A modest proposal - Eliminate Sameness by removing the ability to Softcap. (Long)

[mechahamham]

Before you IMMEDIATELY scroll down and hit that Sad Face button, hear me out. Obviously, a massive, across the board nerf is not the answer to the problems I want to address. Nor is a return to the 'cottage rule'. However, I really feel these problems do need addressing.

 

One of the problems CoH ran into early on was that characters could become so powerful that they could break the game's behavior in a variety of ways, say herding an entire zone-full of enemies into a dumpster in Crey's Folly or tanking Hamidon in the face with a Spines/Regen scrapper.

 

To a lot of players, that's where they want to be. It's been said by many. 'I play this game to feel super.' 'Feeling Super' often means soloing the most difficult enemies the game has to offer. They're not 'super' unless they're wading through enemies with the difficulty slider turned all the way up. I actually had a friend quit playing CoH entirely, quoting this reason, after the issue 3/4 era changes to defenses and agro.

 

Here we are more than 15 years later. IOs offer the ability to enhance a character's defense until they're at the floor of the to-hit calculation in certain circumstances.

 

For a character who carefully picks and chooses what enhancements they slot and/or follows someone else's guide and throws a lot of money at their character, they become as agile as it's possible to be in CoH.

 

I have no problem with players slotting IOs or emulating pre-fab builds. The gameplay doesn't seem to 'break' the way it did in the issue 2 era. The expanded difficulty slider means that players can find their preferred level of risk vs. reward. Or at least it should.

 

What I do have a problem with is the BORING SAMENESS this seems to cast on every character over level 40. "Everyone's a brute once they're softcapped," is something I've heard more than once. It only gets worse, post 50, when everyone has level shifts, pets, judgement blasts, etc...

 

We've crossed the line from 'just overpowered' to 'zero risk'. Something I've heard more than once is 'Don't enter the mission first unless you're set to +4x8'. Another is 'If you ain't blasting, you ain't helping.'

 

Even at maximum difficulty, characters mow down the content too fast for there to be any point to debuffs or control, except against maybe elite bosses, and Arch Villains or Giant Monsters. The secondary effects on most powersets become meaningless. Even Giant Monsters like Adamastor go down in seconds when he's up against Incarnates.

 

I've advocated before for making GMs and Events more difficult for Incarnates and only Incarnates. The immediate response to suggestions like this is 'Why should we be punished for being Incarnates?' and not-so-veiled threats like 'If you want Homecoming to die, this is how you do it. Nerf incarnates and you'll drive away players.' I even had one player tell me, 'Without incarnates, lower level players would never survive the events.' He didn't have any kind of response when I told him that we completed the events just fine before incarnates were introduced.

 

Ultimately, this goes back to that 'feeling super' problem. *Any* change to player durability versus the highest level the difficulty slider has to offer will be perceived as an attack against 'feeling super' and some players will be violently vocal about it.

 

However, if we don't make a change to it, if we don't reintroduce risk, the upper-level game will continue to stagnate.

My first suggestion for this is the one mentioned in the title. Remove the ability to softcap a player's defense via IOs. We already have a model for this, if not code. Defense gained from IOs should be subject to a diminishing returns model. This would make those dark purple +4 enemies a lot more dangerous, and a lot more in need of control and debuffs.

If necessary, and I don't think it is since so many players farm, rescale the reward numbers so that players are granted the same rewards for facing the same 'difficulty' of enemies.

 

Another way to go would be to buff enemies as the level difference between them and the player grows. White-cons, Yellows, and Oranges should see very little change. Red cons should see a little more difficulty. +3 Purple cons should not be approached without either buffs or debuffs. +4 purples should *require* buffs and debuffs to fight against. If necessary, add a +5 and a +6 difficulty level, and make 5 almost impossible for non-incarnate characters and +6 almost impossible for incarnates. Like 'The Really Hard Way' almost impossible. Make it impossible for players to 'live' at the end of the difficulty slider. Players have made it clear that they're not happy unless they're fighting purple con enemies, so I don't think changing the con system is really going to help in this case.

