Far too many spawns with bosses

Samuel_Tow · 11-22-2009 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarus

I just want Tenacious back, none of the new settings come even close to that now. Either the spawns are too big or too small, too many bosses or none at all.

The problem is that level and spawn size seems completely detached now. Before, each difficulty setting had the chance to give you small spawns of high-level enemies or large spawns of low-level enemies. Now I see small spawns of high AND low-level enemies, as well as large spawns of high AND low-level enemies. Essentially, it's simultaneously easier AND harder, which makes for a truly schizophrenic difficulty curve. One moment you're cleaning house, the next moment you're asking for the license plate number on that truck because the universe decided to give you a HUGE spawn of high-level enemies.

Quote:

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.

GuyPerfect · 11-22-2009 01:17 PM

The #1 change I'd make to missions spawns in general is to remove the +1 spawns whatsoever. If I'm fighting enemies of my own level, it's usually because I can't fight, say, enemies +1 to my level... so why do mission maps have about half the spawns at +1 of what the mission's level happens to be? Does that work when you set the spawns to +5, and you get +6s instead?

Jetpack · 11-22-2009 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuyPerfect

The #1 change I'd make to missions spawns in general is to remove the +1 spawns whatsoever. If I'm fighting enemies of my own level, it's usually because I can't fight, say, enemies +1 to my level... so why do mission maps have about half the spawns at +1 of what the mission's level happens to be? Does that work when you set the spawns to +5, and you get +6s instead?

Agree completely.

Lazarus · 11-22-2009 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuyPerfect

The #1 change I'd make to missions spawns in general is to remove the +1 spawns whatsoever. If I'm fighting enemies of my own level, it's usually because I can't fight, say, enemies +1 to my level... so why do mission maps have about half the spawns at +1 of what the mission's level happens to be? Does that work when you set the spawns to +5, and you get +6s instead?

Especially annoying in the really early levels when you're only using TOs, if even that, and every other mission seems to think that you're going to level 10 seconds in and fills with +1s like it's doing you a favor.

Arctic Man · 11-22-2009 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarus

Especially annoying in the really early levels when you're only using TOs, if even that, and every other mission seems to think that you're going to level 10 seconds in and fills with +1s like it's doing you a favor.

I've noticed this too. I've set the difficulty on most of my characters to -1 so I can blow through the missions faster (quantity over quality, and shorter time between mission complete bonus), and still mostly see enemies at my own level.

Samuel_Tow · 11-22-2009 04:05 PM

Missions have always spawned enemies +1 to their level plus difficulty, with the other level spawning as appropriate. Now, I too have never been a big fan of this, and I remember saying to myself "Boy, if I could make the game spawn nothing BUT even con enemies, I probably would." That was before the new difficulty settings, of course, as now my solution is to just drop them to -1 and go from there.

Personally, I've always felt it was done to add a bit of diversity to the spawning mechanics. Right now... I've no idea what spawn composition is after the difficulty settings, but before on Tenacious, the even con spawns came in exactly three varieties - five (which mutated to six) minions, a lieutenant and four minions and two lieutenants and a minion. That's it, that's all. That can grate sometimes, especially if the RNG gets stuck doing only one kind, so I'm sure they threw in the three or so more +1 spawns just to shake things up a bit. The problem with that was... Well, post purple patch, a spawn of +1s is actually quite a step up in difficulty for a lot of builds with how accuracy drops off and enemy offensive power scales up.

They even had what I can only assume were legitimately "front-loaded" and "back-loaded" missions. Anyone still remember those? You'd enter a mission and find the enemies all -2 and someone on the team would go "Oh, it's backloaded!" or you'd enter a mission, find all enemies +2 to +3 and someone would clasp his hands and go "Oh, GOD I hope this is frontloaded!" They removed this, but at least part of the idea behind it (provided it was intentional) seems to have been to add variety.

