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How about keeping the Area the same, but have a damage scaling depending on the number of enemies affected. For each AoE power, set an arbitrary threshold for 100% damage. When you hit a group bigger than the threshold, damage (or even accuracy) per mob is decreased. This would reflect densely packed mobs inadvertently shielding each other from taking full damage through sheer proximity.
Range Increase enhancements could be used to adjust the threshold and damage scaling for more customization options.
This would lessen farming of huge mobs. It'll make the difference between fighting 5, 10, 20+ enemies at once much greater. It could also mean Player Characters taking less AoE damage when in larger groups (imagine huge Raid level events).
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I have a great idea. How about when tanks get attacked they get their full resistance against the first enemy but each enemy after that does more and more damage? And when controllers hold a group they hold 1 enemy for the full hold but the time is reduced for each enemy after that? Also, when a defender buffs/debuffs the effectiveness is reduced for each additional target. That would be great!
Oh wait... no... those suggestions are ridiculous. So is yours. Put down the nerf bat and quit your complaining.
-AZ
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Complaining? Where?
You seem to be overreacting, and I think I know why. From your "ridiculous examples," you seem to be misconstruing what I proposed. I did not say that the first enemy is hit with full damage, then the rest will get decreasing damage. Hell, even I'd agree that'd be an over-nerf. I was proposing that damage be decreased when an arbitrary mob threshold is reach. Perhaps the Devs, with their datamining and vision could find a reasonable threshold.
By the way, how big of groups do you AoE? And what would you consider to be a reasonalbe threshold?
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The key to encouraging grouping is not in making soloing less attractive but in making grouping more attractive.
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yes, Yes, YES!
Make groups xp bonus about a metric ton worth more than it is now. Leave solo xp alone and AoEs alone.
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I'll have to agree that if they dial down the damage, they better dial down the agro.
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I keep seing how people bring up the subject of agro as the reason why area effects must insta kill or not exist at all.
I am a fire tanker, and in my groups NO ONE gets agro unless I die.
For now, i depend greately on provoke to achieve this, but remember that every tanker hit has taunt asociated with it. This is not EverQuest or Final Fantasy XI where only healing or damage angers an enemy, here provoke and taunt do, and all tanker attacks have taunt now and will be provokes soon.
As a fire tanker i do have an edge over other tankers as i have quiet a few area attacks to draw agro between provoke refreshes, soon that will change, i hope.
You will NEVER get the agro in a group with a tanker, and while solo you should NEVER get involved with enough enemies to be that dangerous.
Talk about agro is nonsence. Not even the most trigger happy of scrappers (maybe one with invinsibility, and then for only a few secs) can take agro from me.
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While I appreciate what a good tank can do, this is simply never going to be the case. Provoke has a finite area of effect, it you provoke the mobs that are in the back shooting the ones near you will aggro if damage. If you provoke the ones near you the ones shooting will certainly aggro if damage and may simply change targets at random.
Mob behavior makes it impossible for you to provoke everything, and whatever is not provoked can and will aggro on your team mates.
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The issue isn't that they do too much damage, its that the alpha strike aoe elemenates the fight all together. no need for crowd controll, no fight realy, just BAM XP!
even if minion HP doubled (not saying it should just giving you a worse case scenerio) then blasters would be even MORE important to get through all that HP (plus the xp would go up, as statesman already said they're happy with present xp progression).
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I agree, in fact I think it will make the game a lot better for everyone, but there can be no denying this creates difficulties for blasters. Currently many of the flaws in the AT are hidden by the ability to kill with alpha strikes, take that away and all these flaws come to the forefront.
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The issue isn't that they do too much damage, its that the alpha strike aoe elemenates the fight all together. no need for crowd controll, no fight realy, just BAM XP!
even if minion HP doubled (not saying it should just giving you a worse case scenerio) then blasters would be even MORE important to get through all that HP (plus the xp would go up, as statesman already said they're happy with present xp progression).
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I agree, in fact I think it will make the game a lot better for everyone, but there can be no denying this creates difficulties for blasters. Currently many of the flaws in the AT are hidden by the ability to kill with alpha strikes, take that away and all these flaws come to the forefront.
