Mechanics-Driven Fights

[Seed22]

After really ramping up my exposure to new releases in 2024 and beating a good number of games with fun and fair but challenging bosses via mechanics, I wondered if that’d be something you all would want for CoH? 

 

It doesn’t have to be exclusive to HM. I usually find myself just fighting to not fall asleep at a lot of the older climactic fights either in TFs or arcs in CoH and I was wondering, what if we gave them appropriate but escalating mechanics for their levels? With light mechanics being the lower levels all the way up to very in depth and challenging ones by Incarnates and HM.

 

I think this would go a long way to making all ATs more desired for teaming, as some mechanics would be able to be mitigated via CC or reduced via debuff(still would need to react and dodge though or interact in some way with it) 

 

An example for low level: Giving the frostfire mish a little makeover to introduce empowering flame pillarsand ice…somethings, the flame would boost FF’s damage and res, while the ice would slightly impede the team’s recharge or vision(could be mini blizzards that float around the room). 
 

You’d have to destroy the pillars(4) while trying to survive against frostfire. Simple introduction to boss based mechanics.

 

 

What are your thoughts?

[Snarky]

21 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

After really ramping up my exposure to new releases in 2024 and beating a good number of games with fun and fair but challenging bosses via mechanics, I wondered if that’d be something you all would want for CoH? 

 

It doesn’t have to be exclusive to HM. I usually find myself just fighting to not fall asleep at a lot of the older climactic fights either in TFs or arcs in CoH and I was wondering, what if we gave them appropriate but escalating mechanics for their levels? With light mechanics being the lower levels all the way up to very in depth and challenging ones by Incarnates and HM.

 

I think this would go a long way to making all ATs more desired for teaming, as some mechanics would be able to be mitigated via CC or reduced via debuff(still would need to react and dodge though or interact in some way with it) 

 

An example for low level: Giving the frostfire mish a little makeover to introduce empowering flame pillarsand ice…somethings, the flame would boost FF’s damage and res, while the ice would slightly impede the team’s recharge or vision(could be mini blizzards that float around the room). 
 

You’d have to destroy the pillars(4) while trying to survive against frostfire. Simple introduction to boss based mechanics.

 

 

What are your thoughts?

In higher level content this exists.  Adding it to low level PuGs is trolling imo.  As it is “The Really Hard Way” badge is nigh unattainable due to “mechanics”.  It is easy if the league does very specific things.  But that requires teamwork, knowledge, leadership, and the ability to follow instructions….   Cosmic Council used to do it once a week, the boss fight taking under 5 min and 99% successful 

[Skyhawke]

If an option you can select in the mission select window? Sure. You do you. Anyone wanting that extra challenge could have it.

 

Enforced on everyone regardless? No. You'd be punishing soloers and casual players because you're bored. Trying to balance that for soloers sounds like it wouldn't be worth the time and effort.

[mistagoat]

Yeah, I think balancing the solo aspect of this would very difficult. If the answer to a fight mechanic is CC and im on a Stalker, I'm probably not going to have an effective way to counter that mechanic.

 

Maybe adding it as an option would work, like a low level hard mode option.

 

I'm not opposed but it would be a tricky thing to implement.

[Andreah]

I really don't like gimmicky mechanics. I'd rather they used their existing abilities and environments tactically smarter rather than adding arcade tricks.

[Apogee]

Ahh the good ol days of a Dance Dance Revolution mechanic to survive a boss fight.  No thanks

[laudwic]

I don't want every major boss fight to have some puzzle that I need to figure out before I can actually just throw down and fight them.  I play CoH to turn my brain off and just have fun, I don't want to have to figure (or look at a website) out the 'trick' to every big fight.

[Skyhawke]

1 hour ago, Apogee said:

Ahh the good ol days of a Dance Dance Revolution mechanic to survive a boss fight.  No thanks

 

I...would actually dig hooking up a dance dance revolution pad to my pc and challenging Recluse to a dance off. 

[Apogee]

21 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

 

I...would actually dig hooking up a dance dance revolution pad to my pc and challenging Recluse to a dance off. 

 

Ok, now that may be fun

[srmalloy]

49 minutes ago, laudwic said:

I don't want every major boss fight to have some puzzle that I need to figure out before I can actually just throw down and fight them.

