oops double post.
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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...
sigh...it is just another MMO...
it's starting to feel like 'EQ in Tights' around here...
Just let ANY archetype levelup after roughly 6 hours of gameplay doing their own missions SOLO.after the first 1-10 levels (which should stay as fast as they are now), and remove the purple patch and include huge rewards for grouping and taking on higher level/larger mobs.
The powergamers will be happy that they can still tweak and look for 'uber builds' for maximum Team Grouping XP pwnage, and the casual player will be happy they can play their character solo for three hours a night and level every two days, and the Comic Fan will be happy that they can feel like a superhero and NOT some artificially derived support class whatever archetype they choose to play.
But really...the fun is leaving this game...i dont want a another job, I want to log in for three hours, smash badguys stop villains and get a level or so every other day doing it. That's STILL a huge time commitment to most people who play the game.
But instead, my fear is the grind-loving MMO players will get their way, this will be EQ in tights, and someday in the distant future I'll log in and there will be people crafting their team-mates superarmor into perfection who dont fight crime, and arent actually doing anything superheroic themselves.
yay. what fun.
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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.
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Thanks for the reply Statesman. To raise a point though, you tell us to go to a Hazard Zone - well, we'd love to! Problem is, we often have a friend SKed to us as we have a pretty tight SG, and people often try a new class. So no Hazard Zones for us! So your suggestion kind of hits a brick wall right there. Any chance of removing the level caps on Hazard Zones so your suggestion actually applies in the real world? (and I don't mean that in a nasty way)
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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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Statesman please... I know you know what penalty we're talking about because you're quoting from some of posts that discuss them. IT IS THE PURPLE PATCH. Currently I can team with 3 other people and we can take on mobs that are 3 and 4 levels above us IN THE TRIAL ZONES. If we add more people to the group, up to 8, we can still only fight mobs that are 3-4 levels above us because anything above that and our ACC and effects drop to nothing. Therefore since we're already at max XP rate with 4 people and fighting the toughest mobs we can fight in the largest spawns we can find them in, adding 4 more results in an XP rate drop.
Does that explain the "penalty?"
Now, if your answer is that we shouldn't be able to handle trial zone spawns of mobs that are 4+ above us, and that the changes to the game to make upper levels harder is the fix, I can accept that. But then you have to accept the fact that currently as the game stands, you do not want to have large groups.
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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).
Statesman, you've said a lot about "this is how the game was designed to be played, but THIS is how players are actually doing it."
So why don't you take into account that players DON'T play the game how it's intended, and rework the game to be better how people actually play it? For example, you said that you want people to travel in packs to a contact, select a mission, get ambushed as a pack (if there's an ambush), and then travel as a group to the mission door, fighting anything that blinks at them along the way.
That's an unrealistic expectation.
Instead, players split up after leaving a mission, hit their contacts, and then reconvene at the misison door, ready to enter it and have fun inside.
Why not build the game so that THAT is the epxected playstyle?
Build ambushes so that they accept that a player might be in a group, and yet not be anywhere near his groupmates.
Build mission objectives and rewards so that they either reward the player under the assumption that he's done nothing other than enter the mission door and clear it, or that requires that they kill X number of enemies outside the mission as well.
I don't know, maybe the WoW stress test has spoiled me, but in that game you get a fraction of your XP from defeating enemies, the vast majority of your XP comes from actually compleing your mission objectives. I think that would do wonders for CoH. Decrease the XP gained per enemy, but multiply the end of mission rewards by a factor of ten or more.
Missions are fun. Random "street sweeping", no matter how you gussy it up, is just drudgery.
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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!).
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HAHA are you serious?! The Rikti have NEVER been push overs States!!! WHY were they ever touched?? They are always a challenge and I'd see already equal to the carnies and such. Granted the Nemesis needed a bump in difficulty, but not the Riks.
Seriously, the changes to the Rikti have now made them go from good challenges to avoid at all costs foes. You do realize that the boss class soliders can kill ANY -1 AT (except tanks) with ONE hit of their melee attack??
