How could AV's and GM's be more... challenging?
By
Alvan,
Posted on: 2008-08-14 10:11 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
It'd be nice, although highly unlikely, if there was an extra difficulty setting that resulted in AV's etc... having more varied/powerfull powers and effects and more things like ambushes.
Of course the reward would be higher, but the risk should (in a perfect world) offset that.
Giant Monsters which use moves like Footstomp should have enough knockback to well, knock back anything, much like how the Rikti bombs can knock back tankers, only to a higher degree. If they just so happen to have Knockout Blow, then increase the knockup so much it rockets whoever was on the receiving target up into the air so high it takes them like 10 seconds to hit the ground. 
I've always wanted to see Jurassik punt someone with his car stick so hard they go flying back into the wall (or horizon if outside!) regardless of AT...
Ideon's Paragonwiki page
Member of Paragon/Rogue Knights
Arc: 60092 - Supa Rumble in the Park
"Keep living the dream, and never let any jerk tell you what to do."
-- High-Roller
i haven't even done the new Hami raid 
imho, GM fight should be a tad more unique
and like Ideon says, maybe with a few more unique animations ?
Only ever did Hami once, a long time ago. Unless it's changed, the only way I'd go back there was if the atrocious lag was sorted.
I don't get the chance to confront a GM or AV very often, so they're still interesting for me. My main issue would be the usual one about having an adequate reward for the hour-long grind to wear them down. Is it a stupid idea, therefore, to link the reward to the effort involved?
I'm thinking that some teams have a composition that makes bringing down an AV or GM a long and arduous operation, which I guess would be most casual teams just working missions and arcs. They deserve a decent reward for the amount of effort they put in. Some teams might be pre-planned and tailored to farm AVs for badges or whatever, and can tear through them quickly with much less effort. Their reward could be somewhat less, commensurate with the struggle. The badge would still be there, but perhaps nothing much else to make easy(ish) farming very attractive.
There could also be a new "Cloth Eared Nit" badge for the brave but foolish souls who charge the Psychic Clockwork King before the wise Illusion Controller can drop his Phantom Army to take the psionic nuke. There's nothing like seeing a bunch of Inv tankers go down in a heap, all at once.
My SR scrapper has taken that nuke several times and he's never rolled that 7.5% chance of hitting me. Though I guess a scrapper running in early isn't exactly news of any kind.
For a team to struggle with AVs it needs to have either low damage or no debuffs. It actually takes some effort to form a team like that, or really bad luck
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
People still form PUGs and do AV arcs, and those PUGS don't always have the powersets that some people might insist are essential. At least once I've waited in a team while the leader hunts for a specific defender or controller before picking the AV mission. And yet there's been nothing wrong with the team up to that point. It would, I guess, be "really bad luck" to be unable to take out those AVs, but not uncommon for it to take a long slog. In fact, if it's not a struggle, then I can see why so many veterans with high level characters, powerset/build experience and SG teams who've done them all several times before might think they needed overhauling to make them interesting.
Perhaps that's somewhere at the heart of my suggestion, too - that those who are not familiar with the "best way" to take down a given AV or GM might be allowed to spend a while in a hard struggle learning how tough these critters can be, and then win a significant reward for the effort.
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At least once I've waited in a team while the leader hunts for a specific defender or controller before picking the AV mission.
[/ QUOTE ]Which is simply unnecessary, even for a PuG.
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People still form PUGs and do AV arcs, and those PUGS don't always have the powersets that some people might insist are essential. At least once I've waited in a team while the leader hunts for a specific defender or controller before picking the AV mission. And yet there's been nothing wrong with the team up to that point. It would, I guess, be "really bad luck" to be unable to take out those AVs, but not uncommon for it to take a long slog.
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Yet I've been on a few TFs with intelligent/experienced players where the team make-up just wasn't capable of downing the AV, usually from lack of damage (and/or buffs/debuffs that increase damage, specifically -res and -regen). Sure, AV regen isn't as bad as it was, but some AVs can still regen pretty fast, especially the ones who have godmodes on a short recharge (Honoree, States, etc) and can out-regen the reduced damage the team does while they're in that state.
In fact I've had a couple of LGTFs that progressed with absolutely no trouble at all, and no deaths, all the way to Honoree and then still couldn't down him after multiple attempts, even with an overload of red insps. So these days when I join/start a TF/SF I always make sure there's a -regen debuffer, if not a -res debuffer too, because it's not fun spending a couple of hours on a TF/SF and failing at the final mob. And if we can't recruit one I'll switch to one of my own debuffers.
