Just 1 more reason not to take Phase Shift!
By
Amarsir,
Posted on: 2007-05-02 22:14 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Now let's say for [censored] and giggles we take all the common baddies in the game and reduce their health, damage, and XP by 80%. And then we increase the spawn sizes by a factor 5. So now, instead of facing spawns of 3-5, you're facing 15-25. Holy Full House Batman! Now you actually have something *worthy* to fight.
The tank/brute/scrapper plows thru them like a bulldozer, foes flying everywhere, constantly surrounding you, trying to overpower you, but they are but flies and you rip thru them like a hot knife thru butter. You're taking some damage here and there, but nothing you can't handle, and you're definitely working up a sweat cause you're just cycling thru powers non-stop. Mmmm quite satisfying.
The defender is momentarily daunted, but with their array of buffs and debuffs they too find it highly satisfying watching 2 dozen baddies bounce up and down on a tar patch, or flee from a chilling freezing rain, all the while being picked off one by one. Yes indeed, so very satisfying.
And can you just IMAGINE the sheer joy a team of 8 would be like this??? I get goose-pimply just thinking about it.
NOW you feel like a super hero.
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I would truely love to have that at times as well. And I think the devs would like to have something like but, but I beleive that design considerations prevent it. A lo of players on the CoV side of the house take a bit hit in framerate if too many MMs are on the team. You hope for the bestest systems to run your game, but you have to design for more modest systems. I think that the 3 minions = 1 Heroes is partially in reponse to that design contraint.
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I think this could be achieved by simply adding another "difficulty setting" where enemy number would be three times more than normal but conning green minions and blue lieutenants. Some of my characters would really enjoy such a setting.
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That sounds like a fun idea 
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It's funny you mention this, cause here's a little test I give to people who doubt my above suggestion.
Put together a team of 4 people, making sure at least 1 of them is 4 levels below you. Have that person get a scanner mish and put the difficulty up one notch to increase spawn size. Now everyone enter the mission, but stay at the door and do not fight. All except you, that is. Now go thru the mission and defeat everything that moves.
After you've done this, leave the team and get your own solo scanner mish and set the difficulty to whatever you like. Now go do it, defeating anything that moves.
When you've finished that, stop and take a moment to reflect, and ask yourself, which mission was more FUN?
The vast majority will choose the first mission, where you were fighting large quantities of weaker foes.
The sad part, unfortunately, which is invariably tied to my point, is that the "fun" mission will net you about 1/5th the XP as the "not really fun, just moderately entertaining" mission.
So why is it that to really have fun playing this game I need a posse of 3 other people fighting foes that are 3-4 levels below me for 1/5th the XP I'd normally get??
If that's not broken, god help us...
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Ex: PA is invincible could be changed to PA is invicible to all, except certain higher level entities.
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That would be fine by my. Of course, it'd be nice if they updated more powers to actually say what the powers do first.
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Also, neither you or I know if the core engine would have to be touched to support larger mass combat, as only the devs know what needs to be done.
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Yes, only the devs know what needs to be done. And they told us this (mass enemies in missions) was stressful to the core game engine. I'm not pulling that out of my nether regions. We know it for a fact.
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The fact that the programming staff and zone/editing staff are not the same is also an aside, as you might still need the programming staff to program the AI for the new behavior in these missions and/or zone (if the new behavior was say for only the moon zone.)
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Yes, it was an aside. I mentioned that actual programming staff might be needed when I said "new mission features". My point in the aside is that new missions and art do not automatically require programmer resources; they can make new missions, new powers and even new mobs using existing tech without programmer resources. Those things would simply work like everything else we already have.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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The vast majority will choose the first mission, where you were fighting large quantities of weaker foes.
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I can make up statistics or sweeping generalizations too. That doesn't make them truth.
I don't share your opinion on this, and neither do most of the people I play with. Doing what you describe would bore me and many of them, because there's no challenge in it.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Not true. Challenge can come in numbers, which I have said many times over the years is the first and foremost way the devs could turn this game around.