This is the number one reason the respec trial 44-50 is having such a high failure rate. THink about it.
The Riks were always a tough gang, but now they are sickly hard and NOT worth the risk. You can still take on ANY other group with less risk than these now. NO other gang set (minion to boss) can kill in one hit. SUre, some get close- but death is NOT certain.
I play a regen scrapper, level 50, Rikti are THE new ******* gang.
I really hope you review the changes made to them. Keep the changes to the non boss class, but scale back what you have done to boss damage.
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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.
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I agree that this could probably be made up for by larger spawns but as it sits now it's not really practical. The differences in level and the no sk in the trial zones make getting our group to level appropriate trial zone unrealistic. It's easier to just decrease the group size and stay in the all levels can access this zone areas. We also run multiple groups out of our group as a way of getting around large group xp woes. We like to play as a group. Trial zones don't do a good job of facilitating this. Missions and general access areas do. We decided mission xp was poor quite a while ago and that really only leaves one option (I'm aware this is changing and I'm looking forward to going back to missions as a viable source of good xp).
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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!).
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HAHA are you serious?! The Rikti have NEVER been push overs States!!! WHY were they ever touched?? They are always a challenge and I'd see already equal to the carnies and such.
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They were never a problem to my Controller. I like them, they're nice and crunchy and sometimes bring in more mobs to fight. Yay.
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Oh - low level trials - Sewers (upper). Faultline.
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Ok, I guess I haven't explored these areas enough. I poked around a little bit in the upper sewers one day for kicks and saw many small spawns but nothing that big. I was probably just in the wrong area.
I was in a trio in Faultline once a couple of months ago on a CoT hunt mission. I thought this was just another hazard area. My mistake. Street sweeping isn't my thing, though, which is why I haven't really spent any time there (just wandered into TV for the first time too). My preference is for missions, truth be told. The new mission rewards should be a nice bonus.
[url="http://tinyurl.com/4ylgy"]The Wanderers[/url] of Virtue
We farm fun!
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I don't know, maybe the WoW stress test has spoiled me, but in that game you get a fraction of your XP from defeating enemies, the vast majority of your XP comes from actually compleing your mission objectives. I think that would do wonders for CoH. Decrease the XP gained per enemy, but multiply the end of mission rewards by a factor of ten or more.
Missions are fun. Random "street sweeping", no matter how you gussy it up, is just drudgery.
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Excellent suggestion! I love missions, hate street sweeping.
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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.
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I have a suggestion just for missions that I hope you'll consider. Right now my regular group consists of 2 level 38 guys, a level 37, a 36 and me, a level 33. When we do missions we only want the level 38 guys to get them because we're hoping for harder villians to fight. However, even some of their missions lead to villians that are to low and to few to offer us a challenge. It would be nice if everyone in our group could get a mission that would be challenging.
So my proposal, which I like to think is simple..and simple is good. For missions please grab the highest level guy in the group. So in our group that would be 38 and add 2. Make all of the villians in the mission level 39 - 41. Scale the size based on how many people we have in there. I've played with a point system. So minions are 1, lts. 2, and bosses count 3. For each hero you want a score of 3. So if we had 4 heros you'd want villian groups worth 12 points. So in this theoretical mission we could run across group of 12 minions level 39-41. Or even 4 bosses level 39-41. Or a mixture...say 2 bosses, 1 lts, and 3 minions all level 39-41.
I believe this would make the missions hard and the xp would be great. Well maybe not great, but good! Also with tough groups like this I think the other archtypes would be needed more. I'd want a tank along, a controller, a defender, and definitely some firepower.
I haven't completely thought this through to the point where I've considered every level range and every group size. Again though I think is a fairly simple algorithm for mission composition that would make for a more challenging game and better xp in missions. It would also allow everyone in the group to get a mission instead of just the higher level guys.
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The most base level of balance is that 3 minions=1 hero.
