Should the signature villains be AV rank?
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2009-06-16 09:15 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Monstrous
Does this character *look* like it should take a team to fight? If so AV or Monster class is fine. Dr. Vaz in his flesh-mecha, the clockwork king and pretty much all the current monsters fall under this.
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This is the part is comes off the wheels for me. Vahz is an EB by virtue of the fact that he'd intended for low level heroes. I don't think he spawns in the game now as an AV ever, does he?
Even if he does in the low levels, if he ever appears again later I don't think he should be more than an EB. The same goes for the leaders of the other lower tier gangs like Frostfire, Atta, etc.
Also, what about the Devouring Earth? They're already pretty large. When I first started playing I mistook them for something to be avoided solo by virtue of size alone.
Conversely, I think there should be giant/large enemies roaming around that players are intended to solo. Iron Man, Superman and Thor for example make a steady diet of them. Even they draw the line somewhere. Supes (in any incarnation) vs a 50' robot? No problem. Millennium Giants? Call the JLA (and then some).
There are some current Giant Monsters in the game I think should be intended to be soloable by high level players by virtue of concept. Kraken and Babbage/Paladin for instance. And as I've said before, I wouldn't mind an EB class of Malta Titans half way between Kronos and Zeus Class popping up as a mini zone event or something.
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Well you CAN solo the Kronos, as a downgraded AV in the World Wide Red arc.
The thing with the Kronos, it's really expensive to make, that's why Malta doesn't rule the world. If they could manufacture enough giant robots, even half-Kronos size, to keep a bunch of level 50 heroes happy, that would be bad, because Malta is scary. Involving them in zone events just makes them overexposed and less scary for it, and we have enough of that with them calling out every up-and-coming Supervillain who sets foot in Grandville.
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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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They can still be the cover guys, but show us they're "normal" heroes too when the cameras are gone and its business as usual. Mechanically this is obviously doable, in fact they already "sorta" do it with EB scale downs, but when the chips are down and a full team shows up they suddenly go into overdrive AV mode without any explanation, once again reminding us even naturals like Manticore aren't exactly "normal".
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I decided a long time ago to explain this to myself by imagining that the AV eats a bunch of inspirations during the fight.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
Presentation is key, but I don't think I can get behind the idea that Arch status is somehow tied to the size of your character model. Not in a Superhero game.
I think it's on the player-as-author to explain why their character is NOT Arch status (or to ignore the question), because there is no way to do otherwise without having the Devs come up with some kind of unenfrorceable rule about character bios.
I would not object to consistency with how a single character is portrayed, similar to how you describe it. I just don't think that there should be some rule that the Devs have to follow stating that you have to have a larger than Huge model to be Arch status.
The AV/EB code was written for player and dev convenience. Now players who want to solo Sister Psyche but can't handle her as a AV can take her as an EB (if she scales down, I'm not sure). There are other ways of handling that, and I'm sure some will be explored as story branching tech gets incorporated into the game more.
But I have no more trouble beleiving that Statesman is of AV status than I have beleiving that someone elses' character is an avatar of the sun.
I guess when Spider-Man beat up Firelord, he was running on Heroic? 
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!
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The AV/EB code was written for player and dev convenience. Now players who want to solo Sister Psyche but can't handle her as a AV can take her as an EB (if she scales down, I'm not sure).
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That's what bothers more the most about the situation. It speaks to the crore problem of the devs treating player heroes like the Legion of Substitute Heroes and villains as the Inner Circle's pets.
As I understand it, before the AV/EB mechanic existed, every signatue character was an AV. That tells me that AV is and always was their "true" level. Now, this may have been different before ED and more characters were capable of taking AVs, but it troubles me from the get go that they stuck their avatars on a tier above player heroes.
Eight heroes fighting singular B and C Grade bit-villains feels way more like the Mystery Men or Great Lakes Avengers than any team most players would want to emulate.
