Boss level too high!

Here is what I think is going on:

1) Statesman has always wanted Bosses to not be soloable. They, like most MMO devs, underestimated how strong many player builds would be and are just now putting Bosses where they originally wanted them to be.

2) Statesman believes that most all mission texts tell you if there is a boss. You may remember that he believed that most all mission texts told you if the mission was timed. You may also remember his shock after launch when he found out that Task Forces were not and had never been working properly. He is at the top levels and is a busy man and has to just assume that what he told people to do was done. Like the other cases, however, they are FAR short of this being realized (not that that would solve the problems, IMO).

My opinion: They need to abandon the 'bosses shouldn't be soloable' attitude as that makes the game just too boring for soloists. We need the greater variety of opponents that bosses bring and lieutenants are rarely challenging enough to be particularly interesting. AV/Monsters should not be soloable (despite the fact that many AVs in comic books are), but bosses should just be tougher than lieutenants to the same degree that lieutenants are tougher than minions.

My solution: keep the boss heightened hp but roll back the boss damage enhancement. The former requires strategy but the latter prevents it. There is no at-that-moment strategy to prepare for 1-2 shot kills. Also remove AVs from many higher level missions.

Scorus

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That's actually only part of what I've said. Solo players should always have something to do...I've never said that everything is solo-able (some missions are, others aren't), or that every Archetype can solo as effectively as another.

If a player sees a boss of his level, he should probably get help...


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The problem with that is at higher levels, virtually every mission has at least one boss at the end. If a player can no longer solo a boss of his/her level, it means that solo player can basically only street hunt. Street hunting is dull for many people, hence they'll stop playing at that point.

I can see that not everything should be soloable, but it seems the balance is a little too far to the not soloable end. We are talking the 20-30 mark, so it isn't unreasonable to let people be able to solo their missions.

Once people hit 40, before the change, grouping becomes a lot more essential anyway. There are AVs in many missions, and many missions with multiple bosses. Most bosses of that level have special abilities that make them difficult to solo... master illusionists come to mind.

In essence, the difficulty raise as levels increased was already there. Not though boss power, but the special abilities the bosses had. Some high level boss types are a lot easier than other, but they could have their difficulty raised on a individual type level. Adding new special abilities to boss types that lacked them would be a logical way to do it. It is the special abilities that make a master illusionist much more deadly than an even level skull boss would be.

Well, if they wish to keep the bosses where they are at, they really should change the color con system. My controller was killed in a single volley by 3 blue-conned bosses. At range. No warning, nothing. Just flying through FF, then dead. This cannot be right. They were level 34, and my controller was lvl 37. If they were blue minions (lvl 36), or blue leutenants (lvl 35), she's have little problems with them. A -1 leutenant was about equivalent to a even con minion. That felt true. Before I3, A -2 boss did feel equivalent to an even con minion.

If anything, after I3 those -3 bosses should be conning orange or red, if they want to have the color con system more accurately show the bosses' power compared to you.

Just think of where that leaves even-level bosses...

Well I have read through this post from page one up to this point, and it looks to me people aren't asking for much. Just one thing.

The bosses are too tough and need to be toned down. Not to the level they were just not as tough as they are now.

Looks to me like we as the players are asking for a compromise from the devs. Now I know there are some people that like the bosses the way they are but the majority of them seem to be really high level (45-50). So maybe the bosses should scale up in difficulty starting at level 25 or maybe we should be able to use the difficulty slider for this. We all pay to play and I don't think we are asking too much. I know the dev's have a "vision" of the game, and that’s fine. What they need to realize is they let their vision fall so far behind (game has been fun for 8 months with out changes) that this sudden change is alienating their player base and make us feel as if we aren’t being lessoned too except when the "vision" is in line with what we say. At that point we still aren’t being lessoned too. I think the dev's do a great job but this sudden change after so long is a little tough on us and not fair as the game was a lot more fun pre I3 patch. I don't want a lot and from what I have read neither does the rest of the community. Bottom line don't force grouping and let us have fun with out being slaughtered because at that point this game will be just a another clone of EQ with min/max builds of uber leet players while the casual gamer get stuck in a dark murky corner.

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Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.

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Mission briefing:

"Rescue Zyla, the ambassador

Lou Pasterelli: I just got a call from a municipal officer. They've got a serious situation there; the Devouring Earth are raiding the building. They're doing the best to keep the doors braced, but they can't hold out for long. I need you to save those people from the Devouring Earth. There's no time to waste.

