About the relative difficulty of fights in this game vs. others

[temnix]

In CoH and all other games of that early period of MMO(RP)G that I can think of (World of Warcraft, Everquest etc.) players mostly fight enemies who are not a problem to defeat. One can wander into areas that are too high-level and there are bosses, but overall, people spend time killing things they know they can kill. In CoH it was a starting assumption, never challenged, that experience for a new level would come from a hundred returned purses and cleared sewer sections. With time thousands begin to be required, but that is the only difference. Yet one could as easily imagine a game where fights are very advancement-rewarding and very dangerous - and therefore memorable. CoH could have missions with only ten enemies in them, but all of them red to the player at the starting difficulty. You sweat, you puzzle over defeating them, and after a couple of such maps a level-up is your reward. That is just not how this game works.

 

What about modern games? Are they still about mashing up a ragout of underlings and sewing mantles of newt skins? It seems to me that Dark Souls was a departure in the direction of tough, time-consuming fights, but I haven't played that game and don't know whether fights, being hard, are therefore more rewarding and less frequent there. And what about games since Dark Souls?

[Andreah]

43 minutes ago, temnix said:

That is just not how this game works.

Yup, it's not, and I like it this way. It's what makes me feel like a superhero.

[Mopery]

Maybe try upping the difficulty to +4/x8 around level 10, solo, un-Exemp'd, doing Contact or Radio missions, then tell us how easy it is?

It may be too easy because you've set it to be too easy.

[MonteCarla]

Yeah... is City of Heroes a good simulator for what superheroes do in comics or movies?

CoH combat has two modes.
Most of the time you're steamrollering big packs of minions, like the Avengers infiltrating a Hydra base.

Sometimes you stop to take on one (or maybe more) big tough bags of hit points that need 8 superheroes to beat them up through sheer persistence. That's like the Avengers beating up Thanos together.

 

What you don't get much of in CoH is the team vs team action, like the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or the airport fight scene in the Civil War movie.
But, to capture that sort of action in a game, you really need to go turn-based to some degree. Freedom Force did a pretty good job of this, for example. (Or CoH PvP)

 

CoH is basically Diablo II style combat dynamics with a superhero skin over the top. And I think it's this way for a number of solid game design reasons?

[Andreah]

3 hours ago, MonteCarla said:

What you don't get much of in CoH is the team vs team action, like the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or the airport fight scene in the Civil War movie.

You can get those in hard modes, certain special situations with particular team compositions, and in custom AE missions designed for difficulty. And I think that's okay, because those situations in comic books aren't common.

[The Trouble]

EQ @ level 1: A rat kills you after a harrowing 3 minute fight.

CoH in the tutorial mission: Beat down multiple minions in about a minute.

 

Both of these scenarios can be fun, but guess which game I'm still playing?

[Lines]

I've mostly stopped playing now, and I think this is the main reason I can't bring myself to get back into it.

 

I know the whole facerolling everything feels superheroic to some folks, which is awesome and I never want to deny anyone of that. But it didn't really stay interesting for me. It feels too much like winning because the enemy is incompetent, and not because I or my character is competent. It's like all the satisfaction of beating a 4-year-old at Mario Kart.

 

I know there are instances of challenge in the game, but I've done them. And there are other games that do suit me.

[Seed22]

2 hours ago, Lines said:

I've mostly stopped playing now, and I think this is the main reason I can't bring myself to get back into it.

 

I know the whole facerolling everything feels superheroic to some folks, which is awesome and I never want to deny anyone of that. But it didn't really stay interesting for me. It feels too much like winning because the enemy is incompetent, and not because I or my character is competent. It's like all the satisfaction of beating a 4-year-old at Mario Kart.

 

I know there are instances of challenge in the game, but I've done them. And there are other games that do suit me.

