Focused Feedback: Advanced Difficulty Options and Challenge Mode

[ZacKing]

17 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Wait, what?

 

So the slider that works for everyone else just magically doesn't work for you? So because of this the developers should do a bunch of work on the powers FX? What?

 

That just doesn't make any sense. Perhaps you can explain it to me.

 

You really don't know anything about my eyesight issues or what kind of rig I'm running and a host of other stuff, so no it doesn't work for me.  I can tell you're just looking to start yet another argument which I'm not interested in doing.  

[Aurora_Girl]

A thought on changing the "Master of" requirements, we brought up while running a MoLGTF last night:

 

It creates two brackets of folks badge-wise: before, and after. With (currently) no distinction between them. 

 

Perhaps we leave in the current MO requirement, leave the badge as is, and *add* the no-Incarnate option with its own badge title? "Remaster of," "Perfector of," "God of," etc. 

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Aurora_Girl said:

A thought on changing the "Master of" requirements, we brought up while running a MoLGTF last night:

 

It creates two brackets of folks badge-wise: before, and after. With (currently) no distinction between them. 

 

Perhaps we leave in the current MO requirement, leave the badge as is, and *add* the no-Incarnate option with its own badge title? "Remaster of," "Perfector of," "God of," etc. 

I like "Remaster of"

[PeregrineFalcon]

4 hours ago, ZacKing said:

You really don't know anything about my eyesight issues or what kind of rig I'm running and a host of other stuff, so no it doesn't work for me.  I can tell you're just looking to start yet another argument which I'm not interested in doing.  

I'm old and half blind and partial red-green colorblind on top of that. So I totally do get it. I understand your point of view now, and I sympathize.

 

Sorry, I wasn't trying to start an argument. I was honestly just asking questions. Please remember that the "tone of voice" that you "hear" when you read my posts is in your head, not mine.

 

Peace.

[BZRKR]

4 hours ago, Aurora_Girl said:

A thought on changing the "Master of" requirements, we brought up while running a MoLGTF last night:

 

It creates two brackets of folks badge-wise: before, and after. With (currently) no distinction between them. 

 

Perhaps we leave in the current MO requirement, leave the badge as is, and *add* the no-Incarnate option with its own badge title? "Remaster of," "Perfector of," "God of," etc. 

Very cool idea! How about "Grand Master of..."?

[Aurora_Girl]

54 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

Very cool idea! How about "Grand Master of..."?

 

That's a decent idea. I knew there was a better term than "master" I was blanking on.

[Doomguide2005]

9 hours ago, Aurora_Girl said:

 

That's a decent idea. I knew there was a better term than "master" I was blanking on.

Incarnate Master of ... ?

[oedipus_tex]

This is bold work, and much appreciated. I am sure a million hours went into testing and building this. Huge thank you.

 

 

If you are open to it, I do have a small suggestion about tapering the difficulty. I suggest instead of a flat penalty, that you give enemies an auto-cast cone power that does some of the debuffing. This encourages Tanks to pull enemies in a certain direction, not just position, while still allowing blapper characters a chance to get in on the action. I am on the fence about the size of such a cone, max targets hit, and so on. You could make it so that effect it places on the player is a Temp Power to prevent it from stacking too many times on a single player. This power could also potentially treat archetypes differently (e.g. a Tank with 10 cones on him is fine, a Defender not so much so.)

 

Probably the biggest limitation with CoX combat system as-is is that there are only implicit downsides to engaging too many enemies as a non-Tank. That is, the only real penalty is that you're making more die rolls. Other games that use an explicit multi opp penalty are designed to encourage Tanking by explicitly hammering you if you disregard and engage too many opponents carelessly. It adds a dimension to combat that IMO can be thrilling if managed fairly.

 

 

I am really excited to try this out. Thank you again.

Edited November 13, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Doomguide2005]

     So as to the no inspirations on hard modes except the resurrect varieties mean the ability to combine inspirations to any other type is disabled?  And are pre-existing inspiration buff(s) suppressed upon mission start ?  *makes note to note what happens upon level up*

2 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

This is bold work, and much appreciated. I am sure a million hours went into testing and building this. Huge thank you.

 

 

If you are open to it, I do have a small suggestion about tapering the difficulty. I suggest instead of a flat penalty, that you give enemies an auto-cast cone power that does some of the debuffing. This encourages Tanks to pull enemies in a certain direction, not just position, while still allowing blapper characters a chance to get in on the action. I am on the fence about the size of such a cone, max targets hit, and so on. You could make it so that effect it places on the player is a Temp Power to prevent it from stacking too many times on a single player. 

