Game Exploit removal

[MsSmart]

Hi:

 

    I am sure we all dislike to see a player, exploit flaws in the game, and I stand behind the developers and the community to place a quick as possible stop to it.

 

    But what happens, when the developers were the one that created the exploit and spam use it? Is that right or correct?

 

     In the live days, CoH was a pay to play game, with horrid levels of competition; thus the developers had to produce new content like French fires at McDonalds, and oh yes, there was a need to make the new material and old ones too, challenging. So I can understand the developers doing cheesy things such as abusive travel, cut and paste missions (think citadel), and unbalanced mobs to provide challenge.

 

     So let explore the various forms of exploits used in the game, that perhaps should be revised. 

 

     I do want to make a note, that my belief is that mobs should follow the same rules players must follow. If you feel that mobs should have powers players don't come even close to have, then we find we are in disagreement which is fine, and we can civil about our differences.

 

    1st Category, is confused arch type primary and secondary or two primaries:

        This is a case were we have mobs that have for example a controller primary, and the secondary is a tanker primary. A good example is the Rikti magus, they have the psi holds of a controller, the armor of a tank and the melee of a scraper; which in my opinion is terribly unbalanced. The Rikti has their own tanks, who should be protecting the Magus, the Magus as the game has it for players, should have laughable defense and resistances and dps...

 

    2nd Category, power executions are disproportionate:

        Some mobs can do things faster than they should, for example take Director X in Tin Mage, he lays mines instantly and at the feet of moving players; no player can do such a feat, laying a mine/trap takes time and can be interrupted.

 

     3rd Category "auto hit"

        No player has auto hit, why should mobs, even AVs. Many classes depends on defense, auto hit, comes across as right out cheating. The only class who is indifferent to this exploit are tankers whose survival is through resistance.

 

     4th Category Status Effects:

        All mobs gets MOB resistance, but non melee has absolutely none; yet all mobs have Status Effect attacks with very good range and some have it at snipe range; and they spam use it! Sure the old days developers figured Challenge is good and spamming status effect was a way to add significant challenge, but truthfully the only ones that challenge affected was the support types, hardly proportionate. This can be resolved by giving support types a means to have at least a MAG 4 to 6 protection, for instance, just add that to the Tough in the fighting pool, this way scraper types can further boost their MAG protections for instance. Oh yeah, the old use an inspiration counter, if that is so acceptable, why not remove the MAG protection from melee, after all they can consume break frees as good as the support types, right?

 

    5th Auras are auto-hit:

        If a player is going to debuff their attacks and auras has to get a hit to take effect, there is no automatic hit. Yet mobs consistently debuff mainly defense (why not resistance?) and endurance or regeneration. Take the Cyclops in Cimerora, they have an aura endurance drain, no need to hit, its just works.

 

    Maybe now that COH is for fun, and not pay to play, maybe these exploits can slowly be addressed and removed.

 

Hugs

 

Sue

 

 

 

 

[macskull]

No.

[Psyonico]

I'm going to have to disagree with you here.

 

1st Category, is confused arch type primary and secondary or two primaries:

there's nothing saying enemies in this game have to follow specific archetypes.  Even from level 1, when you're fighting Hellions, can you say what archetype any of them are? (hint, they don't have one)

 

 3rd Category "auto hit"

Plenty of powers are auto-hit... Caltrops, Flash arrow, Disruption Arrow, any debuff toggle, non-damaging tank auras, heck, I'm pretty sure Oil Slick Arrow is Auto-hit

 

 4th Category Status Effects:

Status effects for non Armor based classes can be annoying, yes, but they also provide some sort of challenge to the game.  There are multiple ways to combat Status effects, however, and they should be used.  If you remove any challenge from the game is it really a game anymore?

 

5th Auras are auto-hit:

see #3, all player debuff toggles are auto-hit, all tanker toggles that don't do damage are auto-hit.

[EmperorSteele]

The AI cheats because they don't have the intelligence or capacity to adapt of even the most stunted player. They don't have inspirations, they don't have set bonuses, they don't know how to flank, outmaneuver, or focus fire on anyone who ISN'T taunting them (a status too few NPCs utilize, btw).

 

The only "cheat" I'd like to see addressed is endurance. You can drain them to 0, and they'll just instantly get a huge chunk back, even though they don't need it because all their abilities only cost like, 1 point.

 

But ah well.

[Ibarra]

Can't really agree with any of these points, as stated above, there are a multitude of abilities, toggles of the sort that are auto-hit. Enemies having all these other powers makes them different, I think them following a specific archetype would be boring.

 

There's inspirations, set bonuses and incarnates for status effect protection (sets really only limiting the duration of said status, with others like PvP sets granting KB protection.)

