Should villians use powers above their level?
By
AkaiRyu,
Posted on: 2004-09-26 10:24 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
OK, Im a bit tired of this. I start a new alt, get him up to lvl 11 and go solo a mission, only to find a lvl 13 boss (Electric Eel, for those who know his mish) who has the powers of a lvl 20. So being a lvl 13 isnt good enough or powerfull enough for them? Lets not forget the fact that he had 6 LTs around him. Why must the villians be able to hit me for such high damage When I can only hit them for so little? Where is the challenge in this? As a scrapper I dont have the luxury to snipe from a distance and draw one or two away and whittle them down, I am forced to go in and take them all on at the same time. Now with the constant stuns/sleeps/disorients this allows me to be killed on average in about 12 seconds, not my idea of a fun or challenging game. This is what you have in mind for a balanced game Statesman? If this is still a bug dealing with the +1 stuff, should we not get some kind of adjustment to our characters? I mean this is causing all sorts debt. Why should we have to pay for the mistake? Why was this not tested? I know these questions have been asked ten-thousan times, but i have yet to see a response that doesn't skirt aound the issue. Now before you all start the flames about how I am not a good player, hush it now. I have several chars that were just fine before this latest patch, 37 blaster, 28 blaster, 16 tank, etc. Sorry, but as someone who paid a year in advance(because during my first month i was so blown away with such a (as i percieved) well balanced game that was fun to play, now I dont), I am feeling more than a bit frustrated.
Well, since Statesman says "yes" I guess this is something we just have to deal with.
Personally, I don't buy the "they are villians, they will cheat" excuse.
It is very frustrating, and does take a lot of the soloability out of the game.
I understand having powers a couple levels above their listed level, but the 10 to 15 level difference is a lot outrageous.
Then again, this is us people in the "low end" game complaining.
What is it like in the high end game?
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Do you know this for a fact?
Correct me if I am wrong here, but CoV is in development and the classes and powers have not been released and PvP setup is in mind.
Hard to be certain of anything in regards to CoV.
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If you think the devs are gonna let you have fire imps at 14 in CoV then I'd like to have some of what you're on. We don't know much about CoV, and common sense and the devs doesn't mix much, but they aren't gonna let you have a 9th tier power at 14.
Sailor eX
"Not in the face!"
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i'm with this guy.
ain't now way. see, then it will be the PLAYERS who are villains ..... and sine we got to make it "us vs them", then the HEROES will suddenly get all the nifty high level powers early.
except ... who we going to fight? crey? all the villain groups that exist?
i wrote a whle lot about villains, what thought villains were, what defined villains, and how i thought villains should work on the older boards. i'm very interested to see if they actaually make a good villain.
and as much as i complkain about them, i'm pretty sure that cryptic will at least fulfill their one goal to make villains unique and not merely "bad heroes", which is one time that i simply rejoiced. Jack Emmertt saying they didn't have villains because they just plain didn't know how and weren't sure where to start.
as opposed to those jrks who said things like "we never thought anyone would want to play a villain" or the ultimate jack [censored] line of "it's called city of .... heroes"
I'm seeing a lot of points repeated over and over in this thread by both sides, but there's a couple things that I haven't seen mentioned at all. One: To the guy who said, quote: "How heroic am I when everyone else is better at what I do than I am?"
IMPO, heroes are people who fight against overwhelming odds to accomplish seemingly impossible feats for the sake of others with no regards to their own personal safety.
So if you're going up against a villian who can do things that you won't be able to do for 20 levels, well, that's pretty damn heroic.
My question to you would be "How heroic is it to post whines on message boards about how it isn't fair that villians get powers before you do?"
For the people who have said that we have no defense against high level powers:
Um...I didn't hear any of you complaining about the Eidolons a month ago, or three or four months ago, for starters, but that aside: These powers were created and the power tree was designed around PvE. I mean, just because something is a high level power doesn't mean that it can't be dealt with with low level abilities or, and this is key, inspirations. The right inspiration combination can usually help deal with things like powers with holds and imps and the like. The suggestion that we're unprepared for it simply because we don't get the same power until later is flawed logic at best.
