issue 27 Focused Feedback: Advanced Difficulty - Imperious Task Force

[Bill Z Bubba]

Side note when testing: Check Your Build First. Make sure you aren't running some ugly procmonster rework you did for a single test and completely forgot about.

[Linea]

1 hour ago, GM Impervium said:

10 Mag Confusion defense? 

There are three major imbalances in CoH mobs:  Confuse, KD (popcorn), and Fear.  This may not be the best way to address the issue, but it's the one they have the tech to implement.  Otherwise, a single control oriented Dom could mitigate well over 85%, likely 95%, of the damage of every spawn except the AVs.  It's unfortunate that those control sets are so heavily balanced around that one power.  That design imbalance will need to be looked at later as well.

 

The only other option I see atm, would be higher Resistances instead of Protections.   Or a mixture of Resistances and lower magnitude Protections

 

45 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Can't say I'm a fan of a mechanism that can hold a tank through double stacked active defense and breakfrees and then insta-kills you with no hope of escape

It's much like the Goldbrickers, though I do wish it was better telegraphed.   I jumped back every time I killed a dark aura target, and they still got me half a dozen times.  If you kill one that doesn't get you,  I think there's a short duration protection buff.  I need to do more testing on these, as I never completely figured them out.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Linea

[GM Impervium]

@laudwic, Well, remember, confuse doesn't JUST make enemies damage each other: it prevents them from attacking the player(s). Your Blaster nuke analogy only partially fits, because to do so, the Blaster has to put themselves in danger. Confuses (especially AoEs) negate any potential agro or damage taken. It's less about whittling down mobs/AVs, and more about the lack of danger they pose to the PCs.

Edited July 13, 2022 by GM Impervium

[Cobalt Arachne]

2 minutes ago, laudwic said:

 

 

Mezzing the henchmen has always been a valid tactic whether it was Skyraiders Force Field Generators or making Tsoo Sorcerers your personal unreliable teleporting healbots.  I remember using confuse on AVs (from illusion control with only a duration SO in it) back on live in the early days to have the AV soften up or clear all the mobs around it.  The problem with confuse is nothing new. 

 

With this being said, I think the 10 Mag Protection on bosses and below is overkill.  

 

Yes, you could have them confused battles to the death, but think about how long that would take to confuse low level mob to fight other low level mobs to completion.  I don't see a team having patience for that, and if someone is going to spend hours to try to make that work, my God let them. 

 

If your worried about cheesing then put some extra protection on EBs and up.  With the advent of the purple triangles, even when you got them confused, it was hard, not impossible with the right builds, to have it for a decent duration.  Adding the mag protection will make it harder to have a longer duration or perma confuse (I haven't seen it but read that it was possible to perma confuse an AV on this forum).  That gives less time of an EB or AV slaughtering everything else in the spawn.   That seems to meet your goal without, essentially, nerfing a power set except we throw them a bone where they can do one thing at one point in one mission of the whole Strike Force that's cool.    Hopefully the player hasn't dropped and is still awake for their moment of usefulness.  Better hope they don't miss.

 

All ATs should be able to be fully involved, not a one trick pony at the end. 

 

To put it another way, how do you think players of Blaster ATs will be that they can't use their nuke until the end, and only against one specific foe?

 

I appreciate the game and all you all do, but I really don't get this change.  (Don't get me started on lack of a Clown Mastermind set, though.)

 

 

The justification for the Confuse limitation was because when you use Confuse you sacrifice part of your rewards, which is usually influence and experience. But in Advanced Difficulty content you're there to earn merits and Aether salvage, so in order to use Confuse you must pick a lower difficulty and sacrifice that reward.

Testing demonstrated that these buffed-up enemies handedly tore themselves to pieces when confused. Confuse without a doubt would be the undisputed king of making this content trivial.

Think of it like this:
If a mobs arbitrary danger value is a 5, most mez makes them locked down, which reduces that danger value to 0.
If we look at Confuse, it turns that mob's danger value back on themselves resulting in a -5.

