Is changing the power levels power creep?

[Yaliw]

Maybe we should be nerfing these T8's and T9's that are clearly causing such a massive discussion such as this?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but we aren't arguing about getting powers early. We're arguing about getting certain powers early because they warp thr flow of the game?

 

Maybe its time to nerf T9 nukes.

 

 

[Seed22]

9 minutes ago, Yaliw said:

Maybe we should be nerfing these T8's and T9's that are clearly causing such a massive discussion such as this?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but we aren't arguing about getting powers early. We're arguing about getting certain powers early because they warp thr flow of the game?

 

Maybe its time to nerf T9 nukes.

 

 

They aren’t that powerful tbh outside of Fire and maybe Ice for offense. Defensively eh. But folks here are  purposefully ignoring the main part that proves no nerfs need to happen:

 

Slotting.

 

 

[SentaiLavender]

Gotta admit, I feel some guilt for being one of the first people to mention power creep in the Focused Feedback thread. To be honest, a lot of my concern with power creep has less to do with any individual changes and more to do with a general pattern that has developed over Homecoming's run.

 

I'm starting to think the majority of the playerbase just fundamentally disagrees with me on what this game should be. Look, I don't want everything to be Super Duper Hard Mode. I don't want this game to "be Dark Souls." I love this game so much, and I just want it to feel like a balanced game. Not a freeform sandbox. Not a mindless faceroll on par with a phone game.

 

Like I said in my initial post, I don't think this change is going to massively shift the game's difficulty by itself. But it's another inch down a slippery slope that we've been riding for years now. Almost every "Quality of Life change" on Homecoming makes everything easier and easier. I know a lot of people enjoy these changes, and whenever I express my dislike of said changes, I'm told to "stop telling [them] how to play." That argument would be valid in the vacuum of a single-player game. Problem is, CoX is an MMO, so it has a culture. Cultures outwardly express what they value. And we have created an in-game culture that values expediency and simplicity above all else. 

 

I have two pages of characters stuck in their 40s. I tend to lose interest around that level range because all it takes is two exemplared-down Incarnates to turn any team into an observational exercise: I watch them clear the entire map, knowing my character contributes nothing, knowing I could stand in a corner and /e boombox and nothing would change. I also don't join Task Forces anymore, because everyone by default just runs straight to the end of every mission, an army of invincible ninja speedrunners. This is now a game in which a significant portion of the community designs characters to stand unmoving in a single room and kill things while they're AFK -- literally not even playing the game -- then gets offended when you point this out. The dominant culture, cultivated by developers and maintained by players, no longer values strategy, communication, or exploration; it values XP/minute ratios, kill speed, and an absolute aversion to anything that disrupts that.

 

I started noticing this over a year ago and was repeatedly told to form my own teams. Fine, I don't understand how instantly winning a game is fun, but to each their own, right? Unfortunately, I'm fighting an uphill battle against that existing culture. It takes a while to fill story arc teams, because the reward structure does not incentivize them. If my character is level 45+, I have to actively exclude a lot of level 50+ characters and feel like an asshole for doing so. People quit when they realize I actually want to run things like hunt missions instead of just auto-completing them. People quit when I allow my teammates time to enhance between levels. My point is, when PI radio steamrollers are the norm, what I'm offering is very niche. I'm sick of having to take all the initiative, do all this extra work, just to team up and play the game on anything other than Very Easy Mode. It's like @Yomo Kimyata mentioned earlier: Hard Mode is optional, but Easy Mode isn't. The culture has made it the norm.

 

I know that most of what I just said has very little bearing on the power unlock change itself. I'm hoping that the lack of slots will balance it out for at-level characters, but the intersection with the exemplar system is still going to be an issue. Regardless, my gut reaction is that this is part of a trend I can't avoid noticing anymore, and I felt it was important to voice my thoughts in case others felt similarly. I just feel like most of the playerbase wants a very different game than I do. I'm thankful to the devs for bringing this game back, and I don't say any of this to antagonize them, but I do want them to know that players like me are feeling increasingly left out.

[Brutal Justice]

29 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

They aren’t that powerful tbh outside of Fire and maybe Ice for offense. Defensively eh. But folks here are  purposefully ignoring the main part that proves no nerfs need to happen:

 

Slotting.

