Guys, this whole thread is much ado about nothing. It's all based on semantics and the connotations of the word "minion."
Here's the way I see it. Within the game structure, "minion" has two different meanings.
1.) Minion means "enemies of low power level. Weak enemies. Easily dispatched enemies."
2.) Minion means "enemies who are low on the totem pole of the particular organization." This definition takes no account of power level, except insofar as that power level is relative to OTHER people in the same organization.
The people who have a problem with what Statesman has said seem to think of this issue more in terms of the FIRST definition. Statesman seems to be thinking about it in terms of the SECOND definition.
Thus, we can all be saying "minions", but we're talking about two different things.
Personally, I view "minion" as a relative term based on organizational structure, irrespective of the power of that minion. A Hellion "minion" means that the Hellion is low on the totem pole of the Hellion organization. He takes his orders from Damned and Fallen. By the same token, a Crey Medic is a "minion" in the Crey organization. But the two have VASTLY different abilities and power ratings.
Some folks here have said "Hey, a minion is a minion is a minion. They're dispatchable goons. Why should a Crey scientist in a lab coat be able to punch me for heavy damage? All they're doing is punching for pete's sake."
Well, consider this. Let's say a Crey Medic runs up to a level 14 toon and punches him. Most likely, this is a one or two shot death, yes? Why? Because the Crey Medic is many many combat levels above the level 14 hero.
But what does a "combat level" mean? Why should ANYONE's single punch (especially some dinky scientist) hit so hard? Well, perhaps the Crey Medic has been specially enhanced with Crey pharmaceuticals that have increased his muscle density to the point where, although his biceps only measure roughly at the same level of a 14 year old computer geek's, they are the functional equivalent of Mike Tyson. Maybe THAT's why Crey are so deadly -- they LOOK harmless, but man, do they pack a punch.
Now, by the time you're even con with the Crey guy, he can hit you, and you shake it off AS IF he was a mere street-punk Hellion punching you. Except that he's NOT. If a street punk still could hurt you, then when that Crey guy hit you, you'd be flatlined.
Now, part of the problem in the game is that the STRUCTURE of encounters is identical regardless of level. You'll still run into the same three white cons as you progress in levels, so, it doesn't really matter to players what their special powers are, or that they've received vampyre blood to give them superhuman abilities, or that they've gotten high tech government weapons to fight you or whatever. PRACTICALLY speaking, they're still the same three white cons you've been fighting all game long.
THAT's the part that gets old to people and THAT's the part that's sucking them out of the comic book experience. It's not that the minions we face in high levels aren't an appropriate challenge or don't have a background that explains why they're more powerful than your average street punk.
The problem is that the encounters throughout the game are pretty much identical FUNCTIONALLY speaking. Every battle you fight ends up being a variation on the "three white cons" battle.
So, to me, it's not so much the problem being that white con minions should be easy to kill or not, it's that by level X I've been killing white con minions THE WHOLE FRIGGIN GAME and I'm bored with it.
So, on the one hand, there's an issue with how people define "minion" as a power level thing, and on the other, there's an issue with the variety of the encounters we face.
Now, here's a suggestion.
Right now, in the game, due to the zone system, we RARELY encounter anything that's seriously higher than us. Aside from ambushes, we don't really see mobs that are all THAT much higher than us.
When I'm fighting Hellions in Atlas Park, I NEVER see Tsoo or Outcast guys go running by. Thus, I NEVER have a feeling of "Holy crap! Those guys are POWERFUL! I don't CARE that it says 'minion' above their heads, they'd eat me alive!" Likewise, when we're high level, we get no reward (aside from a warm fuzzy) and have no encounters with mobs that are considerably weaker than us.
So, the solution to this, to me at least, seems to be that we need more variety in what we encounter in the game. If you pretty much encounter zones of mobs that are all roughly the same level as you for the entirety of the game, you're not going to APPRECIATE the difference in power levels.
THAT, Statesman, is why people are saying a minion is a minion is a minion. They have no appreciation for the difference in power levels BETWEEN the minions they fought early on and the minions they fight now, because ALL they've been doing is fighting gradually scaling minions over time. The powers look different, but functionally, it's the same three guys.
To my way of thinking, more varied encounters would help. More situations where a pack of level 25 Rikti monkeys come running through a supposedly low-level zone like Perez Park would enhance people's appreciation of the difference in power. Whereas, at level 8, when you first see those monkeys, you KNOW they'll tear you apart, by the time you're level 22, you know you can get some buddies together and take 'em on. Thus, you APPRECIATE the difference in power.
Likewise, when you're level 22, and you've been fighting mobs for a while, having some back-loaded missions with greens or even greys at the front for you to clear out quickly, THEN get to a TOUGH mob at the end, that would help you appreciate the difference in power levels.