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But Moridin these alpha strikes are not happening in a group setting. If they are the xps are so low for those involved that it's not even worth noting. Alpha striking by blasters happens solo. If it's happening in a group then the group is not fighting things anywhere near their threshold.
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The key to encouraging grouping is not in making soloing less attractive but in making grouping more attractive.
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yes, Yes, YES!
Make groups xp bonus about a metric ton worth more than it is now. Leave solo xp alone and AoEs alone.
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YES!
As I have said before... nerfing powers should only happen in RARE occurrences. Changing at the drop of a hat is IMHO poor planning/design and makes players resentful and shout for more changes. It seems too late now to erase all of the changes made, so I just hope that it get's corrected soon and then made permanent.
Xentex, that was an awsome post 
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Also, I want to make one thing clear. Forcing players to group will not get you more players to group with. The player who will /only/ play solo will not group if forced. He will leave the game. The player who groups when he is able and solos when he is not will not group more if forced he will just forego playing when he cannot group or he will also leave the game.
The key to encouraging grouping is not in making soloing less attractive but in making grouping more attractive.
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Most intelligent post on the thread.
AoE's have almost no effect on teams, this is just random whining about people solo'ing.
When you fight whites or maybe yellows, then you get some alpha strike kills, but you dont even come remotely close when you fight groups of red/purple.
The real problem is that xp bonus for teaming sucks, and the scaling difficulty for people at +4/5 is brutal.
I don't think the problem is how much damage blasters do. The problem is the nature of AOE's and how this game was designed.
Let's say a blaster and a tanker run into a group of 3 minions. They will easily be able to take them out in a few shots. Let's now say that same blaster and a tanker run into a pack of 30 minions (not possible but this is just an example). Given the right circumstances, that blaster can take out the group of 30, just as easily as he did the group of 3. There is no strength in numbers for the enemies like us heroes have.
I have a strong feeling that this "fix" will not be a direct nerf to blaster. Perhaps mobs will be given a chance to spawn with leadership skills? This will give mobs greater strength in numbers making the fight last longer. Keep in mind, leadership skills stack, so the more mobs you take on, the more powerful they become.
Let me throw some completely random numbers out.
Minions have a 20% chance to spawn with a Maneuvers or Assault leadership skill.
LT's have a 35% chance to spawn with Maneuvers or Assault skill.
And bosses have a 60% chance to spawn with 2 out of Maneuvers, Assault or Tactics.
We'll leave vengeance out of this equation for now.
With this, or something similar, youve made battles last longer, as well as making all the support classes much more desirable in a group. Youd need more healing because of the increased chance of damage that mobs are now doing. Youd want a tanker to mitigate damage that the longer battles would cause all the heroes. And youd want controllers to put holds on the mobs to toggle off those leadership skills.
This is just a thought I've been having for a few weeks and thought Id throw it out there to see what folks thought. The numbers above are completely random. I just made them up for the example. =)
And yes, I do have an AOE blaster.
Celt
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States,
Why is it being viewed as an "issue" to be "solved?"
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How are you NOT viewing it as an issue that needs to be solved?
They'd still be damage-dealers, just not as sick as they are. (Note sig, I know firsthand what I'm talking about) Besides, the current plan is to try to avoid actually nerfing damage anywhere. The boost in mob HPs should be enough to pad the effect... So you're not going to be able to take out swarms of +1 minions in a single alpha strike anymore. You'll still be doing more damage overall.
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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States,
Why is it being viewed as an "issue" to be "solved?"
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How are you NOT viewing it as an issue that needs to be solved?
They'd still be damage-dealers, just not as sick as they are. (Note sig, I know firsthand what I'm talking about) Besides, the current plan is to try to avoid actually nerfing damage anywhere. The boost in mob HPs should be enough to pad the effect... So you're not going to be able to take out swarms of +1 minions in a single alpha strike anymore. You'll still be doing more damage overall.
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And what exactly have you accomplished by making alpha strikes against MINIONS impossible? What have you done besides slow the game down more for EVERYONE?
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Also, I want to make one thing clear. Forcing players to group will not get you more players to group with. The player who will /only/ play solo will not group if forced. He will leave the game. The player who groups when he is able and solos when he is not will not group more if forced he will just forego playing when he cannot group or he will also leave the game.