Portal Corporation may be the most dangerous enterprise in Paragon City. I don't even want to think about the Devouring Earth getting their hands on that tech!

Mission Complete: You defeat the Devouring Earth and rescue the hostages."

Humm... I may be missing something. I don't see the mention of the boss in this mission. I am in the mission now and looking at the boss.

Edit: In fact, as soon as this mission finished it immediatley spawned a second mission (same description). The second mission also had an unannounced boss in it.

And just another thing to ponder, I was in a group (My lvl 37 Grav/kin controller, a lvl 37 Dark/Elec defender, a lvl 37 BS/SR scrapper, and a lvl 34 Inv/Axe tank), when we decided on a lark to take on 4 level 44 minions. We had less trouble defeating those +7 to +10 minions than we did taking down 3 even con bosses. Hell, we had less deaths and less close calls defeating the +7 minions (0 deaths) than when we were jumped by a group of lvl 34 council with 3 bosses (My controller and the defender were killed almost instantly in the fight).

It's not that I disagree of making the Bosses more difficult, but their increase seems a little too much. I had thought that Elite Bosses were supposed to be the level above bosses that almost required teaming, and bosses were supposed to be very tough to solo.

Everything else about Issue 3, I like very much, otherwise.

I suspect that if the developers reduce boss difficulty they will raise it for minions and lieutenants to balance things out.

Especially in light of the fact that its acknowledged that there's a big discrepency in minion and lieutenant difficulty versions boss difficulty.

Actually, I'm not sure if that would be a good or bad. I didn't notice a significant difference with minions when they were harder on test, but that was just me. I don't think others were so happy about it.

And I probably wouldn't really mind it much at all, as long as they allow mission difficulty to go *down* one step from Hard Boiled. I'd like my Grav/kin controller to at least be able to do a few missions without help once in a while, though she teams most of the time anyways. As it is, I'd like the conning system to be consistent such that white minion (even level) ~= white leutenant (-1) ~= white boss (-2 or if they want, -3 or -4).

I hate to say it, but it looks to me like bosses are not what needed modification in this game.

I've played several AT's (34-42) vs bosses since the change, and there's a stark difference between them when it comes to boss-surviving.

Blasters--City of Blasters has been over now for quite a while. The Man of Kleenex is what blasters have become in the modern game--if I can keep that boss from EVER getting a shot at me I win, otherwise say hi to the nurses in the hospital. All or nothing.

Still, it IS do-able, just the level of reward does not stack up to the level of risk, not even remotely. Were it possible, I'd avoid bosses completely with the blaster--but we all know it isn't.

Scrappers--My scrapper still laughs at bosses. Boost their health and attack by another 50%, and I will continue to laugh at them. I've soloed Monsters and the lesser AV's, so most bosses require nothing more popping a pill or two then plowing through them. No change then Devs are likely make with respect to Bosses is going to change this. This is the Man of Steel, or the closest thing to it CoH provides.

Defender -- Very type-dependent, obviously some defender builds are much more suited to boss hunting than others. Mine didn't have any particular trouble with the new bosses, except that the fights lasted ~ 4x as long--stocking up fully on pill supplies beforehand is highly recommended. Your mileage will vary. This is the Man of Tedium.

And my scrapper has mission difficulty cranked to the maximum, the defender and blaster cannot survive that setting (soloing). So not only is it a much easier, more comfortable mission--but the scrapper also gets ~3x as much experience for doing it!

I must be one of the very few players who plays (and loves) his scrapper, but knows that this inequity cannot last forever. I fully expect more scrapper "nerfs" after the Devs watch this situation for a while.

The other AT's I can't speak to, as I don't play any in the level range affected by the boss mods. It doesn't look like tanks are bothered much by it, just as a first impression. I suspect controllers are highly build-dependent on whether bosses are 'too hard' or not also.

Overall, I'd say it's a bad change. Truly doesn't affect the awesome power a good group can bring to bear at all, only hurts the casual players and non-power-gamers, and folks who like to solo most of their content.

I'm still on the fence on this one. Last night was the first time I really got to sink my teeth into issue 3. Got together with an 8 person group to go against CoT. Group level was 35-37

Every mob we encounted had at least 2 bosses and I was hard boiled. I would attribute this to the fact that we had a full team. Boy, did we get owned a more then a few times.

Part of me enjoyed the challenge, but the other part was saying, "somthing isn't right here".

