AE Critter Power Changes

[ QUOTE ]
Now, onto the next subject: What should be the minimums for each powerset at each rank?

[/ QUOTE ]

What I said during closed beta was:

1. First two powers in all primary powersets should be mandatory
2. First power in all secondary powersets should be mandatory
3. If the primary powerset's first two powers are melee attacks and the set also contains ranged attacks, the first ranged attack should be mandatory
4. Caveat: below a certain level (somewhere between 15 and 20) one of the two primary powers ordinarily mandatory should be optional.

Therefore:

All low level critters will have at least one attack and one secondary power, and at least one ranged attack.

All other critters will have at least two attacks, at least one ranged attack (possibly three attacks total) and at least one secondary power.

That would make them at least as strong as the average PvE critters, and in most cases somewhat stronger.

---

[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.)

For now I hope they put these difficulty changes on hold and just push the mandatory ranged attacks. Things like these Bosses with Standard extreme damage attacks shouldn't be pushed out at all.

---

I'm not looking forward to redoing my arcs to find something tough but fair again. I had specifically picked the settings I did to give one enemy mez protect without nasty things like Oppressive Gloom. -_- I guess my zombies will just get regen as their secondary so I don't accidentally mez the crap out of players.

---

Ambush City, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Ambush - Arc #1043
Strife of the Grave - Arc #3409
Shift - Arc #529411

The problem is simply the fact that the powersets come from players and are not really designed to work for mobs as well, due to the stacking issue. All of the powersets and especially their secndary effects work well when alone, or maybe two of them.

But then the standard spawn is not one or two mobs, it's about 10 of them in a team. So that means the little debuff can become huge, the little damage can become huge as well, and the bigger ones... well they become completely overpowered.

So when making a story arc i'm usually locked out of 90% of the powers available to mobs. Let's take offensive powers i want to give to a minion or LT:

-dark blast/melee ? No thanks, i don't want to stack tons of -tohit on the players, it could work for high levels but it would make the arc not fun at all for a lowbie

-energy ? Energy blast is okay, KB is not that bad. Melee ? No way, let's not even take into account the high damage, but stuns everywhere ? Those minions could probably stack enough stuns to stun about anything if they all had EM.

-Rage for higher settings, no way. Not sure how it is on test, but right now they come with a full attack chain on STANDARD (i think 4 powers). Minions like that can destroy any squishy in no time, not really good.

-Rad blast and the crazy def debuff ? Huh, no thanks.

And the list could go like that forever because almost every set has a secondary effect, which is perfect as minor bonus for a player, but turns into hell when you're facing 10+ mobs with those powers. The only set worth using for me right now are weapon sets (the def debuff is not that bad) and martial art sometimes, although i get a lot of complaints from ATs with no mezz protection when they're perma-stunned and defeated by minions unless they bring tons of breakfrees.

Considering the custom mobs are already on the high damage side with their modifiers for powers, i think removing or greatly reducing the secondary effects according to the difficulty settings would help a lot. There's just no way i'll ever use the dark, rad or even elec sets when i know they have the potential to completely destroy a player hit chance, defense or endurance before they even get the chance to do much, and i'd appreciate if i could create mobs with something else than dual blades or claws.

---

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not looking forward to redoing my arcs to find something tough but fair again. I had specifically picked the settings I did to give one enemy mez protect without nasty things like Oppressive Gloom. -_- I guess my zombies will just get regen as their secondary so I don't accidentally mez the crap out of players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, at worst, it's 'deal with your arc being broken after the patch but before I15.'

I'm steeling myself for that possibility.

With I15, we should have a lot more control over the powers enemies have, though I'm a little nervous about what minima they set.

---

Yeah, my bosses just got made far more deadlier. One in a dev choice arc, so I'm stuck with it

---

My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, my bosses just got made far more deadlier. One in a dev choice arc, so I'm stuck with it

[/ QUOTE ]

...

I thought Dev Choices arcs were supposed to be frozen in time, and thus protected from any changes: otherwise what's the frickin' point to locking the arc?

