Enemies and Damage.

[Herotu]

On 5/22/2024 at 5:53 AM, Ultimo said:

Some good info here, things I wasn't aware of.  All I can tell you is what the combat log said, and it said he had a 5.5% chance to hit.  Maybe the combat log doesn't take some of these things into account?

 

Either way, my character has just over 1000 health.  Even if his attack does 3000 at most, that's STILL three times my maximum health.  He does that, there's no way for me to do anything to defend against it.  There's no game.  I stand by that assertion, that enemies shouldn't be doing SO much damage that you can't stand getting hit even once.  My TANKERS would have a hard time withstanding 3000 damage, and would have NO chance of surviving anything like 11k.

 

It remains an issue on the AE too, as it's nearly impossible to make characters who are survivable enough to put up a fight without also being so absurdly damaging that there's no way for the player to put up a fight.

 

But, I've said my bit.  I appreciate the thoughtful responses.

My points would be;

• What archetype are you on? Are you supposed to be standing within the boss' attack range?
• You're in a team of eight, that's a LOT of heroes vs just one poor enemy. If he takes down a squishy or two, that makes it feel more balanced.
• A challenging boss can sometimes be as fun as sending enemies flying everywhere as you ironically one-shot a path through swathes of them. Sometimes.

 

[shortguy on indom]

not sure it is just a defender vs tank thing.... if only defenders had 2500 HP... and tanks just 1200..... lol

 

this hopkins fella is a bad dood... he is a tank with a few slow/-recharge attacks thrown in.  imho, some avs are more difficult to defeat than others... and hopkins is a bit over the top.

 

when the last time yall tried the vill mission w/him in it?  (i know this was about manticore).

[tidge]

13 hours 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)}.

 

I'm struggling to think of any CoX content that explicitly calls for "trinity design"... we've even had the Hamidon defeated by a team of 8 stalkers.

 

One of the at-launch features of the game is Inspirations; these specifically allow players to not have to rely so much on "trinity thinking".

 

[Oubliette_Red]

 

5 hours ago, Haijinx said:

7 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!

 

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

I'm struggling to think of any CoX content that explicitly calls for "trinity design"... we've even had the Hamidon defeated by a team of 8 stalkers.

 

One of the at-launch features of the game is Inspirations; these specifically allow players to not have to rely so much on "trinity thinking".

 

Hami. must have taunt and the different mitos taking different damages

[tidge]

37 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Hami. must have taunt and the different mitos taking different damages

 

2 hours ago, tidge said:

I'm struggling to think of any CoX content that explicitly calls for "trinity design"... we've even had the Hamidon defeated by a team of 8 stalkers.

 

 

[Andreah]

The only content I can think of that actually demands someone with an AT in each role is getting the ... diversity badge. 

 

And that's another can of worms. And I almost regret mentioning it. :D

 

 

[RelativeQuanta]

6 hours ago, tidge said:

 

I'm struggling to think of any CoX content that explicitly calls for "trinity design"... we've even had the Hamidon defeated by a team of 8 stalkers.

 

One of the at-launch features of the game is Inspirations; these specifically allow players to not have to rely so much on "trinity thinking".

 

I'm aware of the power of inspirations, especially since they lengthened their duration to 1 minute. 

 

Not sure why you're pulling out my comment here.  It's clearly a reaction to things other people have been saying in this thread that either suggest, or directly say, that the trinity is a thing in this game.  Did you miss my link to the The Holy Trinity isn't. Advice for veterans of other MMOs thread?

[Doomguide2005]

Also not requiring "the Trinity" is different from "the Trinity" is one option among many for successful teaming in CoX.  

[lemming]

On 5/25/2024 at 3:09 PM, Krimson said:

I've never seen anyone else mention it since it was implemented. I'm guessing that enforced diversity wasn't the big hit they expected it to be.

Play enough TFs and you wind up with it without planning, so I think the badgers got it easily.   Mirror takes a little setup.

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Krimson said:

I'm disabled and can't play for more than 20ish minutes at a time. The only way that I'm going to do a Task Force is by myself. In such a case I am the team. So I guess it's my fault I've never seen it because I play by myself. 

Well yea, any team based badge is inaccessible to those that exclusively solo.  If you were inclined, many TFs can be done in less than 20.  I was just thinking on advertised, I saw a few Diversity teams being formed early in the badge history.  Now, I just see Mirror being advertised for

[Riverdusk]

On 5/21/2024 at 2:02 PM, Ultimo said:

 I popped three medium purples before beaming in.

 

 

As an aside, this is a waste.  A medium purple is +25% defense.  Even taking two is usually overkill considering soft cap for most of the game (and for this TF) is 45%.  You only need 20% of your own defense to get away with only needing one medium purple  (20+25=45) to give you all the defense you can actually use.  I don't think Hopkins has any defense debuffing to worry about. 

