Nerf Level Shifts

[InvaderStych]

19 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

That would hinder DA's purpose.

 

8 minutes ago, Apparition said:

A lot of people either don't seem to know Dark Astoria's purpose, or lost sight of it.

 

Well, for starters, the story behind it makes that counter-intuitive.  Maybe it's just my interpretation of it, but Mot poses a far greater existential threat than Tyrant's temper tantrum over losing his "measuring contest" with Praetorian Hami.  In a narrative sense it feels like it should be harder than it is. 🤷‍♂️

 

But there's a lot of "power dynamic" surrounding the Praetorian narrative that doesn't quite make sense to me, but that's a totally different thread. 😉

 

Also, in the current game, once a toon hits 50, everything they do is a non-iTrial way to build iPowers.  Even slowing this down iSalvage from Vet Levels, which I would totally support, wouldn't change that too much.

 

Bear in mind also, that I would support making increased difficulty on existing content completely optional as well.

[Coyotedancer]

RE: DA and it's intended audience...

Regular teams (full-eight or otherwise) were absolutely considered in the DA design. It wasn't "solo only". It was just non-League.

 

(When DA was in closed beta, the dev crew specifically encouraged people to hit those arcs with teams as well as on their own, to see how they scaled. FlyingCodeMonkey and I originally tested the arcs as a duo. We didn't get a chance to see them with a larger group until it hit open-) 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[Galaxy Brain]

22 minutes ago, arcane said:

On another note, this whole “as long as the player technically has a choice to not be overpowered, all overpowered-ness is ok and good” argument is bizarre. Like that’s ever been how game design works...

 

 

11 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

 

No more bizarre than crying about feeling overpowered running as an incarnate doing content that wasn't designed for or balanced around them.  This is like complaining about being level 50 and getting no challenge from fighting Hellions in Atlas.  should be advocating for more level 50+ stuff to do, not nerfing stuff for everyone else because you don't like it.

 

So, these things are intertwined and it ALWAYS comes up when difficulty is mentioned. Addressing each point:

 

1) The player can choose not to be OP, so it's ok to be OP.

This is incredibly contextual, and it is also very important to distinguish the CHOICE TO NOT BE OP vs the CHOICE TO BE OP. 

 

Choice to be OP:

Starting with the latter, many games give optional means to be OP that you have to opt into. For example, many Mario / Nintendo games give you an Uber Mode such as the Golden Tanookie suit (or whatever it is) that makes you permanently invincible, lets you fly, and so on. However in order to GET that power up that makes you OP you have to either enable it or DIE a bunch to where the game gives you the OPTION to become OP at the start of the level with either a "Hey buddy, we see you are struggling do you want to be OP? (Y/N)" or even better a [ ? ] box that carries that power up where you respawn that lets you opt into the powered up mode with your actions or ignore it if you so choose, hell it can even be seen as condescending by some!

 

Another example would be RPGs where there are super OP items that you have to go out of your way to get. Easy example from what I played recently is from Assassin's Creed Valhalla where you can (spoiler alert) get both Excalibur and Mjolnir as weapons. Both are about as dumb as you would imagine balance-wise with godly stats and special effects, BUT you have to do multiple side quests that are not part of the main story in order to get either of them and put in a lot of hours in order to achieve each step of said side quests, etc, etc. Its something you actually have to work towards and at the end of the day somewhat like the Golden Tanookie suit it is something that is EASY to opt into, and opt out of (just equip/unequip it). 

 

Lots of games have similar examples to these two, but the theme across the board is usually they are optional things that are not forced on you and you really need to go out of your way to attain them. 

 

However, contextually you can also choose to be OP by doing content in the game you have severely outpaced. Exactly like the meme of "the first area boss vs me who did all the sidequests", how many of us have played Pokemon and gone back to the starting area with a Legendary to decimate some Caterpies? The game lets you do it sure, but it is far from the intended path.

 

In COH Terms, this could be equated to getting a super decked out Purple/Winter T4 Incarnate build and running -1/x1 radio missions instead of tackling something that is "appropriate" to your power level.

