"Street" Giant Monsters and guaranteed elimination

[Techwright]

Was teamed with a league fighting Lusca this evening, and got to thinking:  with the following exceptions:

 

• Croatoa Sally
• Hamidon
• Tackling any non-Sally, non-Hami GM with an understaffed team
• Tackling any non-Sally, non-Hami GM with an under-ranked team
• Instanced GMs

 

has there ever been a time when the team or league just fails to destroy a GM on the streets?  Perhaps wiped repeatedly, perhaps unable to dent it.

 

If so, which GM and what happened?

 

If not, is it really all that fun to go through the motions when you're certain of victory? 

Would you prefer a chance, even a small one, at failure due to the GM's efforts?  Would that make the victory sweeter?

 

This is not the first time I've had the thought.  I've had it with Lusca, Babbage, GWW, and all the Kronos robots.  The last ones feel like they should probably be thrashing a league a lot harder, but most of the time, at least in those fights I've been in, the numbers of those fallen are minimal to none, despite multiple Kronos next to each other.

 

I noticed a couple of changes in Adamastor and Paladin that make the fight more interesting, even if the results are (seemingly) guaranteed.  Actually, since I mentioned Paladin, with the fights to halt the assembly of a Paladin I have been on teams that were defeated, simply because a Paladin was formed, but then we thrashed it.  I'm not sure that counts as a true failure.

 

 

For my part, I don't mind an occasional loss against something titanic if it is a hard-fought battle, and there's a chance for success.  It's that last bit that's important.  One of my first introductions to this happened back in WoW a short time before expansion The Burning Crusade came out.  I had some time off and was playing a character into the wee hours, when Stormwind was unexpectedly assaulted at the gate by a titanic demon from the upcoming expansion.  For the next two hours, it was a bloodbath unlike anything I'd ever seen.  The area around the gate and bridge were white with the skeletons of failed attempts to bring it down.  Word was spreading and a host of top-tier players were waking and logging in to join the fight.  One of the best experiences I ever had in gaming.  Unfortunately, we were fighting it with the supposition that it was beatable, even if incredibly hard.  People eventually stopped fighting when the realization sunk in that no matter what players threw at it, it was designed to win.  That soured the effort some, but while hope remained, it was a glorious experiment.

 

 

[Glacier Peak]

Seed of Hamidon perhaps? Oh, and I just opened up the Auction House and started chugging all the good Inspirations. Solo gotta do what a solo gotta do. 

 

Also, shameless plug for my new Giant Monster Hunting Guide. 

 

Edited August 1 by Glacier Peak

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

Was teamed with a league fighting Lusca this evening, and got to thinking:  with the following exceptions:

 

• Croatoa Sally
• Hamidon
• Tackling any non-Sally, non-Hami GM with an understaffed team
• Tackling any non-Sally, non-Hami GM with an under-ranked team
• Instanced GMs

 

has there ever been a time when the team or league just fails to destroy a GM on the streets?  Perhaps wiped repeatedly, perhaps unable to dent it.

 

If so, which GM and what happened?

 

If not, is it really all that fun to go through the motions when you're certain of victory? 

Would you prefer a chance, even a small one, at failure due to the GM's efforts?  Would that make the victory sweeter?

 

This is not the first time I've had the thought.  I've had it with Lusca, Babbage, GWW, and all the Kronos robots.  The last ones feel like they should probably be thrashing a league a lot harder, but most of the time, at least in those fights I've been in, the numbers of those fallen are minimal to none, despite multiple Kronos next to each other.

 

I noticed a couple of changes in Adamastor and Paladin that make the fight more interesting, even if the results are (seemingly) guaranteed.  Actually, since I mentioned Paladin, with the fights to halt the assembly of a Paladin I have been on teams that were defeated, simply because a Paladin was formed, but then we thrashed it.  I'm not sure that counts as a true failure.

 

 

For my part, I don't mind an occasional loss against something titanic if it is a hard-fought battle, and there's a chance for success.  It's that last bit that's important.  One of my first introductions to this happened back in WoW a short time before expansion The Burning Crusade came out.  I had some time off and was playing a character into the wee hours, when Stormwind was unexpectedly assaulted at the gate by a titanic demon from the upcoming expansion.  For the next two hours, it was a bloodbath unlike anything I'd ever seen.  The area around the gate and bridge were white with the skeletons of failed attempts to bring it down.  Word was spreading and a host of top-tier players were waking and logging in to join the fight.  One of the best experiences I ever had in gaming.  Unfortunately, we were fighting it with the supposition that it was beatable, even if incredibly hard.  People eventually stopped fighting when the realization sunk in that no matter what players threw at it, it was designed to win.  That soured the effort some, but while hope remained, it was a glorious experiment.

