"The Game is not Balanced around IO's"..... should it be?

[El D]

Putting aside the 'limit access to softcap Def' aspect, let's focus on another. Specifically, the claim that 'this would be a boon to casual players.' That implies a single definition of 'casual player' - in this context, one who feels stymied by the perceived extremes of the IO system. Now putting aside that this assertion is an extremely personal opinion, it is by default wrong as there is no single 'casual player' ideal when it comes to CoH.

 

The game is designed to be easy to pick up and run with, not just with missions but in every respect. Task forces, super groups, giant monster hunting, PVP, costume contests - whatever content you enjoy doing, CoH will readily let you do some version of whatever it is at nearly any level (and unless it's specifically level-locked content like Incarnate stuff, there's super sidekicking to make it even easier). You want to run paper missions all the way to 50? You can. You want to AE Farm all day every day? You can. You want to run hardcore iTrials for all the badges? You can, provided you're the right level. This means everyone's idea of what is and is not 'casual play' is different. Yes, this includes the folks who IO out their characters to extreme ends.

 

They're all casual players because of the way the game is made. Limiting one group's access to the high end of an optional system at the behest of another group that doesn't actually exist is because there's only one, singular player-base where everyone has equal access to said system is... not an argument.

Edited January 27, 2021 by El D

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

 You can solo in this game, but it’s not a solo game.  

You had me right up to this statement. HC CoH IS a solo game with an option to team. And that has made the game better. Better for people who may have to stop without warning. Better simply because it's an option.  

[Brutal Justice]

7 hours ago, Neiska said:

@Brutal Justice - So on the same hand, you are saying you want to slow down the powerful people, when your proposed change would hurt the weakest people the most? If most the player base is casual as you said, I would argue they would be most affected by the -5% defenses, particularly if they don't plan for things like -hit powers.

 

What about the "casual solo player"? They wouldn't feel any -5% defense on their baby blaster with training wheels? I would argue they would need the most help, not the most penalty. And I agree with @Bill Z Bubba, putting a 5% handicap penalty on all non-tankers/brutes just but the hurt on several powersets, like Shield Defense, whose only source of survivability/durability are positional defenses.

 

You are right, power builds likely wouldn't feel much from the 5% change. Those who would are the casuals, the soloists, and the defense focused builds. 

 

So you say you want to feel "meaningful" on a team, but you want to make everyone on the team, weaker? From what viewpoint do you state this? As a tanker? As a healer? As a buffer? Who is this change supposed to help? The people you want to affect (the strong builds) wouldn't be, and the people who want to contribute and matter (weaker builds) would be? 

 

As I mentioned, tanks/brutes already have higher resistance caps than most, generally speaking. You have oddballs like SoA's who resistance caps are 85%, but generally speaking tanks/brutes have more.

 

So... yea. Am confused here as to the point of the change, aside from making the weak builds, weaker, and to make things harder on solo players, as Teams likely wouldn't even notice.

The casual player does not hit 45% defense with a blaster, or possibly any archetype. Chances are they don’t even know about the soft cap.  It’s not as though they would have an actual -5 defense.

 

Also shield has more than just positional defense as it’s layers of survival.  So that’s simply not true.  Same with with super reflexes.  They both contain resists.  Shield has hp and a very strong aoe attack.  They both have a form of +dam on as recharge one as straight +damage.  

[Brutal Justice]

7 hours ago, Luminara said:

As long as that kind of spread exists, it's not possible to fairly balance the game around IO sets.  And having such wildly varying disparities in power between characters is one of the high points of this game.  We don't want, or need, the kind of homogenization that would be necessary for the game to be balanced around set bonuses.  For every Superman or Hulk in the game, there's a Punisher or Question.  That is what the game is balanced around, as it should be.

My point and goals exactly.  Characters are homogenized already.  I know you’re trying to disagree with my proposal but your words are actually supporting of the purpose of the defense hard cap.  To promote different levels of power and less homogenization.  

[Galaxy Brain]

 

 

I feel this is a good watch for everyone. It is not directly 1:1 relatable to CoH, but a lot of what this guy touches on is relevant enough to our conversations. Since I last checked in, there are a few points I'd like to address:

 

 

It seems like everyone is still assuming players are either "Newbs" or "God Tier" with no in between?

