hurt if you avoid them, same with mez with or without mez protection. Enemies buffing each other is rarely but a 1 second slowdown depending on if they time their buffs right. Players are rarely tasked with say: approaching an enemy in a certain way, targeting a certain part of the enemy first, using the environment to harm the enemy, etc. For most of the game, charging ahead is usually all that is needed unless there is something that forces you to disengage. 

 

What would be nice is if there was content where Mez/Buff/Debuff helped with this style. 

 

What I mean by this is that making content where the above is "necessary" is a no-go. Stuff like that can suck, like not having enough mez to defeat the weakened Hamidon (at least there you know what to plan for), but having certain elements become "easier" with those in play would be nice, or at least behaviors that reward the use of these powers more. For example, give more enemies Toggle abilities that boost their allies passively or debuff players in a good sized range. This can be fought by pure force and defeating these nuisances, but doing so can be dangerous as they have increased offense and defense. If they get mezzed however, these toggles shut off and make the entire group easier to deal with, and conversely ally buffs can push your team to overcome the enemy boosts.

 

By adding more content that encourages these mechanics over what the current meta has favored it offers alternate goals to strive for and increases character diversity, as well as allowing players to feel super in different ways. 

 

[BZRKR]

26 minutes ago, Oubliette_Red said:

Yeah, PvP has never been a big thing in CoH, wasn't even included in the original game. Arenas were introduced in Issue 4 and PvP zones in Issue 6 and a rebalance in Issue 13.

 

Want to hear about how much CoH players like PvP? Ask any badger about being forced to enter PvP zones for exploration badges. 🙂

Heh, I was thinking about what was hard, without running it through the "just because we can, doesn't mean we should" filter 🙂

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

They're happy with council sure 😛

 

But yes, adding that extra (Heroic/Villainous) setting you could turn on to spawn these new enemies would be nice. I would just like to also see them appear in normal content should you choose to have it on.

Adding a setting is a great idea as long as it still has the legacy option.

 

Cause sometimes You just want to smash unabated.   hehe

Edited April 6, 2020 by Infinitum

[zvelf]

3 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I do want to touch on what @ZeeHero was saying. CoH combat is honestly a bit shallow on average with how you really only need to account for your own defenses + having just enough offense to defeat enemies before they defeat you. Mez in all its forms are a form of Defense on average where you hamper incoming damage to you and your allies, while buffs and debuffs increase your ability to either take or dish damage faster.

 

Stuns, Holds, Knockdown, Sleeps, and other mez effects which effectively remove an enemy from play temporarily are all essentially the same mechanic with a bit of variance. There is no say, combining a Stun and an Immobilize to create a full-hold for more duration / etc. Or if they are slept, they take a critical hit from the next attack, or if knocked down their defense becomes 0, etc. For the most part, the depth fizzles out at "These powers stop enemies attacking in some way", which makes them carry different efficiencies in how they do this (Hold is the best as it immobilizes and shuts the enemy down, Stun is next best as they cannot take actions except stumble about slowly, the rest either get interrupted immediately / relocate the target or last only a short time, etc). 

 

Stopping enemy actions is a really cool ability, but since there is little depth beyond that for most mez powers (there are exceptions), they have to compete with self-defense and damage. Starting with the latter, the ultimate way to stop enemy action is to simply kill them. The more offense you bring to an encounter, the better the odds you can take out key sources of incoming attacks to bolster your own survival. Boosting your own defensive power has very attainable ceilings in this game as well, which further bites into the usefulness of Mez past a certain point. If a character can wade into content and essentially last forever vs incoming offense, what need is there for Mez effects over Damage to simply finish the fight? Some ATs get by with doing both at the same time, but in general with the way you can build this facet of the game can be pushed aside more often than not as it can not be worth the effort. (Not to mention the truly dangerous encounters ignore mez anyways for a good while)

 

On a similar note, several buff-sets get overshadowed by these same mechanics. Healing has always been overshadowed in CoH, but when characters are hit infrequently and have decent regen rates of their own it gets even more overshadowed. Buffing defense similarly has diminishing returns when players can self-cap that stat, if not spread the love with easy access to Maneuvers. If mobs are wiped in seconds, then there isn't even enough time to apply debuffs or even use certain buffs. 

