"Meta" Tweaks

[Redlynne]

5 minutes ago, xl8 said:

Sure, but would that issue be... you have to play together as a solid team?

[Omega-202]

19 minutes ago, xl8 said:

Sure, but would that issue be... you have to play together as a solid team?

At +5, sure.  Beyond that, its not a matter of playing as a team, its an exponential drop off.  

 

Just based on damage output needed, +6 is three times harder than +4.  +7 is six times harder.  And player accuracy falls off a cliff.  You start needing stacking tactics across the board + 100% acc slotting to just hit the enemies.  

 

I'm not saying it isn't doable, I'm just saying it doesn't get harder, it just gets tedious. 

 

EDIT: not to mention, this effects CC and debuffs also, if not more so. To the point that holds last just a second or two at most and debuffs are only 15% as effective at +6.  

 

It would just make the disparity even worse.  It would shift the meta a bit though.  More emphasis on +Res and unresistable debuffs (Tar Patch, Achilles, etc).

Edited June 23, 2020 by Omega-202

[xl8]

5 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

At +5, sure.  Beyond that, its not a matter of playing as a team, its an exponential drop off.  

 

Just based on damage output needed, +6 is three times harder than +4.  +7 is six times harder.  And player accuracy falls off a cliff.  You start needing stacking tactics across the board + 100% acc slotting to just hit the enemies.  

 

I'm not saying it isn't doable, I'm just saying it doesn't get harder, it just gets tedious. 

 

EDIT: not to mention, this effects CC and debuffs also, if not more so. To the point that holds last just a second or two at most and debuffs are only 15% as effective at +6.  

 

It would just make the disparity even worse.  It would shift the meta a bit though.  More emphasis on +Res and unresistable debuffs (Tar Patch, Achilles, etc).

Bring in +5.
Then add new scaling system above that...

Instead of minions, lieuts, bosses, we have lieuts, bosses, EBs.

And/or mob sizes increased.
And/or new NPC characters that require neutralizing (the sapper/demon lord/other scenario).
There's simple tweaks that don't require a huge rewrite.
 

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, xl8 said:

Sure, but would that issue be... you have to play together as a solid team?

Teamwork has nothing to do with it.  You would never be able to hit anything +6 or higher.  This is simply how the game is built. 

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, xl8 said:

Instead of minions, lieuts, bosses, we have lieuts, bosses, EBs.

This does not increase difficulty.  It only makes the game more of a slog. 

[nihilii]

You can hit +6s and even +8s, and make progress on them. Remove your Alpha slot and launch an Apex or Tin Mage TF solo, and mobs are essentially +8 to you. Minions, lieuts and bosses are very tough but not impossible for a solo character. EBs might be impossible. AVs probably are. But I feel like a team could do it. It'd be a fun challenge.

 

(But more ontopic, it *is* a slog. Wouldn't want that as a normal difficulty setting. Even if challenging, +con is the lazy, boring approach to difficulty.)

Edited June 23, 2020 by nihilii

[xl8]

1 minute ago, ShardWarrior said:

1 hour ago, xl8 said:

Instead of minions, lieuts, bosses, we have lieuts, bosses, EBs.

This does not increase difficulty.  It only makes the game more of a slog. 

Too many people (and it's not just @shardwarrior) are quick to point out faults but make no actionable constructive suggestions on top of it. Let's bounce ideas around.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

To the larger topic as a whole, the game definitely has balance issues at endgame.  But the AoE vs single target disparity (to me) should be way down the priority list.  The lack of usefulness for CC and 75% of support sets is way bigger.  If a power is not doing or increasing damage, lowering resists or regen, or adding defense/resistance to both you and the team in a way that does not significantly eat into your DPS/resist debuff/regen debuff, then its generally a non optimal power.   This basically means CC, healing and long activation/high refresh survivability powers are all considered situational at best and trash at worst.  

