Just want to say how much I appreciate the effort being put into making groups desirable States. Issues I see right now are;
1. Villian Hit Points are so low they rarely last long enough in any kind of battle which includes a high damage output hero of any archtype, coupled with area effect attack types the number of opponents you face in any fight is inconsequential, the reason the balance exists at levels 1-22 is the lack of players with six slotted powers and single origin damage enhancements which exponentially exacerbate the problem.
2. It is very easy to get defense to cap thus reducing the chance to be hit to slim to not at all right now, combined with accuracy debuffs or a 30 second defense inspiration the rare hit that lands can usually be regenerated by any hero thus removing much of the risks inherent for any archtype. Who needs a healer, if you dont get hit, who needs minions held if they wont be hitting you enough by the time they are dead, and also who needs a high resistance agro and hit point sponge same reason.
3. Lack of intelligent villian AI, when one Hellion from Hellion group A runs away and thru Hellion group B why doesnt Hellion group B come help beat down the heros, currently heros have easy control over the size of every fight they pick knowing that Villians have no social agro outside thier own spawn group. Also some villians that do much better damage at range or at close range seem to use thier weakest form of attack regularly, The 5th Coloum, Rikti, Nemisis, come to mind.
My suggestions would be;
Increase all villian hit points on a scale to match pace with the enhancements that are readily available at that level, Dual Origin damage enhancers double the damage output a level 1-12 hero is capable of so start scaling there and double that scale at level 22 when single origin damage enhancement and multiple powers that are six slotted are available. Another possible fix to deal with how the damage being multiplied exponentially would be to change the enhancements from 8.25/16.5/33.33 to 5/10/20 just like resistance and defense and range enhancements currently are, this would impact high damage archtypes and powers more than low damage archtypes and powers such as controllers/defenders/tankers, its an issue of exponential damage per attack, this way mob hitpoints being increased would not make them unsoloable to the low damage archtypes or powers.
Higher Hit points villians still have the issue of not being able to hit heros enough to equal risk however. for this I would suggest creating in effect a statistical cap on Villians based on rank. To illustrate;
Minion/Underling - no caps, to maintain the feeling of powerful heros against these lesser villians, and to give players that prefer to solo easier targets for thier experience hunting.
Lieutenants - 25% chance to hit/avoid attack capped in an Accuracy vs. Defense comparison, that cap is subject to being reduced by accuracy debuffs and defense debuffs as well though, So combining high defense plus accuracy debuffs or defense debuffs on a target could still bring the villians effective accuracy and defense to minion levels. Special effects powers (Holds, Immobilize, Sleep, Taunt, Fear, Slow, Confuse, Disorient etc...) last 25% less time.
Bosses - 50% Accuracy versus Defense cap, Debuffs capped at 50% so the base chance to hit or avoid a hit would always be at least 1 in 4. Bosses for the most part are the closest thing to a hero in power and should reflect that, not quite as powerful as a hero, but sufficiently powerful to pose some risk. Special effects would be capped at 50% duration/effect for (Holds, Sleep, Immobilze, Taunt, Fear, Slow etc....)
Monsters/ArchVillians - Accuracy versus Defense capped at 75%, with debuffs being capped at 25% reduction at most making these rare Villians a must have a group bunch to fight as they will avoid over half the attacks directed at them and hit over half the time they attack, making buffs, healing, debuffs etc.. critical aids in these battles. Special effects would have 75% less duration/effect.
The percentage numbers obviously are subjective but the gist is to hard cap villian ranks for accuracy vs. defense, debuff effect, and special effects duration/effect. This will make the practice of herding much more dangerous unless the person herding is somehow able to herd crowds of minions and underlings only. The AE attacker that depended on thier high defense or Invicibility Tanker/Scrapper that doesnt need hit points would need to be more selective of the crowd size they engage, or use more endurance costly attacks on Lieutenants now as well to avoid the increased likelyhood of being hit. This change would have minimal impact on low level heros since lower level heros dont have enough powers 6 enhancement slotted or powerful enough enhancements to attain the cap anyhow, but the impact would be felt as one got higher and higher level.
Lastly code in a more intelligent social agro for villians, so that if a villian from the same group moves within a certain radius of a villian from the same group that villian gains agro against the hero(s) as well and comes to thier aid. The Hellion that runs away on the street may bring 1 or more groups of Hellions to attack the Hero on the street or even indoors. Villians should be intelligent enough to use thier most effective attack form, if the Nacht Grenadier does twice the damage at a distace he should prefer that method of attack over punching. Villians should also inherently put a certain distance between a hero and themselves if they prefer to use ranged attacks this effect of spreading out will make mass herding with AE powers slightly less effective means of mass killing crowds of 20-40. Powers that Taunt could enrage a villian to the point he desires to be at melee range. Adding a built in inherent melee range Provoke effect to Tanker only toggles would help in this catagory as well, Invincibility already does this but why not add the same effect to Blazing Aura and the Ice and Earth tanker PBAE toggle equivilents. Personally I think that would be much more preferable to the coding nightmare of adding PBAE taunt effect to tanker attacks you suggested earlier since the effect already exists in invicibility and you would only need to create its equivilent in the other 3 sets. The need to keep enemies from running for help, or spreading out would make controller holds more needed as well. Fear could decrease accuracy and make the targets seeks to be out of melee range from the object of thier fear.
More Hit Points, Better Defense vs Accuracy and debuff scaling, and more intelligent Villians. Thanks for the forum.