 

 

We’re talking about toons that exemp and thus don’t have a slotting issue and also have these powers much lower than the game is built to accommodate.  

 

The t9s have been moved down 6 levels.  Add the +5 for exemping.  Now they have them 11 levels earlier than the game was designed for.  13 levels for secondaries.  

 

NPCs do not have the HP, resists, durability at these levels.    They are designed to withstand much much lower levels of offense.  

[kelika2]

I had like 4 or 5 drafts of this so im just going to brute force it in as little words as i can

 

low level sucks donkey ass for many sets.  and in a game where low level content is recycled in the form of weekly targets it became an issue

[Greycat]

4 hours ago, Yaliw said:

Maybe we should be nerfing these T8's and T9's that are clearly causing such a massive discussion such as this?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but we aren't arguing about getting powers early. We're arguing about getting certain powers early because they warp thr flow of the game?

 

Maybe its time to nerf T9 nukes.

 

 

 

Um... no. Completely not the point. (And it's certainly not just "nukes," anyone focusing on that is missing the point even worse.)

 

Those powers are *appropriate for the levels they're received at and the enemies they face later in the game.*  They are OVERpowered for getting earlier. They are inappropriate for the earlier content.  This is - say, playing Harebrained's Battletech and being given Warhammers and Atlases (100 ton assault mechs with much greater range and punch, for those wondering) on the second mission while you're still facing 'mechs 1/3 their size.  Those would be appropriate *much* later with harder content.

 

What do you think the result of that being the norm would be? Do you think that'll help retain players? It's certainly not solving any issue with the game itself - while some individual power sets might benefit from a power-availability-level reshuffle, making *everything* available by 30 - just, no.

 

It's not the powers themselves. It's not nukes, it's not T9 armors, it's not top-tier buffs or debuffs, it's not controller pets, it's not MM top-tier upgrades being available. It's their *inappropriateness* for the content that they'd now be available to play through, content that's not *designed* for that level of power.

[Starhawk32]

On 10/6/2022 at 8:06 PM, Faultline said:

 

I don't understand this. The number of slots available didn't change. If anything, by picking a power that needs slots earlier you'll also be able to give it slots at a lower level than before.

 

I'm not an expert and maybe haven't thought thru this enough but as someone that lvls via Accolade TFs (TFC, Atlas, etc) you play with a lot of lvl 50s that are exemped down.  It is common to have a fully tricked out 50 in your group and dominating compared to the lower levels on the team.  Would availability of these powers earlier help or hurt that balance?

 

basically, is it power creep for lvl 50s?  or just for lower levels?   if it is power creep for lower levels (thinking 1-35) I don't know if that is a huge problem for what I do.  or is it and I am missing it

Edited October 8, 2022 by Starhawk32

[WindDemon21]

17 hours ago, Faultline said:

 

I don't understand this. The number of slots available didn't change. If anything, by picking a power that needs slots earlier you'll also be able to give it slots at a lower level than before.

Technically you can already do this via respeccing, what they were saying is the FEEL of not having enough slots for your powers at said levels, which I get. I also always felt that we should be getting 3 slots per slot level always, not the 2 per slot level pre-30, and allowing more slots per attack for things like carrion creepers and dark servant and most MM pets.

[WindDemon21]

On 10/5/2022 at 6:10 PM, Jaxman100 said:

I think there already exist power sets that have substantial power advantages in the early/mid game versus other power sets.  If a core power in your build is not available until 38 and not slotted until 40.  It's uninteresting. I know exactly when I take it and slot it. 

The change certainly makes me wish there was an easier respec method where I could drag and drop slotted powers to different 'levels'.  Having a 'core'/'fun' power available 4-8 levels sooner sounds rather enjoyable.  Any real power creep is more built around exemp'ing with tons of slots and sets.  And I do see Synapse and Yin being 'easier' point forward.  But I aslo see offensive tanks being more fun to level by playing, and some buff/debuff secondaries leveling smoother.  Pets at 26, yes please. 

For myself, I think this change makes me more inclined to some of the lower content on specific Alts.  But in the long run, opening the Epic/Patron pools faster might actually create more interesting build options. More choices/decisions on building new Alts, or just how to level them is terrific IMO.
 

