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

[Bill Z Bubba]

Well now I'm seriously confused. I get paid for the joy of slaughtering enemies. That's BETTER than free!

[hastened]

I would generally be supportive of making IOs free at this point.  They already basically are if you know what to do, and it would remove an hour or two of grunt work per character to get them fully specced out, plus be generally helpful for people who don't know what to do on the market to put it together.

 

I actually like having resources be scarce so there's something to build for progression-wise, but that's the opposite direction from where this project went, and I think that's fine too.  At this point it just seems kind of silly to have any non-XP awards at all.

[DSorrow]

1 hour ago, hastened said:

Its mostly the lack of hard content for teams.

This isn't something I've completely thought out, but in my opinion a lot of the lack of difficulty comes from the fact that CoH, at its core, is basically a fancy rock-paper-scissors type of game. Once you figure out how to pick the angle-grinder, it doesn't really matter if your opponent chooses rock, paper or scissors because the game mostly uses one type of difficulty: is my number bigger than yours. 

 

Personally, I think of difficulty as a set of a couple of umbrella categories:

• Preparation: in most games, this is basically knowing what you're about to do and picking the right gear for the task, in CoH this is pretty much planning and executing a build for your character.
• Tactics and strategy: the decision making that goes on before and especially during fights. Silencing the enemy mage, spiking down the healer or other priority target, splitting the team to do two simultaneous tasks so that you don't run out of time, running around a corner to let a debuff run out, etc. There isn't much of this type of difficulty in CoH.
• Mechanical skill: quite simply, the hand-eye coordination required to execute commands in a timely fashion: parries, aiming, etc. Doesn't really exist in CoH beyond the occasional clutch heal.

As far as I'm concerned, CoH isn't a game that could realistically make use of mechanical skill based difficulty, even if for no other reason than animation locks. In the worst case, an animation may take so long that even if you knew what to do, could easily react in time, you've been locked into an action before the call for action happened. The only solutions to this issue are very lax reactionary requirements at which point they are merely an annoyance rather than added difficulty or a revamp of most animations which is both unrealistic and dumb, especially if you happen to like some of the long animations.

 

The only two types that could be expanded upon are preparation, but as we don't have the ability to switch between powersets or readily change equipped gear, any additional difficulty in preparation would probably be pretty much impossible to implement while retaining the spirit of CoH: keeping any team / powerset combination viable. This leaves tactics and strategy, so I would propose things such as:

• more priority targets that need to be tackled in order to defeat the spawn quickly (Cimeroran healers, Sappers, Hamidon Mitos)
• some targets that are either weakened by mez (= Def / Resistance toggles) or immune to taunt (dangerous to the rest of the team) to increase the value of bringing hard CC
• branching maps with time limits: do you roll as a group to clear one branch faster or split into two to clear both branches at the same time?
• STF type beefed up final bosses, but you're only able to deactivate some of their buffs, choose according to your team's strengths

Oh, and of course, additional difficulty settings, such as we have for TFs, with appropriate rewards.

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 minutes ago, hastened said:

I would generally be supportive of making IOs free at this point.  They already basically are if you know what to do, and it would remove an hour or two of grunt work per character to get them fully specced out, plus be generally helpful for people who don't know what to do on the market to put it together.

 

I actually like having resources be scarce so there's something to build for progression-wise, but that's the opposite direction from where this project went, and I think that's fine too.  At this point it just seems kind of silly to have any non-XP awards at all.

I agree with you, but I suspect that is because you, like me, are already post-reward.  We either have everything we need or we know how to quickly get anything we want, so for us, any rewards at all are superfluous.

 

However, I dare to guess that the vast majority of players are always going to want rewards of some sort.  And that makes sense to me.

 

I personally want rewards to be pared back because, as you say, this project went in the direction of easy player gratification and that's really not my preference.  However, I'm not making the decisions, and I have to assume the current developers want something that they want to play, and that they feel most people want to play, and that is not destructive for the player driven economy.

[Galaxy Brain]

20 minutes ago, Neiska said:

Well, wouldnt it be a simpler thing to run teams with self imposed handicaps? Fewer people? No heals or support? No taunter? And so on? 

Yes and no.