---

Ambush City, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Ambush - Arc #1043
Strife of the Grave - Arc #3409
Shift - Arc #529411

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, my bosses just got made far more deadlier. One in a dev choice arc, so I'm stuck with it

[/ QUOTE ]

...

I thought Dev Choices arcs were supposed to be frozen in time, and thus protected from any changes: otherwise what's the frickin' point to locking the arc?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's supposed to avoid arcs being invalidated if things change that would break the arc (removal of a map used, removal of some of the regular critters), though that hasn't been tested. But, I'd be surprised if it's protected from things like changes in powersets for custom critters (or things like Comm Officers now only giving minion rewards).

---

My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout

umm... why is ninjitsu the only stalker set with hide?

---

[ QUOTE ]

The problem is simply the fact that the powersets come from players and are not really designed to work for mobs as well, due to the stacking issue. All of the powersets and especially their secndary effects work well when alone, or maybe two of them.

But then the standard spawn is not one or two mobs, it's about 10 of them in a team. So that means the little debuff can become huge, the little damage can become huge as well, and the bigger ones... well they become completely overpowered.

So when making a story arc i'm usually locked out of 90% of the powers available to mobs.

...


[/ QUOTE ]

Many excellent points.

Significantly reducing the effectiveness of debuffs and controls (mag and/or duration) especially for secondary effects and especially at the minion and lieutenant level is important so that custom mobs can be used more freely by architects who wish to create arcs of similar difficulty to normal PVE.

Filesize limits make it difficult to add enough variety to the spawns to prevent excessive debuff/control stacking. The ability to choose powers above a minimum may help if the minimum is set correctly, but it probably will not be enough.

---

[ QUOTE ]
umm... why is ninjitsu the only stalker set with hide?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because ninjutsu is the only stalker exclusive set. All the others use the tank/brute/scrapper versions.

---

[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?

The patch went live as is, just as feared.

---

I'll be making a post later today to outline all the changes this patch has on my custom units.

I expect to change almost all my units for my Troll arc to standard, republish, and then ignore MA until i15.

---

All I can say is we need the ability to choose powers we decide. Currently things are all over the place.

In addition, something needs to be done about the level of some critter powers. I just got chain held by Lt.s on my Brute which outside of GW has never happened PvE. Its a bit absurd ATM, IMHO.

One would wonder if the devs actually testing the mag of custom critter holds/immobs cause they are unrealistically overpowered with any more than two in a spawn, absurd.

---

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

[ QUOTE ]
All I can say is we need the ability to choose powers we decide. Currently things are all over the place.

[/ QUOTE ]Did you forget about Sunstorm's Q&A???

[ QUOTE ]
I do have some extremely good news though, we are setting up a custom power selection mode for Issue 15. Critters will start with the standard powers for their rank, and any other power in the set can be added individually.

[/ QUOTE ]

---

Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
All I can say is we need the ability to choose powers we decide. Currently things are all over the place.

[/ QUOTE ]Did you forget about Sunstorm's Q&A???

[ QUOTE ]
I do have some extremely good news though, we are setting up a custom power selection mode for Issue 15. Critters will start with the standard powers for their rank, and any other power in the set can be added individually.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and we also discussed a lot of this over there. The problem is with all the things that were unnecessarily broken in the meantime while we await i15, coming Soon(tm).

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
All I can say is we need the ability to choose powers we decide. Currently things are all over the place.

[/ QUOTE ]Did you forget about Sunstorm's Q&A???

[ QUOTE ]
I do have some extremely good news though, we are setting up a custom power selection mode for Issue 15. Critters will start with the standard powers for their rank, and any other power in the set can be added individually.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and we also discussed a lot of this over there. The problem is with all the things that were unnecessarily broken in the meantime while we await i15, coming Soon(tm).

[/ QUOTE ]

I would have held off on the changes in this patch till that option came about in issue 15.

Of course I was EXPECTING these to go in as is.

---

Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!

Sorry I'm a little late on delivering this info, but as you can imagine I'm just not that eager to jump into editing my stuff for the worse. Here's a rundown of what the patch did to the units in my Troll arc.

