Hardmode TFs - Confuse Protection

[Psyonico]

And this is why devs generally don't comment on suggestions. 

[Championess]

 

 

From page 3 with Aeon to page 4 with ITF the patch notes higlighted under the difficulty setting there's a big call out of additional required mag for confuses and knockdown where there wasn't with the introduction of Aeon. 

 

Certain 'exploitable' behaviors it looks like were adjusted for with next 4 star.  I surely was instantly confusing mobs except the EBs if I hit them on Aeon prior to ITF when it was live.

Edited October 16 by Championess

[Cobalt Arachne]

52 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

And this is why devs generally don't comment on suggestions. 

If I couldn't defend why I felt an option was the best decision given the various factors, then I wouldn't have committed to that design.

If it's something related to my content sphere, I'm always happy to discuss my reasoning for any individual design decisions, or the mechanics behind something.

But that's the thing, discussion.
I'm open to being convinced of any suggestion. If somebody else's idea is better than mine, then I'm going to choose what's best for the game.
But sometimes that involves meeting me in the middle for an actual discussion to explain to me about why their suggestion is worth taking.

 

If somebody can't or won't explain why their suggestion addresses my main design concerns, or they continually argue something unrelated, then we unfortunately hit a dead end.

[Cobalt Arachne]

33 minutes ago, Championess said:

From page 3 with Aeon to page 4 with ITF the patch notes higlighted under the difficulty

I'll admit I got my dates wrong on this, the specific run that caused Confuse to get nerfed was on a run where a Dominator was trivializing 4* Dr. Aeon with a single power.
I recall very clearly which run it was because the player who was running the Dominator was rather famous, but my memory was off on *when* that run happened.

Apologies on the mistake @Championess.

The change was indeed Page 4, but because the run that revealed the balance issue was an Aeon, I incorrectly assumed it had happened during Page 3.
 

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

...You mean like the Golden Brickernauts in Advanced Mode Dr. Aeon that have instant-vulnerable to confuse during their countdown and can cause their explosion to instantly clear the entire room of enemies if used correctly?
https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=v_goldbrickers.golden_brickernaut_hm.brickernaut_countdown&at=boss_elite

 

Yeah!  Like that.  I know that you could confuse them, since you have to to get one of the badges, but I didn't know they were "instant-vulnerable."  Some of those CoD powers are hard for me to read.  I look at that and think +500 to confuse et. al. means harder to confuse, not easier.

[Cobalt Arachne]

One other major factor on my decision making is Character vs. Archetype.

If a Character has something that majorly trivializes the content, I'm typically going to add something to specifically counteract it.

No single character should ever have that much of an advantage over everybody else in team-focused content, especially if it's only achieved via a single power. (Phantom Army, PBAoE Confuses + Domination, etc.)

If an Archetype has something that majorly trivializes the content, I would see that as an issue with the content itself warranting adjustments.
Given not every Control AT set gets Confuse, it's unlikely to be something I favor in design, because it favors specific powersets rather than the whole Control AT/role.

This is why when I design something intended to be handled by Control ATs, it's always checking for Holds, because every Control AT 100% has access to a ST Hold.

TLDR; There should never be any singular character 'carrying' the team (IE: bring this = auto win), if any one person is pulling THAT much more weight than every other player, it needs balance adjustments. Advanced Mode content was designed to challenge everyone together on the whole team, if any one singular element overly compromises that design goal, it becomes something that needs to be addressed.

[Cobalt Arachne]

7 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I look at that and think +500 to confuse et. al. means harder to confuse, not easier.

We get this wrong constantly on the dev side too, lmao.

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

If I couldn't defend why I felt an option was the best decision given the various factors, then I wouldn't have committed to that design

 

I'm not saying any different,  its just, I see you getting swamped by replies and I think "if every dev replied to every post on the suggestion forum the way you are with this topic, that's all the devs would ever have time to do."

 

And since everyone benefits from devs actually developing, it makes sense that commenting on reasons why things are the way they are is as rare as it is.

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

Remove that flag and you give a giant middle finger to solo players, particularly in the earlier levels.

I'm not suggesting a general removal, only for the Advanced Mode content which currently has the Mag 10 confuse resistance neutering the power. I would have to go through the code to determine whether the 'enemies will not notice' effect is something that could be easily disabled only for that content, or whether it would take something like having Advanced Mode cause the powers to drop a pseudopet at the target that aggros mobs around it. But the current arrangement, no matter how much it impedes characters built around Confuse powers, is at least functioning as coded, which has to be considered before looking at changes; is it worth the effort to address the issue for a small number of powersets?

[Championess]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Apologies on the mistake @Championess.

 

No worries I could tell we were getting under each others skin.  Being called a liar will do it for me.

 

I needed a breather for a second there.  😜

Edited October 16 by Championess

[lemming]

Thanks @Cobalt Arachne   The explanations help me understand the reasoning.

[BillyMailman]

8 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

The only way I can think of would require tripling (x3) every single Confuse in the game by turning them into a Redirect and two separate conditional powers.