 

 

You could always solo the gms. that should be challenge. or maybe, dont slot your incarnates. Do it on  level 45 or 35.

[Lazarillo]

Off the top of my head, things I remember seeing/being a part of.  Some of these may have been during the game's original lifetime before HC made it much easier to get decked out endgame characters that could turn the tables pretty heftily:

• I've definitely seen unprepared teams get messed up by Jack-in-Irons Terrorize effect and be unable to beat him, though I don't recall if it wiped the team or not.
• I've seen at least a couple teams wipe to Deathsurge spamming its Lightning Rod equivalent and its Endurance drains.
• I've seen teams unable to bring down Ghost of Scrapyard.  I don't think they actually wiped to him though, just couldn't beat him.
• I've seen many, many, many teams wipe to Lusca.
• There was a time (this musta been in the beforetimes, just due to how spawning worked) when the Paladin-pit in Kings Row was an "okay, we're gonna basically wave attack these guys and wipe over and and over again until we can get them clear, so that the zone will start spawning construction for the badge again"-type of situation.

[Greycat]

I mean... most have been around since live, so yeah, I've seen it... heck if I can really remember any right off the top of my head, though.

[NotsoevilDM]

I was recently on a team that was struggling with Jack, we just did not have enough DPS or healing to counter the mushroom circle. We regrouped and a couple of members switched out to alts and it went fine on second attempt.

 

On the other hand, took on Scrapyard with a small team of just 3 or 4 and although it took a while, we were able to wear him down.

 

What was the difference? The first team was not all level 50s with Incarnates unlocked. GMs are always going to be 'easier' with fully levelled toons and a team lead that knows what they are doing. But there are still plenty of us out there, just bumbling along and having fun with whatever badly slotted toon we are currently playing. Keeps things interesting and may result in the occassional team-wipe! 

[ZorkNemesis]

I've been on teams that stalemate against the Goliath War Walker.  Small teams and lower levels that lack DPS and debuffs can get walled by the Walker's big heal when it's close to death.  It's been bad enough sometimes that I swap characters mid-fight to my Thermal Defender just to halt its regen and tank its defenses which is usually enough to get the job done then.

[Snarky]

I have been on teams ghat failed at seed of hamidon snd failed to kill nemesis during invasion.  Both due to low dps

[MoonSheep]

27 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I have been on teams ghat failed at seed of hamidon snd failed to kill nemesis during invasion.  Both due to low dps

 

i was just about to post this one - nemesis is quite a tough one

[TheMoncrief]

I play on Excelsior. For most GM's, if you fail, you just ask in LFG for more people to come help you. I've seen it happen quite often. Most commonly the Goliath War Walker, people try to defeat it without enough DPS and it just out-regens them, especially if/when it clips through terrain geometry. I've seen a team have major issues with Eochai because they just did not understand moving out of the Pumpkin Patch and pulling Eochai after them.

 

Almost nothing in CoH has a meaningful timer, especially not when confronted by more than a full team. I mean, Adamastor has a 20 minute timer, and routinely gets dropped in less than 20 seconds. So if you fail, that's just a sign you need more folks. Have you tried monster hunting on Indomitable or some other lower population server? Any outdoor content is likely to be much easier when you can get 20+ people beating on an enemy designed for 8.

[Snarky]

31 minutes ago, TheMoncrief said:

I play on Excelsior. For most GM's, if you fail, you just ask in LFG for more people to come help you. I've seen it happen quite often. Most commonly the Goliath War Walker, people try to defeat it without enough DPS and it just out-regens them, especially if/when it clips through terrain geometry. I've seen a team have major issues with Eochai because they just did not understand moving out of the Pumpkin Patch and pulling Eochai after them.

 

Almost nothing in CoH has a meaningful timer, especially not when confronted by more than a full team. I mean, Adamastor has a 20 minute timer, and routinely gets dropped in less than 20 seconds. So if you fail, that's just a sign you need more folks. Have you tried monster hunting on Indomitable or some other lower population server? Any outdoor content is likely to be much easier when you can get 20+ people beating on an enemy designed for 8.

Most of the GMs wandering about i would say are designed for more than 8

 

then we have the people that solo them.  
 

then we have the people that solo them … on Defenders ….