So, consider this. Let's assume that your base XP rate for a mission is 500XP (random number) for a single player. That 500XP can be made up any way. It could be 500 1XP grey minions, or it could be one 500XP AV. Obviously, it won't be either of those two extremes, but that's the range you have to work with. The trick to keeping the game fresh and fun, therefore, would be in VARYING the way that 500XP mission plays out, but still keeping it within the player's power abilities. Obviously, a 500XP AV would be too much to solo. Likewise, 500 1XP goons would get BORING after a while. But what if you divide things up so that you've got one 100XP Boss at the end, four 50XP LTs, and then 30 6.66XP minions to fight? You'd chew through the minions quickly, be challenged by the LTs, and have a SERIOUS fight on your hands with the boss. Or something like that. Basically, vary things up. On another mission, sure, you'd run into the same 3 white cons, but on a different one, they'd be 6 green cons and a yellow LT. On still another mission, it'd be two orange LTs. Essentially, randomize the placement of mobs on a wider scale, but have XP and challenge caps. IE: you can't go below or above a certain challenge level for mobs, nor can you go below or above a certain XP amount for each mob. But within those ranges, you try to keep things as varied as possible.
You COULD even include certain story arc missions where you have to go up against a bunch of low-level thugs that CAN be easily dispatched and that'd give you no XP for the kill, but at the "mission complete" you give out the same 500XP reward. That's another way to reinforce the super feeling of being a superhero. Sure, the bad guys posed no problem to you, but finding that key piece of evidence is worth a LOT to you in your ultimate goal to stop [insert nefarious plot here.]
I would make the case that since COH is an effort to replicate the look, feel and touch of the comics, it shouldn't be a challenge except when going up against arch-villans and in other rare circumstances.
In my opinion, as a "Super Hero", it is much more true to the comics when I can wade into a MOB and wipe them out relatively easily.
One of the ideas that I have is that big, difficult bosses would randomly appear during a fight as if arriving on the seen when the heroe is seemingly overmatched and then a huge, unsure outcome fight begins. This would add suspense to every fight.
I don't mean to offend the DEVS here, but I hope that you will take lessons from past games when making changes to the basic principles of a game post launch. Case in point nearly every MMORPG has suffered in lost subscriptions due to making drastic changes in a an effort to "balance" the game.
Devs need to understand human psychology and mans inherent resistance to change. When that game is released and deemed and success and "fun", evidenced by large amounts of subscriptions, it is imperative that the devs endeavor to "manage" those expectations by adding to the game and making improvments while taking care not to mess with the inherent properties that make the game fun for people.
This historically has not been the case. SWG, Asherons Call I and II and others have suffered from large subscription cancellations because they changed the basic feel of the game that made it fun and attractive for the players at the beginning.
Add content all you want, add new features that help the player advance all you want, but take lessons from past games and don't drastically change the powers that heroes have, forcing them to alter their play style.
We are human, we don't want it different, we like our powers and abilities as they are. "nerfing" them in an effort to create balance just frustrates us.
Huge Midget
level 27 Science Blaster
Leader of the Knights on T.U.L.I.P's Crusade.
Liberty
Ape thinks that one very primary hang-up here is due to definition of 'Minion'. It means puny for Ape to squash. But I love idea of fear of death being in game again; yes challenge all apefriends.
Clearly ltns and some bosses should be boosted a bit. Also, is it not possible to have an equivalent of 'Sargent' class. Gradually replace minions with sargents as the lower class mobs as Apefriends rise in lvl. They be a lot tougher than the minions with them but less than ltns.
But may it not possible and Ape just insane. Thanks friends.
Edit: oops silly ape said what others already did sorry
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I would make the case that since COH is an effort to replicate the look, feel and touch of the comics, it shouldn't be a challenge excpet when going up against arch-villans and in other rare circumstances.
In my opinion, as a "Super Hero", it is much more true to the comics when I can wade into a MOB and wipe them out relatively easily.
One of the ideas that I have is that big, difficult bosses would randomly appear during a fight as if arriving on the seen when the heroe is seemingly overmatched and then a huge, unsure outcome fight begins . This would add suspense to every fight.
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Now THAT is a great idea! You wade your way through punks and goons (read: minions) and take down a tough/annoying Lieutenant or two and then suddenly *BLAMMO!!* Some big guy (mean looking Boss) with a real attitude (hired out of town talent perhaps?) comes at you from nowhere (read: triggered ambush) and starts laying into you!!
Ahh to dream a little dream... Dev's are you taking notes? Variety and elements of suprise could add a great deal to missions and help keep things fresh. 
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Here's the way I see it. Within the game structure, "minion" has two different meanings.