And it hearkens back to Jack Emmert's declaration that, for him, 'fun' was throwing his character at the end boss again and again, being defeated over and over, until he finds the one tactic that will allow him to defeat the boss. Ignoring the fact that it's fun for him, and may not be for anyone else, he seems to have been completely blind to the fact that, in the age of the internet, as soon as one individual/group figures out how to defeat a given boss, the process will be spread across the Net for everyone to see, so that the people who come after just follow the process, instead of beating their head(s) against a wall for hours trying to figure it out for themselves.

[gameboy1234]

I like the idea of adding mechanics in theory, but it has to be done carefully or you risk something that is worse than a boring fight.  Either an even more boring gimmick, or something that is totally out of left field and incongruous with the rest of the game.

 

Basic game design is play testing.  You have to put ideas in front of players and test what actually works.  If you don't have the resources to do this it's basically impossible to add stuff.

 

Players need tutorials to teach them what to do.  You can't just drop arbitrary mechanics on people and expect them to figure it out.  First I'd like to see gimmicks already in the game catalogued and figure out which ones work the best.  Build on those where possible.  A mission arc is a great way to add a gimmick tutorial to an end-boss fight.  Explain it to them, expect them to do it with just simple mechanics in the first mission, add more context to the gimmick so it's a little harder in the next two missions, then you have the boss fight where they are expected to actually use the gimmick.  I think this could work.  But you still need the resources (people) to implement this, and I think that could be hard.

 

Personally early bosses like Frosty are fine and don't need any gimmick.  Early levels are almost vigilante street level in power level, and that's fine.  The 30's and up are where the game starts to drag.  Adding more interesting gimmicks in those levels could add new real content to the game.

 

Edited Wednesday at 11:25 PM by gameboy1234

[Nemu]

5 hours ago, Seed22 said:

After really ramping up my exposure to new releases in 2024 and beating a good number of games with fun and fair but challenging bosses via mechanics, I wondered if that’d be something you all would want for CoH? 

 

It doesn’t have to be exclusive to HM. I usually find myself just fighting to not fall asleep at a lot of the older climactic fights either in TFs or arcs in CoH and I was wondering, what if we gave them appropriate but escalating mechanics for their levels? With light mechanics being the lower levels all the way up to very in depth and challenging ones by Incarnates and HM.

 

I think this would go a long way to making all ATs more desired for teaming, as some mechanics would be able to be mitigated via CC or reduced via debuff(still would need to react and dodge though or interact in some way with it) 

 

An example for low level: Giving the frostfire mish a little makeover to introduce empowering flame pillarsand ice…somethings, the flame would boost FF’s damage and res, while the ice would slightly impede the team’s recharge or vision(could be mini blizzards that float around the room). 
 

You’d have to destroy the pillars(4) while trying to survive against frostfire. Simple introduction to boss based mechanics.

 

 

What are your thoughts?

I'd rather have more mechanic based fights for hardmode team content instead of cycling barriers. Something like the abandoned sewer trial mechanic encourages more teamwork than cycling barrier every 2 minutes.

[Spaghetti Betty]

I do agree that the higher-end difficulty stuff is plagued by stat checks more than they are technical skill. That's why you get opinions like this one!

 

1 hour ago, Nemu said:

I'd rather have more mechanic based fights for hardmode team content instead of cycling barriers. Something like the abandoned sewer trial mechanic encourages more teamwork than cycling barrier every 2 minutes.

 

I won't get into the nitty gritty concerning this, I will just agree that I'd rather tough fights be more complex instead of numbersing at encounters harder!  I feel like Hard Mode ITF is a good floor for this, able to be completed by pretty much any rag-tag team with good coordination and a lot of time on their hands (lots of experience with that BTW), and Omega K'ong feels like a true raid encounter. It's just a bit bogged down with a borderline unreasonable stat requirement, enforced by the timer on the fight!

 

Could this be translated to more general content? Absolutely! You can already see some extra things happening during fights as early as Atlas Park! Destroy the life machine to make Botte vulnerable! Back away from Protean before he drains your energy! It doesn't always have to be "Defeat 4 pylons". I think three fights (that I'm aware of) having that gimmick is plenty!

