High level enemy group revamps

[KaizenSoze]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

That's a semi-contradictory statement in that you say you never ahd the money and you also say you can have the money. The claim of players spending 5 billion inf' doesn't mean they had all 5 billion at once to spend. Your response doesn't say you didn't build an expensive IO build, just that you didn't farm it, which does not counter the statement you quoted.

Pedantic complaint. I probably still do not have 5 billion influence among all my toons. My point is that you don't have tons of influence to build strong toons.

Once, you have boot strapped one toon to 50, which is the hardest part if you do it solo. Then it's easy enough to collect recipes and shop the auction house from that point forward.

 

Given the a amount of super friendly people playing. Seed money to start is not that hard to get. Or just join an SG.

 

Saying that only "rich" players can make builds that trivialize the high end is not true.

 

 

[Eiko-chan]

4 minutes ago, Luminara said:

OP combines complaining about not being able to solo Council at */x8 with complaining about the Council being too hard for sub-50 characters, and complaining about Council being too hard on casual players.

 

"Casual" players who solo at */x8, on sub-50 characters, without purples, Superior ATOs, level shifts, Incarnate abilities, and only 2/3 of their powers and 1/2 their slots.

 

And who are struggling when fighting the Council, because they're "hard".

 

Right...

I got through the Council spawns I had to deal with. But I had less trouble with the IDF spawns, the Arachnos spawns, the UPA spawns. With the exact same character. And the Council was less fun.

Please assume good faith. 

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

Pedantic complaint. I probably still do not have 5 billion influence among all my toons. My point is that you don't have tons of influence to build strong toons.

Once, you have boot strapped one toon to 50, which is the hardest part if you do it solo. Then it's easy enough to collect recipes and shop the auction house from that point forward.

 

Given the a amount of super friendly people playing. Seed money to start is not that hard to get. Or just join an SG.

 

Saying that only "rich" players can make builds that trivialize the high end is not true.

 

 

And that sidesteps the point of the comment. The comment was that you have an expensive build making the game easy. It doesn't matter how you got it, whether merit vendors, lucky drops, farming, playing, whatever. Yes, there are several ways to get the enhancements you want depending on what enhancements you want, like saving lots of money by spending merits at the merit vendor for the Winter set or Overwhelming Force set enhancements. All told though, the build is expensive if bought through the AH, isn't it? And as far as I can tell, that was the point of the comment you semi-contradicted yourself responding to.

[KaizenSoze]

4 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

The funny thing is, despite this being an MMO, teaming up is not the norm for superheroes. There are super teams, yes, but they don't all turn out for everyday threats. The entire team only assembles to face world-shattering threats. Mobs should be getting wiped out incredibly quick by a full team of supers. The team isn't assembled to fight Joker's minions, or even Joker himself. The team assembled to face down Darkseid, Galactus, or the entire Thanagarian military. 

Solo/duo play is where the individual power of a hero really shines, both in comics and in this game. If you feel like you aren't really contributing in team play, might I humbly suggest trying to play with smaller teams but at the same difficulty?

The game current is probably the most solo friendly is very been. It's so easy to max out Incarnates. The action house is full of enhancement. SG buffs are easily available.

 

As someone who likes running PUG. I know I am weird. I find it enjoyable to gather up 7 stranger and see what happens. At sub 50 levels, around +2/3 sometimes +4 even. It's fun, but at 50 it's just boring. A lot of players have gotten use to easy mode at 50 and don't want to stick around for a "slower" experience. I have noted more satisfaction in team chat when there is actually a bit of a struggle. Extreme versions of that would be AE 801s, but those are extreme missions most people won't join.

[KaizenSoze]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

And that sidesteps the point of the comment. The comment was that you have an expensive build making the game easy. It doesn't matter how you got it, whether merit vendors, lucky drops, farming, playing, whatever. Yes, there are several ways to get the enhancements you want depending on what enhancements you want, like saving lots of money by spending merits at the merit vendor for the Winter set or Overwhelming Force set enhancements. All told though, the build is expensive if bought through the AH, isn't it? And as far as I can tell, that was the point of the comment you semi-contradicted yourself responding to.