It rings more of the Teen Titans fighting post-lobotomy brain damaged Dr. Light than the JLA teaming up to take on Darkseid.
It's a design symptom of the greater disorder that the developers treat player characters like they're scrubs compared to the signature characters even at level 50, through writing, design, and gameplay mechanics. While there's been some progress made in the writing department, that's only one tiny part, a very transparent part in some cases, of the greater problem.
It's nice they included missions like the Silos TF and the EB/AV mechanic, but it just throws inconsistancy into the mix and working from the knowledge the signature characters are actually all "really" AVs , that renders solo EBs and the Silos adventure little more than "imaginary stories" like all those issues in the 60's and 70's where Superman "died" or married Lois. That was the darkest age of comics in my opinion not an aspect we should seek to emulate.
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QR
Let me say how I've dealt with this issue myself. I accept that I have some characters who are simply godlike while others aren't. This isn't exactly easy for me, because it seems almost arbitrary sometimes.
For example, my new project Solar Paladin, my Fire/Shield Scrapper WILL solo AVs. Probably when she's finished she'll take on the entire Praetorian guard by herself. I don't have any doubt she can. She's already soft-capped to melee and will be to ranged/aoe when she's finished. Her DPS is absurd without Hasten (which will be her 49 power).
By contrast my Ill/FF controller is IOed out, but will NEVER solo an AV. Just doesn't have the DPS. She won't die. Hell, she'll probably never get hit. But with no -regen, she can't kill the dern things. This isn't satisfying to me, but it is what it is. But if I had went */Rad instead of */FF the story as we know would have been much different.
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This is the big part for me. Before the whole EB vs. AV thing is looked at, I'd like them to be even remotely balanced as to who can defeat them. As it is, even downgraded to EBs, 90% are cakewalks for some builds (and more like 100% with IOs or a good player), while other builds can't even scratch 90% of EBs without inspirations or temp powers. My dark/elec brute has yet to meet an EB she can't solo easily, and I've soloed AVs on her on a whim. My plant/energy dominator, on the other hand... cannot. There's pretty much not a single thing she can do to keep most EBs from splattering her within the first 10 seconds of a fight, short of gobbling inspirations like mad.
As it is, versus anything with the PToD, self-buffs (particularly defense) and a few select debuffs applied overwhelmingly are king. Most controls and debuffs are left out in the cold. Having your 30% -ToHit reduced to -4.5% is kind of a kick in the teeth.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Sometihng that bugs me is when you rescue certain heroes, and they end up being more powerful than you are.
There's something immersion breaking about it... you go, rescue Statesman, and he starts clearing the map with friggin' Hand-Clap. If he's so powerful, why the hell did he need my little character (who is clearly, evidently and obviously a weak-sauce puss-pants by comparison thereby denting, and not just a little, my pride in what I've accomplished with him) to rescue him?
How is it that your character is supposed to be this super-powerful saviour of the city when any and every actual villain you face can grind you into a thin paste and use you as gravy thickener?
Yay...
Brother of Markus
The Lord of Fire and Pain
The Legendary Living Hellfire
Fight my brute!
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There's something immersion breaking about it... you go, rescue Statesman, and he starts clearing the map with friggin' Hand-Clap. If he's so powerful, why the hell did he need my little character (who is clearly, evidently and obviously a weak-sauce puss-pants by comparison thereby denting, and not just a little, my pride in what I've accomplished with him) to rescue him?
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This is the reasoning we're given in game:
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You remember how the Praetorians weren't able to use their own tech to scan States? Well, our best theory on that is that Statesman is physically so similar to Tyrant that his presence in the Praetorian dimension is never quite complete. It's as if there just isn't room for him there. The upshot is that Statesman is impervious to Praetorian technology. And it's impervious to him! He can't break out of those bonds, not on his own. You have to help him!
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Excuse or not, it doesn't make the player feel any better that once free Statesman starts running around popping off bad guys with KO Blows with points of damage in the thousands.
