Game Balance & The Endgame

[Piecemeal]

On 9/28/2020 at 10:04 AM, Haijinx said:

Why do bad guys never get a counterpoint of IO's or incarnate powers? 

[VILLAINOUS ATTITUDE INTENSIFIES]

 

[Wavicle]

47 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Aa a trial or TF mechanic? Could be fun!

 

But, again, something like that added to "regular" game content would wreck things for solos/small teams that didn't have control powers, and that's just not a Good Thing.  

Everyone has access to mez at lvl 50.

[aethereal]

48 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Everyone has access to mez at lvl 50.

Making a full-on, "you may not pass this encounter unless you mez this person" is probably not a great mechanic for general play across lots of spawns.

 

But you can I think pretty validly add softer but significant rewards to the table for mezzes.  Give an enemy a toggle that gives them +30% or +50% resist-all, suppressed by mez.  Give them an aura that gives +30% or +50% to damage to all their allies, suppressed by mez.

Edited October 8, 2020 by aethereal
typo

[Mezmera]

56 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Making a full-on, "you may not pass this encounter unless you mez this person" is probably not a great mechanic for general play across lots of spawns.

 

But you can I think pretty validly add softer but significant rewards to the table for mezzes.  Give an enemy a toggle that gives them +30% or +50% resist-all, suppressed by mez.  Give them an aura that gives +30% or +50% to damage to all their allies, suppressed by mez.

I believe one of the remaining Incarnate powers left unfinished (Mind I think) was supposed to offer forms of aoe control not unlike how Judgement horns in on blasters area of expertise.  I'd think it would be a novel thing to flesh out the last remaining Incarnate powers and then come up with some itrials, task force, DA mish that really promotes the use of an aoe control to make the enemies vulnerable.  

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, Mezmera said:

So you're statement here is saying not to take the aoe hard control and then you're contradicting yourself in the very next paragraph?  

 

Most control characters have a few soft aoe controls like immobs and terrify and typically one or two hard controls.  I like taking the hard controls for certain and cycling the softer controls as necessary as well.  It's about jumping the next mob before they jump you and if things go haywire it's good to have a few hard aoe controls at your disposal.  

 

Slotting for the longer recharging controls isn't all that complex.  I like to slot 5 of the purple hold set with the proc and another proc.  It's certain to proc well due to the base recharge so you're at the very least contributing good aoe damage while at the same time controlling the mob for the team to kill before your hold should wear off. 

Is not a contradiction to simply state someone else's viewpoint. I can acknowledge that what is meta is often times more effective but not something I align with. It wouldn't be meta if it wasn't effective and yet I don't usually find myself in meta teams using a meta build. 

 

To clarify the above, it's not because meta teams are rare or I screen my teams or play with static teams, I merely just don't play a slew of high end content very often. 

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

Making a full-on, "you may not pass this encounter unless you mez this person" is probably not a great mechanic for general play across lots of spawns.

 

But you can I think pretty validly add softer but significant rewards to the table for mezzes.  Give an enemy a toggle that gives them +30% or +50% resist-all, suppressed by mez.  Give them an aura that gives +30% or +50% to damage to all their allies, suppressed by mez.

I'm sure I read a suggestion on this forum about giving powers to mobs as a means of prioritizing strategies. 

[oedipus_tex]

One thing the ITF does particularly well is break up enemies into discreet groups. It's different from most missions and Task Forces because the team has specific "encounters" with various kinds of enemies, including a few fights versus all boss spawns, a few with all Elite Bosses and so on. It feels a lot more like a dungeon designed by a human GM than the standard maps with randomized enemies.

 

Breaking enemies up this way boosts the effectiveness of long recharge powers, because it boosts the number of "moments" the team encounters. IMO the weakest parts of CoH are when the team just fights randomized groups of a particular enemy group for an entire map. It's much more daunting and memorable if 1 group turns out to be all bosses (really requiring that Mag 6 AoE Hold).

 

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

Making a full-on, "you may not pass this encounter unless you mez this person" is probably not a great mechanic for general play across lots of spawns.

 

But you can I think pretty validly add softer but significant rewards to the table for mezzes.  Give an enemy a toggle that gives them +30% or +50% resist-all, suppressed by mez.  Give them an aura that gives +30% or +50% to damage to all their allies, suppressed by mez.

 

Agreed. In fact this is how mezz already works with players.

 

When you get mezzed, any armor you have detoggles for the duration. If I'm running Tough and an APP armor, that could be as much as a 75% increase in Slash and Lethal damage taken. Mezz is also effective versus any enemy with a self heal they have to click to use, and that translates directly into faster kill speed.

[Coyotedancer]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Everyone has access to mez at lvl 50.

But not every build is going to include it.

Sure... you CAN get it, if only from an Epic or Patron pool. But it's not a universal choice and I'd argue that it shouldn't have to be.

