opprime28

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New Support Set: Serums

POST-ACTION

Yeah, Amino Acid was a clone of alkaloid, and I left it kind of weak because this set isn't focused on healing directly so much as buffing regeneration, later on. Im open to tweaking that though.

The 45% Toxic would only be if ALL of the buffs are applied to that single player at a given time (in this case, Amino Shot, nanite injection, and immunize. Nanite injection would have a long recharge similar to other +Hp powers, meaning that this wouldn't be permanent. Still totally open to fudging the numbers a bit.

Nerve Gas is actually similar in function to many other debuffing powers (Darkest Night (tier 3), Poison gas trap, seeker drones, lingering rad, Heat Exhaustion, and weaken) which all do 3+ debuffs, though I toyed with getting rid of the -spd completely anyway. You think the -tohit is a better option?

Funny what you mention about oxygenation since I originally had that and advanced nanites swapped, but thought oxygenation felt more like a "tier 9" level power, while the aura debuff fit more in line as a mid level power. Any idea what you would suggest to change for the numbers?
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New Support Set: Serums

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Ok, so in one of the forums last week we were discussion proliferation, and what we'd like to see. While many of us are interested in "poisons" we recognize the problems with "defenders" having an almost entirely offensive debuffing set named "poisons" so we decided you could do what was done with empathy for villains, rename and tweak. We came up with SERUMS for defenders/controllers/corruptors. Here is the gist...

Serums

Using the latest in medical (and some still experimental) technology, you've created an assortment of serums to help heal and strengthen your allies. Some may even be used to weaken your foes.

Amino Shot: +Heal, +res toxic
You inject your ally with a small but powerful mixture of amino acids which immeditaly heal some of their wounds. The target is also left with some resistance to toxic damage for a short while. (17.6% heal, +15% RES Toxic)

Nanite injection: +Hp, +res Toxic
You spray your ally with a cluster of bio-organic nanites which cover his skin, increasing his ability to absorb damage. His maximum hit points are increased and he becomes highly resistance to toxic damage. (+ 44% HP, +20% RES Toxic)

Immunize: +resist Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immob, Confuse, Fear, slow, Toxic.
You immunize an ally against several known afflictions, protecting them agianst status effects like disorients, holds, sleeps, immobilizes, confusion, fear, slows, and toxic damage. (Mag -10.35, +10% Res Toxic.)

Stimulant gas: +Recharge, +Recovery
You can release a small cloud of stimulating vapors. This cloud temporarily increases the recharge and recovery rates of your allies as their nervous system becomes more efficient. (PBAoE + 35% recharge, +35% recovery.)

Adrenal Shot: Ally Rez, special
You inject a powerful shot of enhanced adrenaline into a fallen Ally, shocking their heart back to life. They will revive with full hit points and endurance, increased regeneration and recovery, and be resistant to status effects for a brief while. Some allies may react oddly as the Adrenaline wears off, causing them to become violently ill for a brief moment. (Ally Rez, special (15% chance for 1 second hold after 90 seconds.)

Cellular reinforcement: +res, +dmg.
You emit a field of magnetic energy which reinforces the cellular walls within the bodies of you and nearby allies. This strengthening of tissues and skeleton temporarily increases a body's resistance to damage and also the amount of damage their attacks do. (+12% Res, +20% Dmg)

Nerve Gas: Foe -Dmg, -tohit, slow.
You fire a small dart at a foe which, when activated, releases a targetted cloud of nerve gas on your enemies. This gas will weaken your foes, overloading their nervous system, slowing their movement and attack rates. Any attacks the foes are able to execute will have a decreased chance tohit and will do less damage. (Targetted AoE, Foe -20% DMG, -10% Tohit, -50%spd, -50% recharge.)

Advanced Nanites: Targetted ally AoE, Foe -RES, -DEF, -Regen,
You surround a single ally in advanced bioorganic nanites. Unlike your other nanites, these small organisms are designed to attack any foes in melee range of their host, weakening theor resistance, defense, and regeneration. Due to their experimental nature, you only have a limited supply. The nanites have a weak structyre, only affecting a small area around their host, but they can be deadly to any enemies within their range. (Targetted Ally AoE, Foe -22.5% Res, -30% DEF, -20% Regen.