That's no problem in normal content but if the danger value is suddenly 500, then that same Confuse makes the swing to -500, which just far too strong to allow completely unmitigated and without any impactful limitations or penalties.

If you want to abuse Confuse to its full-effect, you'll have to choose a lower difficulty and thus reduce the rewards you earn which is in-line for how Confuse works with rewards.

[laudwic]

1 minute ago, GM Impervium said:

@laudwic, Well, remember, confuse doesn't JUST make enemies damage each other: it prevents them from attacking the player(s). Your Blaster nuke analogy only partially fits, because to do so, the Blaster has to put themselves in danger. Confuses (especially AoEs) negate any potential agro or damage taken. It's less about whittling down mobs/AVs, and more about the lack of danger they pose to the PCs.

 

Absolutely, Confuse is one of the best damage mitigation powers in the game, highly underrated in that regard.

 

But, my point was that you should increase Confuse protection to EBs and up, you remove or lesson the amount of time that they are attacking their allies and not attacking PCs rather than giving 10 mag protection to Bosses and below.  Bosses and Below are your cannon flodder at that level of power and enemy concentrations.  Removing their attack and aggro is a reasonable use of a tier 4 ability or a tier 9.  It is little more than what your getting from a Hold power in that they are fighting each other. 

 

Your point is well taken, but I still believe that you would better achieve the stated goal of preventing players cheesing the encounters if you buff EB and up Confuse protection but leave bosses and below unchanged.  Its the Big Baddies you want to be aggro and still attacking, the cannon flodder is just decoration.  You should be able to effectively fight the flodder.

 

 

[Cobalt Arachne]

27 minutes ago, Linea said:

There are three major imbalances in CoH mobs:  Confuse, KD (popcorn), and Fear.  This may not be the best way to address the issue, but it's the one they have the tech to implement.  Otherwise, a single control oriented Dom could mitigate well over 85%, likely 95%, of the damage of every spawn except the AVs.  It's unfortunate that those control sets are so heavily balanced around that one power.  That design imbalance will need to be looked at later as well.

 

The only other option I see atm, would be higher Resistances instead of Protections.   Or a mixture of Resistances and lower magnitude Protections

 

It's much like the Goldbrickers, though I do wish it was better telegraphed.   I jumped back every time I killed a dark aura target, and they still got me half a dozen times.  If you kill one that doesn't get you,  I think there's a short duration protection buff.  I need to do more testing on these, as I never completely figured them out.

When was this? On Brainstorm? I can look into increasing the delay between the FX telegraph and when the hostless Nictus spawn if it's not enough to react reliably even when looking for it.

[laudwic]

7 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

The justification for the Confuse limitation was because when you use Confuse you sacrifice part of your rewards, which is usually influence and experience. But in Advanced Difficulty content you're there to earn merits and Aether salvage, so in order to use Confuse you must pick a lower difficulty and sacrifice that reward.

Testing demonstrated that these buffed-up enemies handedly tore themselves to pieces when confused. Confuse without a doubt would be the undisputed king of making this content trivial.

Think of it like this:
If a mobs arbitrary danger value is a 5, most mez makes them locked down, which reduces that danger value to 0.
If we look at Confuse, it turns that mob's danger value back on themselves resulting in a -5.

That's no problem in normal content but if the danger value is suddenly 500, then that same Confuse makes the swing to -500, which just far too strong to allow completely unmitigated and without any impactful limitations or penalties.

If you want to abuse Confuse to its full-effect, you'll have to choose a lower difficulty and thus reduce the rewards you earn which is in-line for how Confuse works with rewards.

 

I'm coming at this from more of a table top RPG view point.  Many games make distinctions between class of foes.  Some that would go down easily, and the more important enemies that had more hit points, buffs and other boons to make them a greater challenge.

