Game Balance & The Endgame

[Ralathar44]

10 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Am I allowed to just stick with "gamer" because I like playing games?

With as active as you are on these forums someone would be pretty hard pressed to say you're not a gamer 😄.  Part of the qualification of "core gamer" or "power gamer" is involvement beyond just playing games.  You participate in discussions online/off about games, read news about games, look up guides/information about games, etc.  IE it's more than just entertainment, it's a hobby.  Most of us here, prolly darn near close to all, have markers of being a power gamer.  That's the power of self selection and the internet 90-9-1 rule.  Most of us are likely part of the top 10% invested in at least this game if not gaming as a whole.  Because most people either don't follow online much/at all or merely lurk and were are active participants discussing minor details and major mechanics  of a very VERY old game until we beat it into glue, resurrect it, then beat it into glue again 😄

Everyone falls somewhere slightly different on that scale, there may be a few casuals here and a good handful of gamers and then mostly different levels of power gamer.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Ralathar44

[ZacKing]

56 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

You have to draw a line somewhere or every mom who played Farmville is now a "real gamer".  Like it or not those games have a large tendency to grab people who don't otherwise game.  That is reality.  The amount of people who played alot of Animal Crossing or Candy Crush or Bejeweled but never really got into gaming beyond that is much larger than say, Halo or Call of Duty.  And This is true of games like Mario Party and Jackbox and Madden and Smash Brothers and stuff too.  There are plenty of people who have only gamed via a few specific titles like those but don't really game as a hobby and those folks fall under the same umbrella.  They've played games, maybe they even play regularly for awhile, but they really are not "gamers" because that's about as far as they go.  Women are also represented in much higher amounts than their statistical normal in MMORPGs and those women DO tend to be "gamers" :D.

If a definition is to mean anything then you have to draw a line somewhere.  Sometimes that line is going to exclude you.  I've played alot of musical instruments in my past but I'm not a musician.  I've done my share of drawing but I'm not an artist.  I've watched a ridiculous amount of sports in my life but I'm not a sports fan.  I have a crapton of comic book knowledge but I'm not a comic book nerd.  I've enjoyed the heck out of watching it on TV and played some poker here and there but I'm not a poker player.  I like medieval weapons and historical warfare but I'm not a history buff.  This is not hard when you can set aside your own ego.  There is a different level of commitment between people who choose something as a primary hobby vs those who engage in an area sporadically or in very focused subcategories.  There are many things I'm on the fringe of that I like, but I would never identify as part of the "in group" of because it'd be disingenuous. 

My worth is not defined by me being part of X/Y groups, me being part of X/Y groups as a label is useful only insomuch as it accurate describes my level of interest in an area to other people.  My worth is determined by my actions and my achievements, not my insecurities regarding the judgements of others and whether or not I belong to any specific group.

Anyone playing games is a gamer.  The dictionary definition says so. 

[Ralathar44]

11 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Anyone playing games is a gamer.  The dictionary definition says so. 

That is technically correct, the best kind of correct, but not correct in common parlance, IE socially.  If someone plays a few games of hoops or plays basketball with friends sometimes they don't call themselves basketball players.  Gaming is the same way.  Technically I'm an artists, a musician, a programmer, a sports fan, a poker player, a history buff, an anime nerd, a power gamer, a comic book nerf, a furry, a cyberpunk nerd, a music nerd, a film buff, a mathematician, etc, etc, etc.  But realistically the only things I really do as a hobby are gaming, anime, and furry stuff.  So socially those are what both I and society at large would identify me as.

If you're going to merriam webster to get accurate summations of social groups you've made a pretty serious error in your estimation of what merriam webster is good for :).  For example most everyone on the internet knows what a brony is but merriam webster doesn't even know it exists.  That dictionary is a good resource for old concrete terms of a non-social nature.  Don't use it beyond what it's useful for.  You could start a few small wars with how it defines the various areas of identity politics 😛 (which we will NOT go into), merriam webster is not website good at handling social terms.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Ralathar44

[ZacKing]

Parlance doesn't matter.  It's the correct definition.  tons of people say "irregardless", doesn't make it correct. 

[Ralathar44]

53 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Parlance doesn't matter.  It's the correct definition.  tons of people say "irregardless", doesn't make it correct. 