Wanna touch on this real quick because I feel they are actually linked.

 

As demonstrated, if 80% of the enemy force is eliminated in the 1st 1-2 volleys of random AoE's that are tossed out by the team, there is no longer a need for CC or certain support styles. At the very least AoE control becomes a bit questionable depending on the team dynamic, and with what is left for incoming damage from singular tough targets it may be a wash for how much support is needed.

[Monos King]

25 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

You would never be able to hit anything +6 or higher.  This is simply how the game is built

Actually, +6 enemies are the perfect challenge; when I was testing that out I went to dark astoria as a 48 exemplared maxed out scrapper and the results were pretty fantastic. I could still pick off minions and even lieutenants, but if 5 of them gathered the layered -res and -rech instantly became too much.  I had to strategize, it was not at all dps day but the damage was efficient at my high level of power. Judgement took about 10% of a minions health. If it's of interest, I'll run tests again and cone back with specifics.

 

In team play, this would mean that the ranged dmg dealers would have to be working with CC users so that the scrappers can continue to do damage and the tanks did not die. As things should be. The enemy types that Dark Astoria had were ideal for end content, with their debuffs, AoE and minor team buffs, and a simple con increase makes them exceptionally formidable.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Monos King

[Monos King]

30 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Even if challenging, +con is the lazy, boring approach to difficulty.)

I don't think using the assets that are already available is at all lazy, especially if by it's very design it would solve a lot of the existing issues. Just simple, should it end up effective. Con increases effectively encompass all of the stat and damage suggestions, and is considerably easy to implement. If that were to be considered, whether or not making it default in certain content, or an accessible option for all of it, is what would be worth discussing.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Monos King

[Omega-202]

14 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Wanna touch on this real quick because I feel they are actually linked.

 

As demonstrated, if 80% of the enemy force is eliminated in the 1st 1-2 volleys of random AoE's that are tossed out by the team, there is no longer a need for CC or certain support styles. At the very least AoE control becomes a bit questionable depending on the team dynamic, and with what is left for incoming damage from singular tough targets it may be a wash for how much support is needed.

I think they are related issues, but I think that you can fix one without neutering the other.

 

Because @xl8 is asking to bounce ideas, how about an anecdote:

 

I was bored recently and decided to wipe through the first mission of the Market Crash TF solo at +4/8 on my kitted out Elec/Inv/Mu Stalker.  I was basically unkillable for most of it but found something interesting.  I could wipe through whole groups of Minions/LTs/Bosses using AoEs and I kept trucking to keep my aggro cap maxed the whole way....until suddenly my health bar started dropping halfway in.  I looked around and noticed that I was being hit by 10 Tank Freak bosses who had all rezzed and suddenly it was a challenge.  The minions and Lts were actually a benefit because they took up Aggro cap slots but couldn't actually hurt me, whereas the bosses, en masse, were a challenge.

 

So maybe there is something to xl8's idea of lowering minion numbers and upping bosses in a spawn.  It doesn't require any changes to AoE or single target damage, increases the benefit of single target damage for dropping problem bosses, increases the benefit of hard AoE cc and doesn't start messing with purple patch level disparities, which neuters CC and debuffs.

[nihilii]

13 minutes ago, Monos King said:

I don't think using the assets that are already available is at all lazy

I find it one of the laziest approaches to game difficulty. Yes, it is effective from a developer/manpower standpoint. Hence the reason so many games go that route. Lazy and effective are one and the same here.

 

Lazy doesn't have to be bad. But boring definitely is bad. Cranking up numbers doesn't really challenge you to change your patterns as a player, unless the numbers are so overwhelming you must do so. And if the numbers become *too* overwhelming, then the challenge simply becomes impossible. Boring.