 

To clarify, with your testing of confuse, are you referring to what enemies boss class and below were doing when confused or are you looking at EBs and above acting when confused?  If you are looking at EBs and above, then my point remains, buff them EVs and above so you keep them from decimating their allies and fighting the PCs but still allow the PCs to be able to effectively wade through minions.  If your looking at Bosses and below, are you looking at what they do to each other or what they are doing the EB and above?  Personally, I suggest what confused bosses and below do to each other under confuse is not very important as your are in a situation where PCs have nukes as well as Incarnate AoE powers that will decimate that class of foes as fast or faster than Mass Confusion.  

 

I haven't played this new version, but are confused minions really able to tear EBs and above to pieces?      

 

Also, I disagree about your rewards analogy.  There is still XP at this point, bonus XP even.  So Confuse is still causing an XP drop.  If the argument is that XP is no longer important at that point, it begs the question of why it was removed form AE when your 50+ if it does not matter?  So, its the same penalty, but you are penalized during the mission as well.

 

I appreciate the feedback, but can we just buff EB and above and leave the rest at normal levels of susceptibility?  It seems to better meet your needs without nerfing this AT more than it already is.  Save this kind of pain for Regeneration.  (I kid, I kid)

 

  

 

 

 

[Cobalt Arachne]

20 minutes ago, laudwic said:

I haven't played this new version, but are confused minions really able to tear EBs and above to pieces?

Currently each star rank of difficulty removes one additional rank from susceptibility of Confuse, excepting for 1-Star which used to have it for Elite Bosses but was removed:
1-Star - No confusion protection on any mobs
2-Star - EBs, bosses
3-Star - EBs, bosses, LTs
4-Star - EBs, bosses, LTs, minions

If you are suggesting a different approach, I would be totally fine with making bosses+ have the Confuse protection at all ranks instead and leaving it off LTs and minions if that's more desireable. Meaning you'd get this:
1-Star - EBs, bosses
2-Star - EBs, bosses
3-Star - EBs, bosses
4-Star - EBs, bosses

There has to be a compromise somewhere because of how extremely strong Confuse is and because it incurs no aggro to the user. It's not like other forms of control that actually have consequences for sloppy execution or careless use, so it's not only incredibly potent, but also completely safe.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, GM Impervium said:

It's basically an anti-cheesing method for higher tiers of difficulty

Sounds like @Voltak is too stronk!

[Linea]

49 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Confuse without a doubt would be the undisputed king of making this content trivial.

Confuse Followed closely by KD Popcorn, and Fear.   Confuse and Popcorn have been mitigated, so now I can't wait to see what 'Team Fear' does.    ... and see how that's all handled going forward and how those Powersets are rebalanced so they aren't unfairly penalized otherwise.

 

I like the tiered approach to the confuse protection.  1-star runs are no holds barred all the training wheels on.  4-star is hell on earth. 😈

 

40 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

When was this? On Brainstorm?

I was on Cryptic on the old build.  I need to test more on Brainstorm when I get a chance.   Just keep an eye on it, and with other's feedback on it.   With luck I'll try to run another one tonight on Brainstorm.

If you don't pop a tank like a grape at least once per run, it's too easy. 😜     But at the same time you don't want to pop the tanks every spawn either.  3 to 5 seconds should be good, 3 second attack animation, 2 seconds to jump or teleport away.  A last second range check to make sure you're still in-range to account for teleport timing if there isn't already?  I'd even say a friendly team-teleport or phase bubble or cage bubble might be fair game to break the possession.  Not sure how much of this is already accounted for, much testing to be done.  *Shrug*

Edited July 13, 2022 by Linea

[Mezmera]

The thing about the ITF was that it was always understood that it neuters actual control characters since once they shout just about all control goes out the window.  Now I don't mind them getting a high amount of mez protection but if it's something where I can't just focus on a particular EB to get them under control it does get irksome.  For instance on the regular old tf those ambush spawns I will focus my aoe control surrounding that EB and then grind into them with more ST control but if any of its surrounding allies shouts there's nothing I can do to control that EB anymore.  To me that takes things too far for control to enjoy playing this tf, which is fine so long as other tfs don't go kneecapping control like the ITF always has. 

