Game Balance & The Endgame

[Mezmera]

22 minutes ago, skoryy said:

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

To be fair to @Lockpick almost all of that is 35-50 or 45-50 content.  His assertion is spot on that the overwhelming majority of content is all accessible in the 1-50 range.  With Going Rogue we were promised a lot to do extra added onto the tail end of our high level characters so in effect we were supposed to feel like we were getting 51-60 content as per the 10 new levels of incarnate powers.  

 

All we ended up getting for the majority of Going Rogue was a ton of new low level content and a start towards more to do for 51-60.  I'm not going to begrudge everything the people with altitis got but there's far and away more on your plate than someone who may have been clamoring for more to do with their favorite character.  If they'd have made the new zones and focused on 51+ content everyone wins out because people that like to alt a lot have just as much more to do as those that play a few favorite characters exclusively.   

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, DSorrow said:

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.

You arent even discussing end game balance, you are discussing game balance. You have evidently decided that the only input considered should be build meta theory crafters. People like you dont want to raise their own difficulty, they want to control EVERYONE ELSES.  One of the biggest reasons people wanted to see this game come back was that it was so easy to set up the experience you wanted to play. Then the other shoe drops...People have this itch to control other peoples rewards. "they shouldnt get rewards cause they arent playing how I want them to play" we arent competing, other peoples rewards have absolutely nothing to do with you. really, they dont.

 

leave the game balanced at lvl 50 with so's.  do a little balancing between sets, buff up the under performing, trim down any extreme outliers. You will never really get true balance between ATs without either homogeonizing them or completely re writing the game. If you want the game harder, take control of your own experience and make that harder. You do you. The devs have very limited resources and they will be unable to rewrite endgame to suit you. When approaching things like TW, try to balance trimming damage with a little improvement of mechanics if possible, some good with the bad.

 

Just as a point of reference, WOW just implemented a new leveling set up, with leveling a new toon to cap in 7 to 20 hours.  thats playing dungeons and missions BTW.

[Paradox Fate]

1 hour ago, Mezmera said:

If they'd have made the new zones and focused on 51+ content everyone wins out because people that like to alt a lot have just as much more to do as those that play a few favorite characters exclusively.   

Unless its actually incarnate progress that old characters can pursue only in that zone, they'd just remain in PI and beat up the Council.

No one goes to DA anymore for endless missions, it's too troublesome to fight against the groups there.

[Mezmera]

1 minute ago, Paradox Fate said:

Unless its actually incarnate progress that old characters can pursue only in that zone, they'd just remain in PI and beat up the Council.

No one goes to DA anymore for endless missions, it's too troublesome to fight against the groups there.

The Praetorian zones are completely going to waste.  They never should have made new tutorial zones out of them and just made them 35-50 and 51+.  The gold zones should have been the progression to PI+ instead of going unused.  

 

I don't DA so much because it's more of a hassle to get there.  I bet if DA and if the content level was raised in the Gold zones to 51+ and was accessible through Oro and the trams there'd be a lot more people there.  

[DSorrow]

47 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

You arent even discussing end game balance

I am quite literally discussing end game balance (50+, incarnate level content), something I tried to emphasize and highlight several times in the post you quoted.

[Ralathar44]

6 hours 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 agree in that possibility.  But unless it's utilized it doesn't mean much unfortunately.  And the failing of utilization doesn't necessarily mean devs, wouldn't be the first time amazing systems have existed that gamers have utterly ignored and then complained about the issue those systems would solve.  Though to be fair there are usually valid reasons behind why they don't use it.

 

6 hours ago, DSorrow said:

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.

I use it, I enjoy the systems for the most part, but without a doubt IOs are a giant PITA in terms of usability.  The IOs themselves are quite compelling and great, the process of getting the recipes, the ingredients, crafting them, looking up what does what, and etc is ALOT of work.  I've spent many hours of time just staring at auction houses or crafting screens or set bonuses or etc.  And even little QOL features are missing.  Your storage for salvage and enhancements has definitive limits AND its not global storage so you have to memorize each individual rack and micromanage between them.  Mass deposit and withdraw of enhancements is not a thing.  Salvage can only be sold in 10x chunks, enhancements must be solid individually, etc.  It all just takes so much time and effort of not very compelling WORK.