 

Yes, in that self-imposed handicaps have no limits or roadblocks. Want to unslot all enhancements and see how far you go? Cool! Want to skip/not use key powers? Go for it! No, in that you then have to get others to join in on that in the same way.

 

To me, personally, I think it is an issue if multiple characters on a team can solo the hardest setting in team content at a decent pace. MMs are weird here in that at base they can tackle some very hard stuff without super special builds... but slowly and with clear caveats. Newer builds can surpass that to where a member of the team can just fly off and do their own thing in a  4/8, 8-man team (I know I do it often on my Claw/Ea scrapper or my En/Time blaster). Sure, it is easier with team mates around but it doesn't feel as necessary in most missions I participate in.

 

However, like I mentioned before: everything is related.

 

In a given mission, there is usually a clear path from start to finish with few places if any to "break things up".

 

 

 

 

Looking at 4 random maps, (Large Rikti, Large CoT, Large Cimeroran, Large Office), there is pretty much always a clear path from start to where the main objective is with little variance. Theres a few spots with a branching option but the general flow sort of funnels everyone to the same spots. It's not like the Avengers movies where you see them really split into different groups at the same time to handle simultaneous threats.

 

Due to this, teams are sort of corralled into sticking together (not a bad thing) even if they "could" split up, often its just blazing ahead to the next group in the line and then as they fight, the other part of the team leapfrogs them, etc. This is far too fundamental a thing to alter for the HC team, but I think everything put together is what leads to the topic of IOs / Incarnates / Difficulty / Etc popping up so often.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hastened]

51 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

This isn't something I've completely thought out, but in my opinion a lot of the lack of difficulty comes from the fact that CoH, at its core, is basically a fancy rock-paper-scissors type of game. Once you figure out how to pick the angle-grinder, it doesn't really matter if your opponent chooses rock, paper or scissors because the game mostly uses one type of difficulty: is my number bigger than yours. 

 

Personally, I think of difficulty as a set of a couple of umbrella categories:

• Preparation: in most games, this is basically knowing what you're about to do and picking the right gear for the task, in CoH this is pretty much planning and executing a build for your character.
• Tactics and strategy: the decision making that goes on before and especially during fights. Silencing the enemy mage, spiking down the healer or other priority target, splitting the team to do two simultaneous tasks so that you don't run out of time, running around a corner to let a debuff run out, etc. There isn't much of this type of difficulty in CoH.
• Mechanical skill: quite simply, the hand-eye coordination required to execute commands in a timely fashion: parries, aiming, etc. Doesn't really exist in CoH beyond the occasional clutch heal.

As far as I'm concerned, CoH isn't a game that could realistically make use of mechanical skill based difficulty, even if for no other reason than animation locks. In the worst case, an animation may take so long that even if you knew what to do, could easily react in time, you've been locked into an action before the call for action happened. The only solutions to this issue are very lax reactionary requirements at which point they are merely an annoyance rather than added difficulty or a revamp of most animations which is both unrealistic and dumb, especially if you happen to like some of the long animations.

 

The only two types that could be expanded upon are preparation, but as we don't have the ability to switch between powersets or readily change equipped gear, any additional difficulty in preparation would probably be pretty much impossible to implement while retaining the spirit of CoH: keeping any team / powerset combination viable. This leaves tactics and strategy, so I would propose things such as:

• more priority targets that need to be tackled in order to defeat the spawn quickly (Cimeroran healers, Sappers, Hamidon Mitos)
• some targets that are either weakened by mez (= Def / Resistance toggles) or immune to taunt (dangerous to the rest of the team) to increase the value of bringing hard CC
• branching maps with time limits: do you roll as a group to clear one branch faster or split into two to clear both branches at the same time?
• STF type beefed up final bosses, but you're only able to deactivate some of their buffs, choose according to your team's strengths

Oh, and of course, additional difficulty settings, such as we have for TFs, with appropriate rewards.

