Enemies and Damage.

[Luminara]

9 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

It's a poor design if the enemy is able to defeat ANY player character instantly. 

 

 

You had the opportunity to engage from a distance on your low health character with ranged attacks, where you would've been safer and guaranteed not to be defeated so quickly.  You chose to teleport right into the AV's face and risk having your ass handed to you.

 

Stop blaming the game for your actions.  Bad design didn't screw you over, you did it to yourself.

[Ultimo]

16 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

Why does it matter you've been using this same tactic the whole mission?   This guy isn't like any other enemy in the entire Task Force.  He has extreme energy damage, up to mag 4 stun, knockdown, and, crucially, can ignore 3/4 of your Hurricane's toHit debuff.   You ran up into this guys face, effectively, with nothing that you'd need to survive in melee range: And you didn't. 

 

Game worked exactly as intended there.  What you need to take away from this experience is that you need another tactic if you want to go at him with the same team.  You've gotten some good advice already.  Try to fight him at range.  Hover.  Make him use his weaker ranged attacks.   Bolster your resistance and KB protect with inspirations so you aren't mezzed and then KO'd.  On a team, share the aggro.  Kite him if you have to.  Run away while your teammates pound on him.   

 

You're fixated on the fact you couldn't react when you should have been proactive.  You should not have put yourself in a position where you needed to react to a 1K energy punch + mag 4 stun.  This game rewards smart play.  That IS good design.

I was proactive.  I had as much defense as I could get.  Regardless, he defeated me in one attack.  I don't care if I had NO defense, he shouldn't be able to defeat me in one shot.  To me, that's the bad design.  I'm not saying it wasn't working as designed/intended.  I'm saying that design/intention is bad.  Again, you're welcome to disagree with me, it's just my opinion.

[Eiko-chan]

On 5/21/2024 at 3:02 PM, Ultimo said:

he hit me twice before I could even react

You said yourself he hit you twice, not once. He didn't take you down in one shot - as I said, the game has code to prevent that. What he did was hit you once and stun you (since you don't have mez protection), and then he hit you again before you broke out of the stun. 

 

He did not take you out in one shot. He took you out in two. There was time for you or the team to do something about it. But sometimes in this game, you get defeated. There are also powers to do something about that.

[Ultimo]

1 minute ago, Eiko-chan said:

You said yourself he hit you twice, not once. He didn't take you down in one shot - as I said, the game has code to prevent that. What he did was hit you once and stun you (since you don't have mez protection), and then he hit you again before you broke out of the stun. 

 

He did not take you out in one shot. He took you out in two. There was time for you or the team to do something about it. But sometimes in this game, you get defeated. There are also powers to do something about that.

Yes, the first hit left me with one health.  It's essentially the same thing.

[Doomguide2005]

1 minute ago, Ultimo said:

Yes, the first hit left me with one health.  It's essentially the same thing.

Nah, its an opportunity for an Empath or other character to pull you back from the brink.  And I've seen it happen, probably even done it a time or two.  You are just as functional at 1 health as full health.  

[PeregrineFalcon]

7 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

Yes, the first hit left me with one health.  It's essentially the same thing.

[Andreah]

6 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

Yes, the first hit left me with one health.  It's essentially the same thing.

If you had some mez protection, you would have had an opportunity to get away. You didn't. You could have with prepping with a break-free before jumping in, but you didn't. You took a chance, and it went badly. That's not a game design problem.

[Doomguide2005]

47 minutes ago, Andreah said:

If you had some mez protection, you would have had an opportunity to get away. You didn't. You could have with prepping with a break-free before jumping in, but you didn't. You took a chance, and it went badly. That's not a game design problem.

Or had one or both fellow Stormies had and used O2 Boost proactively and or immediately used one on you after you were hit.

 

Edit:  proactively in this case as O2 Boost has Stun protection in addition to a heal and other things.  Each Boost is over 7 mag protection for a Defender

 

Edited May 24 by Doomguide2005

[WumpusRat]

3 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I still don't think people are understanding me.  I'm not saying my Defender should have been able to tank.  That's not his role, that's not what he's built for.  However, I also don't think it should be possible for a character to be defeated instantly with no opportunity to react to it.  Refer back to my explanation about GMing Champions.  It's a poor design if the enemy is able to defeat ANY player character instantly.  Will designing an enemy that way make it harder for that enemy to defeat tanks?  Of course, but that's why they're TANKS, and they pay for that durability by sacrificing other abilities.

