Please add new difficulty levels

[Greycat]

Just now, reib said:

Ok. Tankers are useless now. You can do everything without. It Is a entire AT. All controller primaries are almost useless(i have many trollers and i like It). Defenders Who buffs defence are useless. Pure healing Defender are useless. Only debuffer and some buffer make difference. If you dont see that maybe we dont play the same game...dont know.

You can do everything without any individual AT. The game was built without the "Holy Trinity" being needed. I can run the entire game 1-50 just fine without the blaster you praise from your other example ever showing up. I'm not roadblocked or unable to finish anything. There's been arguments about tanks, scrappers and brutes stepping on each other. You want to build up your armors first and have them more functional? Take a tank. You want crits? Scrapper. You like the fury mechanic? Brute. Different gameplay styles. None are "useless." They have different focuses.

 

Defender vs Corrupter. Do you want to build your support powersets first and focus on that first? Defender. Damage more with a support flavor? Corrupter. And so on.

 

It sounds like you're solely interested in the min/maxed characters, considering everything else "useless." The game's not designed around that. And shouldn't be.

[ShardWarrior]

29 minutes ago, reib said:

I can have 40% defence WITHOUT incarnates.

You can get that with several different sets using just SOs.

[ShardWarrior]

20 minutes ago, reib said:

How you convince any 50 player Who dont read forum to not use IO's and incarnates?

How many people do you need to convince?  Seems to me there are several people here on the forums who agree Incarnates are making things too easy for them.  Why not PM each other, set up a new SG and team up?  Advertise here on the forums and on various chat channels in game for other like minded players to join you.  Before you know it, you will have a whole group of people to play with.

[ClawsandEffect]

16 minutes ago, reib said:

Maybe you guys dont wanna understand (and i know my english Is so bad too). It Is not me. I see any lvl 50 in any team any night use It. Than if i use It or not make no difference. Answer that. How you convince any 50 player Who dont read forum to not use IO's and incarnates? It Is not more smart and logical try to do something Who can make that mechanics working? I feel stupid repeat same thing 10 times and have 10 times the same answer. IT IS A MASS PROBLEM. if you prefere think It Is not and i m the problem Is good for me. It Is ok, i only try to talk about a problem, Just that.

No, I understand just fine. 

 

You want the game to be more challenging so you can run it with any random group of people and have it the way you want it. 

 

I gave you a solution. Form a group of people who DON'T USE THAT STUFF. EVER. Play with those people and those people alone. It's not hard to find like-minded people to do just about anything in the game. There are some people who play what they call "hardcore", in which if your character is ever defeated you have to delete it. 

 

If you just flat out make the game harder it isn't fair to people who don't build min/maxed characters. They join a random team and find they can't do anything because the team leader didn't inform them that they need a min/maxed character to play with them. 

 

I'll let you in on a little secret (that isn't much of a secret): I played on live from 2005 to 2012. The game has NEVER been very difficult. 

 

The thing that has been explained to you that YOU don't seem to want to understand is that adding higher difficulty settings is a problem to do with the game's coding. Anything higher than +5 will start getting nearly impossible to hit because your base chance to hit goes down the higher above you in level they are. And last I checked anything above level 54 just doesn't exist. 

[reib]

47 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Then don't use them if you want the game to be more challenging. The game is perfectly playable without them, and was in fact designed to be played without them. 

 

IOs will never be removed from the game, so there's no help there. And adding more difficulty levels is problematic for other reasons already covered above. 

 

You want the game to be more challenging? Get a group of people together who will run characters with no IOs used. We have a thousand character slots, pretty sure one can be spared for a non-IOed character. 

Ok guys maybe you are right and gave me the right solution. I only was think Is good, in a massive game, playing with many different people. Maybe the solution Is depower myself and play with ppls Who depowering themselves too. Sorry to disturb you, only i feel some problem Who maybe dont exist.

Edited March 31, 2020 by reib

[reib]

41 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Then don't use them if you want the game to be more challenging. The game is perfectly playable without them, and was in fact designed to be played without them. 

 

IOs will never be removed from the game, so there's no help there. And adding more difficulty levels is problematic for other reasons already covered above. 

 

You want the game to be more challenging? Get a group of people together who will run characters with no IOs used. We have a thousand character slots, pretty sure one can be spared for a non-IOed character. 

Ok guys maybe you are right and gave me the right solution. I only was think Is good, in a massive game, playing with many different people. Maybe the solution Is depower myself and play with ppls Who depowering themselves too. Sorry to disturb you, dont wanna be rude or Looking like a teeny powerplayer. only i feel some problem Who maybe dont exist. THX everyone.

[reib]

41 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Then don't use them if you want the game to be more challenging. The game is perfectly playable without them, and was in fact designed to be played without them. 

 

IOs will never be removed from the game, so there's no help there. And adding more difficulty levels is problematic for other reasons already covered above. 

