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

[El D]

Sweeping modification to the game's IO set up and punishing changes to archetype stat percentages are not 'solutions that'd make the game more fun to play.' Those are just personal preferences to self-imposed problems.

 

The archetype system in City of Heroes is built around being interchangeable. You aren't required to have X, Y, or Z on a team, which innately makes 'roles' a lot more flexible. Outside of a small handful of endgame situations (like Ham iraids) you can pick up whatever you want and go. It's meant to be casual and allow players the freedom to play as they like - that's why gimmicky task force runs like All Masterminds or All Blasters can actually work in this game. Forcing tighter archetype restrictions due to a personal desire to have a 'more distinct role' on a team is antithetical to this being a casual game players can play as they like. 'All these archetypes should have their capabilities lowered so X archetype can feel more special' isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with how you're approaching playing it.

 

As for IOs and set bonuses yes, they do vastly increase the power of literally every character that goes whole hog into making The Best Possible Build. That was a natural outcome given the point of the system, as it's literally CoH's version of end game gear. Also yes, softcapping defense is an objectively good build strategy to an extensive degree. That doesn't mean that the overall difficulty of the game should be balanced around those extreme outliers, nor does it mean those outliers should have their capabilities reduced. Using IOs is optional and extreme stat boosts and capabilities are the reward for investing heavily into it. All that reducing the effectiveness of IOs will do is reduce players' incentive to use the system/play all the characters they've invested with it.

 

CoH is a game about two things - being superhero/villain and casually teaming up with other superheroes/villains. Power fantasy in the extreme and easily working together are the core concepts. Cracking down on the amount of 'super' players have access to and forcing more stringent team requirements are not good ideas.

Edited January 27, 2021 by El D

[Brutal Justice]

3 minutes ago, Neiska said:

 

Please don't think I am at odds with you, I just think your suggestion would do more harm than good. To what benefit would everyone who isn't a tank or brute get from having a lower defense, when many of those builds already have a rough time as it is in the solo game? And I would argue that on teams, if you had a brute or tanker, everyone else having lower defenses wouldn't matter, since they are taking most of the attention anyway. So I don't see how lowering everyone else's defenses would encourage party play, and would only make some weak builds overall weaker.

In solo play even tanks and brutes would see a hit to performance once the difficulty was cranked up.  Running at max difficulty would become much harder.  Especially your @Werner rules player debuffed etc ITF runs.  Would it still be possible?  Probably.  Would it take a longer amount of time?  Absolutely.  Very few builds could even accomplish it.  Max difficulty is not achievable by all toons currently or with the proposed hard cap.  There is nothing wrong with that.  

 

Solo play would see the brunt of the nerf.  

 

Having a tanker in a team at 45% wouldn’t be THAT much more useful than having a tanker currently is.  You’re right the lower defense numbers wouldn’t matter all that much with a tank drawing aggro. However, a blaster with 40% defense could still wipe out a spawn solo.  

 

Thats sort of my point though with 40% defense.  It’s not a huge nerf.  It merely creates openings.  It creates small amounts of value for toons that currently have very little without upsetting the whole dynamic of not requiring the holy trinity.

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

Solo play would see the brunt of the nerf.

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.

[Neiska]

@Brutal Justice - Alright, I would like to do a thought experiment then. For arguments sake, lets say your proposed change came to pass. 

 

Now, personally if I wanted to solo on any particular AT that had a penalty to defense (when tankers and brutes already have higher res caps), I would look into other options such as juggling Rune of Protection and Barrier, instead of focusing on defenses, because that would likely be a moot point. And you already said, solo-players would already feel the brunt of the change, but large teams wouldn't likely notice, as there is also a good chance of excessive +def buffs such as maneuvers already running to make up any shortfalls, and there is likely to be a tanker on the team.

 

So the only real difference it would make, would be the solo players, when I would say there are already more AT's that cant solo on hardest difficulty than can, at least efficiently. So in this example, I am wondering what the overall goal is, to nerf solo players or to try and artificially encourage/coerce people to team more, and solo less? Neither of which is a good thing in my book. A game shouldn't "punish" a player for playing X way, particularly when its not written anywhere this is a team focused game. This isn't Everquest. (and thank god for that.) 

[Grindingsucks]

Again, the best solution would be the ability to dial the difficulty up another notch, rather than rebalance all content across the board, in order to balance around IO sets.  Not everyone is interested in a more challenging game.  I get that.  So, why not just add another level of difficulty to notoriety for the folks that want to choose dial up to that level of play?

 

Heck, if you want to throw the people in the other camp a bone, add a -2 notoriety level, for people that just find the game too difficult, overall.  That's totally fair.