That said, I'd rather have a little less variety if it meant keeping all enemies in the band of difficulty I'm comfortable with. It was bad enough meeting a nasty +1 lieutenant with a minion before, but at least then +1 spawns were smaller. Now the biggest spawn your difficulty can generate could show up as +1, and that just plain sucks. If I could keep all enemies spawning as even con (or -1), I would.

Quote:

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.

Lazarus · 11-22-2009 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

They even had what I can only assume were legitimately "front-loaded" and "back-loaded" missions. Anyone still remember those? You'd enter a mission and find the enemies all -2 and someone on the team would go "Oh, it's backloaded!" or you'd enter a mission, find all enemies +2 to +3 and someone would clasp his hands and go "Oh, GOD I hope this is frontloaded!" They removed this, but at least part of the idea behind it (provided it was intentional) seems to have been to add variety.

The weirdest instance I've ever had of this was way back around issue 1 (back before we had any difficulty options at all and a +1 Boss at the front of the mission was not uncommon when soloing) when I got a Tsoo mission where the first room was all +1s and +2s. Then for some reason as I went up through the floors of the office building the levels kept dropping until finally at the end of the mission I found the named boss, who was a -2 LT.

Plug_Nickel · 11-22-2009 07:03 PM

Been reading this thread for a while now and I don't think anyone's mentioned what I believe to be the root of the problem.

Sam, the reason why you're seeing so many bosses these days is due to the economy. That's right. Dig this...

Last year when the economy started to choke, the company that I work for began laying people off. In fact we went through four rounds of lay offs, after which, more than half the employees were gone. I was in the fourth batch to get canned.

Anyway, a few months ago, I got called back and now I'm working for the same company again (doing whatever it is that I do there). But here's the deal, bro - none of the higher management folks got laid off! Of course not! They're the ones handing out all the walking papers. You think they're going to sacrifice themselves for the company by going on unemployment? Hell no.

So that's what you're seeing now, Sammy T. Because the economy is gagging on itself, all those minions who lost their jobs are being replaced with bosses who've had to step out onto the floor and get heir hands dirty. I say wait until the employment situation starts to pick up again and then maybe we'll see a return to the way things are supposed to be. All those bosses will no doubt return to their staff meetings and power point luncheons as minions gradually return to work. We've just got to stay strong and not give up hope.

Larry: Owen, what the hell did you do to my wife?
Owen: Well I don't want to say on the phone - all I can tell you is that I killed her last night.

Katie V · 11-22-2009 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

They even had what I can only assume were legitimately "front-loaded" and "back-loaded" missions. Anyone still remember those? You'd enter a mission and find the enemies all -2 and someone on the team would go "Oh, it's backloaded!" or you'd enter a mission, find all enemies +2 to +3 and someone would clasp his hands and go "Oh, GOD I hope this is frontloaded!" They removed this, but at least part of the idea behind it (provided it was intentional) seems to have been to add variety.

I've never seen frontloaded missions, but backloaded missions are still around (for example, the "defeat Atta" mission in the Hollows), and they're an option in MA.

Sister_Twelve · 11-22-2009 08:33 PM

Quote:

I've never seen frontloaded missions, but backloaded missions are still around (for example, the "defeat Atta" mission in the Hollows), and they're an option in MA.

When I first started playing in 2007 or so, I remember with my empath several missions where the entire group would drop before ever fully loading onto the map because of a huge enemy bum rush to the front door. I don't know if those missions were fixed or what, but I haven't seen that in a long time.

Rodion · 11-22-2009 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

I got another mission like this recently that had a Paragon Protector in every spawn on the map, minus maybe two or three. And this was a huge map. Even downgraded, with their MoG they just dragged everything out.

What kind of character are you fighting the PPs with? If you time things right you can prevent them from using MoG/Unstoppable/whatever by hitting them with stacked stuns/holds or knockback when they're down to like 30% of their hits, and then hit them with your big attacks. If you've downgraded them to LTs you can usually whittle them down to that same number and then mez them or let them have it with your biggest attack, which is usually enough to take them down in one shot for blasters and scrappers and most tankers.