The key to encouraging grouping is not in making soloing less attractive but in making grouping more attractive.
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I'll have to agree with this one too.
I got more than enough of two hour waits LFT doing nothing because you can't progress at anything resembling a reasonable rate without a group in FFXI. I liked CoH because I could get together with a group of my friends and do good, no matter what AT they were, or if nobody was on, I could solo nicely. I enjoy the game, but if we're moving towards "you either need a group or you need to run your missions at the -2 on the slider to survive", or even worse, "no tanker, no group" and things like that, then I honestly don't see the point in continuing playing.
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Yes, AOE damage is an issue. We're still looking at ways to solve this. So no changes are imminent.
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ok this stinks, I just START to like my spine scrapper after scrapper fixes now your going to [censored] me with this?
for people like spine scrappers and blaster that are nothing but AOE? Honestly im sick of nerfs already. The moment you start fixing my characters that aren't broken I stop paying you .
As much as I am the angry Hater of everyone in Virtue, speaking for myself and my small but effective group off associates that I like to have fun with, there is no "fix" for AOE that will make this game any more fun to play.
That's what we want right? Is to have fun? And be our super heroes? By taking away the ability for me to lob a grenade into a group of foes knowing that because of the way I have chosen to enahance it will do more damage than it will accuracy, I will hurt a good number of them, the rest will be missed completely. Or how about my Full Auto gatling gun. As a super hero, I taking out the equivelent of a goon or a henchman... A foot soldier to a ninja turtle, a random gang member to our police departments, an Islam to George Bush. It's something that in theory, is a pest more than it is a battle, even if there are 5 of them and one of you. As a super hero (Not that George Walker is anywhere NEAR a hero.. O.T...) wiping out even level goons should be relatively painless for everyone, even on a quantative level. It is the Shredders, the Magnetos, the bosses and commanders of the groups of bad guys that should present the even match, the challenge, the problem that requires a group of heroes to pool their resources to defeat an archvillian and complete a common goal.
Asking, telling, or demanding to limit a heroes abilities is asking for trouble. Giving evidence and solutions to strengthen your own hero is the "right way" to do this. You think Storm is upset that Wolverine has a metal skeleton and she can only blow puffs of wind and smoke? Do you think Raphael is upset that he's got wimpy sai's and was abused as a young turtle, and Donatello got the long Bo staff and the brains to boot? No, because there are consequences for every possible advantage any weapon or type has, and because they are different, will never be equal. Black will never be white, up will never be down, and that's just the way it needs to be.
Taking away my AOE will just make me whine about how someone cannot kill anyone ever before they die, but single shooters can take out bosses if built up properly by using empowerment of their own, build up, things of that nature..
It's definately an intricate balance, don't get me wrong here. Everyone and everything in this game has its purpose, to work together to accomplish a common goal. Many of the task forces and missions I've been on with large groups, are SOOO FUN because they are finally challenging and rewarding. The Manticore task force comes to mind, SOO hard now with purple crey protectors all over the place, but also VERY FUN and I did my fare share of damage, didn't die because I had a good team of tanks to do tanking, controllers to control things, and things were very well in balance. If one person does more damage, it's because powers were enhanced to do so. If one person hit more, it's because powers were enhanced to do so.
Example - Doing 700 damage with build up and AIM and 6 SO damage enhancements on your Snipe is just fine with me because that's what you made it do. Me doing 100 damage on 10 guys with a grenade still leaves 10 angry agrovated evil doers. Anything less than that would mean it would take me even longer to defeat anything, and it will take them less time to knock me down and raise my insurance deductable.
Point is, leave it as it is, and if anything.. ANYTHING... make the other powers that need to be stronger, not make things weaker..
oh, you know firsthand about fotm builds pre-issue#2? What a wealth of knowledge you must have.
the only time our damage is "sick" is when bu+aim is applied. How it should be.
And post issue 2, even with bu, i cant single alpha strike yellow minions anymore. Gotta clean em up with other aoe/single target attacks.
Posted this on another thread, but maybe it applies here more:
I find the post 30 game very different and tough compared to how it was in the 20's (much less earlier) and then theres issue 2. I REALLY don't want to see any more nerfs or mob adjustments - PLEASE Statesman???