Irregardless language is only as good as what people use and understand and indeed a great deal of the words we use today mean different things than they used to mean in the past.  Examples:

- Nice used to mean silly or foolish. 
- Silly used to mean worthy or blessed. 
- Awful used to mean worthy of awe or awe inspiring. 
- Fizzle used to mean farting.  (yes lol) 
- Wench actually used to mean female child and then meant female servant and then became the pejorative we have today.
- Fathom went from meaning to encircle with ones arms or huge to it's current meanings. 
- Clue was a ball of yarn. 
- Myriad meant a specific amount of things, 10,000 to be precise.
- Naughty meant you had naught or nothing.
- Spinster was just a woman who spun, IE their occupation at a spinning wheel.  Today it means unmarried woman.
- Bachelor was a young knight, usually unmarried. 
- Flirt was making a flicking motion with something. 
- Guy literally just stood for Guy Fawkes and was a reference to them.  Now it just means men in general.
- Hussy was housewife or mistress of the household (a reputable position), not the current meaning of immoral woman.


The list stretches on to infinity.  You can fight the march of vocabulary, but you're just going to lose because you're not any more capable of stopping the changes than generations before you.  That's why I keep in mind the context of where our current idea of gamers and power gamers and core gamers and etc came from.  I've accepted vocabulary will change, I make sure I understand why, and I keep the concepts of what applies to what straight.  The vocabulary may change, but the concepts we express rarely do.  We just use different words for them or different methodologies for expressing them.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Wavicle]

No, it’s just an elitist definition you have. People who play the kinds of games you like are gamers and people who play other kinds of games aren’t according to your definition. Gatekeeping is stupid.

[Ralathar44]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

No, it’s just an elitist definition you have. People who play the kinds of games you like are gamers and people who play other kinds of games aren’t according to your definition. Gatekeeping is stupid.

I like all of the games mentioned and there is nothing wrong with liking casual games, which I've said many times.  But casual games are to other games like Curling is to Football.  Yes, it's still a sport but when people say sports they don't mean Curling :D.  There is nothing wrong with Curling either.   Just like I like some of my mobile games like numerous Idle Games and Burrito Bison and etc but I really wouldn't consider those representative of gaming either.  Alter Ego for example is actually a nice little idle game with a definitive story and ending that's based heavily around literature and philosophy, was a nice little game and surprisingly endearing.  Not "omg thees ez so deep" but definitely deep enough to make you think and maybe take a step back mentally.

I know this is a weird concept for some folks, but just because someone puts things in a different category doesn't mean they think less of those things or hate them.  This ain't Twitter, other doesn't mean automatically worse or evil :D.  But definitions exist for a reason and no matter how much ad hominem you try and throw into why I treat things as separate categories this is literally how the science on it is being done as well.  Because without those guidelines the statistics essentially get completely invalidated.  If you want to develop games or understand how games are developed you need to understand demographics and what games work with which demographics.  The delineation between "casual" and "hardcore", which is today's "gamer" and "power gamer" are a large part of that.  The rules and data bhind this is well established and well studied.  Magic the Gathering is prolly the first official codifying of it I saw within the larger gaming sphere with player types.  You can argue it all you want but this is part of the core of the industry and the knowledge has been refined and tested and retested for 15+ years.  


- A simple 5 hour a week requirement radically changes the face of what "gamer" means on it's own and that's not an unreasonable bar regardless.
- Casual games are literally an official gaming term used by the industry actually making the games and studying their audiences.  It's impossible to argue that it's not codified within our definitions of gaming.  Regardless of whether you talk to developers or you're just an end user browing tags on steam. 

Fall Guys is a perfect example of a casual game.  Low stakes, low pressure, low barrier to entry, low commitment, easy shallow fun.  Still a great game.  Same with Among Us. These two games aimed heavily at casual player are two massive successes and they deserve that success.  Nobody who plays them is lesser.  But if someone ONLY played a few games like Fall Guys and Among Us very few people would consider them a "gamer" because people subconsciously know there is more to it than just "they played some games".

