as polarknight stated about giving bonus to those that group.
increase the amout of xp and influences given depending on the number of people in the group. larger the group a larger multiplier is used.
if i would normally get 100 xp for a minion, and i get 150 or 200xp if im teaming.. i would team more often.
Freedom
Tannus Level 50 Defender *Level 50 on 08/21/05* - Freedom
Sgt. Robertson Level 50 Master Mind - Freedom
Angus Piper Level 45 Scrapper -Liberty
Cindy Jones Level 26 Arachnos Widow - Liberty
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Boss Changes
But, I digress (apologies to Peter David). My main issue right now is the one shot defeats. Blasters, Controllers or Defenders who round a corner a little too quickly can find themselves facing instant debt. They have no opportunity to prepare for the boss because they didnt see him. I do like that Bosses now stay around longer in fights, but I dont like how deadly they can be so we are actively analyzing this situation.
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why not implement a system that works within the Players code instead of the Monsters. something along the lines of...
anytime a player recieves 80% or more of his total hit points in damage that results in him being killed, he is instead knocked back and stunned on the ground. any form of outside healing or his own healing inspiration will still work while he is on the ground for up to 5 seconds. after that 5 seconds the character is truely defeated.
sound doable?
edit*
just to throw this in since i hope this post will get your attention...
i think Hover has had a major bug for quite awile now. it SLOWS as you level. tested it many times and posted it on the tech board with no response.
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As for why we put Bosses in missions at all in other words, why isnt everything solo-able the answer is simple. We want gameplay that encourages the best part of the game: teaming up. Soloing is fine, but a MMP really shines when you meet other people and play alongside them.
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well that stinks. if it had said that on the box, i would never have bought this game. I really dislike social engineers, people who think that just because they like something everyone should or will if exposed to it. Why can't people accept that we just are not all wired the same and we will never all like the same thing. Fortunately, my Tank is still pretty capable solo'ing. slow with the end. problems, but still playable. I guess they'll need a bigger bat next time.
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They are just +1.
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Fair enough. Thanks again for the replies.
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
I just wanted to chime in with my opinion of the boss changes since I do have an outlet thread that may actually be read. (Thanks by the way).
Frankly, I'm finding that whether solo or with a team my strategy isn't altered at all to deal with the difference (although maybe my blaster will have to leave the mishes to go get inspirations). To my level 38 scrapper It's more like grinding on the same mob for way too long. Maybe it would be better if boss hp scaled with team size as opposed to a uniform 2 minute button mashing session. Maybe even give bosses more attacks/attack options scaling with team size to make boss fights more challenging for teams (as opposed to solely more time consuming). My piddly lvl 21 blaster is not looking forward to boss fight post 25 and I love doing missions with him.
Please consider a sliding scale for team size vs blanket coverage.
To summon up my runon post:
Difficulty Slider=great
Boss Changes=needs big picture work
Thanks,
All the people in my sig and more.
Edited due to spelling errors from button mashing 
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Ah, like the end of story arcs? Gotcha, I think.
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Or the start of one. I just started Path of the Dark. First mission, I pass a few even level minions and lieuts., and I quickly come to a +1 level boss (red). I'm soloing.
I fought my way to that first boss four times. He beat me twice. The third time, sick of the debt, I brought five defense and three damage inspirations, and managed to beat him, barely. (After which I discovered the other four or five even-level bosses in the mission.) Before I could finish the mission, the mapserver decided to flake out and it got reset.
The fourth time, I called a scrapper eight levels below me, sked her, and she took him down. I contributed very little to the fight, and have no doubt she could've taken him down without any assistance on my part whatsoever.
Also, yes, I realize that I was essentially forced to team. Congratulations. At no point during this exercise did I have fun, much less more fun than I would've had soloing. (I retract what I said about having fun because she was there ... normally I would've, but you basically made me impose on her, and also forced me to do something I wasn't inclined to do. You also removed my ability to feel self-sufficient, much less heroic. This negates any benefit you might have gained.)
Edit: Oh yes, Kinetics/Radiation Defender.
Edit: Elaborate on last paragraph
Sticking bosses in missions to encourage teaming is one thign. Steping into the reactors control room for the TV trial and seeing (and I do not kid) 15+ bosses is a complete waste of time. more so all adding multiple bosses that are very difficult is really going to do is start focing people to stealth past the bosses that aren't necessary to the goal becasue they are a total waste of time.
Solo bosses aren't a problem, even if there are multiples in the mission. It's when they are clustered up or you are getting a boss every pull that things start to really stink.
We understand you want bosses to stick around more, this means you want them to be special or at least be feared. How then are they special when you have 15 of them in a room? Or even 10 of them in the same indoor mission? or 11 waves of them 5 deep? They stop being special and stop being something that people even like for the XP and start becoming a roadblock.
