High level enemy group revamps

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Herotu said:

It's true tho. I'd like to see some tower-defence swarm-swatting content where there are loads of weak enemies to blow up, but I daren't suggest anything anymore because of the horde of Beanbag Fans who veto every suggestion.

 

There is the gold side mission where you destroy the Destroyer's Fixadine supply and they attack in the last mission in repeated swarms in a weakened state.

[Krimson]

44 minutes ago, Herotu said:

It's true tho. I'd like to see some tower-defence swarm-swatting content where there are loads of weak enemies to blow up, but I daren't suggest anything anymore because of the horde of Beanbag Fans who veto every suggestion.

 

There could be a disparity between how players and the Devs perceive Superheroes. The players may be thinking The Avengers or Justice League while the Devs may be thinking Mystery Men or The Tick.

[Eiko-chan]

1 minute ago, Krimson said:

The Tick.

But he is nigh indestructible. 

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, Eiko-chan said:

3 minutes ago, Krimson said:

The Tick.

But he is nigh indestructible. 

He is actually just a normal man that is quite insane. He has no powers. He's locked away in an institute where he and his fellow delusional patients are (not successfully) being treated.

[biostem]

56 minutes ago, Herotu said:

It's true tho. I'd like to see some tower-defence swarm-swatting content where there are loads of weak enemies to blow up, but I daren't suggest anything anymore because of the horde of Beanbag Fans who veto every suggestion.

I mean, go do any event in a lower level zone...

[shortguy on indom]

I think @Herotu means an endless supply of enemy hordes over-running the player?

If so, 🤙!!!!!!!!! Count me in!

[Krimson]

32 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

But he is nigh indestructible. 

And this game has Statesman to show what kind of power we will never have. At least this game isn't blatant about being City of Second Stringers like DC Online is. 

[Eiko-chan]

9 minutes ago, Krimson said:

And this game has Statesman to show what kind of power we will never have.

Paragon Studios literally killed off Statesman and then had the player take down the person that did it. Optionally without any assistance. 

[Krimson]

1 minute ago, Eiko-chan said:

Paragon Studios literally killed off Statesman and then had the player take down the person that did it. Optionally without any assistance. 

That's a fourth wall breaking exception steeped in acrimony. 

[biostem]

There's also that possible future mission in Ouroboros where we get to play our full-powered Incarnate self...

[Eiko-chan]

9 minutes ago, Krimson said:

That's a fourth wall breaking exception steeped in acrimony. 

In Number Six's arc, the PC single-handedly saves Praetoria and beats back the forces of their insanely-powerful Hamidon. 

In the New Praetorians arc, the PC assaults Striga Island and takes down the entire Council. Again possibly single-handedly. 

 

I was one of the main proponents for solo play on the live servers, and a bunch of us fought like hell to get them to include solo paths for Incarnates. Dark Astoria was coming out when the shut down happened, and that has the PC single-handedly slay a god that was on the very cusp of eating the entire world. 

 

There is absolutely no sane way to argue that the PCs of City of Heroes/Villains are not peers of the Freedom Phalanx and that their power levels are not world-shaking. The stories in the game do not support that idea. 

Edited May 10 by Eiko-chan

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

Paragon Studios literally killed off Statesman and then had the player take down the person that did it. Optionally without any assistance. 

Yes, but the person that killed Statesman had to use a ritual that was specifically designed to kill someone with Imperious'/Statesman's incarnate nature. And you don't actually take the person that killed Statesman down alone. You can choose to fight him without direct assistance, but you are getting help. If only from Penelope Yin at the final fight, against a person that has not fully assimilated the powers he was taking yet. And as that person states when you fight him at the ritual where he kills Statesman, he wishes he knew the ritual that killed your incarnate nature too. Because he knew you were going to be able to stop him before he could achieve his full transformation.

[golstat2003]

7 hours ago, tatmia said:

Reading this thread had me pondering about how different servers spawning gave us options.  If you’re not happy with one dev team’s vision, another server might suit you better.   I know people who play on all three just to mix it up.

 

Thunderspy’s philosophy leans heavily into making players want to play the pre-50 levels.

 

Rebirth leans into players earning achievements/unlocks and preventing power creep.  
 

Homecoming leans into trying to bring balance to powersets and NPCs.

 

(*note, these are my personal takes on each dev team’s goals and not based on anything official).

 

I think it’s amazing that we have options and I hope that no matter what server someone plays on, if they get frustrated with the dev decisions, they look for another server that might be a better fit rather than just walking away as has been mentioned by some in this thread.  

 

 

 

Cake / New Dawn is also another out there. What is that one like? Imagine if City of Heroes had gone the CO route to the extreme and then blew past the free form system over there.

 

Add in a mix of various classic ATs (classic as in archetypes of various famous comic book heroes/villans) and you have Cake. Be warned though that it is a very very population light server during the day time (with there often only being max 5-10 people on at a time).