Games don't have to be AAA or large to be more core games to the gamer identity.  Minecraft is a perfect example of a game that is not a casual game (though technically any game can be played "casually").  It's a small indie game that gained a level of popularity that defined an entire generation of gamers.  And that''s actually a good comparison because you can look from Animal Crossing to Minecraft and see pretty clearly what sets the two apart as far as appealing to a casual gamer vs a regular gamer at basically every level of mechanics/progression.  And I'd say neither is the better game, both are top tier games in their own right in their own design space.  They just occupy different spaces in gaming and gaming demographics, though (as always) there is some overlap.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Ralathar44

[TygerDarkstorm]

@Ralathar44 I totally get what you're saying and have an anecdotal example of what differences you're making.

 

My family is the kind of family that thinks gaming is a waste of time and doesn't particularly like the fact that during some periods in my life I have been a "hardcore" gamer. Ironically, my mom does a lot of what I consider gaming, but she doesn't see it that way because her little casual computer and phone games aren't, to her, on the same level as World of Warcraft, CoH, Halo, etc. So even the people who engage in all these different types of games see themselves differently.

 

My parents see my gaming as a waste of time, yet my mom spends at least as much time as I do, if not more even, on her little games and yet it's not looked down upon.

 

Also to your point, CoH has a nature to it that appeals to more casual gamers--you can put in 20 minutes or 20 hours and do quite a bit in this game, and if 20 minutes is all you did in a week, you're probably not going to be falling drastically behind. It's also a game that really encourages you to create alts and experiment--while there are "optimal" builds, there is no one best way to build an AT. In comparison, to really get into WoW and raid, that's practically a part/full time job. It often requires many hours/days of dedication, and while you can have alts, you're better serviced having one true main that does the vast majority of raiding/activity. If you miss a week of progression, you are likely to fall behind and potentially bring your team down when you return. Yes, I know WoW *can* be played more casually, and has headed that direction over the years, but for a while, and in my experience from playing many years ago, it was not as casual friendly as CoH.

 

I'm from the fashion/retail world and knowing your target market is key. Professors are constantly telling my fellow classmates that your target market cannot be *everybody.* It just can't. You are not going to make a product that will please everyone, and, frankly, you're not really going to make money that way; not at first anyway (and yes, even stores like Target and Walmart have a target market even though they sell a variety of products). And as Ralathar said, this applies to gaming as well. 

[ShardWarrior]

5 hours ago, Ralathar44 said:

Irregardless language is only as good as what people use and understand and indeed a great deal of the words we use today mean different things than they used to mean in the past.  Examples:
 

While this may be true, the meaning of the word gamer as it exists today defines anyone who plays any kind of game as a "gamer."  There is no indication or connotation as to the amount of time invested, type of game etc.

[Ralathar44]

11 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

While this may be true, the meaning of the word gamer as it exists today defines anyone who plays any kind of game as a "gamer."  There is no indication or connotation as to the amount of time invested, type of game etc.

I said as much and I've been very consistent about it.  Non-gamer and gamer have become gamer and "core gamer".  However when people talk and interact socially clear divisions are still drawn.  Mom's playing Farmville are playing a game, therefore they should be considered gamers by what you say.  And yet they are not.  People who only play very casual games or only play games very casually (like only playing games at parties and stuff when they happen to be around it) were once NOT considered gamers but today they ARE considered gamers.

But all we've done is change the terms for the same concepts.  People who feel like they were excluded from the club before are now told they are part of the club, but they are still not included because they have nothing to add to the conversation.  When people are looking forwards to Cyberpunk 2077 or talking about Ghost of Tsushima or Mortal Kombat 11 or Red Dead Redemption 2 or Resident Evil 3 Remake or Call of Duty Modern Warfare DBZ Kakarot people won't actively try to snub those folks, but they'll basically avoid talking to them about it because again...they've got nothing to add .

So all the fighting to be called "gamer" was pointless.  They got the term but they never got the status because the status is based on knowledge they don't have/are not interested in and social involvement that requires said knowledge to participate in sustainably.  If you want to be part of a conversation about Star Citizen for example you need to know at least a little about Star Citizen...and most casual players won't even know it exists but most gamers will.  Or in today's terms most gamers won't know about it but most "core gamers" will.  But when used in common parlance gamer in reality refers to core gamers.  Dictionary's change to match how people use words, not the other way around :).