 

Quote

The only "cheat" I'd like to see addressed is endurance. You can drain them to 0, and they'll just instantly get a huge chunk back, even though they don't need it because all their abilities only cost like, 1 point.

^

Edited March 5, 2021 by Ibarra

[Cherry]

26 minutes ago, Ibarra said:

Can't really agree with any of these points, as stated above, there are a multitude of abilities, toggles of the sort that are auto-hit. Enemies having all these other powers makes them different, I think them following a specific archetype would be boring.

 

There's inspirations, set bonuses and incarnates for status effect protection (sets really only limiting the duration of said status, with others like PvP sets granting KB protection.)

 

^

this. 

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, MsSmart said:

I do want to make a note, that my belief is that mobs should follow the same rules players must follow.

But why?

[PresidentDSG]

It's not an exploit when game enemies do it, my guy. That's just called mechanics. All of these are working as intended, and most of these are designed to make enemies something unique to fight or give them some slight edge against player characters, who are generally far more powerful than they are and have the insurmountable advantage of being piloted by a human.

 

If you put in these changes you would actually actively be making the game worse and even easier than it already is.

[Moka]

The AI is so braindead that if they were as limited as a player, they'd be even easier to steamroll. Players have about 9 attacks on average minimum, while a NPC has about 3 or 4 max unless its an AV.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Moka

[Alchemystic]

What you're describing is turning the game from PvE into PvP with bots.

 

No thanks.

[AerialAssault]

Counter-point: NPCs aren't players and shouldn't be treated as such.

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by AerialAssault

[SwitchFade]

@MsSmart

 

I'm, uh.....

 

🤔😳

 

So... I guess... What?!

 

No. Just, no.

 

I'm very sorry.

[SeraphimKensai]

Wildly misleading title.

 

As to your suggestions for weakening npc mobs, no. The game is fairly easy as is.

 

Regarding adding status effect protections into some powers, I'm not completely opposed to if it's done well. But the reason for npc mobs to have status effects is to give us a challenge.

 

That said (and I've advocated for the following in other threads), I am in favor of Kheldians getting status protection for their human form toggles shields as they are the only ATs in the game that have we're designed to have toggle armors like melee characters (and later sentinels) and never got mez protection.

[Rathulfr]

Since nobody's done it yet, here goes...

 

/jranger

 

[Grindingsucks]

@MsSmart Hey, there.  I do get what you're saying, and why you might feel that the mobs have unfair advantages, but I think that  @EmperorSteele really hit it on the head; the game A.I. is incredibly stupid.  Because of this, the mobs have to have considerable advantages to compensate.

 

I think about all the times I've been running solo missions on +4/8.  I encounter one large group of mobs that is about 25 to 20 feet away, and in full view, of another group of mobs.  I engage the first group.  After a protracted brawl, with the sound of breaking bones, screams, gunfire, and ground shaking explosions, I take a knee (still in full view of the other group) to recover from my exhaustion and injury.

 

The other group of mobs ought to have joined the fray by now.  If they had done so earlier, the tide might have been turned.  Now, they just stand around watching me, with their thumb up their collective asses, while I heal up, let my powers recharge, and gobble a few inspirations.

 

Without these advantages, combat would be without challenge and quickly grow stale and boring.  As things stand, I feel it already does grow boring in high-level team combat.

 

Having said that, I do despise gimmicky trash like the Apex and Tinmage TF.  The blue goo is lame.  The instant mine-laying is lame.  Orbital lances- yes, also lame.  I don't mind a mob that is powerful, deals high damage, and is hard to kill.  I do hate ambient affects that can only be avoided with precise timing, as COH is an rpg/mmo, not a twitch game, and it's controls are not sufficiently responsive for this kind of play. 

 

In my opinion, this is a square peg/round hole solution to challenging the power creep introduced by incarnate abilities.

[Haijinx]

Id actually be all for this. 

 

But once we build NPCs like players,  we need to increase their # of powers, add IO sets and so on.  

 

In the end the NPCs will finally follow the rules, but likely be a lot more formidable.  Can we get some 75% smash lethal resist with 45% s/l def Council please?

[Greycat]

4 hours ago, macskull said:

No.

This sums it up nicely.

 

None of what you listed are exploits. You may not like them, but that's different entirely.

[Nerio72]

If you make NPCs just like us all they're going to do is bitch when regen gets nerfed (again).

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, Nerio72 said:

If you make NPCs just like us all they're going to do is bitch when regen gets nerfed (again).

They'll come to the forums and complain that we have perma MoG and hasten.

 

They be Perma-Haten.