I blame nobody for failing to take advantage of the IO system.  City of Heroes holds up vs modern MMORPGs in alot of ways but these kind of systems are where it really shows its age.

Edited October 16, 2020 by Ralathar44

[ivanhedgehog]

4 hours ago, DSorrow said:

I am quite literally discussing end game balance (50+, incarnate level content), something I tried to emphasize and highlight several times in the post you quoted.

but do we need to discuss balance of at vs at or players vs the world? because they need to get ats in basic parity before you can start on the second. if you increase difficulty(which we havent agreed needs to be done) across the board, some ats and some sets will become pretty much worthless. they could start with eliminating permadom and perma hasten. that should be most likely easy. But you stand to lose a lot of your users if you across the board nerf endgame. It isnt like they cant go somewhere else. I am willing to bet the devs will be at least talking to people before they go to those steps.

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, Ralathar44 said:

I agree in that possibility.  But unless it's utilized it doesn't mean much unfortunately.  And the failing of utilization doesn't necessarily mean devs, wouldn't be the first time amazing systems have existed that gamers have utterly ignored and then complained about the issue those systems would solve.  Though to be fair there are usually valid reasons behind why they don't use it.

 

I use it, I enjoy the systems for the most part, but without a doubt IOs are a giant PITA in terms of usability.  The IOs themselves are quite compelling and great, the process of getting the recipes, the ingredients, crafting them, looking up what does what, and etc is ALOT of work.  I've spent many hours of time just staring at auction houses or crafting screens or set bonuses or etc.  And even little QOL features are missing.  Your storage for salvage and enhancements has definitive limits AND its not global storage so you have to memorize each individual rack and micromanage between them.  Mass deposit and withdraw of enhancements is not a thing.  Salvage can only be sold in 10x chunks, enhancements must be solid individually, etc.  It all just takes so much time and effort of not very compelling WORK.

I blame nobody for failing to take advantage of the IO system.  City of Heroes holds up vs modern MMORPGs in alot of ways but these kind of systems are where it really shows its age.

I would love recipe storage in base. the base library.

[Wavicle]

5 hours ago, Mezmera said:

 

I don't DA so much because it's more of a hassle to get there.  I bet if DA and if the content level was raised in the Gold zones to 51+ and was accessible through Oro and the trams there'd be a lot more people there.  

DA can be accessed through SG base portals and via the TUNNEL transport in quite a few zones. It’s not even as hard to get there as Cimerora.

[unblocked]

I think game balance is a pipe dream and endgame mmo game balance is an even piper dream and should not be pursued. Especially by small groups of volunteer devs working on prehistoric code spaghettis, who would've been much better off spending all of their limited manpower on improving general quality, making new powers/ATs and learning to make new content.

 

Would it be nice to have balance? Sure. Are they ever going to achieve it? Hell no. It's a waste of their time. Especially with a stated goal of making more incarnate stuff in the future (incarnates are bullshit and would utterly destroy whatever fragile balance they achieved beforehand), which would be literally self sabotage. But it's their time, so whatever floats their boat.

[ABlueThingy]

On 10/17/2020 at 11:07 AM, unblocked said:

I think game balance is a pipe dream and endgame mmo game balance is an even piper dream and should not be pursued.

Perfect balance might be, you're right.  But no one has ever claimed to be trying for perfect balance.  Abandoning the pursuit of balance because it might be hard is a terrible idea.  Because...

 

On 10/17/2020 at 11:07 AM, unblocked said:

Especially by small groups of volunteer devs working on prehistoric code spaghettis, who would've been much better off spending all of their limited manpower on improving general quality, making new powers/ATs and learning to make new content. Would it be nice to have balance? Sure. Are they ever going to achieve it? Hell no. It's a waste of their time.

 

Everything the devs do is going to be time and resource intensive.  The point of balance is to create a starting point to continue from so you don't waste your time/resources.  If you want to make a new melee dmg power set how to you decide how much damage it does?  Because that's a balance issue.  Is it a high damage set?

Low? Fast? Slow? AoE heavy? ST heavy? Those terms are almost meaningless except as relative comparisons other sets.   Where it falls in relation to the others is the

balance.