Have always been saying we need "slot" unslotters in addition to the enhancement unslotters. Nothing worse than having to do a whole respec just to move one dang slot around XD

[Yaliw]

7 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Um... no. Completely not the point. (And it's certainly not just "nukes," anyone focusing on that is missing the point even worse.)

 

Those powers are *appropriate for the levels they're received at and the enemies they face later in the game.*  They are OVERpowered for getting earlier. They are inappropriate for the earlier content.  This is - say, playing Harebrained's Battletech and being given Warhammers and Atlases (100 ton assault mechs with much greater range and punch, for those wondering) on the second mission while you're still facing 'mechs 1/3 their size.  Those would be appropriate *much* later with harder content.

 

What do you think the result of that being the norm would be? Do you think that'll help retain players? It's certainly not solving any issue with the game itself - while some individual power sets might benefit from a power-availability-level reshuffle, making *everything* available by 30 - just, no.

 

It's not the powers themselves. It's not nukes, it's not T9 armors, it's not top-tier buffs or debuffs, it's not controller pets, it's not MM top-tier upgrades being available. It's their *inappropriateness* for the content that they'd now be available to play through, content that's not *designed* for that level of power.

I'll ignore the emotional tirade and rudeness.

 

Can you define 'inappropriateness'? Also, would you want the +5 levels of powers from being exemplified removed because they would also fall under this definition? How about incarnate powers on regular level 50 content?

 

How about temporary powers?

 

Also these moves will scale to the appropriate level anyway. Headsplitter will do damage as if cast by the appropriate level. But you know this already so I'm sorry but your argument is.... to be generous, vague to me.

 

Respectfully, and i do mean it, I just don't understand the argument against this change other than what I thought the underlying issue might be in an earlier post. If it's not the bursty nature of nukes changing how mobs are tackled, what is going to fundamentally change?

[Greycat]

Just now, Yaliw said:

I'll ignore the emotional tirade and rudeness.

 

Can you define 'inappropriateness'? Also, would you want the +5 levels of powers from being exemplified removed because they would also fall under this definition? How about incarnate powers on regular level 50 content?

 

How about temporary powers?

 

Also these moves will scale to the appropriate level anyway. Headsplitter will do damage as if cast by the appropriate level. But you know this already so I'm sorry but your argument is.... to be generous, vague to me.

 

Respectfully, and i do mean it, I just don't understand the argument against this change other than what I thought the underlying issue might be in an earlier post. If it's not the bursty nature of nukes changing how mobs are tackled, what is going to fundamentally change?

 

1. That is not an "emotional tirade," and if that's your definition of rude, there's nothing I can do for you.

 

2. Inappropriateness - read it again. It's been explained plainly several times throughout the thread, at least. Most of the other stuff you're throwing out are, frankly, strawmen. Temporary powers can't be enhanced and (depending on the power) run out, for instance. Non issue. Incarnate powers have been a subject of discussion for quite some time, but they're not going to change at this point.

 

If you don't understand how getting some of these powers - *Not Just Nukes* - this much earlier will change things? You need to examine the powers and look at the content they'll now be available in and the mobs they'll be facing.

[Wavicle]

Yes. If Nukes had their variable damage restored and Fulcrum Shift wasn’t so obviously broken this wouldn’t be a problem at all.

 

 That said, Kinetics and sets with Nukes are all pretty weak Before those powers, so to some extent this just levels the playing field.

 

I think it’s going to be okay. If things turn out to be drastically unbalanced on Live then the devs can alter exemplar levels. That’s not something that can be easily tested in beta.

[Rudra]

38 minutes ago, Yaliw said:

Also, would you want the +5 levels of powers from being exemplified removed because they would also fall under this definition?

Yes. Remove the +5 levels of power while exemplared. That would go a long way to making exemplared characters actually part of any non-exemplared team they may join. They still get all their enhancements since those slots don't retain any level tracking. And they still get the benefit of their sets unless they exemplared to more than 3 levels below the set's minimum level.

 

40 minutes ago, Yaliw said:

How about incarnate powers on regular level 50 content?

Yes, but only for under level 50 content and teams, though I have no delusions about anything incarnate being reigned in. As long as the +5 levels while exemplared is in effect, having access to Judgements, Lore pets, active & passive incarnate buffs and the ability to inflict passive incarnate debuffs while level 45 is ridiculous. Take away the +5 levels of power availability while exemplared? And my opinion changes to "no". Having access to your incarnate powers while at level 50 is perfectly fine. If you are level 49 or less? You should not have access to your incarnate abilities.

