So 3 minions=1 PC, right?

I have mixed feelings on this myself. From a simulationist/realism standpoint I can see the value in it. Batman was the hero, Robin the sidekick and it would take away from the story if Robin could do everything as well as Batman.

From a gamist/fun point of view, this isn't a story/comic/tv/movie and there are human's behind each character wanting to have fun. And each having the same right to fun.

Overall, I think the devs struck an ok balance between realism and fun. Yes, some enemies for some builds are particularly hard. Fine. Every three days you can drop a mission. Or you can dial down the difficulty. Or you an pop inspirations. I think that having those options are enough considering the rarity of the really hard missions/enemies.

In general, most people get through most content even with sub-optimal builds and poor play skills and forgetting inspirations. The few times those who know what they are doing and have a reasonable or above reasonable build get into trouble are rare enough that I take it as the devs doing an ok job. If no one ever got in over their head, I'd say the game was too easy. It's a balancing act between too hard and not hard enough, between too much variety and not enough variety. In my opinion, as a particularly unskilled player mind you, I think the devs did a good job. I know a lot of people like to say the game is too easy. I strongly disagree based on my experiences in pugs and with new players. But I think it is not too hard either.

Now, mathematically, I think the "effective range" of -3 to +4 where we can function and get rewards is a pretty narrow band. Within those seven levels, I think a sidekick's -1 might represent too high a percent difference at low levels. I think scaling from -5 to +6 might make the game a bit more flexible. But I also think that at this point, such a decision is beyond the ability of the devs to adjust. And I think sidekicks at 100% the power of the trainer is too much at mid and high level. But at low level, it might be something to visit in the same way as beginner's luck.

Something like a sidekick to a character level 2-19 is the same level as the mentor. At those early levels the extra two slots makes a difference. Each extra power is really noticed. By level 30 people are taking vanity powers. At that point the -1, I think, is fine.

But down lower, you might be right that the -1 could be too much.

Anyhow, I haven't made up my mind on this issue. Thank you for the thread, people are saying interesting things and making me think about it.

... there's only 50 levels in the game; we're talking about an eight level spread. That seems like a pretty broad band to me.

It's just that combined with oroboros and sidekicking/exemplaring they built in the ability to play at all levels, so why not make the levels a bit more compatible with each other and remove some of teh number inflation?

It's a very high-level game design theory issue. If you look at runescape, their design model is that the tippity top characters can still be swarmed and taken down by the weakest enemies. It doesn't even take a whole lot of them (max hp is 99, minimum damage is 1, if you're "weak" against an attack "melee/ranged/magic" minimum damage is 3 per hit, and minimum chance to hit is higher than 5%). In CoH, even without the aggro cap, no functionally relevant number of level 1 enemies could take out a level 50. That was a design choice on the devs part. Another design choice was for how long an enemy would be relevant to a character, the result of which is our current -3 to +4 band.

Personally, I find that I outlevel missions rather fast. That some zones have enemies who are a massive threat if I'm not careful where I travel (Nerva, RWZ, Shard are the most extreme cases but not the only ones). Now, I kind of like the latter, but I'm not so keen on the former. If the original decision had been to make enemies relevant longer, then the original sidekick system of one mentor per sidekick would have been much more functionally useful, we'd have fewer issues with outlevelling content, etc. It would encourage a wider range of levels teaming up.

Also, when players teams across levels, the differences wouldn't have been as pronounced. The super sidekicking almost totally removes that, but I do think the original decision was made, it may have been nice to aim for 20% of the game's total content instead of 10%. All just theory mind you.

Yes, but that doesn't quite fit Batman and Green Lantern (that might only be a few levels apart) in quite the same light.

So the term 'sidekick' is a bit hard to state exactly.

Exactly.

When you are plowing through missions at a fairly quick pace, auto-completing really isn't a valid 'tactic'.

Popping inspirations should happen, but I was finding that I was using inspirations faster than they were dropping.

Lowering the difficulty actually reverses the problem, with things actually being to easy at times for the mentor while the sidekick is playing at a reasonable, fun level.

Then he levels and suddenly things are way too easy for him. That's why I think "Sidekick = Mentor" level would actually work better.

I tend to think that they've figured out how to balance things with even conning for the most part. The problem is when you aren't even conning.

-10% accuracy and damage really doesn't sound that bad. They are forgetting that the mobs are also more effective against you. On big teams with swaths of buffs, not quite such a big deal. I've seen teams that mowed through +4s, yet I've seen just a few characters swap out and suddenly things are quite a bit harder.

I'd think that erring on the side of caution for balance would be safer.

Thanks saying I made you think about it at least. I got slammed on forum rep (mostly because I was upset. I thought I was upfront in stating it was a bit of a rant.)

I run 2 ACC DOs, and then 2 ACC SOs, on almost all my characters.

I've consistently found that against higher level foes 1 ACC wasn't enough.

In general 30% acc (from 1 SO, or any other source) is fine for +1s. It's a little low for +2s but not terrible (but beware of debuffs), and wholly inadequate for +3/+4.

For +2 and higher you really want 50%+ Two SOs give you about 66% which is good for +2 and ok for +3/+4. You really want 80%-ish for +4s, and/or pick up some toHit rather than just accuracy (Kismet unique, Tactics, etc).