[Ukase]

During Hallowe'en, there are usually a number of Jacks and Eochais all over the place. I was on a level 30 or so character in Sharkhead. A blaster, most likely. I summoned Statesman to give me a hand, and because I wasn't thinking ahead, I got clobbered. I can't recall if I got stunned, held, slept or what, but my t-1 & 2 just didn't have enough dps and I got foot stomped. 
I use the Return to Battle, and pretty much the same story. 

Since the Monstrous Aethers came out, soloing a GM is suddenly considered a no-no, because other people want loot, too. So, I just don't bother with trying anymore. 

Anecdotally, any (And I do mean ANY) level 50 with a t-4 lore pet and some team reds can clobber a named GM. 
The DE GMs that we clobber to spawn Hami, or the ones off on those tiny islands in PI - they take a bit more effort.  Probably because it can be tough to tackle just one of them. 

Ha! I also recall being in the upper 20's, with a "Crawl Team" that had no IOs, just SOs. We thought we'd tackle the Seed of Hamidon. I remember it being during Halloween because when they -fly my character, I fell right on top of Jack and got stomped into the mud. I think we ended up asking for help; I don't really remember. I do know we were unable to do it with just the 5-6 of us. 

[Snarky]

23 minutes ago, Ukase said:
Ha! I also recall being in the upper 20's, with a "Crawl Team" that had no IOs, just SOs. We thought we'd tackle the Seed of Hamidon. I remember it being during Halloween because when they -fly my character, I fell right on top of Jack and got stomped into the mud. I think we ended up asking for help; I don't really remember. I do know we were unable to do it with just the 5-6 of us. 

This was the team i was in that could not drop the seed.  We did indeed recruit help.  I think i switched to a 50 blaster as well.  

[Glacier Peak]

5 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

I've been on teams that stalemate against the Goliath War Walker.  Small teams and lower levels that lack DPS and debuffs can get walled by the Walker's big heal when it's close to death.  It's been bad enough sometimes that I swap characters mid-fight to my Thermal Defender just to halt its regen and tank its defenses which is usually enough to get the job done then.

This is a good point - I've seen teams trying to take down GWW without destroying his generator lol

[Scarlet Shocker]

It was not uncommon on live for folks to fail to kill Babbage when he spawned in Skyway City during the Synapse TF.

 

It was a common practice to call out for help (the players on the Synapse team would be around lvl 15/20 IIRC) and Babbage would spawn as a proper GM - so if nobody came to help it could well mean a team wipe.

[tidge]

On 8/1/2024 at 12:42 PM, Ukase said:

Since the Monstrous Aethers came out, soloing a GM is suddenly considered a no-no, because other people want loot, too. So, I just don't bother with trying anymore.

 

Players may want the loot, but they don't always want to make sure the events respawn. As long as it is more common for multi-boxers and "dedicated monster hunting teams" to leave extra spawns around, I see no reason for solo GM hunting to be considered taboo.

[Krimson]

On 8/1/2024 at 6:42 AM, Ukase said:

Since the Monstrous Aethers came out, soloing a GM is suddenly considered a no-no, because other people want loot, too. So, I just don't bother with trying anymore. 

That's BS. Soloing them can be fun. This trend of hunting GMs in a collective hand-holding mob that takes 20 minutes to form is just farming them, and I'll never join such a mob.

Edited August 5 by Krimson

[Ultimo]

On 7/31/2024 at 9:27 PM, Techwright said:

Was teamed with a league fighting Lusca this evening, and got to thinking:  with the following exceptions:

 

• Croatoa Sally
• Hamidon
• Tackling any non-Sally, non-Hami GM with an understaffed team
• Tackling any non-Sally, non-Hami GM with an under-ranked team
• Instanced GMs

 

has there ever been a time when the team or league just fails to destroy a GM on the streets?  Perhaps wiped repeatedly, perhaps unable to dent it.

 

If so, which GM and what happened?

 

If not, is it really all that fun to go through the motions when you're certain of victory? 

Would you prefer a chance, even a small one, at failure due to the GM's efforts?  Would that make the victory sweeter?

 

This is not the first time I've had the thought.  I've had it with Lusca, Babbage, GWW, and all the Kronos robots.  The last ones feel like they should probably be thrashing a league a lot harder, but most of the time, at least in those fights I've been in, the numbers of those fallen are minimal to none, despite multiple Kronos next to each other.

 

I noticed a couple of changes in Adamastor and Paladin that make the fight more interesting, even if the results are (seemingly) guaranteed.  Actually, since I mentioned Paladin, with the fights to halt the assembly of a Paladin I have been on teams that were defeated, simply because a Paladin was formed, but then we thrashed it.  I'm not sure that counts as a true failure.