Folks need to learn eventually you cannot language politic your way into a group.  You'll only be left with a hollow victory.  Instead they should accept themselves and their level of interest as fine without needing the approval of others.  I'll tell anyone who wants to hear it that they are a gamer, but giving them that term won't close the distance between them and "core gamers" in any way.  They'll still be the odd person out when everyone else wants to talk to other people about games.

[ShardWarrior]

Seems to me you are cherry picking semantics to make the definition of the word something it is not. 

[Dragotect]

54 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

I said as much and I've been very consistent about it.  Non-gamer and gamer have become gamer and "core gamer".  However when people talk and interact socially clear divisions are still drawn.  Mom's playing Farmville are playing a game, therefore they should be considered gamers by what you say.  And yet they are not.  People who only play very casual games or only play games very casually (like only playing games at parties and stuff when they happen to be around it) were once NOT considered gamers but today they ARE considered gamers.

But all we've done is change the terms for the same concepts.  People who feel like they were excluded from the club before are now told they are part of the club, but they are still not included because they have nothing to add to the conversation.  When people are looking forwards to Cyberpunk 2077 or talking about Ghost of Tsushima or Mortal Kombat 11 or Red Dead Redemption 2 or Resident Evil 3 Remake or Call of Duty Modern Warfare DBZ Kakarot people won't actively try to snub those folks, but they'll basically avoid talking to them about it because again...they've got nothing to add .

So all the fighting to be called "gamer" was pointless.  They got the term but they never got the status because the status is based on knowledge they don't have/are not interested in and social involvement that requires said knowledge to participate in sustainably.  If you want to be part of a conversation about Star Citizen for example you need to know at least a little about Star Citizen...and most casual players won't even know it exists but most gamers will.  Or in today's terms most gamers won't know about it but most "core gamers" will.  But when used in common parlance gamer in reality refers to core gamers.  Dictionary's change to match how people use words, not the other way around :).

Folks need to learn eventually you cannot language politic your way into a group.  You'll only be left with a hollow victory.  Instead they should accept themselves and their level of interest as fine without needing the approval of others.  I'll tell anyone who wants to hear it that they are a gamer, but giving them that term won't close the distance between them and "core gamers" in any way.  They'll still be the odd person out when everyone else wants to talk to other people about games.

What does any of this have to do with end game balance?

[Ralathar44]

1 hour ago, Dragotect said:

What does any of this have to do with end game balance?

It started with the idea of what the high level balance was like, whether the average person had SOs/IOs/Sets, and how many people had 50s at all.  Then the idea that folks at 50 were power gamers was seeded by golstat2003 and Haijinx rightly countered that leveling to 50 is actually pretty trivial in this game in it's current state on Homecoming.  Much easier than most other MMORPGs that have a ton of non-power gamers doing PUG raids, much to the consternation of the power gamers they end up teamed with sometimes.  I did not partcipate in the early replies of this and only joined like 4 replies into the conversation. 

 

My original response was pretty balanced/nuanced and it only became more in depth when people challenged it (which is fine) or intentionally twisted it out of context (which is not) because this is an area I'm pretty well informed of since I grew up and lived through it and also researched it a few different times quite thoroughly.  This was all present in the thread and you could have read the context yourself, but if you were willing to do that you would have.  So I have provided you the context.  Or at least the bulk of it.  If you want the rest go read the last 2-3 pages.

 

The irony is that your response implies concerns about adding to the discussion but your reply itself added no value to the discussion and did not provide a constructive framework to build on.  Why did you make your response?

Edited October 16, 2020 by Ralathar44

[ZacKing]

10 hours ago, Dragotect said:

What does any of this have to do with end game balance?

Nothing.  some people just like to listen to themselves talk and pretend to sound intelligent I guess.

[DSorrow]

Whatever the resolution between different categories of gamer is, I think we can all agree that 

1. Getting to level 50 is pretty trivial
   We have permanently available double XP, and using that you can get to 50 pretty easily in 20-30 hours which is extremely quick compared to pretty much any other MMO out there. Even without double XP, if you actually direct your effort toward XP gaining activities, you'll still get there in much less than 100 hours (which is still low, relatively).
2. Getting a great build is also quite easy
   Just source a build without purples or winters from the forums and odds are you can get enough inf to get said build in less than 20 hours just by doing level 50 activities with a team.
3. Getting incarnates is also trivial
   Just play the game. By the time you have amassed the money for your great build, you'll probably have T3s across the board.

