Samuel_Tow

This is what struck me, as well. I can imagine a whole spawns of even con ones, or indeed even +1 EBs, might be a much more credible threat.

I can tell you one thing - if you have your way and yank my game from under me, transforming it into something far more difficult than it is, I won't be wasting my time with it any more. And that's not a threat. That's reality. People aren't "wasting their time" with this game. They play it because it's fun. As such, wasting time getting killed, travelling back from the hospital and potentially getting killed again is a legitimate threat, and one which I do my best to avoid. Debt I don't care about. Defeat I do care about, especially if it happens repeatedly.

And, yes, disagree we will. I do not want to see the level of difficulty you are asking for. I am neither as ambitious nor as competitive as you are, nor do I ever want to be. That's the life I've chosen, and that's the entertainment I've chosen to have in it. I have no problem with you having your higher level of challenge. What I have a problem is your apparent need to involve me with it. Your right to swing your fists ends where my face begins, and your refusal to accept optional difficulty is a great concern to me, as it seeks to gut the only game I've managed to stick with for any period of time.

And I'm not sure your view is as mainstream as you think it is. As a random anecdote, I have a friend of mine who cancelled his WoW subscription, and his argument was "They changed too much and made it too hard." I don't know what he was talking about or what Blizzard changed, since I don't tend to keep up on the specifics of games I don't play, but he's neither the first nor the last person who's expressed that sentiment to me. He'll probably be back when he gets tired of Aion, but I'm not sure, and frankly, I don't keep up on his gaming habits all that closely.

You have to understand that not all players enjoy "pushing back." Some of us are looking for entertainment and relaxation, and when a game pushes us, we find another game to play. There are plenty of games out there that I could be playing which push my skills and force me to be better or drop out. I recently scored the Unreal Collection for dirt cheap on a Steam Sale, and I remembered why I stopped plying UT3 - I suck at it. I've tried to improve, but I couldn't improve by enough before I said "Sod this!" and found myself an easier game to play.

In all of this, I advocate for options, and I will continue to do so. Allowing players to control their gaming experience is central to a good game, in my experience. Spartan ideals of hurting players to build character are not something I'm interested in, or will ever be interested in, because I don't play these games to become a better person, to grow hair on my chest or to become a man. I play these games to unwind and to look for inspiration. Being dead does not inspire me.

If you cannot condone allowing people to pick their own difficulty, from easy to hard, then you and I will never see eye to eye on anything.

I wonder if scaling rules can't be retweaked in some fashion. We know that stacked buffs and debuffs as those seen on larger teams can trivialise content, but at the same time we know that a single player is rarely capable of the same kind of stacking. So while large-team content may call for some kind of offset, backtracking suck offset to soloable content could cause... Problems.

I remember that once, a long time ago, team size actually affected level SIGNIFICANTLY. I recall being on large teams that spawned enemies +4 to the mission level, and that was even before the difficulty slider settings addition. I wonder if some kind further adjustment can't be done.

Now, I know what you're thinking - isn't that just what setting enemies to +4 is anyway? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that it is, but no, in that it wasn't a good system even then. I keep wondering if some kind of limited buff-stacking control can't be done, but only on larger teams.

Then again, like you, I'm not a fan of calling for nerfs and seeing another wide-scale character readjustment, even if I'm sure it won't affect me much at all just like ED didn't.

However, consider that part of the worry the developers had about adding an end game system was power creep, in that as we approach our hard caps, performance starts deviating WILDLY and becomes difficult to manage. A 90% resistant tank needs enemy damage to go up by 900% just to bring him back to base level, at which point anything else is going to get creamed into soup. Hence the cheating mechanics to avoid that.

But at the end of the day, there's only so much the developers can cheat. After a certain point, I still feel they'll have to think laterally and do something more than just straight-up enemy boosts. And I don't want to go the WoW route with turning all percentages into "ratings."

That's pretty much what I'm saying. Bosses may be high-stat enemies with nasty powers, but they still con the same, meaning henchmen don't get shafted and basic mechanics don't shift too much. You can still further tweak these entities to be stronger still, even above norm, by use of additional powers.

I remember a friend of mine who plays other MMOs talking about "elite mobs," as he called them, many of whom were blessed with x4 hit points, or x2 damage or some such. While I wouldn't want to see that as such added to City of Heroes, it does not rule out the possibility of introducing bosses with stat boosts.

