Statesman_NA

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Banging on the same 3 minnions at 50 that gave me a run for my money at 10 is not my idea of a hero.


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An interesting straw man, here. It ISN'T the same three mininons. They're level 50 - not level 10 minions. Different art, different powers.

The "super" in "super hero" comes as one levels - what was once hard (i.e. red) becomes orange, yellow, then white, etc. What was once really hard is now easier.

That's how it is in levels 1 to 22ish. It works there.

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If he "gets" it then they'll adjust XP reward to go along with that difficulty increase. If they don't then I know what this is REALLY about. $$$$$$$

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Have you seen my other posts. If we increase HP, we must increase XP - risk = reward.

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One quick question Statesman, what about the Defenders and Controllers that ALREADY have a hard time with mobs?
How would these changes affect them?


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We'll need to give the more "oomph" to keep up!

Oh - and on the XP - if we up mob HP, then we definitely need to up XP rewards! If the battle is more challenging for a player, then he should definitely get more reward.

I thought I'd post here to explain why developers make changes to MMP games. In a nutshell: because they think it'll make the long term enjoyment better.

Human nature often demands immediate gratification. Sometimes, this comes into conflict with the long term enjoyment.

Case in point: much of our zone distribution, spawn placement and mission difficulty is based on a simple supposition. Players should be entertained/challenged by mobs -2 to +2 levels different. A single +2 minion should be REALLY hard - a single -2 minion should be pretty easy. But that's the range that much of the game hangs on. And that works great for levels 1 to 20, in my opinion.

Starting at level 22, when players get S.O. Enhancements, they quickly outstrip their foes. The missions cease to be entertaining, because a +1 mobs are just too easy. Better XP can be found by taking on +4 mobs in zones. Single characters can take on spawns that are intended for many heroes. And there's no place for a maximum sized group to go in order to find a tough and rewarding battle.

In the case of making the higher level game more fun, I want to make the difficulty of the later levels resemble early gameplay. At first, some players will decry "but I can't do what I used to! Ack! I can't solo two +4 bosses anymore?" True - but they'll have fun battling 3 white minions - which is something you can say at level 15, but not at level 35. Long term, the entire game will sparkle once this sort of balance is restored - because so much of the game design hangs upon it.

Anyway, sorry for my rambling. I wanted to give you a glimmer of the developer reasoning.

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Statesman, you've been hinting at changes "coming soon" to deal with lack of challenge at the mid to upper levels for quite a while now.

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Right after Expansion 2 goes live.

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Put your group of eight together. It doesn't really matter what you put in the group with one exception. I'll get to the exception.
I will outrun them and not by a little. At level 38 we clocked it. I earned XP at a rate of 190,000 per hour solo. Go to whatever zone you like. Good luck. How about Crey's Follies? Is that hazard enough? Freaks. Carnival area by the Rikti crash site.
Then I will assemble a group of 4 and we will outrun them again.
Then I will assemble a group of 2 and we will outrun the four.


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You're absolutely correct. The problem is, once again, that the high level players (38) can battle against foes that are much, much higher level than they are. A small group of said heroes can find a spawn appropriate for them...whereas what's tough enough for a full group of 8 level 38's? It's much, much tougher for that large group to find something that's a challenge - and can give them great XP - than it is for the the small group.

That issue is next up - right after the Expansion goes live.

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I mean, does your damage build for each successive attack on the same enemy, or does it build over the course of a single battle? If I fight and kill three enemies, and then run over to another group ten feet away, do I lose all my accumulated power? None of it? What?


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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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That change will not do much good in a group setting at higher levels. The combats don't last all that long.

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That will also be changing soon.

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1. More villains does not mean harder. A group of 5 can take on an infinite number of reds. It's called "herding," maybe you've heard of it. Why would any group take on more members than 5 when at that point you can fight every mob in the zone, hazard zone, or trial zone?

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More villains should be harder. The "herding" as you described it is a problem. I've already said this - the high level players can take on reds or purples with little to no risk. That needs to be addressed.

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2. Not all people want to take on large numbers of villains. Some want to take on small numbers of harder villains, similar to an archvillain battle. Thanks to the purple patch, villains are 4 times, then 17 times harder, without 4 or 17 times the XP.

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Then that group can go into a zone with smaller spawns, but higher levels mobs. So a group of 8 level 30 guys could go into a hazard zone with spawns for a group of 3 to 5 - but with levels +1, +2,+3 to the group...Heck, a single +4 should be a challenge to several heroes. But it's not. That's the problem.

