Make the early game fun: Remove TOs/DOs.

[kelly Rocket]

1 hour ago, Jeuraud said:

This is not early CoH, Inf is easily made with the AH.

 

As far as out leveling, sure at the start, but you are not going to be making 5 levels in an hour once you get to level 6, not if you run Solo. The MOBs make a major power jump, and your Acc has dropped down to 86% so your missing more often against tougher MOBs... that's 86% against +0s, and you start seeing more +1s in Missions now. I just finished a level 11 Paper Mission, that had a +1 Named Lt, with 2 groups of 3 +1 Minions around them. This was running Solo at +0.

Streatsweaping becomes more difficult from 6 on, because your going to need to leave the Starter area, and you are going to start seeing bosses in groups. Even an Yellow Boss will hurt you, a Orange will hurt you bad with the good possibility of faceplanting (Especially if they are hiding around the corner.), Red/Purple will faceplant you.

Of course the above is based upon you Soloing, if you group none of it matters.

 

So what your saying is, is it worth your energy and time... I can understand that. It depends on whether you think Solo play is important or not.

 

I'm thinking now that dropping DOs altogether, and raising TOs to the DO percentage would be a better answer.  This would make it easier to keep your Es current as you level, and would be easily affordable, even for a NewB. I would still like to see SOs drop for all Missions as a completion reward.

 

Also I would not change IOs at all.

 

I actually do solo through the early game, mostly. Hit the P2W vendor and get the 2x XP rate, and street sweep to 4, takes like 20 minutes, maybe 30. MAYBE 45 minutes with a really slow soloing AT. MAYBE. Then Matthew Habashy->Officer Fields->Aaron Thierry, that gets me to level 9-10, Then do the first Twinshot arc. Then if I'm feeling like I'm not hitting well, or needing more endurance, I'll run DfB once or twice to get the accuracy and/or recovery boost rewards. If I need to run it twice I turn off xp for it. Then I do the second and third Twinshot arcs, and at that point I'm level 18-19 or so. 

 

All of that takes maybe 5 hours? Probably less usually.

 

Radio missions to get to 20 after that are easy enough, maybe join a Synapse if someone's running one. Join a Penelope Yin after that, or just radio missions until 22, and then I just have my crafter alt whip up a full set of level 25 IOs.

 

I literally do not buy enhancements before that. I'll slot TOs/DOs I get as drops, at most. Sometimes I don't even bother with that. The SOs I get if I run a DfB or two I just sell, because they're worth a significant amount of inf (For the early game anyway), and I don't see the point in slotting them when I'm leveling that fast, they'll just go red in an hour or whatever.

 

All told, it's maybe, maybe 8 hours of gameplay to get to 22, assuming I do nothing but radio missions from 18 or 19 until 22. If I'm in a hurry to level a toon I could do this in 3-4 hours with just DfB to 20 and then running a Posi 1.

 

After that I usually try to find a group to tag along with to get me to 25, so I can go solo through the whole Croatoa arc. After Croatoa I don't care much. I'll MSR and join PI mission/radio teams until 50, unless I spot someone advertising for team members for a Task Force in my level range that I haven't run yet.

 

I leave double xp on the whole time because... frankly why do I need the inf rewards for defeating enemies and completing missions when my crafter/marketeer alts can make 50 million inf in half an hour of craft and convert?

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by kelly Rocket

[Some Random User]

5 hours ago, kelly Rocket said:

I leave double xp on the whole time because... frankly why do I need the inf rewards for defeating enemies and completing missions when my crafter/marketeer alts can make 50 million inf in half an hour of craft and convert?

This is why dealing with inflation through market controls at Wentworth's won't ever contribute to fixing the real problems with the in-game economy.

[kelly Rocket]

59 minutes ago, Some Random User said:

This is why dealing with inflation through market controls at Wentworth's won't ever contribute to fixing the real problems with the in-game economy.

TBH, what problems?

 

The economy is running smoother now than it was in the old days before Sunset. Nothing costs more than 30 million, where in the old days some individual IOs cost billions.