 

Also it has various sandbox aspects. Imagine our test server on all the time

but turned to 11. lol

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

He is actually just a normal man that is quite insane. He has no powers. He's locked away in an institute where he and his fellow delusional patients are (not successfully) being treated.

 

Having not watched or read anything about that character, that sounds absolutely fascinating for a super hero. I will check out his stories now! lol

[golstat2003]

15 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Yes, but the person that killed Statesman had to use a ritual that was specifically designed to kill someone with Imperious'/Statesman's incarnate nature. And you don't actually take the person that killed Statesman down alone. You can choose to fight him without direct assistance, but you are getting help. If only from Penelope Yin at the final fight, against a person that has not fully assimilated the powers he was taking yet. And as that person states when you fight him at the ritual where he kills Statesman, he wishes he knew the ritual that killed your incarnate nature too. Because he knew you were going to be able to stop him before he could achieve his full transformation.

 

Off off off (lol) topic, but wasn’t the whole incarnate backstory something that pissed of a lot of players back in the day?

 

I seem to remember folks not liking the “all powers in the COH universe as somewhat having a mystical origin” background surrounding it.

 

Personally I think the incarnates story is fascinating. Especially in the one mission where we are fully over powered up and Oroborus is pretty much wrecked and Hami is running amoke. Makes one wonder what in the possible future is insane enough that leads to Paragon’s universe ending up like that and your character being that crazy overpowered.

 

Can’t just be Battalion. lol

[Krimson]

8 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

In Number Six's arc, the PC single-handedly saves Praetoria and beats back the forces of their insanely-powerful Hamidon. 

In the New Praetorians arc, the PC assaults Striga Island and takes down the entire Council. Again possibly single-handedly. 

 

I was one of the main proponents for solo play on the live servers, and a bunch of us fought like hell to get them to include solo paths for Incarnates. Dark Astoria was coming out when the shut down happened, and that has the PC single-handedly slay a god that was on the very cusp of eating the entire world. 

 

There is absolutely no sane way to argue that the PCs of City of Heroes/Villains are not peers of the Freedom Phalanx and that their power levels are not world-shaking. The stories in the game do not support that idea. 

You can run those at -1/x1 slotted with Generic IOs.

[Eiko-chan]

2 minutes ago, Krimson said:

You can run those at -1/x1 slotted with Generic IOs.

That does not negate the story being told. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

He is actually just a normal man that is quite insane. He has no powers. He's locked away in an institute where he and his fellow delusional patients are (not successfully) being treated.

Isn't that also the same story behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

[tidge]

5 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Isn't that also the same story behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

 

Also Deep Space 9, IIRC.

[SeraphimKensai]

44 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

Also Deep Space 9, IIRC.

Also the film Sucker Punch.

[Ukase]

7 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

That's how resistant the Homecoming devs are to our "Feedback", which they ask for and then mostly ignore.

For the most part, I do believe the HC devs read our posts and take note of certain feedback that's brief and concise, and in some logical order. Which means they probably don't notice mine much. But in all seriousness, I know they have changed their minds about an issue or two I was vehemently against pre-page 4. It was only because I'd joined Cosmic and heard about the proposed changes that I even knew about it.  So, they will listen, and occasionally change course. 

I do think that whomever is influencing the direction of this "ship" is veering off-course. But, I don't know the bearings to get them back on course. Probably not the best analogy. 

My biggest concern with the HC devs is the ones that I'm aware of are not merely competent players. They play at a high level. They have a very solid grasp of game mechanics. 
It's like my experience with advanced lady grey tf. 
My first experience was a total nightmare. I would love to call the leader out, but it really wasn't his fault, because he'd recruited a pug for it. He could have spent more time explaining a few things, sure. 
My next experience was a bit better with a few folks who had done it before, and a few who had not. 
My last experience was the best with folks who normally did 4* and had zero issues carrying me through. Thankfully, I had a much better idea of what to expect and had respec'd specifically for it. 

So, it's my concern that these much better than average players test out these challenging things and don't realize that there's a lot of players who will never be able to figure this stuff out. I guess that's okay. No law says the content has to cater to the lower skill levels. 
I'm just against these upgrades permeating into the content where the folks who struggle with the content on "easy" mode wind up in AE just to have something they can do without getting stunned or smacked around with all of this Freem nonsense. 

It was funny the first time. Now it's annoying. But again, that's just me. I can adjust because I have a fairly good grasp of how to work with mids and builds. Problem is, not everyone has that ability. 

Occasionally, I make time during my longer rowing sessions to consider what might make content more interesting, where tactics and strategy might be implemented, without making things a pain in the butt for a leader to communicate to a league or a team precisely what should or shouldn't be done. It all comes down to lengthy cut scenes which I know nobody wants. 

Remember HC devs. If you're smarter than average, you kind of have to know the next guy you see is probably dumber than average. Try not to assume your players have a clue what mids is, what procs are and how they work, or even what toHit is, in contrast to accuracy. Or even defense debuff resistance. 

It would be great if we could survey every player in Atlas park on every shard right now and see if they know what that stuff is. 

