Redstar_Infinity

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Your suggestion might work for CoH2, if and when it arrives, but for better or worse CoH works like it does, and they can't change the way that defense works any more than they can eliminate gravity from the game--the force, not the power set.

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When the way DEF works is fundamentaly broken then no modification will fix it. You will just end up with adding and adding and adding modifiers that will never ever make it work.

As to changing all powers to follow a new paradigm. Well actually all DEF powers can just be given the value of corresponding RES powers and nothing else need to be changed since the modifier is now a relative value instead of an absolute value.

If you have a DEF debuff that reduce DEF by 15 and your target has a DEF of 75 (would be the scrapper cap) then instead of multiplying to hit chance by 0.25 then it will multiply it by 0.4 since the DEF will be reduced to 60.

The advantage is that you avoid both the case where DEF is a source of endless frustration and it avoids it becoming irrelevant againt strong enemies. It will always have the same relative effect as a corresponding RES value.

Why all the complicated code within code within code?

The essential problem with DEF is that its not a relative modifier like RES is.

The only way to fix def is to change how it works. A complete fix is simply to make it a relative reduction in to hit percentage.

The way to do it is to use all the normal to hit calculations and then apply the DEF as a multiplier to reduce the end to hit chance to a new number.

The beauty of it is that you can then give DEF exactly the same scale as a corresponding RES power and it will end up giving the same protection but doing it in a different way than RES.

Example: If a hero has 75% chance to hit and the target has 75% RES then over time the hero will do 18.75% of his base damage. If the target instead had 75 in DEF then the attacker would on average hit 18.75% of the time for 100% damage.

All buff and debuff will be added before the DEF multiplication so their relative impact would be exactly the same as it is against RES.

This would fix all DEF problems in the game, and you would avoid putting small patches of semi fix after semi fix on the code until no one can see the clear system we originialy had.

I wonder what type of UniSystem the CoH rpg will have?

Will it be closer to Witchcraft or Buffy?

Take a good look at the main villain in Batman 1 and 2 (The Joker and then Penguin). Both perform some of the well know villain moves we identify with from comics.

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After leave 30, +1 should be the minimum mob you get in a mission (including bosses). There should also be a healthy amount of +2s as well.

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God no! Some AT/builds never get the uber ability of the elite builds even at high lvl.

My energy / energy blaster cannot kill higher con mobs at lvl 45 that I could at lvl 20!

Why?

Because my relative hits compared to the mobs has dropped to a fraction of what it used to be and energy/energy never get any ranged status effects or debuff powers to take the edge of enemies. But mobs get more and more exotic powers to make my life difficult.

I really fear the difficulty increase comming since the difficulty right now makes it really tough to play an energy / energy blaster at high lvl.

OMG I cant wait to drop any mission with an AV in it!!!!

Those wouldnt be so bad if you could could have more than 3 missions, but when you see your numbers of possible missions slot one by 1 drop because there is an AV in them it becomes painful.

I still havent encountered any mission boss that werent +1 lvl after update 2 in door missions. Since my my blaster cant really solo a red boss and minions I wonder if there is a fix comming soon?

Its also becomming a problem with AVs. +1 lvl on an AV really hurts.

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Peregrine was an experiment of a "mixed" zone. A hazard/city zone. We're changing it into a more typical city zone now.

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Then please remove the lvl limit on hazard zones at the same time so normal groups (who _always_ have SKs in them) can enter them.

Right now hazard zones cuts us off from grouping with our low lvl friends and therefore we dont go there.

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That doesn't solve the multitude of sol o'er who dont like force grouping to level fast? they want to level fast too and dont want to group to get it.

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Uhm yes . . but isnt that the real problem? That is _is_ possible for some builds within some ATs to be able to completely out-XP any group of non elite builds?

IMO the perfect game is where you can solo in peace and quiet if you want to, in other word a laid back nice game experience solo. Or if you want to go for the power rush you get into increasingly big groups for more and more exitement / action and reward?

Putting more and more stun effects into the powers of mobs promotes neither of these goals.

PS: I am getting tired of hearing about how uber all blasters are. Some blaster builds dont have any kind of debuff/status effects or major AE damage and cant solo more than 3 yellows even at lvl 40+.

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Another word make the game easier than what it is.

Before you answer, tell me what you would do to make fighting more challenging.

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I think I did. Downgrade damage resistance so you cannot survive fighting really big groups just soaking it up and reduce AE damage so you cannot defeat big groups alone with AE damage.

The result would be that if you solo then no matter what your AT/build is then you are forced to fight small group of enemies and probably max lvl+1 or +2. If you want to fight tougher things you have to make groups.

At the same time status effects is making the game unplayable for solo'ers with AT/builds that dont have resistance to them.

But if you change the difficult of simply defeating mobs then you dont need to make _the_ difficulty of defeating them being their ability to put a status effect on you (which is what the devs are doing right now ).