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Mobs don't drop Disciplines as often as they use holds. If you're not hunting right next to a contact, you can't get enough inspirations to solo. Are we supposed to run to a contact after every 5th fight?


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We're going to be increasing drop rates. Sorry I didn't mention that.

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e·ther ( P ) Pronunciation Key (thr)


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Ah. That's the anglicized version of the word "aether" (which preserves the ancient Greek root much better).

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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?


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

As promised, I've been looking into the issues facing Tankers; I thought I'd explain the direction we're going. As we analyed it, Tankers have three very valid concerns (aside from the issues with specific power sets):

1. Without Provoke, they are not a real Tanker. Those people who enjoy the MMP role of "meat shield" have trouble holding aggro properly.
2. The Tanker's defense stats can be matched by a properly slotted Scrapper - but the Tanker can not approach the Scrapper in damage.
3. The Tanker doesn't "feel" like a comic book Tanker should. And frankly, this one really, really bothered me. Because our game is a comic book MMP.

So - here's the solution we're going to try internally. We went through a ton of possible solutions, and we weighed each one against how well they answered the three points above as well as how long it would take to get done.

1. Tankers will get a "provoke" like AOE effect on their melee attacks. The more a Tanker lands his blows, the more and more mobs he'll attract. The bonus here is that it's not exactly like Provoke (it's not ranged) - but it makes a lot of sense. Some huge monstrosity is bashing the heads of a villain group - they're going to get more and more concerned about taking him/her out....

2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes. I can't say that the Tanker will do as much damage as a Scrapper - but it'll certainly be more than he does now. This ability really gets to the core of a comic book Tanker. He's extremely powerful - but at the start of a fight, he holds himself back some. As the battle progresses, he lets loose....I prefer this system to a power because this way it's inherent. It's simply the nature of the Archetype. And it also sets the Tanker apart from the Scrapper's criticals.

Of course, the thought in your minds must be....WHEN?...I'm afraid I don't know. First, we need some code for this. Then we've got to test it thoroughly. Finally, it'll go on the Test Server for awhile to gather data and impressions. This is going to take some time; but I thought you'd like to know at least where we're going, even though we don't know when we'll get there.

Feel free to comment!

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Do you actually play your game from time to time? I keep hearing you say that you do, but if your toons are good for 3 minions, than I can only guess you are playing a controller.


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3 minions = 1 hero is the desired goal. That's approximately what it is at levels 1 to 22 or so. Past that, heroes become disproportionately powerful. That WILL be addressed soon after the expansion goes live (that has priority at the moment).

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If 1 hero takes out 12 minions, by your own math, that is 480 xp just for him. To get the same 480 xp each, your group of 8 has to kill 55 minions in the same time period. Your groups cannot kill 55 as fast as a decent soloer can kill 12.

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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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Here are the cliff notes. The xp gained per mob defeated goes down as you add players. At 4 players, you have capped the difficulty of mobs you can face (+4 your level) and have found the largest concentration of mobs you can face. THE XP LOST DUE TO ADDITIONAL PLAYERS CAN NO LONGER BE MADE UP BY FIGHTING HIGHER LEVEL MOBS OR MORE MOBS BECAUSE OF THE PURPLE PATCH


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Just so that I'm clear - the larger the group, the larger the spawn. The problem is not the "purple patch" - the problem is that players are approaching MOB spawns that are simply too small for their group.

Oh - low level trials - Sewers (upper). Faultline.

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And this is a great goal, I want to see this happen. But right now the current trend is in introducing status effects. At level 10 there where very few mobs with status effects, the occasional Edilon or Lost Blaster. By 40 it seems the only challenge is chain stunning or holding mobs and well that is not what many people consider to be a fun challenge.



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No - the Status effects are not meant to be the way that things get "harder" in the overall sense. The current changes to Rikti and Nemesis bring them into line with the difficulty of other groups (Malta, Carnival). So now all groups are of equal difficulty (that's the goal!).

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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Currently, there are no spawns anywhere that are worth tackling with a 5+ person team. Unless you are herding, which looks to me like an exploit, even 4 people is a bit too many.


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The Trial Zones. These are designed for teams sizes 6 to 8 or so. Those spawns are HHHUUUGGGGEEEE - and challenging (at the low and mid levels). But many people don't take the challenge.

Again, I'm not sure what "penalty" is being allueded to.

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A well prepared group of 5-8 mows through introductory purples just as easily as it mows through even cons. Anything bigger than that is a brick wall due to the purple patch scaling upwards too sharply.


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Ah - this is somewhat unrelated. The game is too easy at higher levels. Larger groups need to hunt higher level spawns in order to find challenge, and therefore fun.

The missions at levels 30+ contain foes -1,0,+1 to the level of the mission holder (or at least the level he was when he received the mission). Those foes are trivially easy for players at those levels. Thus, they go to street sweeping - because the fun is at fighting foes +5 levels - and consequently they receive A LOT of experience points.

The goal (eventually) is to make the +1,0,-1 level spread as fun at 30th level as it was at 10th level.

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Couple that with the enormous penalty for grouping beyond the 4rth person and you just don't see large teams anymore.

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Penalty for more than 4 people? Certainly not XP wise; players get an XP bonus for having larger and larger groups. What are you referring to?

Fellow heroes, disturbing information has come to light. Thanks to the hard work at the Federal Bureau of Super Powered Affairs and the Portal Corporation, we have discovered an odd energy signature throughout Paragon City. Researchers believe that this aetheric energy appears to be building towards a climax at some point in the near future. We believe that this will occur at some point over the next several days, but the authorities are not yet sure. All heroes should be on the look out for anything strange in the city. Be on guard; we have reason to believe that this bodes ill for our metropolis.

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Currently the xp gained for defeating 1 mob decreases as you add people to the team. This is supposed to be offset by the added team members allowing the team to fight tougher mobs and more of them. Great theory, but it doesn't work.


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You've hit the nail on the head! The more people who gang up on a SINGLE mob are obviously decrease their risk against that mob.

In City of Heroes, it's the sheer size of the spawn that counts...If you've got a bigger group, then go find a bigger spawn. Simple as that. But if a group of 4 heroes defeats 3 minions (which are designed for only a single hero), then they aren't getting much XP. Those 4 heroes should take their act to a Hazard zone, where the spawn sizes are appropriate for their team.

Let's first dispel a myth about XP and groups. Grouping gives you bonus XP...here's the exact numbers (in an example).

In missions, and for that matter, zones, spawn sizes are dependent upon team size. In zones, there's some variabilities, as I'll note below.

The most base level of balance is that 3 minions=1 hero.

So here's a matchup of level 20 heroes and level 20 minions.

1 hero - 3 minions. Hero receives 120 xp.

4 heroes - 12 minions. Each hero receives 192 xp.

8 heroes - 24 minions. Each hero receives 210 xp.

Zones are different than missions because they are broken down into 3 categories: city, hazard & trial. City zones spawn mobs designed for 1 to 3 heroes, hazard zones spawn things for 3 to 5 heroes, and trail zones spawns mobs designed for 5 to 8 heroes.

So, in street sweeping, we've noticed that large groups (say 5 or more) going around city zones - and then complaining that group XP isn't good. When, quite frankly, these groups are street sweeping in areas that don't have anything to challenge a group that size. Risk = reward. And because there's less risk, they don't get as much XP. But if the same group were to go into a Hazard Zone, they'd find larger spawns, and reap the benefit of the group XP bonus.

Note - missions scale to the team size. There is sometimes a delay in when the mob sizes scale up to a new size team....

Ah - and as for the argument that mission XP "sucks." Yes, you do reap less XP/minute if you simply travel from your contact immediately to your mission door (which tends to be player behavior). However, if you fight some spawns on the way - and finish the mission with the new XP rewards - I think you'll find that missions are much, much more competitive XP wise.

Oh - and one other thing. The vast, vast majority of players at any given time are on missions. XP or not - it's the most popular part of the game.

AV's are intended to be a challenge for several heroes.

If you come across one, I would suggest going out and recruiting help!

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The Statesman has stated, recently, that everything in CoH should be soloable for every AT.

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That is NOT what I said. Every Archetype can solo. Everything? Certainly not. Every Archetype, if they don't feel like teaming up, can at least go out and fight crime on the city streets. Many missions are solo-able - but not EVERY mission.

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It should be stated that Statesman likely meant even-con minions, in reasonable numbers, and not Archvillains, should be soloable by all ATs at a decent rate of speed.


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This is closer to the spirit of my statement - but the crux here is "decent rate of speed." Some Archetypes do it faster than others. Controllers, and to a degree Defenders & Tankers, solo slowly. That's totally acceptable.

What isn't acceptable right now is that some Archetypes solo slowly AND aren't so needed in groups. And that's what I'm focused on at the moment.