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The devs have addressed this in the past, when talking about the GDN in I5. People suggested increasing the number of foes instead of nerfing defenses. The response was that the game doesn't handle it well. Imagine an 8-person team where there were 10 foes per player per spawn. The problem isn't the servers but the game engine, and interactions of that with people's client computers. As mentioned, some people can't play with masterminds due to the lag it causes them.
Sure, maybe they could spend time working on the core graphics engine, or the core game event loop which we see slow down at events like Hamidon raids. The question is one of cost/benefit. Is that really going to bring back enough people to bother with the time and effort? It seems to me we might already have the answer to that.
Beyond that, there are balance problems with large numbers of minor foes. AoE powers (and thus AoE powersets) gain a trenendous economy in such situations. Single-target attacks suffer from overkill, making them involve much wasted endurance, while AoEs can apply that overkill to their AoE limit in foes, making them vastly more efficient in both endurance and time. This would almost certainly spill over into other mechanics, such as the current drop rate mechanics of Inventions, which are at least partly on a per-mob basis. People would be farming these "en masse" missions within minutes of their arrival. All things are possible with time and money, but that example alone tells me there would need to be other under-the-hood changes to allow a slider setting like this.
Personally, I can tell you I wouldn't find enjoyable a setting that surrounded me with gimpy foes. As true to classic comic imagery as that is, I don't do that now. I play on the settings that give me fewer, higher-level foes, because I enjoy the harder one-on-one fighting, even consistently from minion to minion, more than I do mowing faster through large numbers of foes. My opinion on this in no way invalidates yours, but I present it to show that your ideas of what would make the game better aren't universal. Could your ideas be a good game? Of course, and maybe better than CoH ... assuming a fresh start with those goals in mind. My perspective is rooted in the history of what this game is now and how it got here, mixed with some of the realities the devs have explained to us about limitations and their own time constraints.
Don't take my perspective, which I consider to be something of a realist's viewpoint, to mean I am a dev fanboy. I'm not. I don't hate the devs, and I don't think they ruined the game. But there are past decisions and new ones with I9 that I despise and don't feel are justified. I think some powersets are still unnecessarily weak. I do think this game can be better than it is. I just don't happen to think that mass solo combat is required for it to be better. I don't think a repeal of the GDN or even ED, which I disliked intensely, are called for.
Nor do I think that making Hamidon able to blast through "Untouchable" status is a sign of a coming nerfpocalypse. Time will tell.
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All good points. But like any global change everything would need to be adjusted to get the balance just right, including handling AOE damage and drop rates.
And my suggestion doesn't in any way mean disposing of the difficulty slider. There is no reason there can't be more settings that will customize the game to everyone's liking. If you prefer less, but harder foes, there could be a difficulty setting that gives just bosses, as an example.
Will a change like this necessarily bring back those that left and/or new players? Personally I think it would, but that's just my opinion. Unfortunately we'll never know cause I doubt it'll ever see the light of day.
I guess one way to test for this would be Celestial's idea of adding another difficulty level that spawns larger quantities at lower levels (making up for the xp differential in say, a larger mission bonus), and gauge playerbase response. But again, I just don't see it ever happening.
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Because everyone isn't in this for the most efficient way.
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yep your absolutly right. and that is not what I was saying.
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Because I predict that, in around 8 weeks time, there will be little difference in the time it takes to do a raid or an RSF/STF.
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A hami raid in 30min? Nope not going to happen. STF/LRSF happens every night that way.
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Because not everyone has a team to do the STF/RSF on, or has the right AT to get one from people running them who are frequently unnecessarily elitest about who they admit.
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Well right now most ppl are just figuring out the STF and so they want ppl around them that know what there doing. As they figure it out they will open up to outsiders more.
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Because you can do both and get two HOs or two recipies.
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Actully you cant get 2 HO AND 2 rares a day if you run them twice each.
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Because beating on anything with 50 people is cool.
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Ill do you one better. Because beating on anything with 50 people is so Laggy that it isnt fun or cool. But the funny part is that you would thing its easier to get 50 ppl to do something than it is to get 8 ppl.
Anyways have a good one
Broomhilda BS/Regen/BM Scrapper, Fiddle Faddle Shield/ElecM/BM Tank,
And many others..