 

This is combined with how the enemies in the game are not usually very interactive. Most stand about in groups or occasionally walk about the map, but when combat starts tend to dogpile and just use attacks in vein before they're beat up. Some do have dangerous debuffs, some do have mez of their own, some even buff each other, but those all can be defeated by the same tactics as any other fight. Debuffs dont hurt if you avoid them, same with mez with or without mez protection. Enemies buffing each other is rarely but a 1 second slowdown depending on if they time their buffs right. Players are rarely tasked with say: approaching an enemy in a certain way, targeting a certain part of the enemy first, using the environment to harm the enemy, etc. For most of the game, charging ahead is usually all that is needed unless there is something that forces you to disengage. 

 

What would be nice is if there was content where Mez/Buff/Debuff helped with this style. 

 

What I mean by this is that making content where the above is "necessary" is a no-go. Stuff like that can suck, like not having enough mez to defeat the weakened Hamidon (at least there you know what to plan for), but having certain elements become "easier" with those in play would be nice, or at least behaviors that reward the use of these powers more. For example, give more enemies Toggle abilities that boost their allies passively or debuff players in a good sized range. This can be fought by pure force and defeating these nuisances, but doing so can be dangerous as they have increased offense and defense. If they get mezzed however, these toggles shut off and make the entire group easier to deal with, and conversely ally buffs can push your team to overcome the enemy boosts.

 

By adding more content that encourages these mechanics over what the current meta has favored it offers alternate goals to strive for and increases character diversity, as well as allowing players to feel super in different ways. 

 

You're talking about min/maxed characters. There are plenty of players who have RPG concept builds or casual players who don't have IO sets memorized or even use them and new players who don't have billions in influence to buy the best everything. These players can't rush into just any mob and do well. I've been on teams that can wipe out anything in seconds and I've been on teams that get wiped repeatedly. That kind of variety shows the game is working. Yes, the super dedicated player who has binds for everything and the fanciest bases is going to romp, but you have to have room for the newbies who don't have any of that too.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, zvelf said:

You're talking about min/maxed characters. There are plenty of players who have RPG concept builds or casual players who don't have IO sets memorized or even use them and new players who don't have billions in influence to buy the best everything. These players can't rush into just any mob and do well. I've been on teams that can wipe out anything in seconds and I've been on teams that get wiped repeatedly. That kind of variety shows the game is working. Yes, the super dedicated player who has binds for everything and the fanciest bases is going to romp, but you have to have room for the newbies who don't have any of that too.

I agree 100% with what you are saying, but...

GB isnt talking about removing the game as it is now, only adding more content and a new difficulty setting that adds to content.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Infinitum

[Clave Dark 5]

Yeah, don't tell me how to play.  I hate twitch gaming and don't come here for a problem to bang my head against for hours on end before I can finally have a slim shot at solving it.  When the game goes hard it tends to go stupid hard; I just played that one mission against Battle Maiden that has those floating swords and the blue spots of death yeah?  My 50 Def with a seriously awesome build got one-shotted a couple of times and dropped within a second or so three times.  That's not "fun hard" that's frustration.  And not why I'm here.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Clave Dark 5

[EmmySky]

A lot of people commenting here are focusing on late game.  To be honest, I don't spend much time on late game because I really enjoy baby heroes, fast levels, increasing my power, fun times.  The other day, I made two new baby blasters. 

 

First one, DFB a few times, I think I joined three seperate teams and did 2 to 3 runs with each team.  All went smoothly and happily. 

 

Second one, ran through Matthew to Tierny before joining a DFB.  Did one run.  It was horrid.  After recruiting, the team leader entered the sewer network.  *blink blink* They came back out to atlas and queued the trial.  It was clear these were new-ish players.  They just didn't understand basic game mechanics.  I bailed on that after one run and joined a posi 1.  Equally bad.  People running all over the place.  You know the final mish in posi 1 you just can't wander off.  We had so many deaths/team wipes before we even got to that mish I was close to quitting TF.  Overall it was a slog!