 

As far as I can tell though the 10 mag shouldn't be a problem with how my Mass Confusion is set up with the Contagious proc since I'd likely be on target with the EB hitting their surrounding targets with Mass Confusion and then apply another ST confuse on that EB, but if they're getting the benefit of that shout to keep them uncontrollable then that just sounds as fun as it always has.   

 

It's a fine line trying to take away that cheese stealth confuse strategy through high protection.  Ideally you want to have control characters to have to actually put skin in the game and have the control they can offer still be viable.  

 

I haven't played this yet but I can't wait to see what my Mind dom can do to your new creation.  

Edited July 13, 2022 by Mezmera

[Cobalt Arachne]

13 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

I haven't played this yet but I can't wait to see what my Mind dom can do to your new creation.  

We did what we could, but at its core the ITF is still very anti-control by its design, but we did make some efforts to make sure control had some valuable things to do.

Spoilers for anyone who doesn't want to know the mechanical changes in the Advanced Difficulty ITF:

Spoiler

1. Cimeroran Traitor LTs had their 50% HP 30-mag mez protection shout changed to instead be a short +DMG, +To-hit, +Crit chance buff, which makes cascading mez immunity less prevalent.
2. Hostless Nictus that are mezzed immediately fail their body hijacking attempt and are then sitting ducks until death.
3. In the Nictus Romulus encounter, the Emerald Barrier Nictus can be mezzed instead of killed, which will reduce Rommy's regeneration by 50% without making him invulnerable.

[InvaderStych]

  

5 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Obviously, unlike the Brickernauts where you just die, failing to deal with a hostless Nictus results in the Nictus taking your body, juiced-up with their energy, to use your own powers against your team, so the benefits/penalties equal out.

 

So ... How accurate are the body-snatched doubles supposed to be to the original player?  Fought one spawned from my Psi/SD scrapper and it was using some mix of attacks from Psychic Blast/Assault.  Definitely no Psi Melee used.  Was expecting to get hoisted upon my own Greater Psi Blade upon returning from the Hospital.

 

Also, I absolutely love that a mechanic like this has made it into the game!

 

4 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

I can look into increasing the delay between the FX telegraph and when the hostless Nictus spawn if it's not enough to react reliably even when looking for it.

 

It might just be the new-factor, but it does feel like it happens fast just poking around with them while solo.  I can see this being something that is commonly missed on teams resulting no shortage of doppelgangers to put down.

 

😄

[Cobalt Arachne]

8 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

So ... How accurate are the body-snatched doubles supposed to be to the original player?  Fought one spawned from my Psi/SD scrapper and it was using some mix of attacks from Psychic Blast/Assault.  Definitely no Psi Melee used.  Was expecting to get hoisted upon my own Greater Psi Blade upon returning from the Hospital.

They're using the existing doppelganger tech, if you go into AE and make a test arc that spawns a doppelganger boss of your character, the Nictus will have those exact same powers if they stole your body

[Voltak]

8 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

This was brought up in closed beta. It's basically an anti-cheesing method for higher tiers of difficulty (which, after all, won't be so hard if you could get all the enemies to fight each other most of the time). As @KaizenSoze said, Cimmys have always been a bit tougher against CC, so in this case, it's not so bad. However, there's a bit of a bone thrown towards Controllers/Dominators in hard mode ITF: There's a variation of the Recluse Towers mechanic where MEZZING one of the AV's buffers will actually be a better strategy than killing it. Since details weren't stated in the patch notes, I won't say much more than that.

I see some players have tagged me in this thread and in a subject which deals with confusion and the ITF. 

