Advanced difficulty (general settings?)

[UltraAlt]

21 minutes ago, PancakeGnome said:

I don't know why people on these forums are so hostile / against the idea of adding more features and end game content.....

I think the game could use more end game content and progressions systems and challenge settings..... and the counter to that is "nah nah, we got everything we need already, there are some hard AE missions!".

Kind of not the same... and everyone knows that... but it won't stop you from insisting that the AE mission and turning off my powers is "really what you want". lol

 

You are trolling me. Good day.

[arcane]

9 hours ago, PancakeGnome said:

I don't know why people on these forums are so hostile / against the idea of adding more features and end game content.....

I think the game could use more end game content and progressions systems and challenge settings..... and the counter to that is "nah nah, we got everything we need already, there are some hard AE missions!".

Kind of not the same... and everyone knows that... but it won't stop you from insisting that the AE mission and turning off my powers is "really what you want". lol

Setting challenges to Enemies buffed is neither an AE thing nor does it tune down any of your powers. So have you tried that?

[Linea]

On 1/25/2024 at 1:45 AM, PancakeGnome said:

I don't know why people on these forums are so hostile / against the idea of adding more features and end game content.....

I think the game could use more end game content and progressions systems and challenge settings..... and the counter to that is "nah nah, we got everything we need already, there are some hard AE missions!".

Kind of not the same... and everyone knows that... but it won't stop you from insisting that the AE mission and turning off my powers is "really what you want". lol

TLDR: At this time, if you want high difficulty high level content, (AE, the Existing Hardmode TFs, the newest existing Hardmode 1-star Story Arcs, and the standard 'Enemies Buffed/Players Debuffed' options), are likely the only viable options.  Expanding Hardmode is being worked on, but it's a very slow process.

 

I don't know that it's so much 'against the idea' as it is there's only so much that can be done with the insane spaghetti code mess that is CoH development.  Once upon a time I spent 6 months just learning and looking into bases because I wanted to improve and expand the capabilities.  The Alpha tests went great, it IS possible to do.  Yay.  However, it was going to take 2 person-years and skill sets I personally did not have.   Project scrapped.   And THAT is CoH development in a nutshell.

 

801 took 6-months to develop the alpha, and a year to develop the first version that only went up to 801.2 difficulty.  

 

Each Hardmode TF is taking 6-months to 1 year to develop.

 

I'm not sure how many Hard Mode 1-star Story arcs are in-game now, one or two probably, they also took 6 months to develop.

 

There's a theme here.  With the resources and number of developers we currently have, it will take a considerably long time (years if not decades) to update the entire game an all it's content to a more flexible difficulty system.  The devs started at level 50 and are (most likely) working their way down through the TFs.  At some point, enough work will be done that it might not be impossible to add Hardmode to the general difficulty of an entire tier of CoH, most likely the level 40-50 or 45-50 range.  But I doubt that's even on the radar yet.  Maybe a year or two.

 

Because of the way CoH was designed, simply buffing enemies (much) beyond 54 doesn't really work out well.  Scaling up or down, much more than +/- 4 of what an enemy group was designed for introduces issues.  I do think we could get away with +5 to +7 once we reach incarnates, but that's really the reasonable limit for general game play, and that's about where the 'Enemies buffed/Players De-buffed' settings in all the standard TFs will put you.  Adding that setting to standard contacts difficulty might or might not even be possible given the spaghetti code that is CoH, but if it is possible, it's likely the only 'low hanging fruit' available to the difficulty settings tree.

 

Once upon a time there was a bug where the ITF would spawn 54 while the team level locked at 45.   Great Fun, at least for me, but not something I would put into a production product.  That bug was eventually squashed because it was also used to do the opposite, spawn the TF at 45, while the team sat pretty at 54, ick totally boring.

 

It's been a long time, so this won't be 100% accurate.   There are at least 2 types of standard missions, maybe 3 now that we have the WoW style low level contacts, and the phasing tech.  Then there are 2 or 3 types of TaskForce / Trial Missions, then there are a couple of different formats for Incarnate Trials and Missions, and then there's the AE hack missions.   Each it's own different format, and none are effectively compatible with each other, but instead have to be completely re-written. There are even multiple internal scripting languages or types.  Each with it's different capabilities.  As an example look at the differences in Zone Pylons vs LFG Pylons, aka don't do your pylon testing in the LFG version.  Same thing, written two different ways in two different systems.  It's a maddening mess.   You'd have to get one of the (I only know of two) high level devs that generally don't post in public to give you a more precise answer. 

[Clave Dark 5]

On 1/22/2024 at 6:00 PM, PancakeGnome said:

I've love to see it rolled out to just general villain groups and all of the game in general.

Dear god no.  I'm not a min/maxer and have no interest to be.  I don't like cookie cutter builds and beyond all that, I've encountered a fair amount of e-peen swinging on starred TFs.  No, please no.

[PancakeGnome]

14 hours ago, Linea said:

Yay.  However, it was going to take 2 person-years and skill sets I personally did not have.   Project scrapped.   And THAT is CoH development in a nutshell.

 

Yea, that is the real problem with a lot of suggestions, time! Game development in general is painfullyyy slow (and always takes longer than you first think). That's why I was thinking more towards blanket buffs and going up the level limit a bit more. Something actually possible within the next decade haha.

It's why I wish the team would get some funding and be able to afford more full time dev time... but a lot of people are super hostile to the idea of monetization in any way (rip). So it's just going to be a slow slog over the next 5-10+ years. 

 

Quote

 I do think we could get away with +5 to +7 once we reach incarnates, but that's really the reasonable limit for general game play, and that's about where the 'Enemies buffed/Players De-buffed' settings in all the standard TFs will put you. 

But those settings don't really give different rewards? The fun thing about bigger challenges is the game patting you on the back for it in some way.

That's why the star rating TF was a ton of fun. Huge rewards! and pretty challenging!! I love what they did with the stars 😄

[Linea]

On 1/27/2024 at 4:51 AM, PancakeGnome said:

...but a lot of people are super hostile to the idea of monetization in any way (rip). So it's just going to be a slow slog over the next 5-10+ years. ...

The second they take any money beyond pure donations, this place will be gone due to legal reasons.  I have not read the new legal agreement, but I think it's safe to assume the same still holds true.  It has to stay 100% donations.

 

... and More Hardmode Stuff IS in the pipeline.

Edited January 29 by Linea