I think you're correct that this is the best place to try to add difficulty.  There are a few interesting possibilities for mechanical difficulty (see the winter ski lodge skiing challenge; imagine chasing enemies down a mile long ski slope and trying to defeat them before they hit bottom), but its not really where the focus is in this game.  There's a bunch of things you could possibly do on the tactics/strategy front with mission and NPC group design.  It helps if you have objectives that can actually be failed or where there are different gradations of success

 

Some other possible ideas:

--Have a full-scale invasion of an instance of Steel Canyon or other zone where NPC heroes are actively fighting off waves of invaders from the start.  Give a badge based on how many survive the mission (overwriting, like Ten Times the Victor)

--Have a defense objective map with incoming ambushes from multiple corridors coupled with time sensitive pop-up intermediate tasks on the main map (disarming planted explosives somewhere on the level, clicking a glowy somewhere out surrounded by enemies, etc)

--Have an enemy group with weak toggle aoe debuffs; if all 16 enemies in a spawn had radiation infection, for example, is probably enough that few builds could just faceroll it with a strong defensive setup, but there's a bunch of ways that such a group could be handled.  

--Custom AI; even an enemy group with weaker abilities could be substantially threatening if it spread out to avoid AOE, called for backup on the map, coordinated their attacks on specific targets, had some way to change up their abilities to an extent based on what they're facing.  You could imagine even tying that type of behavior into commands issued by bosses or lieutenants, such that quickly taking them out would help break enemy coordination and render them easier to defeat. (part of me has always wished Malta has fewer silly abilities but played more like this)

--A hold the line scenario where the enemies gradually get stronger and more difficult and you're graded by a badge given based on how long you can hold out or how many enemies you can defeat.

--Add optional mission objectives gated by difficult to defend escort missions/low timers/etc that unlock challenge contacts or even just badges.

--A mission where you have limited time, an unlimited amount of mission floors, tasks on each floor to add additional time and to unlock the next floor, and an escalating enemy strength as you descend (this is the mayhem mission design crossed with a roguelike, essentially)

 

Some of these things are harder than others to implement, but I think there is design space for some interesting things still.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, DSorrow said:

The only two types that could be expanded upon are preparation, but as we don't have the ability to switch between powersets or readily change equipped gear, any additional difficulty in preparation would probably be pretty much impossible to implement while retaining the spirit of CoH: keeping any team / powerset combination viable. This leaves tactics and strategy, so I would propose things such as:

• more priority targets that need to be tackled in order to defeat the spawn quickly (Cimeroran healers, Sappers, Hamidon Mitos)
• some targets that are either weakened by mez (= Def / Resistance toggles) or immune to taunt (dangerous to the rest of the team) to increase the value of bringing hard CC
• branching maps with time limits: do you roll as a group to clear one branch faster or split into two to clear both branches at the same time?
• STF type beefed up final bosses, but you're only able to deactivate some of their buffs, choose according to your team's strengths

Oh, and of course, additional difficulty settings, such as we have for TFs, with appropriate rewards.

Funny you post this just as I wrote up the one above showing how maps tend to keep people linear! 

 

I think you're spot on in that the only viable way to add more difficulty is to add more strategy to the game as you advance. We have *pockets* of this like with Tsoo and CoT LT's in certain levels where you WANT to lock them down or defeat them first specifically before they can cast their awful -ToHit auras, more things like that that give players tactical decisions mob to mob would be great. The only issue is that these tactical enemies would need to have some layer of anti-cheese, such as huge amounts of AoE def or being Taunt-Proof/Resistant (an idea I really like that I've never seen brought up, berserk enemies that will need to be hard CC'd or Defeated since they bounce around) else the problem of "my numbers are bigger lol" puts things back to square one.

 

Even simple things in the maps like adding more hazards could be nice. A CoT map with lava you can yeet enemies into, or a locked door that needs keys on either side of the map or scouting to find, etc, etc , etc. There are a ton of options that are *possible* but would need to impact player decisions, not just stats.

 

 

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I agree with you, but I suspect that is because you, like me, are already post-reward.  We either have everything we need or we know how to quickly get anything we want, so for us, any rewards at all are superfluous.

 

However, I dare to guess that the vast majority of players are always going to want rewards of some sort.  And that makes sense to me.

 

I personally want rewards to be pared back because, as you say, this project went in the direction of easy player gratification and that's really not my preference.  However, I'm not making the decisions, and I have to assume the current developers want something that they want to play, and that they feel most people want to play, and that is not destructive for the player driven economy.