 

I don't see it as a problem that you can use the market to make more money than you get from running content. Especially given a strong endgame build is going to run you near a billion inf--which, again, is still massively less than it used to cost.

[Some Random User]

9 minutes ago, kelly Rocket said:

TBH, what problems?

Personally I have the opinion that Influence should be worth more, and I see the practices at the auction house as insufficient to reduce that issue. Note that others, including several members of the staff disagree with this interpretation. If you disagree as well that's fine. Just my perspective.

[kelly Rocket]

2 hours ago, Some Random User said:

Personally I have the opinion that Influence should be worth more, and I see the practices at the auction house as insufficient to reduce that issue. Note that others, including several members of the staff disagree with this interpretation. If you disagree as well that's fine. Just my perspective.

 

Well like I said, the economy on Homecoming already has a VASTLY higher value for influence than we had back when the game was actually live. I mean literal orders of magnitude. So I don't see it as a significant problem. If anything I'm impressed with how well they've managed it.

 

You should hear what the prices are like on Rebirth, where they haven't seeded the market.

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by kelly Rocket

[Some Random User]

41 minutes ago, kelly Rocket said:

You should hear what the prices are like on Rebirth, where they haven't seeded the market.

My complaint has more to do with the way Influence scales into the sky as you level but never provides a meaningfully widespread way to remove that Influence from the economy. I'd fix this through N.P.C. stores selling meaningful Enhancements.

[Yoru-hime]

Here's the basic argument:

 

"TOs are stale content. We don't buy them. They barely seem to do anything, so half the time, we barely even bother to slot them and when we try, it feels like every time we open our enhancements screen, half of them are burned out. DOs are a little better, but not much."

 

A lot of this discussion had revolved around the bigger question of problems with the low-level game, but I'm going to take it in a slightly different direction.

 

I'll take things a step further by adding this claim:

 

"ALL the random enhancement drops are stale and need to be revisited. SOs are also largely stale content. By the time they start showing up as random drops (not AV or trial related), many characters are already leaving them behind for IOs. Unless an SO is usable by someone under level 20, it's pretty much vendor trash."

 

By the time I'm in my mid-20s, every SO drop I get is sold at the store. There's literally nothing in that reward pool that I would ever want or need after I have my level 25 IOs. The minor boost from an on-level or over-leveled SO isn't worth the trouble of keeping track of it to replace later. Now, I freely admit that I'm generalizing my own experience and I don't know what EVERY player does, but based on what I'm reading, I don't think that I'm part of a small minority here.

 

I wonder if data-mining could show how many level 30+ SOs are actually slotted compared to IOs?

 

If we're revisiting TO and DO enhancements, should we also try to make SO enhancements at least somewhat enticing for enhancing powers, if not at 50, then at least through the 30s and low 40s? Right now, outside of those who are looking for a challenge or who just really don't like IOs and crafting, I don't think many people have a use for them.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Yoru-hime
Typos as usual

[Galaxy Brain]

Not to side rail the discussion, but taking my GF through CoH for the first time now she was confused that DOs were weaker than SOs. Youd think that there would either be a boost to combining origins, or at least something different like DOs give 2 weaker boosts vs ome big boost to a stat that SOs have.

[Errants]

On 8/9/2019 at 9:31 AM, Bionic_Flea said:

"Attuned" doesn't just mean that you don't out level it, it also means that the enhancement grows in value with you as you level.

That's why I don't think having attuned DOs or attuned up to level 20 is a good idea.  It muddles the meaning of attuned.

Regarding starter zones: there are three: Atlas Park , Mercy Island, and Nova Preatoria.  I understand that most people go to Atlas, but that doesn't make the other two zones disappear.

Actually, Attuned Set IO's don't infinitely scale in power, they cap out at the top end of their set. So, if you slot a level 10-40 (e.g. Miracle) attuned IO at level 7, it'll be a level 10, and scale up to a level 40 at character level 40... And remain a level 40 at character level 50.

 

So, if TO/DO's were "attuned" or just didn't have a level restriction for slotting, they'd still remain at their 1/4 or 1/2 effectiveness of SO's... But never expire, nor get stronger.