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And this is why the whole system breaks down.
If all the characters only did single target damage/effects/etc then you can have this kind of linear balance. Once you throw AOEs into the mix each team members adds an exponetial increase in power to the group, espesially when you get synergies of powers involved.
Synergies like AOE hold + AOE damage = kill as many in an area as you can fit. Couple this with the phyics/jump bug and you have a duo that cant be challenged by any number of white cons.
Another synergy is Res+Def + AOE damage. A fire tank or tanks with good AOE attacks(fire sword circle) can do this all by themselves, as can many high level scrappers.
And now we see why they so wanted the purple patch, it caps out the top end of a broken system. Now the hard part... what to do with AOEs and or white cons?
Some ideas I have seen:
AOE powers have a max damage cap. IE A fireball that does 100 damage to a white con with no fire resist, and has a cap of 300. (back to the whole 1 hero = 3 whites)
if you hit 300 mobs they all take 1 point of damage, 30 mobs = 10, 3 mobs = 100 each. Perfectly scaled AOE damage that you can predict the power of any hero that uses it.
This would cause anybody with an AOE power to cry non stop for many many weeks. It also requires a massive bump to exp for white cons, or a much more linear exp scale of heroes to keep the current exp rate.
_______OR_____________
A sliding scale fits better with how the end game currently works and gives a better sense of "super hero"
1 level 1-11 hero = 3 white minions, 1 yellow
1 level 12-21 hero = 6 white minions , 2 yellow, 1 orange
1 level 22-30 hero = 12 white minions, 4 yellow, 2 orange, 1 red
1 level 30-40 hero = 24 white minions or 8 yellow or 4 orange or 2 red or 1 purple.
1 level 41-50 hero = 48 white minions or 16 yellow or 8 orange or 4 red or 2 purple.
Some powers would still have to be tweeked to match this. We also need to factor time into the above scale. 3 whites seems like it should be a 30 second fight at say level 10, so all the above should happen every 30-60 seconds.
Because the game does not really support so many spawns you now need to remove the purple patch so the exp/min time of 2 red minions = 24 minions. This gives more of a sense of Super hero because you can do more than you ever could before when you level and slot things up. It also better matches the exp rates we see today with the AOE builds that feed on mass amounts of white cons solo.
Solo ability should be defined as a modifier to the above scale. Scrappers and blasters have no modifications.
Tanks, defenders and controllers have an increase in time solo, so instead of 30 seconds it becomes 60 seconds when solo, but in a group with damage dealers they increase the number of mobs by one member when they are matched up with a damage dealer.
So a level 41 blaster with a level 41 controller should be able to take out 6 purples every 30 seconds.
2 level 41 blasters should be able to take out 4 purples every 30 seconds.
1 level 41 blaster + 2 level 41 controllers = 8 purples (limited by lack of damage)
2 level 41 blasters + 2 level 41 controllers = 12 purples (perfectly balanced team)
So with the group bonus and the support powers tweaked up in some cases you now have a good reason to group with the support classes. This would be the basis for all further nerfs and changes to powers. If some blaster at level 41 can solo 1000 mobs, tweak the mobs or tweek the blaster to bring them back to 48.
Something that I also see as broken... exp for a level 14 white 5th column is the same exp as a level 14 white vahz. We all love to kill 5th because relative to many other mobs they are easier. Each mob needs a system much closer to 3rd edition D&D that bumps up the exp value based on powers and how hard it is to kill and or survive a fight. A mob that can chain hold you is much more of a pain than a mob that does only melee punch damage. The chain holder should be worth X2 or X3 the exp of the same level puncher.
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SO you are having no problem on the test server controlling 3 bosses that +2 levels to you? All of which can kill your wee controller *** in ONE hit?
Yeah- i guess you have range, so you can hang back a bit. But for scrappers and tankers, melee is life... and those Riks, in their current state, are ENDING that life.
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Or, is it just too easy for the very vocal 1% min/maxers that post on these forums?