 

Probably the biggest limitation with CoX combat system as-is is that there are only implicit downsides to engaging too many enemies as a non-Tank. That is, the only real penalty is that you're making more die rolls. Other games that use an explicit multi opp penalty are designed to encourage Tanking by explicitly hammering you if you disregard and engage too many opponents carelessly. It adds a dimension to combat that IMO can be thrilling if managed fairly.

 

 

I am really excited to try this out. Thank you again.

     I'd say there are some steps in this direction already.  Namely base perception values on at least some foes have been increased to 66ft (iirc).  Combine that with less distance between mobs (mob density) you have the ability to draw aggro from 'adds' more readily.  Both of these conditions should increase the value of "pulling" regardless of whether it's a Tanker or any other AT doing so.  Or is that not what you are saying?

[oedipus_tex]

Do we happen to have any numbers on how often units spawn as the higher rank version of themselves? It's an addition I like, but I'd like to understand how frequently it occurs. 

 

 

A rank conversion from Lt to Boss tends to favor certain Dominators, because in Dom mode they can shut down the pack. Even still it does lower how long they can control things, since the nature of the Dom's Mag 3 + Mag 3 means bosses aren't mezzed as long as their minion/lt versions. It does mean Controllers struggle to control things a bit.

 

 

As much as I like the chance for a rank increase, I wouldn't object to adding alongside it a chance for Minions to spawn with loads more HP and danger than normal. Perhaps it could be a very small chance for a minion to spawn with a click power that provides +500% HP +250% damage +16 ToHit to 16 of his minion friends. There isn't currently a rank of creature that has the profile "High HP, low mezz protection, high danger." That type of enemy would be ideal for hitting with a Mag 2-3 Control power and would be a nice sidecar to sometimes encountering +rank versions of enemies, to round out the challenge and make sure everyone has a role.

Edited November 13, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[Albion]

23 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     So as to the no inspirations on hard modes except the resurrect varieties mean the ability to combine inspirations to any other type is disabled?  And are pre-existing inspiration buff(s) suppressed upon mission start ?  *makes note to note what happens upon level up*

 

You can combine them even when you cant use them (we were getting more wakies that way once we ran out of them).

[Doomguide2005]

On 11/6/2021 at 10:21 AM, Peacemoon said:

and more emphasis on sets that do strong debuffs. People mention Empathy and Force Fields, but buffing peoples Defence rating can be done in many ways by many sets (and wouldn't stop people from getting one shot). Whereas strong debuffs are much more difficult to source and will speed up the TF much more effectively. I am looking at my various characters at thinking my Rad defender would be much more useful than my Empaths. Will be interesting to test. 

     Against +4 mobs given a choice between buffs and debuffs I'd generally take buffs first when it comes to dealing with either foe defense or to hit boosts.  Buffs are not effected by the Purple Patch, debuffs are.  This is also especially true vs AVs where debuffs have to deal with both AV Resistance and the Purple Patch.  Against a +30 defense buff on a +4 foe you can either seek a +30 to hit buff or a roughly -60 defdebuff which the purple patch will then cut about in half.  Check out the HCwiki article "Archvillain".  As it happens it goes through the math on what a fully enhanced Radiation Infection ends up doing to Mako when his Elude is running as a lvl 54 AV --> it goes from a starting value of -61% to debuffing his defense by -3.965.  You get more out of popping a small yellow inspire than using RI.  Part of the reason buffs sets like Empathy and Forcefield aren't desired over debuff sets in the current endgame is IO set bonuses have allowed characters to build to reach things like the softcap or reliably hitting +4's without outside buffs, they've made it possible to be self reliant.  These settings are designed to make that much, much more difficult bringing back the value of having a buff set on the team to cover that gap.  My Empaths can pretty much single handedly add ~30 defense and ~36 to hit to the majority of the team, neutralizing the foes boosted to hit and defenses in the process.

 

And last I keep seeing folks talk about getting 1-shot.  Unless the HC team has tweaked something if you are at full health you cannot, since roughly i4, be 'one-shot'.  Even a single point of health lost off your max you are vulnerable.  DoT attacks can get around this or you can be unlucky enough (even at the defense cap) to get 2 or more attacks strike you in rapid succession to make it seem like you have been 1-shot.  But no even if hit by a single attack for 100,000 points of damage if you are at full health you won't get killed ... just be careful not to stub your toe hopping the curb while beating cheeks to safety 😜.

[Super Atom]

On 11/12/2021 at 12:18 PM, BZRKR said:

Very cool idea! How about "Grand Master of..."?