Oxygenation: +Damage, +Tohit, +regeneration, (special)
You inject an experimental liquid oxygen directly into the bloodstream of a single ally, drastically increasing an their cardiovascular efficiency. As a result, their damage, chance to hit, and regeneration rates are all greatly increased. When this power wears off, thier body will become tired, decreasing thier damage and recovery for a short time. (note, an ally must "accept" this power for it to affect them.) (+22.5% DMG, +18.8% Tohit, 50%Regen for 90 seconds, -20% DMG, -50% recovery for 20 seconds)

Totals:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ally with all / Foe with all
-----------------------------------------------------------

Dmg +42.5% (-20%) | -20%

Tohit +18.8% | -10%

Regen +50% | -20%

Recovery +35% (-50%) |

Heal +17.6% |

Recharge +35% | -50%

Speed | -50%

Resistance +12% | -22.5%
-Toxic Res: +45% |

Defense: | -30%

Status Res +10.35 |

+HP: +44% |

The animations would likely be your choice between a wrist mounted injection gun (similar to a Widow dart shooter) or a hand held injection gun (a dark shooter that looks somewhat like a small pistol) to keep the animations easy and also explain how you're "injecting" people from a distance.

We also discussed an Electric Domination support set (like Ice and Pain Domination) as well as a Matter Manipulation support set (controlling the density of others) which I'll be finishing up and posting soon.

Feedback desired!
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Praetoria's difficulty needs to be tuned down.

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So I ran a new character from 1-10 yesterday in Preatoria, and stuck either solo or with really small teams. I also did Loyalist as opposed to Resistance, and I have to say, TOTALLY different experience than I'd had before.

Yesterday the enemies were less painful (much more melee/smashing/lethal attacks) and the smaller mobs only occassionally were +1, and I didn't have to face any destroyers. :-)
I was on an Ice tanker who only had his HP boost/heal and his initial smash/lethal armor for most of the time, and was only dying occassionally. It felt "balanced." I was teamed up, occassionally, with a dark miasma sonic corr and a fire/kin tanker. The fire kin was having a much harder time than I was. Regardless...

This leads to wonder 2 things: first, am I on to something when I say that the real problem with preatoria comes when you're teaming with 4+ people, since the benefits you get at that level don't balance well with the disadvantages of the increased mob sizes spamming attacks which most lowbies are ill equipped to deal with, and second, is your experience in preatoria highly dependent on what kind of powersets you have (even more so than the regular game)?
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QoL - Enhancement names

POST-ACTION

I have to say, that standardization pack is the perfect fix!
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DO/SO Standardization Pack

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Wow. AWESOME change. Seriously, thanks for this!
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late game content: Suppliers

POST-ACTION

Yeah, in my mind the pool 3 missions and temps would be difficult enough that only people who are really dedicated to either a)getting the temps or b) farming them for sale would run the missions on a regular basis. This would (hopefully) keep the supply low enough that it wouldn't be exploitable. I suppose the other option would be to limit the number of temps you could have from each of the pools at any given time, so perhaps 4 tier 1 temps, 2 tier 2 temps, and 1 tier 3 temp.

I also thought you could "tweak" the tier 3 temps a bit so that they aren't the exact equivalents of the nukes, shivan shards, heavies, etc. you can get the old fashioned ways. Make it a "suitcase nuke" which does all of the same things only with smaller percentages, or an "snythetic shivan shard" which summons only 1 shivan, or "portable heavy" etc. I gotta admit I would LOVE to be able to summon a Malta Titan, as opposed to an RWZ heavy, or carry a dark crystal shard that summons a few floating nictus around you.
:-)
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Signature Power Creator

POST-ACTION

I actually like the idea of a split, or 100% link to your primary/secondary power. I also think making these primarily offensive would be best, though you could play with "offensive" to ally buffs, I suppose. That way an amp could have a signature power that briefly adds a massive damage boost to an ally at the expense of dealing their own damage or something similar. Buffing powers reduce your own ability to act while active, and offensive powers may be balanced by having some sort of formula to deal with resistances.