 

You want the game to be more challenging? Get a group of people together who will run characters with no IOs used. We have a thousand character slots, pretty sure one can be spared for a non-IOed character. 

Ok guys maybe you are right and gave me the right solution. I only was think Is good, in a massive game, playing with many different people. Maybe the solution Is depower myself and play with ppls Who depowering themselves too. Sorry to disturb you, dont wanna be rude or Looking like a teeny powerplayer. only i feel some problem Who maybe dont exist. THX everyone.

[reib]

41 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Then don't use them if you want the game to be more challenging. The game is perfectly playable without them, and was in fact designed to be played without them. 

 

IOs will never be removed from the game, so there's no help there. And adding more difficulty levels is problematic for other reasons already covered above. 

 

You want the game to be more challenging? Get a group of people together who will run characters with no IOs used. We have a thousand character slots, pretty sure one can be spared for a non-IOed character. 

Ok guys maybe you are right and gave me the right solution. I only was think Is good, in a massive game, playing with many different people. Maybe the solution Is depower myself and play with ppls Who depowering themselves too. Sorry to disturb you, dont wanna be rude or Looking like a teeny powerplayer. only i feel some problem Who maybe dont exist. THX everyone.

[reib]

46 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Then don't use them if you want the game to be more challenging. The game is perfectly playable without them, and was in fact designed to be played without them. 

 

IOs will never be removed from the game, so there's no help there. And adding more difficulty levels is problematic for other reasons already covered above. 

 

You want the game to be more challenging? Get a group of people together who will run characters with no IOs used. We have a thousand character slots, pretty sure one can be spared for a non-IOed character. 

Ok guys maybe you are right and gave me the right solution. I only was think Is good, in a massive game, playing with many different people. Maybe the solution Is depower myself and play with ppls Who depowering themselves too. Sorry to disturb you, dont wanna be rude or Looking like a teeny powerplayer. only i feel some problem Who maybe dont exist. THX everyone.

[Lines]

26 minutes ago, reib said:

Ok guys maybe you are right and gave me the right solution. I only was think Is good, in a massive game, playing with many different people. Maybe the solution Is depower myself and play with ppls Who depowering themselves too. Sorry to disturb you, only i feel some problem Who maybe dont exist.

You're definitely not alone in feeling that way, but the solution is a little more complicated than it might first appear.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

I'm sorry, but this honestly very exaggerated. To entertain a claim such as this I'm going to need some hard data as such,

 

1. Number of people in the sample you took

2. Number of ATs they have

3. Number of those ATs that have full io kit

4. Number of those ATs that are at 50+ incarnates

5. Your selection method for your sample population, to eliminate bias

6. Questions that eliminate bias

7. What content they "felt useless" in

8. How often they play and with whom

 

Without even half of that, you're espousing your own personal opinion, which I disagree with but respect, although it is not factual. Attributing it to a majority of a population is a mistake, at best.

 

I am happy to hear your evidence, though.

 

Sources are from this thread, IGNORING FIRE BRUTES

 

All Levels:

 

Of ALL characters created, with the exception of Fire brutes which we sorta know what they are played for, this is the general distribution. 

 

  

Level 50:

 

Same as above, but for lvl 50 characters only. Masterminds fall down severely here which is interesting, but otherwise a similar distribution.

 

Going by just the raw "number of 50's" data: Blasters, Controllers, Brutes, Scrappers, and Tankers make up ~56% of all level 50 characters out of 15 possible AT's.

 

3 of those are high-damage AT's (Blaster, Brute, Scrapper), with the new Tank buffs they are also rather good at using AoE damage to clear spawns.

3 of these are armored AT's (Brute, Scrapper, Tanker), which means that survival is less of a concern to them than raw damage output.

Controllers, depending on the combo, can in theory be both of these with great damage output and survival but they are highly volatile based on the combo and if put head to head with the other top 5's, will be out damaged (most likely Tanks out AoE them now).

 

 

Played Time at 50:

 

 

This metric shows the time played at level 50 per AT, and then again per level 50. This should roughly show how often / how long certain AT's are being played for. We can see some ups and downs here, but in general it shows a similar trend.

 

 

As for raw numbers about the actual number of lvl 50's vs number of players:

 

Total Accounts = 159,537

Raw total characters = 1,168,293  -> about 7 characters per Player

Raw total lvl 50's = 99,460 -> about 0.6 lvl 50's per Player (62.34%), and only about 8.51% of all characters made. 

 

Assuming these are all divided evenly of course. So despite making up less than 10% of all characters, it could be assumed that over 60% of the playerbase has at least 1 level 50 character. Seeing the number of active accounts in Feb was 32,164 and not the whopping 159,537, we can only guess what to encounter based on the %'s I posted above in Blue. ( @Cipher, any data on the count of active characters? 😉 ) 

 

 

So anyways, to answer the quoted post:

• We can assume that 62% of players have a lvl 50 they use.
• Odds are, that lvl 50 is a Blaster, Controller, Brute, Scrapper, or Tanker.
• These AT's excel at clearing spawns and can be mostly self sufficient to varying degrees (least on the Blaster, but they clear fastest)
• Clearing out dangerous enemies and being self sufficient leaves little room for other AT's or Players to shine, or at least it is much more noticable when these top 5 AT's roll in.
• Numbers on IO's and Incarnates are not given, but Incarnates come naturally for lvl 50 characters and we can probably assume that AT's with high Lvl 50 play time will have both, which includes the top 5 picks which are great at content anyways.