 

I was still in the teleport animation as I said I was.  When I said I would teleport in and initiate an attack, that was the PLAN, as I'd been doing throughout the mission.  In this case, I didn't have a chance to do it.  But again, this specific example isn't the point, it's an example of a general principle.  I get that you disagree with me, but that's fine.  We can agree to disagree.

 

To look at it from the TTRPG Champions perspective (a game I used to play constantly), you did the equivalent of taking your character with 8 PD and 30 stun up to facetank the enemy brick with 75 str. It punched you. You dropped. That's about it. 

 

This whole thing can be chalked up to a learning experience if you look at it the right way. "Oh, this happened because the TF was set with these parameters. Clearly I can't do this tactic against AVs. Huh. Good to know." 

 

That SHOULD have been your takeaway from it. Instead, you came to the forums and complained that the game is "broken" because when the odds are heavily stacked against you, you can't face-tank an enemy designed to take on entire teams. It doesn't matter that you were "mid-animation and couldn't react". You jumped into range and aggro'd the AV. The AV responded, and slammed you into the floor. You could have popped a breakfree in advance "just in case", since as a defender with no cc protection, getting stunned/held/immobilized when you're right next to an angry purple-con ANYTHING is going to cause a lot of pain. You made a tactical error and paid the price for it.

 

Learn from it.

[RelativeQuanta]

Ok, so there are definitely two arguments happening here.  I'll put it more bluntly.  Ultimo has stated an opinion about what he things encounter design should be.  He's not arguing about what is.  If you want to speak constructively with him about this, explain why his opinion is wrong not make a restatement about the facts of the design.  

 

I would also point out that the prevailing opinion in this thread about leveling, non-hardmode content is exactly the trinity design.  Which this game supposedly doesn't follow _{(except for the times that it does)}.

Edited May 25 by RelativeQuanta

[Andreah]

42 minutes ago, RelativeQuanta said:

I would also point out that the prevailing opinion in this thread about leveling, non-hardmode content is exactly the trinity design.  Which this game supposedly doesn't follow _{(except for the times that it does)}.

Nah, this thread doesn't. My opinion of what we're all saying is that if you want to be certain of surviving having the AV's main aggro as a squishie archetype in his face is that you need to prepare and be responsive. 

 

I main a defender, and I often do the defender-tanking or aggro herding thing. It's possible, it's fun, and it still dangerous. The game is not broken when I mess up and get face-planted.

 

If a person is of the belief that a character doing something stupid should not be in danger of rapid if not instant defeat in an encounter, then al I can say is that person is wrong.

 

I will quote the OP: 

  

On 5/21/2024 at 4:02 PM, Ultimo said:

So this brings me to the point of my post.  Enemy damage at higher ranks (EB and AV) are WAY, WAY, WAY excessive. 

 

This is what brought him to the forums to post, and we've established the circumstances of that event weren't ordinary non-hardmode. If he was instant killed from full health by an 11k hit by an AV in a normal run, despite the two-hits to kill rule, and despite the nominal design of that AV, he should have collected his combat log and submitted a bug report. Arguing game design from it here at this point, in my opinion, is not credible.

[Ultimo]

2 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

 

To look at it from the TTRPG Champions perspective (a game I used to play constantly), you did the equivalent of taking your character with 8 PD and 30 stun up to facetank the enemy brick with 75 str. It punched you. You dropped. That's about it. 

 

This whole thing can be chalked up to a learning experience if you look at it the right way. "Oh, this happened because the TF was set with these parameters. Clearly I can't do this tactic against AVs. Huh. Good to know." 

 

That SHOULD have been your takeaway from it. Instead, you came to the forums and complained that the game is "broken" because when the odds are heavily stacked against you, you can't face-tank an enemy designed to take on entire teams. It doesn't matter that you were "mid-animation and couldn't react". You jumped into range and aggro'd the AV. The AV responded, and slammed you into the floor. You could have popped a breakfree in advance "just in case", since as a defender with no cc protection, getting stunned/held/immobilized when you're right next to an angry purple-con ANYTHING is going to cause a lot of pain. You made a tactical error and paid the price for it.

