New difficulty setting

[Akisan]

Given the amount of "the game's easy enough" showing up in my Crey Resists thread, it may be simply better to add a new difficulty option to the notoriety system:  Difficult Enemies. 

 

Enemies on this difficulty will be balanced around the player(s) having fully IO'd builds (and incarnates, for end-game, 45+ groups), so more group cohesion, liberal use of buffs/debuffs, better defenses/resists/accuracy/CC protection/etc.  Think "Old Crey" vs. "New Crey".

 

Given the step up in difficulty, there should also be a step up in rewards - probably 1.3x to 2x exp/inf, and an increased chance of PAP dropping on mission completion. (Only for groups that have been made more difficult, though).

 

I think this would be great, both because it gives our challenge-seeking crowd what they're after, but would also allow the HC team to overhaul enemy groups without worrying about whether they'll make the group too difficult for a normal character (currently, the game's balanced around SOs).

[Psyonico]

That is exactly what "Hard Mode" Task forces are for.

[arcane]

Sounds like 4 star TF’s are what you’re looking for. As far as proliferating that game mode to *everything* though? Surely that would be prohibitively burdensome.

[Jiro Ito]

TF/SF settings already available allow you to Buff Enemies (I use this most of the time), or deactivate Incarnates, or Temp Powers, etc etc.  No extra dev work required!

[TheZag]

I think people say the game is too easy because the difficulty curve is less of a curve and more like a cliff.  It goes from easy to impossible very quickly and thats just in the very few areas where it ever goes past easy.  Player HP would probably need to triple and healing/regen/defense/resist would need a nerf or rebalance to get player health bars to spend less time at 100% or 0%.

 

I would like to see more proliferation of the hard mode settings.  I prefer to challenge my characters by having challenging enemies and not by removing power from my characters.  I have tried it a few times though with enemies buffed, player debuffed and enhancements have no effect and it felt like back when the game was new where 2 white minions could mean death for your character.  I was running scared from 3 blue minions.  So existing challenge settings have their place but having some settings to challenge the build we have made instead of turning it off would also be nice.

  

[Akisan]

10 hours ago, Psyonico said:

That is exactly what "Hard Mode" Task forces are for.

 

10 hours ago, arcane said:

Sounds like 4 star TF’s are what you’re looking for. As far as proliferating that game mode to *everything* though? Surely that would be prohibitively burdensome.

 

Not looking for a Hard Mode TF, I'm looking to make a difficulty distinction between "Live" mobs, and "Upgraded" mobs that our Devs have rebalanced.  This would be a notoriety setting, and whenever you encounter one of these groups, they'd spawn with their more powerful version.  Example - you turn on this difficulty setting and decide to run Crimson's arc.  If the Devs have upgraded Malta, you'll fight that version (which may or may not include crazy, see below), and get the increased rewards.  If they haven't upgraded Malta, then you fight regular Malta agents (with no reward increase). 

 

9 hours ago, Jiro Ito said:

TF/SF settings already available allow you to Buff Enemies (I use this most of the time), or deactivate Incarnates, or Temp Powers, etc etc.  No extra dev work required!

 

True, but since they've already shown an interest in rebalancing the enemy groups (see the Crey rework), this system would allow them to do so in a modular manner - they won't have to do them all at once, they can do them bit by bit, and release them as they're ready.  This would also allow them to seriously upgrade enemy tactics and power kits, with the idea that these groups will be a challenge for a fully IO'd, T4 incarnate. 

 

Example Malta upgrade: (very rough draft, I'd hope this gets playtested before going live)

- All Malta agents have better resists (S20 L25 -> SL50 FCENPT20), and Mag 2 status Protection (vs. All).

- Operations Engineers summon (3) robotic MM minions, and can now Heal Titans

- Tactical Operatives also have Flashbangs

- All Gunslingers can teleport, and use this power to try to stay out of Melee range (has a short, 10-15s cooldown)

- Gunslingers don't have better armor (keep same resists, L30 SFCEN20), but now also have +20% to-hit and +25% defense

- Tac Commanders and Operations Officers have Tactics. Tac Commanders also have Maneuvers (these are always on, but suppress when CC'd)

- Titans can target defeated Titans to merge with (and will still successfully merge, even if defeated)

- Boss Zeus Titans can merge with other Boss Zeus Titans to make EB Zeus Titans, those can merge again to make AV Kronos Titans

- Multiple Sappers can spawn per group.  They have +range, and +perc.

[Captain Fabulous]

Switch to a build with no enhancements. Problem solved.

