Determining if the Game is Too Easy

[Bastille Boy]

For me, and I think for many players, altitis is the endgame. Being able to create new, powerful characters without too much grinding is a big part of what makes CoX appealing.

 

If the route to a level 50, fully-IOed character became more challenging in an interesting way, I might consider that a good thing. But if the devs ever decide to make people "earn" their OP toons through grinding, the game will lose a lot of its appeal for me.

 

I'm all for more challenging endgame content. I understand the concerns about mid-level, cheaply built characters not contributing much on teams that have several level-shifted, fully IOed endgame characters. I don't know what the solution is.

[BZRKR]

46 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

 

Yes, you can control these factors to a degree... but if it is rampant to where the majority of teams you encounter have these unless you specifically seek out players who fit your style? That can be disheartening / the norm for the average.

Well, with all due respect to the amount of work you put in here on the forums, is that something that the whole game should be altered to address?

 

It just feels to me that issues like increased player to player communication would ameliorate or eliminate the "feel" associated with teaming.

Edited July 9, 2021 by BZRKR
Added second sentence.

[Faultline]

You know, I have been playing Minecraft lately with the 1.17 update and started from scratch on a new server. I was actually surprised how difficult the game is when you're starting out with unenchanted iron armor. I died 5 times to creepers falling on my head, something I had grown used to ignoring as barely a nuisance. Exploring a big ravine was actually stressful and difficult. I started to wonder if the new terrain generation that creates much larger caves had caused a difficulty spike.

 

Then I got a full set of Diamond (not even Netherite) armor with Protection IV, and went back to having 5 creepers *at once* explode on me and not even register in my health.

 

My point is, this is not a COH or HC issue. If you grind to get the best stuff in the game, expect difficulty to become trivialized. COH with invention sets, incarnates and level shifts is like Minecraft with fully enchanted Netherite armor *and* potion spamming while eating golden apples. You can't balance normal game content against that, you'll murder all your players.

 

We can certainly add new content that is challenging for Incarnates, but a spike in difficulty across the board is a non-starter; it would be a lot of work that most people would just be angry about because their character feels nerfed. Difficulty settings don't really help here because critters can't go past level 54, and level shifts are granted via powers. Enemies in Dark Astoria belong to different enemy groups (eg. ArachnosEndgame) in order to have more difficult versions of the critters without affecting existing content.

[Bionic_Flea]

Well, then I demand Netherite Armor and golden apples!

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Faultline said:

COH with invention sets, incarnates and level shifts is like Minecraft with fully enchanted Netherite armor *and* potion spamming while eating golden apples.

 

Could we maybe stop dropping golden apples and over-buffing armor and make potions harder to spam?

[Faultline]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Could we maybe stop dropping golden apples and over-buffing armor and make potions harder to spam?

 

Remove boosters and catalysts from the drop tables, remove the super packs from the auction house and disable incarnate abilities outside of missions built for them? Sure, I take it you're volunteering to deal with everyone carrying pitchforks and torches?

[Bionic_Flea]

2 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 

Remove boosters and catalysts from the drop tables, remove the super packs from the auction house and disable incarnate abilities outside of missions built for them? Sure, I take it you're volunteering to deal with everyone carrying pitchforks and torches?

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 minutes ago, Faultline said:

Remove boosters and catalysts from the drop tables, remove the super packs from the auction house and disable incarnate abilities outside of missions built for them? Sure, I take it you're volunteering to deal with everyone carrying pitchforks and torches?

 

What damage gets through my mitigation, I can heal.

[Yomo Kimyata]

8 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 

Remove boosters and catalysts from the drop tables, remove the super packs from the auction house and disable incarnate abilities outside of missions built for them? Sure, I take it you're volunteering to deal with everyone carrying pitchforks and torches?

Yes please.  Also cut the merit / converter rate to something reasonable.  You can send the angry mobs after me.  After all, I *am* overpowered.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Yomo Kimyata

[Myrmidon]

16 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 

Remove boosters and catalysts from the drop tables, remove the super packs from the auction house and disable incarnate abilities outside of missions built for them? Sure, I take it you're volunteering to deal with everyone carrying pitchforks and torches?

 

Exactly. With the exception of the Incarnate abilities, this is not the way.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Myrmidon

[Galaxy Brain]

25 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

Well, with all due respect to the amount of work you put in here on the forums, is that something that the whole game should be altered to address?