That or you could just solve the issue by making the effects of your signature power unresistable, whether it be an offensive or defensive attack. this would mean lower base damage numbers but perhaps be evened out by the fact that any mobs will feal it equally, period.
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Praetoria's difficulty needs to be tuned down.

POST-ACTION

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steampunkette

With 26% Melee, Ranged and AoE defense just from the shields and a further 13.8% defense from your SR powers you were sitting pretty at 39.8% defenses to each vector, presuming there were no TOs or DOs in use at the time.

That means even con minions had a 10.2% chance to hit you, initially.

-Rachel-

Also your numbers are off. On an ice dom corr, the base value for glacial shield and Ice are 11.25%. That means they would be sitting at 23% positionaldefense before SR, not 26%.

Also, have you noticed that Preatoria missions often spawn +1 enemies, not even level? Which goes back to there being no way to adjust mission difficulty in preatoria.

Also, when you brought up your two static teams, what exactly where the numbers you threw out to make it more valuable?

As for the "step out of the burn patch" comment, yeah that would work if the burn patches weren't littering the entire floor, because minions have the ability to cast them and spawn about 3 or four per mob.

It's a little funny for someone who says that "you must have missed" is somehow inflammatory telling me not to see "I don't believe you" as such.

As for the "seems" bit, of COURSE we're talking about perceptions here. No one has suggested anything else, except you, who then goes on to bring up their perceptions of too many ambushes overwhelming "prepared" teams, both ancedotal and based on your own perceptions. Somehow what I'm getting here is that a)anyone else's experiences are not really valid evidence, b) your experiences are valid evidence, c)you can be rude to people but there's no reason for people to be rude to you in a conversation.

Got it. Thanks.

Praetoria's difficulty needs to be tuned down.

POST-ACTION

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steampunkette

You must've missed where I don't believe you.

-

Well then, I guess there's no real point in talking. If you're the kind of person who would lie in a forum discussion about an online game, or think someone -else- would lie, then you have bigger issues than I can help and we'll get nowhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steampunkette

On my other two static teams it's a Kin/Invuln scrapper with a Pistols/Pain corruptor. No problems at all, and a Kin/Will brute with an Empath/Sonic. Again, no issues, though they are resistance and tend to fight PPD...

Change tactics, move on, and stop going on the offensive when people present you with facts to your anecdotal evidence.

-Rachel -

First, this only supports my question about whether a large part of it has to do with team size. Secondly, noone here has been on the offensive but you. The OP stated that Preatoria seems unbalanced when it comes to difficulty, especially for new players and/or low level toons. Others agreed, and I posted my own experience backing it up with -factual- events from a team I was on. You called me a liar, which is both laughable and sad. Regardless, others since then have voiced concerns similar exactly to what I've stated (I especially loved the post aove about the AoE madness of the destroyers bomb masters and of bosses in the preatoria, both of which you encounter more in a large team, btw.)

And for the record, I actually STATED how surprised I was that a team with two ice doms and a defense based brute were having so much trouble and even being hit in the first place.

Oh...and last I checked, most of the damage from the Destroyers isn't energy based, so an ice tank would actually do even BETTER against their heavy fire damage.

At any rate, rant away. Call me a liar. I stand by what I, the OP, and others in here have said and suggest that the Devs have a look at the difficulty of many of the Preatoria missions. Hopefully they do so before new people like the ones I brought in to show the game get too frustrated.

QoL - Enhancement names

POST-ACTION

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkarmoryThePG

I'd rather it was easier to hover your mouse over the enhancement and the pop-up immediately tells you what it enhances.

/signed.

I actually almost always make exclusively mutant characters just because its the easiest enhancement type for me to identify, because of it's very strong solid coloring and the fact that it says what the enhancement does.

Praetoria's difficulty needs to be tuned down.

POST-ACTION

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steampunkette

Honestly, I haven't found it any harder than any other low-level missions, unless I'm playing a Melee character.