Dev's With all the Great new content, Please!! dont forget to fix the bugs with the old content. There is a storm a brewing because they are not getting fixed. If its a problem that no one is reporting them? Well Maybe you need to look at your tech support then..
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The vast majority will choose the first mission, where you were fighting large quantities of weaker foes.
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I can make up statistics or sweeping generalizations too. That doesn't make them truth.
I don't share your opinion on this, and neither do most of the people I play with. Doing what you describe would bore me and many of them, because there's no challenge in it.
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Have you actually tried it? If not, then your opinion is based solely upon supposition. You'd be surprised how quickly a large mob of -3s can beat down most toons.
Now granted, my sample size is quite small, perhaps about 10 people (none of which were friends of mine or even people I'd previously met), but every single one of them admitted the larger-mob mission was more fun to them.
You and your friends might disagree (and again, I don't think you can really have a valid opinion until you've actually tried it) but then again, you and all your friends aren't a good sample size either 
Only the Devs have the metrics to support either side in such a debate.
However, they have a vested interest in pleasing BOTH camps, hence the present design.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Since we're so off-topic from the OP anyhow WillyReborn...
Easy Chocolate Saucepan Brownies
From Diana Rattray
These chocolate brownies are easy to mix up in a saucepan, and they're chewy, moist, and delicious!
INGREDIENTS:
* 6 tablespoons butter
* 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
PREPARATION:
Heat oven to 325°. Grease and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.
In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and let cool. With a whisk, beat in the vanilla and sugar.
Whisk in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir flour, measure into a small bowl, and stir in the baking powder and salt, blending well. With a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the first mixture. Stir in the chopped nuts, blending well. Spoon into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake the brownies for about 25 minutes.
Muffin Cup Brownies
From Diana Rattray
Serve these round brownies with a big scoop of ice cream and dessert topping.
INGREDIENTS:
* 2/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour (sift before measuring)
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/3 cup butter
* 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease 12 muffin cups.
Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Sift again. Melt butter and chocolate over hot water.
In mixing bowl with electric mixer, beat eggs. Beat in sugar until well blended. Blend in chocolate mixture. Stir in flour mixture until well blended then stir in vanilla and pecans. Fill muffin cups about 1/3 full. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until done. Cool before removing from pan. Makes 14 round muffin brownies. Serve with vanilla ice cream and butterscotch or chocolate fudge sauce, if desired.
Chocolate Brownies with Praline Topping
From Diana Rattray
Chocolate brownies with a praline pecan topping.
INGREDIENTS:
* Praline Topping
* 1/4 cup butter
* 2 tablespoons flour
* 3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 cups chopped pecans
* .
* Brownies
* 1 (21-1/2 oz) package Pillsbury fudge brownie mix
* 1/2 cup water
* 1/4 cup oil
* 1 egg
PREPARATION:
Heat oven to 350°. Grease bottom only of 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-low heat; stir in flour until smooth. Add brown sugar and 2 eggs; mix well.Cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and pecans. Set aside.
In large bowl,combine all brownie ingredients;beat 50 strokes with spoon. Spread in prepared pan. Spoon topping evenly over brownie layer. Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until set. Do not over cook. Cool completely and cut into bars. Makes about 2 dozen brownies.
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The vast majority will choose the first mission, where you were fighting large quantities of weaker foes.
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I can make up statistics or sweeping generalizations too. That doesn't make them truth.
I don't share your opinion on this, and neither do most of the people I play with. Doing what you describe would bore me and many of them, because there's no challenge in it.
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62.8% of all statistics are made up.
Bet you didn't know that
No
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
I think you underestimate our fools, sir.
Why /duel is a bad idea
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Actully you cant get 2 HO AND 2 rares a day if you run them twice each.
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You can run each twice. They are on different timers, as I understand it.
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Because beating on anything with 50 people is cool.
[/ QUOTE ]Ill do you one better. Because beating on anything with 50 people is so Laggy that it isnt fun or cool.