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, Akisan said:

Not looking for a Hard Mode TF, I'm looking to make a difficulty distinction between "Live" mobs, and "Upgraded" mobs that our Devs have rebalanced.  This would be a notoriety setting, and whenever you encounter one of these groups, they'd spawn with their more powerful version. 

I don't think this will work. I'm not certain, but I am pretty sure that any changes made are at the expense of previous versions. I don't think the previous versions are retained after they are buffed, nerfed, or sidegraded. Meaning the devs would have to go back and recreate previous versions, then flag them as the same group when we see their names and affiliation, but still have them flagged as a completely separate and distinct group to avoid having members of either version spawn in groups they aren't meant to be in.

 

Edit: Currently, at least for the most part, units with the same name but different capability are differentiated by level. The exception being mobs like Paragon Protectors that I assume have a powers based flag to identify them despite having a shared display name. Other mobs in factions that would be a concern for just showing up in basic content are limited to the specific content they were made for, and in the case of the Goldbrickers, also have a different level. Otherwise you run into the bug I routinely see with Crey, where you're running a level 30+ mission and level 20 Crey mobs spawn because they are not differentiated from the other Crey mobs. Now apply the Crey low-level spawn situation to say whether or not you get weaker or stronger versions of Malta or Crey mobs.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Rudra

[Akisan]

35 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Switch to a build with no enhancements. Problem solved.

 

@TheZag already commented on why this isn't really a solution - we want to be able to run a challenge with our fully kitted build, not the gimped version of it.

 

34 minutes ago, Rudra said:

39 minutes ago, Akisan said:

Not looking for a Hard Mode TF, I'm looking to make a difficulty distinction between "Live" mobs, and "Upgraded" mobs that our Devs have rebalanced.  This would be a notoriety setting, and whenever you encounter one of these groups, they'd spawn with their more powerful version. 

I don't think this will work. I'm not certain, but I am pretty sure that any changes made are at the expense of previous versions. I don't think the previous versions are retained after they are buffed, nerfed, or sidegraded. Meaning the devs would have to go back and recreate previous versions, then flag them as the same group when we see their names and affiliation, but still have them flagged as a completely separate and distinct group to avoid having members of either version spawn in groups they aren't meant to be in.

 

They probably aren't kept, so whatever we have now will likely be the "base" versions of these groups.  The other problem, with them being separate spawns but the same group, seems like it's already mostly solved - we see Automation Nemesis mobs and regular Nemesis Troops, with the same <Nemesis> affiliation (but never in the same mission), and most groups also have different compositions based on Level.   And I only say "mostly solved" because that poor level 26 Council Rifleman keeps wandering into missions he really shouldn't be in.

 

34 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Edit: Currently, at least for the most part, units with the same name but different capability are differentiated by level. The exception being mobs like Paragon Protectors that I assume have a powers based flag to identify them despite having a shared display name. Other mobs in factions that would be a concern for just showing up in basic content are limited to the specific content they were made for, and in the case of the Goldbrickers, also have a different level. Otherwise you run into the bug I routinely see with Crey, where you're running a level 30+ mission and level 20 Crey mobs spawn because they are not differentiated from the other Crey mobs. Now apply the Crey low-level spawn situation to say whether or not you get weaker or stronger versions of Malta or Crey mobs.

 

I'm pretty sure that the wrong level Crey and Council (and other) mobs are bugs in need of hunting - I've also seen level 40 Quartz DE in level 32 missions, so there's really no guarantee here until those bugs are finally squashed.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Akisan
Clarified Nemesis example, and addressed level bug.

[Captain Fabulous]

31 minutes ago, Akisan said:

 

@TheZag already commented on why this isn't really a solution - we want to be able to run a challenge with our fully kitted build, not the gimped version of it.

 

So you purposefully build characters that perform well beyond what the game is geared for and then complain it's not hard enough. You get the exact same level of challenge by reducing your stats as you do increasing the stats of critters. If you don't want to be godly, don't build your characters to be gods. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I simply will never understand this mentality.

In before Rudra screams "but but but POWER CREEP!!!"

[biostem]

I'm confident in saying that it's unlikely that we'll get a meaningful overhaul in how the enemies fight.  Maybe a +5 difficulty setting, which also upgrades all enemies by 1 rank, (minions become LTs, LTs bosses, etc), could suffice...

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

So you purposefully build characters that perform well beyond what the game is geared for and then complain it's not hard enough. You get the exact same level of challenge by reducing your stats as you do increasing the stats of critters. If you don't want to be godly, don't build your characters to be gods. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I simply will never understand this mentality.