Which is similar to the reasoning behind the STF and why Statesman isn't fighting Recluse:
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Our analysis has given us a glimmer of hope. First, in order to preserve his own troops and protect himself from the device, Recluse has set a safe area around Grandville Island. Secondly, while he's tuned the device to always affect certain heroes, including myself and every member of the Freedom Phalanx and the Vindicators, none of you were on that target list. This means that while none of us can approach Grandville without giving Recluse even more power,
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Oh, isn't that lovely. Our heroes don't even rate enough to be above Recluse's notice. It's sad they need a contrived excuse to put players in the heart of the action and story.
And it's nice to know Statesman needed eight of us to gang up on the individual sidekicks and super villains that any lone member of the Vindicators and Phalanx would easily be peers with.
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The whole EB/AV thing is just a mechanic in my eyes. It allows players to take on those signature characters by themselves in a more casual manner while giving them the option of enjoying the same encounter with their friends in a still challenging way. It makes sense from a comic book standpoint (I know, sense in comics? what?), as characters fluctuate wildly in power all the time. Spider-Man vs the X-Men is one great example of this.
AV's used to be the biggest bad you could get. They didn't have outdoor maps for missions initially, and the current GM models wouldn't fit into most indoor maps. That meant if you wanted to run a mission with a team and still have a challenge, you needed an AV fight.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
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Tame the AVs regen rate. Unless they're a regen type character, AVs should not have such a high regen rate, IMO.
[/ QUOTE ]Most AVs sit at their base regen rate, and their base regen rate is lower than that of players. They've got much, much higher HP, which gives them a large HP/sec, but their regen rate is low.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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He feels that this change should be made to keep signature characters from overshadowing players.
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No NPC can overshadow players because they're dumb as a stick. That's why they're made so overpowered, and why they still always lose despite being overpowered.
That said, I'm always up for more interesting Boss encounters. Fighting teams of villains/heroes is an often requested one (including in this thread.) I made a villain mission where you fight a team of heroes and it's just so much cooler than the usual Boss and Minions set-up.
An interesting point.
World of Warcraft, 5 regular mobs (or 2 elite mobs) can completely overshadow the mighty adventurers who have, if they've been raiding since classic.. Slain 4 green dragons, 1 Blue Dragon, slain 3 fully grown Black Dragons, untold number of empowered drakes, an elemental lord of fire, several servant of the old gods, two old gods, the 2nd most powerful being on the planet twice, a gigantic demon, the 4th and 5th most powerful beings on the planet, the 3rd most powerful being on the planet, a corrupted titan (essentially a god) and a blue dragon aspect (a dragon god).
You think we have it bad when you've been through all that and the regular bad guys at the start of each new expansion in a number of 3 or more can give you trouble, by now you and your buddies should be the most feared thing on the face of the earth, with you around, why on earth would anyone decided to make trouble?
World of Warcraft Raid bosses are 40 or 25 times better than a single player if we look at their numbers.
Why?
1) Big old sack of HP, bosses from WotLK onwards have 5 million to 14 million hit points. A single autoshot from a hunter will do...probably 600-700 damage and that's every 1.5 seconds.
2) big instant kill abilities. Yup WoW bosses have em and have em in spades, you think our AVs are bad, atleast tanks can resist, dodge, block, evade and generally lessen their impact. Onyxia has one move which WILL wipe out a raid, one move!
3) Dumb as a bag of rocks. Everything is based on an Aggro tabled, some AVs have a random aggro table but they still wont specifically go for healers (as one NPC puts it "go for the one in the dress you fools!").
The only difference between their raid bosses and our AVs/Heroes is that our AVs/Heroes aren't huge, we're fighting them with superpowers and the reason they overshadow us is because if they didn't...well they just plain wouldn't be a challenge on their own.
I still stand by that we should fight teams of them on an equal footing rather than one vs eight though.
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An interesting point.