I appreciate that.  I had not read this thread being that I was busy. 
I don't know of any other player who has solo'd the ITF with a dominator at max difficulty settings +4x8), no inspirations, no deaths, nor the LR SF at same difficulty settings. 
So I understand why I am being tagged in this thread. 
I know that I used "possession" extensively to do this, but it was not the only tactics and to solo the ITF with a dominator at such difficulty level is still extremely difficult and it takes skill and patience and will power to even keep the desire to finish the whole thing. 

GM Impervium, my hat off to you for taking time to respond. 
I appreciate and have empathy or sympathy for the load of work all of you do. 

I do, if I may, feel like I have to express something that concerns me:  
Many players, and I don't know about Devs, but many people look at Dominators "Cheesing" game content or task forces with "Possession" or "Confuse". 
So that's "Cheesing". 

When a tank steamrolls through the ITF like it's a walk in the park, that's not cheesy, right?   Walking around like God Mode all over, is not cheese. 

In our Master ITF chnl, tankers who want to go through the test, they must do the ITF at the same settings I did but they must do it with enemies buffed or else it won't go on the boards on record, because tanks is just too easy of a game mode to play.  They are the kings of cheese, they walk , run with cheese all over. 

So let's look at it with equality here, please. 

We are using our tools to deal with matters.  

I mean, I solo'd the ITF , same settings, with an Empathy Defender and I have that on video. 
What's my cheese there?  

This could have been handled another way. 
Please look at my AEs which are even harder than @Linea's  801. 
There is no way a dominator will cheese the whole thing because there are mobs who grant support to the enemies, similar to CImerorans, and it's not a shout mechanic like Cimerorans use.  Yet, control is very much welcome.  
What many teams would fail at doing, Linea and I did with his Plant/Time Controller and my empathy defender.   But it took keen tactics and strategies.  It was still very difficult and it took controlling the right mobs at the right time.  Even then we still had 4 deaths before we finished.  Again, it was something super tankers and teams of 8 were just getting wrecked.  
  
Talk to me if you want to know more. 

At least I find solace that if a tanker cannot solo relentless ITF then Dominators cannot either.  
But Mag 10 is a bit of a bitter one for me to swallow because it was directed specifically at Dominators.  

I am free to discuss and thanks for the players who tagged me. 

The key to making harder challenges vs players is bring debuffs and buffs to the enemies' arsenal. There are some great power sets you could grant to enemies that will really challenge players.  You don't need the ridiculous amounts of dmg like it was given to enemies in Relentless AEON.   You don't need exaggerated mag protections of any kind like the ones implemented here.  There are other ways. 
The same great sets that players use to debuff or buff players , those sets can be a beautiful thing vs those same players. 

Please, I am not trying to be negative here.  I think this is the best of times because we are actually able to discuss this with the devs and I am sure they love the game as much as we do.  

I am rooting for the Dev team because I know they are on a volunteer basis. 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Voltak

[Zappalina]

On 7/12/2022 at 9:32 PM, AustinSmith said:

Original ITF isn't going away or changing, you just don't set it to a challenge mode when you talk to Imperious

Thank you, I thought it was the star and up settings, I botched the settings the first few attempts and didn't understand  until hopping on late last night after seeing this.

[InvaderStych]

12 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

They're using the existing doppelganger tech, if you go into AE and make a test arc that spawns a doppelganger boss of your character, the Nictus will have those exact same powers if they stole your body

 

Hmm.

 

So does that mean working as expected, or is it worth digging into dopple-tech (testing in AE with multiple toons) to see if other sets are swapped instead of duplicated?

Edited July 14, 2022 by InvaderStych

[KaizenSoze]

6 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

 

Hmm.

 

So does that mean working as expected, or is it worth digging into dopple-tech (testing in AE with multiple toons) to see if other sets are swapped instead of duplicated?