 

This would be, in effect, a new 'Purple Patch' to compensate for IOs.

 

Maybe my suggestions here are not the way forward and maybe they WOULD drive off players. I think that our players will slowly bleed away from boredom with a lack of challenging content, though.

 

If you've got a better idea for reintroducing risk into the game or eliminating the sameness and monotony that is damaging our high-end game, please let me hear about it.

Edited March 26, 2021 by mechahamham

[VinceBlood]

I feel like this is aimed at well-funded, well-established players.

 

For me, that goal (softcapping) takes a lot of time and effort and investment.  I can't farm or shore up inf like other people can.  

 

This would also absolutely ruin thousands of builds and characters people enjoy.

 

Sorry, but while I respect the thought put into this, I have to say no. 

[RunoKnows]

Honestly I'd probably just quit if softcap was removed, and I feel like I am far from alone on that matter

 

Let me preface this by saying that I'm definitely not adverse to more challenging content being introduced -- maybe I'm in the minority, but I'd like to challenge myself and my friends in different ways. +5x10 teams? Let's do it. If need be you could even lock the AE out of higher difficulties to keep people from farming. Also, it'd be great if newer content (story arcs, TFs/SFs, events etc.) maybe had some sort of "Incarnate Mode" where you're expected to have a team of (most likely heavily IO-reinforced) 50+1 or higher Incarnates.

 

However, I want to stress that I think it would be best to make sure 'challenge modes' like that are optional, NOT mandatory; one of the big issues with removing softcap is that it would likely cause a fair chunk of the playerbase to quit if they logged on and found out that they'd spent a lot of time leveling, grinding, testing, selling and buying to make their builds the best they can be, with the best incarnate powers and IOs possible, and it was all for nothing because the ability to hit softcap was removed. That can make or break a LOT of builds.

 

You may not have fun playing overpowered characters and/or you may want a suitable challenge for those overpowered characters -- the former is at your own discretion, and that's fine... and the latter is something I actually agree with fairly strongly. However, with the softcap gone -- rendering a lot of builds that people have spent weeks, months or more building useless since they rely on the softcap as one aspect of making their build as powerful as it is, or even THE aspect that defines their build -- that just flips the table, so to speak.

 

Those who liked playing a superhero game to feel super-powerful are now lacking one of the major fundamentals involved in making that character feel absolutely kick-butt, and now they're in the same situation that your friends are in: their interest in the game, leveling or building characters, and running content may very well die for them, just like it did for your friends who are tired of builds reaching OP levels

 

The best of both worlds can be had. You can have your super-cake and super-eat it. There is a happy medium to be achieved where people don't have to just give up on the tens to hundreds or more hours of work they put into their characters to cater to a crowd that is, to put it quite bluntly, a fairly small crowd to begin with. But if that crowd wants to have fun, then introducing optional ways of challenging highly-powerful characters is the way to go, IMO.

 

Alternatively, if such changes never come to fruition, you can just... Be the change you want to see. No, literally. No one is forcing you to build your characters to hit softcap or to become so powerful that even the most challenging content is trivial. No one is forcing you to pick builds that are optimal/FOTM. You can play whatever you like and no one can stop you -- nor should they endeavor to. It's your character, not theirs. I crack a lot of jokes about petless masterminds all the time but you know what? If that's what your version of fun is, then more power to you. Play the game the way you want it to be played instead of feeling like you have to conform to some meta -- it's literally that simple.

[Bastille Boy]

14 minutes ago, mechahamham said:

Maybe my suggestions here are not the way forward and maybe they WOULD drive off players.

 

Yup. These changes would alienate many experienced players who've invested a lot of time into their high-end, softcapped builds. It would also make the game less accessible to newer players. Swing a nerf bat this big, and it's Game Over.