 

Learn from it.

I agree.  I understand how it IS, I'm suggesting that it shouldn't BE this way.  When I used the Enemies books in Champions, I had to reduce the damage the enemies could do because it made it impossible to fight them.  That's what I'm seeing here.

 

The players I had complained that they wanted to fight Doctor Destroyer, at one point.  So, I illustrated out he'd been designed.  I'll digress a moment to explain how old Champions worked.

 

Characters rolled 6 sided dice for everything. To hit a target, you rolled 3d6 (three six sided dice).  There was a bit of math, but generally the average to hit value was 11 or less on three six sided dice.  When you hit a target, you rolled damage.  The average attack for heroes (at least to start) was around 10-12d6.  That is, roll 10 6 sided dice and add up the numbers.  on average, you could expect around 35 damage from 10d6.  This was STUN damage, which would knock you out.  Ranged Killing Attacks worked the same way, but did BODY damage, which was lethal.  The average hero would have around 40-50 stun and perhaps 20 body.

 

Doctor Destroyer had a 7d6 RKA.  This attack had no range penalties, and he could fire it off indirectly.  It had a range of around 1 mile.  He also had multiple combat levels to improve his chance to hit, and his Speed was so high that he would act around 3 times before any player would be able to.  So, they boarded their ship, and when they were within a mile, he hit it with the equivalent of a tactical nuke.  He couldn't miss because of his combat levels, and did so much damage the players couldn't possibly survive.  If by some miracle one of them did, he would just target and kill them on his next action.

 

There's no fun there.  His damage and abilities were SO far beyond those of the players that it made him useless.  I was forced to rebuild the character so they could actually fight him... that meant reducing his DAMAGE, more than anything else.  As long as the players were still standing, they could ACT, which was WAY more fun for them.  I made him so he still hit HARD, but not SO hard they players couldn't withstand getting hit a couple of times.

 

That's what I'd like to see here.  The AVs and even EBs hit too hard.  There's just no way for many characters to withstand it.  I mean, you're GOING to get hit sometimes.  This is especially so now that there's a streakbreaker for NPC attacks.

 

But, I don't see anyone in agreement with me, really.  No matter, I don't expect they would change anything anyway.

[WumpusRat]

23 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

That's what I'd like to see here.  The AVs and even EBs hit too hard.  There's just no way for many characters to withstand it.  I mean, you're GOING to get hit sometimes.  This is especially so now that there's a streakbreaker for NPC attacks.

 

But, I don't see anyone in agreement with me, really.  No matter, I don't expect they would change anything anyway.

 

I'm not going to respond to all the Champions stuff, since that would derail the thread. I could talk about Champions for hours and hours. It was probably my favorite TTRPG, even moreso than D&D, and my friends and I played it for decades.

 

But to comment on this bit, the problem is that you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. If the AV was hitting you that hard, it's because you specifically chose options to MAKE him that hard. Normal AVs do NOT do that much damage. Your TF was almost certainly running with the "enemies buffed, players debuffed" modifiers, which drastically increases the difficulty level, and quite possibly running well under the level the enemies spawn at. I've face-tanked plenty of AVs on squishy characters, and have never been hit for the damage you're claiming. I'd love to see a screenshot of the damage you took, the mob level, and your level, along with any buffs/debuffs, to really see what was going on. 

 

But it sounds like you were running on the hardest possible difficulty you could set, jumped into a fight with zero actual preparation or planning, and got hammered for it. And you're complaining that that's unfair.

 

I just don't see the problem.

[Ultimo]

24 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

 

I'm not going to respond to all the Champions stuff, since that would derail the thread. I could talk about Champions for hours and hours. It was probably my favorite TTRPG, even moreso than D&D, and my friends and I played it for decades.

 

But to comment on this bit, the problem is that you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. If the AV was hitting you that hard, it's because you specifically chose options to MAKE him that hard. Normal AVs do NOT do that much damage. Your TF was almost certainly running with the "enemies buffed, players debuffed" modifiers, which drastically increases the difficulty level, and quite possibly running well under the level the enemies spawn at. I've face-tanked plenty of AVs on squishy characters, and have never been hit for the damage you're claiming. I'd love to see a screenshot of the damage you took, the mob level, and your level, along with any buffs/debuffs, to really see what was going on. 