And finally, and I feel this is important, most villians only get a handful of powers. Yeah, they might get a couple of high level powers (that, I'll point out, are likely scaled down in effectiveness to provide a challenge for their current level, IE: An attack from a level 14 villian that is a level 36 power for a hero is not going to do the damage that a level 36 villian would do to that selfsame level 14 hero.) -but ultimately, they STILL only have a few powers, whereas my hero can cycle through seven attacks and be doing nearly constant damage, the villian will throw a few powerful hits, then wait a bit, then throw their weakest attack, then wait a bit, then do a more powerful attack, then wait a bit...
Point being, while they may have more "raw power" from a certain point of view, they don't have the versatility or the capacity for situational strategy that we have.
Honestly, and this is my take on this whole hubbub about all the difficulty *******: The devs were working on issue 2, working working working and, I'll bet, for PR reasons and because it just kept dragging out, SOMEBODY somewhere on a corperate level said "Just get it done and out.", and the devs had to go with that. Then removing frontloaded missions causes a largely overlooked bug to become a serious problem, (the plus one thing) Some players have some really bad experiences as a result, and now they're angry and they want things FIXED.
But seriously, guys, this particular issue is NOT the cause of the high difficulty. Not entirely, anyway. Eidolons have been using high level powers since the game launched, and nobody ever [censored] about it being unfair.
Oh, and lastly, to the guy who said a level 15 villian one-shotted his level 15 scrapper: Either you were already injured, are exaggerating, or you should be bug reporting that sh--, 'cause that just doesn't happen. 
If even-cons could one-shot -any- AT, we'd be seeing a lot more [censored] on these forums then we ar now. (which is saying something)
Jason Heavensrun
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Villains follow different rules. Which is cheap
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And yet exists in virtually every MMO on the market.
The AI isn't bright enough to give you a decent fight if you play by the same rules. No AI is.
But yes, it is a copout, bit of a shortcut that gets you around having to design smarter baddies. (See: Boss, Raid. Take normal boss, increase hit points by 10x, add abilities no player will (or should) ever be able to achieve.)
I'd rather Frosty was limited to, say, L18 powers. But then he wouldn't be Frosty...he'd be just-another-boss. Kind of cool that there are a few rule-breakers that make for abnormally challenging situations.
He's soloable. Difficult for some AT/combos, certainly, but doable. Despite his 'cheating', he's still very defeatable.
Personally I think it's that the AT/Level system is the copout and the villians are benefitting from a less structured systems than we are.
BTW I don't consider this necro...it's still a perfectly valid topic.
Enjoying every AT in the game.
Remember the Golden Rule: Skill > Build
Leader of the True Blues on Liberty
Of course villains should use powers "above" their "level."
Why on earth would we fight our inferiors or even equals, when we can fight enemies who are superior to us, and therefore whose defeat gives our glory greater luster.
The vote thing is not likely to sway the villains (or even heroes, in CoV). Villains notoriously ignore the vox populi. And those fighting evil in the Rogue Isles must use any means necessary to overcome the menace of Lord Recluse and his minions.
My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
think of it this way: every hero of all lvls can do all the powers in their sets at lvl 1. but the city doesnt let them, until they are EXPERIENCED enough. hence, experience. Villains dont listen to the city so they do get all those powers.
But then why do Player Villains obey those rules?
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
I vote yes.
The power aren't all that strong at the low levels the NPCs use them, and they add a challenge. 
I remember before issue 1, I always wanted to see what EMP and Atomic Blast looked like. I couldnt wait to get them and had visions of this huge 360 degree spherical PBAoE for EMP and a huge Atom Bomb for Atomic Blast.
When I finally got EMP, I realized it was just what the freakin Circle of Thorns have been doing for 30 levels at their "rituals". Then I counted on Atomic Blast, as it turns out, the CoT.... as early as Kings Row use the mushroom cloud thingy for their rituals too.
I mean dont get me wrong, EMP and AB still look awesome, but it was kind of disheartening to know that I had already seen these powers at level 6.
And what is it about Radiation that would make them look like a magic Ritual?
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But then why do Player Villains obey those rules?
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Cause recluce wants them experienced enough to not blow up Rouge Isles
I know it's close to Halloween, but all these zombie threads are getting a bit stale.
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Here you come with a stupid name like Fixer - brutalkillz_
You know, I was going to post about how we as players have the one power that will always equalize the playing field: our intelligence. But after reading through this thread, I'm not so sure of that anymore.