 

A great game should be about options and the freedom to enjoy your particular form of recreation without intruding on other peoples form of recreation.

 

 

 

[Parabola]

I don't see team balance as being a binary choice between rigid trinity gameplay and 'city of soloists'. I don't want people to be forced to bring something in particular to a team but I do think that whatever they bring they should feel they are contributing.

 

I enjoy building characters that can solo ridiculous things but it doesn't make for a good teaming experience when you are hanging on the coattails of a character like that. It's all very well living out power fantasies but this is an mmo and teaming is the foundation of the game. I think it should be possible for the game to provide enough challenge to improve the late game teaming experience but the power of IO'd and incarnated characters will have to be taken into account.

[Luminara]

As entertaining as this thread has been to read, I'm going to rain on it now.

We're not talking about balancing the game around IOs, because ED already ensures that IOs, common or set, are within the existing balance framework.  That balance work was done almost twenty years ago, and it's still just as effective today.  We're talking about rebalancing the game around set bonuses.  And it's unnecessary.  Yes, certain set bonuses allow some characters to become game-breakingly overpowered.  The same set bonuses on far weaker characters only make those characters less frustrating to play.  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.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

As entertaining as this thread has been to read, I'm going to rain on it now.

We're not talking about balancing the game around IOs, because ED already ensures that IOs, common or set, are within the existing balance framework.  That balance work was done almost twenty years ago, and it's still just as effective today.  We're talking about rebalancing the game around set bonuses.  And it's unnecessary.  Yes, certain set bonuses allow some characters to become game-breakingly overpowered.  The same set bonuses on far weaker characters only make those characters less frustrating to play.  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.

This right here is the kind of post that can alter an opinion. I recant my request for mez protection for squishies beyond what we can already access in game.

[Brutal Justice]

@El D @Neiska @Bill Z Bubba

 

Have you all forgotten just how capable you are in this game without 54% defense?   Down to 40 or 45% doesn’t make or break your toon.  

 

Have you forgotten how powerful a team of 8 randoms can be in this game with zero IOs?   

 

40% defense merely slows down a blaster.  It doesn’t make them unplayable by any means.  That’s the difference.  It slows people down in teams as well.  You get to use your ice slick as a controller and “feel” like you helped.  Your flash arrow “feels” helpful.  You might actually find a use for placate.  

 

You think it pigeonholes team comps when it doesn’t.  It simply makes the casual player, who is the majority, feel useful.  It barely slows down a power gamer.  

 

Thats the point of 40%. Just to slow them down not neuter them.  You all react as though your toons would become impotent.  It’s simply not the case and would offer a smidgen to the casuals.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

@El D @Neiska @Bill Z Bubba

 

Have you all forgotten just how capable you are in this game without 54% defense?   Down to 40 or 45% doesn’t make or break your toon.  

 

Have you forgotten how powerful a team of 8 randoms can be in this game with zero IOs?   

 

40% defense merely slows down a blaster.  It doesn’t make them unplayable by any means.  That’s the difference.  It slows people down in teams as well.  You get to use your ice slick as a controller and “feel” like you helped.  Your flash arrow “feels” helpful.  You might actually find a use for placate.  

 

You think it pigeonholes team comps when it doesn’t.  It simply makes the casual player, who is the majority, feel useful.  It barely slows down a power gamer.  

 

Thats the point of 40%. Just to slow them down not neuter them.  You all react as though your toons would become impotent.  It’s simply not the case and would offer a smidgen to the casuals.  

1: It doesn't matter, it's a nerf and a silly one.

2: Someone else can come in with the math stating exactly how much less mitigation 5% defense is when dealing with CoH ToHit mechanics, but I will state this as a very long time Super Reflexes junky... it's a ridiculous nerf to ALL powersets that rely on defense.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Neiska]

@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.

[Luminara]

9 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

40% defense merely slows down a blaster.

 

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.

[Neiska]

Not sure if its against forum policy/rules to refer to another game, but I would like to refer to D3 if I may, for context. The gap between its solo play, and team play, is massive. It's not even in the same country the amount of drops/exp teams get, vs what a solo player gets. And I really do not think that is what we should want here. (note: I don't think anyone has pushed for this sort of dynamic, I only bring it up for argument's sake.)

 

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.

[ForeverLaxx]

Honestly, if the primary concern is "more challenge for more reward", then we have an obvious solution that doesn't hurt anything going on today and only incentivizes/rewards players for stepping outside of the Council Cave every now and then. All that needs to happen is to evaluate the various enemy groups and adjust their rewards according to their difficulty relative to other enemy groups in that level. If that's too much of a blanket change, then adjust individual mobs within a faction that are more difficult than a more "standard" foe is to fight. Eidolons and Cadavers for the Vahz, sweeping increase in rewards for Carnie or Malta, etc.