World of Warcraft, 5 regular mobs (or 2 elite mobs) can completely overshadow the mighty adventurers who have, if they've been raiding since classic.. Slain 4 green dragons, 1 Blue Dragon, slain 3 fully grown Black Dragons, untold number of empowered drakes, an elemental lord of fire, several servant of the old gods, two old gods, the 2nd most powerful being on the planet twice, a gigantic demon, the 4th and 5th most powerful beings on the planet, the 3rd most powerful being on the planet, a corrupted titan (essentially a god) and a blue dragon aspect (a dragon god).
You think we have it bad when you've been through all that and the regular bad guys at the start of each new expansion in a number of 3 or more can give you trouble, by now you and your buddies should be the most feared thing on the face of the earth, with you around, why on earth would anyone decided to make trouble?
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That . . . does sound much worse than what we have here. Putting WoW's boss situation in those terms makes player characters look . . . weak.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
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QR (late, tired, just want to make a quick suggestion)
What about changing the PToDs to a supression-style thing like in PvP?
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Sometihng that bugs me is when you rescue certain heroes, and they end up being more powerful than you are.
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When you rescue a hero, you don't just break his jailors, but the Power Limiting Omnidirectional Transceiver device that has been tuned into the given hostages power *nod*
Why else do they keep sending us out to find those things when they are stolen?
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
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I'd like to present some of my own mental shorthand and get some reactions, if I may, translated using Marvel icons for clarity:
Note that the following indicates combat power level, not necessarily style, theme or mood.
Level indicates the general 'league' a character might be in:
Levels 1-10: Daredevil, Kingpin (Batman)
Levels 11-20: Spider-Man, Venom
Levels 21-30: The Thing, a Sentinel
Levels 31-40: Iron Man, Iron Monger
Levels 41-50: Hulk, Abomination
Levels 51+ : Silver Surfer, Thanos (Superman)
Whereas Rank indicates the importance or grandeur of a specific encounter...
Underlings: Fantastic Four vs hordes of mole men
Minions: X-Men vs the Brood
Lieutenants: X-Men vs Mutant Force/Resistants
Bosses: Avengers vs Masters of Evil
Elite Bosses: X-Men vs Sentinels
PvP: Avengers vs Defenders
Arch Villains/Monsters: X-Men vs Magneto
Giant Monsters: Avengers vs Red Ronin
When Players enter the picture, you have to remember that the player is the author of his character's story and there is no Editor to rein them in. They stand apart from this hierarchy. The world may be consistent (I'm not saying it is), but the it's up to the players to rationalize how they fit in, and they can choose not to.
It's just a quirk of the CoX world that an unpowered martial artist can eventually become skilled enough to hit hard enough to threaten the Hulk (see Dragon Ball or nearly any shonen anime, or DC's Karate Kid). If you don't hold with that, then don't level one above 10.
Of course any list such as the above is going to have plenty of troublesome characters: I'm not sure where Storm or Professor X fits, since they are incredibly powerful but about as vulnerable as a normal person.
Again, a good shorthand for how I think a max level player character is would be the Sub-Mariner or Thor: extremely powerful, but still usually going to call for help against Magneto or Thanos.
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!
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Of course any list such as the above is going to have plenty of troublesome characters: I'm not sure where Storm or Professor X fits, since they are incredibly powerful but about as vulnerable as a normal person.
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Well they're squishies. In CoH, squishies are far more vulnerable than a "normal person"
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
Signature mobs should be AVs, if not AV+. EBs are too weak.
While I mostly solo, so it would inconvieniance me, having some signature AVs be set at AV, and not scale down would be fine. I'd rather get help to beat Ghost Widow than turn her into an EB and claim "victory" solo.
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An interesting point.
World of Warcraft, 5 regular mobs (or 2 elite mobs) can completely overshadow the mighty adventurers who have, if they've been raiding since classic.. Slain 4 green dragons, 1 Blue Dragon, ...