[biostem]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

I seem to remember folks not liking the “all powers in the COH universe as somewhat having a mystical origin” background surrounding it.

I suppose it's a matter of how you interpret the whole Well of the Furies/Pandora's Box thing;  One could interpret it as essentially acting as a muse to inspire those with genius to create their inventions, or maybe to introduce some sort of instability into the genetic codes of lifeforms to permit the kinds of mutations that could grant superpowers, etc...

Edited May 11 by biostem

[Americas Angel]

As someone who helped playtest these changes, I can safely say that testers against these changes were not ignored in closed beta, we were disagreed with. A lot of the concerns brought up in this thread were brought up in closed beta, and were discussed with the devs. That discussion couldn't have happened if we (testers) had been ignored. So it's not fair to accuse the devs of that.

 

I personally am not a fan of making old enemy groups harder. But I understand that's a "taste" thing on my end. CoH, to me, has always been an extremely easy game that granted me, and my roleplaying buddies, the illusion that we were better at it than we were. "Check it out! I can solo +4/8! I'm so OP!" we'd cry. It was a validating superhero power fantasy that played into our delusions. These new changes remove that delusion somewhat. As will future changes to the other level 50 groups, when they're buffed to be as tough as the new Council and CoT.

 

With that said, the new changes are mostly fine on my tanks. I can still roflstomp everything on +4/8. (Less broken ATs might struggle more now, though.) There are only two real areas I have issues:

 

#1 - Council taking longer to kill

This isn't harder, it's just tedious, and mostly just when soloing. I imagine it's here to stay, though as the dev team can use the intangible Fake Nems/Carnies, and self-rezzing Freakshow tanks as precedent for this design. I would counter this by saying that any mobs, new or old, who artificially lengthen fights, are built upon dated time-wasting MMO design principles and should be reworked, not emulated. Take it away from Fake Nems, Carnies, and Freaks. Don't add it to Council.

 

#2 - CoT Boss Nukes & Masterminds

A Mastermind can be "pretty much oneshot" (i.e. when at nearly full health) by the CoT boss nukes. This is just bad game design. I understand Masterminds are going to be looked at soon, and because of this it's considered a non-issue. I understand the devs don't want to limit CoT boss AoE options if future MM updates would make such limits unecessary. But it is nevertheless frustrating that my Mastermind has to avoid CoT until the MM rework.

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, Americas Angel said:

I would counter this by saying that any mobs, new or old, who artificially lengthen fights, are built upon dated time-wasting MMO design principles and should be reworked, not emulated. Take it away from Fake Nems, Carnies, and Freaks. Don't add it to Council.

I would not shed a single tear if they removed the rezzing and intangible/untouchable mobs.  With that in mind, who or what determines what is a "legit" tough enemy vs one that exists solely to waste time?  What your tank can roflstomp solo, my blaster may have a very tough time taking on.  What's the baseline?

[Rudra]

54 minutes ago, Americas Angel said:

#1 - Council taking longer to kill

This isn't harder, it's just tedious, and mostly just when soloing. I imagine it's here to stay, though as the dev team can use the intangible Fake Nems/Carnies, and self-rezzing Freakshow tanks as precedent for this design. I would counter this by saying that any mobs, new or old, who artificially lengthen fights, are built upon dated time-wasting MMO design principles and should be reworked, not emulated. Take it away from Fake Nems, Carnies, and Freaks. Don't add it to Council.

I have to disagree with this sentiment. Yes, Crey Juggernauts popping their force fields are annoying. Fake Nemesi popping their force fields are annoying. MIs and Illusionists going intangible every however many seconds it is is annoying. Freakshow self-rezzing because their chance to do so triggered is annoying. Super Stunners self-rezzing because any ally unit is within however many feet of them is annoying. Paragon Protectors popping old MoG and basically being untouchable until it crashes is annoying. The various AVs/Heroes with their own T9s to save them using them is annoying. However, it makes sense. Each faction has their quirks/abilities that players have to figure out and work around. It is annoying having to wait to be able to defeat an enemy or having to do so twice, or even thrice in the case of a specific Freak Tank who has both the standard Freakshow rez plus the Super Stunner rez, but I personally think that helps balance out the mobs against the players. Otherwise every faction is just a generic group with different names that can just be mowed down without so much as a second thought about what they can do, either to your character or for themselves. It gives the different factions a hook that compels players to figure out or overpower. So it takes a couple seconds longer to clear out spawns. Oh well. I've fought the new Council. Except for the Freem! surprise, they weren't anything different to me. Their explosions can actually do KB now? Okay. Their Galaxies can actually fight with more than one power as far as I could tell they had before? Good. And I'm still mowing down Council without seeing any of them get back up. They try to transform into War Wolves of any tier? They can't if they're dead. (Stopped several conversions by killing them off when they start their transformation animation.) I'm not seeing anything the improved Council do that are any significant problems. (Freem! notwithstanding so far.)

 

Edited May 11 by Rudra
Edited to correct "(" to "9" in "T9s".