 

Simple but makes the most sense naming wise.

[ZacKing]

On 11/12/2021 at 12:57 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

I'm old and half blind and partial red-green colorblind on top of that. So I totally do get it. I understand your point of view now, and I sympathize.

 

Sorry, I wasn't trying to start an argument. I was honestly just asking questions. Please remember that the "tone of voice" that you "hear" when you read my posts is in your head, not mine.

 

Peace.

 

lol no, it's got nothing to do with me it's the words you choose.  If you're suffering from vision issues, you'd think you might take a step back and think there might be others who are before the snark.  just saying, no harm done.  

[Brutal Justice]

It seems like it would have been substantially less dev work to just place a defensive hard cap of 40% on non “tank” archetypes and 45% on “tank archetypes.  

[KeepDistance]

On 11/9/2021 at 3:28 PM, KeepDistance said:

The screenshot I'm referring to is the one at the very end of the quote above. That screenshot shows the "Old School Challenge" setting, which is not described in the quoted section of the patch notes. Instead, the "Old School Challenge" setting is described in the "World Changes: Tasks" section, about 80% of the way through the patch notes.

Screenshot still wrong in latest patch notes.

[KaizenSoze]

I have been thinking for fun what extra powers could be added to other TFs at the higher difficulties.

 

Freakshow tanks have an EMP burst.

Council vampires put a life drain toggle on their victims. Good use for controls to knock those toggles off.

Sky raider bosses get full auto or a missile barrage.

 

[oedipus_tex]

2 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

I have been thinking for fun what extra powers could be added to other TFs at the higher difficulties.

 

Freakshow tanks have an EMP burst.

Council vampires put a life drain toggle on their victims. Good use for controls to knock those toggles off.

Sky raider bosses get full auto or a missile barrage.

 

 

 

A really interesting one would be Spirit Ward, the Magic Pool power. It would require you to either shut down the caster with a mezz or DPS through the extra HP it provides its buddy. The rank of the enemy you place it on would determine how difficult piercing it would be.

 

Also I mentioned above auto-hit debuff cones, so that any tank and spank teams need to think about the direction they are pulling things, not just gathering them around.

 

Would also be interesting to see some highly telegraphed moves on an enemy that can only be interupted by knockback.

[UltraAlt]

I didn't read the whole thread to check, but I'm assuming this still stacks with reputation - is that correct?

 

I would hope the selection names have a hover-over pop-up that explain what the different settings mean during the selection process.

[KaizenSoze]

More difficulty thoughts.

 

Miss Liberty's TF:

Banes get venom and frag grenade.

Mu's get an end drain toggle.

Spiders summon more spiders to aggro cap the tank/brute.

Widows/Forunatas get mind link and shockwave.

[KaizenSoze]

I have been discussing with a few people the problem of uncontrollable pets at high difficulties.

 

Controlled pulling is important and it seems to me that pets that cannot be pulled back are a liability.

 

Just a thought for the next patch. Maybe give all pets a return to owner button.

 

What has been folks experience with non-Mastermind pets on relentless?

[Faultline]

2 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Just a thought for the next patch. Maybe give all pets a return to owner button.

 

Absolutely 100% not happening on the next patch. Standard code rant. Added to the feature requests tracker though.

[KaizenSoze]

2 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 

Absolutely 100% not happening on the next patch. Standard code rant. Added to the feature requests tracker though.

Argh. I mean next page.

[KaizenSoze]

More advanced difficultly thoughts for other TFs.

 

ITF:

Glue bombs or nets to down fliers

Shield charge for Roman bosses

Call of Hades for upgraded EB that rez all nearby mobs

Bull rush for Minotaurs aka Savage Leap

Switch the surgeons from empathy to nature for better buffing

Cyclopes get an AOE hurl boulder

Romulus Augustus gets a judgement, either Void, Ion, or Mighty

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

One thing that concerns me a bit is that the increase in options is going to make building a pickup team more difficult.  Now, I solo 95+% of the time, but when I do team (and I generally form the team), there is generally a discussion about what level to play at and playing speeds.  The example I keep in mind is each time I try to recruit for a 4-person Yin is that it literally takes me an hour to recruit three other people who want to play that (at *any* difficulty level).  Yes, I can recruit until 4 then start, or I can start then kick 4, but that’s being a jerk in my opinion.  And that’s an hour I don’t have, and we don’t have a large population to recruit for teams.

 

Anyway, more options are good, but I expect that it’s going to be a lot harder to find PUGs for anything other than what people think will provide the greatest reward for the least amount of effort.  I’m not complaining; I’m just predicting.