 

You could easily just add in a new melee set and pick some numbers, some animations, some effects.  But which ones?  If it's a high damage set, how high? Does it do control effects, how strong?  If you try to make a low dmg, fast animating set with a bunch of AoE debuffs and controls. Should it do less damage than a set that is just pure damage?  If not, why not?  If so, why so?  Any choice you make is a balance choice.

 

 

Lets say the only melee sets are Energy Melee, Fire Melee and Spines. For simplicity's sake.  A hypothetical balance could be struck between these sets.  All of these sets could be considered "high" damage. EM tops out ST damage, Spines tops out AoE dmg.  And Fire is equally good at both, better AoE then EM and better ST then Spines.  Their damage is thus balanced between them.  Now AoE damage is good, so to make up for it's lack EM also has good control against STs.  And to make up for it's lack of ST damage to break hard targets Spines has some debuffs and control.  Fire doesn't have to make up for any lack of damage because it has ALL the damage.

 

If you added another set in, lets say... Acid Melee.  Acid Melee does Toxic like Spines, but it's ST like EM.  It's does lower damage but has -res/-def and can stack it's debuffs until it has good damage.  Just not in a burst like EM can do.

 

Except now you have a set that's 4th for AoE and hypothetically 2nd in overall ST damage... but because it's all backloaded after the debuffs land Fire actually does better ST damage in play.  Maybe if it's debuffs are enough it might boost team damage enough to not be totally pointless.  But that seems unlikely with the overall meta.  It doesn't really serve any niche well and you'd be better off painting Fire Melee green and calling it "Chemical Burns" melee.

 

Now throw in a dozen more melee sets. And the possible mixes with the armor sets.  Now what is it's niche?  What is it's point?  Do they leave it alone because "Balance is pipe dream" and let the energy they put into it go to waste?

 

Now you have the devs wasting their time and people complaining that the new set they worked so hard on is worthless.

 

Now I think most people would argue that Acid Melee would need to be buffed to find it's own niche between the other three without overshadowing them.  Maybe you could make the Build Up power cause it's attacks to splash so it has temporarily good AoE until it's Debuffs are spread.  So can shine under some conditions without stealing the spotlight all the time....

 

But what about the other sets? Fire doesn't even come close to "Good" AoE or ST damage relative to the other sets, we know that.  And it lacks any tricks to make up for it. If you try to aim for Fire Melee is a balance point you'll end up making the set garbage relative to things like Katana and Claws and, god forbid, Titan Weapon.  If you aim for TW/Claws/Katana you'll end up vastly overshadowing the other sets.  Bump them even further down the ladder. 

 

There's a reason that every time someone mentions buffing Regen or using it in a build half a dozen people show up and suggest you just take Willpower instead.  Because it fulfills the thematic niche closely enough and the mechanical niche better then Regen does.

 

 

I'd like to think most people are not OK with every new set being added either being terrible or OP and would like new sets to be balanced. 

 

The ideal way to do that is to create a series of internal balance metrics to measure the sets by and figure out where they all sit right now.  Something like Galaxy Brain did.  But to also create a list of where the sets SHOULD be on those lists.  Then adjust them until the two lists match.

 

 

On 10/17/2020 at 11:07 AM, unblocked said:

Especially with a stated goal of making more incarnate stuff in the future (incarnates are bullshit and would utterly destroy whatever fragile balance they achieved beforehand), which would be literally self sabotage. But it's their time, so whatever floats their boat.

 

There are ways to avoid that.  That's part of what people have been discussing here.  Like blocking Incarnate stuff off to Incarnate only areas or some such. Having specific high level areas to go bananas in sounds fine to me.

 

 

 

[golstat2003]

While I agree with the previous post, I'd also say I'd prefer as little time as possible spent with tinkering with overall game balance. I'm fine with it being just Page 6 or one or two more updates, but with the updates becoming maybe 1 -3 a year (unless something drastically changes next year) yeah I'd eventually like some new content also.

 

If they want to buff/nerf/rework one or two sets, sure. Going for a full on re-balance of a game this old to me would not be a good use of time.

 

Thankfully they seem to be on a more targetted path than most players in this thread would want.