BTW, of all the "Boss's to tough" threads, this one is by far the most civil.

On a side note, has anyone noticed the level difference that's happening in missions. For example my CoT mission had mobs from level 33-37

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It also leaves us in the hitherto unusual position of needing to get help *during* a mission, since we have no way of knowing beforehand whether or not there's going to be a boss in there. That will be awkward in timed missions.


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Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.

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Actually that is quite incorrect - I did a rescue mission with my blaster against Sky Raiders last night, upon entering the mission it became Rescue & Clear with a JumpBot Boss at the end.

It was this way before I-3 & it is still this way. Undocumented bosses in missions are a fact.

Sorry Statesman, maybe try playing the game a little before making these sweeping statements.

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I hate to say it, but it looks to me like bosses are not what needed modification in this game.

The other AT's I can't speak to, as I don't play any in the level range affected by the boss mods. It doesn't look like tanks are bothered much by it, just as a first impression. I suspect controllers are highly build-dependent on whether bosses are 'too hard' or not also.

Overall, I'd say it's a bad change. Truly doesn't affect the awesome power a good group can bring to bear at all, only hurts the casual players and non-power-gamers, and folks who like to solo most of their content.

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I play a lot of controllers, so I can only really comment on them.

I'll also state that I fully admit that I'm a COH fanboi. Nothing these devs have ever done in the past has ever made me feel like I do today. I absolutely love everything else in Issue 3 except what they did to the bosses.

With that said, soloing for me is no longer possible in this game. I play odd hours and grouping is not possible for me at times. I also have had very bad experiences with pick-up groups, so I tend to avoid them most of the time.

I feel increasing the bosses was a stupid and well, I'll just say it, retarded, decision. It goes against so much of what's been said about the game in the past by the developers.

All AT's should be able to solo? Until this change, I felt that was true. I was proof of it as a controller, and I'm only lvl 28 and don't even have my pets yet.

In the past, I could take on bosses and survive a lot of the encounters. Not all of them, but I would win more than I lost. Now after update 3, I can barely beat any.

I honestly didn't mind it too much when I would face orange conned bosses in my missions. Sure they have more hp's, and I can solo them still with some effort and a lot of patience.

But some of my missions lately have been having red and purple conned bosses in them. I had a mission today that put me up against a lvl 30 boss that conned purple to me. I tried to fight him but wasn't doing enough damage since he would recharge faster than I could hurt him.

I missed one hold and then he single shotted me. No amount of tactics or inspirations would have helped me. So now in order to finish this mission, I need to wait until some of my friends are on to help.

Gone are the days of trying to do a mission on my lunch break.

I just think the devs really dropped the ball on this one. They didn't want to make an "easier" setting on the difficulty slider because they felt people would run out of missions and just street sweep. Well, hello, that's what some of us essentially have to do now since you decided to put bosses in so many missions.

Maybe after 32 it will be possible to solo again since I'll have my pets, but at this rate, I'll never get there.

Well, at least they have one less fanboi now.

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I think ultimately the Devs realize they made many of us heroes too powerful for game balance. But it wasn't evident how bad it was for awhile, and as usual, took a long time to work out.

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Maybe. But that doesn't explain draining the fun factor from the game totally. OK, time to tell my story.

I'd read here how the bosses were nasty, so I decided to form a team, to protect my squishy (level 31 eng/eng blaster) butt. I manage to find a 31 and tank and another 31 blaster. Cool, not bad for noon on a workday.

So, we take on one of the tank's missions, against Freaks. First battle was kinda tough, but the tank held aggro to perfection, and we wiped them. Then trouble started rearing it's head. The other blaster (ice/ice) pops around a corner and there's a Freak Tank. Whack! He gets one-shotted. Scary, but he got too far out front. So we wait, regroup, and head toward the next group, with the tanker taking aggro.

Next thing you know, we're facing 3 red Freak tanks. The battle took about 15 seconds, as both blasters get one-shotted. The tanker takes 3 whole shots to put down.

Yeah, that TONS of fun. TONS. I love running back and forth to the contacts to get inspirations after EVERY group, and really, these hospital tubes are kind of comfy. Makes you all tingly.

I don't object to giving the bosses more HP. But the extra damage is utterly absurd. And these were generic bosses, not named ones, not AV's. Just bosses.

So - if States says we should be scared of white bosses and get help, how do we EVER do missions if the bosses are 1-for-1 with the heroes and all con red? And don't give me that BS about sneaking around and finding the glowies...I didn't sign up to play City of Creeping Mice.