 

I think there's a cleaner option, if the proc thing doesn't work out. Still not completely clean, but you could make a single internal power that does nothing, and aggroes enemies, then have all the relevant confuse powers be made autohit-but-the-effects-still-check-an-accuracy-roll (like how sleeps all got changed), and then lastly have a single actually-autohit effect on each confuse power, which fires off the internal power to aggro things. Throw a condition on the execute that's triggering the aggro power, so it only executes if the enemy has some tag on them, and I think you're good

 

Basically, this whole approach bakes the effect into the power instead of as a separate proc, which also means non-problematic confuses wouldn't be affected. Though, I have no earthly idea whether some confuses already aggro things, so might not be needed?

 

Oh, and by making it conditional on some tag on the enemies, you'd be able to even control which enemies it applies to. Would mean you could have some specific enemies that are confusable without aggroing, so players can do stuff like confuse enemy supports with ST controls before entering a fight, without getting noticed. Might be another neat thing to add to some future hardmode?

[brass_eagle]

Thanks, for coming in and explaining @Cobalt Arachne for coming in an explaining it. I understand it. I don't like it, but I understand it. (...also forgot Aeon was first).

 

The suggestion came from a place as a control advocate as it often feels trumped by other game aspects once you get to a certain level. Peace and love. 

[Championess]

7 hours ago, brass_eagle said:

Thanks, for coming in and explaining @Cobalt Arachne for coming in an explaining it. I understand it. I don't like it, but I understand it. (...also forgot Aeon was first).

 

The suggestion came from a place as a control advocate as it often feels trumped by other game aspects once you get to a certain level. Peace and love. 

 

Yeah it's a reasonable position to have due to the on/off nature of some of these controls.  It just sucks that the known culprits are the things that cause some things to get over adjusted for.  

 

I don't disagree with him that some powers can trivialize things so much more than your standard already OP powers.  Perma impervious tanky pets, permanently flapjacking enemies because of a single enhancement, or turning the wicked damage these enemies do onto themselves especially every 15s are all abilities that were a smidge too good that really shown out well on this content.

 

These are pretty cheap tactics though I'd have liked to see the powers team address these powersets first as they now have, though I understand the apprehension as some of those aoe confuses didn't get as harsh of a nerf as it probably should have and now there's more quality ones of the like.  So I don't see just reverting as the way to go but I do think some things could be done to make it more attractive to bring actual control into one of these aside from bringing characters with much higher damage potential that also have Char or Ice blast holds.

Edited Monday at 05:27 PM by Championess

[Riverdusk]

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I do think it's funny that I saw people specifically blaming seeds of confusion for the hard mode change (and cheering on seeds being nerfed because of it) and per Cobalt it was actually due to confuse powers that don't aggro.   

 

Seeds does aggro and always has, from long time personal experience. 

Also, it's CoD entry: Notify Mobs:  Always

 

Mind's aoe confuse is the one that doesn't.

 

 

[Championess]

3 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I do think it's funny that I saw people specifically blaming seeds of confusion for the hard mode change (and cheering on seeds being nerfed because of it) and per Cobalt it was actually due to confuse powers that don't aggro.   

 

Seeds does aggro and always has, from long time personal experience. 

Also, it's CoD entry: Notify Mobs:  Always

 

Mind's aoe confuse is the one that doesn't.

 

 

 

Yes you are reading too much into the talk about the non-notify taoe confuse that recharges every 2:30ish minutes and overlooking the suggestive talk about a 'pbaoe' confuse.   Which who cares if it notifies all the targets you just hit with it the power would be back up in 15s, well enough time to apply another round of control over them so they never can break out for that notification to ever matter, or they're dead and you can do the same to the next mob.  

 

Cheap powers being cheap tactics ruins it for the more legit similar powers.  Good try though.

Edited Monday at 11:58 PM by Championess

[Riverdusk]

8 hours ago, Championess said:

 

Yes you are reading too much into the talk about the non-notify taoe confuse that recharges every 2:30ish minutes and overlooking the suggestive talk about a 'pbaoe' confuse.   Which who cares if it notifies all the targets you just hit with it the power would be back up in 15s, well enough time to apply another round of control over them so they never can break out for that notification to ever matter, or they're dead and you can do the same to the next mob.  

 

Cheap powers being cheap tactics ruins it for the more legit similar powers.  Good try though.

 

You are right the ones you hit with it notify doesn't matter.  It is the ones you miss.  It is also more a challenge to avoid at least some strikes from a mob before you can actually confuse them when the power is aggro. 

 

Wasn't 'trying' anything, not sure what you even mean by that.  Actually have no problem with the changes made to seeds in the end and if anything I find it even better now than before, for my playstyle anyway.  It just needs slotting to be good now where before it didn't even need to be slotted.   I love the adaptive recharge that was added so that I don't feel bad 'wasting' it on a smaller mob.  Only change I ever really complained about was them lowering the target cap, which they reversed.  Very happy with where seeds ended up.

[srmalloy]

On 10/16/2025 at 11:02 AM, Cobalt Arachne said:

This statement suggests to me you aren't very familiar with 4* content at all, as there is almost ALWAYS a tank AT in serious runs.

As well as, for PUG solicitations, the "Essential: Must have T4 Barrier" gear check crutch so you don't have to have players that can actually coordinate in teams, just spam Barrier rotating through the team.