[summers]

I think it's worth noting that people who are working on game balance may not be also content builders; it may not be a zero sum game of effort.

[TygerDarkstorm]

12 minutes ago, summers said:

I think it's worth noting that people who are working on game balance may not be also content builders; it may not be a zero sum game of effort.

I agree. I know HC is a small team, but typically people have different talents/specialties, and we know that @Piecemeal is currently creating new content to release with Page 6, but I do not believe that they are also working on game balance.

[Piecemeal]

10 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

I agree. I know HC is a small team, but typically people have different talents/specialties, and we know that @Piecemeal is currently creating new content to release with Page 6, but I do not believe that they are also working on game balance.

Not on purpose, anyway

[DSorrow]

On 10/17/2020 at 4:14 AM, ivanhedgehog said:

but do we need to discuss balance of at vs at or players vs the world? because they need to get ats in basic parity before you can start on the second

I don't think those are two separate issues. ATs can be at parity only if we know what the baseline performance of players vs. the world is. If you change one without thinking about the other, you'll probably run into issues. For example, I think a lot of the current AT vs AT parity issues come from the fact that players vs. the world balance is out of whack in incarnate content. Most notably, I think the enemies just aren't powerful enough which leads to a handful of balance problems:

• defensive buffs are relatively unimportant because a lot of good builds can tank / absorb alpha on their own
• enemies have so few hit points that it's more effective to spam AoE damage rather than debuff
• because the AoEs demolish groups so effectively, AoE controls and debuffs (other than -Res) have very little value

Effectively this leads to the current version of end-game where (AoE) damage is king, and very little beyond that matters. ATs such as Sentinels don't really have a place because their extra survivability is of very little use in those teams, but they really don't compare to Blaster damage. Many buff/debuff sets don't bring much to teams because they can survive just fine without the added help.

 

In my opinion, because the issues come from the players vs. the world balance, it can't be solved by looking at ATs vs ATs. Making buff modifiers more powerful doesn't matter if a majority of buffs aren't valuable in the first place. Same deal with mezzes, they don't really do much when all the enemies they'd affect are demolished in two seconds anyway. Without changes to players vs the world, the only way to make all ATs equally viable, they'd either have to do high damage or be tanks. This is why I think we first need to decide where the players should be relative to the content before we can ensure that all the ATs are comfortably close to that place while preserving the flavor of each AT. So, basically we need more powerful enemies to make buffs and controls a viable alternative to nuking, and I think we'd be off to a good start with a blanket increase to enemy damage and HP in incarnate content.

 

But again, this is for the 50+ content. I think the 1-50 journey is just fine as it is.

[carroto]

7 hours ago, DSorrow said:

But again, this is for the 50+ content. I think the 1-50 journey is just fine as it is.

My only disagreement is that the use of level shifts and other incarnate abilities in non-incarnate content does cause some issues.  It's easy for incarnates to run TFs and such at +4 because it's really only +3 to them.  However for anyone below level 50, it will be +5 to them.  At that point you're not really contributing.

[ShardWarrior]

10 hours ago, DSorrow said:

defensive buffs are relatively unimportant because a lot of good builds can tank / absorb alpha on their own

Not at every level of the game.

[oedipus_tex]

Removing Level Shifts would be the most positive move the developers could make IMO.

 

One big thing here. On end game builds, the shift shouldn't understood in terms of the difference between level 50 and level 51. Instead it should be understood in terms of its inverse. The Level Shift lowers level 54 mobs to level 53 (but gives you level 54 rewards).

 

Sorry for italics. Just hoping to drive home a point. :)

 

A Level 54 enemy takes only 48% of all Damage, Debuffs, Mezzes, and so on. In other words it has 52% Resistance to all. A Level 53 enemy takes 65% (Resists all by 35%). That's a 17% difference. Hold on to that number.

 

The average Corruptor, Mastermind or Controller AoE -Resist power starts at -22.5%. But that's against a +0. Against a +3, that reduces to 65% of strength, so 14%. The Level Shift is better. 

 

A Level Shift that lowers an enemy from +4 to +3 is better than getting free Sonic Dispersion cast on you at all times. And since you can email Empyrean merits there is no reason you should ever spend more than a brief amount of time as a Level 50 unless you don't play enough to have Empyreans stored up. 

