As much as I am the angry Hater of everyone in Virtue, speaking for myself and my small but effective group off associates that I like to have fun with, there is no "fix" for AOE that will make this game any more fun to play.
That's what we want right? Is to have fun? And be our super heroes? By taking away the ability for me to lob a grenade into a group of foes knowing that because of the way I have chosen to enahance it will do more damage than it will accuracy, I will hurt a good number of them, the rest will be missed completely. Or how about my Full Auto gatling gun. As a super hero, I taking out the equivelent of a goon or a henchman... A foot soldier to a ninja turtle, a random gang member to our police departments, an Islam to George Bush. It's something that in theory, is a pest more than it is a battle, even if there are 5 of them and one of you. As a super hero (Not that George Walker is anywhere NEAR a hero.. O.T...) wiping out even level goons should be relatively painless for everyone, even on a quantative level. It is the Shredders, the Magnetos, the bosses and commanders of the groups of bad guys that should present the even match, the challenge, the problem that requires a group of heroes to pool their resources to defeat an archvillian and complete a common goal.
Asking, telling, or demanding to limit a heroes abilities is asking for trouble. Giving evidence and solutions to strengthen your own hero is the "right way" to do this. You think Storm is upset that Wolverine has a metal skeleton and she can only blow puffs of wind and smoke? Do you think Raphael is upset that he's got wimpy sai's and was abused as a young turtle, and Donatello got the long Bo staff and the brains to boot? No, because there are consequences for every possible advantage any weapon or type has, and because they are different, will never be equal. Black will never be white, up will never be down, and that's just the way it needs to be.
Taking away my AOE will just make me whine about how someone cannot kill anyone ever before they die, but single shooters can take out bosses if built up properly by using empowerment of their own, build up, things of that nature..
It's definately an intricate balance, don't get me wrong here. Everyone and everything in this game has its purpose, to work together to accomplish a common goal. Many of the task forces and missions I've been on with large groups, are SOOO FUN because they are finally challenging and rewarding. The Manticore task force comes to mind, SOO hard now with purple crey protectors all over the place, but also VERY FUN and I did my fare share of damage, didn't die because I had a good team of tanks to do tanking, controllers to control things, and things were very well in balance. If one person does more damage, it's because powers were enhanced to do so. If one person hit more, it's because powers were enhanced to do so.
Example - Doing 700 damage with build up and AIM and 6 SO damage enhancements on your Snipe is just fine with me because that's what you made it do. Me doing 100 damage on 10 guys with a grenade still leaves 10 angry agrovated evil doers. Anything less than that would mean it would take me even longer to defeat anything, and it will take them less time to knock me down and raise my insurance deductable.
Point is, leave it as it is, and if anything.. ANYTHING... make the other powers that need to be stronger, not make things weaker..