The additional content aspects such as badges were great additions. Might I suggest that Statesman and his team take a very much earned vacation and let the game settle for a while we all try to get a handle on the new aspects of the game? Not all of us AOE types are power gamers, and I for one would like a chance to play without wondering what possible nerf might be preparing to pull the rug out from under me for just a little while longer.
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oh, you know firsthand about fotm builds pre-issue#2? What a wealth of knowledge you must have.
the only time our damage is "sick" is when bu+aim is applied. How it should be.
And post issue 2, even with bu, i cant single alpha strike yellow minions anymore. Gotta clean em up with other aoe/single target attacks.
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bingo.
Besides pop 4 lucks stealth.... bu+aim fire sword circle, fire breath, fire ball, inferno.... +1 mob souflee. If they boost them beyond that everyone will suffer...... Not just blasters. And now that I think about it that's not such a bad thing. Tankers and controllers who struggle to reach a plateau at which they could solo will be snatched right back to pre 30's gaming....
Then we can all be miserable together. 
That's progress.
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While I appreciate what a good tank can do, this is simply never going to be the case. Provoke has a finite area of effect, it you provoke the mobs that are in the back shooting the ones near you will aggro if damage. If you provoke the ones near you the ones shooting will certainly aggro if damage and may simply change targets at random.
Mob behavior makes it impossible for you to provoke everything, and whatever is not provoked can and will aggro on your team mates.
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Yes, provoke has a finite area of effect, but only few roaming enemies really get away from my full agro covering (provoke is not the only tool, combustion and fire sword circle are also area of effect attacks that do provoke), but if i see some one suddenly fal to yellow or lower i target him, auto follow so i can see where he is and see what is hitting him and somehow get agro of that one or ones back.
It is not automatic, but nothing on this game is. It is about knowing to do your job. Also, the blaster should not really go blasting ANYTHING, he should focus on the area the tanker and controlers have already keept in check. The scrapper are the ones that should move arround freely.
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States,
Why is it being viewed as an "issue" to be "solved?"
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How are you NOT viewing it as an issue that needs to be solved?
They'd still be damage-dealers, just not as sick as they are. (Note sig, I know firsthand what I'm talking about) Besides, the current plan is to try to avoid actually nerfing damage anywhere. The boost in mob HPs should be enough to pad the effect... So you're not going to be able to take out swarms of +1 minions in a single alpha strike anymore. You'll still be doing more damage overall.
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if u read the whole post u would understand that right now as is with update 2 live it is a non issue. if u want more in depth info on the subject go back and read some of my posts.
I understand where you are coming from, but think about this:
As a blaster, one single +2 minion=death if end is low.
Yes, one or two get away from your provoke and since a blaster (excepting /Dev) has zero defense they can be dead.
My experience in a group has been that once you see me hit yellow, I am dead before you can engage follow. Keep in mind that my only "defense" is to kill everything before it gets to me. Being one-swatted by a purple tank-killer does not allow for time for heals, etc.
AOEs are as essential to a blaster as Taunt or Provoke is to a Tank. Otherwise, the offensive juggernaut of the team is little more than a gimped defender when it comes to damage output. If you want to, remember what you told the last blaster that used torrent after you aggro'd the group. The last time I did it, the griping went on for the next two mobs of MoBs. Now think of what an AOE would do.........
- End is for noobs! - Board quote
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While I appreciate what a good tank can do, this is simply never going to be the case. Provoke has a finite area of effect, it you provoke the mobs that are in the back shooting the ones near you will aggro if damage. If you provoke the ones near you the ones shooting will certainly aggro if damage and may simply change targets at random.
Mob behavior makes it impossible for you to provoke everything, and whatever is not provoked can and will aggro on your team mates.
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Yes, provoke has a finite area of effect, but only few roaming enemies really get away from my full agro covering (provoke is not the only tool, combustion and fire sword circle are also area of effect attacks that do provoke), but if i see some one suddenly fal to yellow or lower i target him, auto follow so i can see where he is and see what is hitting him and somehow get agro of that one or ones back.
It is not automatic, but nothing on this game is. It is about knowing to do your job. Also, the blaster should not really go blasting ANYTHING, he should focus on the area the tanker and controlers have already keept in check. The scrapper are the ones that should move arround freely.