Or specific missions like, https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Doppelgangers

[laudwic]

16 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Currently each star rank of difficulty removes one additional rank from susceptibility of Confuse, excepting for 1-Star which used to have it for Elite Bosses but was removed:
1-Star - No confusion protection on any mobs
2-Star - EBs, bosses
3-Star - EBs, bosses, LTs
4-Star - EBs, bosses, LTs, minions

If you are suggesting a different approach, I would be totally fine with making bosses+ have the Confuse protection at all ranks instead and leaving it off LTs and minions if that's more desireable. Meaning you'd get this:
1-Star - EBs, bosses
2-Star - EBs, bosses
3-Star - EBs, bosses
4-Star - EBs, bosses

There has to be a compromise somewhere because of how extremely strong Confuse is and because it incurs no aggro to the user. It's not like other forms of control that actually have consequences for sloppy execution or careless use, so it's not only incredibly potent, but also completely safe.

 

Ideally, my suggestion is to have Confusion mitigation powers, like the Shout power described in this thread that gives a duration Confuse Protect available but otherwise do not implement any additional innate Confuse protection except upon EBs and higher.  It is valid to have powers to mitigate or provide defense against confuse, just as it is reasonable for the enemy to try to debuff defense or resistance.

 

With EBs and higher, increase the level of protection a minor boost when triangles are down and a massive boost when up.*  It will still be possible, but hard, to confuse any enemy for a period of time, and make it impossible to perma-confuse EBs and up.  If a player is solely focusing on limiting one enemy with all their attempts, they are heroes, they should be able to hamper an enemy.  Also, that is why the minion cannon flodder is there, if you focus completely on the BBG the minions should take you down.  

 

Part of the problem you identified is that confuse is applied without danger, it misses nothing changes.  While that is a concern, the bigger one that really should be addressed is inactivity when a confused ally attacks.  In my ideal world, that would trigger the anti-confuse buff response and other responses by enemies rather than just standing there and taking it.  You don't want enemies fighting each other more, but they should take some positive actions rather than standing there.  I am ignorant on the programing aspect, but it would make a whole lot of sense that enemies with an anti-confusion AoE ability would activate that ability when they are damaged by an ally rather than just standing there.  I think that is a better way to address your concern than make Confuse essentially not work.    Again, I fall on the side of counter not nerf.  If there is an enemy mob that does an anti confusion, reward players that work to negate that mob.  For example, one of my most common uses for single target confusion is Sappers.  

 

I agree with you that confuse has certain bonuses, but you cannot ignore its negatives.   Disorient isn't as good as holds as mobs wander, but using Gravity - Wormhole to take an entire group, and shove it into a corner with some DoTs and AOEs are very effective and with little to no risk.  Full XP.  Gravity ->Wormhole has the same lack of aggro problem when it misses (all your buddies teleported away - continue to act like nothing happened).  With the last update, Sapping is far more viable.  I currently have a defender that is able to effectively sap groups of mobs with the application of two powers.  At most the mobs will get a single attack in.  That strategy is effective on most EBs as well admittedly with the use of three powers not just two.  (I mainly soloed the character, but I had no problem taking out all the EBs necessary for the Portal Jockey Accolade that way.)  Drain End completely, enemies are trivial.  No change to xp.

 

(* The only reason I am suggesting a boost when the additional triangle protection is down as I don't think the game was designed with Perma-Dom in mind.  Double magnitude for dominators is a game changer for that class.  It should be hard to hold EBs even for a short time.  I do not suggest a large increase because Controllers still need to be viable, and it is bad enough for the solo controller dealing with EBs as you rely upon the damage bonus you get from holding a foe.) 

 

[Bionic_Flea]

Regarding the high mag confusion protection:  Could the mag be lowered but give them a decent amount of confusion resistance, such that they can be confused but it doesn't last long?

[Andreah]

This discussion makes me wish there wasn't a either/or threshold based mezz system in the game. One that had a mezz chance roll, or several grades of mezz effect (e.g., slightly confused, partly confused, confused, heavily confused, totally confused) depending on magnitude level compared to protection, and we wouldn't be in this apparent all or nothing point where either a player essentially can confuse a class of enemies completely and at will, or they can't at all.

