How can we make this game more challenging?
By
aasjkydiu,
Posted on: 2009-07-01 13:23 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Mmm, more challenging by whose terms?
Frankly from a devs perspective...
During TFs, incapacitate all forms of cheat travels such as Ouroborus portals, base portals, mission portals, and what not.
Carefully plan each zone engagement to maximize zone travel through operations, thus make sure players have to run the entire length of Steel Canyon or Skyline or Independance Port. Also make sure mission door is as far as possible from zone entrance.
Also make sure that each mission forces players to go to the most remote zones, such as far end boom town, perez park, Dark Astoria, Crey and Eden. Never have the mission at easy to get to zones.
Thus send the turkeys, err players, to start at Galaxy, from there send them to Dark Astoria. This way they have to run to get on train to SC, then run entire SC to get to high level zone train. Then, muahahahaha, they have to go to Talos, then travel thru the width of talos to DA entrance, and finally go the very far corner in DA to enter mission muahahahaha. When they finish, they need to go to Peres Park, muahahahahahaha, after that they need to go to Crey's Folley, oh my this is rich, muahahahahah; now return them to Perez Park, in preparation for their trip to Eden, muahahahah.
Oh wait, the devs are allready doing this, well they need to be more consistent.
Next challenge increase, bosses are at farthest end in annoying rooms such as cake, and pool rooms. Muahahaha
Oh wait, they are already doing this, well they need to be more consistent.
So after having spurious maximized brainless travel, and annoying end rooms, now work on the bosses:
Nosferatu types are great, they heal themselves at the player expense, thus take much longer to kill; of course the ultimate boss is Reichman, whose true power is to bore players into giving up! Now that is the ultimate challenge! So add to all missions the defeit Reichman boss, you can change his name, the players are too dumb to notice anyway "muahahahah", nor does it matter if they notice, muahahahahahah.
How is that for dev perspective challenge?
Muhahahahaha
Take away the ability to call contacts, this way more travel can be assigned to teams. Also move contacts to farthest locations of maps from zone entry points. Take Gordon at Bricks, good example of this practice! Muahahaha, this is just evil, muahahahah
Oh wait, devs are allready doing this, well they need to be more consistent!
Stormy
Warning" Beware of what you may be asking for
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*le giggle*
Joking aside, it is true, and we are all keenly aware that there IS a ddiference between being harder, and just being more tedious.
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I have to agree that for the most part the game is quite challenging, based on your character, team, difficulty and mission choices.
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The game is challenging based on your AT. A bit too much so for my liking. This is reflected by the fact that certain teams are much less effective than others. Difficulty comes into play because the 'right' teams can just ramp it up and not care.
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If you choose to do easy 8 person missions (at whatever difficulty) you have decided to make the game easy.
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Doesn't mean you can't team but always playing with the "perfect" team build makes the game a lot easier. Try a team of 8 stalkers and you won't be knocking around groups of level 54 Bosses easily.
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That's an interesting theory...but once it actually collides with real life...it becomes apparent how silly it is.
Now I don't know what kind of PUGs you find in this game...but I(and I'll admit I don't PUG that often) have never found one where I could just tell people that our team composition is too optimal and that we need to change it or I'd quit and find one what was less optimal.
Likewise, when my SG has our weekly team events, people like to play certain ATs. We have a lady that loves tanks, another guy who loves to make squishy girl toons(i.e. controllers) another lady that likes defenders and controllers and I'm the only one that likes damage dealers(mostly blasters on blueside). The only time anyone can tell someone else to switch toons is if there is a level difference problem and/or a powerset redundancy that we don't need. People don't purposely build sub-optimal teams. That's nonsense. It doesn't work to balance the lack of challenge in a game...human nature doesn't allow it.
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Good point about the redculousness of the idea htat you should deliberately build sub-optiomal teams.
As for the other thing though, certainly CoH is very class dependant, but thats no differnt from any other games. Go start a WoW raid with nothing but Mages, and see how that works out for you. Even in classless games, good teams that steamroll cotnent tend to ahve a certain balance of roles that are built for in a certain way. Anyone who's ever been forced to Play The Cleric (TM) for the sake of the party knows that this phenominon did not begin with MMOs either. This is a fairly intrinsic component of, basicaly, all RPGs.
Fight Malta.
End of story.
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
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But if I was to add challenge, I would like to see challenge be more AT specific. In the past, increase of challenge has consited in having more SPAM status effects which frankly has a much greater impact on support classes than melee. I would like to see challenge increases which impacts the melee classes more, with out socking it to the support classes. This way the melee can expeience the added challenge with out having the challenge be several times greater on the Support. How this can be accomplished I am not sure.
Perhaps and really would be nice if Debuffs have MAG effect and Ats would have Debuff Mag Resistances to them. But instead of handing over the MAG invulnerability to the melees in a silver plater; reverse the situation. Give the support classes near invulnerability to debuff effects and give none to the melee classes, A reflection of what is done with the status effects today. With this addition, then go over the mobs and half of the mobs who have status effects, have these replaced with debuffs instead. Thus the Status effect and Debuff situation is evenly spread from group to group, and thus evenly challenge different ATs. I still think Status Effects are much more deadly in ultimate effect than debuffs, but at least you are giving melee ATs a semblance of the challenge non melees are already experiencing.
