Game Balance & The Endgame

[Andreah]

I see what Patti is saying above. But I think i understand it from my perspective a bit better.

 

It's not that it is a job, but that it's time delayed gratification. At any given time, I see quite a bit of the current enjoyment I get out of CoH (and other games I play) as a being a result of effort expended on it over previous time. It's not an investment, exactly, but it makes me react and respond as if it was. And the time and effort I put into it today, I expect to be returned in enjoyment over time in the future.

 

If I had to stop, I'd have some negative feelings and feel like it still owed me a return for my recent effort; and especially so if the rules by which I had internally assigned the degree of anticipated enjoyment I was going to get from my effort already in the game had changed.

 

For a notional example; I could grind to level up a character through the parts of the game I may not enjoy much, with the expectation it will perform well in the parts of the game that I do like. Then, when I get to those parts of the game, perhaps incarnate trials, or supergroup-designed AE's, and I find the power sets I chose to grind up have been nerfed badly. Of course I would be unhappy, and I might say my "investment" in the game has been lost.

 

Even if I'd put that grinding in long ago, and had a lot of fun at cap already, I'd still be unhappy, because I anticipated an even higher "return of enjoyment on grind investment" than I got.

 

Other people's situations would be different; e.g., maybe it's not grind, but intellectual design time to optimize a build. And maybe it's not endgame, but an efficient or badge-rich journey from level one to cap. There was an expectation, right or wrong, and it was taken from them. 

 

Not everyone can say, everyday: "Today was good; Fun > Effort. If the game disappeared overnight, I would move on happily."

 

 

I think people can adjust to things changing, both up and down; but these changes need to be measured, modest, and foreseeable. I think the HC team knows this and is doing their best, and understands players have this kind of investment in how things work. I fee they won't radically change things, say, the way a for-profit operation might, if they decided they might be able to get a bunch of new high-paying customers from, say, some very different "new game experience", that might leave existing customers feeling unwanted.

[ScarySai]

CoH was killed at an awkward time: The incarnate system was fleshed out enough to take root, but before Paragon could give us things like incarnate level Malta to humble us a bit.

 

Another thing of note: While Malta, arachnos and carnies are great for dropping the unprepared, council lose all the mechanics that make them a challenge, such as random shapeshifted and robotic bosses. Additionally, a lot of the more interesting and debuff heavy groups such as Vahsilok, wailers and Freakshow just stop showing up outside of tips.

[Ralathar44]

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

The Incarnate system is a great boogeyman.

Problem: IOs were making the game easier before the Incarnate system.
Problem #2: Some power combos absolutely shredded before Incarnates were a thing.
Solution: Remove/Nerf IOs (^:

Problem #3: The game was already being made easy by its own devs before the Incarnate system showed up.
Solution: Flip off Paragon Studios and revert back to Issue 0 and play a way more tedious version of City of Heroes.
ez.
 

TBH I don't think the problem is necessarily difficulty even though I personally prefer the option of facing missions difficult enough to wipe teams.  I think the problem is uneven power distribution.  People have communicated several times in this thread that they like being fully IO'd and incarnated level overpowered because they enjoy feeling like a god.  And that's fine.  But the problem is only so many people can feel Super (much less a god) on a team at a time.  The more people who are walking around in a team overpowered the less people can feel overpowered in a team.  If there are 3 blasters rotating nukes then basically the only 3 people getting to really feel that power are the blasters as everyone else mainly watches.  If there are 2 unkillable melee taking all the aggro then support sets no longer get to feel like they are super that makes other gods via buffs and debuffs...they're just -res or +dmg bots at that point basically.  ETC.

Every mission has a finite amount of "power budget" available that can be experienced by the team because there is a finite amount of mobs, incoming damage, and etc in each encounter.  So 2-3 people feeling like unstoppable beasts is usually a feeling purchased at the expense of 5-6 other people's ability to feel super.  Sure, they can still contribute, but they don't get to leverage even a fraction of their power because the power budget has already been eaten up by the 2-3 people dominating the mission.


On  teams with incredibly powerful characters in it I think you pretty much have to go down into a 3-4 person team for everyone to really be able to leverage their role.  Maybe even 2 with incarnates or the most powerful/impactful builds.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Here's an idea:  What if we limited I-powers only to level 50+ content? 

 

It's only a slight limitation from what already exists but it always seemed odd to me to see a character T4 in all incarnate powers in level 45-49 stuff.

People would still join teams specifically advertised as running at 50+Whatever.... and then complain whenever anyone fired a Judgement or Destiny.