 

 

Choice to NOT BE OP:

The opposite however is when you have to opt out of being OP. Its indeed a very different feeling than the above as often times you have to go out of your way to NOT be overpowered, or even just challenging yourself above the normal difficulty level. To take the example back to Mario, outside the example of the OP Golden Tanookie suit the game loads you up with normal power ups they expect you to use in each level. As a player, you could choose to avoid all of that and try and beat the level as normal / mini Mario and get by with pure skill and no power ups as much as possible. However, the game as designed loves to toss them at you with Mushrooms literally moving towards you when one spawns! For the average player, it would be foolish not to go for the Fire Flower that popped up during normal gameplay, but it *is* excusable to not go out of your way to find that invisible block you have to backflip to that gives you the invincibility star. 

 

An example on the RPG side would be opting to use crappy/no gear at all and trying to complete the game or punch above your weight class. Back to Assassin's Creed, you could choose to enter an area above your level and take all your gear off and rely on pure basics to get the job done. The game gives you all sorts of fun gear to use throughout the main story, much like power ups in Mario that pop up as you go across the level, but you could technically choose not to use them despite the difficulty curve expecting you to use at least the basics. This particular example is opposite of the one above where instead of being over-leveled and steamrolling the low level stuff, you are under-leveled and trying to take on the higher levels, or figuratively tying one hand behind your back and wearing a blindfold when the game doesn't ask that of you.

 

In COH Terms, this would be like choosing not to slot any enhancements at all. Not just IO's, but ANY and trying to tackle stuff, or deliberately trying to take down Psychic resistant enemies with Psy Blast when you had the option not to.

 

 

 

2) Tackling the "Appropriate" content in the "Appropriate" way.

What I talked about above were examples of players going out of their way to either boost themselves or nerf themselves relative to the content they were in while touching on the "intended" way to play. I feel it is important to define that first and foremost:

 

The "intended" way to play is to follow and complete the main objectives of the game while using the tools provided to you along said task. Choosing NOT to use said tools will make your task harder, while going above and beyond to get MORE TOOLS will make the task easier for your efforts.

 

In COH Terms, this is playing the game where you defeat enemies, complete missions, level up and get new powers and slots, get Inf, and slot enhancements into said powers and slots to make yourself stronger and able to tackle increasingly potent enemies. The Base Game gives you lots of tools such and Enh drops, Stores you can visit to buy enhancements, dropped Salvage and Recipes for IO's, and past lvl 50 Dropped Incarnate Salvage and Incarnate XP. The latter two I feel is important to bring up as part of HC that is "intended" as it falls naturally into the player's lap while completing the core tasks as you play. Things like trading on the market, winter/summer events, and so on are "extra" things you choose to opt into and I would lump them into "Choose to be OP", where purposefully avoiding even the basics would be "Choose to NOT be OP / Choose to be more difficult". 

 

Its obvious that a lvl 50 going to Atlas Park and nuking hellions is something funny and not a real problem, as there is nothing in it for the lvl 50. They are going WAY out of their way to do that compared to where they would be intended to go. 

 

Likewise, its obvious a lvl 20 character running around Peregrine Island is in a similar situation where they chose to put themselves in such a difficult spot. 

 

Where it gets very gray is when you have those "OP" characters having paths crossed with those on the "Intended" path, IE lvl 45-50 content where they can join with all bells and whistles while others cannot match them. In a way, it is sort of like the OP characters went back to an area they have exceeded, but they still have incentives to be there like if Hellions gave 10inf and a 1/1000 drop chance per pop at all times. In a single player game, it really doesn't matter too much but when in a multi-player environment where you can influence other's experiences it gets very murky very fast.

 

 

3) What do?

All that said, the BEST answer is that there needs to be more stuff to do with the Incarnate Characters. With HC more or less granting you the ability to be an incarnate just for playing normal content, I feel it becomes sort of an intended part of the game much how Mario would naturally go after the Mushroom or an RPG protagonist would equip that cool sword from the mission. It is no longer some extra thing you HAVE TO OPT INTO, its just part of the game. 