Why? The Primary damage type of most Praetorian enemies (PPD and Resistance) is Energy, rather than smashing/lethal.

If you're playing anything -but- a scrapper, brute, stalker, or tanker they're throwing off roughly normal damage compared to other NPC villains of similar level. But because it's an "Exotic" damage type the first tier defensive powers for Damage resistance or typed defenses are no protection against it.

Which means low-level melee characters can't stand up to the damage like they normally can, which leads to the anecdotal conclusion that everything is more difficult.

I will admit, though, that the ambushes can be a tad excessive without a control-character on the team.

For contrast, try playing a character with Vectored defense values (Shields/SR) and team with a vector-boosting ally (Bubbles) to see how shockingly easy the fighting becomes. Or try an Energy Aura brute and do a quick compare and contrast after you receive your energy defense toggle.

-Rachel-

You must have missed where I stated that I was on a team with 2, yes 2, ice dom corruptors, which had both their melee and ranged buffing shields and energy defense, and we were still team wiping. This was inspite of the fact that the other ice dom was also an electric controller.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven

It's also possible that the difficulty level is set high on purpose so that it can be gradually nerfed down. I think if they had gone the other way (making it a bit too easy), there wouldn't be such an out pouring of people making comments and it would be less likely that groups got buffed. Of course, some folks would complain if there was a setting so that CoH spat out money while you played... but that is beside the point.

And some folks would defend anything in the game even if it was completely unbalanced, just because it makes them feel superior.

Did you miss where I stated I've been with the game for over 5 years, and where I said I was playing the game with new players I'd brought in over the last week? Im about as big a fan of CoH and the Devs as one can be and still be realistic.

That doesn't mean I don't echo the concerns of the OP when it comes to Preatoria. The fact that you recognize there being an "outpouring" of complaint should support the fact that there may be a balance issue, not detract from it.
What I wonder is, if Preatoria was balanced more for soloing/smaller teams. Small 1-2 man ambushes for soloing isn't that bad, and even ambushes of 4-5 minions and a luit for small teams would be managable. It's when you have ambushes of 8-10, including several luits and some bosses that the death begins. Teams at the lower levels don't have enough damage or defense/resistance to withstand that much carnage even when there are 8 people around ticking away, especially when much of that damage comes in the form of AoE attacks and less resisted damage types. Given the nature of the storyline and resistance/loyalist factions, that reasoning is entirely possible. If that's the case, I would support it, though I would suggest that they make it clear in the game that higher teams in preatoria face much greater challenges.

That being said, an easy way to placate EVERYONE in this thread would be to add the ability to adjust mission difficulty in preatoria.

Problem solved.

Praetoria's difficulty needs to be tuned down.

POST-ACTION

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint

it already is. and this game is not based on PvP.

No, but they did include it, and for a while, had a small but active PvP population. I think you missed the point, though. PvP is largely dead compared to 6 or 7 issues ago because of rebalancing to deal with the "uber PvPers." Instead of opening PvP up to all, it drove them away and made it too confusing for new players to bother, imo.

Keep in mind I've PvPed less than a dozen times in my five+ years on CoH. I'm simply suggesting that this be remember when balancing things like mission difficulty/power performances, etc. Sure, some people might invest a billion inf and weeks of their lives to make it so that shield charge is up every fight, or Domination never goes down, but balancing around that ends up hurting the 95% of people who wont.

As I said, though, I love GR. I just agree with the OP that right now, the difficulty seems a little skewed.
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Praetoria's difficulty needs to be tuned down.

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/signed.

Preatoria is great, and GR is a huge success overall, IMO, but trying to introduce the game to new people over the last week has been...frustrating. The missions aren't just hard-fun, they're like those AE missions that someone made where they didn't think about balance, they just thought "My uber-tricked out Shields/electric tanker would love this!" Having massive, multiple waves of ambushes, sometimes stacking on top of each other is hard. Having minions who have firebombs of AoE damage, all stacking together, is just dumb. I was on a team running with an SR brute who had ice shields stacked on him and he was STILL biting it repeatedly because of those. Seriously. Ice shields and SR...he was sitting really high on AoE defense AND had fire resistance and the team still couldn't survive for more than five minutes at a time.