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Heh, I'm no where near a min/max kind of player and with my lvl 31 DM/Regen scrapper I'm finding that street sweeping larger than apparently planned groups solo isn't all that hard. I'm getting pretty good at judging what my limits are. I know that 'cause for large fights my end bar completely runs out and toggles drop about the time I'm working on the last one or two minions that are left in the group.
I was doing this last night in Brickstown. I have a number of 5th street sweep missions coming up, which is fine 'cause I get a kick out of knocking them around, but at the same time I'm beating on Freaks, and Crey I run into as well if I can't find any 5th while running around.
And door missions? The first few times you run into a new mob type it's a little harry as you (er I mean I, me? 
) have to figure out what the heck it is they do. But, Rikti? Owned me at first, now......I sometimes just round up close groups and take them on at once.
Of course I use powers that others seem to think are gimped.
Teleport Foe is one of my favorites.
I use Flurry as a filler while waiting for the 'power 3' that I have to recycle. I don't have the fitness line in this build but ya, I'm going to cave and add it in after a respec. *shrug* Some things are good to have. 
I guess my point is, it does get easier at upper levels. Too easy. I love to solo, it's got nothing really to do with being anti social as it's a challenge. But....I do miss doing those 8 man team door missions where, one wrong move and all hell can break loose, but....if everyone focuses and with a lucky roll or two and a group can survive.
Blah, I'm blathering without a point I think. And it's time to go home.
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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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No, they can't. I'm assuming you mean a well-balanced group and not a group of Blasters or Scrappers.
Solo ability stacks up differently by AT:
Scrapper or Blaster - There is simply no way a well balanced group can earn as much exp as one of these classes can alone.
Tanks, Defenders - Perhaps a well-balanced group can beat these guys, but that's mostly because of the presence of the damage dealers noted above.
Controllers - Pre-pet, sure a group can own them. Post-pet. For fire and illusion there is no way. That will probably change after the nerf.
I play a Scrapper, and I'm very happy right now, but I can tell you that I group only for company, not to get more exp. The most efficient way for me to exp is to street sweep solo. There is simply no way that having a group can increase my exp. None. I do missions, even though they suck for exp, for fun, and I group to do task forces for fun. I'm not complaining, but honestly, your assesment does not reflect the truth of the situation.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
Also, if city zones are supposed to be scaled back some for smaller groups of heroes in comparison to larger groups in hazard zones... why then does Peregrine foster more 7+ groups of baddies than groups of 3???
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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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But in order to do that at high lvl you have to be in the crash site, where you have 2 full zones to cross before you can sell your hancers. And that is such a waste of time that no one want to go there.
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HAHA are you serious?! The Rikti have NEVER been push overs States!!! WHY were they ever touched?? They are always a challenge and I'd see already equal to the carnies and such. Granted the Nemesis needed a bump in difficulty, but not the Riks.
Seriously, the changes to the Rikti have now made them go from good challenges to avoid at all costs foes. You do realize that the boss class soliders can kill ANY -1 AT (except tanks) with ONE hit of their melee attack??
This is the number one reason the respec trial 44-50 is having such a high failure rate. THink about it.
The Riks were always a tough gang, but now they are sickly hard and NOT worth the risk. You can still take on ANY other group with less risk than these now. NO other gang set (minion to boss) can kill in one hit. SUre, some get close- but death is NOT certain.
I play a regen scrapper, level 50, Rikti are THE new ******* gang.
I really hope you review the changes made to them. Keep the changes to the non boss class, but scale back what you have done to boss damage.
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Actually, he's right...rikti are pushovers. It's about tactics folks, using your brains, just like with any other type of villian group. 1 - Guardians 2 - Communication Officers 3 - Mentallists and then down the line with bosses & lts and further down. And I know of what I speak. Rikti are candy and I solo in Rikti Crash site. Not everyone can solo like a DM/Regen...I know this, but the tactics are the same for any duo or higher group that knows wtf they're doing.
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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.