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Apogee said:

Ahh the good ol days of a Dance Dance Revolution mechanic to survive a boss fight.  No thanks

[biostem]

I'm on the fence about these kinds of mechanics;  What's the point of me selecting an AT, primary, secondary, pools, etc, if what really matters is that I move out of a red splotch or attack some random object, (possibly only during a "vulnerable period")?  Additionally, if said mechanics favor, say, control effects to prevent some big attack that can 1-shot the team, then it skews things further.  Ideally, there should be a multitude of ways to approach any encounter, and they should all be equally viable...

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

And it hearkens back to Jack Emmert's declaration that, for him, 'fun' was throwing his character at the end boss again and again, being defeated over and over, until he finds the one tactic that will allow him to defeat the boss. Ignoring the fact that it's fun for him, and may not be for anyone else, he seems to have been completely blind to the fact that, in the age of the internet, as soon as one individual/group figures out how to defeat a given boss, the process will be spread across the Net for everyone to see, so that the people who come after just follow the process, instead of beating their head(s) against a wall for hours trying to figure it out for themselves.

decades for this guy to find the "secret"  next week hundreds have "discovered" it too...

[Skyhawke]

11 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Could this be translated to more general content? Absolutely! You can already see some extra things happening during fights as early as Atlas Park! Destroy the life machine to make Botte vulnerable! Back away from Protean before he drains your energy! It doesn't always have to be "Defeat 4 pylons". I think three fights (that I'm aware of) having that gimmick is plenty!

 

The Protean fight used to be one I'd over level for when I got it until I learned how to joust him. As long as his energy blasts can't take you down, it's a crazy easy fight if you stay moving. Haaaated it on melee characters til I figured it out. As others have said, though: once someone figures the gimmick out, it's no longer a gimmick and just another part of the equation. 

[BZRKR]

All-new low level content with interesting and well-defined boss fight mechanics could be fun. Adding boss fight mechanics to existing content shouldn't be done.

Guild Wars 2 exists, and has plenty of mechanics where it doesn't matter what your character is, just stand/ don't stand right there!

Dark Souls (et al) exists and you can beat your head against some monster until you memorize its patterns.

Balatro is a roguelike deck building game based on poker that has nothing to do with super villains, superheroes or the cities they live in.

 

Turning Homecoming CoH into some other game is a poor choice when you have a world of choices that might make you happy.

[BurtHutt]

I do think different mechanics should be added. Maybe nothing extreme but variety is good. 

 

There are lots of adjustments the HC team could make to old content but I don't think they have a big enough team to change old and add new all the time.  Maybe stick to adding some new wrinkles to the new content? 

 

There is a bit of variety in dealing with bosses and big fights and HC did add some cool stuff with hard mode additions. It would've been cool if the hard mode stuff was just a new SF or trial or TF. The ITF and Lady Grey are already solid TFs and fun enough to play. The hard mode ideas would've been fun in a new TF etc... It could've made the Aeon SF better and fun...but I digress.

 

I don't think I totally agree with the OP but I do like his line of thinking. It'd be great if HC changed it up a bit. This doesn't mean make it more difficult...just different. 

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

I do agree that the higher-end difficulty stuff is plagued by stat checks more than they are technical skill. That's why you get opinions like this one!

 

 

I won't get into the nitty gritty concerning this, I will just agree that I'd rather tough fights be more complex instead of numbersing at encounters harder!  I feel like Hard Mode ITF is a good floor for this, able to be completed by pretty much any rag-tag team with good coordination and a lot of time on their hands (lots of experience with that BTW), and Omega K'ong feels like a true raid encounter. It's just a bit bogged down with a borderline unreasonable stat requirement, enforced by the timer on the fight!

 

Could this be translated to more general content? Absolutely! You can already see some extra things happening during fights as early as Atlas Park! Destroy the life machine to make Botte vulnerable! Back away from Protean before he drains your energy! It doesn't always have to be "Defeat 4 pylons". I think three fights (that I'm aware of) having that gimmick is plenty!

This is more or less what I was going for.

 

I love soulslikes, and most of my 2024 was spent beating a few that were very memorable with boss designs and fights. I’m not asking CoH to be that as I fully understand that’s not the scope of the game.