Admittedly stacking mezzes can be tough on the boss PPs for some ATs and powersets. But even so, only 1 out of 10 PPs manage to get off MoG on me.

I agree that having two Ring Mistresses or Master Illusionists in a spawn is the pits. I did a Carnie mission today on 0/x8 with my 41 Energy/Energy Brute and had to resort to a lot of pulling, so it was kind of slow. But I like getting two bosses with other villain groups, so the two-boss spawns should stay. Finer control over what's generated would be welcome, but it's no big deal to change to 0/x1, or 0/x3 or downgrading to LTs before missions that have problematic villain groups.

pmgunnerxx · 11-23-2009 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Missions have always spawned enemies +1 to their level plus difficulty, with the other level spawning as appropriate. Now, I too have never been a big fan of this, and I remember saying to myself "Boy, if I could make the game spawn nothing BUT even con enemies, I probably would." That was before the new difficulty settings, of course, as now my solution is to just drop them to -1 and go from there.

Personally, I've always felt it was done to add a bit of diversity to the spawning mechanics. Right now... I've no idea what spawn composition is after the difficulty settings, but before on Tenacious, the even con spawns came in exactly three varieties - five (which mutated to six) minions, a lieutenant and four minions and two lieutenants and a minion. That's it, that's all. That can grate sometimes, especially if the RNG gets stuck doing only one kind, so I'm sure they threw in the three or so more +1 spawns just to shake things up a bit. The problem with that was... Well, post purple patch, a spawn of +1s is actually quite a step up in difficulty for a lot of builds with how accuracy drops off and enemy offensive power scales up.

They even had what I can only assume were legitimately "front-loaded" and "back-loaded" missions. Anyone still remember those? You'd enter a mission and find the enemies all -2 and someone on the team would go "Oh, it's backloaded!" or you'd enter a mission, find all enemies +2 to +3 and someone would clasp his hands and go "Oh, GOD I hope this is frontloaded!" They removed this, but at least part of the idea behind it (provided it was intentional) seems to have been to add variety.

That said, I'd rather have a little less variety if it meant keeping all enemies in the band of difficulty I'm comfortable with. It was bad enough meeting a nasty +1 lieutenant with a minion before, but at least then +1 spawns were smaller. Now the biggest spawn your difficulty can generate could show up as +1, and that just plain sucks. If I could keep all enemies spawning as even con (or -1), I would.

After reading through the entire thread let me say first that Samuel you've done a good job of pointing out why you believe this should be changed. (I won't say fixed since unless I missed it we still haven't gotten word on if this is WAI)

A couple of things jump out to me first I don't know that its fair to compare the current options to the previous options since we know for sure (based on I believe your post of a red name response) the old settings can not exactly be duplicated anymore.

With that removed the next thing to me would be to look at your settings and ask have you tried changing those around a bit more. I was thinking -1/team 3 bosses yes. That may still have bosses in almost every spawn but at -1 may make them much easier to take down while still giving you armys of minions to take out.

For me I love the new settings and hope they are WAI and that they will remain as they are. I am all for additional options being added that allow you to customize your missions to your taste a bit more but as even you admit we now have more options than we did before and I can't imagine you think we should take a step backwards.

Lets all unite under the banner of adding more options not taking current options away.

"I think I'm cute. I've got gold medals.
I've got the moves that make them all tap out.
The Angle Slam, the Ankle Lock.
Marty Jannetty...still can't walk.
I'm just the sexy Kurt.
I'll make your ankle hurt.
I'm just the sexy Kurt.
I'll make your ankle hurt."
Kurt Angle

NuclearToast · 11-23-2009 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuyPerfect

The #1 change I'd make to missions spawns in general is to remove the +1 spawns whatsoever. If I'm fighting enemies of my own level, it's usually because I can't fight, say, enemies +1 to my level... so why do mission maps have about half the spawns at +1 of what the mission's level happens to be?