Why is this important? Because it enables any reasonably dedicated player to get a build that can solo most conventional content at least at +2/x8. You don't have to be a "power gamer" to achieve this as the only hurdles one must pass are finding a build and then spending a comparatively low time to afford the build. No need to spend 2 hours per day, 5-7 days a week. No need to learn how to build characters because you can easily find an extremely strong build for free. No need to camp rare spawns, farm for loot or any such thing because that stuff rains on you just for playing. So, you just keep playing for a pretty reasonable time and eventually you're mostly guaranteed to get there.

 

The thing is, CoH is mostly a rock/scissors/paper style of game where you can choose to play an industrial crusher machine if you just utilize whatever drops for you. Because there isn't any special skill required to get there and even the time requirements are low, it's inevitable that a big part of the player base will end up much stronger than what the game is balanced against.

 

Sure, some people will refuse to utilize in-game systems such as IOs or incarnates, but I don't think it makes any sense to balance a game (or end-game, especially) specifically for the type of player who won't use important available assets. I mean, just imagine any generic MMO whose end-game was balanced for white gear (or whatever is SO equivalent). 

 

Now, I don't think the 1-50 game needs any changes because IOs and incarnates are definitely more in the 50+ range, but at 50+ we really do need a hard look at the difficulty/reward balance. Incarnate level bumps specifically need to be looked at (why is it ok to fight +1s in DA for +4 rewards?), as well as what incarnate powers are usable outside of iTrials (I'd be fine with just having the passive incarnate effects).

 

As far as IO balance goes, personally I think the enemies in any 50+ content should be balanced against players who have full IO sets excluding set bonuses and an alpha slot (i.e. ~1.5-2x total enhancement value vs SOs). Consider your standard SO slotting for an attack which gives you ~33% enhancement value per slot, with a set of Crushing Impact (excluding set bonuses), you'll get ~50% per slot and with an optimized frankenslotting scheme you can get to ~66%. Add in an alpha slot and you're probably around 330%, essentially gaining an additional ~4-6 slots worth of enhancement value in your attack before set bonuses. I'm purposefully ignoring set bonuses because just going for the enhancement values is basically players using whatever improvements to their gear they receive as drops, which is, let's say a given, in any other MMO I've played.

 

At least to me it's pretty clear that even without any build planning it's extremely easy and quite quick to become significantly more powerful than an SO'ed character. Once you start optimizing your frankenslotting / IOing and using boosters it gets even more ridiculous, so for any content to be justifiably called end-game, the enemies need a baseline bump in power.

 

 

 

[Ralathar44]

2 hours ago, ZacKing said:

Nothing.  some people just like to listen to themselves talk and pretend to sound intelligent I guess.

Player demographics have everything to do with difficulty, balancing, and game design.  How you design and balance your game is influenced by the playerbase you have or influenced by the playerbase you want to attract.  And to understand player demographics you need to have a firm grasp of what the different terms mean in actual practice and not just on paper.  You shouldn't sacrifice your core vision for the game for this, but neither should you be ignorant of it since it is highly important.  A single game usually tries to appeal to multiple different types of player, as evidenced by the Magic the Gathering playertypes I've linked.  Relevant difficulty scaling, different types of content, etc are how this is normally achieved.

For example City of Heroes is in a weird spot.  It's always been a more casual focused MMORPG, even after ED and GDN and etc it was still more casual than normal even if it had a bit of a better balance of what player types it appealed to.  Post Homecoming however it's lost alot of that broader appeal and created a sharp division between player types.  While the game has become more casual again, the whole IO system being easy to achieve now has attracted "efficiency gamers", which is like a weird breed of power gamer who's focused on optimizing any challenge out of the game and focuses on grinding through any progression as quickly and easily as possible.  (IE wanting high difficulty for max rewards but also wanting an easy game for swift progression and to feel the results of their optimizations "feel like a god")  I want to be clear that this is a valid playstyle, however it does potentially serve as a problem as well because that typically isn't a playstyle with a long "tail" because those gamers tend to exhaust the content your game has very fast relative to other player types.  If a "normal" player takes 500 hours to exhaust content and get bored and efficiency gamer will prolly do it in like 100 hours.  COH fortunately has a crapton of content, especially if you roll alot of alts, but it is not immune to content getting exhausted.  Also fortunately the sunset and then Homecoming relaunch essentially made the game "fresh" again for most players due to the extreme time lapse. 