I used to liek bosses because it was wher eyou really got a white knuckeles fight with some AT's. Now instead of that feeling you have bosses that outright kill the softer AT's and waste a tanks time taking 5 minutes to kill one.
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Since issue 3 also added the mission difficulty slider, would it be possible to add a lower level than 'Hard Boiled' that would spawn the mission the same as 'Hard Boiled' but with the bosses decremented one level? This would have the effect of giving players the choice to have missions similar in difficulty as pre-issue 3.
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Thats an excellent idea!
For the most part, I do not believe these changes are bad and you are looking at one of the two big things concerning me (the one shot kills).
The other concern I had was specifically with the Terra Volta mission (commonly know as the Respec mission). I can understand this mission being difficult but at level 30 and with roughly 6 party members at the time, 7 bosses were spawned in one group. Since this mission already spawns types +2 to the highest in the party, it pretty much makes the mission impossible unless when making a party you can find other people at your same level willing to do it. Even someone a level or two higher throws the whole thing out of whack making it pretty much impossible. With this many bosses, it also places a high premium on damage dealers.
Just my thoughts.
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I don't feel the new bosses are equal to a +1 boss now. I have characters who used to be able to take on a +2 boss as easily or more easily than a +0 boss now, maybe more, and my risk of one-shotting wasnt as high on the old +2.
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They are just +1.
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I have to chime in that they feel much tougher than just a +1 boost. With the 30-50% increase in HP/Damage that people are noting, something in the code may be acting a little wonky.
Still here, even after all this time!
Because of your feedback, I'll have someone on our team look at the number of bosses in missions from levels 1 to 50. I don't mind later missions perhaps including a greater % than earlier missions (if only because players are more powerful and have made friends with others), but your posts want me to doublecheck the exact numbers.
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As for the 'one-shot' problem -- have bosses always lead with their debuff, hold, or weakest damage attacks.
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Being held and then one-shotted while I'm unable to take any action is not a significant improvement. 
Although I suppose the new Inspirations might ameliorate this somewhat.
Statesman: Thank you very much for responding to this issue. To me, it really comes down to this: I want the option. Sometimes I want to group, sometimes I don't (or it's not practical, due to my playing hours or whatever). Sometimes I want to play my scrapper, other times my defender or controller.
The boss boost takes away some of those options, IMO. If I don't feel like grouping, but am required to do so in order to make progress with the character I want to play, I won't log in. This is true in both the short and long term.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
Statesman, thank you for the post regarding this issue. I am glad that you acknowledge there is a valid issue and that you are investigating. My question is this:
Are the amount of hit points a boss has tied directly to his damage output? I mean is there a slider or something that the programmer moves and all stats ramp up in proportion?
I am just trying to understand if the damage output was a diliberate change or a side effect of making the bosses tougher to defeat.
I started playing the game in beta and I really liked it because there was a "fun" factor and it seemed like you folks had developed a game that didn't take itself TOO seriously. I like CoH because it it not a game about time sinks. The option to solo your missions was a greatly appriciated feature. I would like to think it is still part of the plan.(I group 85% of the time).
thanks again for the post.
So, an additional 40% HP and 40% damage is "Just +1"
That doesn't match with the experiences of your players.
You're saying that a Yellow Boss has 40% more HP and does 40% more damage than a White Boss of same type? Sorry, not the case.
+2, at the minimum, is more like it.
Thus, the bugged +2 Purple Lvl 30 Rikti Chief boss I had in a mission today is really the equivalent of a +6. Oh, and I had to beat him to complete the mission.
Took 3 trips to a contact to refill on INSP and about 7 minutes to finish him, while he hit me for 530pts per swing vs. my 100-120. Oh, and he had about 3000hps vs my 800hps.
I incurred 8k debt when he killed me the first try, but only got 1600xp for defeating him.
Yep, "They're only +1"
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Because of your feedback, I'll have someone on our team look at the number of bosses in missions from levels 1 to 50. I don't mind later missions perhaps including a greater % than earlier missions (if only because players are more powerful and have made friends with others), but your posts want me to doublecheck the exact numbers.
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Thank you... Specifically look at things like room size as relates to number of villans and bosses. Small offices it's easy to contain villans that run, move, or blasters that have a tendancy to knock foes around. However in places like Trials or some of the larger open tech maps it's easy to have 3 spawns of villans be 1 pull.
First thanks for the explanation. It really helps in understanding things.
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Boss Changes
<snip>
A solo player (unless the mission calls specifically for a boss in a spawn override) will create spawns with minions and lts. ONLY.
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In my gameplay experience this is not true.
Two somewhat recent examples:
Rikti Story arc (lv 30-34)
Currently doing this so I still remember the missions I've done.
1) Rescue missing war hero (or something like that). No Boss.