1.) Minion means "enemies of low power level. Weak enemies. Easily dispatched enemies."
2.) Minion means "enemies who are low on the totem pole of the particular organization." This definition takes no account of power level, except insofar as that power level is relative to OTHER people in the same organization.
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Very well put!!!!
Yes Solo has broken the problem down quite clearly for us. There is indeed 2 conflicting points of view here. I am a firm believer that minions should be weak canon fodder, while Statesman's vision apparently lies in option 2... 
My problem with option 2, minions being the low rung within an organization, is that NOTHING will ever change in the feel of gameplay. By this I mean, no matter what level I attain, no matter how experienced I become, no matter how many new skills/abilities I have under my belt.... those same three pesky white con minions are going to be the SAME challenge as when I was level 5... And that will make the game feel static!
What does that mean, exactly? Well it means that I will never truly feel like a SUPER hero.... I will never feel like I'm becoming more then a fledgling hero...
I'm all for Lieuts and Bosses scaling at a constant rate so that they provide the same challenge, regardless of level. But damnit I want some cheese factor when it comes to minions... I want to lay the smackdown on 6 or even 8 even con minions at level 45, so that citizens can say "WOW! Now THAT is a hero!".
Unfortunately... if the Dev's go ahead with their "vision" I will lose that sense of achievement. Taking 3 minions on is just not MY idea of what a hero can do... Doing a Spiderman in a dark rain swept alley, while saving MJ from a BUNCH of thugs.. that is what a comic style superhero is supposed to be....
QF
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Yes Solo has broken the problem down quite clearly for us. There is indeed 2 conflicting points of view here. I am a firm believer that minions should be weak canon fodder, while Statesman's vision apparently lies in option 2...
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Okay so solution. After 22 we no longer call them minions. They will be Lieutenants, Captians and Bosses and since we are now level 25 or whatever we can blow through minions, but since they are so easy, why bother hitting them at all? but 3 lieutenants should be a challenge?? Would that make it feel better?? Just trying to get a better understanding here of your side.
It is simply changing the name.....I can not get hung up on a name, but thats only my opinion.
It's not everyone's view of building a character. If level 40 minions were just upgraded hellions you may be right, but they aren't. They have more resistances, more abilities and are much tougher then a hellion if it was level 40. As I leveled up I expect that which was hard to be easier. Hey, I couldn't defeat rikti two levels ago, but I can now! That's progress. Color is used to determine the challenge relative to your level, not your progress as a hero.
I just don't see how they will hammer everything down into the same range of difficulty. Each character is designed differently. Different player skill levels exist. Some builds are better than others. The kinds of challenges people seek are different based on what they want.
Currently, it is possible to satisfy most of these issues except that some archetypes feel un-needed. I think the purple patch killed this. Before the purple patch, it was totally possible to "build your own challenge" so that support classes were needed. Who cares if a group is fighting 20 purples? The devs didn't like it so now we have all these woes.
I have an unusual build, sort of. I have a Super Reflexes scrapper with Dark as primary but I am a Speedster so I havent and wont take any of the Dark Melee attacks except the first 3. In many ways this makes me gimped (cant drain life, cant drain end, cant boost power or entangle foes) but on the other hand I have plenty of slots for defense. I started out able to take on 3 or 4 minions but by the mid teens I could fight a pack of 6-10 whites with a LT in there and now that I'm level 26 I can fight packs of 10-15 whites, and have taken on as many as 20 at once. It is a heck of a lot of fun, can be pretty risky, and takes a while, but I dig it.
I bring this up because my gravity controller (level 17) can barely take on 1 white minion, and it takes forever. My level 18 Fire Blaster can take on 10 yellow minions. My tanker can tank 15 guys and doesnt have to run but it takes a LONG time to fight them. I have a friend with a scrapper that is so poorly built that he plays like my tanker on kill rate and takes a hit like my scrapper with his toggles off.
Before the purple patch, there was room for all these play styles. Now with the purple patch the control types feel useless in big groups because they aren't needed. (For the record, I love to duo with a Tanker or Controller or Defender, and they help a lot. I don't like big groups personally).
As another poster stated, if support classes are required, everyone else must be made group dependent. Combining that with the idea that everyone will be shoved into the same performance bubble (3 whites = doable, 5+ = uh oh) then how in the world are all these disparate play styles going to be supported?
The answer may be that player variety will go away. I have at least 1 character of each AT and enjoy all of them. I can't see staying interested in them in the new proposed environment.
I could see revoking the purple patch. I could see mission difficulty sliders so that a group can generate their own +4 mission or more if they could handle it. But shoving everyone into the same bubble of performance and mutual dependence is going to ruin (for me) the magic of the game.