 

14 minutes ago, mechahamham said:

I think that our players will slowly bleed away from boredom with a lack of challenging content, though.

 

If you've got a better idea for reintroducing risk into the game or eliminating the sameness and monotony that is damaging our high-end game, please let me hear about it.

 

There are AE missions that challenge high-end builds. Go in solo at +2/8 with no protection other than softcapped defenses, and you'll be on the floor almost instantly. These missions are the challenge that keeps me coming back to the game. Perhaps we could have some endgame missions with similarly challenging enemy groups (with appropriate warning to casual players).

 

The way to add challenging content is to add challenging content. Nerfs are not the answer.

 

2 minutes ago, RunoKnows said:

Honestly I'd probably just quit if softcap was removed, and I feel like I am far from alone on that matter

 

I would probably quit, too. My best guess is that Homecoming would lose 50-75% of the player base.

[nihilii]

I immediately scrolled down and hit the sadface, then I read your post and wished I could hit double sadface.

 

Not only I don't see the need nor like the idea of a widespread power nerf, I think the purple patch is the worst thing about this game and we need less of it, not more.

 

Likewise with difficulty harder only for certain characters (incarnates). There's no point to progression if you then invent systems to specifically negate that progression.

I would rather see:

- global rebalance of xp/inf rewards per enemy difficulty, automatically weighted on a weekly basis based on what enemies the playerbase as a whole fights. Council is weak, Cimerorans are OK, Awakened are deadly. But most players fight Council with maybe a little bit of Cimerorans, because the XP is the same.

- more dangerous enemies in weaker factions, possibly as an alternate difficulty setting, but also possibly not. It can be subtle things like the added Freakshow Stunner bosses, didn't change the dynamic of the group significantly but it did give them an extra threat to watch out for.

- extra merits for ticking challenging settings in Task Forces (players debuffed, enemies buffed, no insps, no temps... no enhancements!).

- new difficulty settings, like the "Hard" group size in AE (3-4 bosses per group on x8 rather than 2)

 

[Parabola]

I've tried to stop getting involved in balance threads as they tend to become toxic very quickly. I just wanted to say that I hope it is recognised that the fact we see these threads pop up all the time suggests that there really is an issue here to be addressed. I'm not sure that this particular solution is the way to go but the existance of an underlying problem seems clear.

 

Against my better judgement I'll also say that 'change the soft cap and everyone will quit' is an odd argument. The soft cap resulting in a 5% chance to hit is that important that if it were changed everyone would leave? What if it were changed to 6%? Or 5.1%? Where's the rage quit threshold? People throw around the 'everyone would leave' accusation like it's some kind of trump card in all these discussions and it's truely tedious.

[RunoKnows]

11 minutes ago, parabola said:

Against my better judgement I'll also say that 'change the soft cap and everyone will quit' is an odd argument. The soft cap resulting in a 5% chance to hit is that important that if it were changed everyone would leave? What if it were changed to 6%? Or 5.1%? Where's the rage quit threshold? People throw around the 'everyone would leave' accusation like it's some kind of trump card in all these discussions and it's truely tedious.

I don't think anyone said "everyone" would leave. That is elevating what people against the idea have said to hyperbolic levels

 

The argument is that there is literally no benefit, no advantage, no purpose to nerfing the softcap. People worked hard to get there. They're AT the softcap. People in the future will build their characters and they, too, will be at the softcap. This would senselessly destroy a ton of players' work, in some instances across multiple characters. Why obliterate their dedication when we can try to push a fairer suggestion towards the devs, like (optional) challenge modes/difficulty increases?

 

Ultimately, other players having overpowered characters doesn't really hurt the players who don't want to invest time in leveling/IOing/Incarnating their builds, but nerfing the builds of the players who spent an extraordinary amount of time getting those characters to the state they are in does hurt those players.