I wonder if the devs didn't do this on purpose because so many forumites call the regular CoH/V "easy mode." I can see that concern and why that would make you feel you need to notch things up a bit, but you also have to remeber three important things:

#1: Forumites are, inherent, your more dedicated, uber players. They will be, on average, twice as experienced and good as the common joe who picked up the boxed set at Best Buy. Easy Mode for them may, in fact, be perfectly balanced for the average player base CoH is trying to attract with GR.

#2: Most "easy mode" stuff comes in the late game, when your character and their teammates have a full array of powers. Early game can still be a challenge to most players.

#3: Balancing powers/missions/sets around "uber" players who trick out on IOs etc is a surefire way to cut down on a population. Look at what happened with PvP. More casual players get frustrated because they can't even get anywhere in the game, while your elite power players are now just playing the kind of challenge most players should experience. Let power players be power players, and balance the game around the casual player.

GR seems awesome, and I want to see it expanded, but it -IS- way too difficult right now. -I'M- enjoying it overall, but I know quite a few people who aren't.
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late game content: Suppliers

POST-ACTION

So no interest in this idea, huh?

I'm surprised. The people who heard about it in game were the ones who suggested I posted it in here because they thought it sounded like a lot of fun, and as far as I can tell, all of the mechanics to make it work already exist in game, except balancing of -some- of the temp powers offered.

And one more thing! Maybe this could get rid of the dang overload of dropping temp power recipes that keep filling up our recipe slots ;-)
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late game content: Suppliers

POST-ACTION
-Batman had Lucious Fox
-Deadpool had Weasel
-The Punisher had Linus Lieberman
-Blade had Whistler
-James Bond even had Q.

It's a common theme in the hero/villain genre for the character to have his "go to" guy: a supplier, informant, or some combination thereof. They're the guys who are plugged in to the "know" and who can get what the character needs. This is my suggestion for a fun, effective, and easily implemented way to introduce the "supplier" concept to the game as well as add interesting 30+ content. I'll explain the concept in a bullet point explanation below.

The Supplier System:

Upon completion of your first mission at level 30, you recieve a new contact pop up, (though slightly different than most) explaining that one of the villains you'd defeated dropped a slip of paper detailing someone he was going to meet with to get in to the "big leagues". The paper leads you to a man sitting in a booth in pocket D.

The neutral contact in pocket D assumes you're the man whom you'd defeated, and introduces you to an arc that, once completed, gives you a temp power allowing both you (and him) access to "The Network".

The Network is a small zone similar to pocket D or Oro, which houses a hidden underground network of weapons and information smuggling. The arc you completed with the man in pocket D has made him a "supplier" in the network. He is now your contact in there, offering you repeatable missions, more challenging to complete than normal missions, that offer special payouts in the form of temp powers.

The missions are random, and thus so are the payouts linked to them, preventing you from exploiting this too much. The more challenging the mission, the better the temp power payout.

you (and your contact) must build "cred" in the network, meaning that while the missions you're given are random, they come from one of three pools. Access to the 1st pool is granted to all members of the underground, and offers the easiest missions with the weakest temp power payouts. Access to the 2nd pool is granted to "reputable" members of the underground, and offers more challenging missions with better temp power payouts. Access to the final pool (a much smaller pool of special missions) is granted only to "respected" members and offers the most challenging missions. These give the best temp power payouts. You move up in cred by completing x number of missions from your current pool.

Once you have access to a pool you can choose a random mission from that pool or any below it, meaning a "respected" member can choose to run a simpler pool 1 mission or run a more difficult pool 3 mission, though they are still random from the chosen pool.

You will have the option of "claiming" the temp power after completing a mission or selling it on the network's market. This gives players incentive to run missions for the network despite its randomness. Even if you don't need a given temp (you already have a similar power, etc.) someone else likely will.