I sometimes like to hop in from time to time and do a radio and faceroll mobs. But lately I’ve been finding I sometimes don’t even finish the radios because I just realize how repetitive the gameplay loop is and get sucked out of the game’s immersion.

 

I used to lead HM 4’s and 3’s regularly for months, then the same thing happened. Realized how repetitive it was and the time it took to form good teams for them and just stopped.

 

Then gamepass popped off and I played Lies of P and Another Crab’s Treasure/Sea of Stars, and my entertainment time is pretty much on Xbox. Plus friends would rather play games on Xbox than try out CoH so that really solidified my choice.

 

It’s cool CoH is still here though. I’m probably not going to do any of the new arcs in P2 for awhile and im not making any new 50s, but it’s nice for those who are that the option is there.

 

Still in CB so I’ll be testing P3 maybe(at least the new thing that I cant talk about) and giving my feedback, assuming I have time.

Edited June 8 by Seed22

[Spaghetti Betty]

This is not a hard game, at all! And if you look at the timeline of the game, I don't think it ever was. A lot of the difficult back then was artificial, mostly due to intended time investment bloat and withholding of information.

 

16 hours ago, temnix said:

It seems to me that Dark Souls was a departure in the direction of tough, time-consuming fights, but I haven't played that game and don't know whether fights, being hard, are therefore more rewarding and less frequent there.

 

I can assure you there were tough games before Dark Souls! And as someone who used to speedrun the game, I can't necessarily describe it as hard as much as "vague and unforgiving". You can really blow it wide open and have fights completed in seconds, but the game isn't holding your hand and teaching you how to do it. Not only that, but completing your first Souls game makes the rest exponentially easier, since the "difficulty" hinges on the player being completely unaware of the design formula.

[Yomo Kimyata]

16 hours ago, temnix said:

Yet one could as easily imagine a game where fights are very advancement-rewarding and very dangerous - and therefore memorable. CoH could have missions with only ten enemies in them, but all of them red to the player at the starting difficulty. You sweat, you puzzle over defeating them, and after a couple of such maps a level-up is your reward. That is just not how this game works.

 

You could try this:

 

 

 

but the problem is that you can do it with x8 numbers of enemies.  I don't know of a way to get +5/6 without that multiple.

[Andreah]

I can routinely heavily challenge teams doing PI radios at +2 to +4 x8, just by aggro-ing extra groups and bringing them to the team quickly. 

 

Ordinarily, I try to pace this at a rate that the team can handle, but it is not difficult to overwhelm them with numbers. A team of eight can, in principle, aggro 8x17=136 mobs at the same time, this can quickly lead to a TPK for even a strong team if they're not working together tactically at a high level of skill.

[MTeague]

The type of enemies you fight, also makes a Large difference. 

By everything I've read on the Focused Feedback thread about Blackwing Industries, BWI was specifically designed to issue a wake up call teams that are only half paying attention. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

On 6/8/2025 at 3:00 AM, temnix said:

 Yet one could as easily imagine a game where fights are very advancement-rewarding and very dangerous - and therefore memorable. CoH could have missions with only ten enemies in them, but all of them red to the player at the starting difficulty. You sweat, you puzzle over defeating them, and after a couple of such maps a level-up is your reward. That is just not how this game works.

 

Those might be a great hook for a few players but in my experience, the majority of players look for light relief, casual play where they can dip in and out of a game, don't need to think too hard about it and are entertained by feeling superpowerful.

 

That is compounded by the fact that once the way to win in a game like this is worked out, it becomes much easier. When the Incarnate system was introduced some of that content was very challenging. Now people rinse through it in moments because the formula has been unlocked.

 

Whilst I have some sympathy for the OP's view, I fear the practical execution of such a thing might be too difficult to achieve and not attractive to enough players to make it worthwhile.