[Moonlighter]

The Tsoo and Cot are aready designed that way; they have high rewards for mez by having mobs with protective fields that can be stunned to drop them. Enemy groups have been designed this way forever; it is just a matter of intensity and the ease at which ranged characters can ignore them.

 

 

 

 

[Ralathar44]

9 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Giving them more control would be getting close to "City of Statues" that both the live dev team and HC don't want.

So yeah other than damage I'm not sure what else you could give them for the endgame.

No it wouldn't be for 4 reasons.  City of Statues was a term coined before the target caps went in, before the global nerfs, and before ED.  Damage/Defense/To-hit have almost regained those pre-nerf levels with entire +4/8 groups of mobs dropping in literal seconds despite AOE caps. The situation is drastically different today.

1. Control however does not perform anywhere near described that because it cannot under current hard mechanics.  It is hard limited by target caps and has large diminishing returns on uptime in AOE holds due to the purple patch and the inability to boost hold duration to the same level you can boost damage.  Even in direct analogs like aim/build up vs power boost it's a day and night difference with AIM buildup having a much faster recharge time, some set combos getting 2 buildup powers in a single power set combo, and having many more AOE abilities to use said booster powers on while the big AOE powers recharge.  Likewise the AOE recharge timers are all long for controls where they are often very short for non-nuke damage AOEs.

2. If a couple blasters can just vaporize every mob how is a couple controllers holding every mob any worse than that?  In situation 1 nobody other than those two blasters really gets to do anything.  In situation 2 people at least get to kill things. 

3. There is effectively no difference between mobs that will never be a threat to you and City of Statues.  Something moving and fighting back doesn't make it any more challenging if there is no threat because this is not a game where aim is very important.  If we were more reliant on cone attacks perhaps this would have at least a small amount of relevance but most group clear is targeted or location based AOE attacks.  The one blast set with a cone nuke is one of the least popular sets in the game and part of that is why would you use a crashless cone nuke when you can just use a crashless mob sized AOE nuke?

4.  The mobs are going to be dead too quick for it to matter regardless lol.


Also as another poster mentioned, it's not even about control duration that is the deal:

 

9 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

It's not "more control" that Dominators (and Controllers) need in the end game.
It's "more VALUE to controlling mobs over just damaging them" that is needed. Their controls don't need to be made stronger, but they do need to be made more useful.

Their solution was to lessen the damage and that certainly is one solution, but the overall problem is the lack of value of CC with teams so safe and mobs dying so fast.  So CC based classes need SOMETHING to make them also feel like gods.  How you get there is a different question.  Though TBH another poster summarized it more clearly:

 

6 hours ago, aethereal said:

How's this for a problem statement:  "For controllers and dominators to be useful with their control-set powers, there need to be enemies which are fundamentally more vulnerable to controls than they are to damage, and such enemies are very rare in CoH."

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Ralathar44]

2 hours ago, Moonlighter said:

The Tsoo and Cot are aready designed that way; they have high rewards for mez by having mobs with protective fields that can be stunned to drop them. Enemy groups have been designed this way forever; it is just a matter of intensity and the ease at which ranged characters can ignore them.

I have faced carnies quite alot in my gameplay career since coming back to HC and I remembered illusionists and endo drain and etc but until I faced them on my Regen brute I never realized that the strong man mobs actually put a super wicked -acc -dmg debuff on you that lasts for a long time.  Because none of my other ranged or even melee characters ever really got hit with it since the strongmen are all lt or minions and my other melee and I chose to focused my regen brute on regen instead of defense with their IOs (suboptimal I know :P).  So suddenly CC and proper prioritization mattered on that character where it hadn't in tons of other characters I've faced them on.  Because even my Resist armored characters usually had enough flat defense to more not get hit by Lts and Minions and so wouldn't get hit by the debuffs or I had enough AOE to kill everything quickly. (which stone melee definitely does not have lol)


It's a perfect example of a relevant mob ability that gets trivialized due to our softcapped defenses and quick our current ability to destroy all minions and LTs of +4/8 within 10 seconds in almost every group.  I bet when one of those get through via a lucky 5% - 10% chance to hit people are confused why they miss alot for 10 seconds lol.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Troo]

26 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

So suddenly CC and proper prioritization mattered on that character where it hadn't in tons of other characters I've faced them on.

I love this. Isn't this how the game should be? (no need for it to be overkill, but a sprinkle of awareness, recognition and tactics)

 

We don't have to deal with that Nemesis Lieutenant but it is gonna take a bit longer if we don't.

[Piecemeal]

52 minutes ago, Troo said:

I love this. Isn't this how the game should be? (no need for it to be overkill, but a sprinkle of awareness, recognition and tactics)

 

We don't have to deal with that Nemesis Lieutenant but it is gonna take a bit longer if we don't.

Welcome to my design ethic!