Just via sheer... I guess probability this simply is not the case. Yes, there are folks totally new to the game, just as there are those who have been veterans since Day 1 running around with the perfect build. Yes, there are players who are good enough to solo an ITF on SO's with no help and there are those who cannot solo to save their lives on a character that was built by a friend and tricked out. But for every one of these examples there is likely 4x as many people who fall somewhere in between all those extremes. This is a part of what my OP was aiming to address with trying to spitball a % of people who simply "used" IO's. Lets say the example with Miracle holds true and roughly ~47% or so of the active playerbase is buying this unique, powerful item. That is a very significant chunk that are engaged in the "optional" IO system, and it does not account for any overlap if say, 15% more people buy Numina instead of Miracle (a total of over 60% now), or the chunk who do not need to buy Miracle because they already have it, nor the chunk that will not be buying it for other reasons. I reckon there is a good majority of the playerbase who engage with the system "enough" to where it is worth a look into how they drop / balance from one IO set to another / etc.

 

However, the extremes of the Newb vs God Tier player will always exist, as will the differenced between the best and worst possible builds/etc. What the video above points out though is that while you do not and SHOULD NOT aim for perfect balance, you do want to keep an eye out for any "true" extremes that define player choices negatively. We had examples of both sides of the coin come up and get addressed in the last patch actually!

 

Titan Weapons and Energy Melee were both examples of a God Tier and Bottom Tier set that got adjustments for the health of the game. TW, objectively, was the best Melee Set by just about every conceivable metric outside of AFK farming. You want ST damage? TW. You want AoE damage? TW. You want a set that provided extra mitigation? TW. A set that even had a force multiplying power for teams? TW! Outside the learning curve to it (which was honestly slight, and you can put in the endurance woes under that bit) there was no real reason to roll anything BUT TW if you were looking for objective performance, which in turn would negatively impact build diversity. Fire Blast could be argued to be similar to TW but unlike that set it only blows other Blast sets away in Damage, it "pays" for that with being incredibly risky (inherently) unlike TW which could do everything almost for free. On the flip side, Energy Melee was a very underperforming set which had no real reason to be picked at all as other sets did it's shtick and more while also having other perks, making the set almost a "noob trap" of sorts if we're talking raw performance. The changes to EM carved a special niche out for it as the Single-Target king among melee sets, alongside the changes to TW shook things up and made a much healthier spread of "top performers" in that space. In a much more meta sense, EM being better and valuable could be argued to lower the amount of AoE output in teams for each EM player, which I'll touch on in a sec.

 

A similar point could be made about the Tanker and Brute changes a long while back which was definitely for the overall benefit of the game. Before that change, Tankers had harsh competition from Brutes which could essentially "do their job" while also dealing far superior offense. Instead of nerfing Brutes (they *technically* did but also gave them a HUGE fury buff so to me it's neutral), the buff to Tankers instead evened the playing field to where there are now meaningful decisions between the two AT's and healthy discourse instead of one of the AT's being almost defaulted to. 

 

 

Who cares if other people do XYZ? 

Another point being brought up is the question of what does it matter if people only want to do council radios, or if they want to build a certain way, etc? Well, it gets to a point where if single characters can solo the mission that your entire team is on no sweat... whats the point of teaming up? If you can get powerful enough to where teams are not required then it gets kind of fuzzy overall IMO. This is not even talking about the need of a Holy Trinity, as that is a definite strong suit of CoH, more just the general sense that you are not contributing to the team if there are one or two members who can just solo the thing.

 

This ties directly into what content everyone plays as well, and a good chunk of that has to do with rewards/time ratio. Players opt for council missions because they can be facerolled through more efficiently than Carnies/etc, plain and simple. This can be good fun for sure, but it sort of turns into the TW of content. If there is no reason to run other content because Council missions can just be done faster and safer for the same payout (outside of Merits, which has a healthy cycle thanks to strike targets), then odds are when you hop on to play your options can be to either solo or jump in on the council-bashing. If other groups were suddenly more enticing, not only would this shift what content players run on average but it would also shift the meta subtly. Builds that may not be *as* good at tearing through council may for whatever reason be better at tearing through Carnies than another that tears through Council, in a roundabout way actually *buffing* that build style by buffing an enemy group.

 

A good point touched on in that video is that how "everything effects everything" when it comes to balance. Buffing EM to be a fun, premiere ST set will change team content as one less member of the team is as AoE-centric, but at the same time contributes more to taking down singular hard targets and has a different way to engage in team content than the norm. Making Carnie content worth tackling opens the door to different powersets showing their strengths that are not normally given the limelight as more players tackle their missions. Giving certain enemies Accuracy (not tohit) bonuses but weaker damage per hit could make the defense meta shift slightly to not be as end-all be-all since you're still likely to be pinged every so often unless those guys (the rarely seen Sniper enemy?) get dealt with, etc. 