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No offense, but get a better computer and this will change. I suffer zero lag at Hami raids until there are over 90 people on the server. I run at full graphics settings, too. (Notably running in safe mode also improves it a great deal for folks with less beefy systems.)
50 people is not sufficient to cause server-side lag at a Hami raid. Some of the fastest pre-I9 raids have been 50-60 people.
Finally:
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A hami raid in 30min? Nope not going to happen. STF/LRSF happens every night that way.
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I think you have your expectations reversed. First of all, 30 minutes is not even remotely normal. That's maximally optimized teams with strong debuffers, full bore use of nukes and/or Shivans, and everything to speed it up. I believe that the eventual availability of a raid to the average player is going to be vastly higher than an STF that runs under an hour.
If that doesn't change, then I think you can expect either the STF/RSF to change, or the tools we're using to breeze through them to. The devs have stated that the two should be comparable in time, if not effort (it's harder to get 50 people in synch). I'll be disappointed if they don't track that.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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All good points. But like any global change everything would need to be adjusted to get the balance just right, including handling AOE damage and drop rates.
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Given that how one enemy treats one power generates this much energetic discussion, I doubt the devs saying, "We are now tweaking AoE damage since you'll be fighting more enemies," would be met with enthusiasm.
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Will a change like this necessarily bring back those that left and/or new players? Personally I think it would, but that's just my opinion. Unfortunately we'll never know cause I doubt it'll ever see the light of day.
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Also, given that the major complaint leveled at CoH/V is that all you do is fight enemies, I don't think giving players the option to fight more enemies per mission is really going to draw the crowds back.
CoH/V is already one of the most action-packed MMOGs on the market. Personally I find 'fun' in a mission where a team gets into that zone of continuous battle where things are operating like a machine. Had a great Safeguard team yesterday where we fought running battles against blue- through to yellow-con enemies.
Also, previously you mentioned that if the number of enemies increased, the devs should drop per enemy xp to 80% (or by 80%) to reflect their less threatening status (because they'd also been reduced in power). I can only imagine how badly "the devs nerfed xp!" would shake these forums to their very core.
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Our characters are living organisms. How come we can't "adapt" and do similar things as hami? 
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Respecs + New Slotting.
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What slotting will let us hit phase shifted targets?
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Since we're so off-topic from the OP anyhow WillyReborn...
Easy Chocolate Saucepan Brownies
From Diana Rattray
These chocolate brownies are easy to mix up in a saucepan, and they're chewy, moist, and delicious!
INGREDIENTS:
* 6 tablespoons butter
* 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
PREPARATION:
Heat oven to 325°. Grease and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.
In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and let cool. With a whisk, beat in the vanilla and sugar.
Whisk in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir flour, measure into a small bowl, and stir in the baking powder and salt, blending well. With a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the first mixture. Stir in the chopped nuts, blending well. Spoon into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake the brownies for about 25 minutes.
Muffin Cup Brownies
From Diana Rattray
Serve these round brownies with a big scoop of ice cream and dessert topping.
INGREDIENTS:
* 2/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour (sift before measuring)
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/3 cup butter
* 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease 12 muffin cups.
Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Sift again. Melt butter and chocolate over hot water.
In mixing bowl with electric mixer, beat eggs. Beat in sugar until well blended. Blend in chocolate mixture. Stir in flour mixture until well blended then stir in vanilla and pecans. Fill muffin cups about 1/3 full. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until done. Cool before removing from pan. Makes 14 round muffin brownies. Serve with vanilla ice cream and butterscotch or chocolate fudge sauce, if desired.
Chocolate Brownies with Praline Topping
From Diana Rattray
Chocolate brownies with a praline pecan topping.
INGREDIENTS:
* Praline Topping
* 1/4 cup butter
* 2 tablespoons flour
* 3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 cups chopped pecans
* .
* Brownies
* 1 (21-1/2 oz) package Pillsbury fudge brownie mix
* 1/2 cup water
* 1/4 cup oil
* 1 egg
PREPARATION:
Heat oven to 350°. Grease bottom only of 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-low heat; stir in flour until smooth. Add brown sugar and 2 eggs; mix well.Cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and pecans. Set aside.