 

But it sounds like you were running on the hardest possible difficulty you could set, jumped into a fight with zero actual preparation or planning, and got hammered for it. And you're complaining that that's unfair.

 

I just don't see the problem.

This might be so... but this isn't the only time I've seen this sort of thing.

 

I've struggled a LOT to make decent enemies for my AE missions, and this is the root problem.  If I make the enemies durable enough (ie. EB/AV) to have a good fight, they do WAY too much damage to have a good fight.  Granted, I haven't encountered many AVs in general, as most of my characters are still in their 20s.

 

But, for all that, my position remains the same.  Enemies shouldn't be able to do 100% (or 99.99999%) of a character's health in one attack.

[WumpusRat]

2 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

This might be so... but this isn't the only time I've seen this sort of thing.

 

I've struggled a LOT to make decent enemies for my AE missions, and this is the root problem.  If I make the enemies durable enough (ie. EB/AV) to have a good fight, they do WAY too much damage to have a good fight.  Granted, I haven't encountered many AVs in general, as most of my characters are still in their 20s.

 

But, for all that, my position remains the same.  Enemies shouldn't be able to do 100% (or 99.99999%) of a character's health in one attack.

 

AE is a different beast entirely. And if you're working with custom AVs, it can get really nasty. 

 

However, we're not talking about AE, we're talking about Hopkins from the Manticore TF. I've done that TF probably over 100 times on various characters, and I've never had an issue with it. Yeah, he can hit hard, but so can lots of enemies. I've had Freak Tanks swat me for a big chunk of my health if I'm a squishy before. It's something you account for when you're playing a low-def character.

 

Your argument is that the strongest type of enemy in the game who is buffed to the gills (and is possibly many levels above you) shouldn't be able to hit a character with zero defense hard enough to nearly one-shot them.

How hard SHOULD they hit, then? Bear in mind, this is against a character with zero defenses. Should they hit for 20% of their health? 50%?

If so, how hard are they going to be hitting a character who DOES have defenses? Is it going to be a threat at all?

If they're not enough of a threat to make even a squishball character think twice about taking a few hits, they would just be a joke to a tanky or buffed up character.

 

AVs are meant to be dangerous. Especially if they spawn multiple levels above you. Moreso if you've got the TF set to buff them and debuff you. 

 

Claiming that they shouldn't be a deadly threat to a character with zero defenses makes no sense.

[Ultimo]

8 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

 

AE is a different beast entirely. And if you're working with custom AVs, it can get really nasty. 

 

However, we're not talking about AE, we're talking about Hopkins from the Manticore TF. I've done that TF probably over 100 times on various characters, and I've never had an issue with it. Yeah, he can hit hard, but so can lots of enemies. I've had Freak Tanks swat me for a big chunk of my health if I'm a squishy before. It's something you account for when you're playing a low-def character.

 

Your argument is that the strongest type of enemy in the game who is buffed to the gills (and is possibly many levels above you) shouldn't be able to hit a character with zero defense hard enough to nearly one-shot them.

How hard SHOULD they hit, then? Bear in mind, this is against a character with zero defenses. Should they hit for 20% of their health? 50%?

If so, how hard are they going to be hitting a character who DOES have defenses? Is it going to be a threat at all?

If they're not enough of a threat to make even a squishball character think twice about taking a few hits, they would just be a joke to a tanky or buffed up character.

 

AVs are meant to be dangerous. Especially if they spawn multiple levels above you. Moreso if you've got the TF set to buff them and debuff you. 

 

Claiming that they shouldn't be a deadly threat to a character with zero defenses makes no sense.

I agree, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be a threat.  I'm saying they're overtuned.  How hard should they hit?  It's hard to say.  I'd have to run some tests and see, but I'd start from potentially 50% at most, and work up or down from there, until it seems balanced overall.  I mean, it's got to work for all the ATs.

 

But you guys are right, I'm working from a relatively small sample, and AE isn't the same animal.  I think I'll try running it again on a few other ATs and see how it feels.

[PeregrineFalcon]

3 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I agree, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be a threat.  I'm saying they're overtuned.

I disagree.