 

I would not advocate for getting rid of Council PI teams ever. They can be a blast of mindless fun and perfectly scratch that CoH itch if you're just hopping on for a bit! However, its a problem when it becomes the *dominant* content that a lot of teams fall into, taking away opportunities from those who would like to see more of the game. Any time when the gameplay "Stagnates" due to overly dominant, or overly... bad options shift player actions is when balance should be looked into. It's perfectly fine to have a spread of effectiveness, but it's not ok to have a TW and a KM, or a Council Radio and Rularuu Arc in the same spreads with imbalanced effort/reward ratios that end up with options left to the wayside.

 

 

 

[Brutal Justice]

8 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

A blaster with Diamagnetic Core Flawless Interface isn't even missing the 5% Defense.

 

You're approaching this from the wrong side.  Any nerf to Defense can be quickly and easily countered by anyone.  One doesn't even need to be a specific archetype, use a specific power set, or even a specific power.  -ToHit is available to everyone.  If you're going to restrict the effectiveness of Defense, you have to do so from the other end, by buffing critter ToHit, or it's pointless.  But buffing critter ToHit unnecessarily and unfairly penalizes entire primaries and secondaries built around the idea of Defense while ignoring primaries and secondaries built around Resistance, Regeneration or combinations of all three.  And considering that it wouldn't accomplish the goal you intended, it's probably not a good change.

 

You're not going to promote teaming by nerfing one type of damage mitigation and ignoring everything else that's going on.  Take it back to the drawing board.

Again your disagreement is support for exactly the goal.  The goal isn’t to neuter people.  

 

Everytime you list a method of getting around the defense hard cap you’re giving examples of how minor of a nerf it would actually be.  That is the goal.  Minor nerf.  

 

You take diamagnetic to artificially achieve soft cap, you don’t get reactive or degenerative.  Minor drop in performance.  At the same time it limits your godliness once exemplared below level 45 unless you have a non incarnate form of -ToHit.  Which there are plenty.  

 

I agree that buffing ToHit would disproportionately punish defensive sets.  

 

Nerfing the defense hard cap just so happens to be the most abused form of damage mitigation.  Also, as you have pointed out multiple times, it’s a nerf that can be worked around resulting in really only a minor nerf.  I appreciate that regardless of your intent.  It’s evidence from the other side of the fence that people’s over exaggerations of the proposal are just that, over exaggerations.  

Edited January 27, 2021 by Brutal Justice
For clarity

[Brutal Justice]

7 hours ago, Neiska said:

There is such a thing as "artificially" rewarding teaming "too much", to the extent that solo play is a joke and such players can feel ignored, and it quickly turns into a game of the "have's" and the "have not's", when someone is 1000+ paragon levels ahead of you, just for being on a team, when they played less time.

As @Luminara has pointed out with several work arounds for the defense hard cap, your solo performance wouldn’t take nearly as much of a hit as your portray

[Brutal Justice]

5 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I dont really have to explain - because just about everyone but you gets what I'm saying.

 

Furthermore I don't really want to - having been in a number of forum wars - I'm not going to change your flawed premise or state of mind anyway - and it will end up with each of us repeating our position ad nauseam with no headway to be found.

I find your position comical considering you build tanks for “max survival”.  A max survival tank with paltry offense is about as useful as a full support empath with only their tier 1 attack in today’s current game.

 

People do tend to overreact any time a nerf is mentioned.  

 

[Brutal Justice]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

You had me right up to this statement. HC CoH IS a solo game with an option to team. And that has made the game better. Better for people who may have to stop without warning. Better simply because it's an option.  

I simply meant it’s not a game that is primarily designed as a solo game.  I agree that being able to solo is a great feature of the game.    I have had three kids since the snap, greatly altering my in game presence so I greatly appreciate the soloability.  

[DSorrow]

1 hour ago, Brutal Justice said:

Again your disagreement is support for exactly the goal.  The goal isn’t to neuter people.  

 

I disagree with your suggestion mostly because you don't explain why this solves everything and because depending on the situation the nerf seems either pointless or disproportionately affects certain primaries/secondaries compared to others.