 

 

[BlackSpectre]

On 6/7/2025 at 7:00 PM, temnix said:

Yet one could as easily imagine a game where fights are very advancement-rewarding and very dangerous - and therefore memorable. CoH could have missions with only ten enemies in them, but all of them red to the player at the starting difficulty. You sweat, you puzzle over defeating them, and after a couple of such maps a level-up is your reward.

 

So it's our fault. We decided we wanted to beat the game, and focused our attention on designing defensive and offensive character builds. We wanted to beat the game, and we sure did! LOL

 

I remember struggling quite a bit back on Live, and even the first year I joined Homecoming. But those were with characters that had hardly any SOs, let alone IOs or Set IOs.

 

If you monitor the forum, you'll notice that every now and then a new player complains about how hard the game is and how  they die too much, or how expensive enhancements are to buy and that the game is unaffordable. For them, this game IS a challenge... and it's for them whom this game is balanced for. To increase the base difficulty level would essentially kill the game for every new player, especially casual new players.

 

But your point is well taken. I feel the same way. I once argued about raising the aggro limit for exactly the same reason. But the reality is that tanks are nigh but invulnerable no matter how many mobs attack them. They are just as untouchable if 2 mobs attack them vs 200 mobs. I argued for some mechanic to be put into place that would make it more and more difficult the greater the number of mobs. Bring some risk back into the game. The devs responded with a novel way to do that, and applied it to some fire powersets in AE that gave a small chance for a small defense debuff with each attack, and also allowed mobs over the aggro limit to attack from range. This DID make attacking a huge number of mobs in fire farms more difficult, but it's easily countered simply by keeping a watchful eye on your defense and jumping around to give the defense debuff a few seconds to wear off, then back to attacking the horde. Personally, I don't think this method should be applied to the game at large. I would prefer a much more gradual or linear decline in survivability occur. The defense debuff ends up having not much affect on toons until SUDDENLY the toons are defenseless! It's like BAM! The more defense debuffs that hit, the more often defense debuffs begin to hit. It's a steep decline curve. I'd prefer something like a small damage boost for mobs depending on how many mobs are attacking a character at the same time, and make it a fairly straight, slightly sloping line until it's just too much for heroes to handle. Additive rather than multiplicative. But this would only allow players to herd a ton of mobs to create more danger for themselves. The idea is that game balance for a mob of 8 to 16 would not be more difficult than it is now, but after 16 the danger increases gradually with each additional mob until you're like "Holy crap! I pulled to many!!!!" I always loved herding a ton of mobs back on Live because I enjoyed the challenge and the big explosions and special effects. I knew that if the team wasn't prepared for a horde attacking that people would die. It made it fun for me... but I do admit I might be an outlier for wanting to create that kind of situation on demand. 

 

That said, I think you're right. We need to go up against more AVs and elite bosses in general... groups of them!  But maybe make it tied to difficulty level. Fighting at +3 doesn't just make hitting the mobs harder, but it spawns more EBs and AVs.  🙂

 

 

[High_Beam]

23 hours ago, MonteCarla said:

Freedom Force did a pretty good job of this, for example.

I loved that game.  Played for Umpteen hours.  Thanks for the good memory bump there.

[UltraAlt]

On 6/7/2025 at 10:00 PM, temnix said:

One can wander into areas that are too high-level and there are bosses, but overall, people spend time killing things they know they can kill.

 

I can say anything about new games. I think the newest game that I've played is Card Hunter.

 

As for difficulty, it is what you make it in CoH. 

I like to find a difficulty level where I have to think about what I'm doing to survive most situations but can still get in over my head if I'm not paying attention.

Unfortunately, I'm not always on teams that think the same way.

 

I have a good friend ... I'm older than the hills but younger than the mountains ... and who is  pretty old as well ... they just wants to have a good time and is more interested in talking about other stuff than actually playing the game most of the time ... or so it seems ... so I have to appreciate that and relegate the difficulty to something that I know I can handle when they are too busy ranting about Doctor Who or what is going on in the MCU to be actually paying attention to what is going on in the game (they may even been watching tv at the same time for all I know.)