 

It just feels to me that issues like increased player to player communication would ameliorate or eliminate the "feel" associated with teaming.

 

Its complicated. The main issue is that of scale, if this were a game at a tabletop with your friends or a local co-op game then communication is key. When it comes to swaying the predominant way thousands of people play where on any random team you join or form you would be swaying how *they* play? That's where it gets frustrating. 

 

That should not be taken away, however there should be ways to... well for lack of a better term "guide" the folks who dampen the game for others in team content to spaces where their godhood is needed?

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

When it comes to swaying the predominant way thousands of people play where on any random team you join or form you would be swaying how *they* play?

 

I've hopped on a lot more pugs here than I ever did before the snap and apparently running at low diff for no challenge to gain merits is the way? Awfully boring to me but whatever.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I've hopped on a lot more pugs here than I ever did before the snap and apparently running at low diff for no challenge to gain merits is the way? Awfully boring to me but whatever.

Thats the key here, either running through content in ez mode, or having a godlike character carry you, it seems to be an unfortunate gamble of if you get to feel appreciated or engaged a lot of times.

[BZRKR]

9 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

 

Its complicated. The main issue is that of scale, if this were a game at a tabletop with your friends or a local co-op game then communication is key. When it comes to swaying the predominant way thousands of people play where on any random team you join or form you would be swaying how *they* play? That's where it gets frustrating. 

 

That should not be taken away, however there should be ways to... well for lack of a better term "guide" the folks who dampen the game for others in team content to spaces where their godhood is needed?

Please correct me if I am reading your post incorrectly, but it seems to me that:

1) It is frustrating that people predominantly do not play the way you want to,

2) Some people "dampen" the game for others.

3) Those people who "dampen" the game for others should be guided away from the others whose game is being dampened.

 

So, for the first point, I'd say that you either need to communicate in this MMO as if you were at a tabletop, and make friends who you can team with in a non-frustrating way, or get in bed with the idea that you want to make the whole population exclusively play your way.

For the second point, I guess I need a good definition for "dampen". I guess it's something like the feeling you get when you wind up a long-animating attack and halfway through, your target gets blown up?

For the third point, setting aside the issue of wanting to separate players based on playstyle, I think the remedy here is more content that requires a specific amount of godhood, and has cool enough rewards to make them worthwhile.

[Yomo Kimyata]

It’s strange to me.  It’s so easy to make enough inf to buy whatever you want in as much (little) time as it takes to PL yourself to 50.  It’s so easy to get merits in the thousands.

 

Are incarnate trials really that engaging?  Or is the joy being one of a million Supermans in a world of muggles?

[Xiddo]

The game - in general - isn’t super complicated. But I don’t want “you can only damage when stood here” or “tap this power” type gameplay.

Sometimes I just wanna smash some council, maybe laugh at the Romans as they swing wildly at me, and sometimes I wanna fight infuriating mobs like:

•PPD from about lvl 25+: the redside arc HC brought in for rogues is banging

•Longbow

•DE on +2 an above can slow me down

•Nemesis with loads of veng

•arachnos

•low level CoT

•Family with their Grav pets

•carnies

 

(to name a few)

 

When was the last time you fought the wailers? Great time. Loved them on live.

 

We’ve started running TFs with the “enemies buffed setting” and it has been bloody fun. 50% acc + dam. A couple of people have quit cos their min-Max’d toon suddenly is fighting something that can fight back. Each to their own.

 

Difficult content is there, difficult enemies are there, I think people quite often avoid hard stuff because it’s out of the way or more annoying to get to. Or, sometimes, they’ve levelled their toon past fun baddies. Or, like me, I’m not always on for a long time. I’ve got an hour to kill. What am I more likely to fill quick: an ITF, or running an arc through Ouro vs the weird spells in First Ward that are an utter pain in the bum (but also quite fun!). If I’ve got a Sunday then sure, hook an Arachnos arc into my VEINS. Let me do Shauna’s arc in IP through ouro and deal with gravity-family then Chuck a guy out of a window.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Xiddo
Spelling

[Bill Z Bubba]

11 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

It’s strange to me.  It’s so easy to make enough inf to buy whatever you want in as much (little) time as it takes to PL yourself to 50.  It’s so easy to get merits in the thousands.

 

Are incarnate trials really that engaging?  Or is the joy being one of a million Supermans in a world of muggles?