Any Player with access to the Network can access its market to buy the temp powers other users chose not to claim. The supply of any given temp power is dependent on it being up for sale, however, just like other markets in the game. This would result in both raising the value of the temps as well as help preventing 8 man teams from just popping in to The Network to load up on nukes for TFs, raids, etc. There's no guarentee that there will be even one, let alone enough for a team.

Though the smaller pools' temps may not be worth the time when it comes to selling for inf, the more you run, the higher your cred, unlocking the ability to run the much more challenging missions for the more valuable advanced tech temp powers. This should allow for a constant stream of less powerful temps being for sale at reasonable prices, while the more powerful temps remain rare.

Most, if not all, of the temp powers will based on existing powers/tech in the game. For example, one mission could involve infiltrating a renegade Longbow base (the renegade faction from RWZ?), giving you a Longbow Body Armor temp (+smash/lethal resistance) and another may have you stealing malta tech for the network, rewarding you with a malta sapping gun temp power. Another might involve infiltrating a Fake Nemesis factory and rewards you with a Nemesis personal force field generator temp. Another could have you infiltrating a Rikti ship and rewards you with a rikti drone's optical scanner (the reveal vet reward temp to reveal maps or a +acc boost.)

Examples from each pool might include:

-Pool 1 (primarily minor defensive temps) : Crey Cryo pistol, Knives of Artemis stealth generator, Rikti Drone scanner (reveal temp), Arachnos smoke bomb, Devouring Earth sleeping seeds, Longbow body armor (smashing/lethal resistance) etc.

-Pool 2 (defensive and offensive): Fake Nem Pff, Malta Sapping gun, Advanced Lowbow body armor (smashing/lethal defense and defense debuff resistance), A circle of Thorns crystal shard (placed +regen or recovery), Devouring Earth cairn, etc.

-Pool 3 (advanced tech) warbug nukes, advanced shivan shards, RV Heavies, etc.

Since the network is a smuggling ring that doesn't "take sides" it would be accessible to all four factions (if they've completed the arc to unlock it) and the missions would be coopable, though either only the mission holder would get the temp power or you'd need to restrict team size to smaller teams to prevent exploitation.

In short, you'd have repeatable, challenging end game content that pays out personally with usable, valuable, and unique temp powers you can either keep yourself or sell to others. The challenges would be equal to the rewards, meaning that a user can get the tier three advanced tech for use on TFs etc, but only via a mission roughly equal to hunting them in Bloody Bay or Warbug, etc. The difference is that they can buy or sell these temps to other players, also. I would suggest this NOT being a blind market. Let the players who have earned the temps decide what the temp is worth, and let the market decide if they're right or not. All of this added content would come in a way that fits within the comics universal lore and offers a new, fun challenge to players.

What do you all think? Also, what NPC weopons or "tech" would you like to gain access to?
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Tanker Primary: Radioactive Aura

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Sorry Rowdy, I wasn't ignoring you.

Alpha damage will be an issue, though Im thinking the change to infrared pulse would help with that (making it a clickable +max HP boost as opposed to a pulsing self heal.) Any other suggestions?

As for AVs, it SHOULD do about the middle of the road compared to other sets. It won't be a willpower or Shields tanker, but it also wont be a fire tanker or dark armor tanker when it comes to AVs. It has increased HP to deal with their heavy blows, and each blow will be doing 35% less damage than normal. Likewise it has increased regeneration and except for AVs that resist recharge debuffs, it will be getting hit less often. My hope was the between the higher HP total and the increased regeneration, couple with the -dmg effect on the AV, it would be able to stand toe to toe with most of them. Depending on which offensive powerset you took, that could help as well (dark's heal for example, or ice's added recharge slows.) If I DO make the switch from the pulsing 5% heal to the clickable HP boost that might hurt it in longer fights like AV fights, since I was thinking thats were the 5% every couple of seconds would come in handy. I wonder if combining the two as a toggle that gives a periodic 5% heal (perhaps slower pulses) combined with a milder HP boost (say 20%) would be the best option, giving you the ability to take an alpha strike without dying instantly, letting your debuffs kick in, and quickly recovering some of your HP in the process.

How does that sound? Overpowered or fitting given its inherent weakness in dealing with alpha strikes?
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