 

Telling folks "lol you can just not do it" is akin to saying "Bruh, just play Mario blindfolded you can totally do that if its too easy". It means they have to go out of their way through various extra steps (getting a blindold or going through a bunch of menus) just to do X thing. At some point the line has to be drawn where content or the ability to interact with the content has to be looked at in order to preserve the flow and gameplay experience, and for something that USED TO BE OPT IN now becoming "Normal part of the game", the content either has to acknowledge that or it should be gated out of things it should not be in much like how a lvl 50 has no benefit for yeeting hellions other for the hell of it.

 

 

 

 

[ZacKing]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Telling folks "lol you can just not do it" is akin to saying "Bruh, just play Mario blindfolded you can totally do that if its too easy". It means they have to go out of their way through various extra steps (getting a blindold or going through a bunch of menus) just to do X thing.

 

Is unslotting incarnates or never even crafting/slotting them in the first place that much of a hardship?  It's not much different than selecting options when setting up a TF or changing difficulty for solo play.

[Galaxy Brain]

28 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

 

Is unslotting incarnates or never even crafting/slotting them in the first place that much of a hardship?  It's not much different than selecting options when setting up a TF or changing difficulty for solo play.

 

The difference to me is that, given in HC incarnate abilities are given to you "naturally" by playing the game, it'd be like asking somebody to unslot enhancements from a power. 

 

Yeah, you can do it but you gotta go through some hoops and menus in order to do so (another factor). Its not like in another game when you walk in with the "Big Gun 90000" that you unlocked from finding the secret boss of the secret dungeon that you can just swap out of. 

[arcane]

41 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Issue 28 fascist patch notes:

 

• Inspirations, which are at least 10,000 times more detrimental to the gaming experience than gaining one level, and are all but unconstrained in usage, have been removed.
• All enhancements provide a "very strong incentive to use them", and players shouldn't have to choose not to use them, or to use SOs instead of IOs, or to use common IOs instead of set IOs, or any other variation thereof, so they have been removed.
• Teaming has been redesigned.  Teams now consist of one General and seven expendable troops.  Failure to be on a team at any point after logging in will result in permanent deletion of the character.  Any team with fewer than eight characters will be penalized.
• Archetypes, and all corresponding powers, have been removed.  All characters will now have access only to Brawl and Rest.  Sprint is still in the game, but it's only usable by Generals.  Expendable troops can't be permitted to run.
• Individuality was creating discord amongst players, so all costumes will now consist of a black shirt and tan slacks.  You may recolor the shirt to black, black or black.  The pants will remain tan.
• All missions, story arcs, *Fs, trials and other content not specifically listed has been converted to Personal Missions.
• You may move your character in Personal Missions.
• Enjoy the game.  But not too much, or we'll send the politzei to your house and have them beat you with a sack of cancer-riddled dicks.
• Oh, we left the level shifts active.  There's no point being a fascist asshole if you can't backstab your own supporters, after all.

Like I said, reactions will be apocalyptic 🙂

[arcane]

35 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

 

Is unslotting incarnates or never even crafting/slotting them in the first place that much of a hardship?  It's not much different than selecting options when setting up a TF or changing difficulty for solo play.

Balance is the dev’s job. It is not the player’s duty to self-gimp. A player is allowed to simultaneously (1) want to play a maxed out character and (2) want the game to be more than a faceroll. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by arcane

[0th Power]

Thank you @Galaxy Brain.  I tried to write something like that but it came out, "alikg akj egfladsb gaerygfl adsg skbg  bamn bmds mfsx e..."

 

[ZacKing]

7 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

The difference to me is that, given in HC incarnate abilities are given to you "naturally" by playing the game, it'd be like asking somebody to unslot enhancements from a power. 

 

Yeah, you can do it but you gotta go through some hoops and menus in order to do so (another factor). Its not like in another game when you walk in with the "Big Gun 90000" that you unlocked from finding the secret boss of the secret dungeon that you can just swap out of. 

 

Going to have to agree to disagree here.  sorry but a couple of mouse clicks to unslot incarnate powers or never bothering with them to begin with isn't a hardship or big hoop.  People are more than welcome to advertise and form their own teams and groups here.  Just as easy to post "forming non-incarnate slotted team for TF" to LFG as anything else.  people can form their own SGs and invite others who play the same way and team up with each other for some fun.  just my own observation but I think these posts are always more about people not being able to find teammates who are willing to play under the restrictions they want, so they come here to ask everyone be nerfed.  