 

I found them boring on live and haven't run a single one since coming back. I can go from 0 to 50+3 fully T4ed and IOed in 48 hours but that's now.. starting out, of course, I had to get the farmer to 50 and amass all the emps into transcendents in email, etc. No, I don't really long for the days when it took me 4 months just to hit 50. Granted, again, I soloed a LOT before the snap. Like 95% of my game time.

[Snarky]

23 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I've hopped on a lot more pugs here than I ever did before the snap and apparently running at low diff for no challenge to gain merits is the way? Awfully boring to me but whatever.

I just ran a Synapse on my 50 rad/fire brute.  Took 64 minutes with PUG.  I was never in danger but it was not easy nor boring. I worked for those merits and badge.  A lot if the talk in this thread seems aimed at making the content ‘more challenging’ and even decreasing rewards or decreasing what you can buy with rewards.  
 

respectfully, to everyone who wants to crank up the difficulty on the rest of the community and decrease rewards do that they can feel personally challenged. SHOVE OFF

[Wavicle]

Pitchfork Melee and Torch Affinity confirmed?

[Wavicle]

18 minutes ago, Xiddo said:

We’ve started running TFs with the “enemies buffed setting” and it has been bloody fun. 50% acc + dam. A couple of people have quit cos their min-Max’d toon suddenly is fighting something that can fight back. Each to their own.

 

Difficult content is there, difficult enemies are there, I think people quite often avoid hard stuff because it’s out of the way or more annoying to get to. Or, sometimes, they’ve levelled their toon past fun baddies. Or, like me, I’m not always on for a long time. I’ve got an hour to kill. What am I more likely to fill quick: an ITF, or running an arc through Ouro vs the weird spells in First Ward that are an utter pain in the bum (but also quite fun!). If I’ve got a Sunday then sure, hook an Arachnos arc into my VEINS. Let me do Shauna’s arc in IP through ouro and deal with gravity-family then Chuck a guy out of a window.

 

Adding additional rewards for using those modes, and I think even very Minimal rewards like 1 Reward Merit per mission perhaps or perhaps even less, would encourage people using them, thus increasing difficulty within the existing systems.

[Piecemeal]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

This is where I'm at. The game isn't too easy. The problem is that, due to balance issues and the introduction of various I Win buttons from the P2W vendor, *some* characters, build combos, etc, are so brokenly overpowered that they no longer fit within the game's perfectly acceptable difficulty levels. It's not the enemies or missions that are the problem.

 

Destiny, however, might be blowing out the curve a bit.

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 minutes ago, Snarky said:

 

respectfully, to everyone who wants to crank up the difficulty on the rest of the community and decrease rewards do that they can feel personally challenged. SHOVE OFF

 

I don't want to crank up the difficulty.  I'd like to roll back some things (like SOs for level 2s).  But I'm begging the HC powers-that-be to stop dumbing things down.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I just ran a Synapse on my 50 rad/fire brute.  Took 64 minutes with PUG.  I was never in danger but it was not easy nor boring. I worked for those merits and badge.  A lot if the talk in this thread seems aimed at making the content ‘more challenging’ and even decreasing rewards or decreasing what you can buy with rewards.  
 

respectfully, to everyone who wants to crank up the difficulty on the rest of the community and decrease rewards do that they can feel personally challenged. SHOVE OFF

 

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. I'm betting that no one on your 64 minute Synapse was eating inspirations stored in email or cranking 8 hours of all 3 amplifiers.

 

All I want to do is remove the cheats from the game. Cuz cheaters suck and make everything worse for everyone.

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 minutes ago, Piecemeal said:

Destiny, however, might be blowing out the curve a bit.

 

Seriously, thank you for saying so. I completely agree. Judgement is also extremely problematic.

[Snarky]

Just now, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I don't want to crank up the difficulty.  I'd like to roll back some things (like SOs for level 2s).  But I'm begging the HC powers-that-be to stop dumbing things down.  

SOs for level 2s are hardly game breaking.  I regularly play toons i stop at level 4 and 9.   They were fully SOd BEFORE the recent changes. SOs wre available in those level ranges through DFB and can be accumulated then put in SG base until needed.  You only have so many enhancer slots and characters play entirely different pre 10 to post 10.  
 

Please stop being over dramatic.  Normally that is my forum job and i am getting a little tired of peeps on my turf

 

seriously  though i have never read so many excuses to punish players with mechanics couched in technical and supposedly concerned terms in one day.  My freaking head is about ti fall off.  But it really boils down to a bunch of people want the game HARD MODE for EVERYONE all the time.