[ShardWarrior]

9 minutes ago, Phoenix' said:

Everyone wants to have a godlike toon. 

I think it was poorly executed though. 

If for example incarnates were more Archetype oriented they might be better. 

Lore for masterminds and controllers 

Judgement for blasters and domis and stuff like that that will follow each ATs attributes different numbers of dmg or buffs at each. 

Im sorry but having barrier stacked on my toon with an army of lore pets and perma regen, recovery in an only blaster team that debuffs like crazy and can aggro and kill anything is not really my thing. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you are saying here as it is a preference of yours.  This is how you choose to play and have fun, so more power to you.  You can already play all the content you like without incarnates, you just need to put in the effort to build your teams.

[Parabola]

8 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

TBH I don't think the problem is necessarily difficulty even though I personally prefer the option of facing missions difficult enough to wipe teams.  I think the problem is uneven power distribution.  People have communicated several times in this thread that they like being fully IO'd and incarnated level overpowered because they enjoy feeling like a god.  And that's fine.  But the problem is only so many people can feel Super (much less a god) on a team at a time.  The more people who are walking around in a team overpowered the less people can feel overpowered in a team.  If there are 3 blasters rotating nukes then basically the only 3 people getting to really feel that power are the blasters as everyone else mainly watches.  If there are 2 unkillable melee taking all the aggro then support sets no longer get to feel like they are super that makes other gods via buffs and debuffs...they're just -res or +dmg bots at that point basically.  ETC.

Every mission has a finite amount of "power budget" available that can be experienced by the team because there is a finite amount of mobs, incoming damage, and etc in each encounter.  So 2-3 people feeling like unstoppable beasts is usually a feeling purchased at the expense of 5-6 other people's ability to feel super.  Sure, they can still contribute, but they don't get to leverage even a fraction of their power because the power budget has already been eaten up by the 2-3 people dominating the mission.


On  teams with incredibly powerful characters in it I think you pretty much have to go down into a 3-4 person team for everyone to really be able to leverage their role.  Maybe even 2 with incarnates or the most powerful/impactful builds.

Absolutely this. The game simply doesn't push back hard enough for the level of super we can now easily attain. It barely manages it if you're solo and it certainly doesn't in a team. And this is an mmo. Soloing is great but teaming is supposed to be a huge part of the game.

[macskull]

6 hours ago, LQT said:

Oddly enough I was just thinking the other day how annoying it is when you post this topic, dragging out the conversation causing subsequent posts to try and guess the answer rather than you just coming out and stating what the example is.

It was annoying when SweetChilli did it on the official forums regarding PVP, it's annoying when you and others do the same thing now.

The point being made isn't "haha no one knows what that power is," it's the change was so obscure no one noticed it happened. The entire point is to act as a direct counter for the myriad posters who jump into a thread at the mere mention of PvP and blame PvP and PvPers for everything that's wrong with the game.

Edited September 23, 2020 by macskull

[Ralathar44]

13 minutes ago, Phoenix' said:

Everyone wants to have a godlike toon. 

This is definitely not the case.  Superheroes run the range from Superman to Daredevil with a complete range of power.  Being skilled enough to take on even super powered threats is quite a bit different from being godlike themselves.  Batman for example can take on Darkside, but not directly.  Direct fight he gets smooshed.  Because Batman is not a god, outside of maybe being the god of plot armor.  But when well written his victories over infinitely more powerful foes make sense.

Confining superheroes to "everyone wants to be a god" is honestly just throwing 1/2 to 3/4 of the entire superhero mythos in the trash.  City of Heroes for example has Manticore, who is just an archer but who's smart thinking has saved the entire team multiple times despite his relative lack of power level.  Pony up torchy.

[Apparition]

Considering that builds are able to solo GMs without any Incarnate abilities, I don’t think that Incarnate abilities are the problem, if there is even a problem in the first place.  And the solution isn’t to nerf nor remove Incarnate abilities.  It is to up the difficulty of level 50 Task Forces, Strike Forces, and Trials to take into account purple IOs, ATOs, Winter IOs, and Incarnate abilities.

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

Considering that builds are able to solo GMs without any Incarnate abilities, I don’t think that Incarnate abilities are the problem, if there is even a problem in the first place.  And the solution isn’t to nerf nor remove Incarnate abilities.  It is to up the difficulty of level 50 Task Forces, Strike Forces, and Trials to take into account purple IOs, ATOs, Winter IOs, and Incarnate abilities.

I agree and would add more content designed for and balanced around IOs and incarnates instead of just SOs.

