Focused Feedback: High-Level Circle of Thorns Revamp

[Blackbird71]

53 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

I know it'll cause certain people to clutch their pearls and gasp in horror at the very idea... but I still say if you want a mindless bash-fest, that's one of the things that AE farms are really great for. There are also always the "classic" old-school bash maps from Tina and Unai's arcs. Keep a copy of the Axis Earth mission or Freak World or Harvey's Praetorian demons map on characters that like to lead smash teams and just tell people not to click the glowies (or kill the last group in the demons' case-) when you go in and clear the place. Many players did that in the days before AE was a thing. 

 

I'm a lot more concerned about the impact on solos, and on the under-50/unfinished-build/non-Incarnate types who are running regular mission arcs against these goons than I am about power-leveling lowbies. Radio smash teams are fun and popular, but they're not the only way to do that.  

 

 

 

 

What about under-50/unfinished-build/non-incarnate solos who want a mindless bash-fest?

That's the category I typically fall into by the time I hit 40 on a character.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I've now spent a handful of +4/x8 lvl 50 paper missions on both the new Council and the new CoT with two of my better built incarnates, and I'll cut and paste this in both subforums.  Overall, change is good!

 

Council are a bit tougher, harder to clear out, slower clear speeds.  They don't seem to change my strategy at all, but do make the experience a bit more challenging.

 

CoT are a different animal.  On the one hand, I didn't notice getting my to hit debuffed down to single digits which happens currently when you get a handful of Death Mages stacking on you.  On the other hand, I got my clock cleaned repeatedly out of nowhere.  Guess I will have to do my research on which new enemies are the "kill first" and treat them like the DA Banished Pantheon (set targetname macro to "sorrow").

 

Two overall points:

 

I tend to avoid CoT missions in general, both paper/radio and story arcs, because of cave maps and especially Oregano maps.  This gives me (and others) additional incentive to avoid this missions.  I'm not complaining about a higher difficulty gradient, not at all.  But it's a very big shift for an enemy group that was already avoided.

 

I think that the devs should be cognizant that adding challenge at 36+ or 41+ really disproportionally affects sub-50 characters and encourages players to jump up to 50 asap.  We really saw this with the Crey revamp.  I'd consider shifting some of the challenge that would apply to sub-50 to 50+ content.  My two cents.

[Coyotedancer]

33 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

What about under-50/unfinished-build/non-incarnate solos who want a mindless bash-fest?

That's the category I typically fall into by the time I hit 40 on a character.

 

Check out Tina's arc in PI if you're running blue side. She has a few classic Old School farm maps like Wolf World that you can jump into in the 40s. AE is also always a possibility. Making a good level 40(ish) bash-fest mission... if there isn't one already, which would surprise me... wouldn't be hard if you used a faction like Axis or Battle Maiden's Warrior Earth goons, or even designed something custom with similar group powers. 

[Blackbird71]

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Check out Tina's arc in PI if you're running blue side. She has a few classic Old School farm maps like Wolf World that you can jump into in the 40s. AE is also always a possibility. Making a good level 40(ish) bash-fest mission... if there isn't one already, which would surprise me... wouldn't be hard if you used a faction like Axis or Battle Maiden's Warrior Earth goons, or even designed something custom with similar group powers. 

 

I hate using AE.  Farms are boring, and the quality of non-farm content is too much of a mixed bag.  I prefer running stuff out in the world.

 

I've done Tina's stuff several times before, and it's probably my least favorite arc.  The portal missions are just not my cup of tea.  So many of them are "go to this outdoor map and find three glowies to click" that end up being time-consuming busywork that result in hardly any XP, so you don't feel like you're progressing and it becomes a slog.  Not to mention the number of Crey and Malta you have to mess with in the later part of her arc.  Plus thematically, I don't really care for playing a hero who is spending their time traveling to other worlds.  In short, Tina's arc is exactly why I often end up doing stuff like CoT/Council in the 40s.