 

I guess my point is that some people aren't hardcore gamers. I know I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I do like a challenge. I like being able to manipulate the difficulty to fit what I think my character and/or team can handle.

I don't end-game. I'm playing the game (the leveling content), and it is much easier to adjust the difficulty and find enemies that meet the level of challenge that I think I can push to handle or flee to fight another day.

 

And, yeah, I have no problem running away. If I can't run away far enough in a mission, it's out the door. If I'm already outside it maybe up into the air or leaping across rooftops.

At the same time, I have no problem with turning around a taking out the straggler(s) of a mob going back to their starting point.

 

 

 

Edited Monday at 08:44 PM by UltraAlt

[Crysis]

I think it's fairly obvious by now that the active playerbase here really doesn't want more challenge.  We have dozens of ways to up the difficulty but as evidenced by these forums and from what I can personally witness in-game, increased difficulty isn't of interest to the vast majority of the players out there.

 

1) Most TF's/Trials are "speed runs," choosing to avoid as many of the fights as possible in order to get to the rewards offered instead.  Most are set at low level of difficulty, not +4/x8.  Even though we have 1-Star+ difficulty sliders now, it's rare to find more than one being run per night.  Even the really big baddie Hamidon is played as a Zerg rush of damage, without anyone taking the "more difficult" approach to defeat it.  Rewards>Difficulty is the name of this game.  Has been like that since Live days.

 

2) There are ways for players to up their own difficulty of challenge should they choose to do so.  Slotting ONLY SO's, utilizing no IO sets whatsoever, intentionally removing +ACC and +DMG from their slotting or not slotting inherent powers like Stamina and Health.  You've not played this game on hard mode until you've intentionally taken on +4 or harder enemies with literally floored accuracy and to-hit values, or no damage slotting whatsoever.   

 

3) Nobody, and I do mean nobody, plays the game in perma-debt mode any longer.  There was a time when it wasn't uncommon to play alongside someone who was constantly dying over and over again.  Now, its rare that I have 10 deaths in the game from 1-Vet Level 20.  I had alts that earned almost all their debt badges by 32 back on Live.  Often times getting killed just trying to reach the costume tailor in a zone of higher level than I could handle.  

 

This is an old game, and as such, most of the active playerbase is very accustomed to how it works and are fine with the lack of challenge.  It isn't nor ever will be "Souls-like" in difficulty.  Even in the heyday of MMO's, COX was always known as a friendly MMO, easy to play and not difficult to master.  You CAN make it more difficult, the Devs HAVE offered lots of ways to increase the difficulty, but speed/XP rules over challenge and difficulty.  I play it for what it is....familiar, comfortable and a game you play while chatting with friends.  Good, wholesome but def not challenging entertainment.

 

 

[Maelwys]

2 minutes ago, Crysis said:

3) Nobody, and I do mean nobody, plays the game in perma-debt mode any longer. 

*Waves hand*

_{(My Fire Blaster really likes using Rise of the Phoenix, OK...?)}

[Seed22]

On 6/8/2025 at 1:41 PM, Spaghetti Betty said:

This is not a hard game, at all! And if you look at the timeline of the game, I don't think it ever was. A lot of the difficult back then was artificial, mostly due to intended time investment bloat and withholding of information.

 

 

I can assure you there were tough games before Dark Souls! And as someone who used to speedrun the game, I can't necessarily describe it as hard as much as "vague and unforgiving". You can really blow it wide open and have fights completed in seconds, but the game isn't holding your hand and teaching you how to do it. Not only that, but completing your first Souls game makes the rest exponentially easier, since the "difficulty" hinges on the player being completely unaware of the design formula.

As alwsys, hit the nail on the head. Especially about the artificial diff of CoH. I told this to PH and they looked at me crazy but see playing other games and actually challenging games lets you understand this.