 

43 minutes ago, Yaliw said:

How about temporary powers?

What about temp powers? What bearing do they have on any part of this discussion?

 

 

Appropriateness: When game content is designed to handle available powers with expected available enhancement slots at a given level of character progression.

So using powers at the level originally coded or higher would be appropriate because the enemies are designed with the expectation that those powers will be used against them. As opposed to inappropriateness such as expecting mobs that are designed with lower level powers and more limited numbers of enhancements to be any challenge for higher level powers. As has already been said, by me at least, flashback content is a good example of how using higher level powers than the missions/arcs were designed for makes those missions/arcs far easier than normal. And with higher tier powers being made available even earlier, with no known adjustments to the mobs to deal with it, that situation gets even further amplified. And yes, those exemplared down powers do damage appropriate for the level they are being used at. And they still skew the missions/arcs. There is a reason why when people find out I play at level in the game, I get told to level up to 50 first and then go back and play the arcs. Because clearing missions/arcs while exemplared down with the +5 levels is already easier than playing through the missions/arcs at level. So lowering the levels of priority acquisition powers further skews the game balance.

[BrandX]

5 hours ago, SentaiLavender said:

Gotta admit, I feel some guilt for being one of the first people to mention power creep in the Focused Feedback thread. To be honest, a lot of my concern with power creep has less to do with any individual changes and more to do with a general pattern that has developed over Homecoming's run.

 

I'm starting to think the majority of the playerbase just fundamentally disagrees with me on what this game should be. Look, I don't want everything to be Super Duper Hard Mode. I don't want this game to "be Dark Souls." I love this game so much, and I just want it to feel like a balanced game. Not a freeform sandbox. Not a mindless faceroll on par with a phone game.

 

Like I said in my initial post, I don't think this change is going to massively shift the game's difficulty by itself. But it's another inch down a slippery slope that we've been riding for years now. Almost every "Quality of Life change" on Homecoming makes everything easier and easier. I know a lot of people enjoy these changes, and whenever I express my dislike of said changes, I'm told to "stop telling [them] how to play." That argument would be valid in the vacuum of a single-player game. Problem is, CoX is an MMO, so it has a culture. Cultures outwardly express what they value. And we have created an in-game culture that values expediency and simplicity above all else. 

 

I have two pages of characters stuck in their 40s. I tend to lose interest around that level range because all it takes is two exemplared-down Incarnates to turn any team into an observational exercise: I watch them clear the entire map, knowing my character contributes nothing, knowing I could stand in a corner and /e boombox and nothing would change. I also don't join Task Forces anymore, because everyone by default just runs straight to the end of every mission, an army of invincible ninja speedrunners. This is now a game in which a significant portion of the community designs characters to stand unmoving in a single room and kill things while they're AFK -- literally not even playing the game -- then gets offended when you point this out. The dominant culture, cultivated by developers and maintained by players, no longer values strategy, communication, or exploration; it values XP/minute ratios, kill speed, and an absolute aversion to anything that disrupts that.

 

I started noticing this over a year ago and was repeatedly told to form my own teams. Fine, I don't understand how instantly winning a game is fun, but to each their own, right? Unfortunately, I'm fighting an uphill battle against that existing culture. It takes a while to fill story arc teams, because the reward structure does not incentivize them. If my character is level 45+, I have to actively exclude a lot of level 50+ characters and feel like an asshole for doing so. People quit when they realize I actually want to run things like hunt missions instead of just auto-completing them. People quit when I allow my teammates time to enhance between levels. My point is, when PI radio steamrollers are the norm, what I'm offering is very niche. I'm sick of having to take all the initiative, do all this extra work, just to team up and play the game on anything other than Very Easy Mode. It's like @Yomo Kimyata mentioned earlier: Hard Mode is optional, but Easy Mode isn't. The culture has made it the norm.

 

I know that most of what I just said has very little bearing on the power unlock change itself. I'm hoping that the lack of slots will balance it out for at-level characters, but the intersection with the exemplar system is still going to be an issue. Regardless, my gut reaction is that this is part of a trend I can't avoid noticing anymore, and I felt it was important to voice my thoughts in case others felt similarly. I just feel like most of the playerbase wants a very different game than I do. I'm thankful to the devs for bringing this game back, and I don't say any of this to antagonize them, but I do want them to know that players like me are feeling increasingly left out.