 

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[ScarySai]

While we're at it, lets add a difficulty that's just makes every enemy a randomly generated AV, would make +4x8 real fun.

 

>_>

Edited March 31, 2020 by ScarySai

[Naraka]

You know what else could be considered "difficulty"?  Powers that require consideration, planning or sacrifice to use.

 

A lot of the situational powers have been changed to spam powers.  You do that and the pool of spam overflows and all you have to do is overwhelm the content.  So even +4/x8 AVs ends up being just a bag of HP and a DPS check.  Granted, I've not had to go up against 16+ AVs myself but if it doesn't encourage some sort of tactics change it's likely going to be just as boring or monotonous as spamming AoEs to down normal spawns.

[RCU7115]

On 3/30/2020 at 1:28 AM, reib said:

Please add some difficulty levels like +6/10 because game Is really TOO EASY and many AT's become useless. Toggle debuffs didnt count, control didnt count, tankers didnt count, healers are useless. Everyone have too much defence and damage. Game Is not fun no more because NO challenge. How Is possibile with my Blaster i can farm +4/8 map?! This make no sense. Please we Need challenge. Many ppl quit the game for that. It Is a Easy change to do but Is something. Please DO IT! THX for your work.

Go do an Apex/Tin Mage TF without any incarnate powers slotted. Let everyone know how that turns out please.

Edited April 1, 2020 by RCU7115

[Naraka]

6 hours ago, RCU7115 said:

Go do an Apex/Tin Mage TF without any incarnate powers slotted. Let everyone know how that turns out please.

The guy apologized profusely for "harming" your perspective multiple times already.  Do you need a personalized apology as well?

[AerialAssault]

There's a simple reason why the end-game is "too easy". There's a hard ceiling, and you've hit it.

 

Game development stopped when the game shut. The content which was meant to challenge these characters never came. While I respect the Homecoming team for all of their effort, making new incarnate trials, zones with missions and story arcs, and all the other stuff people want is, for the time being, a bit out of their reach. It would be nice if we could get to that point, but you gotta learn to walk before you can run.

 

The solution is not getting rid of IO's or Incarnates. I won't ever support a suggestion for that. There is, unfortunately, no easy solution.

 

[PhoenixV117]

Pretty simple fix would be to have a , no minions option in the chat panel difficulty option bubble, so all mobs are lieutenant and higher... that won’t require any change to code.

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, PhoenixV117 said:

Pretty simple fix would be to have a , no minions option in the chat panel difficulty option bubble, so all mobs are lieutenant and higher... that won’t require any change to code.

You do realize that what you are suggesting is a change to the code, right?  You cannot change something without changing code.

[PhoenixV117]

Yes I do, but not a game changing one. It would be as simple as the architect mission options. It’s not as difficult as managing a +5/6 where other variables come into account like the scaling to hit etc.

[Coyote]

A simpler fix would probably be to increase the HPs of Minions (mostly) and Lts (a bit) after level 25 or so. This would minimize the spawn-clearing effects of AoEs, and with more mobs living longer, controls and debuffs and tanking ability may matter a bit more than just front-loaded AoE damage that debuffs minion damage to 0. That should just be a change in numbers in a table. If burst AoE damage at the start of a fight is no longer the one-stop solution for both defense and offense against minions, then maybe having defense solutions against large numbers of minions may become useful again.

[Naraka]

4 hours ago, Coyote said:

A simpler fix would probably be to increase the HPs of Minions (mostly) and Lts (a bit) after level 25 or so. This would minimize the spawn-clearing effects of AoEs, and with more mobs living longer, controls and debuffs and tanking ability may matter a bit more than just front-loaded AoE damage that debuffs minion damage to 0. That should just be a change in numbers in a table. If burst AoE damage at the start of a fight is no longer the one-stop solution for both defense and offense against minions, then maybe having defense solutions against large numbers of minions may become useful again.

Rather than going for the simplest fix, why not go for the "right" fix and fit it in with their scheduled workload?

 

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the devs say they wanted to do a pass on enemy damage resistances seeing as some damage types might be a bit too resisted too often?  While doing that, they can do a lot more than adjusting hp.

[Galaxy Brain]

7 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Rather than going for the simplest fix, why not go for the "right" fix and fit it in with their scheduled workload?

 

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the devs say they wanted to do a pass on enemy damage resistances seeing as some damage types might be a bit too resisted too often?  While doing that, they can do a lot more than adjusting hp.

Indeed.