 

If all you know is CoH ofc you're gonna think it's challenging.

[srmalloy]

Maybe there needs to be a game flag in the options that reverts the opponent difficulty to align with Jack Emmert's declaration that "Three minions should be a tough fight for one hero" (but doesn't increase the XP or other rewards; that would just create another type of farming) that only works when solo, or when all the members of a team have that flag set. That way, the people who are always flapping on about how CoH is too easy can have their hardmode game, while the rest of us continue to play as we like.

[Octogoat]

Can't believe we're taking dian-i mean tenmix's bait again.

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Octogoat said:

Can't believe we're taking dian-i mean tenmix's bait again.

Meh.   He brings up some decent topics even when he's misinformed and comes off abrasive.   I think most people went with it as an idea prompt.

 

Myself, I don't get really challenged by the game play usually, i do it more for futzing around and design stuff, but there's plenty of areas if I want challenge.

[temnix]

@srmalloy What is that declaration you are talking about? I do agree with it. @Spaghetti Betty Thanks for the info on Dark Souls. Overall, increasing difficulty in ways that are possible in this game will make missions interminable. It also won't solve the problem of the gameplay not being... epic? I don't like that word, but there needs to be a serious challenge leading clearly and quickly to a serious result (saving innocents, disarming a bomb and so on). I don't think this structure is optional in a book, a film, a game or a life, whether or not a lot of people may enjoy wasting their spare time steamrolling, farming, collecting badges and otherwise doing familiar rotes. The concept of farming itself is strange and antiquated. I don't see a single reason, first, why a game needs to be an intentional time sink (and what moral right do any developers have to designing time sinks?) and second, why the time that IS spent in the game needs to be devoted to repetitive fights. If it is to be fights and not, say, dialogue, quests, choices, exploration, reconnaissance, resource-gathering, crafting, then, as I said, the time can be spent in killing three minions in a life-or-death struggle instead of thirty in a yawn. Wouldn't that be finer all around?

 

CoH lacks everything but combat, that is one problem with the concept from the beginning. It doesn't even have an inventory. Life could be put on the line exploring, spying, but death doesn't come with serious consequences - and if you factor in patrol XP, with any consequences, so there was always little point to real risks. MediPort will catch you if you fall. Diablo II with a different skin, that is well-put. However, Diablo II does have a direction - through the Acts, towards its end. These old online grinders are like Diablo II looped. That is why I asked whether newer games use some different, denser formula. Dark Souls seems to have been a stepping stone to more substantial, deliberate mechanics, but if newer games are still about running around killing orcs or what have you, only with Poise, Stamina and some other bar to watch, then nothing much has changed.

 

Shadow of the Colossus may have been a movement across the spectrum. A game where there are only bosses to fight.

[Snarky]

On 6/7/2025 at 7:00 PM, temnix said:

I. Yet one could as easily imagine a game where fights are very advancement-rewarding and very dangerous - and therefore memorable. CoH could have missions with only ten enemies in them, but all of them red to the player at the starting difficulty. You sweat, you puzzle over defeating them, and after a couple of such maps a level-up is your reward. That is just not how this game works.

If you did this, i can GAURANTEE our community would learn how to farm it.  

 

Then the nerf/new farm/nerf war would rage.

 

Because, you propose greatly increased rewards.  You may not realize how calculating some of our players are at time/reward math.  Nor how creative they are at doing "the impossible"  

 

no, this is a bad bad idea.  

 

There used to be PvP base raids on live.  Until the crew learned there was a logic gap where you could get a new toon to 50 with almost no effort due to a reward offered. 

Edited 2 hours ago by Snarky

[temnix]

2 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Because, you propose greatly increased rewards.  You may not realize how calculating some of our players are at time/reward math.  Nor how creative they are at doing "the impossible"

 

How would they do the impossible, if every encountered villain was a purple and had special attacks and intelligent scripts instead of standing there getting beaten up?