The new ranged attacks
By
AgentMountaineer,
Posted on: 2009-05-06 16:28 in The Global Training Room Test Server
I agree with all of this. I made an arc set in WW2, and wanted to make troops thet represented normal troops. That means assault rifle. At standard minion levels, they get Slug, Burst, Buckshot and M30 Grenade. Now, they also get the throwing knife (the Japanese get shuriken). Taking either my L6 or my L42 Blaster results in the same thing. Near-instant death. The slug on its own does nearly a third of his health. Add in the other four attacks, and neither Blaster lasts more than a few seconds. Worse, the L6 guy actually has FEWER attacks than these minions, and does less damage!
The minions are overpowered in general, but do need some kind of ranged power. As stated though, it has to be in line with other powers.
What I'd like to see them do is allow us to select the specific "origin" power the custom characters get.
Oh, and I'll mention something else. All my minions were intended to have Assault Rifle and a melee power set. The Japanese got Martial Arts. There was nothing for me to give the Germans or Americans! Martial Arts was inappropriate, and things like Dark Melee had inappropriate powers or effects (darkness, Hurl and so on). How about a basic Brawling power set?
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It really makes no sense if the "motive" is too "stop" farming because this does "nothing" to "stop" farming. What it does stop is people from being able to make balanced content especially at low levels as has been noted.
I don't think anyone other than hover farmers care that the critters have a ranged attack. I think everyone cares that said attack is WAY outta balance and presents some serious problems with making balanced mission.
Frankly, its an absurd hyperreaction to hover farming IMHO.
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And now it's just back to melee farming anyway.
If it's cool for melee sets to just sit in the middle of an aggro-capped quantity of +2 bosses and be totally safe, what's the big deal if players with hover can do the same?
As long as we can set the damage type of the enemies in question to whatever we want, there will always be the ability to create total safety for melee characters.
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custom mobs are becoming more and more off limits and as a result what will be the point of MA? I fear its dangerously close to being another Arena, COP or base issue.
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Between the clumsy way they handled the farming debacle, the nerf to the ticket cap on Test, and the over-powered ranged attacks, I can't see MA going any other way myself.
I fully expect the next thing will be to lower XP, influence & prestige awards in MA missions. There are simply too many ways to manipulate the custom enemies to provide situations custom tailored to certain AT's & powerset combos.
That will be the final nail in the coffin for Issue 14.
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I fully expect the next thing will be to lower XP, influence & prestige awards in MA missions. There are simply too many ways to manipulate the custom enemies to provide situations custom tailored to certain AT's & powerset combos.
That will be the final nail in the coffin for Issue 14.
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The whole situation with the MA is one that saddens me greatly. It semes like the whole game is stuck in a cycle of awesome->nerf->dull and dreary.
All I can say further is that there is another MMO out there, granted still in beta, that is looking more and more appealing with each issue CoX nerfs into the ground.
I don't oppose the ranged attacks. But I'd rather that the ranged attacks that the melee sets get would be balanced with each other. Throwing knives looks like a good place to start them off with, and then just using that as the base for the ranged attacks.
Also, if it's possible to do it in the code, if the NPC has access to a different ranged attack (say you make your NPC fire blast/ice melee) that the NPC would NOT try to use the melee attack in his melee set. But that's just wishful thinking.
ATs to 50 - TA/A Def, Nrg/Nrg Blaster, EM/EA Brute, WS,ELM/ELA Stalker
Since, as far as I know, the Devs never read these types of Threads, why doesn't someone send each of the Devs a copy of this Thread, so that they can read it and see that they are ruining our MA fun?
Try my 3 MArcs: I.D.#67166:Protect the Artifacts!! I.D.#97724:Level-Up Time. I.D.#243803:Witch War! Salem vs. Croatoa!
Post deleted by Moderator 08
Many toons on CoV and CoH. On-line 80+ months
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I strongly agree with the suggestion about mixed ranged/melee mobs -- if they have a ranged powerset, they should never use the one from their melee set.
I use Martial Arts much the same way Ultimo does.