 

So yes, you'd likely have been much better taking one medium purple and two medium oranges instead.

[Psi-bolt]

On 5/24/2024 at 4:21 PM, Ultimo said:

  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.

 

The design is bad, but it's better than the alternative.   Tankers and other like ATs that get the attention of NPCs and protect the team are an anachronistic design, but the alternative WILL lead to bad outcomes.  If you reduce the melee damage of AVs so that they cannot one-shot a defender, then all the melee ATs will be immortal.  Tankers, well built, pretty much are immortal now.  While feeling super is great, at some point people do need there to be some tension in the game.  It's really the mirror of the issue you posit.  You state that there is no tension when you are one-shot.  Likewise there is no tension if you can never die.  

 

You could, I suppose, lower both AV damage and Tanker survivability in equal measure, but that's easier said than done given the ability of players to mitigate in so many different ways.  

 

I could list other considerations, but that game design now provides a solution to your problem.  If you want to take on an AV as a support or glass cannon AT, then you need a very well thought out plan to survive.  It's possible to be sure, but you need to have a deep understanding of the mechanics.   But like with most things in this game, a diverse team almost eliminates any concern here.  I just did a Manticore today and my Tank could go afk in front of Hopkins and his whole spawn and come back hours later to her still standing.   

 

I disagree that AVs should not be able to one-shot players.  If fact, I think it's pretty much required that they be able to do so in order to properly express the threat they are supposed to represent.   We're talking about Hopkins, but the Praetorians that come later in the Incarnate Trials absolutely must be able to wreck most players for that content to even be consistent with the story.

[RelativeQuanta]

12 hours ago, Psi-bolt said:

The design is bad, but it's better than the alternative.   Tankers and other like ATs that get the attention of NPCs and protect the team are an anachronistic design, but the alternative WILL lead to bad outcomes.  If you reduce the melee damage of AVs so that they cannot one-shot a defender, then all the melee ATs will be immortal.  Tankers, well built, pretty much are immortal now.  While feeling super is great, at some point people do need there to be some tension in the game.  It's really the mirror of the issue you posit.  You state that there is no tension when you are one-shot.  Likewise there is no tension if you can never die. 

There are actually many different designs that can relieve the problem of "squishes" getting one-shot vs immortal tankers.  A VERY simple one would be to lower the AV damage, but make some fraction of it unresistable.  This way, the "squishy" takes less damage but the high resist ATs still face some danger in fighting the AV.  So let's not pretend the problem can only be solved with the status quo.

 

However, I don't think any change like that needs to happen in CoH.  From what people have suggested in this thread, it's either a particularly dangerous AV or the difficulty setting were dramatically turned up.  If it's a single over-tuned AV, Ultimo's desire to have some counterplay can be fulfilled just by lowering this AV's damage.

[Psi-bolt]

1 hour ago, RelativeQuanta said:

There are actually many different designs that can relieve the problem of "squishes" getting one-shot vs immortal tankers.  A VERY simple one would be to lower the AV damage, but make some fraction of it unresistable.  This way, the "squishy" takes less damage but the high resist ATs still face some danger in fighting the AV.  So let's not pretend the problem can only be solved with the status quo.

 

 

OK, let's do that.  Then Tankers are immortal because the very small amount of damage that gets through will be much weaker.   For example, let's say you give an AV 25% irresistible damage.  To avoid the one shot problem, you reduce the damage of their most powerful attack to 1000 Smashing so that the squishies without any HP buffs cannot be one-shot (although it's still close).

 

Then let's have that same AV attack my Shield Tanker who has 2569 HP, is soft-capped to all positions and has 71% SM, LE resist.    Let's give the AV a modified and hard locked to-hit of 25% so that we're also accounting for defense based mitigation.   (by the way the numbers are for illustration, I didn't take the time to figure out what the exact non-resist damage and to-hit needed to be equal).    The expected damage to my Tanker is 117.   Of course, if the attack misses, it's 0, if the attack hits it's 468, but either way, less than 20% of her HP.   Still trivial for the Tank, still deadly for the dominator.   Even with a lot of irresistible damage, the HP of Tankers, almost double the ranged ATs at based, will create issues.  

 

I don't know if the status quo is the only way to solve the "problem", but I do know that trying to solve for the issue presented by Ultimo WILL create a host of new problems. 

 

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, RelativeQuanta said:

A VERY simple one would be to lower the AV damage, but make some fraction of it unresistable.  This way, the "squishy" takes less damage but the high resist ATs still face some danger in fighting the AV.

 

Maybe ranged attacks should deal less damage than melee attacks, and low-HP archetypes should be given ranged sets instead of melee sets so players have the option of fighting AVs without being in melee range.