In large bowl,combine all brownie ingredients;beat 50 strokes with spoon. Spread in prepared pan. Spoon topping evenly over brownie layer. Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until set. Do not over cook. Cool completely and cut into bars. Makes about 2 dozen brownies.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm much more partial to
[censored] Pie
Sure to satisfy even the most annoying and obnoxious posters with absolutely nothing valid to contribute!
INGREDIENTS:
*1 cup of Shove it Up Your [censored]
*1/2 cup of troll bitters
*2 sticks horseshit
*1/2 tsp vitriol
*1/4 tsp bile
and just a pinch of strychnine
PREPARATION:
Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Pour mixture into a 9" [censored] and bake up your [censored] at 400F for 45 minutes or until a toothpick stuck up your urethra comes clean.
Serves 8, unless they're bitter, then serves 1
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No kidding.
Let me know when someone on the Dev team "adapts" the ability to Phase Shift since you all are living organisms too.
Lazy answer.
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We use our intelligence, well most of us hopefully, to adapt our battle tactics to new circumstances and challenges. And respec our builds for that also.
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Can we move this thread to the Tank forums? It feels like a Tank thread.
[/ QUOTE ] That is hilarious.
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I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
[/ QUOTE ] I'm actually quite fascinated with board mentality. It's really interesting the lengths that people will delude themselves about reality and facts because of their emotional stance on certain issues. I think it was Jem's response to me that players are more limited with every issue....ignoring I9 of course right? Or that players can't adapt.....ignoring respecs right?
The problem, imo, is that there isn't enough adapting in this game. Our enemies don't change and we haven't had to either. Obviously too much change is stressful, but I'm all in favor of putting more pressure on players to have to pay attention. Maybe not a lot more, but some. Maybe not in every aspect of the game, but in more than just the Hami raid.
I don't think these devs are perfect by any means. The Stalker mechanic in PvP is one of the worst decisions I've seen a design team make or allow to happen.
For all the people who feel something like this is worth quitting over, consider that one of the reasons for change is so that players are faced with new challenges. Common sense tells us that if the game becomes stagnant, people will get bored and quit. This approach is beyond obvious and evident in the release of patches and expansions in almost every major MMO. As someone has already stated, the game has to change or it may not remain financially viable. Again, as someone stated, sometimes those changes work against specific players and sometimes the work for them.
You have to take the good with the bad or you'll just keep bouncing between MMO's endlessly.
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I've not yet seen anyone on the forums posit a design for an entity that can take on 50 players with consistent challenge that never breaks any rule the players have. I'll be very impressed if I do see it. I'll be even more impressed if it's something that the devs could implement without something like engine changes or other time-consuming modifications, meaning they'd have to prioritize their development time around it.
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That sounds like an interesting weekend challenge...
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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That sounds like an interesting weekend challenge...
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When I wrote that, I though of you. Seriously.
In fact, if I hadn't thought of you, I might have been tempted to write something more along the lines of "we'll never see it."
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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You may thing Hamidon's design is stupid. I don't, for reasons stated. If things that poke through phase shift and hibernate start showing up in door missions then I'll be on the bandwagon with you.
Simply because they did it in this particular case doesn't mean they're dense enough to do it everywhere.
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The one thing that concerns me about this design decision is that if there is *anywhere* you would expect the devs to pull out the cleverness-stops, it would be with Hamidon. After all, there's only one of him: however much work you decide to put into him, you only have to do it once, and its for a show-piece element of content.
The fact that they immediately went essentially to hacks to make Hamidon more difficult (and some initially massive blow-the-doors-off ultra-high numbers) implies that there's a good chance they would think its even *less* worth it to employ creative means to make more "mundane" encounters more tricky.
If you won't pull out the stops to make Hamidon's AI very tricky, or his powers design more intricate, you're even less likely to ever think its worth it to make Hellion-AI more tricky or make nemesis bosses more intricate. And thats not a good thing.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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Well I see the idea but I think it's just too' lazy of the Devs not explain why he can now hit you though PS.
I think a better fix would've been to just make him ignor anything that's PSed. PAs included. That would solve the tanking prob.
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He's a living organism; he adapted to his environment.