[justicebeliever]

7 minutes ago, Eran Rist said:

Actually, Attuned Set IO's don't infinitely scale in power, they cap out at the top end of their set. So, if you slot a level 10-40 (e.g. Miracle) attuned IO at level 7, it'll be a level 10, and scale up to a level 40 at character level 40... And remain a level 40 at character level 50.

 

So, if TO/DO's were "attuned" or just didn't have a level restriction for slotting, they'd still remain at their 1/4 or 1/2 effectiveness of SO's... But never expire, nor get stronger.

Technically, all common IO's are attuned...that is they exemplar all the way down and sidekick all the way up with you.  They % effectiveness doesn't grow either as you level up...So attuning TO/DO/SO's makes them the same as a common IO but without the craft cost or need to get the salvage...

[Auroxis]

28 minutes ago, justicebeliever said:

Technically, all common IO's are attuned...that is they exemplar all the way down and sidekick all the way up with you.  They % effectiveness doesn't grow either as you level up...So attuning TO/DO/SO's makes them the same as a common IO but without the craft cost or need to get the salvage...

Not quite:

 

	Training Origin	Attuned Training IO	Common IO
Placed on level	1	1	7
Scales up to level	1*	10	10
Usable until level	5	50	50

 

*efficiency drops

 

As for the cost, we aren't exactly giving free level 30 IO's here and there are already the Prestige IO's as precedent.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Auroxis

[justicebeliever]

1 minute ago, Auroxis said:

Not quite:

 

	Training Origin	Attuned Training IO	Common IO
Placed on level	1	1	7
Scales up to level	4*	10	10
Usable until level	5	50	50

 

*efficiency drops

 

As for the cost, we aren't exactly giving free level 30 IO's here and there are already the Prestige IO's as precedent.

If you look at the 2 columns, the attuned Training IO is better than the common - you can get it lower than the common IO and get just as much effectiveness...

 

I get that it won't be the same as a level 30 common IO, or even a lvl 15 common IO, but it's still more versatile...

 

I think of the Prestige Enhancements as starter enhancements to speed you on your way, and those things are ridiculously good for the lower levels (with the Procs and all).  Not so ridiculous as to change them, but I don't think adding more is the solution...

 

What about

	Current TO	Enh TO	Current DO	Enh DO
Enh Lvl	7	7	17	17
Low Lvl to Slot	4	2	14	13
Eff Until	10	12	20	21

 

Expanding the lvls that the Enhancement is usuable, and why not revisit the scaling as well...

I'd be fine if we gave SO's a slight boost, and make them better than IO's - makes the trade/off more clear - IO's are more cost effective, but SO's are more powerful.

Then if DO's where still 1/2 as good as an SO, the DO's get a boost, and so on for the TO's

 

Then increase the drop rate of by dropping SO's for every story arc completion in low levels, and DO's for all team member for any mission complete in the low levels.

Finally, increase the lvl at which the TO's drop by 2, and DO's by one, so that people actually have the higher level TO's/DO's sooner....

 

[Some Random User]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Youd think that there would either be a boost to combining origins, or at least something different like DOs give 2 weaker boosts vs ome big boost to a stat that SOs have.

I agree with that opinion. When I was first learning the game back in the day I also believed this, and was disappointed when I found out how T.O.s and D.O.s actually work.

[Errants]

3 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

Technically, all common IO's are attuned...that is they exemplar all the way down and sidekick all the way up with you.  They % effectiveness doesn't grow either as you level up...So attuning TO/DO/SO's makes them the same as a common IO but without the craft cost or need to get the salvage...

Nope. All enhancements get affected by malefactoring/exemplaring, with a portion of their enhancement degraded, to more accurately simulate your power level at lower levels, even with the bonus slots. For IO's, this happens when you go -4 or more relative to the level. Lowest level common would be 10's, so mal'd to 6 or less (DFB/SSK/AE) you're see the percentages diminish. And, you're gated at not being able to slot them until level 7, minimum.

 

If we removed the level check from TO's (and maybe DO's), you'd get the same benefit at level 1, level 50, and mal'd back down to level 1. Now, I'll be honest, I've not run the potential numbers through the formula, so I'm unsure how much of a change it'd show between an SO slotted toon mal'd down, versus a native running never dying TO/DO's. Article and formula on how enhancement gets nerfed when exemping.