Finally, on the whole "level 40 minion" thing, count me in on the camp that would view 3 level 40 minions as no progression if its as hard to fight them as 3 level 4 minions. I mean right now I can take on 15 whites or more if I'm on the ball and prepared and I use my inspirations, my environment, and my wits to the max. It is exciting. And I'm supposed to be excited by being shoved down to fighting 3 minions?
Thanks but no thanks. I play this game because it ISN'T EverQuest. While it would still be better than EQ (where 1 blue is a challenge), it would kill the appeal of being a Super Hero. That is what I feel like now with my characters (even my controllers and defenders).
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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Yes Solo has broken the problem down quite clearly for us. There is indeed 2 conflicting points of view here. I am a firm believer that minions should be weak canon fodder, while Statesman's vision apparently lies in option 2...
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Okay so solution. After 22 we no longer call them minions. They will be Lieutenants, Captians and Bosses and since we are now level 25 or whatever we can blow through minions, but since they are so easy, why bother hitting them at all? but 3 lieutenants should be a challenge?? Would that make it feel better?? Just trying to get a better understanding here of your side.
It is simply changing the name.....I can not get hung up on a name, but thats only my opinion.
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I was going to say something similar...
level 1-10, call them "Peons"
level 11-20, call them "Minions"
level 21-35, call them "Foot Soldiers"
level 36-50, call them "Bad-**s Mo-Fos"
I think people might complain less if 3 "Bad-**s Mo-Fos" was the standard.
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It's not everyone's view of building a character. If level 40 minions were just upgraded hellions you may be right, but they aren't. They have more resistances, more abilities and are much tougher then a hellion if it was level 40. As I leveled up I expect that which was hard to be easier. Hey, I couldn't defeat rikti two levels ago, but I can now! That's progress. Color is used to determine the challenge relative to your level, not your progress as a hero.
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Bs.... the late game is filled with minions that are just everyday people. Would batman get his *** kicked by 4 scientest? or 4 riot guards with night sticks?..... Here's the other problem. 5th coloum nazi's.... they exisist in the early game, they exist in the late game. So a level 38 nazi minion IS just a boosted up level 10 minion. allowing 3 of them to almost best an equal con hero can only mean one thing. The hero gained more powers, hit points, and slots but did not become quantitatively better as he progressed in level. Taking into account the high number of XP needed to level post 30, it means you've worked twice as hard to stay in the same place.
Hard to admit that it is true but, damn it is fun to take my scrapper out and take down 12 yellow minions in one fight solo. It DOES make me feel more powerful. Personally I would like to see them keep a bit of this, just not as much as they have now. I high level character taking down more minions is just immediate gratification and an absolute feeling of being more powerful.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
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Yes Solo has broken the problem down quite clearly for us. There is indeed 2 conflicting points of view here. I am a firm believer that minions should be weak canon fodder, while Statesman's vision apparently lies in option 2...
My problem with option 2, minions being the low rung within an organization, is that NOTHING will ever change in the feel of gameplay. By this I mean, no matter what level I attain, no matter how experienced I become, no matter how many new skills/abilities I have under my belt.... those same three pesky white con minions are going to be the SAME challenge as when I was level 5... And that will make the game feel static!
What does that mean, exactly? Well it means that I will never truly feel like a SUPER hero.... I will never feel like I'm becoming more then a fledgling hero...
I'm all for Lieuts and Bosses scaling at a constant rate so that they provide the same challenge, regardless of level. But damnit I want some cheese factor when it comes to minions... I want to lay the smackdown on 6 or even 8 even con minions at level 45, so that citizens can say "WOW! Now THAT is a hero!".
Unfortunately... if the Dev's go ahead with their "vision" I will lose that sense of achievement. Taking 3 minions on is just not MY idea of what a hero can do... Doing a Spiderman in a dark rain swept alley, while saving MJ from a BUNCH of thugs.. that is what a comic style superhero is supposed to be....
QF
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See, that's why I think varying the encounters will help. Instead of nothing but the same three even level cons, leave the level/con system alone, but vary WHO you're fighting in your missions. Sometimes it's even con guys, sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's considerably lower. This way you can HAVE that experience where finishing the mission requires you to beat up on cannon fodder.
All that said, there is, I think, another underlying issue with the game that CANNOT be avoided, even to make the game more comic book like. This is the fundamental tension between risk and reward. Statesman has a particular view in mind of this, and the players have a different view.
The unspoken part of this discussion lies, I beleive, in the XP values of mobs. For example, you could have the experience of pounding on low level thugs in Atlas Park to your heart's content if you want a true "I'm Batman" experience. Trouble is, pounding on random thugs generates no reward aside from the pleasure you feel at pounding on low-level thugs and saving computerized NPCs from being mugged. When people respond with "Well, just go hunt in Atlas if you want to feel like a bada$$," the unspoken response to that is "No way. I won't get any XP from that."