Same with GMs tbh - I've been on several GM teams with my brutes that just couldn't dent Deathsurge/Scrapyard, but then I've switched to my /Dark MM or /Rad Corr (with the rest of the team unchanged), started -regen debuffing, and then the GM has gone down in under a minute. One of my brutes still doesn't have the Surging badge despite having joined half a dozen Deathsurge teams, because I had to switch to my MM/corr.
I agree that Romulus is a great AV fight because there are multiple tactics/ways you can take him down once you know how Rom and his Nictus operate - I'd like to see more AVs/GMs like that, so that teams have multiple options for taking down a target if one tactic is closed off to them from lacking a certain debuff/archetype. Fights that require knowledge are good, because passing on such knowledge is a community-building effort. Even better if fights permit multiple tactics because that promotes community discussion, rather than "this is the only way to do this".
I'd also like to see some random events occurring during GM/AV fights - some of them do summon ambushes/pets, but how about if AVs/GMs used insps occasionally during fights? Or have some that go into a different mode/stance that requires the team's tactics to change. I don't want some of WoW's intricate but linear boss fights that you can learn by rote and then do flawlessly as long as your team is disciplined/prepared, but nor do I just want a bag of HPs - some random/dynamic occurrences and multiple tactics available for every AV/GM would spice things up nicely.
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Only ever did Hami once, a long time ago. Unless it's changed, the only way I'd go back there was if the atrocious lag was sorted.
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How long ago? The old Hami raid required blank costumes and featured standing around waiting for mezzes to set in a lot. I never did it, but I did watch it being done and it bored me silly just doing that.
It got revamped ages ago (over a year) into a sort of 40 man instance. Never seen that one done. Still sounds laggy.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
Ah, Honoree is an exception to my comment above, just because of his high resistance to the most common damage meaning you dont have to be so unlucky not to get enough damage with a random team.
Because blasters are played more than anything else (or were last time they did a post about AT popularity) it should be relatively simple to have a high damage team, and quite likely if you picked at random too.
One DM scrapper in the team is enough to tip the balance with Honoree without any debuff though, probably the same for a stalker and brute. But then DM is not popular enough for it to be a likely pick up on a random team search
And Romulus is brilliantly worked, I must say I had the same fun on Ghost Widow on the STF too. there's multiple ways of overcoming her strengths and debuff and spam simply isn't one of them (unless its a truly stupid amount of debuff I guess, but that wont be a random team)
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Indeed - like I said, I don't get to do AVs and GMs very often, so my experience of them is far less than most of the veterans here. And I haven't done Hami since those olden days of simple costumes and complex plans - everybody wait on that hill in your colour-coded plain bodysuits while the first wave spams mez before the Phantom Army parachutes in... 
No doubt many things have changed. I'm often over-sensitive to the fact that these forums are frequented by vocal experienced players who are wise, mature, constructive and well-meaning ( 
) but who nevertheless might sometimes forget that significant numbers among the playerbase don't have their experience.
Sometimes TFs fail. It's not as nice as when they don't, maybe, but when I did my very first TF we failed, and it was still a great adventure. I was on countless failed first Respec Trials before completing one successfuly, and the consequent thrill is something I haven't had from this game for a very, very long time.
I agree that it can be tiresome when you fail a Statesman TF as a 50 and you have the top build you can have and you've done every AV in seconds and your pride just won't let you believe your glorious and mighty hero(ine) could possibly be anything other than irresistable - not to mention that it's taken weeks of scheduling to co-ordinate an SG team into a two-hour window on a Tuesday night because Norm has to work night shift and Cliff has an early start so you have to be done before 11... But going into it after you've done the planning and the numbers and the prep and scheduling, knowing you won't fail I find to be more tiresome still. It saddens me, not having that thrill of succeeding in beating something that's supposed to be really hard to beat. Hard enough, in fact, that you're likely to fail.
Something I should have added to my last post is that I'd like to see AV/GM fights get more complex/interesting, but only as long as every archetype/powerset can contribute in some way. E.g. I wouldn't like to see an AV/GM introduced that was completely immune to one damage type, or a boss fight that could only be done with ranged attacks (as I believe some in WoW are, and even the GW fight here). Some people having to stand by and not be able to contribute to the final fight of a mission/TF really sucks (not that I've ever experienced that here, thankfully).
I also hate to see any archetype/class in an MMO become essential for a fight, whether it's tanks (at least we have several ATs/sets here that can tank), healers (thankfully not a necessity here), debuffers (I still say -regen is a ton more important for AVs/GMs than any other type), or whatever.