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Considering that you've already stated that you don't want forced grouping in this game, may I humbly suggest that you solve that problem by buffing up those AT's to make them more viable in all situations? Including solo play, and not just at post-32?
You already have a fine game that breaks new ground in the MMORPG field. I have seen many people come here and make suggestions that basically reversed that - suggestions that the game become MORE like the Fantasy MMORPGs of your competitors.
I don't believe this to be a good idea. Through marketing and word of mouth you have brought in MANY new people who have never played a MMORPG before but are big-time comic fans. I think it would be a better idea to move this game MORE like the comics it derives from, not less.
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Trial zones aren't worth the hassle. There are three problems.
1) Selling enhancements.
2) No hospitals.
3) Because of points 1 and 2, finding a team is hard.
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1. Does influence even matter after the mid 20's? I'd take a good XP stream over influence in a heartbeat. So would most gamers which is why Portal farming is so popular. Don't see many toons in there complaining they need to sell.
2. Bring a defender with a rez or buy some awakens. It actually encourages defenders to take their rez power which I see very few doing now.
3. Finding a team is hard because everyone thinks XP is better solo or in a small group. If that perception is broken, it will be much easier to find a team. Just advertise that you have a CoT portal mission and see how easy it is to find teammates. People will flock to the hazard teams if there is really a better XP stream there.
I agree that the hazard zones are under-used right now but these points aren't the problem. The causes are more side-kicking, boss xp vs. difficulty and the inefficiency of some pick-up teams.
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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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I have never, ever heard of a trial in faultline. Not from any of the hundreds of players I have played with at all levels of this game. I think this may be the first mention of a trial in faultline in the history of CoH.
I got the sewer trial. I even completed it once. It is a timed mission. Mobs stop spawning once you defeat the blob at the bottom or the timer runs out. Are you honestly proposing that players must kill 150 Rikti everytime they want a challenge?
I typed up yet another explanation that yet again refutes what you believe should be happening with what is actually happening. I cleared that out. You REALLY need to reread the 10 or so posts that explain the group xp penalty.
You have just made it apparent that you have no clue how your game actually works on the live servers. You keep repeating "Find bigger spawns" without realizing that a team of 4 is fighting the exact same spawns (level and number of mobs) that an 8 person team is, only getting a crapton more xp for it. You keep poopooing the purple patch for causing this, without realizing that the purple patch is why it is happening.
The purple patch capped the level of mobs that a team can fight. Your very own game systems capped the spawn size a team can fight. 4 people or 8, the spawns are identical in a hazard zone.
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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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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?
Right now nemisis is the _only_ thing my energy / energy blaster can solo at all, and we are not talking groups of 10+ we are talking about the small even lvl groups of 3 or 4 nemisis.
What should I do once update 2 goes live with stuns allover the game?
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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.
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Trial zones aren't worth the hassle. There are three problems.
1) Selling enhancements. Just put one trainer guy at the front gate who will buy enhancements. Having to run out, find a store, and run back in is an annoying waste of time. This is *especially* true if you're on a team that is trying to hunt challenging mobs. Do you really want to be the guy who says "yeah, that's a challenging group of mobs, but hold on a minute, I need to go sell enhancements".
2) No hospitals. Whay can't there be a triage tent at the front? Maybe not for things like the Issue 2 tunnels, but most zones could have this.
A lot of us stop thinking about trial zones after Boomtown. If you die in Boomtown you spawn at the hospital in Steel Canyon. At the *other end* of Steel Canyon. Your team has to wait a long time for you to get back, or else find a weaker hunting groud for awhile.
3) Because of points 1 and 2, finding a team is hard.
None of these things are horrible. They're just annoying enough that people think "why bother, it's easier just to hunt around here". They don't complain, they don't even realize they've made the decision, they just choose regular zones a little more often than they would otherwise.
Hazzard zones are just more annoying than they have to be. With no triage tent and no store of any kind, you spend enough time running around to make them less worth the effort.