Remove Defiance from Custom Critters
By
Darth_Khasei,
Posted on: 2009-04-29 06:57 in Mission Architect
Agreed. I really wish they'd remove ALL of the player-specific effects from the MA powersets. Most regular critters don't have those, so why do MA ones? I thought the whole point of those bonuses was to give players an edge.
I want them to allow for more user flexibility in the custom critters. There are currently some changes on test that limit the minions to no mez protection on the low setting. I do agree that we need more control over the critters powers.
Of course they needed to add a ranged attack to all melee sets etc.., but we still need more control.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
Tons of stuff they need to do to fix custom Critters.
- Global mez protection in shields.
- Control sets have 'Overpower' ability.
- Fire/Ice shields resist 90% of fire/ice damage. Ice further defense ice attacks as most ice attacks are mixed with smash/lethal.
- No Pistol set outside of of Masterminds that have unwanted summons when used.
- Cannot make */TA Masterminds except Ninja and Necro.
- Most attacks have a debuff attached to them, but don't seem balanced for the expected number to be hit on any given AT. This is very limiting when trying to make minion fodder. Level 2 player vs. 3x katana even minons can expect to have -32 DEF to -59 DEF reduced at any given time.
- Intangible powers. Okay for Boss/EB/AV maybe, but extremely frustrating for lower ranks.
The list goes on. Just a note, I left -perception stuff off this list. This wouldn't be so bad if they made blind break on damage like it use to.
Freeedom
H: Victra Defile (Rad/Dark) & Hot Hits (Fire/SD)
V: Spike Cream (NW) & Crescent Wind (Nin/Storm)
Sub Hero Inc ARC: 1541
--If you don't like what I have to say, it was probably a typo you are refering to.
Kill Defiance.
Reorganize Trick Arrow. Flash Arrow is uncouth.
If custom critters give more XP then they're non-custom counter parts BECAUSE they have the extra "juice"...then I'm actually fine with them. I like that they are somewhere in between Players and normal NPC type mobs.
I would love to see an option to make them that "easy" though so a player can choose whether or not that want those "bonuses" on or not.
According the the latest Test Server patch notes:
[ QUOTE ]
- Global mez protection in shields.
[/ QUOTE ]
On "Extreme" settings for Lts and above.
[ QUOTE ]
Just a note, I left -perception stuff off this list. This wouldn't be so bad if they made blind break on damage like it use to.
[/ QUOTE ]
Perception debuffs suppress when the player is hit.
Totally agree about the intangible thing, it keeps people from using Force Fields for concept because it's just soooo annoying.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
We ought to be able to pick and choose if an enemy has a specific ability. We can give an enemy Defiance, or Overpower, or Criticals, or Fury, or Scourge, or some kind of inherent slow resist like Warwolves, or Carnie-style Phase Shift, but it's not automatic, it's something we need to be able to choose. We could even choose all of them together. Coming across one or two enemies per mission with these abilities would be a fun surprise and extra challenge. Having it default with the powersets... not so cool.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
- Thomas Jefferson
[ QUOTE ]
Perception debuffs suppress when the player is hit.
[/ QUOTE ]
Unless there was a recent bug fix, and I've been avoiding -perception, I believe that was the way it use to be. There has been a number of times I've been doing AE missions solo, only to be blinded with my health slowly dropping.
Freeedom
H: Victra Defile (Rad/Dark) & Hot Hits (Fire/SD)
V: Spike Cream (NW) & Crescent Wind (Nin/Storm)
Sub Hero Inc ARC: 1541
--If you don't like what I have to say, it was probably a typo you are refering to.
[ QUOTE ]
There are currently some changes on test that limit the minions to no mez protection on the low setting.
[/ QUOTE ]
Long as we can still turn them to Hard and get it back I'm alright with it. If not then that is lame as it takes control away from the author.
Castle told me in the beta that enemies having AT Specific powers was a bug.
It's probually not that easy to fix if it's taken this long.
Can't you just give them the defender blast set, or corr blast set to avoid defiance? Or do custom critters get defiance with all their blaster blast sets regardless of how they get them?
Now after hoping onto test and looking at the changes in MA.
WTF ARE THEY THINKING?
Here's just a few of the changes that effect my own custom groups:
* My Archer Minions and LTs can no longer have Blazing Arrow but they can now have Rain of Arrows instead?
* My Energy Aura Minions cannot have Power Shield (Fire/Cold/Nrg/Neg) or Entropy Shield (Mezz) anymore but they can have Energy Drain?
* My Energy Aura LTs cannot have Power Shield period, but can get Energy Drain on Hard and then Entropy Shield on Extreme? DO YOU KNOW HOW ANNOYING MOBS WITH ENERGY DRAIN ARE? This is friggin' backwards!
* Once again, my Energy Aura Bosses cannot get get Entropy Shield without getting Energy Drain first.
* I cannot give Dark Armor minions Murky Cloud but I can give them Dark Regeneration?
Those Energy Aura changes make the set effectively unusable in MA now.
[ QUOTE ]
Perception debuffs suppress when the player is hit.