 

 

 

The big takeaway from this is (other than just Level Shifts being really powerful) that unlike most mechanics in this game, Level Shifts actually get better when your enemy is higher level. 

Edited October 20, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[TygerDarkstorm]

5 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Not at every level of the game.

You pulled that out of a post discussing level 50+, end game, incarnate content, where it's true; of course it doesn't apply to every level of the game. The other levels where those buffs are useful was not the discussion at hand nor @DSorrow's point.

[summers]

41 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Removing Level Shifts would be the most positive move the developers could make IMO.

 

One big thing here. On end game builds, the shift shouldn't understood in terms of the difference between level 50 and level 51. Instead it should be understood in terms of its inverse. The Level Shift lowers level 54 mobs to level 53 (but gives you level 54 rewards).

 

Sorry for italics. Just hoping to drive home a point. :)

 

A Level 54 enemy takes only 48% of all Damage, Debuffs, Mezzes, and so on. In other words it has 52% Resistance to all. A Level 53 enemy takes 65% (Resists all by 35%). That's a 17% difference. Hold on to that number.

 

The average Corruptor, Mastermind or Controller AoE -Resist power starts at -22.5%. But that's against a +0. Against a +3, that reduces to 65% of strength, so 14%. The Level Shift is better. 

 

A Level Shift that lowers an enemy from +4 to +3 is better than getting free Sonic Dispersion cast on you at all times. And since you can email Empyrean merits there is no reason you should ever spend more than a brief amount of time as a Level 50 unless you don't play enough to have Empyreans stored up. 

 

 

 

The big takeaway from this is (other than just Level Shifts being really powerful) that unlike most mechanics in this game, Level Shifts actually get better when your enemy is higher level. 

While it is absolutely true that Level Shifts are that powerful, I don't know if it fixes the problem we have, although maybe we define the problem differently.

 

Right now I see the problem at the incarnate level is:

 

Too much defence

Too much recharge

Too much AOE damage

 

These combine to allow even "glass cannons" getting soft capped defences on their own at 50 and then being able to cycle massive damage, especially nukes, at very high recharge, in relative safety and without needing outside assistance. For a lot of content it's just racing between packs and nuking them in some way, shape or form.

 

1. Level shift doesn't fix the defence problem; +tohit doesn't come into effect until you're fighting +6s.
2. It doesn't fix the recharge problem; these are inherent to the character.
3. Will it fix the AOE damage? It'll certainly make all damage worse, but it also makes all the debuffs and controls worse as well, which I feel are the suffering archetypes at incarnate level.

 

I do like that the suggestion is bringing damage down, but it also brings down the support that I want to see become more valuable too. Maybe in practice it feels different, but just at a glance I wonder if it'll do what we want?

 

[Parabola]

5 hours ago, summers said:

While it is absolutely true that Level Shifts are that powerful, I don't know if it fixes the problem we have, although maybe we define the problem differently.

Removing level shifts may not completely fix the issues but I can't see how it wouldn't be a step in the right direction. The removal of the alpha shift in regular content is an idea I have brought up many times. I have no idea of course of the behind the scenes complexity of such a move but in concept at least it's a straightforward and potentially powerful adjustment to high level gameplay. It's not where I would look to stop with changes but I'd certainly start there.

[@Ghost]

1 hour ago, parabola said:

Removing level shifts may not completely fix the issues but I can't see how it wouldn't be a step in the right direction. The removal of the alpha shift in regular content is an idea I have brought up many times. I have no idea of course of the behind the scenes complexity of such a move but in concept at least it's a straightforward and potentially powerful adjustment to high level gameplay. It's not where I would look to stop with changes but I'd certainly start there.

It may be the simpler route, though I've always thought the option of going the other way had more potential: expand the difficulty options to let people apply shifts to enemies in regular content. +4x8 too dull for you? Try +5x8, or +6x8! Presumably with better rewards, too.

 

It's almost certainly more work, but fine tuning a custom difficulty is (I think) one of CoH's coolest features. Plus, expanding on it would feel much better than taking away what people have already earned and are used to with their characters.