2) Rescue 8 other missing fighters from the war. Boss (There was also no mention of the boss in the descript.)
3) Defend the war wall. Boss. (There was also no mention of the boss in the descript and despite what the mission text said it required defeating the boss to complete.)
Unity Plague Story Arc (lv 30-34)
I forget all the different missions of this arc, since its been a bit since I did it. But most missions had at least one Lessor Devored in it (Boss), one mission had two (Go out and take some blood samples from some DE) and at least two missions had three. Of the ones that had three one mission was to save the facility that was working on a cure and another involved a romp through the sewers. Now I could be remembering wrong but in both cases there was never a mention of bosses or need to bring along friends.
This has pretty much been the standard fare since about the mid twenties. Everytime I take a mission, whether the text says it or not, I encounter at least one boss 80% of the time.
Synergy Lvl 50 Def FF/Electric/Psy - Protector
Cimarron - Protector Mascot
My DA Page
THANK YOU for considering the one shotting thing. That was my biggest (really only) gripe vs them. And thtas not just solo, mainly on teams, where lots of bosses spawn in trials and task forces. Is the amount of bosses spawning in trials going to be looked at? The freak trial in particular is bad, because they rez. Go in with 8 people, and see how many bosses spawn per wave... its not 5 (going by your 1.5 scale).
Thank you for your response on this issue, but I have (as have others) noticed a few problem with you general statements. First as a solo player I have noticed that boss spawn in just about every one of my missions so far (level 27). Add to the fact that the mission text says nothing to this extent. Not only that but a lot of the time I will have more than one. Add another player and it gets even tougher. As for increasing the bosses to +1 of there normal state Are you sure? It seams to me that they are a lot tougher now (i.e. doing more damage, more hit points, better acc., and better def) all that stuff. I play a scrapper as my main and I am having a really hard time. I think I am a good player and I have a decent build (not the "best" but good). I like soloing my mission because I get a chance to read the clues and other things. In a group it's all about the exp, and killing things as fast a we can. Not a lot of time to read especial if I have to be more on guard because a team of 8 can spawn a lot of bosses. I like teaming because things do get tougher, and yes a good 8 player team can run through things rather quickly. But I thought the difficulty for the solo player was just fine. I had a lot of fun fighting two bosses (Tsoo and The Family) at the same time. It's was the end of a story arc and one of my favorite memories. Now if I see one boss and I don't have full inspirations I have to run like a girl (no offence to girls just an expression) back and forth until I kill him. It can take up to 10 min to beat a boss that's +2 level which in reality is +4 (if I understand what you are saying that math should be right if not I am sorry). I only tried to take +4 bosses with a group and even them I found it not to be worth it at all. Bosses now are making my game not as fun an a lot more teadus.
Now I think you can see where I am coming from. I see where you are coming from. So let me make a few suggestions. First Bosses should be bosses and they should last longer in a fight. But I think the increases across the board are a little harsh. Toning down the damage and the HP would help. Second if solo missions (except for named boss and end of story arcs) are not to spawn bosses I think you should check the data on that because they are spawning in mission and at around +0 to +2 in my experience. I am sure you have seen the boards to know that I am not the only one experiencing this problem which according to you per your statement it is a problem. Third why not just up the difficulty of named bosses and such and leave the regular bosses alone or give them a small increase? Or have the bosss difficulty ramp up according to the number of team mates? Fast fights are fun, and I like them to be challenging but right now they are taking too long (solo or grouping). I dont mean taking too long as in I am not getting x amount of exp per min, but the fights are boring. I love this game and I love what you have done with it. I just think theirs an issue with the bosses right now. You have a vision of how they should be but I don't think it's working quite the way you want it, but I could be wrong. All I am asking is you take a look at it and give us an answer as to whether you think any thing is going to change. If things don't change I am not going to leave I just think that the fun of fighting bosses has been sucked out of them. Like you said fun is the name of the game. Thank you for your time, and sorry for being a pain in the boot.
Statesman, Thank you for the great explanation for why the bosses were changed. I am very glad that you are looking into the one-hit death issue (as I primarily play a squishie).
Would it be possible to have a Solo mode on the difficulty slider ? (make things easier for the Solo player, while they are doing missions Solo, yet have it revert to standard whenever there is more than one person present in the mission ?)
My wife ended up playing a mission that spawned 3 bosses in the final room just a few days ago, and the mission description never mentioned anything about 1 boss, let alone 3. That being the case, some of the mission descriptions need updating as well to better warn us players about the presence of a boss.
I love the idea for a boss to have an aura effect - would really make them stand out and help prevent mistaken attacks. I do not like the idea mentioned above about having the boss lead with a hold attack. That would have the same affect as a melee 1-hit kill attack, except I would be held while the boss 1-hit me (instead of trying to back up/run quickly).
hehe: I guess my main issues can be summed up as:
1) 1 hit death is no fun
2) Several minutes to take out a boss is not much fun
3) Some mission descriptions need to be updated to indicate boss / potential boss presence.