 

This is a problem that is very easily solved in the interim, as well; just avoid IOs and incarnate powers that would make your characters break the game. And if teaming with players who do not find that playstyle fun is problematic, form teams with player who share your point of view and that way both parties get what they want

[Haijinx]

The biggest mistake they ever made in this game is making mitigation scale in a linear fashion, and then to put icing on it, make the mechanics completely transparent.  

 

So we all know how soft capping def, hard capping resist, etc works exactly.  And we know what it is we would lose.  

 

Of course the best solutions to game balance involve tweaking this everyone's at 5% chance to be hit, 95% chance to hit situation.   Mechanically its ridiculous.  

 

But you'll never convince anyone now.  So its a pointless suggestion.

 

The right suggestion mind you, just pointless.  

 

[SwitchFade]

I'm very sorry, I cannot support this.

 

Hard no vote.

[Parabola]

3 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

I'm very sorry, I cannot support this.

 

Hard no vote.

What's the difference between a hard no vote and a no vote? Does it count for more? Could it be countered with a rock hard yes vote? Perhaps the Mohs scale could be employed?

 

(Apologies, I'm clearly in an odd mood today)

[nihilii]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

The biggest mistake they ever made in this game is making mitigation scale in a linear fashion, and then to put icing on it, make the mechanics completely transparent. 

I don't know, man. I remember I4-I5 days of very few of us knowing anything about game mechanics. I wasn't part of the "in" crowd but I did notice defense seemed disproportionately strong, and I would chug lucks and do things most people on my teams thought impossible at the time.

 

Guarded information creates an elitist system. Those who are in the know and those who are willing to go through tedious trial-and-error or spend just as much time discussing with others who will go through that process, get a significant advantage over anyone else.

 

Most of what we can do now we could do on Live. The performance ceiling has been pushed perhaps by a factor of 2x; but the spread of performance in your average PuG could be as high as 10x or 20x back on Live, with a single well-informed player significantly more efficient than a full team of more casual gamers. Whereas nowadays, information is widely available and progression has been smoothed out, so what was accessible only to the few is now available to many if not most.

This game was always a beautiful broken mess you could exploit for unlimited power.  I think when people lament the state of balance or of teaming or what have you, they're really pointing their finger at this: the game is more accessible than it used to be. Which makes sense. When everyone is super, nobody is, yadda yadda yadda.

 

 

[Darkneblade]

I think you forgot defense debuffs exists everywhere. If you want to feel challenge stop steamrolling with council goons. Start steamrolling with arachnos.

Granted they are not most powerful faction in game but thats what I done most of time anyway. It is fun being on edge of getting killed because of defense debuffs/mez/end drain.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Darkneblade

[UberGuy]

In my opinion, this game did a few things that caused it to be extremely popular with certain types of players.

• Completely freeform character backstory plus immensely varied appearances (which are, other than VFX, completely independent of your abilities) plus complex character build process that creates the potential (if not the reality) for a wide variety of builds.
• A fantastically flexible teaming mechanic in the form of sidekicks, breaking down one of MMO's most common content barriers - level gates
• "Loot light" mechanics, with no loss of progress or "gear" on defeat. (This was common in other MMOs at the time CoH came out.) Related - no open world PvP - also common at the time. No one could loot your corpse.
• A massive design skill hole by the original devs to achieve, mechanically, their vision of balance, creating a game where characters were significantly more powerful than they intended.

Yes, bullet number four was completely unintended at the scale which it happened, and yes, I think it was a significant factor in this game's popularity. And, yes, that means that trying to change that about the game is going to create anger and a sense of loss, and cost the game the interest of players for whom that factor is one they care a lot about.

 

As far as people saying "if you're not blasting, you're not contributing", first, I'll be blunt - these people are dumb. Even absent Inventions and Incarnates, this game is, by and large, too easy for people to be micromanaging how other players contribute in that way.