 

This isn't Champions the table top RPG. This is City of Heroes the online MMO from 2004. It launched with a trinity and it still has one. If an AV can't kill a squishy quickly then the entire Tanker AT might as well just be deleted. The AV didn't one-shot you. An AV should be able to disable and drop a SQUISHY that didn't properly prepare and then intentionally jumped into range of his most dangerous attacks.

 

It's always been this way, and it's always been this way for a reason. That's why people usually want to have a tank on their team.

 

3 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I mean, it's got to work for all the ATs.

Correct. And the amount of damage that he did to you would barely scratch the paint job on most of my tanks. Why? Because surviving heavy damage is what the Tanker AT does. It's their part of the TRINITY.

 

The trinity which doesn't exist in Champions. You're comparing apples to oranges.

[Scarlet Shocker]

On 5/22/2024 at 7:59 PM, Luminara said:

 I'm a nerd, not a masochist.

 

You know those two aren't mutually exclusive (so I'm reliably informed) right?

 

Also you're supposed to punctuate short comparative sentences such as the one above with "Jim", inserted between the two phrases just for good measure.

[Lines]

Wait...

 

Defenders aren't the tank class?

 

Then why are they called defenders, then?

[shortguy on indom]

can relate to being 2-shotted, experienced this 100's of times in pvp... back in 2020..... it does suck.  have not experienced it in a task force of late, but do not doubt it happens.  the great big bald guy hopkins packs a wallop in whatever the redside arc is where he stands in the right front corner of the large room on a platform.  solo, it may not have been a 2-shot, but maybe a 3-shot or 4-shot happening multiple times, with multiple trips to hospital.  (this too, is happening on my defender).

 

from my experience,

from being 2-shotted:  you cannot react quick enough for a 'save' before a feather knocks you over.

from a 3-shot:  you can at least get a click or maybe 2 off before death.

 

using the 'preventive medicine' helps quite a bit if you have it in these cases.

 

 

carry on. sry for the aside.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

If an AV can't kill a squishy quickly then the entire Tanker AT might as well just be deleted.

 

And brutes.  And Kheldian Dwarf forms.  And mastermind Bodyguard mode.  And status effects.  And scrapper, sentinel, SoA and stalker secondaries.  And damage mitigation buffs and debuffs.  Have to dump defenders, sentinels and corruptors entirely at this point, since they really will be nothing but gimp blasters.  Scrappers, stalkers and SoAs might as well be removed, because they won't be able to do anything that blasters can't.  Probably no point having combat at all.  Without risk, it's just one of those moronic "idle tap" games.

 

Goodbye Wonder Woman, hello Barbie!

 

[ivanhedgehog]

7 hours ago, Ultimo said:

This might be so... but this isn't the only time I've seen this sort of thing.

 

I've struggled a LOT to make decent enemies for my AE missions, and this is the root problem.  If I make the enemies durable enough (ie. EB/AV) to have a good fight, they do WAY too much damage to have a good fight.  Granted, I haven't encountered many AVs in general, as most of my characters are still in their 20s.

 

But, for all that, my position remains the same.  Enemies shouldn't be able to do 100% (or 99.99999%) of a character's health in one attack.

You are running the opposite of a standard complaint. A player stacks his character with EVERY advantage they can possibly get, no matter how expensive or improbable. Then the come to the forums to complain that the game is too easy. You did the opposite but it is the same real problem. You stacked disadvantages and act surprised when they worked. In neither case should they change the game for everyone to suit your edgecase. "Doc, it hurts when I walk this way! Reply: Dont walk that way"

[Haijinx]

19 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

It looks like my earlier guess was right. This is just the Tankfender version of last month's "my Defender doesn't do as much damage as a Blaster" thread.

 

Your Defender not being able to tank as well as a Tank is working as intended.

But I read on other threads that Tanks were useless.  Then on another thread that Brutes were useless.  Then on another Thread that Sentinels were useless.  

 

Also that Defenders were a direct proc bombing DPS AT.  

 

It's almost like, and stop me if I'm crazy, some posters may have been .... wrong?

[Haijinx]

2 hours ago, Lines said:

Wait...

 

Defenders aren't the tank class?

 

Then why are they called defenders, then?

They even have big blue shield symbols!

[Haijinx]

30 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

 

Goodbye Wonder Woman, hello Barbie!

 

 

Barbie also eats purples when she should eat oranges.  

 

Probably because oranges are high carb and Barbie has an Eating Disorder or something.