In before Rudra screams "but but but POWER CREEP!!!"

Power creep is an addition or change to the game that makes player characters more powerful, more efficient, or more optimized without a matching increase in game difficulty. The OP is requesting a new game difficulty. That's not power creep.

[Akisan]

31 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

So you purposefully build characters that perform well beyond what the game is geared for and then complain it's not hard enough. You get the exact same level of challenge by reducing your stats as you do increasing the stats of critters. If you don't want to be godly, don't build your characters to be gods. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I simply will never understand this mentality.

In before Rudra screams "but but but POWER CREEP!!!"

 

You and I both know that there are people in-game that think +4x8 is far too easy.  And yes, while removing enhancements does make the game hard again, it also removes nearly all QoL, as well as most in-game rewards for playing (and locks out several build strategies). This new difficulty tier would let them keep their nice, shiny Godly power, yet still get challenged at a lower multiplier (like +1x4) and hopefully get about the same reward, maybe even a little more.

(And yes, a higher maximum challenge to raise the power ceiling also gives us more room before Power Creep is a problem again)

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Akisan
Added in an afterthought

[Captain Fabulous]

9 minutes ago, Akisan said:

 

You and I both know that there are people in-game that think +4x8 is far too easy.  And yes, while removing enhancements does make the game hard again, it also removes nearly all QoL, as well as most in-game rewards for playing (and locks out several build strategies). This new difficulty tier would let them keep their nice, shiny Godly power, yet still get challenged at a lower multiplier (like +1x4) and hopefully get about the same reward, maybe even a little more.

(And yes, a higher maximum challenge to raise the power ceiling also gives us more room before Power Creep is a problem again)

 

It doesn't do any of those things. Increasing a critter's stats (tohit, damage, resistance, defense, regen, etc) only serves to counter your own abilities, and mathematically is no different than reducing your stats by the equivalent amount. The only difference is your perception.

[Akisan]

7 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

It doesn't do any of those things. Increasing a critter's stats (tohit, damage, resistance, defense, regen, etc) only serves to counter your own abilities, and mathematically is no different than reducing your stats by the equivalent amount. The only difference is your perception.

 

Mission completion time? Sure, it's possible.  Rewards per time spent?  No way, no how.  You can't tell me that someone running with full enhancements will get the same in-game rewards in an hour as someone running with less, even running the same content.  The character with enhancements will hit harder, more often, can take more hits, and generally requires less downtime between engagements (and would usually be running at a higher difficulty level, for even more rewards).  In addition to that, higher ranked foes (encountered more often at higher multipliers) are worth much more than the lower ranks they replace when they spawn.

 

13 hours ago, Akisan said:

Given the step up in difficulty, there should also be a step up in rewards - probably 1.3x to 2x exp/inf, and an increased chance of PAP dropping on mission completion. (Only for groups that have been made more difficult, though)

 

There's a reason I recommended a bump in rewards for these much more difficult enemies - a higher challenge should have a better reward.  I would expect, overall, most people would figure out whether they get more out of high multiplier, normal difficulty, or low multiplier, high difficulty, and would choose accordingly (there's a reason not many people intentionally cripple their own builds, unless the challenge is the reward).  Thus, in order for people to play this content, it would need to be pretty rewarding (and as an update - I'm not sure even x2 rewards would be enough for the difficulty bump/loss of multiplier)

[Captain Fabulous]

9 minutes ago, Akisan said:

 

Mission completion time? Sure, it's possible.  Rewards per time spent?  No way, no how.  You can't tell me that someone running with full enhancements will get the same in-game rewards in an hour as someone running with less, even running the same content.  The character with enhancements will hit harder, more often, can take more hits, and generally requires less downtime between engagements (and would usually be running at a higher difficulty level, for even more rewards).  In addition to that, higher ranked foes (encountered more often at higher multipliers) are worth much more than the lower ranks they replace when they spawn.

 

 

There's a reason I recommended a bump in rewards for these much more difficult enemies - a higher challenge should have a better reward.  I would expect, overall, most people would figure out whether they get more out of high multiplier, normal difficulty, or low multiplier, high difficulty, and would choose accordingly (there's a reason not many people intentionally cripple their own builds, unless the challenge is the reward).  Thus, in order for people to play this content, it would need to be pretty rewarding (and as an update - I'm not sure even x2 rewards would be enough for the difficulty bump/loss of multiplier)

It's a common misconception that running at a higher difficultly always results in better XP/rewards per hour than a lower setting. But that's simply not the case. If it takes you 50% longer to kill something but you're only getting 30% more rewards then you're actually getting less per hour, not more. You see this a lot in-game, especially on PUGs. People don't understand that a higher difficulty doesn't automatically mean greater rewards over time. I very rarely solo at +4/x8 not because my god-level characters can't handle it, but because it's too much of a slog. I find +2 or +3 to be a better balance between speed and rewards.