Less boring ways to do difficulty, several of which were suggested upthread:

- more enemies

- more attacks / different attack patterns

- higher rank enemies (sorta recoups with the previous two)

- stacking mob buffs

+con is also boring from an immersion perspective. There's no fundamental game world reason for things to have "levels" and for a level 54 to take less than twice as much damage as a level 50. As with many things, CoH did it better than other games - the whole security level in the Lore was cute. But it's still a boring system at its core.

Be happy I'm not a developer. I'd slap the Giant Monster / invasion code on the whole game. 🙂

[nihilii]

8 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

So maybe there is something to xl8's idea of lowering minion numbers and upping bosses in a spawn.  It doesn't require any changes to AoE or single target damage, increases the benefit of single target damage for dropping problem bosses, increases the benefit of hard AoE cc and doesn't start messing with purple patch level disparities, which neuters CC and debuffs.

I made an AE mission for testing purposes with standard enemy groups, and initially set the groups to be "Hard". Each group ends up with 3 to 4 bosses. This change alone makes for a surprisingly quick difficulty bump. Many of my characters who can handle those same groups at normal +4/x8 without breaking a sweat started struggling there. I'll third xl8's idea: if you want to bump difficulty, port this "Hard" AE effect to normal difficulty settings. Might not be enough for teams, but should give many soloers a new respect for MAXIMUM difficulty.



 

[Galaxy Brain]

7 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Less boring ways to do difficulty, several of which were suggested upthread:

- more enemies

- more attacks / different attack patterns

- higher rank enemies (sorta recoups with the previous two)

- stacking mob buffs

+Con is the most "economic" solution, but these all have merit (though the different attack patterns again only matter if enemies survive).

 

Adding more enemies per spawn would make each AoE a bit less effective due to target caps, and allow a team to spread out a bit to cover more of a mob and allow Crowd Control to have a place in truly "locking off" a portion of the fight. Combine that with say more common bosses (ex 3 per spawn instead of 2 for a 1.5x spawn rate) and having more common buffs and we got ourselves a cool challenge.

 

11 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Be happy I'm not a developer. I'd slap the Giant Monster / invasion code on the whole game. 🙂

Tbh that'd be nice

[MTeague]

14 hours ago, Redlynne said:

I know why this happens.  It's something I brought up to Arbiter Hawk, Synapse and Black Scorpion at dinner during the 2012 Player Summit, who were the Powers Team Devs at Cryptic Studios.  I've posted this argument before, but I'll repost it here for clarity.

.....

 

13 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Now start thinking about what would happen if every $Target of Minion rank and above generated a small PBAoE field around themselves that granted +Resistance (All) to all the other $Targets of their Faction around them.  I'm thinking something like this

......

 

At the very least, it would mean that using massed "nuke" attacks on closely packed high densities of $Targets would be "less effective" than doing so on more widely scattered clusterings.  Want do do more damage to your $Targets?  Well BREAK THEIR FORMATION you imbecile!

 

Is it a "perfect solution" to the problem?  By no means.

Would it mean that the "leadership" of Lieutenants and Bosses would "matter" in any meaningful way that the Players would need to adapt to?  You betcha they would.

......

 

I completely agree with both Redlynne's analysis of the problem, and the proposed "Leadership" solution.  

That said, ..... I'm not anticipating that any changes actually happen. Because you still have the same root problem.

 

14 hours ago, Redlynne said:

.....

They immediately turned to the point of ... The Players Would NEVER STAND FOR IT ... which I readily agreed would indeed be an issue, since it would functionally mean nerfing every AoE damage power in the game used by Players.

.....

 

In theory, the HC Devs have far more freedom to act, if they also agree with the analysis and proposed solution.  The NCSoft Devs answered to corporate masters and the almighty profit, as well as the plenty-human-enough experiance of having faced the Angry Mob after Enhancement Diversification and not wanting to experience that kind of rage directed at them ever again.  The HC Devs, in theory, just need to make sure they can manage monthly donations and nothing more.  I do not believe this kind of change would seriously threaten that.  (though I fully expect that statement to be challenged by other posters).