[Cherubael]

From my perspective the primary points are:

- You spend too much upkeep time replacing the enhancements at low levels

- The influence cost for non-set enhancements (whether IO or TO/DO/SO) is not meaningful once you have at least one high-level character

 

My solution would be more radical: Remove TOs/DOs/SOs/non-attuned basic IOs from the game, sell attuned basic IOs at vendors for a cost low enough that a new character can afford them (while levelling on basic xp settings). This means that an enhancement would scale and be relevant for the rest of that character's career (until you choose to get into set IOs).

 

Keep the IO crafting system for set IOs only.

 

Once you have a character to 50 everyone can easily transfer the inf needed to alts anyway, and I don't really see what the benefit is of making everyone's first character weaker compared to everyone else's alts.

 

This would vastly simplify a lot of systems and mean that you do not have to either rely on IO crafting, the AH or replace identical enhancements every 5 levels.

 

Sure, this would mean that enhancement boosters would not be possible for basic IOs, but I consider that an acceptable tradeoff for the simplicity gained. Just one-time grant people a number of booster drops equal to the number they lose from the change, or something along those lines.

[Cix]

9 hours ago, Cherubael said:

My solution would be more radical: Remove TOs/DOs/SOs/non-attuned basic IOs from the game, sell attuned basic IOs at vendors for a cost low enough that a new character can afford them (while levelling on basic xp settings). This means that an enhancement would scale and be relevant for the rest of that character's career (until you choose to get into set IOs).

 

Keep the IO crafting system for set IOs only.

I think this is a really good idea.  The enhancement treadmill is stale.

 

This does cause problems with crafter rewards and badges, though.

[darkgob]

TOs were stale content within the first year of the game's life (in other words: bad design).  When I started playing in 2005, I remember being told very early on not to even bother with them because they worth more being sold to a vendor so you could afford DOs at level 12.  There was no DFB, no XP boosters, no low-level shortcuts that caused you to blow past the level range of TOs -- they just mathematically didn't matter.

 

Now, having said that, I don't know that I would necessarily say that anything drastic needs to be done with them, especially given how poorly programmed the original game was.  It's really hard to imagine that they aren't somehow weirdly baked into the game at such a low level that removal (without breaking anything!) would be difficult if not impossible.  They're a harmless little artifact of what the game was once, in some ways a reminder of how far we've come.

[Some Random User]

2 minutes ago, darkgob said:

TOs were stale content within the first year of the game's life (in other words: bad design).  When I started playing in 2005, I remember being told very early on not to even bother with them because they worth more being sold to a vendor so you could afford DOs at level 12.  There was no DFB, no XP boosters, no low-level shortcuts that caused you to blow past the level range of TOs -- they just mathematically didn't matter.

The staff have the ability to control all drop rates and how things drop/don't drop. They are able to set the T.O.s to 0% and replace them with anything that currently exists, including things that are not normally a part of random drops.

[darkgob]

1 hour ago, Some Random User said:

The staff have the ability to control all drop rates and how things drop/don't drop. They are able to set the T.O.s to 0% and replace them with anything that currently exists, including things that are not normally a part of random drops.

Not sure what this has to do with what you quoted... 🤔

[Some Random User]

9 hours ago, darkgob said:

Not sure what this has to do with what you quoted... 🤔

The post said something about the staff being able to change drop rates. I was clarifying what is known on that topic.

[Jeuraud]

19 hours ago, Some Random User said:

The staff have the ability to control all drop rates and how things drop/don't drop. They are able to set the T.O.s to 0% and replace them with anything that currently exists, including things that are not normally a part of random drops.

Then the OP's request

On 8/7/2019 at 11:16 AM, kenlon said:

Having a limited selection of powers and a small number of slots in them is limiting enough, without having enhancements that do almost nothing for you. If we could slot in SOs right from the start, then doing mission arcs or radio missions would actually be a fun alternative to running DFB over and over again to get to 22.

is not only doable, but should be done, because 42% of the game's levels should not be slammed through, just because they're not fun to do.