 

6 minutes ago, arcane said:

Balance is the dev’s job. It is not the player’s duty to self-gimp. A player is allowed to simultaneously (1) want to play a maxed out character and (2) want the game to be more than a faceroll. 

 

that's the beauty of the game we have now.  you can do both if you want to without having it forced on you. 

[kelika2]

14 minutes ago, arcane said:

It is not the player’s duty to self-gimp.

I cant even wrap my head around this.

 

Like, for Pokemon, people do Nuzlocke runs and such to challenge themselves

And on various youtube channels, people blindfold themselves to games they know by heart such as Mario 64

 

Your telling me that.. t.. pperalkrhjarhturbbrbrbbr themselves to for up and see the ands?

 

How many people have made no enhancements or training only enhancement alts?

How many people now just do SOs?

How many non-fire blasters are there now?

How many people are STILL playing defenders/controllers/scrappers/tanks when villains+blasters are a thing?

I cant even.

Edited September 30, 2021 by kelika2

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

people can form their own SGs and invite others who play the same way and team up with each other for some fun.  just my own observation but I think these posts are always more about people not being able to find teammates who are willing to play under the restrictions they want, so they come here to ask everyone be nerfed.  

 

This is valid, but is also jumping through hoops if they have to go well out of their way to organize "hey gang, can we not use XYZ thing?"

 

Getting an enhancement unslotter is also a matter of a few clicks, but it puts the burden on the player to take those actions to participate. Likewise, a player joining in on content that they know they are "above" or "below" has different connotations than joining content that you would expect to be balanced to your level and then finding out some members of the team are far and away above what you're trying to do which can be boring for the uber players and likewise the non ubers who get scraps. We should be able to have equal access to feel super, which requires content suited for superness both when looking forwards to new dangerous content as well as backwards to "why is superman helping Robin clear street crime?"

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

 

 

Which do you suppose would be easier for a small all-volunteer development team working on their free time?

 

Which is better for the long-term health of the game: Nerfing existing content or creating new content that one can flex their endgame powers with?

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

I cant even wrap my head around this.

 

Like, for Pokemon, people do Nuzlocke runs and such to challenge themselves

And on various youtube channels, people blindfold themselves to games they know by heart such as Mario 64

 

Your telling me that.. t.. pperalkrhjarhturbbrbrbbr themselves to for up and see the ands?

 

Those are valid and hella fun..... for the individual!!!

 

That dynamic changes the moment you have multi-player though. 

[kelika2]

Just now, Galaxy Brain said:

 

Those are valid and hella fun..... for the individual!!!

 

That dynamic changes the moment you have multi-player though. 

I edited too quick as my brain rebooted, i hold nothing against you.

[Marbing]

@ZacKing

It's more about artificial difficulty vs actual difficulty. 

Doing things to purposely gimp your toon is artificial difficulty. Much like wearing a blindfold to play Mario.

Adding harder content or making the current content harder is actual difficulty. Much like adding more enemies per level in Mario (a harder setting) or adding more levels at the end of the game that are harder than the pervious levels. 

No one is saying you CAN'T make things artificially more difficult. But, speaking for myself, I don't want artificial difficulty. I want actual difficulty. I want the game to have content that is still difficult WHEN I DO HAVE ALL THE TOOLS, not just when I take those tools away. 

I said it before and I will say it again: The single biggest issue with incarnates is the lack of challenging content once you have them.

 

6 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

Your telling me that.. t.. pperalkrhjarhturbbrbrbbr themselves to for up and see the ands?

Dude, you okay? Legit concern here.

[kelika2]

Just now, th0ughtGun said:

artificial difficulty

I dont think self imposed challenges are artificial difficulty, while using mario again, artificial difficulty is the Hidden Block scenario where you have no idea that its there that leads to death with little to no way out

[skoryy]

I feel the comparison of level shifting to blasting Skulls in Atlas Park doesn't match my experiences when my fully IO'd & level shifted characters keep having to chew insps and still occasionally face plant in max difficulty missions.  Maybe I'm the odd duck who takes on maxed outed Malta, Carnies, and DA mobs with blasters or stalkers for funsies, but not everything is bowling for Council.  