 

Quote

I agree that buffing ToHit would disproportionately punish defensive sets.  

So how is it that you don't realize that nerfing Defense caps has the exact same disproportionate effect? With your change, any Tanker Defensive primary is, relative to Resistance sets, gutted against Incarnate enemies. Similarly, Def based primaries/secondaries get shafted against any enemy groups with heavy -Def (hint: most of them), unless you happen to be SR or Shield (lots of DDR) and fighting non-incarnate mobs. Whether you realized it or not, this is the result, or goal in your words, and it's a massive nerf to certain sets in certain circumstances leading to, e.g. Def based Tankers being worse than Resistance Scrappers against Incarnate mobs.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you because I'm concerned about keeping some characters at the soft cap, I'm disagreeing with you because I think you start from an unsubstantiated "Defense globally bad", just jump to "Nerf defense globally good" and brush off criticism with "opposition = support = this is a really good idea" or "but it's just a minor nerf". What I see is knee-jerk reaction to what you perceive to be "the most abused form of damage mitigation" while ignoring how said form of damage mitigation actually works and how these changes would impact different content and power sets.

 

Please, don't try to spin my disagreement as support.

Edited January 27, 2021 by DSorrow

[Parabola]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

You had me right up to this statement. HC CoH IS a solo game with an option to team. And that has made the game better. Better for people who may have to stop without warning. Better simply because it's an option.  

This right here is where there is a huge difference in perception driving the two sides of this argument. People who view the game as primarily a solo game with an option for teaming are of course not going to be all that concerned about balance issues affecting teaming. They just want to be able to 'solo all the things'. But those of us who see CoH as an mmo first and foremost and who view teaming as the bedrock of the game (or at least feel it should be), tend to be those expressing concerns about how the team experience is being affected by powercreep.

 

And don't misunderstand me, I play at odd times and really value being able to solo well in this game, but as far as I'm concerned soloing absolutely shouldn't be the balancing point. If the soloability of my characters takes a hit in a balance pass so be it, in my opinion the game would be healthier as a result. No one is suggesting that soloing is removed as an option, just that if people can solo at maximum difficulty it doesn't leave much room for teaming.

[nihilii]

On 1/22/2021 at 9:21 PM, CrudeVileTerror said:

Rather, give players something that tempts them to slot something OTHER than Performance Shifter in to Stamina.

I hardly ever slot Perf Shifter these days. It's generally Power Transfer, either a single proc or the full set for bonuses + end management. Or maybe it's 3 slots of Synapse's Shock, if I need the slow res. I think the new sets introduced by the HC team were a success in that regard.

 

Inertia is STRONG, especially in video games. We have great venues for endurance management, many of them more efficient than perf shifter. It's arguably the optimal metagame right now is to fill your attacks with damage procs; which in turn generates the need for that greater end management. Yet you can bet most players run full invention sets, and have Miracle/Numina/Perf Shifter in their builds. But that majority may not be quite as big as it was last year, and last year's wasn't as big as it was 2 years ago.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you or anything. Just reflecting on the length of time it can take for changes to seep through the collective subconscious on a large scale, and ergo manifest.

[Infinitum]

4 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

I find your position comical considering you build tanks for “max survival”.  A max survival tank with paltry offense is about as useful as a full support empath with only their tier 1 attack in today’s current game.

 

People do tend to overreact any time a nerf is mentioned.  

 

Well the performance of my builds while TEAMING or SOLO say otherwise and anyone that uses them can verify that the offense is far from paltry.  I build them for max survival so they can survive anything - taking the first line full force of damage for my teams - thats kinda what the tanks role is.

 

Good to know you took the time to study up on me, but you should have done more homework because your attack on me is inaccurate, inadequate, and ill-informed.

 

If You notice I have Stalkers, Scrappers, Brutes and Controllers on my build page also.

 

They arent proc monsters but they all team well and solo well.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Infinitum

[ForeverLaxx]

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

There's no point moving the goal post if you're only moving it six inches to the left.  And the existing reward structure is fine if the goal post isn't going anywhere.

My point was that your counterpoint was meaningless. The "existing reward structure" for Council Caves, for instance, isn't going anywhere. I never said "lower Council and raise Carnies", I just said "raise Carnies" because they're more of a pain to fight and nearly every time (I use nearly because some people just don't like fighting them for other reasons) people decline to fight Carnies is because of the relative difficulty not being compensated by an increased reward. In short, fighting Carnies just isn't worth the time if the reward doesn't match the challenge.