 

That said, let me point out that CoH is structured so that, fundamentally, the most important thing is ... damage. How do you complete missions? Most of the time, you deal damage to foes. How do you earn probably 99% of all XP and Inf (outside the AH)? You defeat foes. How do you complete objectives that don't involve defeating foes, like clicking glowies or leading hostages to the exit? Guess what? You still probably have to defeat foes to get to the non-combat objective, or lead it out. And since defeating foes is a source of XP, Inf and drops, the only reason to not defeat foes is if you are optimizing some other goal, like Reward Merits / time.

 

With current content, things like crowd control (whether via mezz or aggro powers) are means to an end, but don't directly achieve the end most people are looking for. And if there were no Inventions or other sources of +Def, people would do what they used to before them - seek out teammates who could do that for them the easiest, and probably prefer the ones who could blast as well - Defenders and Corruptors.

 

The game is structurally designed to reward certain kinds of play over others. Tweaking the metagame isn't going to change that. It's just messing around at the edges, and doing that while pissing off wide swaths of the player base isn't that useful.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

I don't know, man. I remember I4-I5 days of very few of us knowing anything about game mechanics. I wasn't part of the "in" crowd but I did notice defense seemed disproportionately strong, and I would chug lucks and do things most people on my teams thought impossible at the time.

 

Guarded information creates an elitist system. Those who are in the know and those who are willing to go through tedious trial-and-error or spend just as much time discussing with others who will go through that process, get a significant advantage over anyone else.

 

Most of what we can do now we could do on Live. The performance ceiling has been pushed perhaps by a factor of 2x; but the spread of performance in your average PuG could be as high as 10x or 20x back on Live, with a single well-informed player significantly more efficient than a full team of more casual gamers. Whereas nowadays, information is widely available and progression has been smoothed out, so what was accessible only to the few is now available to many if not most.

This game was always a beautiful broken mess you could exploit for unlimited power.  I think when people lament the state of balance or of teaming or what have you, they're really pointing their finger at this: the game is more accessible than it used to be. Which makes sense. When everyone is super, nobody is, yadda yadda yadda.

 

 

As soon as they put you had a x chance to hit and rolled y ...  etc, the system was completely transparent. 

 

After that all people had to do is turn figurative knobs until they found out how they related.

 

Sure maybe not everyone was "in the know", but that's not the same as not being transparent.

 

That's different than something like Anarchy Online where 20 years in people "in the know" still aren't sure exactly how defense and evades works in it entirety.  Other than more is better.

[ZacKing]

7 hours ago, mechahamham said:

One of the problems CoH ran into early on was that characters could become so powerful that they could break the game's behavior in a variety of ways, say herding an entire zone-full of enemies into a dumpster in Crey's Folly or tanking Hamidon in the face with a Spines/Regen scrapper.

 

People forget that those Spines/Regen scrappers were special built to tank Hami only and sacrificed a lot if not all their offense, so outside of Hami they were totally useless.  They also forget the game never had or needed a trinity to do anything.  Teams of blasters or defenders or controllers could steamroll anything.  

 

Definite no vote from me on this whole idea.

 

2 hours ago, Darkneblade said:

I think you forgot defense debuffs exists everywhere. If you want to feel challenge stop steamrolling with council goons. Start steamrolling with arachnos.

 

This x 1000.  There's challenging content out there, people just don't run it.  there's even specific AE arcs meant to be more challenging.

 

If there is any problem at all, it's the game doesn't have enough content designed for incarnates.  just my personal 2 cents, but rather than screwing around with un-needed updates around travel powers and low level story arcs, the focus should be on creating content built for and balanced around incarnates.  If the folks here really want to shine and show what they can do, that's going to add way more value than what they are doing now.  Don't mean that to be disparaging because there's some smart people there.

[Naraka]

5 hours ago, RunoKnows said:

The argument is that there is literally no benefit, no advantage, no purpose to nerfing the softcap. 