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Ah, Honoree is an exception to my comment above, just because of his high resistance to the most common damage meaning you dont have to be so unlucky not to get enough damage with a random team.
Because blasters are played more than anything else (or were last time they did a post about AT popularity) it should be relatively simple to have a high damage team, and quite likely if you picked at random too.
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We had a lot of lethal damage powersets and several blasters - I ticked the box for both of those categories (Archery blaster) - hence our problems.
I dont know how effective the boost is for the team leader against Honoree (as only time I've led I was on my defender and thus not really doing damage anyway) but yeah he is a problem who's solution is mostly in team make up. Its one of the reasons I'm not a big LGTF fan even though I know I can get a team that can do it easily enough (have enough friends with Rad or DM but then that's probably a like minded thing)
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes TFs fail. It's not as nice as when they don't, maybe, but when I did my very first TF we failed, and it was still a great adventure. I was on countless failed first Respec Trials before completing one successfuly, and the consequent thrill is something I haven't had from this game for a very, very long time.
I agree that it can be tiresome when you fail a Statesman TF as a 50 and you have the top build you can have and you've done every AV in seconds and your pride just won't let you believe your glorious and mighty hero(ine) couldn't possibly be anything other than irresistable - not to mention that it's taken weeks of scheduling to co-ordinate an SG team into a two-hour window on a Tuesday night because Norm has to work night shift and Cliff has an early start so you have to be done before 11... But going into it after you've done the planning and the numbers and the prep and scheduling, knowing you won't fail I find to be more tiresome still. It saddens me, not having that thrill of succeeding in beating something that's supposed to be really hard to beat. Hard enough, in fact, that you're likely to fail.
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I'm fine with failing as long as it happens because of a mistake or poor coordination. What I hate is when things are impossible without a certain team line-up.
Back before inventions in I7 I must have done the LRSF about 25-30 times with my brutes/MM before my first success. At first I relished the challenge, but it really started to become a soul-destroying chore after so many failures (but I am rather stubborn 
) - especially when Granite brute + multiple corruptor teams were just rolling over the final AVs in under 5 minutes.
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Ah, Honoree is an exception to my comment above, just because of his high resistance to the most common damage meaning you dont have to be so unlucky not to get enough damage with a random team.
Because blasters are played more than anything else (or were last time they did a post about AT popularity) it should be relatively simple to have a high damage team, and quite likely if you picked at random too.
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I suppose one way to deal with the requirement for "correct" teams for some AVs would be to provide temporary powers during the task force / strike force that provides the very minimum of capability needed. Would make it easier to balance AVs for all comers, if nothing else.
AVs should also be able to suppress or change the context of the player characters' abilities. Maybe you can't teleport to hospital until the fight is over; maybe every hold cast on an AV is also cast on a PC; maybe fire damage hurts him to begin with, but then starts healing him; maybe turning on stealth reduces his accuracy by half but doubles the damage he does.
GM I don't really think need to be more challenging as much as they need to be more epic. When Paladin stomps through Kings Row I want the ground to shake half a zone away. I want power lines to snap, sending sparks and arches of lightning everywhere. I want cars flying through the air, exploding on impact. I want tanks trundling laborously through the street to get in position to fire, only for Paladin to shrug off their grenads as so much chaff and beat the tanks into plowshares.
I want GMs to be rare enough that they'll still be a treat after years of playing -- once a month top, for each. I want there to be foreshadowing, so people are forewarned and can gather in the zone on short notice once the rampage starts. I want there to be explosions, shrapnel and sparks flying, players being thrown around like tennis balls, fires running wild, broken fire-hydrants spraying water high in the air, skulls and hellions using the mayhem to rob stores.
Ironically, I believe they did actually increase the spawn rate of many GMs when people complained they never saw them. Then they tweaked their risk/reward ratio to the point that no one bothered fighting them, and now we have the sight of three Paladins in King's Row and three Lusca's in IP.
Sad really.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
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What I hate is when things are impossible without a certain team line-up.
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Agreed. And, as it seems from later in your post, not only might a certain line-up be essential for success, but it may also make the task a piece of cake, which defeats the object.
25-30 times? Sounds like you really have got the "stubborn" part right
I can see a GM/AV post split here
WRT AV's : I'll restate that I think romulus is the best AV in the game. You can take him down multiple ways ( none of them overtly easy ) and he will react in different ways to each. He uses tactics and *appears* to be an intelligent foe.
GM's IMHO *should* be just huge beasts with a shed load of HP and some massive attacks.
As comparison.
I've duo'd Jack in irons and Eochai with my troller, using a blaster for damage. I think I could *just* about have soloed them but didn't want to wait 5 hours to finally see them fall over.