[Coyotedancer]

So.... you won't be happy unless you have *exactly* this one single thing that you like, and any other option is out of the question.

 

Somehow I don't think you're going to have a lot of luck with that.

[Sovera]

Ouroboros comes to mind. Pick an arc you like and go ham. Plenty to choose from once knowing which is minimal on talkies or glowies. Plus, merits at the end.

[Blackbird71]

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

So.... you won't be happy unless you have *exactly* this one single thing that you like, and any other option is out of the question.

 

Somehow I don't think you're going to have a lot of luck with that.

 

I'm saying at that level range, there are limited activities I enjoy; it's why I refer to the grind from 40 to 50 as a slog.  Changes like this just reduce my options further, and push me further away from the game.  It's more likely I'll just be abandoning more characters around level 40 and moving on to lower-level alts instead of completing the path to 50.

[Wavicle]

18 hours ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

I'm saying at that level range, there are limited activities I enjoy; it's why I refer to the grind from 40 to 50 as a slog.  Changes like this just reduce my options further, and push me further away from the game.  It's more likely I'll just be abandoning more characters around level 40 and moving on to lower-level alts instead of completing the path to 50.

This seems like the right result to me. Players who can’t or don’t want to fight challenging opponents in the 40s shouldn’t GET to 50.

[Coyotedancer]

'Not sure I agree with that sentiment...

 

City is, and has always been, a very casual-friendly game on the lower end of the difficulty scale. It's attracted and kept quite a few players who just aren't All About ~THE CHALLENGE~ because of that. As hard as it may be for more challenge-focused players to understand, just wanting a low-stress button-mashing session isn't some kind of outlandish edge case.

 

Telling those players that they're out of luck and shouldn't get to finish a character to 50 is a pretty crap take given the type of game we're playing here. This isn't City of Dark Souls. 

[Sovera]

17 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

'Not sure I agree with that sentiment...

 

City is, and has always been, a very casual-friendly game on the lower end of the difficulty scale. It's attracted and kept quite a few players who just aren't All About ~THE CHALLENGE~ because of that. As hard as it may be for more challenge-focused players to understand, just wanting a low-stress button-mashing session isn't some kind of outlandish edge case.

 

Telling those players that they're out of luck and shouldn't get to finish a character to 50 is a pretty crap take given the type of game we're playing here. This isn't City of Dark Souls. 

 

To be fair this sentiment belongs in the Council revamp thread. CoT have not been lauded as an easy faceroll faction that I am aware of.

 

Also, there is no reason not to finish a character. There are other factions to fight and a difficulty slider to mess with, an Ouroborous to explore, different TFs and SFs, etc.

 

I don't disagree with the sentiment that CoH has always been a nice, easy, casual game btw which is an attractive perk. Just with the idea a character is now blocked from reaching level 50 because of these revamps.

 

Edited February 11 by Sovera

[Coyotedancer]

5 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

I don't disagree with the sentiment that CoH has always been a nice, easy, casual game btw which is an attractive perk. Just with the idea a character is now blocked from reaching level 50 because of these revamps.

 

 

I don't recall ever saying that they were... Old Age must be getting the best of me. Or a lack of coffee. 😝

 

[Blackbird71]

29 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

I don't recall ever saying that they were... Old Age must be getting the best of me. Or a lack of coffee. 😝

 

 

I do believe that was directed at me.  😉

 

37 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Also, there is no reason not to finish a character. There are other factions to fight and a difficulty slider to mess with, an Ouroborous to explore, different TFs and SFs, etc.

 

 

• Other factions have their own issues.  CoT may not be as easy as Council, but they were still a better option than some of the others.  Particularly for magic-focused characters.
• I often play at the lower end of the difficulty slider.  Depending on the AT and power sets, I'll typically be at +0/x1-4.
• Ouroboros is a means of replaying lower-level content.  I'm an altaholic who plays through the lower level content while I'm at that level, so there's little reason for me to want to revisit it one one character to get to 50 when I'm just as likely to go through it on my next character.
• TFs and the like 1) require a significant time investment to do multiple chained missions back to back, while I prefer playing in shorter spurts, and 2) are more geared towards groups, whereas I do most of my leveling solo.