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speaking of fire sword circle and all that burn tanker crap..
States if you're going to tone me down how about giving me a secondary that works instead of this gimped bag of Fire tanker retreads......
Making mobs tougher, "tweaking AoE..(we know what that means) and leaving blaster secondaries as they are is just plain wrong. It's clear to me that you guys just threw the fire secondary together with no real thought. It's junk. Before now I could get by with it..... but if you guys are making SUBSTANTIAL changes to what the fire blaster can do There needs to be mitagaiting improvements elsewhere. Anyhing that undermines my solo ability (which is predicated on damage) also gimps me for teaming. I've said it before time and time again. who needs a half ***** fire blaster on their team that they need to protect, and who does middiling damage? You'll not only knock solo out of whack for us... but duo's too. If you just have to kill the AoE's please just do away with nukes altogether and give me something useful in return. Increase my single target damage. give me some real support tools... just don't nerf the hell out of us and leave us high and dry. Say what you will but that's exactly what you did to AR/Dev. If you had to nerf
Smoke grenade that badly you could have looked for ways to soften the blow. Like giving devices a build up ability. God knows that taser gun crap wouldnt be missed. Now AoE blasters are in the spot light. after the next round of "fixes" what will be left for AR/DEV? They've already respeced their build, trading offense for defense. theres no slack left. With a new round of reductions they may as well hang up their rifles and go home. I am really beginning to wish you'd never made blasters in the first place. Stronger defenders would have drawn less attention, and people wouldn't be complaining about our level speed or kill ratio. Instead you guys made us what we are. front loaded damage with damn little else. My AoE powers aren't exploits. I didn't overbalance or break them. Keep this in mind when you you guys finally decide to fix things. And for gods sakes let us test the changes on the test server first. Don't stealth nerf us like you did fire tankers.
Why not just give each attack a reasonable damage "pool" with an individual mob ceiling: when you hit mobs it divides pool by mob and makes sure it doesnt go over the ceiling... Seems like this would fix alot and you could still have aoe be uber and hit hard you would just have scale the size of groups to the golden number.
I say just up the XP bonus on Bosses & Lieutenants . Give's single target some reason go after small groups of Bosses & Lieutenants.
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After reading this, I sense the meaning of the word "fix" is similar to what we did to our cat.
I'll have to agree that if they dial down the damage, they better dial down the agro. The only defense we really have is to take down the opponent(s).
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Agro is generated based on damage/status effects, so if there are any changes made to powers the agro effect will change automaticaly.
First, a word of caution. Tankers wanting blaster AoE fixed need to be /very/ careful what they wish for. Controllers wanted Smoke Grenade fixed and they got it along with their own Smoke power getting the same treatment. Fire tankers especially will take a major hit if AoE gets 'fixed' with the same tool that hit SG.
I have to say that overall I lack an understanding of the problem. My main is a blaster, but elec, so no major AoE. I do have a level 10 fire blaster but playing a character to level 10 is not indicative of the game for those power sets.
Anyway I can't quite see what the problem is.
Is it that other archetypes feel they are left with nothing to do when an AoE blaster is in the group? If so I can see wanting to tone down blaster AoE damage when in a group, but that doesn't mean it has to be toned down for solo. They could lower damage based on the size of the player group, rationalizing that you would tone down your abilities to keep from harming your allies. Perhaps reduce the damage done by an AoE attack by 10% for each member in the group other than the AoE blaster, with a cap at a max 50% reduction. /IF/ they did something like this then a corresponding reduction in aggro would be essentual.
Or is the complaint (still) that blasters can solo and are therefore not grouping? Are people so desparate for someone to group with that they want to force someone to group who doesn't want to or isn't able to because of circumstance? How helpful is this resentful person going to be to your group anyway? Now that you have forced this person to group by reducing their damage output do you really want them in the group with an AoE that isn't at all effective?
Also, I want to make one thing clear. Forcing players to group will not get you more players to group with. The player who will /only/ play solo will not group if forced. He will leave the game. The player who groups when he is able and solos when he is not will not group more if forced he will just forego playing when he cannot group or he will also leave the game.
The key to encouraging grouping is not in making soloing less attractive but in making grouping more attractive.