 

But we don't have that, and I suppose the implementation here among the star levels seem reasonable, and maybe it could be tweaked a little with Flea's suggestion on slightly lower mag but with significant duration resistance.

[Blackfeather]

4 hours ago, Andreah said:

This discussion makes me wish there wasn't a either/or threshold based mezz system in the game. One that had a mezz chance roll, or several grades of mezz effect (e.g., slightly confused, partly confused, confused, heavily confused, totally confused) depending on magnitude level compared to protection, and we wouldn't be in this apparent all or nothing point where either a player essentially can confuse a class of enemies completely and at will, or they can't at all.

 

But we don't have that, and I suppose the implementation here among the star levels seem reasonable, and maybe it could be tweaked a little with Flea's suggestion on slightly lower mag but with significant duration resistance.

 

Saving throws like in D&D might be pretty interesting...though I guess that does get a bit dicey given how unlike in D&D, most 'spells' can be repeatedly re-cast again and again until the desired effect is achieved, I suppose. Would definitely have to take a re-think to the status effect system, but it'd be a neat thought experiment.

 

...I guess we kind of do have that with accuracy/defence with a chance to hit/miss. But that's pretty negligible given how most players aim for as much accuracy as possible.

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Blackfeather said:

...I guess we kind of do have that with accuracy/defence with a chance to hit/miss. But that's pretty negligible given how most players aim for as much accuracy as possible.

That game systems has some issues too, but other than that I prefer mathematically asymptotic systems, I'm not going after it here.

 

This issue with confusion and knockback in AdvITF isn't the first time this has been an issue, but I suppose it's the most glaring. I would expect some people to figure out how to overcome the 10 points of confusion anyway. And if/when they do, they'll use it as much as possible.

[Mezmera]

58 minutes ago, Andreah said:

I would expect some people to figure out how to overcome the 10 points of confusion anyway. And if/when they do, they'll use it as much as possible.

 

Well any perma Mind dom that throws out a Mass Confusion is getting 3+3 mag confusing plus then if they have the Contagious proc based on the powers recharge they're likely getting a lot of targets layered with another 2 mag confuse.  So pretty much any other aoe confuse power will carry you past the threshold along with all other ST confuses.  

 

And if we're getting rid of the shout mez protection altogether for a substitute 10 mag protection at all times this'll likely make things easier on most control.  It'll likely lessen how easy breezy Seeds of Confusion can make things alone but it'll be just fine for control with others working in coordinated efforts. 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Mezmera

[EnjoyTheJourney]

It makes confusion harder to balance when confused mobs always attack former allies. It also doesn't really fit with the usual definition of confuse. 

 

A confused mob could re-evaluate its choices every few seconds. Possible choices could include 2 or more of ...

 

1. Move in a random direction for the next 2 seconds. Use a movement power or not when moving.

2. Random targeting of friend or foe for whatever action(s) are taken next. 

3. Random (de)activation of powers. Target could be friend or foe for buffs / debuffs / healing, as per 2 above.

4. Random choice of any attack not on cooldown.

 

Confusion resistance could not only lower confuse duration, but also lower the probability of attacking a friend instead of a foe. Also, the use of confusion in teams becomes something to more carefully consider because a confused mob will be less likely to be influenced by taunt effects. 

 

Confuse doesn't have to always make mobs attack one another. It also doesn't need to either be extremely effective or completely ineffective. A more probabilistic AI for determining the choices of confused mobs would still make it easier to balance, still worthwhile to cast in many situations, and more interesting as an addition to the game. 

 

Another power could be added in place of confusion in its current state, a power that's sole purpose is to force mobs to buff the caster's teammates and allies and to debuff, control, and attack their former allies. That power could perhaps be named "Command" or "Recruit", instead of Confuse. It could be more heavily restricted in which mobs can be "Recruited", to make it easier to balance in light of its game-changing potential.