Well, the obvious response to this argument is it would have the purpose, benefit and advantage of making other forms of mitigation useful and purposeful and diversify building up a character to other apexes besides min/max def, rech etc.

 

Granted, I'm not for nerfing the softcaps but rather the means to reach softcaps. Being in a team should provide a benefit not just be a tag-along +1.

 

To the arguments about wanting to feel super, these are what the difficulty settings are supposed to be for. Anyone can feel super, even on a crap build. The expectation to need to have the settings maxed to have that feeling, while prominent now, should not and should never have been the wagering position for the balance team and if you are deluded into believing it should, it is a very self centered position to hold. 

 

That is to say, I'm not suggesting taking anything away from anyone (the game is just how it is)but don't gaslight everyone into thinking WE are the problem when looking at this obviously busted balance and end/meta-game.

[Bastille Boy]

6 hours ago, parabola said:

I've tried to stop getting involved in balance threads as they tend to become toxic very quickly. I just wanted to say that I hope it is recognised that the fact we see these threads pop up all the time suggests that there really is an issue here to be addressed. I'm not sure that this particular solution is the way to go but the existance of an underlying problem seems clear.

 

I agree that there is a problem. I think the solution is to add optional challenges, rather than changing the overall balance of the game. I would love to see some new, really difficult missions, both in AE and in the main game.

 

I do not regard it as a problem that the game includes easy content, or that there are easy ways to level up a character, like +4/8 Council stomps. For a lot of players, altitis is the endgame. That it's possible to get a character to level 50 without a long grind is a feature of the game, not a bug.

 

6 hours ago, parabola said:

Against my better judgement I'll also say that 'change the soft cap and everyone will quit' is an odd argument. The soft cap resulting in a 5% chance to hit is that important that if it were changed everyone would leave? What if it were changed to 6%? Or 5.1%? Where's the rage quit threshold? People throw around the 'everyone would leave' accusation like it's some kind of trump card in all these discussions and it's truely tedious.

 

An 0.1% change to the softcap would not drive everyone away, but it also would not satisfy concerns about game balance / difficulty. The kind of change to the defense softcap that would satisfy people who have complaints about game balance would drive away a lot of players.

[SeraphimKensai]

Based on the name of the post, I'm assuming this is satire. Kudos for the reference to Jonathan Swift's piece, let's go stew some babies.

[Andreah]

2 hours ago, UberGuy said:

With current content, things like crowd control (whether via mezz or aggro powers) are means to an end, but don't directly achieve the end most people are looking for. And if there were no Inventions or other sources of +Def, people would do what they used to before them - seek out teammates who could do that for them the easiest, and probably prefer the ones who could blast as well - Defenders and Corruptors.

 

It would be really cool if there were (fun) defeat/xp/loot mechanisms based on control, cleverness, and other non-damage means. 

[Andreah]

40 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

This x 1000.  There's challenging content out there, people just don't run it.  there's even specific AE arcs meant to be more challenging.

 

I was on a radio team on Everlasting this morning. Mainly doing councils. We steamrolled nicely. I'm on my non-softcapped, almost defenseless in-fact, kin/sonic defender, and the team has a good tank and is fairly well balanced - plenty of buffs. Not too many lower levels, not too many tier-4 incarnates. People were getting only lightly touched with damage. Then we got a "Defeat all Arachnos in Bank" radio, and oof, what a difference. We had some deaths; but we rezzed them. We got split as some of our people had to retreat, and others were scrapper-locked on the fight, it was hard and also fun in a good way -- the way that breaks the routine up, but doesn't make you struggle constantly and forever.

 

A little later we got another such mission -- only it was Malta.  That was even harder. But again, those missions are out there and they are not easily steamrolled by a pick-up group. A good team leader will sprinkle them in, just to remind Caesar he is mortal.

