Get rid of ranged attacks on custom melee mobs

Get rid of ranged attacks on custom melee mobs

Most of the time you get bombarded with ranged attacks from melee mobs, just standing there range attacking you, regular missions dont do this.

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"A coward dies many times before their death, the valiant taste death but once." - William Shakespeare

Learn it... OWN IT!

it was done because of the age old issue of Hover Sniping.

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@Blood Beret(2)Twitter
I am a bad speeler, use poorer grammar, and am a frequent typoist.
MA ArcID: 1197
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill

WTF is hover sniping? lol

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"A coward dies many times before their death, the valiant taste death but once." - William Shakespeare

Learn it... OWN IT!

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WTF is hover sniping? lol

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Imagine a Blaster that's simply hovering around (which not only enables them to stay away of the melee NPC's range, but also grants a minor +DEF) and uses their Snipe attack, or just their ranged attack-chain. Basically, such a Blaster would be at no risk what-so-ever, and would be able to take down anything in a mission as long as they would stay away from the NPC's.

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

or just immobilizing.

rings of fire and the mobs can't reach you, and a controller is totally safe.

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or go around the boards padding your count +1

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Different circumstances require different approaches and tactics. Sometimes a player doesn't have to think and gets to jump into a mob swinging and be the last one standing after all is said and done. Other times, the only way to get through an encounter is by pulling, being stealthy, or planning accordingly. Luckily, players able to do missions they like over and over again, while avoiding those they find too challenging, and just don't like.

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Be happy!

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or just immobilizing.
*
rings of fire and the mobs can't reach you, and a controller is totally safe.

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Last I checked, immobilizing/holding an NPC wasn't doing the most DPS on the NPC, and would eventually break, not to mention that most melee-designed characters are supposed to have melee-armor power-sets which grant them mez-protection to a degree.

Using Hover on a Blaster is essentially using a toggle power, which will almost never deactivate, to keep the Blaster safe from harm. I do not consider this the same as using Immobilize/Holds to keep an NPC away.

Using Hover requires no action, using Immobilize/Holds requires action, that's the difference between trying to exploit the game, and playing to your AT's strengths and tactics.

I actually like those ranged attacks on custom-critters, but then again, I also love DualBlades/Devices on my critters because it's fun to see them web your character then run to you flailing their swords...

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

the ranged attacks need to be toned down in damage, as do the rest of the attacks, minions with 300 damage attacks is a bit much.

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I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.

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or just immobilizing.
*
rings of fire and the mobs can't reach you, and a controller is totally safe.

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Last I checked, immobilizing/holding an NPC wasn't doing the most DPS on the NPC, and would eventually break, not to mention that most melee-designed characters are supposed to have melee-armor power-sets which grant them mez-protection to a degree.



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The game doesn't force you to give mez protection to melee mobs. It's easy to keep an AoE immobilize power up permanently, because they last longer than the recharge time. Normal PvE enemies always have ranged attacks, and custom critters need them too. Maybe they need to be toned down, or the enemies should rely on them less, but they can't be removed without creating an absurd exploit.

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Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie

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the ranged attacks need to be toned down in damage, as do the rest of the attacks, minions with 300 damage attacks is a bit much.

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This has been discussed elsewhere, and it's something I do sort of agree with. I'd like some way, perhaps a slider control, to tone them down some, if I chose to do so.

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I think they are fine as is. This keeps the mystical risk/reward ratio in line. Use some terrain to break line of sight and make mobs move closer to you and they will stop ranged attacks.

That is my tip of the day to combat the bad tactics picked up by the Meow generation.

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Um, the concept of "line of sight" was lost on a lot of people long before Meow farms were so much as a glint in an exploiter's eye. The problem with some of those ranged attacks is their high damage breaks the "ranged attacks do less damage" equation, which at least at low levels mostly holds true with dev-created critters.

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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

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the ranged attacks need to be toned down in damage, as do the rest of the attacks, minions with 300 damage attacks is a bit much.

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You could of course point the finger towards the person who designed those Minions and ask them to re-balance their own creations. The Devs are obliged to simply balance the MA (critters and all) so that things aren't exploitable, anything other than that, should be left in our hands as much as possible.

This of course includes the ability to introduce Minions with aggressive and extreme power-set choices. That's what the freedom of choice is all about. Those Authors who do this, also choose to antagonize people who wish to solo their Story Arcs and may not be able to do so even on the easiest difficulty setting when played on a squishy character.

In essence, every time the Devs balance our critters for us, they risk antagonizing players and authors alike, so recommending they do so, cannot be taken lightly either.

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

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Normal PvE enemies always have ranged attacks, and custom critters need them too. Maybe they need to be toned down, or the enemies should rely on them less, but they can't be removed without creating an absurd exploit.

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Precisely why I'm all for ranged attacks injected into melee-based power-sets for our critters. The damage of the ranged attack should be in-line with the difficulty setting and the NPC's level, while the frequency of the ranged attack should be adjusted so that the NPC will not rely on it to defeat our characters, but then again, how are the Devs supposed to balance this with an NPC critter that was set to prefer ranged attacks and yet has only melee powers for example?!