 

So make it match the challenge. People might actually stick around for Carnie missions for once. Other reward sources don't have to be reduced and I never said they should. You can keep playing whatever fantasy you prefer and sometimes you'll get more rewards for it than what you're getting now, but you'll never get less than what you're getting now. How anyone can fight against something like that I have no idea. It's like you all believe that increasing rewards for content that's already more difficult will just make everyone do the harder content and leave you all alone in your Council Cave or something.

 

For what it's worth, I play this game almost entirely solo and don't care what I'm fighting. The "reward" for me is just seeing my character do things and realizing my concept in motion. I'm not asking for the game to be harder because I don't think it needs to be harder; I'm just saying that for people who want to fight hard things, they already can but choose not to because it's not worth the time to them. Increased exp would push things into the "might be worth the time" direction.

 

8 hours ago, Troo said:

more rewards for higher difficulty is a fallacy

We already get more rewards for a higher difficulty or people wouldn't run +4/x8. How is that a fallacy when it's already true? How is an increase in exp gains for Carnies due to their relative increase in difficulty over Council not in line with how the reward structure currently works with team modifiers? Are you aware that the Freakshow give more exp per kill than usual because sometimes they stand back up and that's why they were the old farming target back when we could dumpster dive?

 

"More rewards for higher difficulty" is how the system already works. The only place it doesn't work is across enemy factions where one faction is intrinsically more difficult to deal with than another and I think those groups having higher exp values to offset the added time and trouble it takes to deal with them seems fair to me.

 

People seem to say they want challenge, but they ignore the challenge that already exists because it's not worth their time. So make it worth their time. There's nothing sinister, or difficult, about that.

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

My point and goals exactly.  Characters are homogenized already.  I know you’re trying to disagree with my proposal but your words are actually supporting of the purpose of the defense hard cap.  To promote different levels of power and less homogenization.  

 

4 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

Again your disagreement is support for exactly the goal.  The goal isn’t to neuter people.

 

Yeah, no.  Your goal was clearly stated, to promote teaming by forcing players to use each other to compensate for not being capable of hitting the Defense soft cap with IO sets.  Here, I'll refresh your memory.

 

15 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

This is an mmo, an mmo that encourages teaming.  I want to feel useful on teams.  I want teamwork on teams.  

 

I feel teams are the lifeblood of this game.  The community is the lifeblood of this game.  If people are made to feel superfluous in team settings, then in my eyes, that is unhealthy for the game.  

...

 

What is the root of so many people asking about game balance?  

Answer.  IOs 

 

What is it that people achieve with IOs that makes people question balance?  What is it that people chase the most with IOs?

Answer.  Defense soft caps.  

 

If non “tank” archetypes were hard capped at 40% defense it would solve almost all issues usually brought up.

...

Bring back the value of teaming!  Not just reward chasing! Hard cap tanks and brutes at 45% defense.  HEATs and VEATs at 43%.  Everybody else at 40%.  

 

PS.  I know the incarnate soft cap is higher.  

 

You're not complaining about homogenization or a lack of diversity, you're directly and very clearly stating that you want nerfs which force players to team.  That's your defined and stated goal.  And no, when I point out how easy it would be to work around the limitations you'd impose, I'm not agreeing with you or providing unintended support.  I'm telling you that you're on the wrong track and providing examples which emphasize the problems with your suggestion.

 

Teaming is socialization.  Socialization should be something desired, not something imposed.  Any attempt made to force players to team will simply drive them away from that content, especially in this game, which has always treated teaming as a bonus, not a requirement.  I was tackling GMs solo in 2005, long before the Invention system existed, with a defender using melee attacks.  That shows how unnecessary teaming has always been here.

 

Allow people to team up.  Reward people for teaming up.  Do not shove them into the cattle car and demand that they team up for the sake of your personal enjoyment or vision of what's "good for them".

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, parabola said:

This right here is where there is a huge difference in perception driving the two sides of this argument. People who view the game as primarily a solo game with an option for teaming are of course not going to be all that concerned about balance issues affecting teaming. They just want to be able to 'solo all the things'. But those of us who see CoH as an mmo first and foremost and who view teaming as the bedrock of the game (or at least feel it should be), tend to be those expressing concerns about how the team experience is being affected by powercreep.