It doesn't sound like you actually want a greater challenge or to make the game harder for yourself (after all, we build characters to be more effective because we seek to reduce challenge, not increase it), it sounds to me like you really just want to increase the rate at which you earn XP/rewards.

[Akisan]

5 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

It's a common misconception that running at a higher difficultly always results in better XP/rewards per hour than a lower setting. But that's simply not the case. If it takes you 50% longer to kill something but you're only getting 30% more rewards then you're actually getting less per hour, not more. You see this a lot in-game, especially on PUGs. People don't understand that a higher difficulty doesn't automatically mean greater rewards over time. I very rarely solo at +4/x8 not because my god-level characters can't handle it, but because it's too much of a slog. I find +2 or +3 to be a better balance between speed and rewards.

 

I know.  It's why I usually run higher +Level, and don't usually run above x6 (weaker groups, like Council notwithstanding), since my build is more suited to locking down & killing single targets. 

 

9 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

It doesn't sound like you actually want a greater challenge or to make the game harder for yourself (after all, we build characters to be more effective because we seek to reduce challenge, not increase it), it sounds to me like you really just want to increase the rate at which you earn XP/rewards.

 

Somedays I'm on to relax and unwind after a hard day at work, most days I'm looking for the challenge (ok, these days it's mostly unwinding).  As far as the XP/rewards go, I don't care - I'm almost fully kitted out and have no alts (every alt I've ever tried feels... wrong somehow, and I always end up going back my main).  I'm pretty much only playing because I enjoy the game, and seeing what I can clear (there is a certain frustration with too-hard content, so I don't seek extreme challenges). 

However, I have that sneaking suspicion that if a new, much harder difficulty was released, with no reward increase to go with it, it'll see very limited use, especially after the novelty wears off.  That's why I'm arguing xp/inf/reward rates here, because I want others to want to play this content as well. (Somewhat self-serving too - I want to be able to find teams for this!)

[Zect]

No to unnecessary difficulty settings that further fragment the playerbase.

 

Yes to proper balancing and beefing-up of existing enemy groups in all content to fix power creep over the years, diversify and refresh the meta, counter imbalanced builds/playstyles, and provide a fun gameplay environment for all players.

[Etched]

I have a suggestion that would radically change this game forever.

 

Puppies and kittens.

 

Nothing is tougher then tryin to ignore puppies or kittens and if you can ignore them, then you are not human.

 

Or try soloin lvl 54s with a defender.

 

Either way, puppies and kittensare cute.

 

Puppies and Kitten for prez 23/24. 

 

Hey, it could happen.

 

I mean it's puppies and kittens!

 

@Etched

[JasperStone]

I forget how you set it up.

But I ran with someone where mobs conned plus 6 to us.

That. Was. Hard.

 

[TheZag]

3 hours ago, JasperStone said:

I forget how you set it up.

But I ran with someone where mobs conned plus 6 to us.

That. Was. Hard.

 

 

If you use /setdifficultyteamsize #

And set your team size to a number higher than 8,  then the game gets confused and will add +1 to your enemy level setting.  +4 will become +5 and on a mission where enemies are intended to spawn above your setting,  like defending the reactor from the rikti,  you will encounter +6 and maybe even +7.  It doesnt work if you are level 50 since the mobs dont exist above lvl 54 and the xp is trash since they take so much longer to kill.  

 

[Akisan]

7 hours ago, Zect said:

No to unnecessary difficulty settings that further fragment the playerbase.

 

Yes to proper balancing and beefing-up of existing enemy groups in all content to fix power creep over the years, diversify and refresh the meta, counter imbalanced builds/playstyles, and provide a fun gameplay environment for all players.

 

Gonna have to disagree with you here.  The community is already heavily fragmented over difficulty - we see that in every QoL, buff, nerf, etc. thread.  We can't agree on anything, since some of us want to stop all Power Creep (no matter how minor), some of us hard disagree with any nerfs (which would help bring said power creep in line), others want no buffs to mobs (the game's not balanced around IOs, it's balanced around SOs), and others want no nerfs to mobs (the game's not challenging enough as it is). 

