balancing the field (spoilers for the ITF)

no this isn't a player power nerf post or a player power buff post.

This is more aimed at NPC AV nerf post.

As it stands player currently play second (well third) fiddle in the 'power scales' to most of the signature heroes/villains. Now I can understand the big guns (Statesman and Recluse) being a match for a team of 8 heroes/villains, they are Incarnates, the Darkseid and Superman of the CoX universe. Tougher, badder and generally all round meaner than anyone else.

Don't get me wrong Archvillains should be tough IF they have reason to be tough, the best example of this is the Nictus-infused Romulos, he's just been given a massive jolt of Nictus power, taking him from 'eight guys beat him down without breaking a sweat' in human form to 'more than a match for several heroes' in his second form.

There's a storyline reason for his massive increase in power plus Romulos on his own isn't actually that hard, it's merely the fact he's got the Essence backup (this was the reason the Essences we're added in the first place, apparently people in closed beta were saying how easy they stomped all over him).

Elite Bosses are 'roughly' the equivilent of one player character, some are more difficult than others (Madam of Mystery I'm looking at you!) but with most it's merely a case of bring enough insps to the table to deal with it.

This is fairly long and rambling but the point I'm trying to make is that certain AV's should NEVER be so hard for a team of eight to fight against and probably should con more as EBs instead.

Ones that we should have a tough time taking out:
Statesman.

The Freedom Phalanx

Lord Recluse.

The four Patrons (These are the best of the best for a reason, Ghost Widow is the embodiment of an entire organisation and ethos).

Nictus infused Romulous (it's nice that an AV actually requires some thought on how to defeat him for a change instead of = a big sack of hitpoints and stupidly high damage attacks).

Dr. Aeon in the STF (he invents something specifically to help him deal with such a massing of heroes against him, it's fair enough really).

People we really shouldn't have a tough time fighting against:
The villainous sidekicks (Ice Mistral, Wretch, Shadow Spider, Regent Korol etc. they should be used as a team of +3/+4 conning EBs for a one on one hero situation in a team of eight rather than, taken on one at a time in the STF, I mean, these guys should be about the same power level as player characters).

Any of the Vindicators (they're freaking sidekicks, how comes they outclass player villains? Admittedly you do take them on eight on five in the LRSF but they, again, should be conning as +4 EBs not AVs).

I think the problem is what gets given to an NPC with AV status, the stupidly high regen rate, the purple triangles, the very high resistance to debuffs. I feel these kind of big boosts should be reserved purely for the heavy hitters like Statesman or BaB.

Of course it's just a suggestion and more a sleep deprived rambling at that.

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Badge Earned: Wing Clipper

A real showstopper!

/signed.

That's all I've got to say.

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/signed

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Problem is that a good team go through even an AV as a hot knife through butter. Now i agree that some enemies are so epic that defeating them should be a chalenge. However we need a mechanisms to make the other opponents also tough enough for those good teams to be more then a speedbump.The AV system sems to work nicely.

And if you ever tried to get Statesman. I am still trying to get all my limbs back from the last time I saw him and his accursed friends. That fight is epic enoung in my book.

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hmm I think the main problem is the particular title they're giving 'Arch-villain' Ice Mistral isn't really an AV storywise, she's a sidekick to an AV, which theoretically should make her the same power level as a player since player heroes are 'sidekicks' to the signature Freedom phalanx powerlevel wise. Stronger than their evil dopplegangers but not quite as tough as them.

It's the same idea with the Vindicators, Mynx in an SK to a big name hero, she should also be on the same power level as a player character. However the term 'hero' is far more broad.

Perhaps a setting inbetween AV/hero and EB called Heroic/Villainous Sidekick. Their slightly better than an EB but not as good as an AV.

If we want to get really fancy we could give them their own titles "Ice Mistral <Villainous Sidekick of Scirocco>" or "Mynx <Heroic Sidekick of Synapse>".

And for the record the only Statesman I've ever fought was the Recluses Victory version, who was incredibly tough (damn perma-unstoppable) and took a full group of eight villains and three vengeanced up heavies to bring down (it still took us 15 minutes).

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Badge Earned: Wing Clipper

A real showstopper!

Hi,

Makes sense.
I've not done a TF for years so I dont know if this is already in the TF but how about downgrading them to EB's but have groups of EB's (3 or so) - I've never seen more than 1 EB at a time.
That would pose a different challenge to the usual single target AV.

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L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR

Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller

The ITF has groups of EBs (around the 'beastmaster' general), talking about 10 at one time. Admittedly they range the gamut from even con to +2 still it's more a hell of lot more fun than facing an AV on his own simply because it's a mass brawl.

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Badge Earned: Wing Clipper

A real showstopper!

This all sounds right and i definitely agree with the possible idea of a new level range somthing between hero/av - eb would work well.

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[ QUOTE ]
This is more aimed at NPC AV nerf post.

As it stands player currently play second (well third) fiddle in the 'power scales' to most of the signature heroes/villains. Now I can understand the big guns (Statesman and Recluse) being a match for a team of 8 heroes/villains, they are Incarnates, the Darkseid and Superman of the CoX universe. Tougher, badder and generally all round meaner than anyone else.

[/ QUOTE ]Agreed. We even have a mission from Tina at Portal Corp where your alternate self destroyed the world which may have once made sense when tankers could herd entire maps or blasters could one-shot (nearly) everything before ED.




[ QUOTE ]
Don't get me wrong Archvillains should be tough IF they have reason to be tough, the best example of this is the Nictus-infused Romulos, he's just been given a massive jolt of Nictus power, taking him from 'eight guys beat him down without breaking a sweat' in human form to 'more than a match for several heroes' in his second form.

There's a storyline reason for his massive increase in power plus Romulos on his own isn't actually that hard, it's merely the fact he's got the Essence backup (this was the reason the Essences we're added in the first place, apparently people in closed beta were saying how easy they stomped all over him).

[/ QUOTE ]Now this actually highlights the problem for me with using the test server to determine how strong something should be as most of the testers are usually high-end powerset junkies who know how every little bit of each individual power works. Especially in the closed beta where they invite only a select few to participate. The i9 closed beta guys said the new Hamidon was too easy as well but they had the best players from 11 servers collected on one to do it. Then it went live and about 3 servers can manage to do it regularly with it hardly being done over here.




[ QUOTE ]
Elite Bosses are 'roughly' the equivilent of one player character, some are more difficult than others (Madam of Mystery I'm looking at you!) but with most it's merely a case of bring enough insps to the table to deal with it.

[/ QUOTE ]For some of us, ANY E-B can be a handful solo and not one of them can be described as 'squishy'.

My mind Troller cannot take on an E-B solo unless he has nukes, some form of temp pet or carries enough blues to keep them in Telekinesis whilst pounding on them for about ten to 15 minutes.




[ QUOTE ]
I think the problem is what gets given to an NPC with AV status, the stupidly high regen rate, the purple triangles, the very high resistance to debuffs. I feel these kind of big boosts should be reserved purely for the heavy hitters like Statesman or BaB.

Of course it's just a suggestion and more a sleep deprived rambling at that.

[/ QUOTE ]Actually it's not. Sometimes I feel like soloing and I have to pick something simple like a paper mission or one of the older missions from the Shadow Shard. Failing that I can venture into Recluse's Victory and pick up a heavy, letting it do all the work for me (I actually went AFK twice in R.V. and the heavy took out two players).

Then I try completing an arc (Madame of Mystery, funnily enough) and fail it because after beating her as a Lieutenant twice she suddenly jumps up to an E-B in the last mission along with a neccessary tool to defeat her. Lacking pets, strength and team-mates (and as it was via Ouroboros I couldn't ask anyone to help) I had to quit it to be done at a later date.

I feel it's one thing which Champions actually has right in planning - providing content people can solo if they wish. I've actually enjoyed the fact that the Origin of Power arc covers the 25-29 range as I've now grabbed all the 25-29 Ouroboros badges. A tutorial talky-mish with a Lt. defeat-X and 10 glowies. That suits my primary troller perfectly.

With regards to E-Bs; I'd like to see them downgraded to Bosses when soloing. In Safeguards for example you get to take on a Boss in Peregrine but bring enough players and you face an E-B version of one of the Rogue Island villains; bring a lot and you get an AV version.

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Tyger (50), Mutation-Controller Mind/FF - oldest Mind/FF on Union

[ QUOTE ]

Perhaps a setting inbetween AV/hero and EB called Heroic/Villainous Sidekick. Their slightly better than an EB but not as good as an AV.

If we want to get really fancy we could give them their own titles "Ice Mistral <Villainous Sidekick of Scirocco>" or "Mynx <Heroic Sidekick of Synapse>".

[/ QUOTE ]

That might work. I could be in favour for this option. No longer the AV designation but still a very tough opponent as it should be.

[ QUOTE ]

And for the record the only Statesman I've ever fought was the Recluses Victory version, who was incredibly tough (damn perma-unstoppable) and took a full group of eight villains and three vengeanced up heavies to bring down (it still took us 15 minutes).

[/ QUOTE ]

Well we got slaughtered time and again there and had to abandon the TF to lick our wounds and count the amount of debt we had gotten. Good to hear though that it IS possible to take him down.

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[ QUOTE ]
With regards to E-Bs; I'd like to see them downgraded to Bosses when soloing. In Safeguards for example you get to take on a Boss in Peregrine but bring enough players and you face an E-B version of one of the Rogue Island villains; bring a lot and you get an AV version.

[/ QUOTE ]

As it is getting harder and harder to team up I have to /sign this one. Make it so that on the lowest setting Heroic and Villainous for soloplay you will not encounter EB's but Bosses.

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Honestly this does touch on one of my biggest problems with the game.

Needing several teams of 8 players to take out an AV of a power-level and/or size akin to Galactus, Darkseid, Thanos, Superman Prime, etc. is fine by me - I don't see many AVs in CoH/V of that "threat level", apart from Hamidon and the aspects of Rularuu - what I would term "global threats".

At high level I think needing a team of 8 to take out a similar or slightly smaller size group of heroes/villains of high power level is reasonable too - like the Avengers, Sinister Six, JLA, etc - as you do here on the LRSF against most of the Vindicators and then the whole Freedom Phalanx.

I think a full team of 8 players can be fine too against a really tough singular hero/villain, such as facing Superman, Doomsday, Magneto, Silver Surfer, Thor, Hulk (at his angriest), etc - as you might here against Incarnates like Statesman, Recluse, Stheno, Tyrant, and maybe a few select others like Honoree, spawned as AVs.

But needing 8 players to take out a single hero/villain of middling power level such as Spiderman, Doc Ock, Aquaman or Clayface just really annoys me and makes me feel like a henchman or lowly hero-villain - such as on a team of 8 here when we face individual AVs like Nosferatu, Barracuda, Mynx or Dreck. Most player heroes should be able to take down these guys one on one (which thankfully you can solo or in small teams when they spawn as an EB).

I would rather they scaled the latter encounters by numbers rather than scaling from EB to AV, somewhat like the Devs did in CoV with the Civic Squad mission from Westin Phipps - if you solo the mission you meet 2-3 Civic Squad members (as bosses), but take in a team and more of the Civic Squad spawn according to how many team members you have (still as bosses, though) - you need a full team to spawn all/most of them. With ready-made NPC supergroups that should be easy - if you had a solo mission against Mynx as an EB, then taking in a larger team you'd find more Vindicators spawning as EBs to help their team-mate, up to facing all 8 Vindicators as EBs if you took a full team in - you could do the same with the 10 Arachnos leaders/lieutenants and the 6 Council ones too.

Really this game doesn't have much consistency in power levels - why is the Master at Arms of a single Rikti Mothership (U'kon G'rai - GM) tougher, needing several teams to take down, than the head of the entire Rikti Lineage of War (H'ro D'tohz - AV), who you can even take down solo as an EB? It annoys me probably far more than it should

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