The devs can't give you XP and they don't want to bring in loot, and even if they let you get enhancement drops from guys this low, people would want more of a reward than the 40 influence they get. Plus, the devs don't want people farming influence to buy SO/DOs and make the UPPER end game even easier.
So, there's no incentive aside from your own superheroic instincts to punish crime that doesn't reward you in the form of XP or drops. This, I think, is something that the players will have to reconcile with themselves and just accept.
It is unreasonable to expect to gain rewarding XP from an easy fight. Plain and simple. If you're getting decent XP, the fight should be challenging. Remember, XP stands for EXPERIENCE points. What type of valuable experience and lessons do you learn from fighting guys that pose no challenge to you? Yet, players want to go up against someone who is supposedly a match for their own skills, defeat them, and continue to be rewarded. And that's just unrealistic. You can't expect game developers to do that, and god forbid they ever do. There HAS to be risk to obtain reward. Taking on a sufficiently tough challenge should yield a high reward, but taking on a guy who poses no real challenge to you (or six of said guys) should not yield a real reward. In other words, you can't expect to go up against six guys who pose no challenge but are NOMINALLY a match for your skills and expect to get good XP.
Now, all that aside, I think that this problem can be resolved by varying the spawns we run into. In missions, I think this can be done by having a randomized range of mobs you can encounter so it isn't always the same three white cons. Figure out what the "value" of three white cons are, and then match that with an adjusted number of green cons. Or with an adjusted number of orange/red cons. You get the idea. Thus, sometimes you'd have a tough fight, sometimes you'd have an easy one. But the end XP would be the same.
As far as street sweeping goes, I think one way to solve this is to remove the zones-within-zones system. Rather than "Oh, you're in the red part of this zone", make it possible to run across a red mob anywhere, just like you could run across a green mob.
This would vary the challenge and make street sweeping a bit more random.
Past that, I think people just need to cozy up with the notion that risk = reward and low risk will always = low reward in this game, as it should. The XP you get from 3 white cons should reflect that you took on three enemies who were roughly a match for your abilities, not three enemies who were a cakewalk.
Having thought about this some more, as a Tanker I have no idea how I'm ever going to take 3 even-con minions seriously as a threat when I'm expected to dive headfirst into the same encounter spawned for a group of 8.
If:
Any collection of heroes is meant to be a valid group
Then:
1 tanker and 7 others who provide no defensive value to said tanker are a valid group.
It follows that:
A tanker must be able to engage a force tailored to be at least 8 times more challenging than his solo engagement.
If a tanker can reasonably expect to engage a force 8 times greater than his solo engagement, his solo engagement cannot possibly be adequately challenging to his capacities unless his abilities scale directly in proportion to the threat he faces. At which point he simply engages the 8 times stronger force solo, since he doesn't need a team.
The only way to prevent this is to make the scaling of ability dependant on the number of people in the team, which is thematically silly and subject to abuse.
Why do people want the game to get easier as they get higher levels? We should be wanting more of a challenge for our heroes.
We start off fighting street punks, and work our way to giant robots and aliens. I see that as progress. Remember when you took on your first Tsoo in a missions? It was exciting to realize you were ready for the next level of bad guys.
I do agree that some of the upper level content seem out of place. They need to give a reason why a level 20 5th column has become a tier above their level 5 counterparts. Maybe they already do and I just don't know it. I know I did a mission where they had some super soldier serum, but I'm not sure if that was being used by the machine gun toting minion types.
Many others also have problems. A lab worker punching people would be more apropriate if they made some kind of 'Hulk-like' transformation before they started swinging. Machine gun toting mobsters should also be underlings as far as I'm concerned. Maybe the escaped convicts could have been mutated while escaping or something.
Higher level bad guys need to be challenging because of their abilities, not just damage and hps. I think Tsoo are a great example of how villian groups should be progressing to keep the challenge for us heroes. I hate to go from a group that has been challenging me for the last 10 levels to a group that is underpowered compared to my abilities.
Semantics. That's all we're talking about here.
I'll be happy when the game is more challenging on its own without having to invent my own challenges (hey let's take on those 80 Nemesis with Brawl!).
I don't care if they're called minions, shlubs or wittle putty tats. If they present a challenge great. When I beat them I will feel happier then just wailing on dozens of mis-cons (there isn't an even con in this game that's a true even con).
You people worry too much about this crap 
Prehapse an issue we're having is with the stratification of some villian orgs to specific level ranges.