We are just going to have to disagree on the meaning of my comment.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

4 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

I have never had 5 billion in influence. Never will. I have farmed some, crafted a lot, and just played. You make a lot of influence just playing.

 

My problem with high end. Practically no risk for reward. Mob are still getting wiped out incredible quick. So, quick that I can barely have to time to click more than 1-2 attacks sometimes.

It's called "hyperbole", champ.

What reward?  When you're already capped out, there are no rewards left.  Seems to me a case of no-risk, no reward.  I, too, am not a fan of not getting to actually play the game, so if I found myself in such a group, I would probably politely excuse myself from it.

In general, you can't just keep making everything harder, because harder content means the content need to be rewarding, means the content becomes easier, means you have to make the content harder, and so forth so forth so on.  See the problem?  At some point you either have to stop giving rewards, which means the content will never be played (because no one actually plays games for fun any more, they play for rewards) or you have to be satisfied that the final (and obviously all previous) content in the game is going to be made easy by the rewards it gives.

[KaizenSoze]

18 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

It's called "hyperbole", champ.

What reward?  When you're already capped out, there are no rewards left.  Seems to me a case of no-risk, no reward.  I, too, am not a fan of not getting to actually play the game, so if I found myself in such a group, I would probably politely excuse myself from it.

And this is where I differ from a lot of players. I throughly enjoy the combat, the rewards as just a side bonus.

 

Being able to use my powers in a team setting or solo is what I enjoy, with the possibility of failing. Watch spawns getting nuked and Judgement'ed (sic) before I can even reach them is not my idea of fun.

 

This whole thread sounds just the feedback thread when they altered they attack types for some powers to not primarily target smash/lethal. People screamed the game was ruined. It would be too hard. Now, nobody thinks about it all. One year from barely anyone will remember that Council use to be puff cakes. The player base is skilled and adjusts quickly. I have already seen it in PI radios.

 

 

Edited May 9 by KaizenSoze

[Sanguinesun]

9 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

It's called "hyperbole", champ.

What reward?  When you're already capped out, there are no rewards left.  Seems to me a case of no-risk, no reward.  I, too, am not a fan of not getting to actually play the game, so if I found myself in such a group, I would probably politely excuse myself from it.

In general, you can't just keep making everything harder, because harder content means the content need to be rewarding, means the content becomes easier, means you have to make the content harder, and so forth so forth so on.  See the problem?  At some point you either have to stop giving rewards, which means the content will never be played (because no one actually plays games for fun any more, they play for rewards) or you have to be satisfied that the final (and obviously all previous) content in the game is going to be made easy by the rewards it gives.

 

And that's the short sighted feature creep I was mentioning.   But its the goals/mindset behind such changes that is what is the most contentious, imo.

 

People still seem to forget that the "challenges" that live had were primarily to make people time sink/play longer to keep them subscribed and thus generate revenue for the company.    Some people do seem to want to drive the game to return to that point; and then when other people mention that seems to be what's happening, the people who who want that are quick to offer the rebuttal of how its easier now still than live. 

 

Yet, when HC went public after years of being a select/secretive group, it was much -much- easier and more casual than now; but slowly it has been changing in the direction going towards that live slog in the name of challenge.   They added the starred challenge content, and arguably only a very limited segment of the player base care for it and bother with it.  But more people arguably prefer playing things more relaxed, casual, or just simply the antithesis of that of hard.   Its as divisive as the inclusivity/exclusivity debates that also crop up on threads too(and that's not a coincidence either as you can guess who wave those flags similarly are one waving the "challenge" one also).

 

But all in all, some may say this is just a vicious circle but really its a vicious spiral that slowly creeps on.

Edited May 10 by Sanguinesun

[tidge]

49 minutes ago, Rudra said:

There are? How? The only other method I know of is through the two dedicated contacts that only give those missions, but you need signature heroes/villains for the Mayhems/Safeguards to get them.

 

It is really easy to get the hero defeats, the Dakota Berg (Brickstown) part of Who Will Die? can have oodles of "named" heroes that count towards Hero defeats.... if you want to quickly unlock the Lord of the Mayhem missions (and don't mind side-switching).

 

It is slightly more annoying to collect appropriate villain defeats without teaming up for some specific content (assuming that the team doesn't skip past the named villains who would count). At least by level 50 it is easy to re-run the PI Safeguard mission to get two villains from each instance.