 

Hm...

 

1 hour ago, RelativeQuanta said:

From what people have suggested in this thread, it's either a particularly dangerous AV or the difficulty setting were dramatically turned up.

 

Neither.  It was PEBCAK.  The AV in question is actually very weak against ranged characters (at least the ones who don't teleport straight into melee range and wait to be pancaked), as he only has two ranged attacks, a middling damage blast with a 10s recharge time and a low damage cone with a 6s animation time and 3s recharge.  Had the OP stayed out of melee range, he quite likely wouldn't have been defeated at all, and absolutely not in less than ~20s, because both of the AV's ranged attacks together wouldn't have been enough to drop him even with Enemies Buffed.

[RelativeQuanta]

2 hours ago, Psi-bolt said:

 

OK, let's do that.  Then Tankers are immortal because the very small amount of damage that gets through will be much weaker.   For example, let's say you give an AV 25% irresistible damage.  To avoid the one shot problem, you reduce the damage of their most powerful attack to 1000 Smashing so that the squishies without any HP buffs cannot be one-shot (although it's still close).

 

Then let's have that same AV attack my Shield Tanker who has 2569 HP, is soft-capped to all positions and has 71% SM, LE resist.    Let's give the AV a modified and hard locked to-hit of 25% so that we're also accounting for defense based mitigation.   (by the way the numbers are for illustration, I didn't take the time to figure out what the exact non-resist damage and to-hit needed to be equal).    The expected damage to my Tanker is 117.   Of course, if the attack misses, it's 0, if the attack hits it's 468, but either way, less than 20% of her HP.   Still trivial for the Tank, still deadly for the dominator.   Even with a lot of irresistible damage, the HP of Tankers, almost double the ranged ATs at based, will create issues.  

 

I don't know if the status quo is the only way to solve the "problem", but I do know that trying to solve for the issue presented by Ultimo WILL create a host of new problems. 

 

My only point is that it *is* possible to redesign AV mechanics in such a way that one-shot mechanics are not a thing but they're still dangerous to tank-type characters. 

 

You example isn't exactly a counter point though.  The comparison should be that an AV currently does 1000 damage in smashing.  At 71% resist, you take 290 damage.  If I change the total damage to 500 and make 29% of it irresistible, you would still take 290 damage.  The AV is just as dangerous to you as before the change but to an unarmored character, they take half as much damage.

 

Again, I'm NOT suggesting that this should happen.  It's just a counterpoint.  

 

Edited May 27 by RelativeQuanta

[RelativeQuanta]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

Maybe ranged attacks should deal less damage than melee attacks, and low-HP archetypes should be given ranged sets instead of melee sets so players have the option of fighting AVs without being in melee range.

 

Hm...

 

 

Neither.  It was PEBCAK.  The AV in question is actually very weak against ranged characters (at least the ones who don't teleport straight into melee range and wait to be pancaked), as he only has two ranged attacks, a middling damage blast with a 10s recharge time and a low damage cone with a 6s animation time and 3s recharge.  Had the OP stayed out of melee range, he quite likely wouldn't have been defeated at all, and absolutely not in less than ~20s, because both of the AV's ranged attacks together wouldn't have been enough to drop him even with Enemies Buffed.

Such a delightfully hostile response to my non-suggestion of a comment.

 

This information about PEBCAK is good to know.  No tuning necessary.  This even helps meet the request that encounters have counterplay.  

[Luminara]

18 minutes ago, RelativeQuanta said:

Such a delightfully hostile response

 

[RelativeQuanta]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

 

Only if it has the proper amount of lotion!

[tidge]

I am having trouble understanding why we are spitballing changes to the game on the basis of a minority (possibly unique) experience of a relatively new (or simply uninformed) player's in-game choices.

[RelativeQuanta]

6 minutes ago, tidge said:

I am having trouble understanding why we are spitballing changes to the game on the basis of a minority (possibly unique) experience of a relatively new (or simply uninformed) player's in-game choices.

Again, I'm NOT spitballing any changes.  I was merely stating what's possible through encounter design.  It's very possible to design an encounter that's challenging for all ATs while at the same time not overly punishing some ATs.  

[tidge]

[ivanhedgehog]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

I am having trouble understanding why we are spitballing changes to the game on the basis of a minority (possibly unique) experience of a relatively new (or simply uninformed) player's in-game choices.

On live, there was a group called repeat offenders, an all defender group. They did incredible, sometimes game breaking things. The devs specifically did NOT change the game based on them. You cant balance on the edge cases and keep a good game. Storm defenders are an edge case. Some of them like to think they can solo anything, and maybe some can. But some of them think they can but cannot. oh well.