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And maybe one day Hamidon will evolve into an enjoyable event.
PenanceжTriage
have you tried the new raid?
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
Going waaay back to BAB's post.
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Hamidon and the mitos do damage through Phase Shift to prevent Phantom Army and Phase Shift type powers becoming "required" for a raid.
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I am totally on board with that motivation.
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Fictionally, Hamidon evolves. When he's continually defeated using a particular strategy or power he's naturally going to evolve a counter to it. This ability to attack phase-shifted targets is part of that evolution.
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This started out as fine logic, up until the point where phase shift is suddenly something it never was. In fictional terms, what you've done isn't an evolution of hami. It's a devolvution of phase shift. And that is a (not particularly egregious) mistake. That's the issue that the players are trying to get across.
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Why not simply change the AI so it ignores Phantom Army? Because we don't want it to ignore Phantom Army. Using Phantom Army as a diversion is a perfectly sound tactic. We just didn't want PA to be any better than other pets/minions for that purpose.
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I have no problem with that motivation. (Note: this tone of answer offers no recognition that the player is trying to offer one example as proof that there are ways to evolve hami for your purposes yet stay within the bounds of the established 'fiction' of phase shift.)
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We've gotten many PMs with similiar laments about defense, resistance, stealth, etc. All of which are reasonable complaints. However, it's simply not what this particular encounter is. As others have pointed out, in order to make a single entity that can be attacked by 50 players at the same time we have to step outside of the bounds of 'normal' rules in order to make it challenging.
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There is a difference between an encounter being a challenge, and an encounter being incredible. This change (at least lacking the significant fictional backup required to explain why/how a damage source in normal reality can affect a target phase shifted out of normal reality), this change has no credibility. This mechanic isn't a challenge in a hami raid, it's an artificial discontinuity in the same class as the invisible hami during a 200-man old school hold phase.
Anyone can slap a post-it note on any character with 'evolved' written on it. That doesn't make it credible or even aesthetically appealing. (That's part of the reason why many content creators are so aggressive with copyright and trademark.)
In this case (hami being cheap vs. phase shift), the credibility is not there, and thus we come back to the original question: What is the value of phase shift? What is phase shift?
It was (likely exactly) designed fictionally to be a perfect invulnerability at the cost of heavy end use plus near perfect isolation. Later there was added an artificial time limit (to limit hami exploits) and broadened isolation (to prevent glowie interaction that was previously allowed).
The perfect invulnerability should remain, because (outside of fiction) that's the whole point of the power and how it has been implemented in the powerset system.
That said, the question remains as to how Hami has to evolve to phase shift tactics that both makes sense fictionally and addresses the goal of being an effective but not overwhelming countertactic. How would one approach the problem if he were hami?
Ignoring phase shifters is an obvious approach. But ignoring a shifter's pets seems inconsistent with normal hami behavior. It seems a bit unfair that pets can still somehow maintain a link to a master under phase shift. Perhaps hami can evolve to feel out this link? Why not make a change so that any player that both has a self-only effect on them (like phase shift or rest or personal force field) and has a pet out, then any power or effect that lands on any such pet (even if the pet were invulnerable) is duplicated on the master, and in fact, any extra buffs or mitigation on the master are ignored by the duplicated effects.
Another thing Hami can evolve is the nature of his goo. He might not be able to affect players currently on an unreal plane, but he can evolve to warp the reality around him so that it's harder to maintain the shift. How about... if hami sees a phase shifter coming, he can shift the nature of his goo from a slow/interrupt aoe to a strong end penalty to all powers aoe.
In any case, the only advantage the approach of cheap-damage-through-phase-shift has over all of the previous suggestions is that it is inexpensive to develop and implement. And, actually, this is a just reason. It may lead to incredulity, which compounds on itself when reasoning of 'hami is evolving' is offered in its place, but if that's the basic truth of the business environment, I can deal with it.
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If you won't pull out the stops to make Hamidon's AI very tricky, or his powers design more intricate, you're even less likely to ever think its worth it to make Hellion-AI more tricky or make nemesis bosses more intricate. And thats not a good thing.
