Why are demons so level limited?

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In light of a realization what this is really about, I would like to know if anyone knows what makes a critter worthy of being able to appear at its level range? What makes a succubus, with only four powers and no resistances, be considered a good level 40 boss compared to a Hell Frost with seven powers that include and inherent resistance and an armor power only suitable for mid-20s to 30s boss material?

Original post:
So since Mission Architect was announced, I had been eager to make an AE arc where your character would fight their way out of the depths of Hell (or even take over a small chunk of it, it would be neutrally aligned, honest!) but when I finally got around to it, I was disheartened to realize that not only would I not be able to make it a level 50 arc, but I would not even be able to have Hell Frosts, Behemoths across the level range, and succubi in the same custom group (I tried subbing this with Blade Princes, but then I realized that they were elite bosses and would not spawn normally), and when looking over the power range and abilities, it seems odd that behemoths are the only demon type enemy that goes up to level fifty, and very sad.

But now I'm just curious, when so many of the other demons seemed qualified for going up to level fifty status, why do they only exist for such a short level range?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

You can use Infernal's Praetorian demons up to level 50 if you want, I believe. They're very similar to the Circle of Thorns enemies.

I'm kind of sad about the Succubi being so constrained as well. It'd be nice if they showed up with lesser or greater power spreads, along with the lashers and other beasts that eventually culminate in Hellfrosts.

I have a mission in one of my arcs where you encounter a den full of succubi and nothing else. I may end up having to create my own versions of them as a custom group, just to make things more interesting.

Generally speaking, there are level-range problems with foe groups across the board. It's a design problem.

Naturally, you can get around level restrictions by making custom foe groups, but that takes up a lot of memory / file space.

For demons you could also re-color and relabel a different foe (say, something from the Shadow Shard) and use that.

I've done a few low level arcs in MA, and I've often had to create new minions, lts., and bosses to supplement foe groups that have gaps in their levels. For instance, Hellions go up to 20, but Skulls only go to 14. So to give a wider range of play in a Hellions / Skulls arc, I crafted some realistic looking Skulls to span the empty levels. Due to level gaps, I've had to do the same thing for Warriors and (I think) Family.

One tip for you, should you attempt this latter approach, is that there is currently a bug that causes foes of inappropriate level to appear in your mission's default enemy group. When I put my mixed Hellions into their own group (lvl 1-14 blueside ones, plus lvl 10-20 redside ones) to provide coverage from lvl 1-20, and used this new Hellions group as my default group, if I entered the mission with a level 15+ toon I'd see mobs at my level plus mobs from the 1-14 group. For a player at lvl20 those lower mobs would be grays, and nobody wants a mission filled with a lot of grays.

The solution? Backfill the map with patrols. For whatever reason the spawning algorithm used by the mission objectives (including patrols) differs from the algorithm used by the default spawns. You'll get foes spawning at the appropriate level and no grays if you follow this technique.

What I believe the devs should do is pursue an alternate form of foe group design.

Years ago, back when I started playing this game, I disliked how we didn't have a toolset to create our own content. I thought it was obvious we needed one. So I went back to NWN2 and spent some time trying to program into it a spawning system that somewhat resembled what we have in CoH, but with some improvements.

One of the things I wanted was for my foes to scale in power as the levels increased. I wanted my custom NPC mages, for example, to have more and stronger spells at higher levels.

So what I did was I created a template where I'd have "snapshots" of my Enchanter NPC at 5 level increments, from 5-30. The code was written so that if the player was from level 1-5, they'd get the first "snapshot" of the Enchanter, with the spells appropriate to that level. If the player was from 6-10, they'd get the 2nd "snapshot," with modestly upgraded powers. Etc.

I did this with multiple groups of NPCs (including monsters, warriors, and rogues, not just mages) and it seemed to work well. As a designer and player I loved it. It seems like an obvious solution to me for getting foes to truly scale across the levels, and it's not that much more work considering what you get for it.

I also subtlely changed the look of the NPCs at each of the 5-level marks, replacing a costume piece here, or changing a color there, so the level 5 version of the foe would look less powerful than the level 30.

I think this would be a great feature to include in CoH/CoV.

It has that feature, konshu, they just almost never use it. If you look at the Longbow Wardens, you can see that there are really only something like 8 or 9 of them. (I made a list somewhere, but I've lost it.) They're just defined as 1-9, 10-19, whatever so that they gain powers as they go up.

The sad side effect of how little they use this, though, is that even groups that have a ton of mobs, like the Circle of Thorns, only have maybe two lieutenants, two bosses, and three or so minions at any given level range. So no matter what level you are, every mission is roughly the same spawn over and over again.

Of course, sometimes this is a relief, like when you level past Earth Thorn Casters or SWAT Equalizers and don't have to worry about them any more. But it's a relief I'd gladly forego if it made the game less repetitive. I mean, seriously: all of the non-robotic cops in Peregrine Island are Peacebringers? Come on, really? And yeah, back to the original post: the Circle of Thorns won the Mu/Oranbegan War by summoning ... mobs that only go up to level 40, and two or three elite bosses?

I never understood the level spread of some groups. For example, Crey is a group that should have started much lower than level 30. Heck, villains can fight them in CoV as early as level 15 through a certain arc.

On the other end I never was sold on the Cimerorans being a level 35 group, much less a level 50 one. How are these guys even a threat to superheros and villains? They don't have any obvious magical armor or weapons, and the monster units are EBs who only appear inside the ITF. Really a single Mercs Mastermind could probably slaughter all of them as only Requiem and Nictus-Rommie are real threats in the ITF.

The Maniac Slammers got buffed to stop the farming I believe, they have psychic powers now.

I like the idea of ancient Roman soldiers being badass enough to stand toe-to-toe with superheroes. I think their power is a combination of Natural, Magic and Incarnate given that they're supposedly linked to the meta-origin of all superpowers.

Even with groups that spawn from 1-50, balancing that can be tricky. Look at the 5th Column compared to the Council- the 5th have vampyrs and bazooka soldiers spawning from level 1, and still have pistols at 50, while the Council are better balanced across the levels despite being little more than a pallette swap.

Well, high level Crey, according to the weird-but-just-accept-it-OK story that progresses as you level, are no longer employed but renegades after the Countess has been finally exposed for all her crimes and the corporation is probably getting new management, so they probably wouldn't have much in the way of new stuff.

I think we're doing pretty good for enemy variety, though. Compared to other games at least, we rarely fight the equivalent of recolours of boars. (CoT and Council notwithstanding)

Arachnos is a good example of progression done right. At the lowest levels you fight grunts and foot soldiers, steadily moving up to elite troops, robots and power armour, and all kinds of cool stuff.

To reduce production time NPC groups were built for what they were planned on using.

What would have been the point before AE of making groups outside of the level range they were used in game?

It's possible that the reason most enemy groups are level limited is the same reason groups that go from 1-50 sometimes have problems in progression. The Hellions and Skulls have few, simple powers and work well as a low level group, but how could you expand on that up to level 50? And do we even want to be fighting Hellions in different outfits for the whole game?