 

Back to the topic of the Council: By the time the game was sunset, per the Lore it made zero sense that the Council were so weak in content 35+. Per the lore of the game, they should have had common access to the sort of powers and abilities they just got on page 7. From my PoV it was an aberration that they were so pitiful and commonly available for players 45+. Of the original critter groups who "scale up" across multiple level ranges, they were obviously inferior.

[PeregrineFalcon]

36 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

I got through the Council spawns I had to deal with. But I had less trouble with the IDF spawns, the Arachnos spawns, the UPA spawns. With the exact same character. And the Council was less fun.

Please assume good faith. 

To be fair, you were soloing on x8. x8 literally means "this content is for a full team of eight players."

 

I agree with you that Council are really more annoying than challenging now. That being said there's still nothing wrong with turning your difficulty down a bit or picking another enemy group to fight.

[Seed22]

2 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

The game is too easy at the high end

Now this I disagree with. There is a wide berth of difficulty available in the form of HM and MoTFs. It’s easy for me and you probably because we’ve done this song and dance before, but I wouldn’t say, if Pug experiences are to go off of, that it’s easy for everyone. 
 

But we forget, CoH is basically the casual training wheels of MMOs; useful to get you familiar with MMO mechanics minus holy trinity because blegh. 
 

All’s to say there will be options for a more challenging experience for those who claim to want it, but there also should be some relax and chill groups too. 
 

Least that’s my opinion. 
 

*PS: For those who claim to want a challenging game, while we wait for new more challenging groups to be added to CoH, might I recommend Another Crab’s Treasure? 
 

That’s a whole gamut of challenge and fun right there imo

[Eiko-chan]

6 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

To be fair, you were soloing on x8. x8 literally means "this content is for a full team of eight players."

 

I agree with you that Council are really more annoying than challenging now. That being said there's still nothing wrong with turning your difficulty down a bit or picking another enemy group to fight.

Sadly, I can't just remove the Council from the New Praetorians story arc without, y'know, just not doing the New Praetorians story arc.

[tidge]

3 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I agree with you that Council are really more annoying than challenging now. That being said there's still nothing wrong with turning your difficulty down a bit or picking another enemy group to fight.

 

As I wrote in one of the merged threads, the most challenging element of the nuCouncil was when I was soloing the (IIRC) level 35-40 Warshade arc, and after grinding through the penultimate mission I got to one of the con+1 Archons who hulked(TM)-out and simply pwned me... I had no other enemies left to do most of the Warshade tricks! I did have to rely on inspirations and a Shivan to defeat it, yet at no point did I think the game was ruined by suddenly giving me a challenge in the middle of an ongoing story arc.

[Seed22]

2 hours ago, Eiko-chan said:

Do we even play the same game? Malta and Carnival have never been the most annoying groups, at least not since Going Rogue. The groups added in Praetoria were the gold standard for toughness, and the new Council outstrips even them.

What are you talking about? You must not play the same game because people literally avoid Carnies and Malta to this very day because of how annoying they are for a good majority of the playerbase

[Rudra]

10 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

18 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

To be fair, you were soloing on x8. x8 literally means "this content is for a full team of eight players."

 

I agree with you that Council are really more annoying than challenging now. That being said there's still nothing wrong with turning your difficulty down a bit or picking another enemy group to fight.

Sadly, I can't just remove the Council from the New Praetorians story arc without, y'know, just not doing the New Praetorians story arc.

But you can turn down the difficulty if a mission in an arc is giving you problems.

[Eiko-chan]

43 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

What are you talking about? You must not play the same game because people literally avoid Carnies and Malta to this very day because of how annoying they are for a good majority of the playerbase

True, but that same portion of the playerbase also avoids Praetoria and doesn't engage in the contact content that has Praetorian enemy groups either. 

Edited May 9 by Eiko-chan

[Bionic_Flea]

38 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

I am currently levelling a Demon/Pain MM. Key phrase: levelling. This is not a 50. This is not an Incarnate.
I imagine that once I have Clarion Destiny, the difficulty bump with ramp down a lot, but at current level (47 as of this post), this build is handling UPA, IDF, and Arachnos x8 spawns with less difficulty than Council spawns. 
Knockback has always been a sort of soft-counter to MMs, especially area knockback, but the Council revamp is taking this to extremes that not even Fake Nemeses are matching.