[Troo]

7 hours ago, MsSmart said:

Maybe now that COH is for fun, and not pay to play, maybe these exploits can slowly be addressed and removed.

Oooooo 'exploits' that will get some views. (and some responses!)

 

Could add toggle dropping to your list.

 

I see what you are writing and I see others a bit harsh in response. Maybe someday players will have the ability to be as creative in making characters as some of the mobs. Currently it would be too easy to create combinations that could exploit existing game mechanics. I like that there is more variety on mobs. I have often asked for a randomizer for high level targets where players could recognize and react tactically.

[Doomguide2005]

11 hours ago, MsSmart said:

Hi:

 

    I am sure we all dislike to see a player, exploit flaws in the game, and I stand behind the developers and the community to place a quick as possible stop to it.

 

    But what happens, when the developers were the one that created the exploit and spam use it? Is that right or correct?

That's not a Game Exploit.  That's game design and game mechanics.  

Quote

 

     In the live days, CoH was a pay to play game, with horrid levels of competition; thus the developers had to produce new content like French fires at McDonalds, and oh yes, there was a need to make the new material and old ones too, challenging. So I can understand the developers doing cheesy things such as abusive travel, cut and paste missions (think citadel), and unbalanced mobs to provide challenge.

 

     So let explore the various forms of exploits used in the game, that perhaps should be revised. 

 

     I do want to make a note, that my belief is that mobs should follow the same rules players must follow. If you feel that mobs should have powers players don't come even close to have, then we find we are in disagreement which is fine, and we can civil about our differences.

I'm of similar mind in general when it comes to a tabletop RPG.  But in a tabletop game the GM is acting as the npc's AI.  That's a far cry from the coded AI in an online mmrpg.  I was going to say the npc's are as smart or dumb as the GM wants them to be ... but that's not truly the case.  They are limited by the GMs own skill and intellect.  Very few if any GMs even approach the brain power of your average 'high fantasy wizard'.  It would be great if the AI was a tad "smarter" but I suspect it gets very rapidly more difficult, time consuming and computer resource intensive as the AI is written to be 'smarter'.  It took literal decades for chess AI to become smart enough to beat the best human players.  Still a wee bit smarter would be nice and would make them tougher without cheesy game mechanics hopefully

Quote

 

    1st Category, is confused arch type primary and secondary or two primaries:

        This is a case were we have mobs that have for example a controller primary, and the secondary is a tanker primary. A good example is the Rikti magus, they have the psi holds of a controller, the armor of a tank and the melee of a scraper; which in my opinion is terribly unbalanced. The Rikti has their own tanks, who should be protecting the Magus, the Magus as the game has it for players, should have laughable defense and resistances and dps...

Hmmm, well in addition to what's already been pointed out, this line of thinking might have resulted in a decided lack of Brutes, Corruptors, Dominators, Masterminds and Stalkers.  Of even moreso Sentinels.  The game is not static, it will evolve and change over time and I suspect some of the way the above ATs and particulary new powers and power sets come about is a developer using a new foe to develop said powers and sets as a test bed. 

Quote

 

    2nd Category, power executions are disproportionate:

        Some mobs can do things faster than they should, for example take Director X in Tin Mage, he lays mines instantly and at the feet of moving players; no player can do such a feat, laying a mine/trap takes time and can be interrupted.

Yep and sometimes that is and feels very cheesy cheaty.   But stuff like that is a time honored way for GM to occasionally up the difficulty.  Just needs to be used very sparingly or it will cause issues with the GM's players.  And because as mentioned earlier about PCs being able to accomplish anything an NPC could it can be especially irksome for those who view this as more  sacrosanct.

Quote

 

     3rd Category "auto hit"

        No player has auto hit, why should mobs, even AVs. Many classes depends on defense, auto hit, comes across as right out cheating. The only class who is indifferent to this exploit are tankers whose survival is through resistance.

Covered already.  And again exploit isn't the best choice of word.  More properly it is a design flaw if you want to go that way.

 

12 hours ago, MsSmart said:

     4th Category Status Effects:

        All mobs gets MOB resistance, but non melee has absolutely none; yet all mobs have Status Effect attacks with very good range and some have it at snipe range.

What are you talking about here?

Quote

 

    5th Auras are auto-hit:

        If a player is going to debuff their attacks and auras has to get a hit to take effect, there is no automatic hit. Yet mobs consistently debuff mainly defense (why not resistance?) and endurance or regeneration. Take the Cyclops in Cimerora, they have an aura endurance drain, no need to hit, its just works.