What I would love to see (any of these)
1) Visual cue for bosses (like the hero aura)
2) Eliminate possibility for an even level boss to 1 hit kill us squishies.
3) Solo mode for missions that reduces the boss level only (if a boss is to be present) in the mission to be a Max of +0 (set up like mission slider so a player could take this mode if they want, leave it if they do not)
Again - Thank you for the description of why the change was made, things at least make more sense now.
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I really dislike social engineers, people who think that just because they like something everyone should or will if exposed to it. Why can't people accept that we just are not all wired the same and we will never all like the same thing.
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I have to concur with this.
I do not do pickup groups, period. I will team if I feel like teaming and my friends are available, and I will solo when I feel like soloing. The only thing you accomplish by making my missions harder is encouraging me not to play at all. (Missions were already harder than I preferred .. getting an "easier" setting was my major reason for wanting a difficulty slider mechanic in the first place, and damned be the effect on how fast I run out of missions).
Edit: trimming the quote slightly.
Have to agree here. File this under the ages old cliche "you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar."
You would keep the players happier by saying "Here are some sweet rewards and bonuses you can only get by teaming" instead of "Team up or you're going to get smacked."
The intent of the change may have been good, but the results of the means selected aren't meeting the real world logistics of a lot of players. Of the friends in my RL that have this game, this issue is eating at them and they're who I normally prefer to team with when I do team.
That being said, thanks for the reply and explanation. And especially for the reassurance that it's being looked at. I will continue patiently in the hopes that a better prod for teaming is arrived at.
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As for the 'one-shot' problem -- have bosses always lead with their debuff, hold, or weakest damage attacks. Let them save their most powerful attack for the second or third in their queue. Yes, this may mean that controllers will have more chance to defang a boss before they get dangerous, but it'll decrease the one-shot problem. Just a suggestion.
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Speaking of debuffs and bosses, I am noticing an insane amount of aggro due to my controller's debuffs.
Previously, once a tank had engaged an enemy, I was pretty safe to throw an Enervating Field or Radiation Infection on them. Now, it seems as if my toggle debuffs going up near a boss equals an instant death sentence.
Or maybe I'm just noticing it more because I have more time to reflect once I've been turned in Controller Paste.
Actually I have noticed on teh TV trial the problem is that your not getting 1 pull worth of villans, your getting about 3. They seem to come on a timered basis and the timer is still using the old timer wher eit wasn't too bad to destroy a pull befor ehte next one jumped down on you. However now you get one pull and while your still fighting it the next comes before your done and then by the time the 3rd shows up your overwhelmed. However if each of those "pulls" only had 1 boss in them they woudl be more manageable. It's that each one has like 3+ and by the end of that set of 3 you've killed 2-3 bosses but have like 6-10 left to go.
Or at least that has been my experience and observation of it.
Statesman,
Please give Hephaestus a cookie and then implement his suggestion.
If bosses 25+ are now exactly equivalent to +1 bosses before the change, then please change their color-con. Starting at 25 the colors for bosses should be moved one step so that even-level bosses con red. Then everyone would instantly know how to gauge the difficulty.
As it stands now, you can be fighting along, see an orange level 24 boss and take him down. Move a little further and you'll see a red 25 boss. No problem right? He's just one level higher so we need to be a little more careful. Wrong! He's actually TWO levels tougher than the boss you just fought. Changing the con color would end that confusion over boss difficulty.
Besides, call me crazy but it's just plain FUN in the later game to be able to take out higher con mobs than you could earlier in your career. I know it's just a color, but it somehow makes you feel more "HERO-ISH". 
Dwimble
As a blaster primarily, I've been less and less thrilled by these mini-AVs you've created.
I'm currently at the end of the Kronos Titan arc, and the last mission has, rough estimate, at least 8 bosses, and that was before I got tired of scouting it out with invuln and constantly in-mission ambushed by teams of sappers (fix that...it's annoying to have one in a group let alone one rushing you on the set up to attack). Most were orange, some were red, I've seen the DoT from hell that is a quad blast hit me for about 149 damage a tick, and it didn't stop until I was dead (and I'm pretty sure it would have went farther). I'm currently playing another blaster to get my SG to the second stringa TF, but also because I'm tired of running around with missions I can't solo because of AVs or various other "features."
As far as I'm concerned all this did was help those that already didn't need the help, as in Scrappers and fire tanks, cause they can still survive and solo these things, while those of us that already have a hard time finding a decent team (you may have good experiences with teams states, but I have quite a few horror stories) or soloing are even worse off then before.