I agree that it makes no sense that a guy in a labcoat would spike a 20-ish lvl hero into the dirt with a swing of his pasty fist. The same goes for the riot-gear troops. These guys seem to be a perfect opportunity for lower level Crey content.
Are all Tsoo crazy ninja-tong-baddasses from the time they get their acceptence letter into the group? Where's the hopefuls, the washed-out sorcerers? Again lowlevel content ops here...
Trickle down the upper tier baddies logically. The same goes for lower tier groups, save they need to be trickled up.
Imagine the Maltas and the Clocks going at it over an idiological war to prove who was the superior tech. (granted I'm not high enough to see maltas so i'm assuming they are some type of AI)
I find it hard to believe that the CoT are all tapped out by lvl 30(ish?). C'mon these guys have an entire necropolis under the city somewhere... with all the badness there we should see some Things That Should Not Be running amok later at their mechanations.
In this schenario you would remove this view of minions and whatnot. You've already seen the Crey minions when you were lvl 5-10. They tried to smack you down with riotgear and teargass. Now in your 40's you are seeing their hardsuited special forces using D-shift packs to blink about while ZOT!-ing you with particle weaponry.
Heros start out as weenies... why don't all (most, whatever)villans?
Heros never stop their climb... why don't villans?
It's these "illogical" and arbitrary jumps in power that makes my mind grind it's gears.
Just a thought...
A good point, Goomba. And that'd be a good way to add more varied content. Rather than "Oh, all Crey are, like, level 30 and up", sprinkle them about.
I've got a character who's on the run from Crey Industries (two actually, but only one's developed at all), who's only seen a Crey in an ambush once. And he promptly ran like hell, because said Crey were 35-ish levels higher than he was.
Rather than restrict mobs to "Well, those are all the guys you fight from levels 1-10, and those guys you fight from 10-20", why not have certain organizations that span the whole game? I mean, I can understand how the Hellions don't because, well, they're just street punks, but other organizations could exist throughout the game AND have varied minions throughout the game.
But yeah, I agree that fighting the same Nacht Force, Nebel Underoffiziers, and Obersts at level 40 that I fought at level 10 is going to seem a bit out of place. What makes a level 50 Nacht Force more of a match for me than a level 10 Nacht Force? I can understand how certain ranges would be basically similar (IE: 1-10, 10-20, 20-30, 30-40, 40-50), but how is the player to distinguish between a 50 mob and an otherwise identical 10 mob?
THAT's where things should probably change. And I suspect they will over time. I bet that the devs will eventually include newer mobs at high levels and replace the low-level, up-gunned ones with these new mobs. At least, that's what I'd do.
If you are going to have 3 even con = 1 hero, you really need to rethink some powers. For example, my 31 DM/Reg scrapper likes Soul Drain. Sould drain works better with more people around. Hitting only 3 minions, the benefit is hardly noticable. Yes, you do 30% more dmg, but it still takes the same number of hits to drop a minion. You just have more overkill. Now hitting 8-10 or more, you can start 1 shotting stuff. THAT makes you feel super.
If 3 = 1 hero, I want to be able to one-shot them (w/ the main attacks) with a soul drain hitting all 3. I guess you would just call it build up and remove the uniquness of DM in that respect.
Also, lowering the mob size hurts AE focused powersets like Fire blaster and Spines. Their powers are not all that well designed to only fight 3 guys. This shows that you didn't plan to have 3-to-1 from the beginning, or these sets would not exist.
I really don't want to see this change. Fine, up villian difficulty. But let me feel super and fight 3 even lvls at lvl 10, 5-8 at 20, and 10+ at 30. Being mobbed by lots of minions is fun, IMO. Fighting 2-3 is not that fun, even if they are individually more challenging.
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If you are going to have 3 even con = 1 hero, you really need to rethink some powers. For example, my 31 DM/Reg scrapper likes Soul Drain. Sould drain works better with more people around. Hitting only 3 minions, the benefit is hardly noticable. Yes, you do 30% more dmg, but it still takes the same number of hits to drop a minion. You just have more overkill. Now hitting 8-10 or more, you can start 1 shotting stuff. THAT makes you feel super.
If 3 = 1 hero, I want to be able to one-shot them (w/ the main attacks) with a soul drain hitting all 3. I guess you would just call it build up and remove the uniquness of DM in that respect.
Also, lowering the mob size hurts AE focused powersets like Fire blaster and Spines. Their powers are not all that well designed to only fight 3 guys. This shows that you didn't plan to have 3-to-1 from the beginning, or these sets would not exist.
I really don't want to see this change. Fine, up villian difficulty. But let me feel super and fight 3 even lvls at lvl 10, 5-8 at 20, and 10+ at 30. Being mobbed by lots of minions is fun, IMO. Fighting 2-3 is not that fun, even if they are individually more challenging.