Again, it may seem like I'm suggesting another type of cheapness (and I am), but at least it's not insulting cheapness. If it says "BOSS" under it's name, I have a somewhat easier time accepting that it should be strong than if it says "MINION." Besides, bosses tend to look the part, whereas minions not always do.

Really, though - what else do Stalkers have that Scrappers don't? Outside of Hide and the criticals it brings, I can't really think of much.

I don't know. In the case of Praetoria... I don't know what to say. The story would lose gravity if the enemies lost power, as it's written like that, but the gameplay loses accessibility because it's in such a low-level range. I don't want EASY, but I also don't want to be fighting for dear life time after time right from the start. Leave that off for when I have the tools to deal with it. Otherwise we have a bell-shaped difficulty curve.

Despite myself, I actually agree with you. Any other AT I could get into. I've played Defenders, Corruptors, Dominators... But not Controllers. They just hurt me to play them. So I can definitely see where you're coming from. It comes down to a question of basic game design and soloability vs. the so-called support ATs. My solution was to simply not play them.

This really isn't one problem where I can offer a solution, however, since the solutions I can come up with lead to sort of a different game that has no strict support ATs

Stalkers are what turns the irritation at recurring ambushes into abject rage at ambushes. At least when I'm playing a Scrapper or a Brute or a Mastermind, I don't feel like the game is kneecapping my performance by robbing me of what should be a central advantage. With Stalkers, I get the distinct feeling of "Why do I bother?"

If you infer I was talking about stealthing missions, I assure you I was not. I tend to kill everything, be it on a Stalker or a Brute, which is what I eventually did on my Stalker, ambushes or no ambushes. Stealthing missions is pointless, as it's a lot of time running around for not a lot of gain, anyway, but that's a different story for a different time.

My main issue here is that, if my Stalker is going to be reduced to what is essentially a weakened Scrapper, then why should I not just play a Scrapper, instead? They share everything but Energy/Energy anyway, and with a Scrapper I don't have to feel like ambushes are taking anything away from me. This is a central problem that I wish to see addressed.

When I say "you're not helping," I mean by handwaving the legitimate problems that are being raised, not by accepting ambushes as presented. I will fully grant you that some people do enjoy ambushes, and I can respect that. At the same time, ambushes, control-resistant enemies and other such CAN cause problems for certain ATs or certain powersets, and this should not be ignored just because "Controllers with their non-attack-having non-mez-resist-having selves can burn."

When I say "helping," I mean in striking a better balance that excludes fewer people by reason of mechanic oddities, not in pushing my agenda for easier fights through. I can live with, and even support, tougher fights as long as I feel they aren't unfair, and you shouldn't look past the teething problems the current unfair vision of difficulty brings. We can't ignore these problems or brush them aside.

Any team size larger than solo will spawn bosses regardless of settings.

Beyond that, no, CoT Portals do not spawn bosses for solo players with bosses disabled. Behemoth Masters do occasionally spawn, but they spawn as lieutenants.

That I can testify never happened. I checked. It was Architect exclusive, and to the best of my knowledge isn't in effect even there. I'm not sure what the logic behind it was, but I don't think it lasted, and it's certainly not true in the non-Architect game.

There was a time they did downgrade to bosses in the Architect if you had the "no bosses" option enabled. Scratch that, if you were playing on Heroic/Villainous. I don't know if that's still the case, but I doubt it.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, in other words. I agree.

I want to take every chance I get to agree with the Nether Goat. I appreciate Praetoria for its storytelling, innovation and visuals, but when given the choice, I still prefer to start in the old game. Praetorian difficulty just hurts too much and pisses me off more than I want a game to.

I'm pretty sure Lord Recluse summons Lieutenants if you have your difficulty turned down, or at least the one in Silos' TF did for me. I could be wrong on that regard, however.

Not just. Enemy difficulty comes down to more than just enemy con. It comes to enemy powers. Both the Rogue Vanguard and the War Walkers factions have already demonstrated that you can give really nasty powers to enemies and make them a far greater challenge than enemies of the same level who don't have these powers, and to me that is a good way to move forward. For instance, hitting me with a level 50 fire axe that instakills me is cheap, not strong. Hitting me with an orbital cannon that instakills me, however, that I can buy.

Additionally, game mechanics can play a part in making encounters more difficult than base content. As the other thread has demonstrated, stacking ambushes can make things a LOT more difficult than just straight-up spawns, and as the Ramiel arc demonstrates, missions can be designed to be difficult without throwing purple con enemies, necessarily.

