Uncap the Mishes!

[Duuk]

This one is going to get me a ton of hatemail, so I'm turning on my /fire resist up to 90.

 

Story missions should have their scaling level uncapped.  Meaning if you want to run the Hollows at level 50, you get a level 50 Frostfire.

 

Upside: You can take your time and see all the stories without having to Ouroborous it and deal with "What powers do I have today?"

Downside: Not all villain groups are built for all levels.  Some missions may be easier than intended because the villains won't have higher level powers.

 

Counter:  Who cares?  A significant part of the playerbase uses farm mishes to speed-level to 50 anyway, so why discourage people from doing the actual mission content by gating it behind a wonky system?  When the game was dying on Live, every character did DFB until level 20 and then just cycled through the task forces to 50.  Even THAT is superior to what we have now, which is Old MacDonald and his farms (E I E I O).

 

Request for flames comments open!

[Rudra]

Well, at least you know you're going to get burned for this one.

 

38 minutes ago, MadCow99 said:

Downside: Not all villain groups are built for all levels.  Some missions may be easier than intended because the villains won't have higher level powers.

And you even gave a good reason why this should not be done. So... bravo?

 

Edit: Seriously, if people want to power level to 50+3, that's fine. If they want to experience the content, go for it. If they out-leveled the content, they can do Ouroboros which still leaves them plenty stronger than the content was actually made for since they get all powers up to +5 to the mission and all enhancements.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Rudra

[Duuk]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Well, at least you know you're going to get burned for this one.

 

And you even gave a good reason why this should not be done. So... bravo?

Worried people might be doing fun wrong?

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, MadCow99 said:

Worried people might be doing fun wrong?

I've never been accused of this before... this is new. No. I don't care how people have fun. Where is the challenge/fun when you are level 50 fighting level 9 mobs? "And behold! The level 50 Stricken hits my incarnate with Brawl! And the level 50 Stricken hits my incarnate with Brawl again! And this is so fun!"

[Duuk]

They wouldn't be level 9 mobs.  They'd be level 50 mobs.  Like all mishes, it would scale to level.  There would just be no upper limit to the scaling anymore.

 

This also eliminates the problem where you happen to accidentally outlevel the last mish or two on a reward arc that you worked on.  It's a total win AND adds more replayability to the game because instead of leveling past content (lookin at you here Skyway, who I never actually level in), people would get to see content that might be "new" to them even if it's been in the game since i1.

[Rudra]

Agree to disagree. Mobs may scale up to 50 under your proposal, but as you said, a lot of them are not designed to. So they won't have commensurate powers for the new level. I've stated my disapproval. I'm disinclined to continue.

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, MadCow99 said:

This also eliminates the problem where you happen to accidentally outlevel the last mish or two on a reward arc that you worked on. 

 

That's not an actual problem, though? If you've started an arc, the game will let you finish it no matter how much you outlevel it.

[Parabola]

This I'm afraid I can't support. Building characters to exemp well across as broad a range of levels as possible is something of an obsession for me. And I consider exemping and experiencing content at the levels for which it was designed to be a fundamental part of the character of this game.

 

Scaling mobs to 50 also wouldn't simply be a case of lifting a level cap and giving them more hp. Low level mobs have limited powers and limited types of powers. Scaling to 50 would involve adding in new high level versions of those mobs, in effect creating entirely new enemy groups. Not impossible but to my mind certainly not worth it.

[Duuk]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

 

That's not an actual problem, though? If you've started an arc, the game will let you finish it no matter how much you outlevel it.

Not if it hits the next contact in the arc.  That contact won't talk to you if you've out-leveled it.

 

IE: In Atlas Park, you level up to 8 while doing Mathew Habashy's missions (Sandra Costel 2nd), you complete Sandra Costel and go to talk to Aaron Thiery and he tells you to kiss off.  Thus depriving you of 6 merits.

[Rudra]

How in blazes did you get to 8th just doing Habashy's short arc?! That takes some work to bypass the AP contacts as set out.

 

Edit: And you aren't deprived of those 6 merits. Just delayed until level 15 when you can use the Pillar of Ice and Flame.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Rudra

[Naraka]

What's wrong with just exemping down to the mission level?

 

What if changes were made that allowed you to bypass Ouroborus, i.e. while you select a mission below your level, it just automatically exemps you?

