Identical enemies

[GastlyGibus]

Been doing a lot of old contact missions on my new Scrapper, fighting a lot of Nemesis, and it reminded me of something I had wondered about for the longest time. What is up with some enemy groups having multiple versions of the same exact enemy with different names?

 

There's a lot of at-launch enemy groups that do this. With Nemesis, for instance, you have the Chasseur, Armiger, and Lancer minions, who are all identical. Same powers, same descriptions, same behavior, oftentimes the only difference being a palette swap and the name. The lieutenant enemies are all identical as well. The Lance Corporal, Subaltern, Lance Sergeant, Sgt. Major, Lieutenant, Captain, and Colonel are all identical save for different colors. 

 

There's a good number of enemy groups like this, mainly the groups from launch. Look at the Clockwork, as another example. The Prototype Oscillator, Line Oscillator, Advanced Oscillator, and Perfected Oscillator are all perfectly identical. Not even a difference in models or colors. They all behave exactly the same, with the exact same powers. Sprockets and Cogs are also identical. The Devouring Earth are particularly egregious with this. The Bladegrass, Razorvine, Blackrose, and Deathblossom minions are all perfectly identical. Fungoids, Deathspores, Deathcaps, all identical. Bedrock and Boulder are the same. Geode, Quartz, and Sardonyx are identical. The Drone, Improved Drone, and Advanced drones from the Rikti are the same. I think you get the idea by now.

 

What's the reason? Are their powers tweaked in some way I can't see? City of Data doesn't have any noted differences, and neither does the Homecoming wiki. Just curious why some enemy groups will have 3-5 of the same exact enemy, sometimes with the same model and colors too, but give them different names.

[Luminara]

14 minutes ago, GastlyGibus said:

What's the reason?

 

Most enemy groups were tailored to specific level ranges.  And some enemies originally had more powers, but over time were nerfed (there was a massive reduction of NPC status effects in Issue 4 or 5, to cite one example).

[Snarky]

errr  it is a really old game and they A) had the resources to rename certain npcs B ) did not have the resources to create new npcs

 

you are welcome.  

[ForeverLaxx]

From my understanding, it's to show a narrative reason why you're still fighting "prototype" enemies at higher levels without changing the powerlevel of the enemy directly. That is to say, different names correspond to different level ranges in an attempt to show that while your character has improved, so has the enemy. It wouldn't make much sense to be fighting the Clockwork King in his lair, defended by "prototypes" would it? So you get "perfected" or something similar to denote these versions of your old foes are... better, somehow.

 

Honestly, the fact they don't gain even one different power is a tad disappointing. It makes their name and color tweaks entirely cosmetic, but at least it's there for a reason at all. I'd probably prefer that old boss-level enemies in a faction become lieutenants and lieutenants become minions to denote this shift up in power, but CoH is an old game and when enemy factions are locked to certain level ranges, it's just easier to rename them. Less potential for oddities like Tesla Knights of higher rank appearing with Tesla Knights of lower rank.