 

Providing an outlet for the high-end players to still get the challenge they want, without making the game incredibly difficult for people running traditional builds (or even SO builds), could honestly relieve some of that tension.  We'd be able to get QoL buffs, weaker sets could be brought in-line with the others, etc.  There'd be room to grow again, difficulty wise.  On the flip side, we could beef up the existing mobs to crazy levels, and people running partially slotted, SO builds could still solo content.

 

(And no, I'm not saying we should be irresponsible and allow buffing players to the gills here.  We should still keep a close reign on further power creep, but it won't be a critical issue anymore)

[Greycat]

Honestly, the sorts of things I'd rather see as "increased difficulty" ... well, probably aren't easily doable, since it'd be futzing with the game AI. But having mobs *react* to what's going on.

 

I mean, currently  it's...

*Spawn sitting around drinking coffee.*

*Sound of gunfire, explosions, screaming in the distance.*

"What's that?"

"Probably the air conditioner on the fritz again."

*Enemy mob goes running past, 5% health, on fire, somewhat radioactive.*

"Wait, wasn't that Bob?"

"Yep."

"Shouldn't we check on him or see what happened?"

"Nah, it's Tuesday, Bob always does something crazy on Tuesday. So, I'm thinking about a new car..."

 

What if they were *investigating* the explosions, calling for backup, maybe Bob up there has a sort of Taunt aura applied when he goes running so the other mobs he passes are alerted and come to see  what happened?

[Rudra]

10 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Honestly, the sorts of things I'd rather see as "increased difficulty" ... well, probably aren't easily doable, since it'd be futzing with the game AI. But having mobs *react* to what's going on.

 

I mean, currently  it's...

*Spawn sitting around drinking coffee.*

*Sound of gunfire, explosions, screaming in the distance.*

"What's that?"

"Probably the air conditioner on the fritz again."

*Enemy mob goes running past, 5% health, on fire, somewhat radioactive.*

"Wait, wasn't that Bob?"

"Yep."

"Shouldn't we check on him or see what happened?"

"Nah, it's Tuesday, Bob always does something crazy on Tuesday. So, I'm thinking about a new car..."

 

What if they were *investigating* the explosions, calling for backup, maybe Bob up there has a sort of Taunt aura applied when he goes running so the other mobs he passes are alerted and come to see  what happened?

WoW did (does?) that. You would attack a spawn, one of the enemies dropped, and the others would then run off to the other spawns in the area and have everyone converge on you. Made solo play in some areas extremely lethal. As in not doable solo.

 

Now on the one hand, it does make sense and I often wonder how mobs can watch their allies run by them on fire, bleeding profusely, with myriad arrows sticking out of them and just say "There goes Bob". (When mobs in the same spawn don't react to their ally getting trounced? I just figure the other mobs really don't like that guy.) And seeing mobs more proactively responding to things would be more interesting and challenging.

 

On the other hand, I remember several times in WoW when an easy fight became an impossible fight because mobs would run off and grab other spawns, which sometimes would then run off and grab other spawns if they also took damage, and the whole thing would just cascade into certain death for the player. And it often never took much more than a single attack at any mob in a spawn before everything in render distance is now running at you.

 

Add to that how that would simplify the ability to herd mobs for teams when they self-trigger into attacking, and the current meta goes from being preferred by most of the community to being enforced by game AI.

[Greycat]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

WoW did (does?) that. You would attack a spawn, one of the enemies dropped, and the others would then run off to the other spawns in the area and have everyone converge on you. Made solo play in some areas extremely lethal. As in not doable solo.

 

Now on the one hand, it does make sense and I often wonder how mobs can watch their allies run by them on fire, bleeding profusely, with myriad arrows sticking out of them and just say "There goes Bob". (When mobs in the same spawn don't react to their ally getting trounced? I just figure the other mobs really don't like that guy.) And seeing mobs more proactively responding to things would be more interesting and challenging.

 

On the other hand, I remember several times in WoW when an easy fight became an impossible fight because mobs would run off and grab other spawns, which sometimes would then run off and grab other spawns if they also took damage, and the whole thing would just cascade into certain death for the player. And it often never took much more than a single attack at any mob in a spawn before everything in render distance is now running at you.

 

Add to that how that would simplify the ability to herd mobs for teams when they self-trigger into attacking, and the current meta goes from being preferred by most of the community to being enforced by game AI.

 

Well, I was thinking of this being the change "at x difficulty setting." So, yeah, your solo Ice/Sonic 'troller probably wouldn't have it set that high solo, but on a team that's already steamrolling stuff...