 

I honestly don't think it'll be as bad as everyone thinks it will be.

 

Yes, throw a bunch of IOed out level 50s into an lower level TF is going to make it better.  That happens now.

 

For the up and coming player though, this change, I still don't think will make a difference, in so much that they're going to have to decide which powers to move.

 

Figure, you're build power selection wise is very likely not to change (outside of some tier 1 or 2 picks for people).  Tough/Weave?  Still going to grab it, but now when?  If I pick a primary/secondary power earlier, then I'm moving my additional survival powers to later in game.

 

*Note...as I write this, I now feel this is good for /SR getting Evasive Maneuvers earlier is nice for it's survival however 🙂

 

Also, when I think of Yin TF...the constant end drain complaints...can't nuke when running low on the blue.

[Hedgefund2]

6 minutes ago, BrandX said:

I honestly don't think it'll be as bad as everyone thinks it will be.

 

 

I'm with you there.

 

When I think about what's going to be most affected, which is the 20s, a level range already filled with content that teams mercilessly plowed through already, I'm having trouble envisioning the actual consequences.

 

These are the tfs/sfs in that range and the typical run time I see and I ain't the speediest out there (though 80% of teams I join are from channels with experienced players who are speedy)

Penny - which takes around 15ish minutes.  Is that going to shrink to... 14?

Citadel - will it go from 30ish to - 28ish?

Renault and Silver Mantis also seem to be in the 30ish range.

Hess, like, 15 minutes, 

Moonfire in the 30 minute range.

 

I just don't see these times going down because of FS or a nuke when what drives lower times is travel to doors and ability to get to objectives quickly.

 

All that said I don't really care, just leave the secondary first pick to include the choice for the t2, that I'm excited about.    

 

 

 

[BrandX]

39 minutes ago, Hedgefund2 said:

 

I'm with you there.

 

When I think about what's going to be most affected, which is the 20s, a level range already filled with content that teams mercilessly plowed through already, I'm having trouble envisioning the actual consequences.

 

These are the tfs/sfs in that range and the typical run time I see and I ain't the speediest out there (though 80% of teams I join are from channels with experienced players who are speedy)

Penny - which takes around 15ish minutes.  Is that going to shrink to... 14?

Citadel - will it go from 30ish to - 28ish?

Renault and Silver Mantis also seem to be in the 30ish range.

Hess, like, 15 minutes, 

Moonfire in the 30 minute range.

 

I just don't see these times going down because of FS or a nuke when what drives lower times is travel to doors and ability to get to objectives quickly.

 

All that said I don't really care, just leave the secondary first pick to include the choice for the t2, that I'm excited about.    

 

 

 

 

Some of those times imo are going for speed.  15min Penny, looks like trying for speed.  Not so much for the XP.  +0 Yin for speed is different than the +1 Yin for XP.

Not sure how much Citadel will change.  Lvl 25-30, get access to level 35 powers.  Yeah, no secondary T9's, but if people were honest about those T9's you have a lot who skip those.  Like Armor t9s.  😛  And some of the other t9's don't effect the speed of mob clearing, so much as help nicely on those AVs (debuff secondary's).  Tanker Secondary T9's?  Sure, they'll grab them, but at the moment the only one that really benefits there, that I can think of right now, is Super Strength Footstomp.

 

Epics a bit early?  Well, I can say on my Scrapper's, I've been moving those Snipes into later into the build, as I haven't found the need for them in normal content (while yes, useable in normal content) but find it more important in my AV take downs, which is more of a lvl 50 thing.

 

Also, they mention with the team of Blasters for Yin.  Well, with the right team make up, you can do lots of things fast.  Had a +1 Synapse that completed in under 40 minutes...not the usual, just had the right team makeup (PuG at that) that cleared it.

[Greycat]

4 hours ago, Hedgefund2 said:

 

I'm with you there.

 

When I think about what's going to be most affected, which is the 20s, a level range already filled with content that teams mercilessly plowed through already, I'm having trouble envisioning the actual consequences.