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I honestly don't think they can, at least not easily. I'd imagine that somewhere high up on the class inheritance tree there is a class that is the parent of all the mobs in the game and changing Hami is going mean a lot of work and/or risk of bugs. That's not say that its not worth while, but that its hard.
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If you won't pull out the stops to make Hamidon's AI very tricky, or his powers design more intricate, you're even less likely to ever think its worth it to make Hellion-AI more tricky or make nemesis bosses more intricate. And thats not a good thing.
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I honestly don't think they can, at least not easily. I'd imagine that somewhere high up on the class inheritance tree there is a class that is the parent of all the mobs in the game and changing Hami is going mean a lot of work and/or risk of bugs. That's not say that its not worth while, but that its hard.
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The intrinsic assumption here is that the game is designed as an object-oriented hierarchy. Based on the information we have about how a lot of things function in the game, this appears to be virtually impossible to be true. There have been many instances of the devs admitting that particular critters' AI was malfunctioning to not use particular powers, or use them much less frequently than intended, and that generally centered around specific critters, not all critters in general, which implies changes to the behavior of a specific type of critter is usually isolated from all others of different types (although there are probably generic "behavior libraries" that all the critters can tap into).
Its also very likely that many "special" critters like Hamidon are entities unto themselves, with special coding that determines their basic behavior (separate from certain general things that are likely true by default for all critters, like their tendancy to shoot at you when they detect you).
The point, though, is that whatever entanglements that *do* exist when changing things, they almost certainly don't involve Hamidon, because its clear Hamidon follows his own rules. So if they were going to change anything, the perfect candidate is Hamidon, because its very unlikely to cause side-effects elsewhere in the game.
Hamidon is a form of canary in the cage. If the devs don't think something is worth it for Hamidon, its very likely they won't think its worth it for very much else.
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When every AV, boss, and EB is far more powerful than you can ever hope to become, no matter how many respecs, slots, or inventions you put into your powers... Why bother? It just isn't fun for me to play as a second-rate hero, far less than the signature heroes and villains. They're so far out of our league, it takes 8 of US to equal one of THEM.
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I'm not sure I understand why having some heroes/villains actually be more powerful than PCs is an issue.
I can directly draw from comic books a number of antagonists who are more than the equal of the JLA or West Coast Avengers. Can't you recall any number of times groups of heroes fight a single foe?
Certainly Hamidon is no more out of place in its power than Galactus is.
We are not the the heroes at the top of the power pyramid like Green Lantern or Superman - we play the middle rank heros, such as Cyclops, Gambit, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Quicksilver, and Collosus.
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I don't agree with the cost/beneift analysis being the only thing that should determine if something vary major is undertaken by the devs.
The cost/benefit of inventions versus new ATs, content, epic ats, powersets, zones, and arcs is one example of where sometimes fun trumps cost/benefit analysis.
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Nor do I feel it should be the only thing, and I didn't suggest it should. I was talking specifically about the cost/benefit analysis of improving the core engine to support larger mass combat as a slider setting. I consider the "cost" of that analysis to include time lost for working on new powersets/ATs, new mission features, fixing old bugs and other things that would require programmer resources. (I feel pretty confident that the mission and zone editing staff are not the same as the programming staff.)
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Also the subsequent change to PS should have been noted in the patch notes.
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I don't believe there was a change to PS. There was a change to Hamidon, or possibly to the "Untouchable" status effect (which affects more than PS) to give Hamidon a free pass. None of the changes to Hamidon were enumerated in the patch notes.
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But this is not only a change to hamidon, its a fundamental change in how a power works. If there are exceptions to how a power works then those exceptions should at least be listed in the power description.
Ex: PA is invincible could be changed to PA is invicible to all, except certain higher level entities.
But yes I agree patch note changes to Hami are not needed or advised.
Also, neither you or I know if the core engine would have to be touched to support larger mass combat, as only the devs know what needs to be done. The fact that the programming staff and zone/editing staff are not the same is also an aside, as you might still need the programming staff to program the AI for the new behavior in these missions and/or zone (if the new behavior was say for only the moon zone.)
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