[Apparition]

I lead instanced Rikti mothership raids.  One of the reasons I started forming them from inside the instance is because otherwise, I had to check each and every individual in the entire league for the Member of Vanguard badge.  If one person in the league doesn't have the badge, you can't queue.  That's up to 47 people that needed to be individually checked for the badge.  Almost every single danged time, there would be at least one person in the league without the badge, despite my clearly advertising on the forums, on Discord, and in game that it was needed.  I'd quietly send the person a tell, telling him or her that he or she needed the badge, and how to get it.  Then I'd get a response, "Oh, I don't need it." or "I've done plenty of mothership raids without it."  Then I'd have to argue with the person, holding everyone else up, explaining that yes, in fact, he or she actually does need it.  Either the person would get the badge, or I'd kick him or her from the league.

 

Now, with my forming instanced Rikti mothership raids from inside the instance, people who have the badge can get right in and fight Rikti around the Point du Hoc Vanguard compound to keep themselves occupied while the league forms, and those who don't have the badge can't get in but also don't hold everything up for everyone else.

 

My point is... if you try to make some sort of artificial barrier, "Oh, we're going to do an ITF, but you need to unslot all of your Incarnate abilities first," some people will join, but won't unslot their Incarnates.  They'll either forget to unslot something, or they'll see an ITF advertised, and won't care one whit about your requirements and join anyway.  "Pfft, I'm not unslotting my Incarnates.  They'll let me join anyway."  All they want is the XP and don't care about anything else.

[PeregrineFalcon]

Here we go again...

 

So basically you power munchkined your characters full up with Purple IO sets and all T4 Incarnates and you're complaining that the content is too easy? Wow. What a shocker. Your character became Superman in a superhero game. If you'd rather play Lame-O the Wonder Clown instead of Superman then go play WoW.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

1 minute ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Here we go again...

 

So basically you power munchkined your characters full up with Purple IO sets and all T4 Incarnates and you're complaining that the content is too easy? Wow. What a shocker. Your character became Superman in a superhero game. If you'd rather play Lame-O the Wonder Clown instead of Superman then go play WoW.

 

Superman at least has superman level things to deal with.

[Luminara]

4 minutes ago, th0ughtGun said:

It's more about artificial difficulty vs actual difficulty.

 

You tying one hand behind your back and proceeding to split a cord of wood, versus someone else tying one of your hands behind your back and you proceeding to split a cord of wood.

 

Difficulty is difficulty.  Having someone else impose the restriction on you doesn't magically legitimize it, in any way.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Superman at least has superman level things to deal with.

So what would you call an iTrial? Is that challenging content?

 

If there's not enough challenge in this game for you then how about you go solo the AE 801 series instead of trying to nerf all my characters and force me to play your "game is too easy bro" mode!

 

Basically people are, once again, complaining about being a super hero in a super hero game.

[Cobalt Arachne]

New content and special difficulty options are coming that take all those Incarnate powers into account; In the not too distant future you will have the option to face enemies who are more than happy to stomp you into a fine paste even with your Incarnate powers and Level Shift.

But as always, it'll be a choice, but those who endure the peril will get extra rewards for it.

[Marbing]

1 minute ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

New content and special difficulty options are coming that take all those Incarnate powers into account; In the not too distant future you will have the option to face enemies who are more than happy to stomp you into a fine paste even with your Incarnate powers and Level Shift.

But as always, it'll be a choice, but those who endure the peril will get extra rewards for it.

This is what I have been asking for and talking about. 

Very different from self imposed restrictions! Thank you for chiming in! 😄 

[kelika2]

1 minute ago, th0ughtGun said:

This is what I have been asking for and talking about. 

Very different from self imposed restrictions! Thank you for chiming in! 😄 

Yeah but if you opt in to having a challenge its the same thing as a self imposed challenge.

That new content has to be a single option Super Ultra Omega Nightmare Hell DefCon 0.5 only for this thread to make sense