page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] Mastermind Archetype Adjustments

[mechahamham]

A thought about the henchman upgrade powers. They all have zero recharge time and a moderate endurance cost. Even if you chain cast an upgrade on already summoned minions, it takes a bit for it to deplete your endurance bar.

 

At this point, why are the upgrades not auto/passive powers?

[Captain Powerhouse]

9 minutes ago, mechahamham said:

At this point, why are the upgrades not auto/passive powers?

 

For one, the way these upgrades are implemented (especially when you zone) is a hard-coded mess (not unlike many other things in the game). Like, the game remembers you summoned your pets but it applies the pet buffs literally by executing these powers on all your henchmen every time you zone, because the pet upgrades are not really saved to the server alongside the bits that tell the server your pets are summoned.

 

There has also been resistance from multiple dev team members that keeping your henchmen alive should be one of the responsibilities of the MM. If they simply get summoned with all the upgrades, the cost of resummoning them becomes too trivial. This is not any one person's opinion, but unless multiple people in the dev team can be sold on a concession/middle ground, it's not likely to change anytime soon. Even if a pitch was agreed upon today, it would not be part of this page. I am middle of the road on this stance, personally.

 

I have personally considered a few potential pitches, like having henchmen gain strength the longer they are "on the payroll" (summoned) or have auto-upgrades apply on a delay, but so far these are just concepts of a plan to discuss internally.

 

Note (not a reply to anyone in particular) I will try to work today on a post trying to clarify many of the impacts of this patch. There is a chance I won't be able to have that post ready until late tomorrow or Friday, though, due to RL stuff and other dev stuff I'm ironing out right now.

[Vinceq99]

6 hours ago, Dispari said:

As Maelwys said, the intent doesn't seem to be to nerf MMs. It would be nonsensical, as they're right now just not a very good AT (even if some might argue they excel in some niche scenarios). We had a lot of back and forth in beta trying to narrow down the math so that they aren't coming out worse than they currently are on live, since that would defeat the purpose of making changes.

The reality of the purple patch is it makes things too tricky to balance. Pets of all kinds (not just MM pets, but ALL pets for ALL sets and ALL ATs) need to be the owner's level. Back in the day the highest difficulty you could set was +2, but beyond that the system starts to break down. At +0 your minions are a reliable 20% worse than you and that can be baked into the stats. But at +3 the pets are 55% worse than you. And at +4 they're 70% worse than you. There's no linear way to adjust pets so that they have consistent results. Making them the owner's level is step one in making them perform reliably across all content.

We probably won't see those changes until after the holiday though.

 

I really dont want this patch to push through. Why are MMs balanced around the idea that the player is 50+1 tier 4 incarnate with 2 billions influence 53 HAMIs built out?? I love to level MMs because back in the day it it was hard to get teams going, and MMs were basically a mini team. Why are new MM players punished for fighting lower white/blue and green mobs??

 

Im all for the idea behind this patch but the execution is not great. I took my level 50 demons/elec affinity MM and fully tier 4 it out on the beta and the council was beating my pets soo quickly. I have to spam heals and absorbs way more. 

[Bionic_Flea]

I posted some new times for Test pylon and three different dummies (50, 52, 54).  A BIG improvement +4, about the same on the others.

 

Here for the dummies a little further back for the pylon - 

 

[JAMMan0000]

On 11/10/2025 at 4:19 PM, The Curator said:

• Tier 1 and 2 henchmen should be somewhat more survivable as they will be hit less often and for less damage.
• Tier 1 henchmen max HP decreased from 574 to 448
• Tier 2 henchmen max HP decreased from 768 to 654

Last part of first bullet 'will be hit less often and for less damage' may be true. But with HP reductions in 2nd & 3rd bullets, the first part of first bullet 'should be somewhat more survivable' is not true. Net total with these changes T1s & T2s are less survivable.

 

Man I don't want to be a downer. I love all HC and volunteers for what is being done for this game. But, the simple truth is - MMs are their pets. If pets are less survivable its like a triple  multiplicative nerf to the MM. It reduces MM survivability via reduced effectiveness of bodyguard. It reduces MM dps output because dead pets don't dps. It degrades MM general qol play because resummoning pets is just not fun. Push come to shove, I would give up pet dps before sacrificing pet survivability. Maybe the solution is just upping the HPs to some mid-point between old and new values. But, this going live as-is would be a mistake. It will make playing MMs noticeably less fun.