What endurance drain attack?  Cyclops don't have any such attack that I can recall and nothing is listed in the Wiki either.  Resistance debuffs are nastier and tend to occur more in "tougher" mob types such as Vanguard, Praetorian Resistance and Longbow.

Quote

 

    Maybe now that COH is for fun, and not pay to play, maybe these exploits can slowly be addressed and removed.

 

Hugs

 

Sue

None of these are exploits.  They might be flawed or outdated game design though I'm inclined to disagree about that conclusion.

That said, no reason they can't be discussed (and some are or have been at length).

[Hyperstrike]

13 hours ago, MsSmart said:

Hi:

 

    I am sure we all dislike to see a player, exploit flaws in the game, and I stand behind the developers and the community to place a quick as possible stop to it.

 

    But what happens, when the developers were the one that created the exploit and spam use it? Is that right or correct?

 

     In the live days, CoH was a pay to play game, with horrid levels of competition; thus the developers had to produce new content like French fires at McDonalds, and oh yes, there was a need to make the new material and old ones too, challenging. So I can understand the developers doing cheesy things such as abusive travel, cut and paste missions (think citadel), and unbalanced mobs to provide challenge.

 

     So let explore the various forms of exploits used in the game, that perhaps should be revised. 

 

     I do want to make a note, that my belief is that mobs should follow the same rules players must follow. If you feel that mobs should have powers players don't come even close to have, then we find we are in disagreement which is fine, and we can civil about our differences.

 

    1st Category, is confused arch type primary and secondary or two primaries:

        This is a case were we have mobs that have for example a controller primary, and the secondary is a tanker primary. A good example is the Rikti magus, they have the psi holds of a controller, the armor of a tank and the melee of a scraper; which in my opinion is terribly unbalanced. The Rikti has their own tanks, who should be protecting the Magus, the Magus as the game has it for players, should have laughable defense and resistances and dps...

 

    2nd Category, power executions are disproportionate:

        Some mobs can do things faster than they should, for example take Director X in Tin Mage, he lays mines instantly and at the feet of moving players; no player can do such a feat, laying a mine/trap takes time and can be interrupted.

 

     3rd Category "auto hit"

        No player has auto hit, why should mobs, even AVs. Many classes depends on defense, auto hit, comes across as right out cheating. The only class who is indifferent to this exploit are tankers whose survival is through resistance.

 

     4th Category Status Effects:

        All mobs gets MOB resistance, but non melee has absolutely none; yet all mobs have Status Effect attacks with very good range and some have it at snipe range; and they spam use it! Sure the old days developers figured Challenge is good and spamming status effect was a way to add significant challenge, but truthfully the only ones that challenge affected was the support types, hardly proportionate. This can be resolved by giving support types a means to have at least a MAG 4 to 6 protection, for instance, just add that to the Tough in the fighting pool, this way scraper types can further boost their MAG protections for instance. Oh yeah, the old use an inspiration counter, if that is so acceptable, why not remove the MAG protection from melee, after all they can consume break frees as good as the support types, right?

 

    5th Auras are auto-hit:

        If a player is going to debuff their attacks and auras has to get a hit to take effect, there is no automatic hit. Yet mobs consistently debuff mainly defense (why not resistance?) and endurance or regeneration. Take the Cyclops in Cimerora, they have an aura endurance drain, no need to hit, its just works.

 

    Maybe now that COH is for fun, and not pay to play, maybe these exploits can slowly be addressed and removed.

 

Hugs

 

Sue

Basically, without some of this stuff, enemy mobs have NO chance against heavily enhanced, min-maxed Incarnates.

There should always be a chance of failure in things.  They should never just be complete and utter zero-effort walk-overs.

Otherwise, why play the game?

[Greycat]

12 hours ago, MsSmart said:

Please all notice, my comment was firmly based on the saying "what is good for the goose, is good for the gander"

IF the goose and gander are equal. AI controlled mobs are not. Thus needing multiples of them, plus combinations and abilities players don't have access to, to make a player even slightly consider breaking a sweat.

[GM Tock]

Had to remove some posts.

 

Please keep civil when replying to discussion.  Thanks!

Edited March 6, 2021 by GM Tahquitz

[srmalloy]

On 3/5/2021 at 9:33 AM, EmperorSteele said:

The only "cheat" I'd like to see addressed is endurance. You can drain them to 0, and they'll just instantly get a huge chunk back, even though they don't need it because all their abilities only cost like, 1 point.

This. Give them a discount on the End cost of powers based on the mob level and rank (i.e., bosses would be 'slotted' better, and higher-level mobs would be, too, with a cap for end reduction higher than players to balance the lack of inspirations and intelligent responses), but make them dependent on having real amounts of End to attack with more than the Brawl equivalent.