 

If you have a reason why the OP's request is not good for the game, then state it. 

If your reason for rejecting the OP's request is because you don't want the CoHH Devs to work on someone else's project, then state that, at least you'll be honest.

 

 

Our characters are fricken Sups, and should feel like fricken Sups, whether they are level 1 or level 50.

[justicebeliever]

3 hours ago, Jeuraud said:

Our characters are fricken Sups, and should feel like fricken Sups, whether they are level 1 or level 50.

Then what would be the difference between lvl 1 and lvl 50?

 

The characters are super at lvl 1, regardless...They have powers from the get go...They are not gods, but even Superman misses, and gets hurt, and hell, even dies...As has Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Bucky Barnes, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Professor X, Batman, Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and on and on...

[kenlon]

14 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

Then what would be the difference between lvl 1 and lvl 50?

 

22 power choices and 67 enhancement slots.

 

Lower level characters are inherently less powerful by virtue of having fewer choices and having fewer slots to enhance with, but there's no good reason why the few enhancement slots we do get are completely useless until level 12, and then they become almost completely useless until level 22.

 

The idea that low level enhancements must be terrible comes from the same design philosophy that brought us "three minions are equal to a hero", and should be discarded just like that was. Let the powers we do have feel reasonably powerful, from the start.

[DSorrow]

15 minutes ago, kenlon said:

22 power choices and 67 enhancement slots.

 

Lower level characters are inherently less powerful by virtue of having fewer choices and having fewer slots to enhance with, but there's no good reason why the few enhancement slots we do get are completely useless until level 12, and then they become almost completely useless until level 22.

 

The idea that low level enhancements must be terrible comes from the same design philosophy that brought us "three minions are equal to a hero", and should be discarded just like that was. Let the powers we do have feel reasonably powerful, from the start.

This right here. I don't think the lower level content is challenging because we lack proper enhancements, I think it's irritating because I miss 20% of the time instead of 5% and constantly run out of endurance even though I'm not able to use a full attack chain. The lack of enhancement slots and powers would still make a lvl 1 significantly weaker than a lvl 50, but at least I would have other avenues past the annoyances of low levels besides blazing through it.

 

Like others have said about TOs and DOs (especially the former), the bonuses are so weak it doesn't feel meaningful to spend the time to slot them. Maybe we could do something like this to TOs and DOs:

 

TOs:

• enhancement values bumped to current even DO level
• "attuned", stay gray until lvl 12, turn red at lvl 15

DOs:

• enhancement values bumped to current -3 SO level
• "attuned", gray until 22, turn red at 25

Basically you'd only need to slot either once in the 10 level range they're applicable in, they'd give a meaningful bonus and from 22 SOs would still be better than either. Additionally, because they'd turn red they wouldn't completely invalidate low level IOs.

[Zolgar]

The best option for this would be a total and complete overhaul of the (at least non-invention) enhancement system, to make it so every enhancement type had a meaningful place in the game and actually felt useful. This, however, would be a rather significant amount of work and lead to the potential for things to become completely broken.

While I think many of us would still not bother with enhancers in the low levels if the OP's suggestion were applied, it would make the existence of low-level enhancers actually meaningful. Further, while it can be argued the game was "balanced around" TOs <12, and DOs <22, they introduced several ways to obtain lower level SOs- such as Penny Yin and DFB. Sure, it's less reliable, but still it allows for a player with patience and/or money to obtain power outside of what the game is "balanced around", which there are other means of doing as well (I can give an alt a few mil and buy a whole bunch of temp buffs, and load them out with attune set IOs, for example).

All the eradication of TO/DOs and replacing them with SOs would do to the power curve is make it more reliable and less about already having a stupid amount of money to get a low level character powerful enhancers.

It will also make new players not stare at this enhancers they just equipped and wonder why the hell they bothered with it, because it made the damage of their attack go from 20 to 21, or their last hit chance go from 85% to 87%. It will make new players feel like slotting enhancers actually has merit.

 

It will also give reason NOT to jump to IOs at 12, because there's still a marked increase in power of the SOs, at the expense of having to refresh them.