 

Well, with the advent of DO's and SO's being seen from lvl 1, as well as the ability to upgrade slotted enhancements on the fly, the drops in the game are in a weird spot. Yeah, SO's will drop as the primary "loot" from lvl 25ish onward, and that's about it. You have this progression every ~12 levels or so from TO to DO to SO, but then it abruptly stops. Why not have common IO sets be able to drop past lvl 35 or so? Something like you're playing, defeat an LT, and there's a 25% chance they drop a yellow IO into your inventory instead of an SO. It'd make the IO system much more accessible as what we have now is *almost* that but with the added time sink of having to just /AH and grab your goods to make the thing. 

 

I wouldn't advocate for that normally, but in HC we are already nearly at the point where they may as well be normal drops with how easy it is to make or straight up get certain drops. 

 

Higher difficulty settings / tweaks in turn could influence these drops. Lets say Oranges or Procs don't drop in normal difficulties (at least to your tray, you could still get recipes), or even different enemy groups have different IO drop pools based on their theme / difficulty?

[ivanhedgehog]

On 1/26/2021 at 3:12 PM, Neiska said:

Alright, and I have to disagree strongly then.

 

If you only play for the challenge, as you claim, then what do you care how much you or anyone else makes on any particular difficulty? If you would get the same amount, either way, why does it matter to you if others get more for their efforts?

 

I certainly do seek to challenge myself. But I also expect fair rewards for my efforts, for effort, time involved, and the investment required to get to that point in difficulty.

 

And no, I also disagree its "hairsplitting" unless you only apply this specifically to solo play. For group play, its a much different matter. What if I want to farm? What if I want to help a friend with money and exp? What if I want to design my own adventure in AE? Context matters here.

 

From my perspective, what you call a win-win I consider a loose-loose. I strongly suspect more people would dislike your suggestion than like it, moreover once they get to 50, it would be tantamount to "well now what?". So congrats, you just killed endgame replay-ability for a good section of the community. For many players, endgame farming "is" our game. Playing the market "is" our game. Making, leveling, fully gearing up, and meticulously planning alts "is" our game. Your suggestion would pretty much invalidate the entire market as far as making/leveling/gearing alts are concerned. If it wasn't for the systems in place that support making alts, I would likely have moved onto another game by now.

 

What I find disturbing however, is this idea that rewarding players more for harder challenges, is somehow "bad." And I respectfully, but strongly disagree the idea that higher efforts do not deserve higher rewards.

what will it do to the economy? they already killed the inf for no xp concept, why would jacking up the difficulty to get more xp be any different? its a serious question, because this does effect other aspects of the game.

[ivanhedgehog]

On 1/26/2021 at 4:28 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

And here's the problem. MMO does not mean that one must team. It means that one is ABLE to do so.

 

Soloing deserves no nerfs. Ever.

Which is precisely why the buffs I would like to see for the more squishier archetypes are buffs, rather than nerfs.

 

Now I completely understand those that enjoy the added difficulty just for playing certain ATs. As a matter of fact, it makes me debate wanting those changes.

 

But nerfing soloability? Bad move for player retention. Very bad move.

+1!!!!!

[DSorrow]

14 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

what will it do to the economy? they already killed the inf for no xp concept, why would jacking up the difficulty to get more xp be any different? its a serious question, because this does effect other aspects of the game.

There is a possibility that it would do nothing. Getting twice the rewards for a difficulty setting that makes things take twice as long makes no impact. Currently you end up making significantly less rewards/time if you choose to use most of the additional options in TFs which I guess is a key contributor to the fact that nobody uses them.

 

I've suggested it before, but I'd tune difficulty/reward rates for any new optional settings so that top of the top teams might see a tiny increase in rewards/time vs running whatever is currently optimal but on average it would be along the lines of 1.5x rewards but stuff takes 2x as long. 

 

Obviously this would require a bunch of data mining and balance passes, but a man can dream.

[ForeverLaxx]

14 hours ago, Luminara said:

I'm looking at it from the perspective of having proven that anyone can build for anything

And I don't care if those players want to do that. I'm not out to stop farming. I don't care about farming or people who farm. This isn't about "ending" Council Farms -- this is about rewarding players who choose to fight more difficult factions. You can build a perfect "Carnie-counter" character and I bet dollars to donuts that character would still find fighting Council to be easier than Carnies by virtue of how the defense and resist sets/bonuses work.