MINIONS:

Troll Bully - Super Strength/War Mace. They now don't have Haymaker. That's mostly a good thing, since they had some pretty high damage before. They also lost a mace power, but gained Throwing Knives. So they have two ranged attacks now instead of one. Overall this one is a plus.

Troll Ruffian - Martial Arts/Assault Rifle. This unit has Assault Rifle as a secondary just so she'd have ranged attacks. Now, Martial Arts gives shuriken, which is out of character for Trolls. This does allow me to drop Cobra Strike, which is good because my Trolls have enough stuns already. Secondary is unchanged. For gameplay this is a minor improvement, but I gained a ranged attack I didn't need when I already had a whole secondary with three ranged attacks, and ended up with something that skews my character concept. Overall I consider this a minor negative.

Troll Usher - Thugs/Stone Melee. Basically, nothing changed.

LIEUTENANTS:

Troll Annihilator - Martial Arts/Willpower. The MA change is really for the better. To get rid of Focus Chi, I dropped him to Standard. This also makes him lose Cobra Strike and Crippling Axe Kick, but still has Crane Kick. These units were really overpowered before. For secondary, it's no longer possible to give them Heightened Senses at all, which means minimal defense to the exotic. I would like to give them QR, but I can't without adding RttC. They also again have that damn shuriken. This change overall I'd call it neutral. Some stuff I'd really like to have/not have (QR, HS/shuriken), but at least the unit isn't overpowered anymore.

Troll Crusher - Stone Melee/Earth Armor. Hard now gets BU, so had to drop to Standard. For secondary, I didn't want the heal power, so I had to drop to Standard. That means no Mud Pots, no Crystal Armor, and no Minerals. Overall, slight downturn. This was supposed to be a defensive unit.

Troll Decimator - SS/Inv. NO! The unit has Rage on Hard, so there's no way I'm giving them that. Putting them on Standard gives Jab, Punch, Haymaker, and Hurl. Not too bad, but they had Hand Clap before and now they don't. Hard now gives them Dull Pain, which I don't want, and putting them on standard makes them lose Invincibility. I also can't get Resist Elements/Energies no matter the settings. This unit is worse off.

BOSSES:

Supa Troll - SS/Inv. ... ... ... This unit now has Knockout Blow stock. Which as a level 50 boss does 950 damage with an 11 second hold. There's no way I can get rid of it. He didn't have it before. His secondary is okay except I can't give him Invincibility without Dull Pain, but he's so powerful I probably wouldn't want to. Large change for the worse.

Mega Troll - Energy Melee/WP. Sigh, same as above. Now has Total Focus, which does 950 with an 11 second stun. Not only that, he has POWER BLAST which is 100% out of character. Secondary... I don't know, I guess it's about the same having HS. I'd like to give him QR, but again I can't without RttC. This unit is now a huge fail. Way harder than before and also way out of character.

Giga Troll (EB) - Energy Melee/Inv. Same primary problem again. These units were hard enough without having TF. At least I got rid of BU, but that was only 10 seconds of pain, not huge damage every 20. TF on a level 50 EB does 1300 damage. There are 9 of these in my arc. Secondary has no Invinc. And again, power blast. Ugh.

Grogg (AV) - Energy Melee/Shield Defense. The original was extreme/extreme (since he's an AV) so nothing really changed here... except he now shoots energy blasts from his hands. Fail.

Tanya Atta (AV) - SS/WP. Original was extreme/hard. Nothing really changed for this character.

So, just in that one arc, ALL my units except the final AVs are now on standard/standard. And yet, are still harder in almost every case AND half the units are now doing annoying, out of character things that I hate. Most of the units hit way harder, especially bosses. If this arc was hard to solo before, I can't imagine how bad it is now.

Here's my thoughts: Please stop with the massive standards for bosses. If this was done for farming/exploit reasons, it misses completely. Those people don't fight bosses in melee. All you did is make lieutenants and bosses MASSIVELY difficult for regular players. 950 damage from a boss is almost enough to one-shot squishies, and these are standard on EVERY boss.