 

What I’m asking for is, if you’re going to make a boss or let’s say challenge mode, why not make it have mechanical depth instead of stat boost? Farthest mechanics I could go with, given the nature and skillset of this playerbase, is Omega K’Ong. Surface wise it’s not that involved. It’s literally move between 4 corners and dps some adds while keeping an eye on another AV/keeping it taunted. 
 

Not terrible on the surface compared to other games, but for CoH’s playerbase, a lot would tell you it’s very challenging. Some would even say the most challenging content yet. That’s as far as I would take it on the EXTREME end. Lot of other modifications would be vastly less involved.

[tidge]

I am not a great fan of 'gimmick' fights. I don't mind if the enemy has some sort of attack that we have to account for, but once the defeat mechanism becomes something other than Damage-over-time > (Regeneration + Healing), I start to think that this fight belongs to some other game. I don't completely object to 'puzzles', because I know that sort of thing appeals to some players.

 

The one element of basic CoX combat mechanics that has led to 'easy-mode' type thinking is player's "Defense soft-capping"(*1). Auto-hit powers and mega-DDR have obviously been implemented, but I think a lot of what makes the game easy-mode is basically the ability to stand in place and button mash. I don't envy folks trying to bring some game balance because I think the limited toolbox available is being leveraged reasonably well (including -MaxHP, enemy healing, etc.)

 

(*1) Would it be the end of the world if enemies had a chance-to-hit floor of 10%?

[gameboy1234]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

Would it be the end of the world if enemies had a chance-to-hit floor of 10%?

 

You mean for us to hit them?  Or them to hit us?  My defense based tankers would hate it if the defense max was dropped from 95% to 90%, you'd double my incoming damage.

 

[tidge]

1 hour ago, gameboy1234 said:

 

You mean for us to hit them?  Or them to hit us?  My defense based tankers would hate it if the defense max was dropped from 95% to 90%, you'd double my incoming damage.

 

 

I doesn't matter if everybody gets a floor of 10%.

 

There is no "base defense maximum", the suggestion would only affect (players) when facing opponents that have a ToHit chance between 5% and 10%, after that everything would be the same. Congratulations if that is you for 100% of all content!

 

If anything, this is something of a 'nerf' for players (and critters) who debuff Accuracy/ToHit... but those debuff scales are already a little on the weak side IMO.

 

EDIT: As for "most affected players", I think it would very likely be certain Masterminds, more than other AT.

Edited Thursday at 08:35 PM by tidge

[gameboy1234]

5 minutes ago, tidge said:

I doesn't matter if everybody gets a floor of 10%.

 

I don't want to get into one of those fights but it does matter, a lot.  "It doesn't matter" is a mathematically provably false statement.

 

6 minutes ago, tidge said:

Congratulations if that is you for 100% of all content!

 

I suspect it's something like at least 50% of the entire player base.  Capped defense are really easy to get.  Fortunately I think the devs understand all of this and there's no chance of this being implemented.  I just wanted to point out a serious math error here and ask that you check your math work.  I know it sounds like "only 5%" but it isn't, Arcanaville's work back on live showed that it isn't, going from 5% chance to be hit to 10% chance to be hit doubles the damage taken.

 

 

[tidge]

7 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

 

I don't want to get into one of those fights but it does matter, a lot.  "It doesn't matter" is a mathematically provably false statement.

 

 

I should have written "it doesn't matter to me if both players and critters get the same floor." Missing kinda is lame.

 

7 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

I suspect it's something like at least 50% of the entire player base.  Capped defense are really easy to get.  Fortunately I think the devs understand all of this and there's no chance of this being implemented.  I just wanted to point out a serious math error here and ask that you check your math work.  I know it sounds like "only 5%" but it isn't, Arcanaville's work back on live showed that it isn't, going from 5% chance to be hit to 10% chance to be hit doubles the damage taken.

 

Obviously if a player is ALWAYS at an enemy's chance with 5%, yeah... that player would take more damage. I happen to think that one of the things that makes the game duller than it needs to be is when enemies only have a 1-in-20 chance to hit players. Players can still "soft cap", it is just that there would be diminishing returns for exceeding it... just like now.