As well with the difficulty options at high end essentially essentially compressed in their relevance we've lost the content to appeal to power gamers who wish to have a legitimate challenge so we're stuck in the situation of "nerf things to bring back challenge" vs "make new difficulty levels" vs "lose that segment of the playerbase due to no longer having much content to appeal to them".  Power gamers wishing to face a challenge have alot longer tail because instead of going out of their way to blow through content as easy and fast as possible like efficiency gamers, they'll intentionally try to create new and interesting challenges for themselves.  IE if they end up "mastering" the challenges on one alt they may intentionally roll a different character just for the sake of challenging themselves in a new way.  They'll jump through alot of hoops to achieve that sense of challenge and mastery, but they do have limits on how far they will go and currently you'd have to radically change every aspect of how you play the game to try and pursue that challenge at end game because even if you set everything up for yourself a single team mate not doing so invalidates all of that.  So then you've got to run teams to try and avoid this.  I'll touch on this later.

I have some markers of the challenge oriented power gamer in me and it informs my ethos in what I wish out of the game.  The old game pre-sunset used to serve me well and now it serves me extremely poorly high end and thus my feedback in that regard caters towards that in large part.  And that's the crux of end game balance right now.  Efficiency gamers are happy with the shifts HC has created by making IOs far more achievable and making leveling much faster because it lets them optimize and grind through the content (until they exhaust it) more efficiently and feel like they have achieved something with their optimizations.  Casual gamers are still pretty happy because they'll spend most of their time in low end content and high end content still scares them away, previously it was a grind wall that discouraged them and now it's the barrier of needing to figure out IOs and compete with efficiency gamers that makes them feel irrelevant by comparison.

Running your own team at all times is not something most people want to do at all.  Often isn't even feasible with the amount of people online and already in other teams.  Our population is not high enough to just run a team at the drop of a hat at any time.  Sometimes you can form a team quickly, sometimes it takes 30 minutes to put a team together (and you don't always have or want to spend that time), sometimes it won't happen at all.  This is using all tools available including the various chats and discord and in game search and direct tells and etc.  Running teams also appeals to different playertype, and while I have some of those markers too it satisfies different aspects of play.  I enjoy running good teams and catering to the members to deliver a happy experience to all, but it's often directly opposed to other ethos I enjoy too so I don't want to do it all the time.

Players with power gamer markers like me who enjoyed a challenge however have been negatively impacted by the changes to HC.  The lack of grind is appreciated, and I like playing with the much more available IOs since I enjoy the character building aspect.  However the much more available IOs and the power creep has removed the compelling aspect for my (and others) ethos from the end game: the challenge.  End game content is now a complete cakewalk outside of very very limited amounts of specific content.  The average 50 is simply way more powerful on HC than they were on live and the difficulty does not scale up enough to be able to compensate.  And we're not talking just facing council either, Malta is the only enemy group I don't like facing, I don't mind damage or threat but sappers are not enjoyable to play against and they are very binary in that you're either fine or you're instantly zero endurance so the sense of mastery of play and counterplay is not really satisfying vs them.  I enjoy stuff more like the Tsoo Sorcerers that can be a significant impediment and cause wipes if you can't counter them or power through them (depending on your team comp) but have a rich amount of impact vs counterplay and also makes different ATs all feel valuable. 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Ralathar44

[skoryy]

42 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

Getting a great build is also quite easy
Just source a build without purples or winters from the forums and odds are you can get enough inf to get said build in less than 20 hours just by doing level 50 activities with a team.

Earning your way to a great build and incarnated, sure.

 

Keep in mind, though, that knowing how to build or even wanting to build is not that widespread.

[Lockpick]

 

2 hours ago, DSorrow said:

Now, I don't think the 1-50 game needs any changes because IOs and incarnates are definitely more in the 50+ range, but at 50+ we really do need a hard look at the difficulty/reward balance. Incarnate level bumps specifically need to be looked at (why is it ok to fight +1s in DA for +4 rewards?), as well as what incarnate powers are usable outside of iTrials (I'd be fine with just having the passive incarnate effects).