 

Yeah, that makes total sense.  World of Pain gives you (and pets) +tohit +dam and +resist, and Enforced Morale gives perception and mez protection but not KB protection.  So I can see you cruising through Arachnos but having problems with new Council.  As you say, incarnates will fix that for you. 

 

But I understand the frustration.

[Seed22]

2 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Yeah, that makes total sense.  World of Pain gives you (and pets) +tohit +dam and +resist, and Enforced Morale gives perception and mez protection but not KB protection.  So I can see you cruising through Arachnos but having problems with new Council.  As you say, incarnates will fix that for you. 

 

But I understand the frustration.

Yeah it all makes sense now.

 

Council weren't good for MM during beta test and it was made known several times how basically the group is overly harsh to the AT with all the AoE flying around.

[KaizenSoze]

1 hour ago, Seed22 said:

But we forget, CoH is basically the casual training wheels of MMOs; useful to get you familiar with MMO mechanics minus holy trinity because blegh.

 You mean an MMO that avoids tedious gear grinding and an actual fun combat system. It's not a training wheels MMO, it's a superior MMO!

 

CoH cured me of "real" MMOs.

[biostem]

6 hours ago, Seed22 said:

You sound dismissive of their argument.

Just responding in kind to the person who was dismissive of me to begin with.

 

6 hours ago, Seed22 said:

you talk of learning a games mechanics…in city of fucking heroes

Yeah - that's why people never get confused by enhancement slotting, ED, IO set bonuses and the rule of 5, and let's not get started on incarnate stuff.

 

6 hours ago, Seed22 said:

How many difficult games do you actually play, I wonder?

Plenty.

[Jacke]

18 hours ago, kelika2 said:

wont be long before cimerorians learn buildup, shield charge and grant cover

 

"Hello, my name is Hans, and this is my brother Franz, and we're going to PUMP YOU UP!"

 

And afterwards, the Cimerorians/Circle of Thorns/Council/5th Column/Arachnos were never the same.  😺

 

Notwithstanding my weak humour, some of these changes are definitely challenging.  And I've yet to experience most of them solo....

[kelika2]

13 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

"Hello, my name is Hans, and this is my brother Franz, and we're going to PUMP YOU UP!"

 

And afterwards, the Cimerorians/Circle of Thorns/Council/5th Column/Arachnos were never the same.  😺

just dawned on me that the council in ITF were not changed

[Jacke]

3 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

just dawned on me that the council in ITF were not changed

 

Hmmm.  I think that's the 5th Column in the ITF.  More the "North of the Alps" fascists rather than the "South of the Alps" fascists.

 

I think they weren't changed as TFs have their own spawndefs.

 

 

Edited May 10 by Jacke

[KaizenSoze]

11 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

Hmmm.  I think that's the 5th Column in the ITF.  More the "North of the Alps" fascists rather than the "South of the Alps" fascists.

 

I think they weren't changed as TFs have their own spawndefs.

 

 

Much like CoT in Dark Astoria. They are a separate spawndef and did not get page 7 updates.

[golstat2003]

12 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

Just popping in to remind everyone to keep things respectful. Antagonizing other players over thier playstyle preferences is quite frowned upon.

 

That said, the Council were simply brought "up to par" so to speak. Before, just about anyone could solo them at +4/x8. This has been remedied in order to encourage team play at the higher difficulties that are meant to be team content. There's "feeling super", and then there's gaining reward for no risk, which is bad game design.

 

Also, per the question posed by the title of the OP, you can leave feedback in the Suggestions & Feedback forum. In order to comment on changes that are being added to the game before they go Live, keep an eye out for Open Beta, and comment on changes there.

 

Thanks for this!

 

I should also point out that Homecoming team also allows anyone to sign up for Closed Beta. And the Testers Discord. There are really no barriers from what I see to getting in to look at and discuss future changes to City of Heroes Homecoming. Just a willingness to help test, be a good citizen there, and not leak anything they are working on.

 

There is no excuse for anyone who wants to look at future changes ahead of time and give feedback on them in the Discord, to do so.