 

Anyway, my point is that, early game or end game, oftentimes the perceived difficulty level is very dependent on the teammates you run with.  New players will slow ya down.  Bad players will get ya killed.  Good players will have a smooth ride.  

 

I think added difficulty options would be an excellent idea, going both ways (easier and harder) as long as they remain options.  I think the game, as it stands, offers plenty of challenge depending on how you build your character and who you team up with, but options are always nice.

[Herotu]

Oldschool gameplay was super-fun. As a tank, I enjoyed pulling a room around a corner and watching my team obliterate it.

I enjoyed watching our stealther disappear into the distance as we waited for tp to the end. 

I remember having to be super careful for fear of teh wipe.

That was fun and challenging, but tbh, it's still very possible to get TPK'd and it still feels good to do aoe knockdowns and such. I'm still having fun!

[Heraclea]

21 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

I find it amusing that people call actual mechanics and challenge "misfeatures" in games with less drama and community issues than COH has right now. the community in FFXIV is saintly compared to what I see almost daily in COH. and COH community isnt -bad- from an MMO community perspective. its just far from the utopia blind fanboys who worship the game as the perfect game ever claim it to be.

My experience from other games - most extensively with WoW and Age of Conan - suggest different.  Spent hours learning the dance moves well enough to get Thoth-Amon on farm.  And of course there was yet another tier after that, one that exceeded my ability to twitch fast enough and pay attention to more than three things at once.  Eventually you realized that this was not entertainment.

 

Of course those games had another driver of drama: robust and well-integrated PvP, with the resulting nerf-herding and constant complaining.  Here at least PvP is very marginal, engages a small minority of the player base, and operates under a different rule set.  Most builds that perform well in PvE are useless in PvP.  Melee characters are disadvantaged here like everywhere.  I don't think I've spent more than 15 minutes tops in PvP zones, and then only to run the PvE Arachnos missions which are good for levelling.

 

Never played FFXIV.  The other conventional MMO that I thought had a good community was LOTRO.  There, too, PvP was pretty marginal and outside the scope of normal play.  There was also a lot of purely self-expressive behavior; you could write music for the game and organize bands.  Unfortunately, levelling was painfully slow, and I wanted to make my burglar an evil character and found I could not. Maybe FFXIV is like that too.  Never played; don't know much about the lore of the game world. 

[Parabola]

10 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Yeah, don't tell me how to play.  I hate twitch gaming and don't come here for a problem to bang my head against for hours on end before I can finally have a slim shot at solving it.  When the game goes hard it tends to go stupid hard; I just played that one mission against Battle Maiden that has those floating swords and the blue spots of death yeah?  My 50 Def with a seriously awesome build got one-shotted a couple of times and dropped within a second or so three times.  That's not "fun hard" that's frustration.  And not why I'm here.

I think this post highlights something important.

 

We all hate gotchas. We all hate instant death patches, untyped and non-positional damage, and un-resistable mez (I think I'm speaking for everyone here, apologies if not). They feel cheap and unfair. But this is exactly the kind of mechanism that ends up being employed when you run out of road on the difficulty scale. If the players are so tough they can't be challenged within the standard curve developers end up having to go outside it. And no one likes it. But people also resist changes that would provide extra bandwidth for challenge, so this is the kind of thing we end up with.

 

I want to see more difficulty at the high end of the game. That certainly doesn't mean I want more of these really irritating mechanics. What I want is to be able to build my characters to the best of my ability, play with others who do the same, and enjoy the same teaming dynamics into the incarnate game that I love so much in the mid game. There just needs to be more room in the difficulty curve in some way to accommodate this because at the moment, in much of the content, the game is being overwhelmed.