 

 

As a side note, this is the content I *love* doing. I don't care if "teams mercilessly plowed through it" already.  Early content zips by no matter what. But the 20s-mid 30s? I love doing this content. So, yes, I'm greatly concerned about how this is going to affect the TFs *and* my solo experience - so if all you're thinking of (generic you)  is "Team of 8 blows through level 20-30 in one hour" or "TFs only," that's nowhere near the whole picture.

 

Edit:

Hell, this is giving me flashbacks to live and Incarnates. "We have trials, why would you want solo/small team content?" Because I didn't want to and didn't enjoy grinding through trials. Had to make *that* argument a few thousand times it felt like, and being told that basically doesn't matter was what got me to leave the game for the first time since I3 for several months.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Greycat

[agentx5]

On 10/5/2022 at 5:03 PM, Seed22 said:

My issue is: Time.

 

I have more responsiblities in life, I don't have time for this "earned" crap. I've got other things in life that I already have to earn, I come here to chill, and play a game I used to love as a kid. If that's something that can't be understood or seems alien(not by you, Phi!), then that's a moment where you(generalized) need to ask what's REALLY important here. Not trying to be mean, but I'm tired of this common sense argument, I really REALLY REALLLLLY am.

 

The power changes as they are help with this; I can pick things earlier, have fun earlier, and get through crap instead of wasting evenings or time during a week to slog through a painful and boring as hell experience. I think folks view the leveling experience as it is, as dynamic, and that's fine for them, but all these leveling changes seem to do for me is. if I'm going to have to I guess *shudder* start leveling the normal way again, I won't have to suffer at least completely while I do so.

 

 

That's my limiting factor too.  I just don't have the time to play as much as I would like, and I'm far from the only one.
Like literally most of the "CoH Regulars" in the communities I frequent (i.e.: The DawL House, Everlasting TFs, etc.) can only get on to play for limited time periods, and we try to make the most of it when we can.  Excessive grinding and gambling "lockboxes" are two major things that turns me off from a game these days.  Fortunately HomeComing is donor funded, so we don't have to delve into that dark realm of abusing peoples' gambling addiction tendencies for profit; but lets please try to stay away from excessive grind as well.

One of my least favorite things is the process of procuring and equipping all of the enhancements for a build I have planned out.
I understand why some grind is necessary, but personally I'd prefer to get right down to combat, with a team in particular.
I don't care if it's "active farming", task forces, trials, or even some roleplay-like stuff.  But as soon as it begins to feel like a chore, I find my interest waning; as I have enough chores and job duties in real-life.

For me the most important things to do with my time spent in CoH HomeComing are:

• Combat
  (Especially fast-paced combat with lots of explosions and huge numbers of squishy enemies to explode or something!  I want to kill fast, or be killed fast if I mess up.  None of this +33 million HP grind of boredom, please.)
• Talking & Teaming with other players.
  (Even better if I get to be an MVP on a team helping others out, so we can all win together!  The wonderful community is one of the reason to keep coming back, to HomeComing in particular, and it's always nice to meet new people as well!)
• Sharing my characters with people, and learning about theirs.
  (My characters are one of those things that keeps me coming back. I swear I don't have alt-isis, just a large cast of characters! But for real, I love my characters and I adore some of the characters other players have made and invested time and effort into)
• Learning and experiencing new things in the game
  (and that includes things like base building artwork, costume contest creativity, custom AE story arcs, or even just doing silly things like "Bargain Basement Heroes" or running something like running a TF/SF with an All Defender or All Electric or All Melee team, just to mix things up and learn the pro's and con's better of different powersets and archetypes)

[thunderforce]

On 10/6/2022 at 3:58 AM, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm not the OP, but my observational bias is that players fall into three categories:  Grueling Challenge, Fair Playground, and Easy Peasy.  I think there is room for all of these.  But I don't think the Gruelers are clamoring that everyone has to play +4/x8 from Outbreak onwards, but it seems to me the Easy Peasers ARE clamoring that everyone has to get nukes at level 1 because how else are you going to beat that Skulls LT?

I'd put myself somewhere between Grueller and, er, Fairy. Standard grumble about incarnate level shifts here.

 

Not having the forced T1 secondary power pick: great. It is a buff to sets where the T1 secondary is terrible, but the player joy it should spark is well worth it.