 

And don't misunderstand me, I play at odd times and really value being able to solo well in this game, but as far as I'm concerned soloing absolutely shouldn't be the balancing point. If the soloability of my characters takes a hit in a balance pass so be it, in my opinion the game would be healthier as a result. No one is suggesting that soloing is removed as an option, just that if people can solo at maximum difficulty it doesn't leave much room for teaming.

Er... as someone who quite happily solos, no, I do not want to be able to "solo all the things." I understand there are things I should not be able to solo on a basic build (I'm not going to take my on-SOs earth/rad at 25 and solo GMs.) I'm fine with that. And I *also* end up concerned with power creep.

 

If my soloability takes a hit, my attitude is not going to be "so be it."  So please don't assume that I, or people like me, have the attitude you described in your post.

 

MMO does not stand for "Must-team Mulitplayer Only." And just because people *can* make high-end builds that can solo everything does not mean that everyone, or even most people, will, or that it will suddenly make people not want to team. People team to get help with content or run multiplayer-designed content (task/strike forces, trials, etc,) this is true. But they also team to *be with and talk to other people.* I mean, that's kind of a big help for RP, for one...

 

Edit: In fact, mentioning power creep, it's one of the reasons I (the "I don't make 'builds' type, that doesn't care for permadom and who doesn't tend to do multi-billion inf capped-everything builds) solo, when I do. I want to take things at my own pace, not sit there and watch as every mission is demolished in 3 minutes or less.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Greycat

[Darmian]

Again with the binaries.  I love to solo, I love to team.  It DEPENDS.

[Luminara]

4 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

My point was that your counterpoint was meaningless. The "existing reward structure" for Council Caves, for instance, isn't going anywhere. I never said "lower Council and raise Carnies", I just said "raise Carnies" because they're more of a pain to fight and nearly every time (I use nearly because some people just don't like fighting them for other reasons) people decline to fight Carnies is because of the relative difficulty not being compensated by an increased reward. In short, fighting Carnies just isn't worth the time if the reward doesn't match the challenge.

And your point is moot because, to use your example, Carnies don't represent the same obstacle for everyone.  Legionette can run roughshod over Carnies.  She can bounce from one spawn to the next, completely unconcerned about mez, incoming damage, endurance drain, ToHit debuffs, anything the enemy group has to throw at her.  Parthenia can't do that, she has to approach every spawn cautiously, pre-emptively mez the mezzers, maintain a safe distance from everything, watch out for unexpected situations, and even though she can "win", it still takes her longer.

 

On the other hand, Nemesis are hell for Legionette.  She has to limit her PBAoE so she doesn't accidentally drop a lieutenant, she has to wait every time she brings a Fake Nem down to a certain health point... I have fighting Nemesis when I'm playing Legionette.  Parthenia, on the other hand, has none of the same troubles.  Nemesis Vengeance has a HUGE FREAKING HOLE in AoE Defense, so she doesn't even have to change up her attack chain (TT -> NF -> repeat) when she's kicking their butts.  She doesn't have to avoid defeating the lieutenants.  She can stack two Holds on Fakes and lock them down permanently before she even gets the party started, so she never has to wait out their PFFs.

 

Should one of those enemy groups have an enhanced reward structure?  Which one?  Both represent a problem for one of the characters, but not the other.  What justifies one of those groups being exceptionally rewarding, but not the other when they both present a significant challenge for different characters?

 

This is the problem with just increasing the rewards for fighting one enemy group and not the other - you're not encouraging players to fight that enemy group, you're encouraging them not to play certain archetypes/builds.  The reward increase has to be more granular and adaptive, or it's just a penalty for not playing the "right" character, or having the "right" build.

 

38 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Other reward sources don't have to be reduced and I never said they should.

 

Nor did I take your post to mean that, or respond to such.  I'm discussing the potential for increasing rewards, exclusively, but pointing out that your method of doing so would be detrimental in the long term.  I believe the idea has merit, but it would have to be something which addresses challenge on a per-character basis to be viable.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Should one of those enemy groups have an enhanced reward structure?  Which one?  Both represent a problem for one of the characters, but not the other.  What justifies one of those groups being exceptionally rewarding, but not the other when they both present a significant challenge for different characters?

What you left out is that both of those groups present a challenge above the "norm". Yes, some characters handle them better than others, but a constant is that both of those groups present difficulties beyond your run of the mill enemy faction that gets beat down by everyone.