 

I think some OPTIONAL tweaking of difficulty would be welcome. +4/x8 ought to be hard to run, even in tougher groups. But +0/x1 should not. Weaker enemy groups should not reward as much as tougher ones.

 

Maybe what we could have is a "Weekly Strike Foes" which sets radios/papers with certain enemies to have extra rewards, just to get people to run more variety.

 

Most AT's are vulnerable to defense debuffs. It's hard to protect against without a lot of "emergency" defense from destiny buffs, better inspirations, and so on. This could be tweaked on some enemy groups, too.  Maybe certain council parasites would have a defense debuffing attack. This is also neat because it keeps people on their toes watching out for certain tactical situations; as much as we watch for Night Widows and their blindness, or for Sappers and their end drains. The softcap itself isn't necessarily the main issue.

 

 

I do think the Purple Patch could be looked at as low hanging fruit -- I think the six level wide plateau of critters to-hit vs players was designed for old-style sidekicking, where you would often have people on your team sidekicked quite a few levels below the team lead. With super-sidekicking, everyone is either at the mission holders' level, one combat level shifted above (exemped with an alpha shift), or one below (sidekicked lowbie). I'd bring the increasing to-hit's back down to level +3 instead of level+6. That alone would move the effective softcap for the hardest content down, without explicitly nerfing anyone's powers.

[kelika2]

In Project1999 there was this guild called Ald Lang Syne or something like that.  They forbade anyone who joined to buy gear from the commonlands, or get gear from a friend, and all natural leveling only.

 

I think it is time for you to do the same.  Might be weird to manage a DO/SO only no firefarming, market manipulating supergroup but it might be easier than asking the devs to piss off the 99%

[Captain Citadel]

This is satire, right? The title? Intentionally proposing suggestions that will draw the ire of most of the community?

[Bionic_Flea]

Nerf players?  NO!

 

Buff enemies?  YES!

 

We need some new incarnate enemies and I would love to see just how mean Battalion could be.  I would hope that they have some tricks that makes having a variety of ATs and power sets beneficial, but not required.  I acknowledge this is hard.  But I remember when Khan/Baracuda first came out.  While they tried to make having a variety of ATs feel needed, requiring them ruined the TF for many.

 

I think we should also add the difficulty levels available for TFs and Ouro and give them some benefit beyond a badge.  A badge will get many players to run it at least once to get the badge.  After that only a select few diehards will do it, unless their is some reward for doing so -- a random ATO, an extra merit, some bonus I-salvage, a few points more XP.

 

You think the game is too easy?  Run with Enemies Buffed and Players Debuffed, or enhancements have no effect.  The tables turn quickly then.

[arcane]

I would be ok with something to the effect of: 

 

- Reduce defense soft cap to 40% for all so-called squishy” AT’s

- Lower Brute res cap to 85%
- Raise Scrapper res cap to 80%
 

This would nerf many of my own characters, but would be such a common sense balance move that I wouldn’t complain.

 

All that being said, I recognize that so many high end players are so thoroughly addicted to unmoving health bars that they would absolutely ragequit. So the change is virtually undoable without outsized consequences and unlikely to ever happen for that reason.

[golstat2003]

9 hours ago, parabola said:

I've tried to stop getting involved in balance threads as they tend to become toxic very quickly. I just wanted to say that I hope it is recognised that the fact we see these threads pop up all the time suggests that there really is an issue here to be addressed. I'm not sure that this particular solution is the way to go but the existance of an underlying problem seems clear.

 

Against my better judgement I'll also say that 'change the soft cap and everyone will quit' is an odd argument. The soft cap resulting in a 5% chance to hit is that important that if it were changed everyone would leave? What if it were changed to 6%? Or 5.1%? Where's the rage quit threshold? People throw around the 'everyone would leave' accusation like it's some kind of trump card in all these discussions and it's truely tedious.

 

Spending hours building multiple characters so suddenly have them one day be changed would yes cause a majority to leave. And they can, because there other COH servers out there now.