 

All around, these sorts of changes (CoT and Council) just further reduce viable options for players like me.

 

[Sovera]

3 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

I do believe that was directed at me.  😉

 

 

• Other factions have their own issues.  CoT may not be as easy as Council, but they were still a better option than some of the others.  Particularly for magic-focused characters.
• I often play at the lower end of the difficulty slider.  Depending on the AT and power sets, I'll typically be at +0/x1-4.
• Ouroboros is a means of replaying lower-level content.  I'm an altaholic who plays through the lower level content while I'm at that level, so there's little reason for me to want to revisit it one one character to get to 50 when I'm just as likely to go through it on my next character.
• TFs and the like 1) require a significant time investment to do multiple chained missions back to back, while I prefer playing in shorter spurts, and 2) are more geared towards groups, whereas I do most of my leveling solo.

 

All around, these sorts of changes (CoT and Council) just further reduce viable options for players like me.

 

 

Indeed it was. And those are all valid points to be fair. Are they really that bad at that low difficulty? Asking without sarcasm since I don't usually drive anything that isn't one of my uber twinked characters so it's difficult to gauge difficulty levels when the car is worth almost a billion.

 

The facile answer would be 'buy some IOs' but you've been around long enough that this is already understood.

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, Blackbird71 said:

All around, these sorts of changes (CoT and Council) just further reduce viable options for players like me.

 

It will take a few missions to get used to the changes. Once you know which mobs to target first it will go back to being fairly easy.

[Blackbird71]

7 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

Indeed it was. And those are all valid points to be fair. Are they really that bad at that low difficulty? Asking without sarcasm since I don't usually drive anything that isn't one of my uber twinked characters so it's difficult to gauge difficulty levels when the car is worth almost a billion.

 

The facile answer would be 'buy some IOs' but you've been around long enough that this is already understood.

 

Well, "buy some IOs" goes back to my previous point of being an altaholic.  Tricking out every character with a high-end IO build gets expensive.  I do it for some characters, but not all.

[Dev Unitas]

24 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Well, "buy some IOs" goes back to my previous point of being an altaholic.  Tricking out every character with a high-end IO build gets expensive.  I do it for some characters, but not all.

If you don't mind me asking, in your testing, what's the highest level of difficulty that you are finding feels comfortable on the Open beta with your current builds, and what do those builds currently look like? We have our own internal ideas for what should and shouldn't be doable at certain levels of build completion, so that'd legitimately be super helpful data for us. The more players give us data like that, the more we can cross-compare and assess if we're aiming too high, too low, etc.

[Sovera]

49 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

Well, "buy some IOs" goes back to my previous point of being an altaholic.  Tricking out every character with a high-end IO build gets expensive.  I do it for some characters, but not all.

 

I have no idea how deep you are into the market and prices. I'm also not sure you're after advice or even if it's needed. But if you focus on arcs you should be swimming in merits on all those alts.

 

As an altholic myself I used to transfer most my IOs from alt to alt since each alt would make an average of 100 million just leveling to 50 in merits alone. New alt? Old alt had a respec where all stuff was moved. It does take 5 minutes to do and each respec costs around 2 million, but it's worth to move around 500-800 million worth of gear around.

 

 

Edited February 11 by Sovera

[Blackbird71]

3 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

I have no idea how deep you are into the market and prices. I'm also not sure you're after advice or even if it's needed. But if you focus on arcs you should be swimming in merits on all those alts.

 

As an altholic myself I used to transfer most my IOs from alt to alt since each alt would make an average of 100 million just leveling to 50 in merits alone. New alt? Old alt had a respec where all stuff was moved. It does take 5 minutes to do and each respec costs around 2 million, but it's worth to move around 500-800 million worth of gear around.