[mechahamham]

47 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

For one, the way these upgrades are implemented (especially when you zone) is a hard-coded mess (not unlike many other things in the game). Like, the game remembers you summoned your pets but it applies the pet buffs literally by executing these powers on all your henchmen every time you zone, because the pet upgrades are not really saved to the server alongside the bits that tell the server your pets are summoned.

 

There's always a noodle of spaghetti touching something it shouldn't in CoH.

 

Quote

 

There has also been resistance from multiple dev team members that keeping your henchmen alive should be one of the responsibilities of the MM. If they simply get summoned with all the upgrades, the cost of resummoning them becomes too trivial. This is not any one person's opinion, but unless multiple people in the dev team can be sold on a concession/middle ground, it's not likely to change anytime soon.

 

 

For the most part, I feel like this is reasonable. In other games, if pets go down, it's a very big deal and you need to drop everything to get the pet back up ASAP.

 

CoH has a little of that, especially for MMs who spend their time in bodyguard mode. And I agree that 'zerg rush' tactics suck. They're not fun to play. They're not fun to watch. They're 'cheaty' in that they break the *intent* of the game mechanics if not the rules. Especially in the later game, though, mastermind pets just tend to go splatter, though.

 

(That's something that keeps me, personally, from playing non-monster masterminds. The limp bodies of the summons make it feel like I'm failing at something, even if I'm doing okay.)

 

Frequent resummoning is just a thing. If Page 3 makes them more durable against 35+ enemies in general, that's great, and I think the system as it exists here is reasonable and it *shouldn't matter* if there's a nominal recharge or not on the upgrade powers.

 

If Debuff-type Masterminds are still resummoning during or after every fight in 35+ content, that kinda says to me that the durability is still not where it needs to be.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

There has also been resistance from multiple dev team members that keeping your henchmen alive should be one of the responsibilities of the MM. If they simply get summoned with all the upgrades, the cost of resummoning them becomes too trivial. This is not any one person's opinion, but unless multiple people in the dev team can be sold on a concession/middle ground, it's not likely to change anytime soon. Even if a pitch was agreed upon today, it would not be part of this page. I am middle of the road on this stance, personally.

 

I'm not intending to be nasty (especially not to the messenger) but I will state: The first henchmen boost power comes at level 6, and the T2 and T3 summons come at 12 and 22... so it isn't as if most (any?) Masterminds will delay taking the first upgrade until after the T2 (or T3, for T3-only MMs)  is taken. 

 

With the reduction in HP for the T1 and T2... also (still) requiring the first upgrade feels a lot like punching down. I accept the code is a mess, but I feel like the actual buffs from the first upgrade could just be included in the summoning power.

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

With the reduction in HP for the T1 and T2... also (still) requiring the first upgrade feels a lot like punching down. I accept the code is a mess, but I feel like the actual buffs from

the first upgrade could just be included in the summoning power.

 

I intend to dive into more detail when I make a full writeup but I do want to clarify:

 

Henchmen HP is untouched at lower levels. 
If you are still at the level where you only summon one T1 pet, that pet is identical to live.
When you summon 2, they will be in the same territory as T2 pets. They will scale into the reduced effectiveness just as before: when you have 3 out at once.

The same holds true for T2s, they will be as strong as they were live until they are dialed back once you start summoning 2.

 

All this applies to damage, tohit, HP levels, and basically all stats.

[Neiska]

Want to know what my biggest takeaway from not just this change, but all the other changes over the years?

 

Don't share things. Don't share builds. Don't share strategies. Keep any super cheesy things to yourself.

 

The moment you discover something that's Good, or you figure out a way to do something that isn't intended, and share it, they will "correct" it, but over-correct and you will find yourself weaker than you were before. Almost like you are being punished for thinking outside the box, not following a blind meta, or being innovative or creative.

 

Some builds I have right now performed better, did better, did more, faster, when I first joined HC 5 years ago, vs now. And with each wave of changes/overhauls, it gets just a wee bit worse. Not by a lot, but it's there. The thing is, I keep my own data going all the way back then. And for me personally, it is definitely a slope in the wrong direction. They call them updates, improvements, etc. But how is it an improvement when it performs worse than before when doing the same activities?

 

Sure, a handful of changes might be an improvement when doing certain activities, like hard modes, or raids etc. But for those of us who do our own thing, 90% of my activities are measurably worse. Some things I used to be able to solo before, now either I can't, or I can but its much more of a struggle. With absolutely no benefit or upside to it at all.

 

Think any super cheesy/loop holes/sneaky strategies/etc that I know of will stay that way. Each time I've shared some of them with people, about 2-3 months later they are suddenly nerfed. Like magic.