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Personally I'm fine if they no longer want me to be able to alpha strike 20 minions into campbells soup. But that 3 mins= 1 hero is too much of a nerf.
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Prehapse an issue we're having is with the stratification of some villian orgs to specific level ranges.
I agree that it makes no sense that a guy in a labcoat would spike a 20-ish lvl hero into the dirt with a swing of his pasty fist. The same goes for the riot-gear troops. These guys seem to be a perfect opportunity for lower level Crey content.
Are all Tsoo crazy ninja-tong-baddasses from the time they get their acceptence letter into the group? Where's the hopefuls, the washed-out sorcerers? Again lowlevel content ops here...
Trickle down the upper tier baddies logically. The same goes for lower tier groups, save they need to be trickled up.
Imagine the Maltas and the Clocks going at it over an idiological war to prove who was the superior tech. (granted I'm not high enough to see maltas so i'm assuming they are some type of AI)
I find it hard to believe that the CoT are all tapped out by lvl 30(ish?). C'mon these guys have an entire necropolis under the city somewhere... with all the badness there we should see some Things That Should Not Be running amok later at their mechanations.
In this schenario you would remove this view of minions and whatnot. You've already seen the Crey minions when you were lvl 5-10. They tried to smack you down with riotgear and teargass. Now in your 40's you are seeing their hardsuited special forces using D-shift packs to blink about while ZOT!-ing you with particle weaponry.
Heros start out as weenies... why don't all (most, whatever)villans?
Heros never stop their climb... why don't villans?
It's these "illogical" and arbitrary jumps in power that makes my mind grind it's gears.
Just a thought...
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I don't have a problem with minions getting tougher.... or missions getting tougher... or whatever.
It's the 3 minions =1 hero equation that chaps my ***. wanna add a challenge? pepper more Lt's in. A lui and some minions would make the battle a challenge.....
Wow, weird reactions here. I'm behind Statesman on this one.
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No I don't think 3 even level minions should be a threat to ANY super hero.
[/ QUOTE ] It's been said, but what the heck: Darkseid's minions are tougher than the Penguin's minions. What don't you understand about this? If DC started writing Superman where for 5 years straight he was busy taking on Batman's foes (a minion is a minion, right?) it would be horrible. Those of you saying minions AT YOUR LEVEL should be creampuffs are worse than someone taking his lvl 36 to Atlas to clean up. Because you're still expecting full XP after saying you want the minions to be a cakewalk.
Now keep in mind, this magic number "3" is what they call a guidepost. Since posters here lean toward the power-gamer side of things, it could be well 4 or 5. For the person who typically RPs hosting episodes of "Goth Talk" it could well be 2. A skilled gamer is still going to stand out by making the most of what's available to him.
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Otherwise, this will once again make teams highly restrictive. "What? He's 25? We're all 27s. That's too low! We can't sidekick him so get rid of him. He'll find a single level 27 minion a challenge and I can take 3!"
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Well if you haven't noticed, something's broken the way things are now. At 28 I'm getting 22s-24s routinely expecting to team with me, and not take an SK! Some of it's due a bit to a social circle, but still this is way out of whack. Especially when we're fighting 28s and above. I'm not talking about blatant power-leveling here, but them simply knowing that the risk-reward structure works well in that situation, with the risk being relatively low cruising in waters that should be well above their heads.
Then we've got people saying there's no sense of advancement when you're still fighting the same amount of CO-LEVEL mobs. Give me a break. I used to run down the double yellows in Steel Canyon cursing my contacts for sending me there, hoping to avoid all the mobs that were way overpowered for me. Then it got to where I could take on some of the weaker ones with a cautious approach. Then I handled them easily and take on the tougher ones. Then I owned the place. Call me kooky, but that felt like progression. Dunno how the rest of you missed it.
Agree that some of the villians are hosed when it comes to powers/appearances vs their place in the food chain. Maybe the Button Men should have been swapped with the Clockwork or Trolls, the Sky Raiders with the Tsoo, etc. The higher you go, the more special effects you get. The Tsoo and the Freaks and the Clocks aren't bad at all, and could have been justified in being tougher. Guess that they just realized the switchblade/buckshot thing gets stylistically old fast. Heck, I'm thinking the "new" Outcast will make the Family feel like a letdown.
Now I will concede that perhaps over 20 lvls the number of minions you can handle might be able to go up slightly, just to represent your growing skill with the game, and the extra coverage/synergy with the extra powers available. But keep in mind that many of us are coming at this from the perspective of being tankers, the vast majority of which have experience with Fire and/or Inv. That's a whole new ball game.