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati

This is not rocket science. The ranged attack given to melee based battle maiden troops is the level the ranged attack should be period.

Making the ranged attack for custom critters only overpowered was an overreaction and needs to be corrected.

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

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This is not rocket science. The ranged attack given to melee based battle maiden troops is the level the ranged attack should be period.

Making the ranged attack for custom critters only overpowered was an overreaction and needs to be corrected.

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The ranged attack isn't overpowered. Minion damage in general is overpowered. Custom critters of all stripes put out a level of hurt well above and beyond anything the standard enemies can do.

I don't object to this so much when it's high level characters running the missions, but this makes it impossible to use custom critters in low level stories. They will vivisect anyone using DOs and below.

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Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball

All custom critter damage is on the players damage scale vs the PvE critter damage scale so its a given that the standard power attacks would hit harder, something we all knew, support or accepted.

The addition of the revenge sniper ranged attack IS overpowered and most people here on the boards have said the same thing since the day it was introduced. This of course is in comparision to the ranaged attack PvE critters like Battle Maidens troops get.

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

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WTF is hover sniping? lol

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It wasn't just that it was hover sniping either.
It was the fact that it was hover sniping mobs that had no ranged attacks at all.
Though some groups of enemies have limited numbers of ranged attacks, almost all of them do in the normal game. For some of these "normal" mobs you can hover far enough away to snipe without getting return fire.

The placement of mobs that "couldn't fight back" in the MA (aka abusing the MA) caused this situation.

Not only were players making mobs that couldn't fight back against flying opponents they were using group fly to keep non fliers in the air, placing destructible objects that blew up to kill or badly injury non-ranged foe, etc.

The ranged attacks on melee enemies aren't going to be removed. If they were removed, players would be abusing the MA content as soon as the change went live.

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I have a question related to this.. just how much does damage scale for minion, lt, boss, eb, av, etc with custom critters? Because I remember one mish that had a custom critter ally that was an EB that was two shotting things with either shuriken or throwing knives.

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I have not seen one person ask for the ranged attack to be removed, have you?

I have seen people suggest it should be in line with the ranged attacks from the PvE critters already in the game. Having the custom critters ranged attack being so much stronger is overkill and there is no way around that fact. Not to mention the havoc it plays with one of the central focuses of MA which is original storytelling and custom critters play an important role. Right now they are broken for alot of people that desire to use MA for that reason.

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

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Most of the time you get bombarded with ranged attacks from melee mobs, just standing there range attacking you...

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I've gotten good results by using Assault sets instead of Melee sets where I'm able. NPCs still have a blast or two, but the blasts don't blow away the ranged attacks, and the NPCs will close to melee.

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WTF is hover sniping? lol

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Imagine a Blaster that's simply hovering around (which not only enables them to stay away of the melee NPC's range, but also grants a minor +DEF) and uses their Snipe attack, or just their ranged attack-chain. Basically, such a Blaster would be at no risk what-so-ever, and would be able to take down anything in a mission as long as they would stay away from the NPC's.

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*raises hand*

I've done it in the past...years ago when I first started playing I had a defender that died all the time. So I juiced up his sniping power and became a patient sniper.

...no wonder it took so long to get to 50...

...on another toon...

...the good news is that defends hit 42 this year!

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Although my post count does not reflect someone who's very knowledgeable with the game, I do have a theory that none of the previous posts in this thread touched upon.

It is my theory the reason custom critters have powerful ranged attacks now is to help balance the risk/reward ratio of AE missions to standard game content.

You see with game content the mobs, on an 8person team, will consist of a boss or two, 3 or so Lts, and the rest of the mob at the minion level(about 6 minions per mob?). With AE the payout has been increased per mob since each mob will consist of Lts. or Bosses.

By giving custom critters powerful, ranged attacks they've managed to balance the risk/reward ratio of AE content to standard game content.

This seems to be a logical explanation for the change, but then again I'm n00b.

Edit: I'd also like to take this opportunity to throw this little tidbit out once again.

It is my opinion that the Devs are going to change the custom critter creator in a way that a person will only be able to choose custom critter powersets that are currently available to players making an original character.

So when a person picks Dual Blades as the primary, they'll be forced to choose the secondary that current players are limited to when selecting DB as the primary.

They may change the costume creator in a manner that will cycle through the appearances of the minions, lts and bosses BUT the 3 different costumes will be created in conjunction with the powersets you've chosen.

As a result the only way a person will be able to create a single, unique boss is to set that particular critter at the EB or AV level.

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Last night, entering an AE mission, I saw a tip. It said something along the lines of "Custom Critters take a lot of space in your Story Arcs, so try and use them sparingly".

I conclude therefore that giving ranged attacks to custom critters is all in-line with a policy the Devs have about custom critters being more for flavoring our stories rather than providing the bread and butter for them.

I think the Devs simply want their own creations (i.e. in-game canon faction NPC's) to still provide the main battle-groups for most of our stories but still let us create our own critters so the story will have its own unique identity which will differ from in-game arcs.

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I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!

Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati