Far too many spawns with bosses
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2009-10-16 09:07 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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If you want to fight a few bosses, turn the team size up rather than forcing boss spawns.|
My difficulty settings are: -- Capable of fighting enemies at your current security level. -- Combat equivalent of 2 standard heroes. -- Does prefer fighting bosses when alone. -- Does not prefer to fight Arch-Villains. That's off the Hero Corps Field Analyst, a direct copy/paste. |
If I remember right, "Does prefer fighting bosses when alone" means that the game preferentially spawns Boss/minion pairs instead of the usual lieutenant + 2 minions or three minion spawns.
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Actually, the "Does prefer fighting bosses when alone" option is what keeps bosses, ANY bosses, from scaling down into lieutenants when solo. I could up the team size (and even +3 produced groups of TWO bosses), but they will still scale down to lieutenants if I don't prefer fighting them, so to speak. At least that's how I'm led to believe the option works.
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Originally Posted by Starcloud
If you want to fight a few bosses, turn the team size up rather than forcing boss spawns.
If I remember right, "Does prefer fighting bosses when alone" means that the game preferentially spawns Boss/minion pairs instead of the usual lieutenant + 2 minions or three minion spawns. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The game is not "easy enough." It never was, it never will be.
The game is too easy, always has been and evidently always will be. I regard 4XP as the death knell for balance in this game. My main is fighting at +2x5 and could probably go higher, which is insane; spawns that size should kill any soloist, no saving throw.
In any case, Bosses showing up at team size 2 is not new. It started at least an issue ago, maybe longer. It's not a product of 4XP.
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In certain missions my scrapper [with difficulty settings of +0 x2, with bosses] would often the large majority of the maps spawns consisting of two bosses.
Now as a scrapper i LOVE this 
However it doesnt seem to work on radio missions, only story arcs i've noticed this on . . . . . though i like the map of bosses so i aint going to complain
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I've also noticed this issue, running at +0/x2 I seem to get a LOT of +1 Critters. Heck, when I went to do the "Meet With Lady Gray" for the Midnighter Squad, I turned it down to -1/x1, but apparently the setting didnt take and I still ended up fighting a crapload of yellow spirits.
On the other hand, I have Bosses turned on, but dont seem to be tripping over too many- perhaps its a function of level? My current character is only lvl 18 at the moment.
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Yep, if I do a mission set to +0/x6 and turn bosses off they will still appear in spawns but be LT-rank instead of Boss-rank.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Actually, the "Does prefer fighting bosses when alone" option is what keeps bosses, ANY bosses, from scaling down into lieutenants when solo. I could up the team size (and even +3 produced groups of TWO bosses), but they will still scale down to lieutenants if I don't prefer fighting them, so to speak. At least that's how I'm led to believe the option works.
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While I do agree that more bosses seem to be showing up (3-man team at +1/x6 running into 2-6 bosses at a time), have to disagree that this is a bad thing. I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
I can't remember the last time I've had this many fun, down to the wire fights, where the outcome was seriously in question. Heck, even my IOed out Brute and Fort are actually being challenged.
Please leave as is.
I was seeing bosses when running solo even before the new difficulty settings when I was running on Challenge level 2 and 4. So I don't think this change is due to something in I16.
The change occurred some time before I16, but I think it's a relatively recent change (like in the last 6-12 months).
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This is your opinion. There are games out there where it's not possible for certain classes to solo normal sized spawns that are below the character's level. If you prefer a game like that, there's plenty of them out there. |
Originally Posted by Venture
The game is not "easy enough." It never was, it never will be.
The game is too easy, always has been and evidently always will be. I regard 4XP as the death knell for balance in this game. My main is fighting at +2x5 and could probably go higher, which is insane; spawns that size should kill any soloist, no saving throw. |
Even most characters in *this* game can't take on +2 level, virtual team size of five, spawns. Yours happens to be one of those that can.
I played my DB/Regen Scrapper a while, with my mission team size set to two. I did indeed get spurts of boss spawns. I went into one Sky Raider mission, and the first three spawns I saw all included a boss. That doesn't really bother me, since the bosses downgrade to lieutenants for me.
I really like being able to add bosses if I want without increasing other difficulty settings, or increasing team size while still having bosses bump down to lieutenants. I never changed the difficulty settings before I16, and now I'm changing it for a number of my characters.
For some of my slower and squishier characters (such as my Dark/Electric Defender and Electric/Energy Brute), I set the enemy level to -1. Makes things go a lot faster. 
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I'm loving it as well.