 

"Dead" levels: not actually, in my view, a problem. There are a lot of pool powers to take and there are some I've only tried out because of "dead" levels which I've then come to appreciate and enjoy.

 

T9s earlier: highly undesirable. (I know, playtest don't theorycraft, but it is hard for me to test the dynamics of large PUGs in a highly specific level range...)

 

However, if eliminating dead levels is felt to be necessary, also removing the five-level grace for power availability when exemplaring would considerably reduce the additional level range over which T9 powers are normally seen.

[BrandX]

3 hours ago, thunderforce said:

I'd put myself somewhere between Grueller and, er, Fairy. Standard grumble about incarnate level shifts here.

 

Not having the forced T1 secondary power pick: great. It is a buff to sets where the T1 secondary is terrible, but the player joy it should spark is well worth it.

 

"Dead" levels: not actually, in my view, a problem. There are a lot of pool powers to take and there are some I've only tried out because of "dead" levels which I've then come to appreciate and enjoy.

 

T9s earlier: highly undesirable. (I know, playtest don't theorycraft, but it is hard for me to test the dynamics of large PUGs in a highly specific level range...)

 

However, if eliminating dead levels is felt to be necessary, also removing the five-level grace for power availability when exemplaring would considerably reduce the additional level range over which T9 powers are normally seen.

 

And really people seem to really only be looking at specific T9s.  Not all T9's are equal.

 

Most Defense Sets are skipped.  Tankers get their T9 early?  Scrappers got those T9's just as early before.

 

Really, it seems the talk of T9s seem focused on the Nukes 😛  Defenders getting some power debuff may be nice at the lower level, but some of those seem more limited.

 

So it's all about a few TFs.  It'll be fine.  If anything they may gain damage at the cost of defense.  "We can't survive!  We have early nukes, but no slotting and no way to defend ourselves!"  

 

 

[golstat2003]

On 10/7/2022 at 9:37 AM, SentaiLavender said:

Gotta admit, I feel some guilt for being one of the first people to mention power creep in the Focused Feedback thread. To be honest, a lot of my concern with power creep has less to do with any individual changes and more to do with a general pattern that has developed over Homecoming's run.

 

I'm starting to think the majority of the playerbase just fundamentally disagrees with me on what this game should be. Look, I don't want everything to be Super Duper Hard Mode. I don't want this game to "be Dark Souls." I love this game so much, and I just want it to feel like a balanced game. Not a freeform sandbox. Not a mindless faceroll on par with a phone game.

 

Like I said in my initial post, I don't think this change is going to massively shift the game's difficulty by itself. But it's another inch down a slippery slope that we've been riding for years now. Almost every "Quality of Life change" on Homecoming makes everything easier and easier. I know a lot of people enjoy these changes, and whenever I express my dislike of said changes, I'm told to "stop telling [them] how to play." That argument would be valid in the vacuum of a single-player game. Problem is, CoX is an MMO, so it has a culture. Cultures outwardly express what they value. And we have created an in-game culture that values expediency and simplicity above all else. 

 

I have two pages of characters stuck in their 40s. I tend to lose interest around that level range because all it takes is two exemplared-down Incarnates to turn any team into an observational exercise: I watch them clear the entire map, knowing my character contributes nothing, knowing I could stand in a corner and /e boombox and nothing would change. I also don't join Task Forces anymore, because everyone by default just runs straight to the end of every mission, an army of invincible ninja speedrunners. This is now a game in which a significant portion of the community designs characters to stand unmoving in a single room and kill things while they're AFK -- literally not even playing the game -- then gets offended when you point this out. The dominant culture, cultivated by developers and maintained by players, no longer values strategy, communication, or exploration; it values XP/minute ratios, kill speed, and an absolute aversion to anything that disrupts that.

 

I started noticing this over a year ago and was repeatedly told to form my own teams. Fine, I don't understand how instantly winning a game is fun, but to each their own, right? Unfortunately, I'm fighting an uphill battle against that existing culture. It takes a while to fill story arc teams, because the reward structure does not incentivize them. If my character is level 45+, I have to actively exclude a lot of level 50+ characters and feel like an asshole for doing so. People quit when they realize I actually want to run things like hunt missions instead of just auto-completing them. People quit when I allow my teammates time to enhance between levels. My point is, when PI radio steamrollers are the norm, what I'm offering is very niche. I'm sick of having to take all the initiative, do all this extra work, just to team up and play the game on anything other than Very Easy Mode. It's like @Yomo Kimyata mentioned earlier: Hard Mode is optional, but Easy Mode isn't. The culture has made it the norm.