[Grouchybeast]

50 minutes ago, parabola said:

We all hate gotchas. We all hate instant death patches, untyped and non-positional damage, and un-resistable mez (I think I'm speaking for everyone here, apologies if not). They feel cheap and unfair. But this is exactly the kind of mechanism that ends up being employed when you run out of road on the difficulty scale. If the players are so tough they can't be challenged within the standard curve developers end up having to go outside it. And no one likes it. But people also resist changes that would provide extra bandwidth for challenge, so this is the kind of thing we end up with.

I actually really like the little touches in the I-trials like the Apex Battle Maiden fight.  They're different to normal play, but they aren't so difficult that I (not a very good gamer, to be truthful) feel shut out of the content, and they don't demand particular team configurations.  The first time I ever did an Apex I faceplanted so many times, but a few runs later I started to get the hang of it.  And I remember when each of the trials first came out, everyone trying to figure out the mechanics and how best to deal with them.  I enjoyed that.

[ZeeHero]

On 4/7/2020 at 9:38 AM, Heraclea said:

My experience from other games - most extensively with WoW and Age of Conan - suggest different.  Spent hours learning the dance moves well enough to get Thoth-Amon on farm.  And of course there was yet another tier after that, one that exceeded my ability to twitch fast enough and pay attention to more than three things at once.  Eventually you realized that this was not entertainment.

Oh i agree it has sucked in other games but it was a community problem, people not having patience and treating other players as disposable. FFXIV has not had that issue- until recently at least sadly.

[Infinitum]

On 4/7/2020 at 10:12 AM, parabola said:

I think this post highlights something important.

 

We all hate gotchas. We all hate instant death patches, untyped and non-positional damage, and un-resistable mez (I think I'm speaking for everyone here, apologies if not). They feel cheap and unfair. But this is exactly the kind of mechanism that ends up being employed when you run out of road on the difficulty scale. If the players are so tough they can't be challenged within the standard curve developers end up having to go outside it. And no one likes it. But people also resist changes that would provide extra bandwidth for challenge, so this is the kind of thing we end up with.

 

I want to see more difficulty at the high end of the game. That certainly doesn't mean I want more of these really irritating mechanics. What I want is to be able to build my characters to the best of my ability, play with others who do the same, and enjoy the same teaming dynamics into the incarnate game that I love so much in the mid game. There just needs to be more room in the difficulty curve in some way to accommodate this because at the moment, in much of the content, the game is being overwhelmed.

There isnt a challenge in the game that makes you feel more under attack and dynamic than the final battle of Apex.

 

Its not a gotcha, it requires thought, positioning and dynamic movement across the map and even team makeup for optimal spread.

 

Its like you are fighting against all odds against a space born artillery barrage while trying to take out an incarnate hardened target and her minions.

 

Its not a gimmick or a gotcha its prime content. And better than face rolling an av for 30 min with no movement.

[Wavicle]

Fundamentally our CHARACTERS, once they have good Sets and many Incarnate powers basically CANNOT be challenged.

Therefore the only way to add difficulty to the 50 game is to challenge US, the PLAYERS.

That is why Location and Movement are usually the ways Devs make high level games interesting.

[Cold Bob]

"This game is hard only if" you pull too many mobs, or have some guy run off and get himself killed by pullng too many mobs on his own!

 

Otherwise, stay tight, and run smooth!

[Infinitum]

32 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Fundamentally our CHARACTERS, once they have good Sets and many Incarnate powers basically CANNOT be challenged.

Therefore the only way to add difficulty to the 50 game is to challenge US, the PLAYERS.

That is why Location and Movement are usually the ways Devs make high level games interesting.

This is true, and it touches on reality, lex luthor needs gimmicks to beat superman.

 

Being unchallenged isn't bad since this is a superhero game, but having ways and means to beat you as a superhero isnt bad either.  That's where unique mechanics come in to play here.

 

That levels the playing field for the enemy.

 

If You want to allow the enemy to be level without unique mechanics, dont set or incarnate.  

[Lines]

6 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

This is true, and it touches on reality, lex luthor needs gimmicks to beat superman.

Interesting example of reality.

[Infinitum]

17 minutes ago, Lines said:

Interesting example of reality.