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Originally Posted by Hallowed
While I do agree that more bosses seem to be showing up (3-man team at +1/x6 running into 2-6 bosses at a time), have to disagree that this is a bad thing. I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
I can't remember the last time I've had this many fun, down to the wire fights, where the outcome was seriously in question. Heck, even my IOed out Brute and Fort are actually being challenged. Please leave as is. |
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That is exactly the settings I'm completely enjoying now because of the bosses! Please leave it as it is currently!
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yikes, I think I neglected mentioning that in the original post!
My difficulty settings are: -- Capable of fighting enemies at your current security level. -- Combat equivalent of 2 standard heroes. -- Does prefer fighting bosses when alone. -- Does not prefer to fight Arch-Villains. That's off the Hero Corps Field Analyst, a direct copy/paste. *edit* Also, because I failed to say hi in your welcome thread, I want to take this opportunity to say: Thank you, Arbiter Kim, for taking the time to look into this. I appreciate this greatly, and this kind of thing is one of the BIG reasons why I love this game |
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I couldn't dream of fighting +2x5 on ANY of my characters and have any hope of succeeding, not in more than one fight. I pick +0x2 specifically BECAUSE it's easy and I don't have to struggle for my life all the time. And, evidently, it's not easy enough given how many deaths I racked up today.|
Originally Posted by Venture
The game is not "easy enough." It never was, it never will be.
The game is too easy, always has been and evidently always will be. I regard 4XP as the death knell for balance in this game. My main is fighting at +2x5 and could probably go higher, which is insane; spawns that size should kill any soloist, no saving throw. In any case, Bosses showing up at team size 2 is not new. It started at least an issue ago, maybe longer. It's not a product of 4XP. |
Maybe you're a better player than me, or maybe your characters are built better. Either way, the POINT of letting us choose our difficulty is so that we may all have fun. With this in mind, I don't think making my favourite pre-I16 difficulty setting significantly harder is conducive to that.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'm glad you enjoy it, but what am I supposed to do now? I used to enjoy Tenacious, and now it's GONE. I'm glad you're happy, but I'm not glad you're happy AT MY EXPENSE. Please, forgive my selfishness. It's not going away.|
Originally Posted by Johnny_Velocity
That is exactly the settings I'm completely enjoying now because of the bosses! Please leave it as it is currently!
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*edit*
Listen, let me clear something up. I thought the point of the new difficulty options was to give us... Well, more options. If I want my game to be easy, I can make it exactly as easy as I want, and if you want it to be hard, then you can make it harder. I was happy with how hard Tenacious was before, both in terms of levels and in terms of amount of enemies. Now that option is gone, because it spawns so many bosses it's not as easy as it used to be, and I have nothing between that and the uninteresting +0x1, which simply spawns far too few enemies for the game to look good. I like my hordes of 5-6 minions, I just don't like the hordes of bosses.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The problem is, that's not everyone's idea of fun. I'm not specifically promoting that it should or shouldn't be everyone's idea of fun, but I know for a fact that it's not. Having every spawn be a nail-biting risk of defeat takes a level of attention and focus that, honestly, I know not everyone wants. I have seen many players express over the years that a certain degree of being able to autopilot through spawns is relaxing for them.|
Originally Posted by Hallowed
While I do agree that more bosses seem to be showing up (3-man team at +1/x6 running into 2-6 bosses at a time), have to disagree that this is a bad thing. I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
I can't remember the last time I've had this many fun, down to the wire fights, where the outcome was seriously in question. Heck, even my IOed out Brute and Fort are actually being challenged. Please leave as is. |
I don't think it's good for the entire game to be that way, but I think it makes sense that, if we have no direct control over whether it happens at all, not every spawn be that way on small team sizes. I propose that having a boss in every spawn for teams of less than three is probably excessive if the bosses themselves are not jokes.
Part of the problem with perception here is that a given rank of entity, like "boss" is a radically inconsistent challenge. You can go from a boss type that's not especially frightening to one that is a serious threat to a wide array of characters, and sometimes this can happen within the same mob faction. (Carnies are a fine example, actually.) While I don't suggest we should have completely homogeneous challenges across the game, I do think the swing is sometimes too radical, especially given that the rewards rarely seem to match the challenge. I have always maintained that Master Illusionists should be worth significantly more XP than other bosses, simply on the basis of their auto-phase and uninterruptable summons abilities.
Carnies just seem to represent a very unfortunate confluence of the boss spawns rates' per-faction inconsistency and some especially obnoxious bosses.
Edit: I meant to add - if there was some way we could control the ramp up of bosses in our missions, that would be a fantastic addition for those folks who want lots of bosses while leaving those who don't the option to have some dev-approved minimum ratio.