 

You get the option to fight the tougher enemy groups we already have while being rewarded more for it, without punishing people who just want to "punch Nazis", as it were. Would the xp/min fighting harder foes match the Council Cave runs? Maybe, maybe not, but the point of challenge is to be challenged, not put stuff on farm -- at least this would somewhat compensate for that challenge to at least bring up the question.

[Grouchybeast]

13 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Honestly, if the primary concern is "more challenge for more reward", then we have an obvious solution that doesn't hurt anything going on today and only incentivizes/rewards players for stepping outside of the Council Cave every now and then. All that needs to happen is to evaluate the various enemy groups and adjust their rewards according to their difficulty relative to other enemy groups in that level. If that's too much of a blanket change, then adjust individual mobs within a faction that are more difficult than a more "standard" foe is to fight. Eidolons and Cadavers for the Vahz, sweeping increase in rewards for Carnie or Malta, etc.

That will have exactly one outcome: the people who now run Council papers in PI will stop running Council papers in PI and switch to running whatever is the new highest reward to effort ratio mission, and we'd be back exactly where we started, just with slightly different scenery.  I can't imagine the amount of time that it would take to tweak and balance to get rewards sufficiently evenly balanced that there was no reward difference between, say, fighting Council and fighting Arachnos, and then in maintaining that balance going forwards as people develop new tactics to perfect their returns under the new regime.

 

More fundamentally, though, I don't see why we need to work to stop people running Council papers at all, if running Council papers is what they enjoy.  If there are people who are so committed to reward over time that they're miserably running Council papers even though every fibre of their being yearns to fight Carnies, then I don't think that we can solve their issues by adjusting game mechanics.

[Luminara]

5 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Honestly, if the primary concern is "more challenge for more reward", then we have an obvious solution that doesn't hurt anything going on today and only incentivizes/rewards players for stepping outside of the Council Cave every now and then. All that needs to happen is to evaluate the various enemy groups and adjust their rewards according to their difficulty relative to other enemy groups in that level. If that's too much of a blanket change, then adjust individual mobs within a faction that are more difficult than a more "standard" foe is to fight. Eidolons and Cadavers for the Vahz, sweeping increase in rewards for Carnie or Malta, etc.

 

You get the option to fight the tougher enemy groups we already have while being rewarded more for it, without punishing people who just want to "punch Nazis", as it were. Would the xp/min fighting harder foes match the Council Cave runs? Maybe, maybe not, but the point of challenge is to be challenged, not put stuff on farm -- at least this would somewhat compensate for that challenge to at least bring up the question.

 

Too easy to game for some archetypes or builds, and too little offered to other archetypes and builds.  Any improvement to the reward system should be broadly applicable and uniformly attractive for all.

 

I'd set specific flags on damage types, status effect resistance/protection currently active, buffs/debuffs available, and flag enemy groups to interact with various player flag combinations to create a challenge:reward structure that actively and fairly compensated players for the real difficulty that various foes present to specific characters.  That would actually incentivize fighting things which are challenging, instead of simply selecting a "challenging" mission with "hard" critters that one's character can waltz over at +4/x8/Yes Bosses at breakneck speed.

 

My Staff/Willpower brute, Legionette, has no reason not to fight Carnies, or Malta, or anything in the game.  She's a juggernaut of OMGSOMUCHFUNI'MGOINGTOPEE against everything, and the more enemies, the better.  My TA/Dark defender, Parthenia, on the other hand, has every conceivable reason to avoid certain enemy groups, since she lacks status protection, relies on click debuffs (which makes her an easy kill for ambushes), depends heavily on proper positioning (cone spammer, so maps which constrict spawns to smaller radii are "better"), etc.  A fair reward system should be equally compelling for both, not just another bonus for the former and a reason not to play the latter.

[Infinitum]

4 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

Please explain.  Don’t just dismiss.  How is a rewarding team experience horrible for an mmo?  

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.

[golstat2003]

3 hours ago, parabola said:

I don't see team balance as being a binary choice between rigid trinity gameplay and 'city of soloists'. I don't want people to be forced to bring something in particular to a team but I do think that whatever they bring they should feel they are contributing.

 

I enjoy building characters that can solo ridiculous things but it doesn't make for a good teaming experience when you are hanging on the coattails of a character like that. It's all very well living out power fantasies but this is an mmo and teaming is the foundation of the game. I think it should be possible for the game to provide enough challenge to improve the late game teaming experience but the power of IO'd and incarnated characters will have to be taken into account.