[Coyotedancer]

Just a reminder here... Keep in mind that *NOT EVERYONE PLAYING THE GAME IS A META-AWARE POWER-GAMER*

 

Most of us that hang around the forums? Yeah. Many of us are. 

But we're not the Joe Average players out in the game itself, and we never have been. 

 

Yes, the game seems easy as cake to anyone who knows how to build a character with soft-capped defenses and all the bells and whistles. That isn't universal, though, and it skews our perceptions. Sometimes it seems to skew them A LOT. So, before we start talking about making the whole game more difficult, it might be useful to step back and have a look at what "average" is and consider how making the game harder for the "high end" players might make life pretty unpleasant for the mid-range and low end that I suspect are a heck of a lot more common than the forum spreadsheet warriors and MIDS gurus.

[macskull]

6 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I agree and would add more content designed for and balanced around IOs and incarnates instead of just SOs.

I think adding content balanced around IOs is a bad idea because it means that the IO system is no longer optional for at least part of the game. Besides, how do you balance it around IOs? There are so many different potential ways to build characters that it'd be impossible to decide what to balance against.

 

Also, yeah, what @Coyotedancer said. I'm not about making things more difficult when most players are running around on SOs thinking Empathy is the best support set because it puts green numbers above peoples' heads. And if a build can solo a GM or AV without incarnate powers... who cares? It's a slow process that doesn't offer any extra reward other than bragging rights. I'd hardly call that unbalanced.

Edited September 23, 2020 by macskull

[golstat2003]

10 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Considering that builds are able to solo GMs without any Incarnate abilities, I don’t think that Incarnate abilities are the problem, if there is even a problem in the first place.  And the solution isn’t to nerf nor remove Incarnate abilities.  It is to up the difficulty of level 50 Task Forces, Strike Forces, and Trials to take into account purple IOs, ATOs, Winter IOs, and Incarnate abilities.

Agreed. IOs to me are a larger issue than incarnate abilities. And agreed with the better approach here of creating content that takes into account Incarnate abilities. (not so much IOs).

Edited September 23, 2020 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

I think adding content balanced around IOs is a bad idea because it means that the IO system is no longer optional for at least part of the game. Besides, how do you balance it around IOs? There are so many different potential ways to build characters that it'd be impossible to decide what to balance against.

Also agreed. More incarnate content would not be bad, but maybe not require IOs.

[Bionic_Flea]

17 minutes ago, macskull said:

The point being made isn't "haha no one knows what that power is," it's the change was so obscure no one noticed it happened. The entire point is to act as a direct counter for the myriad posters who jump into a thread at the mere mention of PvP and blame PvP and PvPers for everything that's wrong with the game.

I don't care what you say, I still blame Con Flict.

[Coyotedancer]

I just want to find the person who thought movement speed suppression was a Good Idea and drop a fire ant down their shorts. <_<

[Judasace]

One thing I don't get is that if this balancing is so important, why aren't Spines/Fire Brutes getting eviscerated? They're by far the most played AT for a reason, and if you want to look at an AT that totally reshaped the landscape of the way players play  the game, well that's the one right there.

[Ralathar44]

4 minutes ago, Judasace said:

One thing I don't get is that if this balancing is so important, why aren't Spines/Fire Brutes getting eviscerated? They're by far the most played AT for a reason, and if you want to look at an AT that totally reshaped the landscape of the way players play  the game, well that's the one right there.

The fact that they have the damage to be farmers is not an issue, this again comes back to defense which largely comes back to IO/Incarnate level power being used in content that was never designed for it.  Pre-IO/Incarnate they just wouldn't have the survivability to farm like that.  But turns out a free soft cap of defense to back up your res and self heal makes a big difference.  Then you add diminishing returns breaking incarnate passive and level shift.

The problem isn't the base sets in most cases, the problem is that IO/Incarnate being used in content not designed for it breaks everything.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Leogunner]

9 minutes ago, Judasace said:

One thing I don't get is that if this balancing is so important, why aren't Spines/Fire Brutes getting eviscerated? They're by far the most played AT for a reason, and if you want to look at an AT that totally reshaped the landscape of the way players play  the game, well that's the one right there.

What content are Spines/Fire Brutes so important and powerful?  Could it be...AE?  Maybe specific fire farm maps?  Or is it in general.  I'm sure a Spines/Fire brute can rip up a lot of content quite nicely but I have a feeling things start to shift when you take them out of that super-heated vacuum and start comparing them to more complex variables. 