[ivanhedgehog]

On 10/5/2020 at 6:50 PM, FUBARczar said:

It's a good measuring stick b/c there are varied enemies, varied objectives, etc., varied lvls (minions, LTs, Bosses, EBs, AVs) and so on.  You could play it on easy street and have as many deaths as you want and run at +0, I don't think the order of the standings will change much.  I see similar results whether it is running MLTF, TinPex, Kahn, PI missions or whatever.

so your saying tanks should get more buffing. they did come in dead last

[ivanhedgehog]

On 10/5/2020 at 8:57 PM, Mezmera said:

I've tanked Lord Recluse on my SR stalker.  A blaster could not tank Recluse.  

 

And Stalker defenses have always been as good as Scrappers, quite good in fact.  Just don't be a muppet when building one is all.  

I tanked recluse on a fire/em blaster. I used flight over a light pole but it worked......

Edited October 9, 2020 by ivanhedgehog

[DreadShinobi]

11 hours ago, aethereal said:

Making a full-on, "you may not pass this encounter unless you mez this person" is probably not a great mechanic for general play across lots of spawns.

 

But you can I think pretty validly add softer but significant rewards to the table for mezzes.  Give an enemy a toggle that gives them +30% or +50% resist-all, suppressed by mez.  Give them an aura that gives +30% or +50% to damage to all their allies, suppressed by mez.

This would be my suggestion as well. I would love to see more enemy groups, both existing and new, have toggle powers added to their kits that were engaging to the player's strategy.

[Piecemeal]

6 hours ago, DreadShinobi said:

This would be my suggestion as well. I would love to see more enemy groups, both existing and new, have toggle powers added to their kits that were engaging to the player's strategy.

Believe me, I want this too! I have several ideas on the virtual and socially distant whiteboard.

[Naraka]

9 hours ago, Piecemeal said:

Welcome to my design ethic!

Is there any goal in fighting AoE meta? 

 

While I like seeing a bunch of effects and numbers float up from a crowd, it often feels unearned and with the right AoEs, you can still neutralize most encounters. 

 

Not saying to nerf AoEs or anything, but wondering if mobs can get something to defend against them. 

[Troo]

@Naraka there are things already in place like target caps and size of AoEs. The incarnate powers kinda broke that aspect and will likely be addressed.

 

@DreadShinobi enemy group toggles would be a dream but they don't exist. IF they did exist, toggle dropping by sapping endurance would give the endurance drain powers more purpose. As well as stun, sleep, holds.. Unfortunately, toggle dropping only effects players.

[Piecemeal]

1 hour ago, Naraka said:

Is there any goal in fighting AoE meta? 

 

While I like seeing a bunch of effects and numbers float up from a crowd, it often feels unearned and with the right AoEs, you can still neutralize most encounters. 

 

Not saying to nerf AoEs or anything, but wondering if mobs can get something to defend against them. 

I *personally* think fighting the AoE meta is a road not worth taking. The playerbase has always defined what makes this game fun. I do *not* want to take away anyone's fun. I have a bunch of ideas on the whiteboard. I don't speak for everyone, so I really can't answer any of your questions with any real definitive statement. I can talk about my design ideas, though.

When I began concepting things and learning mission design, I had the thought of "How do I subvert the meta of running headlong into everything carelessly, and get the players to just pause to think about what's in front of them, if for only a second?" This thought basically was molded into "Well, it wouldn't be fun all the time and would upset the status quo, but it would be fun to have obstacles spaced out that reminds the player to stop and look around." I might do this by removing a door in a map that you've grown used to, or spreading out a spawn for strategic placement, or by having ambushes in unexpected places. But I also want to have new enemy types with new kinds of utility.

 

In that regard. we have the time and the tech to do things the live team could not within their release timeframes. But we all have our own obstacles as well.

 

TL;DR: I'm here to enhance your gameplay through diversity.

[Lines]

10 minutes ago, Piecemeal said:

I might do this by removing a door in a map that you've grown used to

You fiend!

Edited October 9, 2020 by Lines

[Piecemeal]

3 minutes ago, Lines said:

You fiend!!

It's most definitely not what you're thinking. I chose a less-seen map in this instance, and realized there's a lot of great parts to it that nobody sees, so I changed how it flows, capped some holes and windows, and made it flow differently. I also made this map unique from its parent, so the parent asset is unchanged and still in rotation. 😄

 

Also can't tell if sarcasm!

Edited October 9, 2020 by Piecemeal
Edit because quote edit!

[Lines]

Just now, Piecemeal said:

Also can't tell if sarcasm!

Haha, I did wonder if it wasn't clear, so I edited.

[ShardWarrior]

21 minutes ago, Piecemeal said:

TL;DR: I'm here to enhance your gameplay through diversity.

This is extremely encouraging to hear. 

[Mezmera]

11 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

I tanked recluse on a fire/em blaster. I used flight over a light pole but it worked......

I'm not talking about hover tanking.  A portable workbench could do what you did...