 

I know that most of what I just said has very little bearing on the power unlock change itself. I'm hoping that the lack of slots will balance it out for at-level characters, but the intersection with the exemplar system is still going to be an issue. Regardless, my gut reaction is that this is part of a trend I can't avoid noticing anymore, and I felt it was important to voice my thoughts in case others felt similarly. I just feel like most of the playerbase wants a very different game than I do. I'm thankful to the devs for bringing this game back, and I don't say any of this to antagonize them, but I do want them to know that players like me are feeling increasingly left out.

The game is not a live service game. It pretty much is a sandbox now since there are multiple versions (shards/servers) and it’s flavors of COH. I read on the forums that someone is trying to do the hard work of creating a version of this game minus numerous issues worth of updates. Think I heard they are trying to go all the way back to issue 16 or whatever the one was prior to the major pvp overhaul.

 

Also early on HC made it pretty clear that they are looking to make QOL life changes to make the game less of a slog. They are not trying to preserve a museum of what the game was like when it shut down.

 

I’m fine with the game getting easier and balance not being a major issue cause we are not paying and keeping players playing for long periods of time is no longer a concern. That and the fact that they are creating optional

Hard Mode content for those that want it, makes me feel the over emphasis on balance has just been that: overemphasized.

 

I am glad HM content exists but personally I’ve stopped playing it except in speed runs. I have a child, work and life now. Anything that makes COH more pick and play, I’m all for including streamlining powers progression. I’m fine with HC giving options for all sorts of players we have.

[BrandX]

1 minute ago, golstat2003 said:

The game is not a live service game. It pretty much is a sandbox now since there are multiple versions (shards/servers) and it’s flavors of COH. I read on the forums that someone is trying to do the hard work of creating a version of this game minus numerous issues worth of updates. Think I heard they are trying to go all the way back to issue 16 or whatever the one was prior to the major pvp overhaul.

 

Also early on HC made it pretty clear that they are looking to make QOL life changes to make the game less of a slog. They are not trying to preserve a museum of what the game was like when it shut down.

 

I’m fine with the game getting easier and balance not being a major issue cause we are not paying and keeping players playing for long periods of time is no longer a concern. That and the fact that they are creating optional

Hard Mode content for those that want it, makes me feel the over emphasis on balance has just been that: overemphasized.

 

I am glad HM content exists but personally I’ve stopped playing it except in speed runs. I have a child, work and life now. Anything that makes COH more pick and play, I’m all for including streamlining powers progression. I’m fine with HC giving options for all sorts of players we have.

 

I've loved a lot of the HC changes myself, but I have to say, the "child, work and life now" people had that and played hardmode stuff before 😛  Well, maybe not the life part, though, to be fair on that one, friends move away! 😞 

[golstat2003]

On 10/7/2022 at 1:25 PM, WindDemon21 said:

Have always been saying we need "slot" unslotters in addition to the enhancement unslotters. Nothing worse than having to do a whole respec just to move one dang slot around XD

And so very much this. If the respec interface did not suck donkey balls life would be a lot better.

[TygerDarkstorm]

44 minutes ago, BrandX said:

  If anything they may gain damage at the cost of defense.  "We can't survive!  We have early nukes, but no slotting and no way to defend ourselves!"  

I haven't tested out a character with an early arriving nuke yet, but of the MM's I've put in that level range so far, the lack of slotting definitely impacts the ability to pick the powers sooner. Sure, my Bots/Cold had Heat Loss before level 30, but I didn't have the slots to assign to it, and taking those primary/secondary picks first also meant not picking up things in the pool powers as quickly for my own defenses. You are absolutely still needing to make calculated trade-offs to take these things at the new lower levels. Being able to use Heat Loss at that level was kind of wild feeling, but even with a recharge IO in it, I couldn't have it usable for every spawn. Now, I can say what these changes mean for folks who kit their toons out in attuned IO's as I tend to only use the basic ones at these levels.

[Wavicle]

I feel like re-examining the exemplar rules is something that can be done after the fact if this really does turn out to be a problem.