[nihilii]

1 hour ago, @Ghost said:

It may be the simpler route, though I've always thought the option of going the other way had more potential: expand the difficulty options to let people apply shifts to enemies in regular content. +4x8 too dull for you? Try +5x8, or +6x8! Presumably with better rewards, too.

 

It's almost certainly more work, but fine tuning a custom difficulty is (I think) one of CoH's coolest features. Plus, expanding on it would feel much better than taking away what people have already earned and are used to with their characters.

I wholeheartedly agree with your whole post - and disagree with the clamors for removing level shift.

 

The purple patch is the most boring way to do difficulty. EnemyA exactly identical in appearance and powers to EnemyB has stats++ and you have stats-- because EnemyA is one level stronger than EnemyB. Yawn.

 

Max difficulty going from Invincible (+2) to +4 always felt disappointing. In contrast, the introduction of the Alpha slot and level shift was one of the best updates. I'm glad the Paragon devs doubled down on that path in incarnate content, giving us even more level shifts while also introducing enemies that were harder through interesting ways (better attacks and buffs/debuffs, more base tohit) rather than a blanket stats++ for them and stats-- for you that was constructed almost 15 years ago with the goal to gatekeep content.

Had the game continued, I bet we would have seen even one more player level shift. And likely we would have seen many enemies with conditional level shifts, too. I like that mechanic much better than purple patch. There is more granularity to where it is applied, giving specific encounters a special flair instead of just making you weaker.

Expanded difficulty options would be so much better. Heck, stick a "disable level shifts", "disable Destiny/Judgement" settings and give players x1.5 rewards for ticking on each of these settings. You pay the price of incarnate powers by getting less, which would make sense becaue there's not as much experience to be gleaned from fighting foes if you're that far above them thematically, and likewise not much "fame" (influence/infamy) to be gotten for punching mooks when you're a living god.

Edited October 20, 2020 by nihilii

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, @Ghost said:

It may be the simpler route, though I've always thought the option of going the other way had more potential: expand the difficulty options to let people apply shifts to enemies in regular content. +4x8 too dull for you? Try +5x8, or +6x8! Presumably with better rewards, too.

 

It's almost certainly more work, but fine tuning a custom difficulty is (I think) one of CoH's coolest features. Plus, expanding on it would feel much better than taking away what people have already earned and are used to with their characters.

There are a couple of reasons I think I prefer the idea of losing the level shift rather than adding a +5 difficulty. The main one is that losing the level shift would narrow the performance gap between the highest performing player (purpled out tier 4 incarnate) and the lowest (SO'd non incarnate). We have a game that is supposedly balanced around the latter of these and the former just stomp all over it. In of itself not a problem apart from what it does to the teaming experience where people are feeling left out.

 

Adding higher difficulties may help the situation somewhat in the sense that it might take the top performers longer to blow everything up, leaving more time for contributions from the lower performers. However it does run the risk of leaving the lower performers further behind and those contributions may not amount to much. I feel the game is very hard to balance at the moment specifically because of how wide that power gap is and anything that narrows it would help. Removing the level shift would do this.

 

My other argument against having the level shift is just how mechanical it is. It feels to me to be an entirely arbitrary way of saying to the player 'look how soopa you are!!1!' Alpha abilities already increase the power of the character, why is this extra layer even necessary?

 

17 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Max difficulty going from Invincible (+2) to +4 always felt disappointing. In contrast, the introduction of the Alpha slot and level shift was one of the best updates. I'm glad the Paragon devs doubled down on that path in incarnate content, giving us even more level shifts while also introducing enemies that were harder through interesting ways (better attacks and buffs/debuffs, more base tohit) rather than a blanket stats++ for them and stats-- for you that was constructed almost 15 years ago with the goal to gatekeep content.

I'm interested in why adding what are effectively level bumps to players is 'one of the best updates' but adding them to enemies is 'disappointing'. Surely if adding interesting extra attacks, buffs debuffs etc to enemies is better than a blanket mechanical shift the same should hold true for players?

 

I agree that overall the conning mechanism isn't the most interesting piece of game design. But it is what we have to work with. It is indeed arbitrary that an enemy conning purple is stronger than an identical one conning red. It strikes me as also arbitrary that the level shift allows you to convert those purple minions into red ones at the expense of removing the top of the existing difficulty headroom.