 

 

For my part, I don't mind an occasional loss against something titanic if it is a hard-fought battle, and there's a chance for success.  It's that last bit that's important.  One of my first introductions to this happened back in WoW a short time before expansion The Burning Crusade came out.  I had some time off and was playing a character into the wee hours, when Stormwind was unexpectedly assaulted at the gate by a titanic demon from the upcoming expansion.  For the next two hours, it was a bloodbath unlike anything I'd ever seen.  The area around the gate and bridge were white with the skeletons of failed attempts to bring it down.  Word was spreading and a host of top-tier players were waking and logging in to join the fight.  One of the best experiences I ever had in gaming.  Unfortunately, we were fighting it with the supposition that it was beatable, even if incredibly hard.  People eventually stopped fighting when the realization sunk in that no matter what players threw at it, it was designed to win.  That soured the effort some, but while hope remained, it was a glorious experiment.

 

 

It's something I've said for YEARS, informed by decades of running Champions pen and paper RPG.

Villains NEED to be weak enough to fight, but strong enough to challenge.  It's a bit of a balancing act.

 

If the bad guy kills you instantly with one attack, there's no game, because there's nothing you can DO.  It doesn't matter if you're a squishy, you NEED to be able to fight back, and that means you need to survive, especially when the character's defense is based on defeating a foe before he can hurt you too much (eg. a Blaster).  In Champions, I used to use the Enemies books, and I found almost all the enemies were capable of obliterating my players' characters almost immediately, so I went through and tweaked them all, reducing their damage and defenses, and adding to their Stun (health) pools.  This meant the heroes COULD withstand the enemy while being able to whittle them down.

 

In a game like this, it means reducing the damage for top end enemies, reducing their defenses and regeneration, but ADDING health.  Attacks that do large amounts of damage need to be avoidable.  This way, players can WIN if they fight carefully.  If they make mistakes, they should lose, but they need to be ABLE to win.

I'll use an example from another game.  Elder Scrolls Online has a number of "World Bosses" in the various zones.  The older ones are strong, but CAN be fought, even by solo players.  This is because they don't do SO much damage that it's impossible to fight through it.  They do have attacks that can do HUGE damage, even oneshot damage, but they're telegraphed, or can be interrupted.  That means players can fight in relative safety if they're careful and smart.  It's FUN.  The newer ones are what CoH seems to have, giant bosses that don't NEED telegraphed oneshot attacks because EVERY attack is a oneshot attack.  It's just not any fun trying to fight them.

 

There's a LOT of this in City of Heroes, enemies that just do SO much damage, there's not really any way to fight them.  A rule I made for my Champions gaming was, enemies should never have the ability to do more damage than the players (unless they're a particularly strong enemy, but even then it shouldn't be much more).  For example, my heroes had a 60 active point limit on their powers.  Most enemies had the same limit.  Elite enemies (like Doctor Destroyer, Champions' version of Doctor Doom) were allowed up to 75 points.  The exception was Stun (health), which was made larger depending on the 'rank' of the villain.

 

Anyway, I'm weary and I feel like I'm rambling.  I think I've made my point, if not hopefully I can clarify another time.

[tidge]

7 hours ago, Ultimo said:

In a game like this, it means reducing the damage for top end enemies, reducing their defenses and regeneration, but ADDING health.  Attacks that do large amounts of damage need to be avoidable.  This way, players can WIN if they fight carefully.  If they make mistakes, they should lose, but they need to be ABLE to win.

...

 

There's a LOT of this in City of Heroes, enemies that just do SO much damage, there's not really any way to fight them.  A rule I made for my Champions gaming was, enemies should never have the ability to do more damage than the players (unless they're a particularly strong enemy, but even then it shouldn't be much more). 

 

 

Maybe I don't understand this post.  It reads to me like this is saying the CoX Giant Monsters are too hard, which I don't think is true.

 

In my experience the CoX Giant Monsters have a floored 1-in-20 chance to hit most player characters, and I am pretty sure all of the GMs shuffle between single-target and AoE attacks. If the characters have any sort of resists.. or ya know... have a strategy that involves getting the GM to focus fire on a character with resists... then the limiting factor for GM defeats becomes dealing damage (to overcome the "sack of HP" -> Regeneration, plus whatever resistances the GM has)... as was noted above. The one giant monster that seems to catch some players defense values by surprise (in my experience) is the Arachnos Flier; because this spawns in a level 50 zone and spawns its own varieties of (lots of) minions, players fighting the flier have to be prepared in ways they don't exactly need for Kraken, Paladin, or Babbage.