[ShardWarrior]

18 minutes ago, macskull said:

I think adding content balanced around IOs is a bad idea because it means that the IO system is no longer optional for at least part of the game. Besides, how do you balance it around IOs? There are so many different potential ways to build characters that it'd be impossible to decide what to balance against.

Apologies as I should have clarified that I did not mean people who are purpled out or loaded up on all kinds of IO set bonuses, just common IOs.  From my own anecdotal personal experience, most people are at least slotting common IOs as they get them because they level with you.  As I recall, an even level IO is still ~10 to 12% better than a +3 SO at level 50, but do not quote me on that.

[Troo]

6 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Apologies as I should have clarified that I did not mean people who are purpled out or loaded up on all kinds of IO set bonuses, just common IOs.  From my own anecdotal personal experience, most people are at least slotting common IOs as they get them because they level with you.  As I recall, an even level IO is still ~10 to 12% better than a +3 SO at level 50, but do not quote me on that.

yeah this is only at level 50 though.

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

yeah this is only at level 50 though.

Yes I know as I did clarify at level 50.  I wonder if it is possible to pull the data to see how many characters at 50 are still using SOs vs IOs?

[BitCook]

10 hours ago, parabola said:

I think this confuses two problems. Problem A is that time and powerboost together are too powerful in relation to other options amongst defence granting powers, both in support sets and elsewhere. Problem B is that the overall state of game difficulty means that damage dealers are mostly more effective than support in the endgame.

 

We shouldn't fix a problem with another and we shouldn't simply leave an imbalance in place for the same reason. Time/powerboost is an outlier amongst the buffs available to support sets, reigning it in will allow the room to make powerboost a more generally useful power to more sets. Seperately, the overall game difficulty and power balance between AT's can be looked at to try to make support more valuable in the endgame.

 

Edited to add: This is also why I don't buy the 'procs are the only thing making AT's x, y and z playable, therefore we shouldn't touch their mechanics' argument. We should look at these as two issues seperately, procs should work in a balanced way and then if AT's or powersets need help they should get it. We shouldn't accept one problem as a fix for another.

(If I replied to this already... forgive me)

It's not that much of an outlier.  Forcefield already gives ~25% to everything with two powers that are available by level 6.  Plus with Dispersion bubble can keep the team at comparable for three powers available at level 12.  That's not that far out of line than taking an epic and having to heavily slot Farsight and Global recharge to get 32%.  Really... the only difference is that Force Field should also apply to the caster and then there would be parity.

Cold can get to 30% ish with it's two shield and Arctic Fog.  So, again, I don't get it.  In terms of balance, it's not as huge of an issue as anything that directly relating to the insane kills speeds which destroy entire ATs.  A defender/controller being more survivable really only impacts Tank/Brutes jobs in protecting people and even then they are still squishy enough that Aggro management is not invalidated.  Kill speed ruins Control based ATs and severely harms Support and Aggro management ATs.

When you are looking at which problems to fix or address, yes, you could tweak down PB+Farsight.  Or make PB more intuitive in what it works on... or perhaps better effort would be to make changes that allow all of the ATs to start functioning in the manner that they were intended too.  Minor outlier vs. Marjor issue.

[Lines]

51 minutes ago, Judasace said:

One thing I don't get is that if this balancing is so important, why aren't Spines/Fire Brutes getting eviscerated? They're by far the most played AT for a reason, and if you want to look at an AT that totally reshaped the landscape of the way players play  the game, well that's the one right there.

Because it's a farming build, and farming is a slightly different thing in terms of balance. Farming is just about finding the most efficient combination of build and content. As it stands, Fire/Spines in a Fire AE farm is a top choice.

 

Nerf one or the other and all that will happen is the farming shifts to a different build or content.

 

Place a Spines/Fire in other content, however, and they won't outperform so much. In this regard, popularity isn't a very good indicator of performance.

[Ralathar44]

10 minutes ago, Lines said:

Because it's a farming build, and farming is a slightly different thing in terms of balance. Farming is just about finding the most efficient combination of build and content. As it stands, Fire/Spines in a Fire AE farm is a top choice.

 

Nerf one or the other and all that will happen is the farming shifts to a different build or content.

 

Place a Spines/Fire in other content, however, and they won't outperform so much. In this regard, popularity isn't a very good indicator of performance.

Honestly this makes me want to roll a fire/spines for normal content just to test it out.  I ended up plenty tanky with a stone/regen brute, so I can't imagine Fire/Spines would have any real problems.  You can hit soft defense cap with IOs and still have 30%+ resist vs all but psionics, 50%+ vs s/l, a pretty good self heal, and a reliable endo restoring tool.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Ralathar44