 

 

 

I don't move enhancements from character to character, because I will sometimes revisit past characters, and it's just a pain to do.  "5 minutes" is a rather optimisitic estimate.  You don't just have to respec to strip all the enhancements, but also then mail them to yourself, one at a time.

 

And 100 million Inf per character doesn't go very far if you're talking IOs.  At current market prices, a solid IO build can run at least 300-500 million.  I've seen some post here about "billion inf" builds, which it's hard for me to fathom spending that much on a single character build, but apparently it happens.

Edited February 11 by Blackbird71

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

I don't move enhancements from character to character, because I will sometimes revisit past characters, and it's just a pain to do.  "5 minutes" is a rather optimisitic estimate.  You don't just have to respec to strip all the enhancements, but also then mail them to yourself, one at a time.

 

And 100 million Inf per character doesn't go very far if you're talking IOs.  At current market prices, a solid IO build can run at least 300-500 million.  I've seen some post here about "billion inf" builds, which it's hard for me to fathom spending that much on a single character build, but apparently it happens.

 

Bro, no, you have a SG where you dump all the things. I do it so often I do know what I'm talking about. Respec in front of the table, right click the IO, press S for store (I think it was S, it's been a while), dump it all, log new alt, invite to the SG, go to the table, pick it all up. I got the whole procedure in the signature.

 

Regardless you're right it is a pain, but worth it because those 100 million per alt accumulate when we don't have 10-12 duplicates of +3% defense uniques, Panaceia procs, etc.

 

I hope you're selling your merits!

 

(Sorry for the derail, GMs)

[Wavicle]

It's also definitely better to go Live with the new mobs slightly too hard and then have to Nerf them, than it is to go with them not hard enough and have to Buff them.

Edited February 12 by Wavicle

[Wavicle]

One hopes that ultimately, the new CoT and Council will be roughly balanced with Malta, Knives, Carnies, etc. If they really are a lot harder, then I expect some slight adjustments might happen after they go live.

[Seed22]

On 2/10/2024 at 7:41 PM, Coyotedancer said:

'Not sure I agree with that sentiment...

 

City is, and has always been, a very casual-friendly game on the lower end of the difficulty scale. It's attracted and kept quite a few players who just aren't All About ~THE CHALLENGE~ because of that. As hard as it may be for more challenge-focused players to understand, just wanting a low-stress button-mashing session isn't some kind of outlandish edge case.

 

Telling those players that they're out of luck and shouldn't get to finish a character to 50 is a pretty crap take given the type of game we're playing here. This isn't City of Dark Souls. 

Thats the thing. These “challenge seeking” players don’t want real challenge. Otherwise they’d understand this game isn’t for them as it doesn’t have any, and I’m including HM 4. 
 

The game is and always has been a low steaks fun romp ARPG of MMOs. You want challenge? Play one of the souls like games like Remnant II like I did. Thats where REAL challenge is. Its laughable and insulting to try and change CoH to flex your non existent muscles. 
 

But thats a skill issue for a lot of those types of players and a topic for another thread

Edited February 12 by Seed22

[Seed22]

To bring it back to CoT, I tested them on my Arse/Arse dom I think and it wasn’t the end of the world. Annoying sure but not overly terrible. But I also didn’t have 3 stacked death mage tar patches, that shouldn’t be a thing, nor 3 stacked Mage of any kind. Should be two mages+ some other CoT boss.

[golstat2003]

On 2/10/2024 at 1:51 PM, Wavicle said:

This seems like the right result to me. Players who can’t or don’t want to fight challenging opponents in the 40s shouldn’t GET to 50.

 

This is to me is not a good take for all the reasons already explained by others. This isn't what City of Heroes has ever been about. lol

[Sovera]

In a game with difficulty settings and myriad options no one will ever not reach 50.

 

No one will ever not reach 50, but *everyone* should feel that the enemies are becoming more difficult as they approach 50. That is the motivator to improve their skills or improve their builds.