However, I wouldn't consider trying to do the same with Lusca at all.
My opinion :
GM's should be long hard battles requiring lots of players and a large amount of damage spam.
AV's should be much shorter, very risky battles requiring much more in the way of tactics and team arrangement.
Fahie
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My opinion :
GM's should be long hard battles requiring lots of players and a large amount of damage spam.
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^This
The AV's in most cases are hard enough for most pug's (easy for badgehunter pugs but they tend to be rarer than the normal user pugs :P )
Hmm, a sticky one. Ive not fought every AV but Ive taken on most of the Monsters so if any of these ideas are already used, ignore them. As much as Id like to get away from scripted attack patterns, I doubt well see that as it would require some fairly sophisticated AI. But for what its worth, I reckon these tactics could be added to GMs and a few AVs. It goes without saying that I would like to see a better reward for taking them on as well. Just a boost to XP or a chance for an uncommon drop would be good.
Toggle Dropping At certain points in HP loss, the GM unleashes an attack with a 90% chance to drop any toggles on player characters. Queue 30 seconds of panic as melee ATs run for their lives and squishies hurry to reapply debuffs etc.
Phasing - No, not of the GM, but of players. What if the GM suddenly chooses one of the team and phases them for 30 seconds. Annoying yes, but for those fights when the team is hinging on the debuffer or tank, this gives them a few moments to try and survive without them.
AoE Confuse One moment the team is blasting away at the AV, the next its blasting away at each other. The effect wears off after a while but unless people are packing plenty of break frees, theyre stuck. Not impossible to overcome but a welcome break from the pile in and smash tactic that seems so commonly employed.
Absorbtion A bit of a controversial one but something that would require a little more management. If one is fighting a fire based enemy and you attack with a fire based power, rather than simply resisting the attack, it absorbs it, healing back the HP it would have lost. However, to avoid the problem of certain sets being locked out for the fight, this could happen in phases. So for example, Infernal could have a shield that when on, absorbs Fire and Energy damage but is weak to Ice and Negative. The shield toggles on and off during the fight, maybe when too much fire damage has been gained and turns it off 30 seconds later. I remember with fondness certain unholy enemies in FF7 which resisted everything but were crippled when you cast a heal on them.
None of these ideas will work for long and sure enough, people will learn the pattern and it will become unchallenging again. But these would at least break up the pattern of just hammering the attack keys until they fall.
While Im at it, Id also like to see some new GMs added. There are several villain groups who could benefit from having a GM added to their arsenal:
- The Freaks and their enormous armoured car that drives around Brickstown, Freaks riding on top of it pumping out punk music and ammo in equal measure.
- The giant, flaming Fire Dragon summoned by the Tsoo which roars its way around the upper parts of Steel Canyon.
- The Cthulu style monster, called forth from the black pits by the Circle of Thorns and terrorises Founders Falls.
- The Warriors and their armoured Trojan Horse that frequently attacks parts of Talos Island.
Yeah, I love GMs. Just wish there was more point in fighting them.
Oh and everything Leif_Roar suggested too please.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
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Ironically, I believe they did actually increase the spawn rate of many GMs when people complained they never saw them.
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Yes, but I think the real problem wasn't the low spawn rate as such, but how briefness of the encounters. Blink, and you missed them. With forewarning (like the change in sky colour before a Rikti raid, but even longer, as GMs would be rarer) people would have time to find out about and get in place to take part in the GM event. So even if they were rare, most people would get to take part in them when they do occur. (And they would be much bigger spectacles, too.)
Heck, if they make the GMs rare again, they could even have "GM weekends" with frequent, guaranteed spawns as a draw in addition to XP weekends.
I would like that the AVs regen slowed down after 10 minutes while the AV damage output increased. This way the battles reaches a critical point where the team needs to take down the AV before the danger becomes too large. After a while the AV will go back to the normal mode if not defeated.
This way a fight wont take longer than 15-20 minutes.
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I want GMs to be rare enough that they'll still be a treat after years of playing --
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Better do sommething about the pathetic risk-reward ratio then. I don't bother with GM's now unless someone wants a badge. They're simply not worth the effort at the moment.
I don't think you can answer this without making a lot of people unhappy. More signature moves not available to players would be good.
But something does need to be done. Almost any 5 man team with 1 debuffer and some damage can get through all of the AVs without any problems.
As stated above, most people want 'a challange' as long as it doesn't take more than 5mins and too much thought.
Thats the appeal of this game, easy to pick up the basics, good for easy fun in short bursts.