 

My personal experience has been that most random pairs of level 50 ATs with incarnates) can handle most any of the nu Giant Monsters... and a single level 50 with debuffs can lead a small squad of lower-level characters with any sort of attack chain to whittle down most Giant Monsters that are not in level 50 zones. Different ATs have to change things up of course, and some will be relying on Lore pets for the necessary damage. Standing in place and button mashing may not work for nuEochai for example.

 

For the most part, I think the nuGM changes were pretty mild... mostly added resistances, some health boosts for low-level zone GMs, and in rare cases some long-timer AoEs. Those aren't particularly problematic for veteran level players, especially if they are willing to change up tactics. AFAIK, the only open-world GM with an "unavoidable damaging attack" is Eochai's Pumpkin Patch, which is a location-based AoE. I suppose folks can argue about Paladin's Pulse, but I think that attack is avoidable... if not it is at least possible to get out of its range.

 

Circling back to the debuff: Anything in the game with a large sack of HP will regenerate significant HP via the regeneration formula... just like players do. Debuffing giant monster regeneration is important! Raising the base health of some of the GMs was a good idea IMO, but this was more of a way to draw out the length of GM fights (for small teams) than it was to make the GMs particularly dangerous. Longer fights only make them more dangerous because of RNG and streakbreaker.

[Jacke]

11 hours ago, Ultimo said:

In a game like this, it means reducing the damage for top end enemies, reducing their defenses and regeneration, but ADDING health.  Attacks that do large amounts of damage need to be avoidable.  This way, players can WIN if they fight carefully.  If they make mistakes, they should lose, but they need to be ABLE to win.

 

I see what you mean.  But that has to be done carefully.  Because that way lies enemies like Reichsman.  Also known as "Ol' Big Bag of Hitpoints."

 

I know there's been +4x8 Kahn TFs.  Don't know if it can be soloed.  But even with a good Team, that's going to be a long long final mission.

 

Worse would be a +4x8 Barracuda SF.  Same Ol' Big Bag of Hitpoints.  Worse adds.  I was on a Mo Barracuda run that failed the Mastery bit because of 1 defeat in that brutal final mission.

[pawstruck]

Don't forget that IO's really broke the game, and we're all just here pretending to be superheroes and reliving 2005.

 

For me, I don't need my whole team to "fail" for it to be interesting. If the GM can kill me, specifically, there is an element of suspense. It does deflate the excitement to know that my teammates are practically invincible though, thanks to 500 billion INF builds...

[Ultimo]

What I mean is, big enemies (GMs, AVs and even EBs) shouldn't be hitting us quite so hard.  Many of them will instantly defeat a hero in one attack.  For example, if an AV hits my Defender with a Fireball that does 3500 damage, and my Defender has 255 health... that's ridiculous overkill.  Yes, he's going to survive with 1 hit point, until the DOT or one of the adds, or the AV's next attack finishes him off.  There's no point even trying to fight a foe that can do that kind of thing.

 

My thinking is always that a player fighting carefully and intelligently should be able to defeat any foe, given enough time, regardless of AT or power sets.

 

I do understand the risk of being a bag of hit points, but the idea is to find that balance point, where the enemy is strong enough to be a threat, but not SO strong as to be instantly overpowering.

 

I also understand the influence of IOs.  The thing is, not everyone has them, especially at lower level.  Same with Incarnates.  Since they can't be available to everyone, the game can't be balanced around them.  Doing so makes the content unplayable by anyone who doesn't have them.  Witness the 'balance' at Star Trek Online.  There are now many enemies that my characters simply cannot do anything to.  DPS has become SO absurdly high on high end builds, that enemies became trivial.  In response, they started making enemies balanced around that level of DPS, which most players can't achieve.  The result is what I said.  Most players simply can't do anything to the enemies.

 

Here, the problem is that some enemies simply do so much damage that many or most characters simply can't fight them.

 

I suppose my basic argument is, the upper level of enemy damage needs to be brought down substantially, and their resilience needs to be buffed somewhat.  This latter can be done via more health, but could also be done by giving them self heals, or some other special mechanic to restore themselves (I'm thinking of Malak in Knights of the Old Republic, absorbing the life energy of trapped Jedi).

 

Truthfully, I don't expect anything will actually change.  It's been this way for too long now.