The grand irony, of course, is that if the devs continue to favor an MA (architect) balance that makes it hard to create story-focused, soloable, story arcs with custom critters reasonably on par with normal PvE critters, they'll end up with an MA that is overwhelmingly used primarily for farming and for challenges to melee toons, rather than an MA that has broad appeal and vastly expanded content range for all players.
<QR>
lolAE
It's a joke now and not worth the time as far as I'm concerned. Besides the vast majority of 4-5 star content that I've tried should not have been rated more than 1-2 stars.
Poorly written, boring content that makes no sense should not get 4-5 stars.
What I'm afraid of is the voting cartels artificially inflating the ratings of their missions for badges makes the search for actually real 4-5 star content too time consuming and not worth it.
I14 should now be called Mission Waste of Time.
I'm just annoyed whenever a low level mob gets something special that my player doesn't, or their version is better than mine. Or, if something defies the theme of a mob. (Having stronger range than melee totally defies the theme, ruining the experience of fighting them.)
They should focus on having ways to bring a flier to the ground, not just being able to hit them while they're in the air. Or.... the mobs' special attacks should *only* work on airborne heroes/villains. (Like the power to summon killer birds, or make an ascending poison cloud)
Then, make a temp power players can buy at WW to get the same functionality on their toons.
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yet for a tanker; brute or scrapper it is a non issue
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yeah!
everyone else can eat it!
=P
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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yet for a tanker; brute or scrapper it is a non issue
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yeah!
everyone else can eat it!
=P
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Solo with solo characters? Blasphemy!
Though, it'd be funny if this became the "endgame content" everyone keeps wanting. It's really hard and is best done at 50. It also gives reason to have uber billion IO builds.
I've got my stalker Artimis Setelana. She has 317 badges last I checked. Yay!
Also 2 servers worth of alts, 3 of which aren't catgirls. Mew.
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yet for a tanker; brute or scrapper it is a non issue
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yeah!
everyone else can eat it!
=P
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Solo with solo characters? Blasphemy!
Though, it'd be funny if this became the "endgame content" everyone keeps wanting. It's really hard and is best done at 50. It also gives reason to have uber billion IO builds.
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Except that whole solo with solo characters line is idiotic. That was not what the MA was only supposed to be for.
The first one who quoted was equally idiotic.
yeah great the MA is endgame content, except of course you can't get purples at all in it.
And the fact that the devs EXPLICITLY stated they want folks to be able to play in it from 1- 50. yeah THAT.
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!
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Oh, and I'll mention something else. All my minions were intended to have Assault Rifle and a melee power set. The Japanese got Martial Arts. There was nothing for me to give the Germans or Americans! Martial Arts was inappropriate, and things like Dark Melee had inappropriate powers or effects (darkness, Hurl and so on). How about a basic Brawling power set?
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I would really like to see some "generic" mob powersets that aren't clones of PC powersets. There are tons of (fairly) reasonable examples out there,especially among low-level mobs who combine some sort of pistol or assault rifle with some kind of punching or pistol whipping.
I find it limiting that all custom NPCs have to be "PCs-lite" in the case of minions, or near or trans-PC power for LTs and up.
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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Oh, and I'll mention something else. All my minions were intended to have Assault Rifle and a melee power set. The Japanese got Martial Arts. There was nothing for me to give the Germans or Americans! Martial Arts was inappropriate, and things like Dark Melee had inappropriate powers or effects (darkness, Hurl and so on). How about a basic Brawling power set?
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I would really like to see some "generic" mob powersets that aren't clones of PC powersets. There are tons of (fairly) reasonable examples out there,especially among low-level mobs who combine some sort of pistol or assault rifle with some kind of punching or pistol whipping.
I find it limiting that all custom NPCs have to be "PCs-lite" in the case of minions, or near or trans-PC power for LTs and up.
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I agree. If you want your minions to have blast sets, but not annoying secondary effects that stack up like crazy, you pretty much are limited to assault rifle and fire blast. Maybe radiation blast to a lesser extent, as defense debuffs aren't that big of a deal since anyone who uses defense to stay alive has resistance to defense debuffs.
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I agree. If you want your minions to have blast sets, but not annoying secondary effects that stack up like crazy, you pretty much are limited to assault rifle and fire blast. Maybe radiation blast to a lesser extent, as defense debuffs aren't that big of a deal since anyone who uses defense to stay alive has resistance to defense debuffs.
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Stacking defense debuffs can really tear up even someone who depends on resistance or regen, since it doesn't take too many of them to get enemies to the point of "only missing on a 1".
@Mindshadow
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Yeah, as I posted in the patch discussion thread, Martial Arts Shuriken is actually it's strongest attack. A shuriken should not be doing more damage than all melee attacks on a melee-centric mob, especially moreso than their tier 9, three second animating, slow-motion kick to the head move ( I forgot the name... ).
Being able to choose which ranged attack would also be nice.
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Considering most "adjustments" in this game seem to be done with a barrage of sledgehammers when the fine tuning of a single screwdriver would actually make sense, is anyone surprised by any of this? I mean, seriously, did you think they wouldn't go total overkill on some of this stuff?
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yeah, typical heavy hand by the devs. seems funny how quick they are to nerf something, especially considering all the bugs that have been persisting since i12....... 
The validity of your statment does not increase in direct proportion with the frequency and volume at which you speak it.
The new ranged attacks are a very ill thought way to solve the problem.
If the problem is hover sniping, provide the mobs with web grenade. Melees would still be able to move in to engage, and hover snipers would be grounded. There was never any need for the made up ranged attacks to do such insane amounts of damage.
My solution, providing the melee power sets with an automagic -fly attack that does no damage solves the problem of hover sniping without unfair punishing the people who were doing it "the right way." Their solution is overboard and silly.
Par for the course as that is these days.
Peace
So my Empath, Pain Dom, Kin, and Blaster are all 'doing it wrong' because they took Flight? :P
I propose lower damage and more variations in the types of ranged attacks. Less 'LOL DAMAGE' and more 'hey he just hit me with Spirit Shark Jaws, cool!'
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So my Empath, Pain Dom, Kin, and Blaster are all 'doing it wrong' because they took Flight?
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Weren't we right here like, nine months ago, except it was PvP, and it was Stalkers "doing it wrong" by taking Hover?
<QR>
I think Super Strength NPCs were given a brain transplant from the Bruiser. Even when set to melee preference they'd rather sit back and chuck rocks at me. I often have to break LoS to even get them to move.
On the other hand, my Fiery Assault NPCs like to open with Blazing Bolt, but then will close in to melee.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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On the other hand, my Fiery Assault NPCs like to open with Blazing Bolt, but then will close in to melee.
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Heh. Brutal.
Agreed, though, it seems SS has a specific problem. Dual Blades mobs toss knives then run into melee. They only seem to toss knives again if you fall back away from them once it's recharged. That seems pretty sensible behavior to me.
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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My solution, providing the melee power sets with an automagic -fly attack that does no damage solves the problem of hover sniping without unfair punishing the people who were doing it "the right way." Their solution is overboard and silly.
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Ew. No thanks. I'd rather face the ranged damage than get stuck on the ground.
They just need to tone down the range damage a little.
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So my Empath, Pain Dom, Kin, and Blaster are all 'doing it wrong' because they took Flight?
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Weren't we right here like, nine months ago, except it was PvP, and it was Stalkers "doing it wrong" by taking Hover?
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Something like that. I lose track. The Vicious Cycle, etc.
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the problem isnt just in the ranged attacks, its in the number of attacks that they get at ALL levels. A friend made an MA arc and I ran it on a soft capped sr brute, it was effortless however he had a few messages from people who tried his arc who found it totally impossible, reason being was players at lvl 16 had to face the same attacks as I did as a lvl 50.
custom mobs are becoming more and more off limits and as a result what will be the point of MA? I fear its dangerously close to being another Arena, COP or base issue.
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I have to agree with you. The arenas have been out how long and are barely used. I wonder if the zone pvp movement resrtictions were to try to nudge people back to the arenas.I am done with the ma myself - I made a misison with hth mobs in it but am told it was a exploit. Seems like a better beta test might have been a good idea.