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Off topic, but my comparison point is old EQ, but similar concepts. Mobs which once took a whole raid group, as I recall with a 6 cleric rotation to ensure complete heals landing every 2 seconds- in case a fizzle meant one missed..and it was dubious if the main tank could last 4 seconds if the mob did a quad hit. Toss in that healing..or sitting..or being badly hurt all caused aggro. That mob can now be soloed, if anyone would bother. While brand new expansions feature base mobs that challenge the players.
I can see States and Recluse as AVs.
Phalanx and Patrons maybe AV-.
Vindicators and other direct sidekicks EBs.
Contacts and lackeys (Sands, etc) should be Boss at best.
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Signature mobs should be AVs, if not AV+. EBs are too weak.
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Aside from maintaining the status quo, do you have a reason why you feel that way? People keep bringing up the challenge factor, but that isn't the point of this thread, the idea is to maintain the current level of challenge (through additional EBs or other factors), but change the conceptual presentation of signature characters so they are no longer this unattainable level of power, but rather fellow heroes and villains aided by others to keep them equally challenging (if not slightly more so).
No one has offered much in the way of reasons why the current status quo is fun compared to the offered alternative, only that it is indeed the status quo. On the flip side, there are people bothered by the current state of affairs. There are really only two things that have bothered me since release of CoH: 5% chance to suck and signature characters. Both have been a constant, albeit small, drain on my fun and have at times killed my interest in the game entirely.
I *like* challenge, hell I wish the game was more challenging than it is now, but it is the presentation of that challenge that is so important to me. Feeling super and heroic (or villainous) is not mutually exclusive with a challenging game, but things like the Freedom Phalanx and Recluse's goon squad of AVs currently kill that sense of being super and heroic for myself and others I know. If we're the minority that's fine, but even then I have to ask, if the current state of affairs *isn't* offering some tangible benefit to the majority over this alternative, isn't a minority worth at least considering when making future choices, if not changing existing content for that matter?
Infatum on Virtueverse
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Signature mobs should be AVs, if not AV+. EBs are too weak.
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Aside from maintaining the status quo, do you have a reason why you feel that way? People keep bringing up the challenge factor, but that isn't the point of this thread, the idea is to maintain the current level of challenge (through additional EBs or other factors), but change the conceptual presentation of signature characters so they are no longer this unattainable level of power, but rather fellow heroes and villains aided by others to keep them equally challenging (if not slightly more so).
No one has offered much in the way of reasons why the current status quo is fun compared to the offered alternative, only that it is indeed the status quo. On the flip side, there are people bothered by the current state of affairs. There are really only two things that have bothered me since release of CoH: 5% chance to suck and signature characters. Both have been a constant, albeit small, drain on my fun and have at times killed my interest in the game entirely.
I *like* challenge, hell I wish the game was more challenging than it is now, but it is the presentation of that challenge that is so important to me. Feeling super and heroic (or villainous) is not mutually exclusive with a challenging game, but things like the Freedom Phalanx and Recluse's goon squad of AVs currently kill that sense of being super and heroic for myself and others I know. If we're the minority that's fine, but even then I have to ask, if the current state of affairs *isn't* offering some tangible benefit to the majority over this alternative, isn't a minority worth at least considering when making future choices, if not changing existing content for that matter?
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Future choices sure. Changing existing content, NO, not for this reason. There are numerous other things that exist as existing content that should come waaaay ahead of this concern.
Just off the top of my head revamping the existing tfs, adding more villain sfs and revamping existing zones would rank as more important than whether some feel that AVs overshadow their character.
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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Future choices sure. Changing existing content, NO, not for this reason. There are numerous other things that exist as existing content that should come waaaay ahead of this concern.
Just off the top of my head revamping the existing tfs, adding more villain sfs and revamping existing zones would rank as more important than whether some feel that AVs overshadow their character.