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From one that finds it not fun, and is not an uber player, thank you.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
The problem is, that's not everyone's idea of fun. I'm not specifically promoting that it should or shouldn't be everyone's idea of fun, but I know for a fact that it's not.
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What do you mean you you say "too easy" and what are the consequences of this?
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Originally Posted by Venture
The game is not "easy enough." It never was, it never will be.
The game is too easy, always has been and evidently always will be. I regard 4XP as the death knell for balance in this game. My main is fighting at +2x5 and could probably go higher, which is insane; spawns that size should kill any soloist, no saving throw. In any case, Bosses showing up at team size 2 is not new. It started at least an issue ago, maybe longer. It's not a product of 4XP. |
I HATE FIGHTING BOSSES!
No i really hate fighting bosses.
I set my map to -1s and still sometimes get bosses with equal to 6 people...
I set my map to 0's and get bosses when set to 6 people...
I really dont like fighting bosses at all. I dont like fighting purple foes either Thank goodness I dont have to fight purple foes... Now... If i can set it to NO BOSSES EVER... I would be so happy 
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
In fact, I'm one step away from telling off the entire system and going down to -1x3 no bosses no AVs.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I like my hordes of 5-6 minions, I just don't like the hordes of bosses.
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I don't think it'll change the number of bosses you face, but a boss that's -1/+0 to your level is a lot easier than one that's +0/+1. That extra level bump means the boss has more HP, more damage, and hits more often, while you hit him less often and do less damage (as a % of the mobs HP). IMO, the difficulty increase between even con and +1 is too steep, and it's felt most of all with bosses and/or mobs that have resistance to your primary damage type.
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Are you solo? If you are solo and have the no bosses setting engaged, then even setting yourself to 8 people will not spawn bosses (there will be boss critters, but they will be downgraded to Lts.).
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Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
I HATE FIGHTING BOSSES!
No i really hate fighting bosses. I set my map to -1s and still sometimes get bosses with equal to 6 people... I set my map to 0's and get bosses when set to 6 people... I really dont like fighting bosses at all. I dont like fighting purple foes either Thank goodness I dont have to fight purple foes... Now... If i can set it to NO BOSSES EVER... I would be so happy |
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
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I'm torn on the issue. On the one hand, having the bosses spawn more frequently does have its advantages. On the other, there are times where they're just more trouble than they're worth. For instance, I had a mission yesterday before class, and had 20 minutes before I had to pack up and head out. I figure it's fine to run through one more mission. Like most of my characters, I was running at +0/x2, and since it was a scrapper, I figured it would be a nice, fast breeze through the mission.
I was wrong in the worst way. Nemesis mission. Virtually every spawn, and by which I mean there were only about 2 or 3 spawns that varied, in that mission was one Fake Nemesis and a minion. Naturally, I'm trying to keep them knocked down so they don't get that PFF up, but I only have one KB power plus my nemesis staff so a number did get it off. I didn't get through that mission in 20 minutes.
I don't mind fighting bosses here and there, but that is just too much. Admittedly, it's a particularly egregious case, but I've seen a heck of a lot more bosses on average in lower difficulty settings. The result is a fairly large jump in difficulty/ time consumption between +0/x1 and +0/x2 that doesn't mesh with the smoother progression that there used to be when adding one player to the team.
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And I'm dancing on its grave, surrounded by the wreckage of +4 Zeus Titans, Vanguard Sorcerers and Master Illusionists.
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Originally Posted by Venture
The game is too easy, always has been and evidently always will be. I regard 4XP as the death knell for balance in this game.
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Oh, look, this is precious. Here's the comment I got for my negative rep:
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I'm not even going to comment on "learn to play," but "leave my boss spawns alone?" Go to hell! You leave MY boss spawns alone! I quite enjoyed them, before they were changed to something I DON'T enjoy. For the umpteenth time, the POINT of more options for difficulty was to have more options for difficulty. Well, I don't have more options. In fact, I LACK the one option I liked. Right now, I have NO options.| Learn to play, and leave my boss spawns alone. I quite enjoy them |
So I hope I'll be forgiven if I don't appreciate having MY favourite difficulty setting ruined so someone else can have more fun with it while I rant and curse at my screen, specifically because there was NO NEED to mess it up and, from the looks of things, it wasn't even intended.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'm sort of in the same camp as Perfect Pain on this one, though not quite as extremely. I don't mind fighting bosses. I grew up on the old arcades, and I'm used to fighting my way through a whole level of many baddies at a time, finally ending up at the level boss and then having a boss fight. I like fighting bosses in this way, because it really does present a nice ramp-up of power throughout each mission. Heck, I don't even mind fighting the occasional boss throughout the missions, themselves. Remember how Cadillacs and Dinosaurs would shove in the first boss as a regular enemy in later stages? Golden Axe did that a lot, too. So I don't mind that.|
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
I HATE FIGHTING BOSSES!
No i really hate fighting bosses. I set my map to -1s and still sometimes get bosses with equal to 6 people... I set my map to 0's and get bosses when set to 6 people... I really dont like fighting bosses at all. I dont like fighting purple foes either Thank goodness I dont have to fight purple foes... Now... If i can set it to NO BOSSES EVER... I would be so happy |
What I DO mind is playing City of Warcraft, where every fight is against one, single, tough enemy that takes a long time and is very dangerous. Not only do I HATE that framework (I'll pick many enemies over hard enemies even on characters that lack AoE), I also want to keep bosses being MEANINGFUL. Missions spawns are cannon fodder, just for the fact that we have to go through mountains of them anyway. Bosses in most mission spawns just makes bosses themselves cannon fodder. Rather tough, annoying cannon fodder, obviously, but cannon fodder nonetheless. And they shouldn't be.
Back once again to Jack's old vision of what a boss would be - a tough enemy which would provide a meaningful, gripping fight to culminate a mission. Back then bosses didn't actually spawn anywhere in solo spawns OR anywhere in the streets. Street bosses, at least in the lower levels (I didn't have high-level characters at the time) started showing up only around I1, when after a long time cruising Steel Canyon, I finally saw my first Oberst in the street. Back then, bosses were meaningful. You didn't see them often, sometimes you didn't see them at all. Occasionally they'd pop up and REALLY throw things for a loop with their raw power and with their unusual selection of powers. These days, this is no longer the case. Bosses are everywhere, and even more so since the difficulty changes.
About the only faction that still has these "interesting" bosses are Malta, and more from unintentionally one-sided spawn rules, I think, more than anything else. Almost every time a Malta mission calls for a boss, it'll be a Gunslinger. Almost never will it be anything else, but if it IS, it'll be a Zeus Class Titan. A few missions call for Zeus Titans specifically, so you're likely to see a few more of those. But... You know, there's one more kind of boss, the TacOps Commander or whatever he's called (they're so rare I don't even remember). These do not spawn. Ever. Since I made 50 back in January of 2005, I have only ever seen a hadful of these, maybe five or so, and most of them have been in spawns that SPECIFICALLY call for one. I've seen them random spawn I think twice in coming on five years. They're nasty, mind you, but I enjoy fighting them anyway, because they're such a change of pace from Gunslinger, Gunslinger, Gunslinger.
And again - I'm not trying to take away people's difficulty or make the game easier or what have you. We already have a difficulty setting that goes FAR higher than anything I even want to consider. I just want there to be something for everyone and I want to AVOID the old heroic, where it was either "everything easy" or "nothing really easy at all" with nothing in-between. But you know what? If bosses have become so common that the game will stuff them in half my spawns, then maybe I'll go with the system and just make them into common lieutenants and just deal with that problem by making the game EVEN EASIER. Even I think that going to to "no bosses when solo" would be cheating, but I'd rather cheat than play a game I don't enjoy.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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For instance, before they only spawns, really, you could meet at +1 were either three +1 minions, a +1 minion and lieutenant, or just a +1 lieutenant. So often now I've met spawns of TWO +1 lieutenants and a minion, something which should have been EVEN CON, as well as a large spawn of SIX +1 minions, which has no business spawning at +0x2. When levels and spawn sizes were detached from each other, it seems like small spawns are appearing lower-level and large ones are appearing higher-level, when they ought to follow the old rules - many enemies OR strong enemies, never many AND strong, neither many NOR strong. Difficulty varies a lot more wildly now, even before bosses are taken into account.
I finally downgraded her back last night because an arachnos mission I went in almost killed me several times. They were exciting battles but using up my inspiration tray before getting to the boss at the end was a bummer.
I have to admit though, that it really did make me feel like the plucky scrapper fighting against overwhelming odds in the name of justice, as opposed to the superhero scattering the chaf before her to get to the real menace at the end like I usually feel. Both are good feelings so it isn't like I'm really upset. I just wish there was an in-between setting.
And all of this is just my impression of what happened. I can't tell when a mission is extra hard if it is the mission or the difficulty. I'd really need to check the same mission with different difficulty settings in order to get a base-line for comparison... and I'm too lazy for that.
BTW - I have to agree that master illusionists seem to be occuring much more often than they used to.