Until something gets changed, I'm playing sub-25 level alts. I can live without the constant debt.

Ok, I still think it's obvious that States was responding to the issue: people's inability to solo a mission.

There are many missions you can complete solo withOUT defeating the bosses in the missions. If you can complete a mission solo, the mission is soloable.

Until HE says to the contrary, I'm remaining convinced that he meant that every mission that *requires* you to beat the boss *to finish the mission* mentions the presence of a boss.

IOW: The issue isn't undocumented bosses, because you don't need to beat those to be able to solo.

And, at this time, I believe all missions that require you to defeat a boss do list the presence of a boss, with one exception.

(That exception is, there are a certain number of missions that have hidden defeat-all conditions (which would include unlisted bosses), which is a major bug that I have been bugging, complaining about, and summoning GMs over repeatedly for (it seems like, at least) six months now.)

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Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.

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Merusel Valenzuela: There's good evidence that the Council is planning some kind of major strike soon. Happily, my network of contacts has given me a good idea of where they're massinf the supplies for this attack. If you can take out those supplies, it will cripple their plan. While you're there, keep your eyes open. Anything you can learn about the Council's new plan will help.

With any luck, we can stop this Council strike before it starts."

No mention here of the boss I found in the mission.
(and 'yes' - the boss had to be defeated to complete the mission)

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I suspect that if the developers reduce boss difficulty they will raise it for minions and lieutenants to balance things out.


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The way I see it, I'd -=MUCH=- rather play with ALL enemy groups buffed instead of just one. Just jacking up the bosses is the WORST thing they could of done. As it stands now for many of us, we can either
1) Take a mission on hard boiled. We fight white-con minions, and yellow Lts. which are just crap XP later on, only so we can fight a boss we stand a chance against, OR
2) Take on higher level minions and Lts. which is great XP while not overly challanging, but there is some there, only to arrive at a boss we haven't the slightest hope in hell of beating.
At least if they buffed both, we could fight white cons and get the XP we once did for orange/purples...

Either way, boosting enemies is just a bad idea. It closes the range of levels in which friends can play togeather. If people want a challanging enemy, go fight something over +4 your level. It's sad, because all we needed was the mission slider, and mission difficulty would of been taken care of right then and there.

... Now that I think about it, a certain quote saying comes to mind... "Its called having your cake, and eating it too." The way I see it, as of right now, we can either have the cake, or the permission to eat it, but not both.

Something just popped into my head. Would this be a problem if we could get our EPPs earlier? I don't think it wouldn for my defender, cause I could get a resistance toggle. Maybe then it wouldn't be a deathwish to stay closer than 50ft away from my teamates.

Frankly :
1) I can still take the boss (if I stay out of melee range)
2) It takes soooooo looooonnnnnggggg, it comes down to boring repetative attacks, going on, and on.
3) Most indoor missions leave the squishy blaster without a way to stay out of melee range without resorting to shoot snipe, run away (hoping you do not forget the map and hit a dead end (did that, dirt nap)) - still boring and repetative, and severly time consuming...
4) My fun online game CoH just lost a lot of its fun factor...

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Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.

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Merusel Valenzuela: There's good evidence that the Council is planning some kind of major strike soon. Happily, my network of contacts has given me a good idea of where they're massinf the supplies for this attack. If you can take out those supplies, it will cripple their plan. While you're there, keep your eyes open. Anything you can learn about the Council's new plan will help.

With any luck, we can stop this Council strike before it starts."

No mention here of the boss I found in the mission.
(and 'yes' - the boss had to be defeated to complete the mission)

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You are contradicting Statesman, and therefore must be lying.

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Statesman believes that most all mission texts tell you if there is a boss. You may remember that he believed that most all mission texts told you if the mission was timed. You may also remember his shock after launch when he found out that Task Forces were not and had never been working properly. He is at the top levels and is a busy man and has to just assume that what he told people to do was done.

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That's fine. In that case however, he should certainly refrain from making statements as if he *knows* how a certain aspect of the game is functioning.

One of the strange things about this boss change is that it breaks stated design principles of City of Heroes, as you can see if you go back and read interviews that Statesman has given in the past, particularly the one that ends with comments on combat design.