I agree completely too.

--NT

They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!

If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville

Futurias · 11-23-2009 08:20 PM

Yeah, I'd posted this a while back when my low level duo I was on with ran into a boss, 2xlts and 4 minions in one spawn.

We were basically team-wiping every other spawn.

Lovely 'heroic' settings at 7th level, Devs.

Still here, even after all this time!

Star_Seer · 11-24-2009 03:54 AM

There should be a way to have a named boss (not lt.) at the end of a mission without having to slog your way through endless bosses to get there.

Kelenar · 11-24-2009 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star_Seer

There should be a way to have a named boss (not lt.) at the end of a mission without having to slog your way through endless bosses to get there.

This is on my wish list. Most of my characters can handle bosses. A notably smaller subset of those characters can handle bosses every other mob. ... and the characters who can't easily handle certain bosses (I'm looking at you, Master Illusionists) often aren't much better off facing them as lieutenants.

Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.

Lazarus · 11-24-2009 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star_Seer

There should be a way to have a named boss (not lt.) at the end of a mission without having to slog your way through endless bosses to get there.

/Signed

Bosses are like EBs and AVs, something that is fun time to time but gets old fast when they're thrown at you every other turn.

As for the -1 setting, I don't use it because I don't want to fight even weaker minions and LTs who will die even faster than normal. I want the option for more non-bosses without downgraded bosses either as they can still be a PITA even when a LT but I still want that named boss at the end like we used to get.

Samuel_Tow · 11-24-2009 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pmgunnerxx

With that removed the next thing to me would be to look at your settings and ask have you tried changing those around a bit more. I was thinking -1/team 3 bosses yes. That may still have bosses in almost every spawn but at -1 may make them much easier to take down while still giving you armys of minions to take out.

There are a couple of problems with that. First of all, the old stop gap ensuring that if enemies spawned +1 to the mission, they did so in smaller spawns... That's gone. Right now, you can get the biggest spawn your difficulty is capable of generating, and have that at +1. This causes erratic jumps in difficulty, where you'll fight a few smaller mission level spawns, then suddenly run into a huge +1 spawn. For lack of this stop gap, bosses can, and often DO, spawn +1 to the mission, sometimes in pairs at +1.

The other problem is that I don't WANT bosses every other spawn. Bosses are cool and all, but they're boss fights, and I'd rather only have one or two per mission, especially in the upper levels where boss difficulty increases sharply. I do NOT want a Gunslinger boss or a Master Illusionist every other spawn, which is what I was seeing, and what I still see occasionally. If I had to choose between meaningful boss fights at the end of a mission but trudge and turmoil until then, and easy fights at the end but less annoying missions, I choose the latter.

Frankly, if I could degrade everything BUT named, mission-specific bosses, I'd do that without a second thought.

Quote:

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.

Canis_Lupus · 11-24-2009 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoptartsNinja

I wonder if this is an artifact of the random number generator.
...
We all know how streaky CoH's RNG can be at times; or how, when you're fighting a pack of Rikti monkeys, the NEXT spawn (or two, or three, or five) also tends to be Monkeys as well.

As unpleasant as this may be to experience, this is actually a sign of a properly functioning RNG. Any string of truly random numbers will include streaks of lengths varying from short to unbelievably long.

As much as I chuckle at many of the aspects of the show Numb3rs, they did this one perfectly in one episode where the agents were asked to distribute themselves "randomly" in the room, only to be pretty evenly spaced, rather than having a couple clusters and a couple voids in the spacing, which is what a distribution that was actually random would produce.

NuclearToast · 11-24-2009 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Frankly, if I could degrade everything BUT named, mission-specific bosses, I'd do that without a second thought.

A thousand times, this.

--NT

They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!

If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville