The_Starfist

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The "numbers" issue. I know there is a post around here somewhere where a dev says something about not providing #'s because we don't want it to be "City of Math" - I have seen some of the calculations required to get numbers and I have to say that my head a-sploded. Plus there is the maintenance of such a list - and well, you have seen how often the manual gets updated. (note on that - it is coming this month with I4 included) So I would also state that there are some resource constraints in that area. I doubt this will change.


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Okay, it's not city of math... it doesn't have to be. In fact, for diagnostic purposes, why don't they just add a slash command so players don't have to do backflips to figure out the stats? I mean the client software has the math... (or the server does) You don't have to give the formula-- because it might change... but the numbers sure would be helpful at times... especially testing wise.

Example:
I hear Energy Torrent has been changed, so after the patch I type a command:
/math Energy Torrent
<chat response>
Query for "Energy Torrent"
Classification: ranged attack power
Base damage X energy Y smashing with current enhancements X1 energy Y1 smashing.
Base accuracy X% with enhancements Y%.
Base endurance cost X with enhancements Y.
Base range X with enhancements Y.
Base recharge time X seconds, with enhancements Y seconds.

For a non attack power:

/math Fire Shield

<chat response>
Query for "Fire Shield"
Classification: Personal Defense Power
Base Damage Resistance X% smashing Y% lethal with enhancements X1% smashing Y1% lethal
Base endurance drain rate X/per second with enhancements Y/per second.
Base recharge time: <continuous toggle> X second recycle. with enhancements Y second recycle.


Now, IRL I do object oriented programming , I would be surprised as HECK if powers weren't objects, and that the devs didn't have something queryable in them already so they can internally know what the heck a power is doing.

This would be a useful tool and it would stop all the guessing-- nobody who doesn't care about the math has to look at it... But someone sure as heck could be on test and go, "jeez, I sure am missing a lot!" Let me check what the power says... /math "Hmmm, its says I'm SUPPOSED to have 90% accuracy" so why am I missing five out of ten times?

I know numbers scare people, but sometimes I think its really nice to have truly informed opinions, and to be able to make informed decisions -- especially where things like enhancements are concerned.

If I put 3 recharge reducers in a power and SEE that the recharge is Y seconds... It's really NICE to know when I put a 4th in there that the recharge has a floor to it, and that the enhancement isn't helping.

That's not information overload, that's just playing nice with the players who care to know with certainty what's going on. Otherwise, you just guess, and guessing leads to wild surmise and surmise leads to people getting torqued off...

The 400% / 500% thing is the cap when all bonuses are calculated... For instance, a good Fulcrum Shift can slam you against the cap easily. Also, if you have things like assault, fortitude and all those other toggles running, plus build-up and aim.

I think the whole thing that's out of whack with blasters is that toward the end game, the ranged attacks of enemies are no longer trivial.

A blaster fighting nemesis who isn't careful will die almost instantaneously when they respond together with an alpha-strike. I've seen SO MANY die that way. Hell, my blaster dies sometimes without firing a shot... just standing too close to the bleedin fire tank when he aggros and twenty explosive bullets go off.

This is of course tied in to the solo / team issue which has been done to death, but one thing is fact... to make the game harder toward the end, the nature of the enemies change.

Tankers and scrappers by their nature get TOUGHER throughout their lives. Scrappers resist more and do more damage. Tankers well... okay they are just tough.

Blaster damage does go up, but the enemy's ability to dish out harm far exceeds the blaster's ability to deal with it. Lets face it... because of their resistance and defenses most scrappers are at NO risk in situations that are guaranteed death for a blaster. So, I would argue that it is the essentially defenseless blaster who generates aggro with every attack who is constantly at extreme risk whether at range or in melee...

Toward the end game, if blasters must function with tissue paper defenses, then they have to be able to kill the enemy before they themselves are killed...

My take is that blasters should just get ranged +DEF that goes up with level. If they get into melee... well, that's their risk. However, I find far too many blaster attacks (Primary and Secondary) function at point blank range where the rooting makes it a certainty if you fail to knock the enemy back you are going to get clobbered. Increased knock back is not the answer, because tanks already get annoyed enough as it is... especially with the energy blasters who toss enemies around like rag dolls...

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Unbalanced teams have the luxury of going after weaker foes and turning their mission difficulty down. Weaker teams can easily find situations and activities suitable for the capabilities of the team. Strong teams have no such options. Deliberately creating weak teams is not an acceptable a solution for the lack of content suitable challenging for a team.


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Ummm, when was turning DOWN the difficulty an option? Have you noticed how some missions scale for 6 or more players? Depending on the mission even hard boiled can be insane. Sometimes the mission instances can generate some ridiculous foe sets-- I recall a Tsoo mission that had literally dozens of bosses and backed up by four - six yellow ink-men and two sorcerers in each group. No mez protection... forget it... slugging through that was insanity... As I recall we ended up throwing in the towel until we could get bubbler and an empathy defender...

Anyways, the mission scaling can be PLENTY hard. I have to wonder if maybe you're only thinking of worst/best case senarios.

My empathy defender tagged along in a group of six level 40+s doing a Carnival of Shadows mission. The lead was a level 42 Fire Tank.

He jumped into a group and instantly his health was at half. I threw a heal other and group heal and got him to 3/4 health. The next instant he was at 1/4. I threw another heal other. And the next instant he was dead. You can guess how long the non-tanks lasted after that.

So, what was so easy about that? Okay, maybe Carnies are the exception. Seems to me, there are a number of mob types that can humble you at a particular given time.

Ever recall your first solo encounter with Bone Daddy as newb? That's some quick humbling there. I've seen low level BALANCED teams get ripped to shreds (this is BEFORE the crank up of bosses) when one comes in on the sly and starts wailing on some hapless defender or controller and the fight degenerates from there...

There seems to be the concern about stuff being too-easy and that people will lose interest. Casual players don't want the normal difficulty of the game to be an in-your-face razor's-edge-of-death. We're supposed to be heroes and we're supposed to be able to kick-tail. I've had my characters slammed enough recently to say that the current default level of difficulty does NOT need to be raised. I --DO-- think the mission logic should factor in:
A) Total levels and the mix (True levels vs SKs)) -- I think the BEST way to do this is to count enhancement slots. A further step might be to measure the number of SOs, DOs, and Training enhancements (and whether they are green, white, yellow, or red) to gauge a character's actual power rating and translated power rating if they are sidekicked.

B) AT Mix (Automatically boost difficulty if you have a synergy of health mitigation, control, and damage. Decrease if you lack health mitigation or damage.)

C) Difficulty Setting -- an overall fudge factor that bumps up the mob count and levels.

One of the factors not taken into account here is variability. All enemies of a given type/level have the same health and defense. The way to TRULY give some flexibility to the mission model (and all COH content) is to make the enemies not so generic. Level Dictates how hard it is to damage or hit a creature, and level dictates health by some magic -multiplier- or scale. If there's a decoupling of level, defense, health, to-hits and damage... now enemies can be generated with some level of randomness to them that can be adjusted with finer granularity. If you have a strong team, instance enemies of equal level, but with bumped up to-hits, health, and damage-- perhaps increase the attack rate. Better yet, have the AI use different aggression algorithms.

In asheron's call which had levels 1 - 126, after level 50 you could fight something 20 levels higher than yourself and depending on what its strengths and weaknesses were (and your archetype) you could be effective against it. Every creature of a given type was not the same... That was the thing that was special about that game in that you could fight WAY out of your league and potentially live to talk about it. Of course, in AC every attack wasn't a guided missile that followed you around corners... you could use the terrain for actual tactics , and if you were smart you could keep the spells from wiping you out.

In COH level discrepency is a gigantic factor-- which for better or worse, really hurts the granularity of gauging mission difficulty especially given the generic way that enemies are instanced in the millieu.

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The basic issue is this. 1-4 players can take on just about any group of mobs up to 4 levels above their own. These become absolutely trivial with more people then that if you have good players. Raise the level even one more and that group of mobs is now *easier* to solo then it is to attack as a team. In either the solo or team situation the rewards are not worth the time and effort involved.

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That blanket statement is patently FALSE. It is true and ONLY true for a balanced team. Try-- show me-- four blasters going through a Crey mission.... I will show you death and mayhem and I don't mean to the enemies. You can't alpha strike a power tank or a crey protector-- or heaven forbid a paragon protector.

Devouring earth are worse. With more at least half the mobs with sleep and hold abilities.

Not every team has the luxury of perfect balance. The teams that have it good are BALANCED teams. Specifically at the mid levels and higher, a team without a competent controller is roughly (IMO) about half as effective. When a single enemy can dish out 500 points of damage in a single hit, and can do so say every 15 seconds (I'm thinking of Freak bosses and Devoured bosses) [which I think is sick by the way... because the best AT in the game can't even come close to that amount of DoT] if you don't have some way to lock those suckers down either with a controller or a tank... toons will die... regardless of the mad skills of said pilots.

It's NICE to have a balanced team, and yes, they kick [censored]-- BUT-- *** BUT *** its not always the option, and you can't balance the missions that way.

A) You must take into account sidekicks
B) Lopsided teams
C) Gimped builds

Its better to set the mission to easy and let people crank it up.

I don't think the boss roll-back has occured yet. I owe a GIANT amount of debt to some of the new bosses. Soloing as a blaster is a nightmare in the 30 - 35 range.

I have been one-hit slain so many times in recent weeks I'm plain flat sick of it. The DE mobs being the worst offenders. No amount of inspirations makes a lesser devoured (much less a devoured) boss soloable. I snipe, it immediately fires back with a 300 point hit that chases me around corners and NEVER misses. If I run and try to take another shot, it will shoot me again. Woe to me if I even dare to stand still long enough to use something short range... the next attack is a 500+ point melee strike that sends me straight to the hospital. Yes, I can keep running. If I zone out and come back I can heal up... but by that time the boss has run back and is has now regen'd to full health. I got killed 5 times trying everything I could think of to kill one, loading up all 25 slots with heals, defense, and rage. Four stacked defenses and the bugger missed like one time out of 4 tries. I'm sucking down heals like crazy and trying to keep out of melee range... I couldn't even get an even level boss to half before I was squished. I had a sidekick with me in the incident I'm thinking of, and with both of us sniping and him doing a suicide sacrifice... I --STILL-- couldn't kill it. I had to call in someone 5 levels higher to come kill it to finish the dang mission and limp home with 75k debt. I appreciate a challenge but that's not a challenge and not fun. This is set to normal ordinary difficulty by the way.

I went in a freakshow mission with ONE companion (a sidekicked one) and the mission had NO LESS THAN 15 or 20 bosses in it. Every group of enemies with a count over 4 had a boss grouped with it. Un-freaken-believable. No amount of clever play will make a mission like this doable. Especially when its only a matter of time before a tank grenade stuns you long enough for the evil bugger to run up and either A) cut you in half or B) Drive you into the floor like rusty nail. Either possibility in this case costs me 15k of debt.

The mission creator should REALLY REALLY consider a character's true level when calculating enemies. A level 20 blaster sidekicked up to level 32... is NOT equal to a true level 32 character. Enemies SHOULD NOT be generated by the normal formula for him/her when the mission is instanced. This is a especially true when you have like 3 true level 30+ toons sidekicking 3 20-somethings. Right now some of the missions I've been in are totally ape-stuff... real debt-o-ramas.

I don't know what goes on with the Kheldan stuff, I haven't been keeping up because I'm a long way from there. However, I have teamed with them twice and actually felt SORRY for them. There were two Kheldan's in our group of 6... one was 18 and the other 20. It was a Skyraider mission, with level 20s and they were absolutely getting [censored]. I was playing an empathy defender and spent all my time spamming heals at them in ALL their forms. They ran in circles, broke aggro, maneuvered and it was to no avail.... the lower level one died 4 times and the other guy being at the mission level died twice. This was a balanced team too, with a defender, controller, scrapper, and a tank. If that wasn't bad enough, those void guys hidden in the mobs were like instant death.

For the record, to ME as an outside observer.... THAT DID NOT LOOK LIKE FUN. That looked like frustration. I've been in teams at -4 and -5 to the mission level and it wasn't hard to stay alive. I swear it seemed that if an enemy even LOOKED at either of them they were at half health.