 

You're not going to change my mind because you're trying to use things I don't see as a problem as a counter-point, which is why I said we just agree to disagree and move on.

[ivanhedgehog]

6 hours ago, hastened said:

I mean, that's what you have to do to have any semblance of challenge right now.  "Don't try too hard or you'll break it" isn't really that helpful for supporting a playstyle where you would like to actually have to try hard to succeed though.  Its equally valid to state that people can just turn down their difficulty settings if they want to be able to solo hard content.  I'm not opposed to having even team content designed to be difficult to be possible for optimized builds at -1/x0.

 

There's only been a handful of cases where I've done something here where there's any question on whether we're going to succeed or not, and almost all of them have been self imposed challenges of some sort.  Mostly small team attempts trying to keep various assist NPCs alive on +4/x8 maps with ambushes, or boosting difficulty quite high relatively early in a character's career where its still hard for them despite optimization.

So you are able to find challenges within the game. Good to know. You took responsibilty for your own game experience and it was successful. The "feature" you are requesting seems to already exist. The devs can spend their limited time on other features in the game.

[ivanhedgehog]

5 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Yes and no.

 

Yes, in that self-imposed handicaps have no limits or roadblocks. Want to unslot all enhancements and see how far you go? Cool! Want to skip/not use key powers? Go for it! No, in that you then have to get others to join in on that in the same way.

 

To me, personally, I think it is an issue if multiple characters on a team can solo the hardest setting in team content at a decent pace. MMs are weird here in that at base they can tackle some very hard stuff without super special builds... but slowly and with clear caveats. Newer builds can surpass that to where a member of the team can just fly off and do their own thing in a  4/8, 8-man team (I know I do it often on my Claw/Ea scrapper or my En/Time blaster). Sure, it is easier with team mates around but it doesn't feel as necessary in most missions I participate in.

 

However, like I mentioned before: everything is related.

 

In a given mission, there is usually a clear path from start to finish with few places if any to "break things up".

 

 

 

 

Looking at 4 random maps, (Large Rikti, Large CoT, Large Cimeroran, Large Office), there is pretty much always a clear path from start to where the main objective is with little variance. Theres a few spots with a branching option but the general flow sort of funnels everyone to the same spots. It's not like the Avengers movies where you see them really split into different groups at the same time to handle simultaneous threats.

 

Due to this, teams are sort of corralled into sticking together (not a bad thing) even if they "could" split up, often its just blazing ahead to the next group in the line and then as they fight, the other part of the team leapfrogs them, etc. This is far too fundamental a thing to alter for the HC team, but I think everything put together is what leads to the topic of IOs / Incarnates / Difficulty / Etc popping up so often.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

advertise a tf where everyone unslots their incarnate powers it is easy to see if that is done. there should be no problem filling such a team. If there are not enough people to make a TF with those rules, then changes to the game forcing that on people probably shouldnt be made.

[Bill Z Bubba]

39 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

So you are able to find challenges within the game. Good to know. You took responsibilty for your own game experience and it was successful. The "feature" you are requesting seems to already exist. The devs can spend their limited time on other features in the game.

But the feature as it exists does not grant improved rewards for the greater difficulty which does not follow the standard MO of this game and needs to be changed.

[golstat2003]

13 hours ago, parabola said:

Fun is of course subjective. One person may find facerolling enemies fun, the next may desire some more challenge. One may not mind their contribution to a team becoming negligible, the next may become bored and frustrated.

 

I certainly haven't suggested anywhere that I think the game should become a remorseless grind. I feel there is a huge amount of middle ground between faceroll and grind that can be explored. As I see it the problem with where we are now is that we are maxed out at one end of the difficulty slider. A team that wants less challenge at high levels has the ability to turn it down (I can't seriously imagine any lv50 team currently running at -1). But a team wanting more challenge can't go any higher that 4/8, which is effectively 3/8 to incarnates and often easily soloable.

 

And the people in charge have already said that they are looking at this. I'm sure they will be trying to find a balance that is fun for everyone.

That middle ground is new difficulty options.

[golstat2003]

5 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Funny you post this just as I wrote up the one above showing how maps tend to keep people linear! 