You know what I mean.  😛

[Heliopause]

CoX is my favorite MMO of all time and I am beyond ecstatic 😍 the HC team's tremendous work allows me to play it again.  However, playing feels somewhat less rewarding than on live.  This is in part, IMHO, because the risk/effort/reward balance is out of balance.  Rewards for general in-game activity and for accomplishing tasks require much less effort or even no effort (if something requires no effort I suppose it actually can't be considered a reward anymore).   I think this is because of power creep and making too many things freebies instead of tying them to in-game activity and tasks.  Thanks.  🙂

[DougGraves]

38 minutes ago, Heliopause said:

CoX is my favorite MMO of all time and I am beyond ecstatic 😍 the HC team's tremendous work allows me to play it again.  However, playing feels somewhat less rewarding than on live.  This is in part, IMHO, because the risk/effort/reward balance is out of balance.  Rewards for general in-game activity and for accomplishing tasks require much less effort or even no effort (if something requires no effort I suppose it actually can't be considered a reward anymore).   I think this is because of power creep and making too many things freebies instead of tying them to in-game activity and tasks.  Thanks.  🙂

 

I am torn about unlocking things.  Getting capes and auras was cool - but not being able to use the aura or cape at the start was annoying on some characters.  I want my character to look right from the start.

 

But I would like to see temporary powers as rewards instead of purchases.  Asheron's Call had replayable quests on a long timer - could be a day, a week, or a month.  People joined together to redo them when their timer was up.  The -regen daggers, HVAC pets, and other things would be cool as rewards for playing through TFs or other content. 

[Ruin Mage]

Here's the thing about difficulty - HC has made it currently the motif of the server to be more accessible, to be easier to get to the heights of power where everything is easy, and in general just making the entry to an old game a whole lot easier. We see this in Veteran Levels, in the tweaks they've done (or that SCORE did, which we adopted through using their source), and more. So the game has particularly become one of the easiest MMOs out there - which is fine. Sometimes people get tired of the work-your-ass-off aspect of typical MMOs like FFXIV and WoW. The grind isn't really there besides maybe the grind for badges & moneh.

Now, one should temper their desires and expectations with the facts above and with the other notes to be made - the game was being progressively made easier by the devs, with harder content coming down the pipe before shut down. What stopped all of this? Being shut down did. So the progression that was later game difficulty was put to an immediate stop and thus the game was left in limbo. When SCORE (Leo's secret server) began it was a matter of adjustments for the population, I imagine. They had barely half if not way less than what HC has - which is fitting given the hush hush. So when we took on their version of the game, it meant a much easier CoH.

Now, CoH was already getting easy by I23/I24 beta. Incarnate powers and IOs made content rather easy to do. The Incarnate Trials and Hami raids were the difficult content that people had - Mothership has and always will be a snooze fest. However, +4/x8 was made trivial and even more so as the game went on. So the difficulty ceiling had a hard stop besides trying to find new ways to solo/duo TFs/Trials/other content that was easy for a full team. Not only that, but the game got more and more figured out - damage, defense, etc. So when we come into HC, people easily have a base for knowing the numbers - albeit there's new elements in the game for plenty of us. Radiation Melee/Armor, Bio Armor, Savage Melee, Psychic Melee, etc and so on - but again, the numbers get crunched and figured out.

It's the nature of MMOs for the difficulty to go down as the life cycle goes on. It's also a mixed bag to, on the other end of things, to put things behind effort. Costume pieces should not, for example, be locked behind missions or earning them through the game. I prefer it the way it is - everything unlocked so people can truly make the costume they desire from Level 1. However, other things locked behind effort? Badges/temp powers? Sure. The Incarnate System, you have to at least either do a bunch of leveling or participate in iTrials to fully unlock. Easier than it used to be, but its still requiring effort.

I don't think anything really can or should change - just based on the time and effort it would take. Hard-coded things would be a hassle - so I'd assume at least. One should also be careful with what they try to add because the game is notorious for its code - so it is said at least.