Please crank it back so the first 2 powers in each set are mandatory, for each rank, and that's it. PLEASE DO NOT go i15 live with the power selections but still have tier 9 attacks standard on bosses. That would be a bad mistake. Bosses are now way too hard. I'm ending up putting all bosses on standard, and they're still too difficult. Adding the power to pick stuff on top of that won't help. I just want to GET RID OF powers like Knockout Blow and Total Focus.

---

Yeah well as you see above the "standard" settings each level of mob "comes" with is already picked and its overpowered. I want to add power from the ground up because 'ADDING" powers is not the issue when they are already overpowered with the "standard" settings on each level.

They will never let us pick from the ground up and thats a shame. They will always want to pick the powers and only allow us to "add" more powers..well that's TOTALLY useless. It also didn't help things adding something like throwing knives and giving it overpowered damage like 300...crazy.

---

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

While I love the 'power picking' mentioned for I15, I'm a bit leery of the 'but two powers mandatory.'

Look, I'd like to be able to make one set weak and one set strong to compensate. If you need to, make an Xp adjustment based on powers. I don't care.

But if I want to make a Thugs/Kinetics MM with no minions, don't fence me in just because you want to avoid the farmer with gimped lt. enemies.

---

Yep.

---

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

Good news:

* Good revision of the MA screen with stuff more plotted out. It's nicer, crisper, and has more tabs and details.

* MA now warns if an arc has EBs, AVs, and units on extreme (this can be circumvented by having them on custom with all powers, though it then warns that some enemies have custom powers).

* Custom allows much more variety in sets. I changed my previously extreme/hard SS/WP AV to not have Rage, IW, or Resurgence, and added SoW. I made sure my lieutenants didn't have Cobra Strike or similar powers. Totally dropped powers like BU.

* The mandatory insane boss settings were reverted. Custom goes back to the old standard, which means just the weakest attacks are required. Bosses no longer have to have Total Focus and Knockout Blow.

Bad news:

* Many options are still grayed out for custom. You can make a minion with Full Auto but not Flamethrower, Ignite, or M30 Grenade?

* The lame ranged attacks still exist and they're just as out-of-character as before, and are still extremely powerful. They need to be toned down to minor damage and be tossed into a pool for us to pick freely from rather than being forced a specific power.

---

About the ranged powers: they're powerful because the Ai don't use them that often. I had an ally speed boosted and he only threw out his ranged power about once every thirty seconds. Also, there's the case where it's the only attack available to them (ie, you're flying and they cannot), then having the powers be too weak would negate the threat.

Make it weaker for minions, sure, but i don't expect a boss to hit me for 10 points of damage and that's all they can do.

---

-STEELE =)


Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There's simply no way to cover all sensible combinations with just 3 levels. There needs to be several per powerset.

[/ QUOTE ]

Clearly not. And some of these are just insane, like giving Darkest Night to Minions on Standard. That is a far worse debuff to give them than Tar Patch like before. It's like no thought was put into this at all because many of the bad changes should be bleedingly obvious.

[/ QUOTE ]
Even stacked Tar Patch is bad; it can quickly elevate incoming damage to nuke levels. It wouldn't be bad if they could put in "no stack" code, like is done for the Comm Officers when they summon portals. I.e. if it was made such that only one NPC in a group would use Darkest Night or Tar Patch. If they can stack 'em, it's bad new no matter which one we're talking about.

---

Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.

[ QUOTE ]

* The lame ranged attacks still exist and they're just as out-of-character as before, and are still extremely powerful. They need to be toned down to minor damage and be tossed into a pool for us to pick freely from rather than being forced a specific power.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am actually one of the advocates for the ranged powers to be there due to balance reasons, however I would like (and PMd it to Phosyb) if your selected melee set is a secondary set to allow the ranged attack to be customized out. The first set would always be the one with the ranged attack(s.)

This allow a player to pick, let's say, Martial Arts secondary with an Energy Blast primary and avoid the ninja star for conceptual reasons. You still would be forced to take ranged attacks but it would be more under your control what would it be.

---