[krj12]

If the purpose of this is to continue missions after you've out-leveled them, that's fine.   But I don't think mobs that have been leveled up past their intended level range should give experience.    Otherwise, you'll have non-stop Hellion farms going on, with mobs that are mowed down even more easily than current farms.

[Greycat]

4 minutes ago, Naraka said:

What's wrong with just exemping down to the mission level?

 

What if changes were made that allowed you to bypass Ouroborus, i.e. while you select a mission below your level, it just automatically exemps you?

 

Or at least get introduced to ouro, and that unlocks it (just for those of us that need a "lore reason.")

[Luminara]

9 hours ago, MadCow99 said:

They wouldn't be level 9 mobs.  They'd be level 50 mobs.  Like all mishes, it would scale to level.  There would just be no upper limit to the scaling anymore.

 

This also eliminates the problem where you happen to accidentally outlevel the last mish or two on a reward arc that you worked on.  It's a total win AND adds more replayability to the game because instead of leveling past content (lookin at you here Skyway, who I never actually level in), people would get to see content that might be "new" to them even if it's been in the game since i1.

 

Ouroboros is already in the game as a solution to all of your requests.  Having spent the last month running Flashback missions to build up my main's badge count, everything is already hilariously easy when exemplared.  Scaling a Hellion with two ROFLsobad attacks up to level 50 wouldn't make it more challenging or fun, it would make it an even bigger joke because it would still only have those two crap attacks.

 

Ouro the content you want to play if you've out-leveled it.  It's really not hard.

[Ohsirus]

I wouldn't mind it as a option. You could even reduce the XP to keep it from being exploited also make the mobs +4 or higher to make up for loss of powers.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Ohsirus

[arcane]

As long as XP is reduced for enemy groups not designed for 50, I don’t care either way.
 

For example, a Hellion minion is probably about as dangerous to a level 50 as an underling tier foe from a harder group. The XP should be dramatically reduced to account for that.

 

Basically as long as the XP is complete trash for trash mobs, do what you want. If you want to get good XP for trash mobs, however, then I can refer you to the latest /jranger gif.

 

Drop rates would probably have to be reduced too. Maybe merit rewards as well. This would throw off the risk/reward balance a lot so you’d have to mitigate basically all kinds of rewards.

 

OP’s awkward insistence that he is about to drown in a deluge of hatemail and flames gives this post a weird vibe, on another note. Gives you the sneaking suspicion he thinks disagreement constitutes hate or flaming.

Edited March 31, 2022 by arcane

[Riverdusk]

Well, to be fair there are already freakshow and council that I'd say don't really scale.  As in I believe they are the same at level 20 as they are at level 50 power selection wise.  Not sure the whole power scaling thing is as big of an issue as some make it out to be.  But I agree (and I think OP acknowledges) his suggestion is unlikely.

 

I do know Hellions funnily enough do have some scaling now as some of them get a nasty burn patch when you meet them at or near their highest max level (something I especially notice on my MM's as they wreck them unless you are quick on the "move-to" commands).  Not sure if that was added more recently or was always there and didn't notice it before. 

 

Main issue with Ouro still is that you can not invite more teammates mid-arc.  It usually ends up being mostly a solo oriented experience.  Not that it is bad, but it isn't quite a complete "fix" as it is more limited.  If they fixed that issue, which I think most would love to see,  then yes this idea would definitely be moot.

 

 

[Rudra]

24 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

I do know Hellions funnily enough do have some scaling now as some of them get a nasty burn patch when you meet them at or near their highest max level (something I especially notice on my MM's as they wreck them unless you are quick on the "move-to" commands).  Not sure if that was added more recently or was always there and didn't notice it before. 

Hellions higher than level 10 I think, up to max level for them, gain a molotov cocktail attack. This was added back on Live.

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Main issue with Ouro still is that you can not invite more teammates mid-arc.  It usually ends up being mostly a solo oriented experience.  Not that it is bad, but it isn't quite a complete "fix" as it is more limited.  If they fixed that issue, which I think most would love to see,  then yes this idea would definitely be moot.

Ouroboros arcs are treated as TFs, and you can't add members to a TF after it has started. I don't think they can run them any other way, but I'm not a dev so I don't really know. You can still start an Ouroboros flashback with as big a team as you want. You just have to either finish it in that go or wait for everyone to be back on again for everyone to get the credit, just like with a TF.