The question here, however, doesn't appear to be whether Incarnate content should be more difficult or not - only a fool would insist it shouldn't be when the 1-50 content gets more difficult with every level range. The question is HOW much more difficult it should be. Developers seem to have take the stance that it should be "prohibitively" difficult, such that it the step up in difficulty is significantly steeper than that of regular level progress, and the trend seems to be to keep that difficulty curve the same.

On this point I'll have to disagree, as I have no problem with the difficulty curve being higher than the 1-50 game, which by level 50 is admittedly pretty easy, but not as high as the elite-branded challenges of the game. There is, after all, room between A Hero's Epic and the Tin Mage TF for content to be somewhere in-between.

Sadly, I have to agree with the Caffinated Hero. Now that I've run all four arcs, I no longer have the drive to keep trying despite the pain. As such, I don't think I'll run any more Praetorians aside from instances where I need "at creation" cross-faction ATs.

And it's generally not something I want to do, because - despite my lore complaints - Praetoria is well written, and I'd like to see more of it. But right at this point, I do not particularly care for PLAYING any more of it any time soon, if ever again.

While that's true, enough furore can and does end up pissing off said middle ground, involving that in the flame war and reducing rationality even more. While I take the Hatchet approach to calm reasoning, the fact remains that the more players try to police opposing viewpoints, the more radicalised those viewpoints become, helping no-one at all.

A generally agreeable, amicable person who might be willing to see reason and accept arguments may well turn into a stubborn ******* when he is insulted to the face enough times and told to go to hell and find another game even just once. Said person will then respond to NO U and all possible discussion will have gone swirling down the drain before it could even begin.

Discussion, especially on controversial subjects, should be welcomed and encouraged. People should WANT to come to the forums and share their opinions, not - as people I know have told me - be apprehensive of dealing with "that mess" for fear of flame wars. Certainly, disagreements and arguments will happen, but those must be kept to matters of the game, not matters who has the right to want what. Customers rarely feel like they own the business and can single-handedly force changes through, but when they are told - by other customers, no less - that they do not have a voice and should not have a voice, they tend to take the opposite approach and insist that they have a greater voice than any customer deserves.

Not attacking each other, as it were, is what makes for a good discussion. Pity it doesn't work out that way.

No, it's not clear, because that's not what I'm saying in the slightest. Please avoid constructing straw man arguments in the future.

In case you need your logical fallacy pointed out to you, let me say this: There is a wide gulf of possible difficulty levels between +0x1 level 50 content and +4x8 epic TFs. Just because I don't want the latter does not mean I want the former. Please avoid false binary fallacies in the future whenever possible.

No, it is entirely illogical to claim that that's what I want, especially in light of my documented history of saying just the opposite every time someone tries to throw that straw man in my face. I have never said this and will never say this, so I would appreciate it if you would not extrapolate lies from things I have never said.

I very much want enemies to increase in power. Just in the same way as they have been increasing in power from level 1 to level 50. Their hit points increase, their damage increases, the variety, strength and effects of their powers increase and, given good design and planning, their overall difficulty increases. This is met by my increase in power by being given more abilities, greater stats and more options. Balance is maintained while we all increase in power together. THAT is what is logical to extrapolate from my words.

And you were completely wrong. Next time you choose to accuse people and take on a self-righteous, derogatory tone, make sure you are not as completely wrong.

I know it may seem like an odd question, but "with what?" Controllers, as best I'm aware, don't actually have attacks, and other than Illusions, they don't have pets in the sub-20 range. Their biggest source of damage is Containment, which requires an enemy be held before the bouns damage applies.

Furthermore, at more than a few occasions, I've been told that a character's best defence is control. I remember this being said to me in regards to Dominators, whom I'd tried building for damage, rather than control. At the time I was told that this was a mistake and was getting me killed because control was my survivability.

Why design an AT with an inherent that gets made irrelevant whenever someone so much as sneezes? You can't assassinate moving characters, you can't hide in DoT summons or with DoT effects on you, Placate effects are interrupted if you have ANY effect on an enemy, including defence debuffs from Ninja Blade attacks, enemy AI will peel off team-mates and target you despite you being hidden and not having done anything to reveal your presence, ambushes will ignore your stealth and interrupt your Assassin's Strike, Placate's Hidden status will be broken before the Placate animation is even over...

Why am I playing a Stalker if I can't actually use anything that has to do with Stalkers in half the missions in Praetoria? I've lost count of how many missions I walked in, fought a bunch of ambushes and they ended before I stepped more than 20 feet from the entrance, leaving an entire large instance unexplored. These are legitimate problems, Leo. You're not helping by insisting they don't matter.

No-one claims there aren't ways around them. I fought my way through all the ambushes and made it out of Praetoria, after all. What I'm saying is it's cheap, annoying and not fun in the slightest. If I wanted to fight huge spawns all the time, I have the power to make that happen. The fact that I DIDN'T choose that option would suggest - to me at least - that I didn't want it to happen.

Considering what's being cooked up in the form of end game, you don't have a leg to stand on in this regard.

Any new player has to make a Praetorian character before they get any other options. That's entirely new player who hasn't made other characters before. It does not apply to old players who buy Going Rogue.

The intent behind this was to "coerce" new players to make characters in Praetoria, because that's where the latest, best content was, so as to give them a very good impression of the game, before they were allowed to go through the seven-year-old starter content of the hero-side game.

As I understand it, solving this is as simple as making a Praetorian and then abandoning that character in the tutorial to go make a new one, but again - a new player is unlikely to know enough to do that, just in the same way as people believed they HAD to do the Hollows content for years, simply because they were sent there on a mission.

This reminds me of an anecdote, one intended to highlight why I prefer location-aimed ambushes as opposed to player-aimed ones.

On the same Stalker in question, I ran the mission where Virgil Duray captures Crow and Helix, and that one started sending TEST ambushes at me. TEST are 30% resistant to everything, so they take a while to kill, but the ambushes wouldn't see me as they came. So I'd take on one, wait for the announcement of the next overlapping ambush, then pull the one I'm fighting aside and finish them elsewhere. That way, when the next ambush came, they came to the spot I was before, not to the spot where I was fighting at the time, allowing me to finish up, rehide and have just enough time to assassinate and pull them away before the next ambush came about.

That was, I'll admit, an interesting fight, because it didn't let me rest up and it was a fight with many enemies, but the benefit of that one was that my Hide wasn't being rendered irrelevant, giving me enough power to fight these guys AND still feel like I was holding my own. Sadly, very, very, VERY few ambushes anywhere in the game are location-targeted.

Put it this way - I've seen companion NPCs of mine, lieutenants, go down to as little as three Resistance punches, one each from the three Resistance NPCs in a regular spawn. I've been brawled by these people to lose two thirds of my hit points in a single salve. I have not seen this in the old game, and back then I used to go +0x2/Tenacious as soon as I hit level 20. Hatchets and baseball bats never did this to my Scrappers or Brutes, but Resistance punches do.

Which does nothing to help a brand new player who has no option other than Praetoria. Telling them "Hey, since you're new, we're going to drop you in by far the hardest content in the game. I hope you can swim! Har har har!" does not strike me as a good strategy to get the casual gamers City of Heroes was famous for to stick around.

Furthermore... Yes, Stalkers being seen bothers me, and from what I've seen bothers many other Stalker players, as well. Hide is the cornerstone of their AT. Without it, a Stalker is not a lot more than a somewhat weaker Scrapper with almost no AoE. Having significant stretches of content where that is irrelevant makes one feel like he just brought a knife to a gunfight, and that is rarely a motivating feeling.

I say "energy punch" because the power they use looks like Energy Punch from Energy Melee. I don't know what it is or what damage it does (I haven't checked), but I do know it deals a LOT of damage, much more than your average Brawl does.

That's exactly what ambushes do, however - they add more NPCs, with the nasty tendency to be +1 to the mission. That's it. That's all they do. There is no functional difference between having spawns come to you in a steady stream vs. you going to them in an unbroken march. Yes, when the initiative is yours, you can choose to stop and rest in-between battles, but I would assume that someone who wants the challenge wouldn't.

The problem is that ambushes essentially force overaggro on me, something I can achieve by training several spawns together. Something, as a point of fact, which I did with Crash, my SS/Inv Brute towards the end of her career simply because I thought I could handle it. Dropping this on me in such a way that I cannot opt out of it, however, especially since I firmly believe the game is built around single-spawn combat of even con at least in the early stages of the game, does not count as the above.

If we have to disagree on one major point, it appears to be on the difficulty settings, more specifically on the notion of intentionally increasing difficulty. From everything you've said so far, I infer you find some intrinsic benefit to having forced, unavoidable challenge that isn't present in challenges you opt in and can easily opt out of. At this point, I will have to disagree. I have no problem with the game being very challenging at any level, so long as I have the ability to opt out of it without the game calling me a dunce.