 

I think you're spot on in that the only viable way to add more difficulty is to add more strategy to the game as you advance. We have *pockets* of this like with Tsoo and CoT LT's in certain levels where you WANT to lock them down or defeat them first specifically before they can cast their awful -ToHit auras, more things like that that give players tactical decisions mob to mob would be great. The only issue is that these tactical enemies would need to have some layer of anti-cheese, such as huge amounts of AoE def or being Taunt-Proof/Resistant (an idea I really like that I've never seen brought up, berserk enemies that will need to be hard CC'd or Defeated since they bounce around) else the problem of "my numbers are bigger lol" puts things back to square one.

 

Even simple things in the maps like adding more hazards could be nice. A CoT map with lava you can yeet enemies into, or a locked door that needs keys on either side of the map or scouting to find, etc, etc , etc. There are a ton of options that are *possible* but would need to impact player decisions, not just stats.

 

 

 

Well, with the advent of DO's and SO's being seen from lvl 1, as well as the ability to upgrade slotted enhancements on the fly, the drops in the game are in a weird spot. Yeah, SO's will drop as the primary "loot" from lvl 25ish onward, and that's about it. You have this progression every ~12 levels or so from TO to DO to SO, but then it abruptly stops. Why not have common IO sets be able to drop past lvl 35 or so? Something like you're playing, defeat an LT, and there's a 25% chance they drop a yellow IO into your inventory instead of an SO. It'd make the IO system much more accessible as what we have now is *almost* that but with the added time sink of having to just /AH and grab your goods to make the thing. 

 

I wouldn't advocate for that normally, but in HC we are already nearly at the point where they may as well be normal drops with how easy it is to make or straight up get certain drops. 

 

Higher difficulty settings / tweaks in turn could influence these drops. Lets say Oranges or Procs don't drop in normal difficulties (at least to your tray, you could still get recipes), or even different enemy groups have different IO drop pools based on their theme / difficulty?

I would not mind if all fully crafted Set IOs dropped from killing mobs-- Bosses, AVs. Fully crafted COMMON IOs from minions, Lts. Exclude AE if you have to.

 

If they did this I would be open to rebalancing large parts of the game around IOs.

Edited January 28, 2021 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, ivanhedgehog said:

advertise a tf where everyone unslots their incarnate powers it is easy to see if that is done. there should be no problem filling such a team. If there are not enough people to make a TF with those rules, then changes to the game forcing that on people probably shouldnt be made.

That would be a pretty good experiment. I suspect you would get some. But I suspect it would take far longer than forming a tf/sf with no such requirements . ..  cause most people probably don't want to play that way. Which is fine. You form your own teams and just wait if you're asking for something special. Agreed on the last line especially.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

That would be a pretty good experiment. I suspect you would get some. But I suspect it would take far longer than forming a tf/sf with no such requirements . ..  cause most people probably don't want to play that way. Which is fine. You form your own teams and just wait if you're asking for something special. Agreed on the last line especially.

Goes back to the self-gimping line of thought. I ran the Werner rules ITFs for no more reason but to be added to the list of those that managed it. But ask me to follow those rules for a random run and I'll laugh at you and go find another group.

 

Edit: Unless the rewards for that were increased, of course.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[ivanhedgehog]

59 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

But the feature as it exists does not grant improved rewards for the greater difficulty which does not follow the standard MO of this game and needs to be changed.

so if I dont slot some of my powers the game should give me more xp? I have greater difficulty.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, ivanhedgehog said:

advertise a tf where everyone unslots their incarnate powers it is easy to see if that is done. there should be no problem filling such a team. If there are not enough people to make a TF with those rules, then changes to the game forcing that on people probably shouldnt be made.

This would be a good experiment for Incarnates, but going a step further and saying "hey, who wants to respec and run an SO only old school TF?" Would likely garner crickets unless we pull an oceans 11 style getting the gang together montage of folks lol.

 

Part of this points to what BZB said where the carrot has to be there. It's not even too alien a concept as the current difficulty sliders do give increased rewards for your efforts. Its just that the current power level of players exceeds the hard difficulty (level shifts especially) and the current hard enemies use some nonsense that ends up being more frustrating than "difficult". That of course leads to super lawnmowers buzzing down the most efficient content since it its not "worth" trying to tackle the tougher grass.

[Infinitum]

22 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

This would be a good experiment for Incarnates, but going a step further and saying "hey, who wants to respec and run an SO only old school TF?" Would likely garner crickets unless we pull an oceans 11 style getting the gang together montage of folks lol.

 

Part of this points to what BZB said where the carrot has to be there. It's not even too alien a concept as the current difficulty sliders do give increased rewards for your efforts. Its just that the current power level of players exceeds the hard difficulty (level shifts especially) and the current hard enemies use some nonsense that ends up being more frustrating than "difficult". That of course leads to super lawnmowers buzzing down the most efficient content since it its not "worth" trying to tackle the tougher grass.

Oceans 11 would have to all be either Ninjitsu scrappers, some form of Stalker, or Thugs Mastermind.

[Infinitum]

Part 1

So at level 50 and incarnated examine what content is available.

 

1. Dark Astoria Incarnate Content

2. Incarnate Trials

3. Maria Jenkins

4. Unai Kemen

5. Shadow Shard Task Forces

6. Task Force of the Week

7. Events

8. Mothership Raids

9. Hami Raids.

10. MLTF/LRSF

11. LGTF

12. Market Crash

13. Signature Story Arcs - Who Will Die and Pandora

14. New Praetorians Arcs

15. Tin Mage

16, Apex

17. Radios

 

Probably missing some but that's what's currently available at level 50

 

Part 2

Now I will list the ones by default were designed for incarnate powers

 

1. Dark Astoria Incarnate Content

2. Tin Mage

3. Apex

4. Sometimes Task Force of the Week

5. Incarnate Trials

 

Part3

Next I will add to this list to what i think its beneficial to have Incarnate Powers because the content can go sideways and get nutty.

 

1. Dark Astoria Incarnate Content

2. Tin Mage

3. Apex

4. Sometimes Task Force of the Week

5. Incarnate Trials

6.  Signature Story Arcs - Who Will Die and Pandora - especially Pandora with the crazy nemesis vengeance.

7. Shadow Shard Task Forces - Again exotic enemies, dmg and lots of nemesis veng.

8. Maria Jenkins - Some of hers can get kinda difficult - so yeah beneficial but not necessary.

9. New Praetorians Arcs 

10. MLTF/LRSF

11. LGTF

12. Market Crash

 

I have had each of those last three go sideways - Now usually yeah you can get by with a good team without needing incarnates - but sometimes things happen and you are glad you have them occasionally.

 

Next What content is it where Incarnates absolutely are not needed.

 

1, Radios

2. Unai

3. Events

4. Mothership Raids

5. Hami Raids.

 

Not needing them doesn't mean they wouldn't make those events go faster - but yeah I don't see them being essential for the designed function.

 

Not saying its wrong to bring them there either - this is just for analysis.

 

I think the largest potential offender for repeated steamrolled content is Radios - but honestly i couldn't tell you the last time I ran a radio mission or took part in one.  When i run content its usually Task Force of the Week, which depending on which ones are available - but those lock you out of incarnate abilities anyway.  Most of the content I listed in part 2 and 3 can get very difficult set to max level - and borderline grindy - but that is where the challenge currently is for incarnated level 50s in game currently.  You definitely wouldn't want to run those with only SOs either - some of them you probably could but would be very grindy - thinking DR Q on SOs like the old days  lol log out tell your team goodnight and see ya tomorrow - then 3 days later you are done - pre IO system and mission teleport powers that is.

 

I think we need more content like Part 2 or a difficulty setting that gives all the content in the above enemies or damage or mechanics that would make it more difficult - with corresponding rewards.

 

Because sometimes you want a challenge - and sometimes you don't.  Sometimes you just play for the experience of being Super - and indomitable.  Sometimes you want to feel the Doomsday level threat.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Infinitum

[Black Zot]

Add LRSF to lists 1 and 3.

[Infinitum]

12 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

Add LRSF to lists 1 and 3.

No room for Villain Scum on my list Sir  :-)

 

I only play hero side.

[Infinitum]

I forgot about both TFs for the Reichsman - that one can get really irritating when the device decides to be buggy and not work.