For instance, it's been said that combat in City of Heroes should be fast and furious, and that battling groups rather than having all players beat on a single thing is the focus of the combat system, and that players are powerful (going from "great to ungodly", to quote Statesman). The new bosses stand in direct contrast to that. For the builds that can handle bosses, an I3-amped boss fight is simply tedious -- it's very slow, because it takes tons of time to whittle down all of those hit points. For builds that can't, it means devoting an entire team to that slow beat-down and hoping nobody dies. And in the process, nobody feels especially heroic.

Ok I 'll admit I didn't read all 20 pages but I'd have to agree with the general statement about boss levels. I took my tank out and found that within 3 hits from a boss my level I was down 75% of my health (and yes that was with a shield, and yes it was damage I was shielded against and yes I had DO's in it). It was my mish and I was ~trying~ to solo it.

Rather sad when you can't tank your own mish solo....

Oh and the difficulty was hardboiled... ;p

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Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.

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Mission briefing:

"Find the Justifier

Lou Pasterelli: Thank goodness you're here, [Character Name]! I really need your help. One of the heroes I work with, the Justifier, hasn't come back from his last mission. I asked him to investigate some caves inhabited by the Devouring Earth, but that was two days ago. I haven't seen hum since! Please find the Justifier for me. You only have 1 hour to find him!

Thanks, [Character Name]. I won't forget this. If anything happened to Justifier, this city has suffered a great loss. Finding him is important, but be careful. I don't want you to succumb to whatever happened to him."

Timed mission with an unannounced boss at the end.

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Ok, I still think it's obvious that States was responding to the issue: people's inability to solo a mission.

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Okay, I'll give you that...but he should have worded it as such to prevent this confusion and seeming discrepancy.

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There are many missions you can complete solo withOUT defeating the bosses in the missions. If you can complete a mission solo, the mission is soloable.

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Okay...nodding to this one too. Agreed.

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Until HE says to the contrary, I'm remaining convinced that he meant that every mission that *requires* you to beat the boss *to finish the mission* mentions the presence of a boss.

IOW: The issue isn't undocumented bosses, because you don't need to beat those to be able to solo.

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The Named bosses vs. Generic UnNamed bosses. Okay, agreed. These Generic UnNamed bosses are the ones that can be left behind, as irksome and annoying as that may be.

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And, at this time, I believe all missions that require you to defeat a boss do list the presence of a boss, with one exception.

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Again, agreed. This has proven true, again Named vs. UnNamed Generic.

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(That exception is, there are a certain number of missions that have hidden defeat-all conditions (which would include unlisted bosses), which is a major bug that I have been bugging, complaining about, and summoning GMs over repeatedly for (it seems like, at least) six months now.)

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Okay...tell you what...when we get together again, we'll run my mishes and see how many can be completed by leaving the boss and see if it is indeed possible TO leave said boss.

Personally, I don't think it is. Why? Aggro factor.

My little Blaster and little Defender run under the noses of mobs all the time. How many times have I made you jump and squeak when I'm standing under the nose of a boss while you're about 27 or so feet away juuust out of their aggro range? You have Stealth, I run Superspeed AND Stealth. That enables me to scout ahead, look for hostages, glowies, and give an account of what's ahead. How many times have I zipped ahead while you're running fast and putting to sleep mobs so you don't aggro?

Now...let's apply this to those who don't have the same SS+Stealth that I run or your Stealth. Or Phase Shift or Invis or Cloaking or any stealthing ability of any type. The odds they'll gain aggro and get on the boss' hate list is very high usually. This forces a confrontation, like it or not. Sure, running past the boss can be done, however, that will likely place them smack dab right into a pack of mobs they had no chance of seeing due to that run through.

I guess what I'm getting at is that Generic UnNamed boss in a mission may be ignored and left to complete the mission, but if this Generic UnNamed boss is standing near an objective (hostage, glowy, object to destroy), a confrontation MUST take place. And after I3, I've seen more bosses near objectives and others have stated such in their accounting of their own experiences post-I3.

And that CAN lead into an inability to complete the mission solo or even teamed.

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Ok I 'll admit I didn't read all 20 pages but I'd have to agree with the general statement about boss levels. I took my tank out and found that within 3 hits from a boss my level I was down 75% of my health (and yes that was with a shield, and yes it was damage I was shielded against and yes I had DO's in it).

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If you have DO's in it, it sounds like you were fighting an under-25 boss (= no changes were made to these bosses).

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, just seems like a logical conclusion.

Looking back at one of the complaints about I3 before it went live, it's ironic:
For a while there, Atlas couldn't solo his own mission either.

(not particularly looking forward to City of Scrappers)