From my perspective, 90%* of the game is 1 to 50 content.  The only 50+ content I am aware of is DA, TinPex, and the iTrials.  Is there other 50+ content I am forgetting?

 

The challenge I see is that people are taking 50+ min/max builds and then are complaining there is no challenge in the 1 to 50 content.  My take is we should be focused on creating that 50+ content as players.  The HC team is to small to make the amount of content that will be needed to satisfy the players, so we need to take ownership ourselves.

 

* All percentages pulled from my 4th point of contact.

 

1 hour ago, Ralathar44 said:

COH fortunately has a crap ton of content, especially if you roll alot of alts, but it is not immune to content getting exhausted.  Also fortunately the sunset and then Homecoming relaunch essentially made the game "fresh" again for most players due to the extreme time lapse.

 

We have the ability to create a ton of new content via AE to the point where it will never be exhausted.  We just need the HC team to focus on some minor updates, reward rationalization, and a stronger focus on community (challenges, rewards for creating content, etc.).

 

[DSorrow]

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

knowing how to build

Which is why I'd balance things around using whatever drops, no knowledge necessary beyond "maybe slot powers for their main effect, e.g. attacks for damage".

 

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

even wanting to build

To be completely honest, this is not something that any game should be balanced around. If a player chooses not to use the equipment available to them, then it's their own fault if the game is more difficult than necessary. Note that all of the balance changes I'm talking about are for the 50+ end game because I think "wanting to play end-game" and "don't want to use anything beyond basic gear (=SOs)" have to be mutually exclusive so that the end-game can be interesting.

 

11 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

From my perspective, 90%* of the game is 1 to 50 content. 

I'm much in the same boat because the 50+ teamplay just isn't all that interesting to me, and I'm also not that interested in playing solo or doing some insane challenges.

Edited October 16, 2020 by DSorrow

[skoryy]

5 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

If a player chooses not to use the equipment available to them, then it's their own fault if the game is more difficult than necessary. Note that all of the balance changes I'm talking about are for the 50+ end game because I don't think "wanting to play end-game" and "don't want to use anything beyond basic gear (=SOs)" have to be mutually exclusive so that the end-game can be interesting.

"Its their own fault"

 

Yeah, I think I'll just leave the discussion again.

Edited October 16, 2020 by skoryy

[Grouchybeast]

18 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

We have the ability to create a ton of new content via AE to the point where it will never be exhausted.  We just need the HC team to focus on some minor updates, reward rationalization, and a stronger focus on community (challenges, rewards for creating content, etc.).

I think if this is the direction that content creation ultimately takes, then the single most important thing that the HC team could do would be to update AE and put in a comprehensive and accessible tagging and search system, so that people can actually find content they want to play within the game.

[skoryy]

22 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

Is there other 50+ content I am forgetting?

Off the top of my head: MLTF, ITF, LGTF, Peregrine, RWZ, First Ward, Night Ward.

[DSorrow]

4 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Yeah, I think I'll just leave the discussion again.

It'd be much more useful to provide something to the discussion though. For example, I'd like to know how why end-game content should be balanced for people who refuse to make minimal use of the tools given to them, and how you'd propose to balance it in a way that it's justifiably end-game content, i.e. appropriate content for people with late-game characters, while also being balanced for SO only builds. I don't think the latter is possible, which leads to my opinion that the end-game difficulty should be raised. The side effect of this would be, of course, that people who don't want to use the tools available to them will face a spike of difficulty in end-game, but in order to face appropriate difficulty at that point in the game, I think it's a completely fair ask to have to use something beyond the most basic gear.

[Wavicle]

23 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Off the top of my head: MLTF, ITF, LGTF, Peregrine, RWZ, First Ward, Night Ward.

None of that is 50+.

[Lockpick]

18 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Off the top of my head: MLTF, ITF, LGTF, Peregrine, RWZ, First Ward, Night Ward.

None of that is 50+ content.

 

MLTF: 45 - 50

ITF: 35 - 50

LGTF: 45 - 50 (think it is 35 on HC)

Peregrine: 41 - 50

RWZ: 35 - 50

First Ward: 20 - 30

Night Ward: 30 - 35