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That's a fair stance to take, but there's a couple things to be said:
1. New and better content doesn't erase old and broken content. As fun as the ITF is, it doesn't make the Positron TF any more fun and it doesn't ease the fact I feel like I'm being crapped on by the signatue charatcers in the STF and LRSF. It's what I've always said: nailing new stuff on to a rotting foundation is hardly an ideal solution.
2. Right now the developers are almost certainly working on brand new 0-50 content for Going Rogue. Chances are good it'll involve the existing signature characters and new ones. What better "future" than that to begin making reparations to this issue? How better than threads like this to get the point across how people feel and the reasons they feel it?
3. This isn't a new topic. "Not feeling super enough" and feeling overshadowed by the signature charatcers has been brought up again and for as long as I've been here. Being the Patrons' lap dogs red side and being treated like idiots and thugs is a consistant complaint I've always heard. If this is something we want fixed, it's something we're going to have to keep pushing for since all that's been said so far hasn't spurred the devs into completely addressing the problem. Not that they haven't done anything to address it, but as long as they keep making the same mistakes they need to be pushed in the right direction.
4. This issue mainly affects high level content. I'm going to infer that with recent changes to the leveling curve, a reduction of debt, the addition of patrol XP and making it easier to get to the high levels in general, that the developers want to put a greater focus on level 50/endgame content. More than ever that means level 40+ content is important, that players should want to play the high end content and that it should be compelling and empowering. Treating them as second class heroes/villains to be kicked around by the "real" super villains and heroes isn't going to do that, IMO.
The bottom line:
We've got a good discussion going here that at this point is mostly free of noise.
If the developers aren't paying attention to it, I think they should be.
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Future choices sure. Changing existing content, NO, not for this reason. There are numerous other things that exist as existing content that should come waaaay ahead of this concern.
Just off the top of my head revamping the existing tfs, adding more villain sfs and revamping existing zones would rank as more important than whether some feel that AVs overshadow their character.
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You don't want existing content changed to make us more super, but you want the existing TFs revamped?
Honestly the existing TFs are one of the major complaints I have, why not revamp them *and* take into consideration making players feel super while doing that? I realize that your idea of revamping TFs doesn't include the exact same kinds of shinies mine does, but it sounds like we want similar things not opposing things. If they're going to redo something they might as well try to do it in a way that pleases as many people as possible rather than just you or just me, it doesn't sound like anything I'm talking about goes against what you want, it just isn't of the same priority to you which is of course fine.
In any case I'd just be happy to see a move in this direction, even if just for future content. If Tyrant and pals end up as well written flavorful EB fights with AVs where the story dictates, that would make it that much easier for me to ignore the older crappier content, and treat the current signature = AV setup as no longer canon. If they continue their current trend though, I personally think they're missing what is essentially a freebie in the battle to make us all feel super, and needlessly making the game less appealing.
Infatum on Virtueverse
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Tame the AVs regen rate. Unless they're a regen type character, AVs should not have such a high regen rate, IMO.
[/ QUOTE ]Most AVs sit at their base regen rate, and their base regen rate is lower than that of players. They've got much, much higher HP, which gives them a large HP/sec, but their regen rate is low.
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The point stands. Tame their regen rate. To nothing if they're going to have upwards of 20K-47K HP.
IMO, I would much rather my team have a much more interesting fight against 8 EBs with different powers than one against an AV. I love doing the Mender Lazarus' TF in Ouro for just that reason. It's me, Nosferatu and Burkholder against an equal sized team of EBs. It's a frantic fight, where each villain (or hero for the PC) stands up to the random mobs and three equally strong opponents.
It's fun and it doesn't feel like a cheat. Most AVs feel like a big ole bag of HP and absurd damage.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
I'd prefer fighting multiple EBs (or AVs if I have a team) to the usual one big bag of hit points we usually have to deal with.
The Mender Lazarus Arc would be exactly what I want if the EBs at the end actually aggroed together instead of separately.