It can't via OPTIONAL difficulty.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Honestly, if the primary concern is "more challenge for more reward", then we have an obvious solution that doesn't hurt anything going on today and only incentivizes/rewards players for stepping outside of the Council Cave every now and then. All that needs to happen is to evaluate the various enemy groups and adjust their rewards according to their difficulty relative to other enemy groups in that level. If that's too much of a blanket change, then adjust individual mobs within a faction that are more difficult than a more "standard" foe is to fight. Eidolons and Cadavers for the Vahz, sweeping increase in rewards for Carnie or Malta, etc.

 

You get the option to fight the tougher enemy groups we already have while being rewarded more for it, without punishing people who just want to "punch Nazis", as it were. Would the xp/min fighting harder foes match the Council Cave runs? Maybe, maybe not, but the point of challenge is to be challenged, not put stuff on farm -- at least this would somewhat compensate for that challenge to at least bring up the question.

Or how about you don't, and put in the difficulty options to make certain mobs tougher. Leave the base game as is. If folks want tougher have them set it via difficulty options.

[golstat2003]

42 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

That will have exactly one outcome: the people who now run Council papers in PI will stop running Council papers in PI and switch to running whatever is the new highest reward to effort ratio mission, and we'd be back exactly where we started, just with slightly different scenery.  I can't imagine the amount of time that it would take to tweak and balance to get rewards sufficiently evenly balanced that there was no reward difference between, say, fighting Council and fighting Arachnos, and then in maintaining that balance going forwards as people develop new tactics to perfect their returns under the new regime.

 

More fundamentally, though, I don't see why we need to work to stop people running Council papers at all, if running Council papers is what they enjoy.  If there are people who are so committed to reward over time that they're miserably running Council papers even though every fibre of their being yearns to fight Carnies, then I don't think that we can solve their issues by adjusting game mechanics.

Pretty much the bolded. Who cares if folks want to keep running Council paper missions all the time. No really, as the kids say "who asked?".

 

if that's want folks want to do, let them. If you don't, don't. Simply run your own missions and ask for harder difficulty OPTIONS to be made.

[DrBasics]

I have to agree with @golstat2003, if people want to run radio/paper missions, then let it be. To echo what I said earlier, there is a big reason why these missions were/are/will be popular; many players currently have real life responsibilities that require them to go afk for long periods of time (spouse, kids, etc) and radio/paper missions supply a great "get in, get out" niche that they can use.

 

[ForeverLaxx]

19 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Or how about you don't, and put in the difficulty options to make certain mobs tougher. Leave the base game as is. If folks want tougher have them set it via difficulty options.

Those options already exist. Notice I said nothing about making them harder, just making them more rewarding to fight to compensate for their innate difficulty.

 

57 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Too easy to game for some archetypes or builds

So? We're already in that situation. I don't see a problem if someone wants to build a full "psy defense/resist" build to tackle Carnie Farms if such a thing would even exist in the first place.

 

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

That will have exactly one outcome: the people who now run Council papers in PI will stop running Council papers in PI and switch to running whatever is the new highest reward to effort ratio mission, and we'd be back exactly where we started, just with slightly different scenery

My proposal of increasing rewards for difficult mobs is not meant, and was not intended to, "create variety" regarding farm locale. I have nothing against people that farm; the point was to offer reward incentive for playing harder content that's already harder than what people are comfortable running on +4/x8.

 

It seems people who clamor for harder content aren't content with the hard content we already have because the rewards aren't commensurate with the added risk. So increase the rewards.

[golstat2003]

6 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Those options already exist. Notice I said nothing about making them harder, just making them more rewarding to fight to compensate for their innate difficulty.

 

So? We're already in that situation. I don't see a problem if someone wants to build a full "psy defense/resist" build to tackle Carnie Farms if such a thing would even exist in the first place.

 

My proposal of increasing rewards for difficult mobs is not meant, and was not intended to, "create variety" regarding farm locale. I have nothing against people that farm; the point was to offer reward incentive for playing harder content that's already harder than what people are comfortable running on +4/x8.

 

It seems people who clamor for harder content aren't content with the hard content we already have because the rewards aren't commensurate with the added risk. So increase the rewards.

Okay, if you're only saying increase the rewards fine. Rebalance base the difficulties? No thanks.

[Luminara]

9 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

So? We're already in that situation.

 

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.

[Troo]

3 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

tougher enemy groups we already have while being rewarded more for it

more rewards for higher difficulty is a fallacy