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I actually once posted that perhaps there need to be mobs that are specifically anti melee and use powers that hinder them more.
The tech is there to have those awful Quantums and Voids spawn in every Kheldian mission. Why not use that same tech to give enemy groups the chance to spawn mobs that specifically aggro on tanks/brutes/scrappers/stalkers with powers that effect those ATs specifically?
In a sense...have the game react more intelligently to the consistency of a team, rather than just random globs of mobs that could be anything.
I said to someone the other day...even with the dom buff, you still need to play carefully. If I miss 2 holds or a hold and an immobilize in a row, I'm going to HURT. A scrapper or brute can miss as many swings as they like. They aren't going to get held, stunned, slept, knocked back(usually) and then gang [censored] in a few seconds if they are off their game a bit or have an unlucky streak.
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Both of these are solid concepts that would add decent challenge and I think would also help player skill improve. Forced to fight certain types of enemies will help the players find better solutions to dealing with them.
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I would like to see challenge increases which impacts the melee classes more, with out socking it to the support classes. This way the melee can expeience the added challenge with out having the challenge be several times greater on the Support. How this can be accomplished I am not sure.
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I'm not sure either, but I just had to post and throw my support behind this sentiment. I love the idea.
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Play The Cleric™
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*shudder*
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Fight Malta.
End of story.
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I don't really find malta all that challenging. The worst thing they have are the sappers, but all you need to do with those is mez, or knockdown, or whatever until you kill them in the 2-3 hits it takes to down them. And if they DO get a sap off on you, just pop a few blues until your recovery kicks back in. You have a giant tray of Insps by now, so you can spare a column for blues.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Doesn't mean you can't team but always playing with the "perfect" team build makes the game a lot easier. Try a team of 8 stalkers and you won't be knocking around groups of level 54 Bosses easily 
.
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If you have stalkers who have a clue, you certainly should be. The boss shouldn't stand a chance.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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I'd love to see more *variety* to the game's xp earning schema, but what I wouldn't want to see is a series of buff-nerf-buff-nerf tweaks to our characters AGAIN, just because some few people find the "challenge" lacking.
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I'd prefer to see new challenge levels beyond 5 added, rather than any inherent change to the game mechanics.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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How about if you don't do IO's at all, and use the game like it was initially designed? The game can be much more challenging then.
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How about if you don't do IO's at all, and use the game like it was initially designed? The game can be much more challenging then.
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No, definitely not "much more". Maybe a little more. Very little more. I've already gone to 50 before IOs were out, it really wasn't all THAT different.
Besides making IO sets is fun!
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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I dunno.
My first 50 was an emp/dark defender. I soloed most of the way, having to abandon her until the AV/EB code was put in so I didn't have to find a whole team to support my slow butt through the early 40s.
Right now, she's got a lot of Hammi-os, and a bunch of SOs.
And I have *no* idea how I ever played her. Seriously. Now, obviously things are different with patrol xp and less debt and temp powers, but still.
My current obsession is a villain that I just picked up again and have gained like 6 levels in 2 days on soloing, and ONLY because I put IO sets on him (because I won a costume contest and could afford to do so) is he even playable. He's an Ice/ Therm corruptor by the way.
In the first 16 levels of his life I think he died about twice *per mission*. I am not making that up. I struggled through a bunch of levels with him, earlier I'd teamed to blast past some of the lowest levels. But then soloing him in the teens was nigh impossible.
Put those IOs in there and he's died a total of ONCE and that was *after* completing a mayhem, when I was just farting around and knew it wouldn't matter. I've gone quickly and had so much fun with him I am actually *enjoying* playing him. That's unheard of - I'm a hero-type.
IOs do make that much difference in how a character survives and plays. Without those I had mostly DO's on him and they just... did... nothing.
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
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This = not right
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It's a great example of Vahz aggression.
It's not a good example of any other kind.
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My point was that it's not even a good example of that since I can supply endless screenshots of that not happening. This may very well have been a "one-off" bug that was saved precisely because it was so unusual, but is now being trotted out as universal proof that mobs are insufficiently aggressive.
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here's 2 more "one-off"'s
one-off one
one-off two
I have 22 more one-offs if you'd like me to post those, too . . .
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How about if you don't do IO's at all, and use the game like it was initially designed? The game can be much more challenging then.
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No no they want more challenging. I propose they remove all of their enhancements and run on the highest difficulty. That should be more challenging.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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How about if you don't do IO's at all, and use the game like it was initially designed? The game can be much more challenging then.
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No no they want more challenging. I propose they remove all of their enhancements and run on the highest difficulty. That should be more challenging.
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I support this idea.
Make lvl 5 the lvl cap, take out ALL enhancements, U don't earn influence/infamy, all of the spawns in AP are gm's and AV's who spawn at lvl 54...
AND, as long as you're alive, ur debuffed massively.
If ur team somehow manages to take down one of the av's or gm's, u and ur team will get permanently banned.