 

Solo'ing Defenders / Controllers would not really be so heavily impacted by a "Leadership Resistance Aura" change on mobs because they're probably not running at x8 and have access to more -Res anyway.  And esp if this "Leadership Resistance Aura" could be detoggled by Stuns / Sleeps / Controls, it would make teams like to have some Controllers/Doms on hand as well.  

 

Sidebar:  Confuses.  I don't think you intend for Mass Confusion / Seeds of Confusion to turn the players into Unkillable Gods, so this +Resistance that mobs supply to nearby friends would need to be suppressed if Confused.

 

Farmer Brutes / Tankers would be taking another serious hit after the Double Influence Changes, and pretty much guaranteed they would go THROUGH THE ROOF in rage.   You may still feel the change should be warranted, but go into it eyes open.  This kind of change would hit them SUPER HARD.

 

I think this would be best approached as an optional difficulty setting rather than something placed on the whole player base, at least to start with.  Even if you eventually WANT all players to have to deal with something like this, I think it's best to provide players a chance to get their feet wet and retreat to safer waters if it doesn't go well, and also would allow time for bugs / unintended consequences to be reported by a self-selected team of volunteer testers.

Edited June 23, 2020 by MTeague
grammar

[Galaxy Brain]

4 minutes ago, nihilii said:

I made an AE mission for testing purposes with standard enemy groups, and initially set the groups to be "Hard". Each group ends up with 3 to 4 bosses. This change alone makes for a surprisingly quick difficulty bump. Many of my characters who can handle those same groups at normal +4/x8 without breaking a sweat started struggling there. I'll third xl8's idea: if you want to bump difficulty, port this "Hard" AE effect to normal difficulty settings. Might not be enough for teams, but should give many soloers a new respect for MAXIMUM difficulty.

Great minds huh? Honestly, looking at it this way it appears the issue is not that AoE shreds through minions/etc, and more that spawns are dis-proportionally minions/etc!  Lower the amount of Minions and add in another boss or two per spawn and things should spice up.

[Monos King]

22 minutes ago, nihilii said:

. Cranking up numbers doesn't really challenge you to change your patterns as a player

It most certainly does if your player patterns are the result of being indomitably overpowered. With con increases, rush and murder tactics really would be something possible only for a team of 6 dps types and 2 control types or some other damage focused combination, and not the work of one scrapper or blaster as it is now. Like I was saying, it definitely affected my strategy with the dark astoria experiment, and it was the most fun I've had in a while. I'm curious if you mean boring to play or simply not very dramatic a mechanical adjustment. One of those is inevitably overlookable for all intents and purposes considering the environment and resources we have in employ.

26 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Less boring ways to do difficulty, several of which were suggested upthread:

- more enemies

- more attacks / different attack patterns

- higher rank enemies (sorta recoups with the previous two)

- stacking mob buffs

All of these are great suggestions as well, however. I think that some variation of selection between yours and previous proposals would probably mend the issue greatly. I'm particularly fond of the mob buffs.

[Galaxy Brain]

3 minutes ago, Monos King said:

All of these are great suggestions as well, however. I think that some variation of selection between yours and previous proposals would probably mend the issue greatly. I'm particularly fond of the mob buffs.

I like mob buffs that can be countered, like Sky Raider Engineers or Immunes Surgeons. If you let the specific mobs do their thing they become force multipliers until dealt with/etc.

[Monos King]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I like mob buffs that can be countered, like Sky Raider Engineers or Immunes Surgeons. If you let the specific mobs do their thing they become force multipliers until dealt with/etc.

Without a doubt. The summoned entities would need to be at least lieutentants in harder content though, or else initial waves of AoE would just level them with everything else. Fighting mobs of level 50 DE can be a lengthy process because of the Boulder's summoned Cairn +30% res pets. DE aren't much of a threat, so it doesn't become deadly, but it's a concept more should certainly get.

[Troo]

4 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Also, I'm at 1337 rep now yay 

 

30,000 more to go

[Bionic_Flea]

Here's another crazy idea.  Have a sniper boss that's immune to taunt but is exceptionally aggravated by buffs and debuffs.  You'd want CC to lock that guy down quick.

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, xl8 said:

Too many people (and it's not just @shardwarrior) are quick to point out faults but make no actionable constructive suggestions on top of it. Let's bounce ideas around.

And too many people are quick to suggest others have not already bounced ideas around or offered suggestions before.  There have been several posts with varying ideas on how to address the concepts of challenge and difficulty in the post level 50 game.  This is not a new discussion topic and this subject was brought up not only here, but on live as well on many occasions.

 

What difficulty and challenge mean are subjective and those definitions vary from person to person.  I can only speak for myself here - simply upping HP, damage, toHit, resists etc. on enemy NPCs does not equal challenge or difficulty.  It simply results in a stalemate which is boring.  I would much prefer not know what happen and tossing in a few random things here and there.

 

Were it me - and granted this is pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking - I would look at improving the underlying AI that would allow NPCs to be more adaptive to your combat tactics.  I would also be interested in toying around with the idea of giving NPCs more coordinated strategies along the lines of what @Galaxy Brain mentioned up thread.  Enemy NPCs never seem to use any strategy like ambushes or coordinated attacks.   Another idea would be to introduce some random events into encounters, such as traps or even collateral damage.  Collateral damage somewhat loosely already exists in mayhem missions and can either be a detriment or benefit.  Think of using the environment to your advantage or in the course of your mission, your battle sets the building on fire and you now have to rescue civilians.  You could also have random named NPCs or signatures spawn. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

I made an AE mission for testing purposes with standard enemy groups, and initially set the groups to be "Hard". Each group ends up with 3 to 4 bosses. This change alone makes for a surprisingly quick difficulty bump. Many of my characters who can handle those same groups at normal +4/x8 without breaking a sweat started struggling there. I'll third xl8's idea: if you want to bump difficulty, port this "Hard" AE effect to normal difficulty settings. Might not be enough for teams, but should give many soloers a new respect for MAXIMUM difficulty.

Counter-proposal:

 

"Hard Mode" inverts the Minions and Bosses quantities.

Every Minion spawns as a Boss instead ... and every Boss spawns as a Minion instead.

 

So instead of lots a Minions, some Lieutenants and a few Bosses ... you invert those numbers ... a few Minions, some Lieutenants and lots of Bosses.

Total numbers are still the same per spawn, but the weighting of what ranks are spawned in what quantities swap the numbers of Minions and Bosses per spawn group.

 

Note that such an inversion would "work" as a Reputation choice from -1/x1 all the way on up through +4/x8.

[ZacKing]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Have a sniper boss that's immune to taunt but is exceptionally aggravated by buffs and debuffs. 

why would you want to neuter a tanker from being able to hold aggro?

 

just my 2 inf, the idea of just making everything bosses or EBs sounds incredibly boring.  People are quitting TFs that take too long as it is.  Why make them longer?

 

[MTeague]

39 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I can only speak for myself here - simply upping HP, damage, toHit, resists etc. on enemy NPCs does not equal challenge or difficulty. 

There was an era when "Bullet Sponges" were really all that could be done in a computer game to make something more difficult.

That time is LONG since past.

 

Now admittedly, bringing CoH code into the present day is no small task. That will take years, esp with a volunteer dev team.

But the time for Bullet Sponges or solutions like "Just use +5 mobs" should have been LONG gone before shutdown.

 

I want mobs that will RUN and GET HELP from other groups of foes, ambush me around corners, have trip mines setup in my path, maybe take a NPC hostage, like Sigil / Kadabra Kill in Heather Townsend's arc, etc.  I'm keeping expectations low.  But if you ask me what' the right way to increase difficulty, that's it.