 

 

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

This is the problem with just increasing the rewards for fighting one enemy group and not the other - you're not encouraging players to fight that enemy group, you're encouraging them not to play certain archetypes/builds.  The reward increase has to be more granular and adaptive, or it's just a penalty for not playing the "right" character, or having the "right" build.

 

Alluded to above, I think it'd make more sense to have "Brackets" of enemies. Sort of like how there are some enemies that are villain of the day cannon-fodder, some are special episode enemies, and others are:

 

Something like Council/5th Column/Sky Raiders would be Tier 1 lets say. Groups in this bracket are the "baseline" where just about everyone is expected to beat them up.

 

Carnies/Malta/Nemesis could be Tier 2. Enemies in this group offer more exotic or simply better threats than T1. That is not to say some builds may have an easy time vs some of them, but they most likely are not good vs ALL in this group (like the example of one character hating Nemesis but loving Carnies, and vice versa). They give X% more rewards than Tier 1.

 

Banished Pantheon/Rularuu/IDF could be Tier 3. Enemy groups in this bracket are designed to be very dangerous to just about everyone, carrying harsh debuffs / special attacks / the works. Builds can be good vs this tier in some aspects, but it is unlikely they are "great" vs any of them. They give X% more rewards than Tier 2.

 

 

When it comes to soloing, you have the freedom to pick and choose who you go up against, so these are kind of moot. When teaming though, people usually opt for the lowest common denominator for speed/safety reasons moreso than strict "rewards", but it all factors in given all enemies are worth the same currently. If there were new brackets of enemies based on their "value", we may see more players suddenly curious about that Carnie Radio mission this time around as it will be a boost of Inf/XP/Drops instead of it being an auto-skip.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Galaxy Brain

[Brutal Justice]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

You're not complaining about homogenization or a lack of diversity, you're directly and very clearly stating that you want nerfs which force players to team.  That's your defined and stated goal.

You got me.  No where in there did I mention homogenization.  I also didn’t say anything about forcing people to team.  Thank you for quoting me so I didn’t have to go back and see if I miss spoke.  

 

Thanks again for reminding us all how you could solo GMs in 2005 without IOs.  It boggles my mind how you provide examples of work arounds and toon strength without IOs, and in the next breath, accuse me of trying to force people into something “for my personal enjoyment”.  

 

Maybe I provide some personal info to lead into the idea, but from all of your examples how is it not clear that that is not my goal?  You yourself have demonstrated no less than three times how that would not be the end result.  And yet you still react as though it were.  

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

Er... as someone who quite happily solos, no, I do not want to be able to "solo all the things." I understand there are things I should not be able to solo on a basic build (I'm not going to take my on-SOs earth/rad at 25 and solo GMs.) I'm fine with that. And I *also* end up concerned with power creep.

 

If my soloability takes a hit, my attitude is not going to be "so be it."  So please don't assume that I, or people like me, have the attitude you described in your post.

 

MMO does not stand for "Must-team Mulitplayer Only." And just because people *can* make high-end builds that can solo everything does not mean that everyone, or even most people, will, or that it will suddenly make people not want to team. People team to get help with content or run multiplayer-designed content (task/strike forces, trials, etc,) this is true. But they also team to *be with and talk to other people.* I mean, that's kind of a big help for RP, for one...

 

Edit: In fact, mentioning power creep, it's one of the reasons I (the "I don't make 'builds' type, that doesn't care for permadom and who doesn't tend to do multi-billion inf capped-everything builds) solo, when I do. I want to take things at my own pace, not sit there and watch as every mission is demolished in 3 minutes or less.

Ok fair enough the 'solo all things' statement was a generalisation and I apologise for that. It does rather accurately sum up how I end up approaching soloing a lot of the time and you do see a fair bit of it around on the forums too though. The 'so be it' part was only talking about myself, I'm not naïve enough to imagine everyone would be fine with it, in the same way that I will not be fine with it if things are left entirely as they are.

 

Your last paragraph is interesting. It is the 'demolish everything in 3 minutes or less' builds that are exactly the issue I am talking about. If somebody brings a build that can solo at 4/8 to a team they are inevitably going to have a big impact on how that team feels for the other players. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in finding that nearly every lv50 team has at least one or two of those builds in it. You may not play those builds but you have clearly come across them and it seems to have affected your teaming experience as you have chosen to solo instead.

 

As I said before I'm not arguing for an end to soloing or enforced teaming. But I am suggesting that the ability to solo at maximum difficulty is a problem for the teaming game. I'm not thinking we should be reduced to only soloing at 0/1 but in some way we need somewhere to go with the difficulty headroom so that teams can take on challenge that can't just be met by one or two members of the team alone. This could be done by adding extra difficulty options or it could be done by targeted rebalancing (or both) but in my opinion something should be done.

[macskull]

9 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

The casual player

Who is this mythical "casual player" you keep mentioning?

[Neiska]

Still feel people are missing context or seem to forget that different players enjoy different ways of spending their time on the game. It's an MMO. Its not a "team focused" game. Its a game that has teaming content and features. And personally the moment I am penalized for playing solo on my own schedule doing for what I want to do, for playing how I want to play, is the day I uninstall. Because spoiler alert, some people play the game for their own enjoyment, which does not always include teaming with other people. If I "want" to, then I will. But I won't be bribed/cocered/browbeaten into doing it if I don't want to. 

 

And I would like to point out from where I sit, those people who are on the "we need to fix the teaming game" side of things, well why not just take 1 or 2 less people? Poof. Problem solved. And not all builds who can solo 4/8 are absurdly OP over 9000 damage type of builds either. Personally my favorite character is my robot/ea MM. She solos the hardest content just fine, and I don't think anyone in their right mind would accuse her of having too much dps or being too powerful. And teams have always felt all too happy to have endless END, +absorb, and status protection when I am around. 

 

If people were serious about balance, personally I would take a long hard look at buffs/debuffs/dps/cc values.

 

And personally I would love an indepth explination of how the solo people are a problem/difficulty for the team game. Just how precisely is my Robot/EA MM "dangerous" to your team interactions? My damage is only so-so, I have little CC to speak of (only bonfire), and sure, I "could" run off and probially solo an entire spawn if I wanted to, but it would take forever, and wouldn't be helpful to the team at all.

 

Honestly, this entire thread is turning into a "I want people to play MY way" discussion. We have everything from "soloists are too good" to "lets try to encourage people to team more" to "nerf defense" to "higher difficulty shouldnt give more money." How is any of this game balance? Since when "did only teams" matter?

[Coyotedancer]

5 hours ago, parabola said:

This right here is where there is a huge difference in perception driving the two sides of this argument. People who view the game as primarily a solo game with an option for teaming are of course not going to be all that concerned about balance issues affecting teaming. They just want to be able to 'solo all the things'. But those of us who see CoH as an mmo first and foremost and who view teaming as the bedrock of the game (or at least feel it should be), tend to be those expressing concerns about how the team experience is being affected by powercreep.

 

And don't misunderstand me, I play at odd times and really value being able to solo well in this game, but as far as I'm concerned soloing absolutely shouldn't be the balancing point. If the soloability of my characters takes a hit in a balance pass so be it, in my opinion the game would be healthier as a result. No one is suggesting that soloing is removed as an option, just that if people can solo at maximum difficulty it doesn't leave much room for teaming.

 

And both sides completely forget that duo/trio "small teams" even exist and that running that way gives still a different perspective on the game... 

[Luminara]

8 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What you left out is that both of those groups present a challenge above the "norm". Yes, some characters handle them better than others, but a constant is that both of those groups present difficulties beyond your run of the mill enemy faction that gets beat down by everyone.

Neither of those enemy groups are any more difficult than any other group, they're merely perceived as such by people who build in specific and limited ways, those who focus exclusively on what's considered "common" and ignore everything else.  There's more to the game than Lethal/Smashing Defense and burst DPS, and the challenge represented by any particular enemy group is not a universal constant, rather a character-dependent variable.  That was the purpose of using two different characters facing different enemy groups as an example.  Each experiences different challenge levels when facing different groups.

 

Trick Arrows characters struggle with Council, because Marksmen impose -Recharge, Warwolves completely ignore Slows and have Immob protection... and they spawn without the debuffs on their placeholder critters, forcing the TA to reapply his/her click debuffs mid-combat, and since debuffs have an animation time, the TA can take significant damage, or be defeated, before those debuffs are active.  This is an example of an enemy group presenting greater than average challenge, despite being considered "easy".

 

It all depends on us.  Not the groups, not even specific foes within groups, but us.  The choices we make, the characters we play, the builds we design and implement.  We create our own challenge level within the game.  For every group someone says is "hard", there are plenty of builds available that make them easy.  The obverse face of the coin is just as true, some of the "easy" groups are a pain in the ass for many builds.