[/ QUOTE ]
Nope....or at least not those that come from custom critters in MA. I fought an annoying EB the other day who kept blinding me. Once my purples wore off and he started hitting me while I was blind I ended up having to run away since blind never broke.
@Doctor Gemini
Arc #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I. - An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you are chosen to find it.
The perception debuffs are fixed on test.
Personally I wish they'd take Energy Drain away from enemies entirely. Even on a lieutenant it's so powerful you're looking at almost a completely empty bar, which is way more powerful than the player version.
Although, conversely, do you have a real reason to give lieutenants so much defense? Mez protections have (mostly) been moved to Extreme, and to that I can only say good. People keep giving their custom enemies way too much protection, and it doesn't make them harder - just more tedious.
Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
being able to give enemies defense allows them to survive longer for effect.
That's important for a boss if I want to trigger an ambush as they are going down, or have them say text as they are being defeated.
For lt's it is nice to have a healer survive and not just get taken out with one blow.
I'm told that FF "allies" spamming Detention Field has been fixed, at least at Standard and maybe Hard too (haven't verified it myself).
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
[ QUOTE ]
being able to give enemies defense allows them to survive longer for effect.
That's important for a boss if I want to trigger an ambush as they are going down, or have them say text as they are being defeated.
For lt's it is nice to have a healer survive and not just get taken out with one blow.
[/ QUOTE ]
Or for a Mastermind critter to actually summon their pets. Without defense and KB resist you can just knock them down a couple times and they will never summon their henchmen.
I went on an tested it, with so much defense lost my critters went from a fun battle that that lasted for more than several seconds to an utter curbstomp. Anyone with AoE blast powers could finish entire spawns with a couple attacks and then move on like nothing had happened when before they actually had to think about what they were doing.
It was like somehow the difficulty went into negative levels. There is little point now in making custom critters if they are going to be easier to kill than generic CoH enemies.
Funny how mezz resist was such a big deal when most of my critters had it and still people were soloing the arcs with Controllers and not having a problem. But now the crybabies are having their way and a LOT of good arcs are going to be ruined because of it.
Give us the option to have these powers on anything we want. Don't take them away and then claim that the new system is more flexible to use!
Seriously, all of you go to Test, bring your arcs over, and see for yourself how the patch is going to effect your arcs and critters. The Patch notes don't tell you enough!
So previously the critters were horribly unbalanced, and some sets were more unbalanced than others. Mixing and matching could create any challenge level between "pushover" and "killer of purpled-out tanks."
And currently on test, critters are more balanced, and you can choose between "pushover," "crazy overpowered and/or annoying" and "crazy overpowered and/or annoying +1"
Is that about the extent of it?
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
No, the extent of it is that they went too far into the OTHER direction.
You people could go to Test and check it out for yourselves rather than making assumptions.
Here is the list I've begun of the power changes and concerns I have about them. Look over that list and tell me that you think it's all better balanced now.
i think whats happening a lot is people are just over doing the difficulty buttons.. Ohh thats a cool power to give my guys, but when mixed with other powers its soo far over the top.
this customization is a major balancing act. When the devs make a new group they dont just toss it together and then make a mission outta it. they test, and test, and test, and test more. Different at's, different lvls, different group combos. half this stuff people publish a ton of it never even saw a single full group let along a group of heavy blasters, or heavy melee, or lots of debuff, or what ever.
You dont even need to goto custom to make stuff over the top. you could say take, CoT spectral demons, demon lords and Bone daddies and make a group that people would one star and quit after the first mob.
Guess MA did one thing, it sure does show the average person how difficult it is to make a custom group thats fun for more than one group type
[ QUOTE ]
Guess MA did one thing, it sure does show the average person how difficult it is to make a custom group thats fun for more than one group type
[/ QUOTE ]
Balancing custom critters wouldn't be nearly so difficult if we could assign them powers individually (which the Devs can do with their custom mobs).
The list for Bosses has been completed. It doesn't look pretty, what with Hard giving every set Aim/Build Up and all melee bosses have Tier-9 attacks Standard now.
[ QUOTE ]
Guess MA did one thing, it sure does show the average person how difficult it is to make a custom group thats fun for more than one group type
[/ QUOTE ]
One method of testing mob difficulty is to benchmark them against developer mobs. An easy way of doing this is stage battles in a mission and watch the outcomes. Do this with about a dozen battles and you'll start spotting trends. Maybe your Lt. or Boss dominates the battle. Perhaps a particular power is causing lots of trouble, or not firing off at all.
If your mob is consistently wiping vanguard, longbow, malta and rikti, you might be overpowering them. Ideally you want to make them win 50% of the time, or win/lose a battle with only a minion or Lt. left. Adding and removing mobs and or powersets and difficulty settings will allow you to tailor your mob such that it feels close to standard developer mobs.
As someone who frequently plays Controllers and Dominators, I HATE the fact that custom critters in MA with Blaster powers have the same Defiance that players do. Any word on whether or not this will be removed?
A low damage controller has a massive hill to climb when critters can still attack while held.