In that case downgrade status effects but make the basic combat more difficult. Its a win-win solution since it will promote both grouping and solo'ing where the difference will be the reward (better XP and action in groups, more relaxed cosy playingn solo).

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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.

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When I first read this I was indifferent, but when you think about it, then its a really really cool idea.

It will make it a lot more fun to be a tanker, which can be quite boring at times. Suddenly you can think a lot more tactically.

For example the Fake Nemisis use their invulnerable FF when they get really low on health but it takes a few seconds to form. So if you plan your fight really well you can hurt him somewhat and then suddenly turn on him when you are really worked up and down him before the super FF works.

Also I think you should considder implementing this for tank boss'es. Right now you basically ignore them until the end of the fight (unless you are an invul tanker/scrapper of course) but if they get increasingly stronger if you leave them alone then you have to use more tactics against them making the game more challenging (without using more of that damned CC )

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Well what is the solution then everyone!!!!??

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First of all the XP reward should reflect what it takes to win. That means if a mob have high damage resistance so it takes 30% more damage to defeat it then it should give 30% more XP. This reward should in particular be given to mobs that have status effects since those are 10 times more dangerous than damage is.

2nd place traders and remove the lvl limits in hazard zones so normal XP groups can enter them to XP and they dont have to waste a lot of time selling enhancers. The mob composition in hazard zones actually reward grouping more than mobs in normal city zones do.

Remove chain stunning from the game. Its the single most frustrating game element and makes a lot of people log off in sheer anger when it happens.

Downgrade resistance to damage and downgrade AE damage. That makes support classes needed if you want to hunt big groups. At the same time downplay status effects so solo'er can still solo if they want to.

There is one big reason why people dont use hazard zones.

The lvl minimum to enter them.

A typical group often have lower lvl sidekicks in it. That group cannot go to the hazard zones to XP since their side kicks cannot follow them to the zone.

Its also very disruptive to groups that do missions since you fear at every talk with a contact whether or not the mission is in a zone where the sidekicks in the group cannot come with you.

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That's what the Inspirations are for! To help the solo player!

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But you need to eat 1 or more of them before every fight in order to be able to do anything (againt mobs like carnies its 2-3+).

What about making them reactive?

After all if you are taking too much damage you can make a comeback with heal inspirations. If you suffere from bad debuffs you can counter it with inspirations (damage and acc).

If you are hit with with a status effect inspirations wont help you a bit, you can just stand there and watch with increasing frustration how your character is chain mezzed again and again and again until you are dead.

But if purple inspirations could be used to get out of status effects they would help you against those effects in the same way that heal works against damage and acc/dam works against debuffs.

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Now the Inspirations and powers that protect oneself from stunning, etc. are very, very needed. And that's a good thing. Tackle the high level groups without preparation and a hero is in deep trouble - quickly.

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In other words if you are not an AT or build with resistance to status effects you are not allowed to solo at high lvl?

Right now nemisis is the _only_ thing my energy / energy blaster can solo at all, and we are not talking groups of 10+ we are talking about the small even lvl groups of 3 or 4 nemisis.

What should I do once update 2 goes live with stuns allover the game?

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Actually, they can. IF the group goes to the zones with the spawns of the appropriate size...

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But in order to do that at high lvl you have to be in the crash site, where you have 2 full zones to cross before you can sell your hancers. And that is such a waste of time that no one want to go there.

I'm worried about the difficulty fixing because there is such a huge difference in how powerful individual builds are even within the same AT.

You can have 1 build who as it is now cannot take on more than max 6 whites or 3 yellows or 1 orange and then you can have another build who can defeat 10 reds without problems (blasters).

If they change the game so it becomes a challenge to the uber builds then what happens to the non-elite builds?

Maybe they should balance the different builds first and then change the difficulty rating after that?

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It would seem that some folks haven't seen the power of Nova+A Herding Tank/Scrapper. Watching somebody click Aim+Build-UP+Nova and seeing 100 mobs fly off into oblivion is an awe inspiring thing.

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Hope you dont do it against nemisis. If the massive AE on the tank dont kill you in the animation time of the nova then the exploding robots will when they die.

Also that nova cannot kill any of the bosses.

The reason why the game is too easy at high lvl is because of certain key powers. Builds that dont have access to any of those will be in deep trouble if the game is fitted to the characters who have these powers.

Key powers are massive AE, massive pets and invincibility.

The invincibility power alone is more powerfull than the entire SR line (except maybe the last power in SR). And before anyone claims I just want invincibility nerfed then look at my sig below.

Right now my energy / energy blaster cannot solo more than max 3 even lvl lieutenants, 1 even lvl boss without any helpers or 6-7 even lvl minions. If there is more than that then I have to give up the fight and run.

If the game becomes harder then what am I supposed to do with her when groups are not something energy blasters get a lot of?