If u have already have a toon over lvl 5 and try to zone it, chuck norris will come out of ur computer screen and round house kick your left nostril, also making ur computer explode
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How about if you don't do IO's at all, and use the game like it was initially designed? The game can be much more challenging then.
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No no they want more challenging. I propose they remove all of their enhancements and run on the highest difficulty. That should be more challenging.
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Shattering your elbows and fingers because you find golf too easy is probably a good idea too.
I don't think you really understand here.
Enhancements make the game easy. Remove them from your toon and that character will doubtless have a harder time competing with the enemies and certainly with any player characters they meet.
If someone found golf too easy - they would be filthy rich and well known for being the greatest golfer in the world. If someone finds this game too easy there are plenty of ways to make it more difficult without any "damage" to any person's body/soul/imagination. It's a video game. It has things that can be tweaked easily player-side, but would cause immense damage to the game if done game-side.
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
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This = not right
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It's a great example of Vahz aggression.
It's not a good example of any other kind.
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My point was that it's not even a good example of that since I can supply endless screenshots of that not happening. This may very well have been a "one-off" bug that was saved precisely because it was so unusual, but is now being trotted out as universal proof that mobs are insufficiently aggressive.
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here's 2 more "one-off"'s
one-off one
one-off two
I have 22 more one-offs if you'd like me to post those, too . . .
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You do realize their backs are turned. They don't have eyes in the back of their head even if you killed one of theirs before resting.
Also, even if the mobs did have eyes in the back of their heads, it wouldn't make the game any more challenging. My stalkers kill guys without being noticed all the time. If enemies started auto aggroing, my stalkers would just have to do what they always have planned:
DM = Touch of Fear one, placate the other
Dual Blades = either continue the Empower or Sweep combo or jump back and 1k cut everything
Elec melee = kill everything
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This = not right
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It's a great example of Vahz aggression.
It's not a good example of any other kind.
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My point was that it's not even a good example of that since I can supply endless screenshots of that not happening. This may very well have been a "one-off" bug that was saved precisely because it was so unusual, but is now being trotted out as universal proof that mobs are insufficiently aggressive.
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here's 2 more "one-off"'s
one-off one
one-off two
I have 22 more one-offs if you'd like me to post those, too . . .
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You do realize their backs are turned. They don't have eyes in the back of their head even if you killed one of theirs before resting.
Also, even if the mobs did have eyes in the back of their heads, it wouldn't make the game any more challenging. My stalkers kill guys without being noticed all the time. If enemies started auto aggroing, my stalkers would just have to do what they always have planned:
DM = Touch of Fear one, placate the other
Dual Blades = either continue the Empower or Sweep combo or jump back and 1k cut everything
Elec melee = kill everything
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I don't need eyes in the back of my head to know someone's 5 ft behind me . . . especially if they shoot lasers from their eyes and are intent on dragging me to jail AND it's my one and only job to guard the fort.
The key to making this game more challenging is adding giant ants. Giant fire ants, yep.
I don't like ants. Therefore they cannot be added to this game.
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
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How about if you don't do IO's at all, and use the game like it was initially designed? The game can be much more challenging then.
[/ QUOTE ]
No no they want more challenging. I propose they remove all of their enhancements and run on the highest difficulty. That should be more challenging.
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Shattering your elbows and fingers because you find golf too easy is probably a good idea too.
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Playing a different game rather than trying to rewrite the rules of golf for everyone is another more intelligent option.
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I don't like ants. Therefore they cannot be added to this game.
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Solution: vet reward power Ant-B-Gone. This permanent power gives you an invisible aura that giant ants and especially giant fire ants find yucky. They will avoid you at all costs, never even coming within your sight, making your experience essentially ant-free. All others will be eaten by the very hungry ants.
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I have to agree that for the most part the game is quite challenging, based on your character, team, difficulty and mission choices.
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The game is challenging based on your AT. A bit too much so for my liking. This is reflected by the fact that certain teams are much less effective than others. Difficulty comes into play because the 'right' teams can just ramp it up and not care.
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If you choose to do easy 8 person missions (at whatever difficulty) you have decided to make the game easy.
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Doesn't mean you can't team but always playing with the "perfect" team build makes the game a lot easier. Try a team of 8 stalkers and you won't be knocking around groups of level 54 Bosses easily.
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That's an interesting theory...but once it actually collides with real life...it becomes apparent how silly it is.
Now I don't know what kind of PUGs you find in this game...but I(and I'll admit I don't PUG that often) have never found one where I could just tell people that our team composition is too optimal and that we need to change it or I'd quit and find one what was less optimal.
Likewise, when my SG has our weekly team events, people like to play certain ATs. We have a lady that loves tanks, another guy who loves to make squishy girl toons(i.e. controllers) another lady that likes defenders and controllers and I'm the only one that likes damage dealers(mostly blasters on blueside). The only time anyone can tell someone else to switch toons is if there is a level difference problem and/or a powerset redundancy that we don't need. People don't purposely build sub-optimal teams. That's nonsense. It doesn't work to balance the lack of challenge in a game...human nature doesn't allow it.