 

 

Perhaps another way around it is to make IOs more accessible?  If everyone can have them, then it's fine to balance the game around them.  And yes, I know everyone CAN have them, but the cost is such that it's not really possible for most people.  Between the rarity of getting the ones you want, and the rarity of the materials needed to craft them, and the cost in influence to buy them... it's not usually possible.

 

Anyway... still kind of rambling.

[Ultimo]

Actually, I had another thought after reading some comics (and I'm always looking for ways to let the game more closely resemble the comics).  If you look at heroes in the comics fighting big bad guys, even ultrapowerful AV/GM level enemies, they don't get taken out immediately, but they DO get knocked around a lot.

 

What if, instead of having vastly overpowering damage, they instead had a tremendous boost to secondary effects?  So, an enemy using Haymaker would not instantly oneshot a Defender or Controller, but would do more reasonable damage but also knock them FLYING.  Boost the secondary effects instead of the damage?

[Techwright]

13 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

What if, instead of having vastly overpowering damage, they instead had a tremendous boost to secondary effects?  So, an enemy using Haymaker would not instantly oneshot a Defender or Controller, but would do more reasonable damage but also knock them FLYING.  Boost the secondary effects instead of the damage?

 

Visually, that would look quite exciting.   I can imagine a Kronos Titan doing a Takeoff stomp and half the player avatars get tossed halfway to the Talos Police Station.  And it need not be only kinetic toss-abouts.  A GM opponent with ice or illusion powers to undermine multiple players at once by Flash Freeze, Frostbite, Sleet, ,Ice Slick, Flash, or Spectral Terror attacks.  Illusion GMs might have their own versions of Phantom Army where half the players are suddenly attacked by phantoms.  Some of these, of course, have damage as well in the game, but I present them here for their controlling effects.

[Glacier Peak]

5 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Many of them will instantly defeat a hero in one attack

This is such an exaggeration and rather misleading too, that I have to respond - please don't feel attacked. Can you name one enemy that instantly defeats a player in one attack. It had better be a special boss fight or circumstance that you cite, because there is no such attack that can defeat a player in one attack in normal content. There are game mechanics where players will receive a HUGE BOLDED COLORFUL MESSAGE that pops up across their screen indicating they should probably move away or break line of sight and if they choose to ignore it will be attacked and likely experience defeat. This isn't many - this is unique. There are a handful, less than a dozen, few - not MANY.

 

5 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Yes, he's going to survive with 1 hit point, until the DOT or one of the adds, or the AV's next attack finishes him off.

Ah there's the qualifier - pulling back on the broad brush strokes and submitting to my previous point. Players that ignore the game's mechanics and face roll their keyboards should experience the likely outcome of their decisions. Players who observe the game's mechanics and their own weaknesses should be rewarded.

 

5 hours ago, Ultimo said:

the problem is that some enemies simply do so much damage that many or most characters simply can't fight them.

Returning to the "many or most" to try and make a point is just wrong. Players have ample opportunities to counter the game's mechanics to their benefit. Those who choose not to are making a conscious effort to experience defeat as much as possible. Or just ask for help?

 

5 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I suppose my basic argument is, the upper level of enemy damage needs to be brought down substantially, and their resilience needs to be buffed somewhat.

No, no, no neither of these things needs done. Pop an orange or purple, invite a teammate who has buffs or debuffs, hit and run, use temporary powers like a warburg nuke or envenomed daggers or summon a signature pet, adjust the strategy of attack, ask for help. For the love of this game, please don't make it even easier when players already ignore the simplest of game mechanics and instead say it's too hard because they are unwilling to take a mere moment to observe what is happening on their screen and respond with rational actions. Better yet - learn from defeat, understand that one enemy should be attacked first, or even to use fold space to maximize the AoEs of teammates, or just literally anything instead of complaining and choosing not to learn from defeat.

 

5 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Perhaps another way around it is to make IOs more accessible?  If everyone can have them, then it's fine to balance the game around them.  And yes, I know everyone CAN have them, but the cost is such that it's not really possible for most people.  Between the rarity of getting the ones you want, and the rarity of the materials needed to craft them, and the cost in influence to buy them... it's not usually possible.

There is an actual tutorial for Invention Origin enhancements. They can be crafted anywhere in the game, at any time. Players can purchase the needed recipes instead of waiting for drops. If players don't want to wait for recipe drops, they can purchase them or use Reward Merits at a Merit Vendor. They can be stored in player bases or in-game emails. It is very possible and very accessible. How can Invention Origin enhancements be made even more accessible than that!?