Can't talk about Fire, but I'm more and more convinced Invinc is broken. It alone changes the whole game instantly. Why fight 3 minions when you can fight 20 and it's only easier? Granted just before getting it (I don't have TI) I did feel a little less than heroic, and just after I did feel like a hero. But now it's largely a joke with most even-lvl cons, throngs of them. I play more sloppy at times, and feel more like I'm sleepwalking through the streets/missions. Was on a team mission against Warriors in a warehouse last night, and remembered thinking "Lt, minion, whatever, it's all the same." Just makes the mobs and encounters more faceless and boring when you're clicking your way through 30 of them compared to when you were sweating at least a bit fighting a few Outcast in Steel. There's got to be a middle ground. It cheapens the villians when you can survive and demolish armies of them at your level and higher without breaking a sweat, and that costs me my suspension of disbelief.
Heck, I'd toy with the idea of halving the bonuses of Invinc. Remember, if we diminish the number of mobs needed to make an effective enemy group, we can theoretically get away from the herding/aoe maddness so many dislike. It also gives the devs room for tweaking aoe effects since single-target blasts will mean more.
It should also make zones more enjoyable on the subconcious lvl. My thinking is that these kinds of changes will make the difference between white and say red quite a bit more pronounced, and purple would no longer be "yeah? how purple?" Back to Steel, I could street sweep there, but had to pay good attention to the levels of the mobs (not the type to just start fights and leave them unfinished). This was good, added fear and suspense. In Dark Astoria after say lvl 24, it didn't matter. You didn't usually round a corner from a group of 24s to find a group of 29s. And if you blundered into a group of 26s, or above, no problem. At the worst you can live and get away quite easily. What I'm saying is we should be darn interested in knowing that a huge group is +2, instead of being able to shrug it off.
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Or are you going to sit there and tell me that any tanker in this game could handle even one let alone 3 wonder womans.
[/ QUOTE ] I'm sure plenty are willing to try 
it's not a nerf, you are getting the same xp.
maybe you don't like it, fine. but nothings getting nerfed.
to the 20 or 30 people out of thousands upon thousands that are going to quit because they have this ingrained feeling that if something is white they should be able to kill 100 of them - i don't think the developers really care, because i don't think the intent was to play the game that way.
if the rush comes from killing 20+ mobs go kill blues - scaled xp means its the same damn thing.
but for a lot of support AT's, non-min/max builds and people that (eek) like to group, to me, i don't see the problem.
i don't see ANYWHERE where the color coding scheme is supposed to only be relevant for the first 25 levels.
if, at level 39, you think taking on a group of 15 blue level 38 minions is unsuperhero-like, i guess i don't see it your way.
to me, what statesman is talking about (and yes, changes will be made to certain powers to offset the negatives of this i am sure) is going to extend the life of this game.
maybe not for a very small percentage of the trolls here, but no great loss.
i was disappointed the other night to do a TF with (i think) 6 blasters and a scrapper and found it was easier than any i've ever done. being able to run up to a group and with buildup, fireball and firebreath drop every white minion i didn't miss is not a game that will last. some changes NEED to be made, and the developers are not only showing they want to make the game better, they're actually explaining their thought process ahead of time. This is unheard of, and you people still cry and troll.
/boggle
You're missing one thing kukido...
Gotham city isn't Apokalypse.......
And chances are you won't find the jokers minions hanging out with ParaDemons.
If this is the Aim..... then the late game shouldn't have villan groups that you faced in your twenties. There should be no freaks or Nazi's in bricks or creys folly. and there should be enemy groups that appear in the 40's that you don't see anywhere else. That means cleaning the low level Nems out of PI.
Not going to happen. And seriously I think the batman could wipe the floor with 7 or 8 parademons.
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They really ARE the very same minions. They are just dressed up in different clothing and have a few different powers. You might see them as very very different. But, many of us see them as just the same minion.
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True - you could put it that way (which of course, pretty much nullifies the diversity in every other MMP, but I digress), but then one could equally say, "they're the same - just more of them!"
Also - think of the technical ramifications. Let's say that 10 minions equal a hero at level 40. That means that we'd need to stock 80 minions in a single room on a mission when there's 8 heroes. 80 minions. Every room. The performance issues boggle the mind.
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Then you need to mix it up a little. Minions have little powers. Even at higher levels. Most or all to Smash and Lethal damage. That's easy for higher level heros to get resistance or defenses against. The real answer is to not spawn more minions. You should be spawning Lt's and Boss's instead of minions. I think somewhere around 30+ it becomes 1 hero = 3 Lt's. As opposed to your 1 hero = 3 minions logic. Lt's have more super powers to combat a hero. How is the performance effected by larger spawns? Look at the portal mission. The spawns are much much larger than 80 minions in a room.