Praetoria's difficulty needs to be tuned down.

Just adding my $.02... I agree with Merchant that Praetorian content is tougher than the other two CoX settings. I like it that way. I'm not as seasoned as many of the posters on here (CoX was my first -- and still my only -- MMO experience, and I'm only a 24-month vet), but I've spoken with others who say CoX is much easier than other comparable MMOs, where the player must struggle like Hercules to reach level 10.

Mostly, though, I enjoy playing new characters. I've got toons on every server, many of them below level 20. Praetoria gives me a challenge I can't get from (for example) wiping out a cluster of Clockwork in Atlas Park, or taking on a handful of Snakes in Mercy Island.

Having said that, I agree that Praetoria seems to assume a higher level of play from first-time players, but that's not out-of-line with other MMOs, from what I've heard.

Praetoria seems to me like it started out in-between on the nerf-nerf coaster. Most character powers have been "normalized" but some enemies have yet to be "softened". Not saying that this is right or wrong (I do have my opinions). I think that this is a cycle that we're stuck with without a difficulty adjustment system and/or as long as people don't understand it or refuse to use it realistically.

There are always going to be people who want a relaxed trip though the story arcs and others that tell them to read a book. Casual play should be just as rewarding as hard-core and vice-versa. Not everyone needs to shout for joy on an airplane to be having fun, but I guess some do.

I'll say that I agree that SOME ultra-1337 players influence the decision-making process in terms of game difficulty a tad much. Or at least it SEEMS that they do. They certainly are a vocal and "respected" segment of the community. To many of them, if something isn't hard enough that bragging about how easy it is (to them) can't impress us then it it is too easy, in general. So that's how they'll impress us: to tell us all that it is too easy and dismiss it as being some kind of joke. These players who have tweaked their builds/skills/tactics/exploits(?) to the utmost really are a "cut above" the average player or even the average group. But the Rikti Pylon Challenge, Rikti Boss Challenge, speed master runs, speed challenge TF standings, "closed" Hami runs to name a few are all born of an elitist mentality where the only fun necessary is that it stoke the e-ego. If a player engages in these activities out of preference they're not likely to give a damm(sic) about the average player's enjoyment. Their right to an opinion? ABSOLUTELY! Is their opinion RELEVANT to the question?

Basically, its on the wheel, and for better or worse, as long as the outlying players demand that their desires are all that matter (which is true, but only from a self-centered viewpoint) it will always be a pushmi- pullyu contest.

Praetoria is not harder than City of Heroes...well at least if you actually do the content. Vahzilok and Clockwork aren't any easier than Destroyers or err...Clockwork. And I've seen no villain group in Praetoria that compares to the Circle of Thorns in the teens. The Ghost Lts. and their ability to crash your to-hit in particular.

Praetoria's difficulty is refreshing. Leave it alone.

My big concern: Chain-ambushes.

On one of the missions I did recently, on my stalker, I got into the building, cleared maybe one or two mobs, and then...

Got ambushed by a lt and two minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.
Got ambushed by three minions.

... Nine ambushes total. Chaining. About 10 seconds between killing the last mob of one group and the next group spawning.

And every one of these groups had the Magical Ability To See You that utterly nerfs stalkers, because the ENTIRE POINT OF THE ARCHETYPE is not being seen. So of course, the most FUN thing to do would be to have NINE AMBUSHES IN A ROW, without long enough between them for Rest to start healing you, all of which can magically attack you even though you're Hidden, even if you move into another room after they spawn.

... No, wait. Not fun. Stupid.

Sure, I beat it. I even levelled from the extra XP. Heck, this is FARMABLE, because all I have to do is reset the mission and the XP come to me. When my MM gets to that level, you better believe I'm gonna reset that mission a couple of times to get extra free XP off it.

But it's stupid. It's not fun, at least on a stalker. It violates the basic premise of the archetype, and missions should not invalidate an archetype. (And yes, let's also mention the escorts who can't follow a hidden stalker. That, too, is not fun. Let's just assume I'm talking to them so they can follow me or something.)

A couple of ambushes now and then? Fun. Chain ambushes with no downtime? Not so much fun.

<QR>
I don't feel that the difficulty in Praetoria is more difficult than CoV. I think some of the difficulty stems from our unfamiliarity with the enemies and how to deal with them.

I think both CoV and Praetoria are slightly harder than CoH enemies but nothing that cannot be overcome with strategy.

/unsigned. I like the extra challenge of the new content and I would hate to see it changed because that would lessen my fun.

Just add the difficulty contacts.
That way everyones happy. *shrug*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Mmmm...

Interesting and informing posts...

In general the mobs are a bit moe potent than CoH or CoV mobs, they seem to have better ranges to begin with, can take a beating and keep on ticking better also or at least appear to, and they tend to hurt more, at least so it seems.

Now is the above bad? Frankly I don't think so, it does add to the challenge. Now is the challenge equally increased among all the AT types? Or some ATs experience the challenge a bit more than others? I believe support gets it far worse than melee, despite that, is it bad? I see support ATs as a "pseudo handicapped" set of ATs (once more I am not judging them one way or the other) the benefit, in a way, is that support ATs are much greatly challenged to play and require much more skill and care than a melee; thus their excessive vulnerability to damage and status effects are actually the challenge and thus the enterteinment value of playing them, thus succeeding in an enterprise is by far more rewarding than achieving it with say a tanker who never was in mortal danger, never suffered significant damage, never came close to be status effected, etc. So from that aspect GR is an improvement, and increase in challenge.

Now what I feel is the problem with GR?

1) Ambushes: They are silent, no warning
2) Ambushes: They spawn and reset very quickly
3) Ambushes: The are very persistent in chasing you and killing you
4) Ambushes: Never stop spawning, never ending supply of ambushes
5) Ambushes: Too large a spawn for team size
5) Mob Group Placement: Too many mobs per room, too closely spaced

One could say, this is challenge, and thus ok. On the other hand water is good for you; until you drown.

I really like the feel and ambiance of GR, its really cool, but the 6 problems above does need to be looked at and somehow mitigated. I suggest limit ambushes to no more than 3 waves; scale the ambush size to the team size; and the spawn no less than 3 min from each other or as fast as say it happens at the Terra Volta respec mission. Half the number of mobs groups per room, or at least double the distance between them.

A little bit of sanity check on mostly mob group placement and ambush management can make the difference from a great time to a "you just torqued me off" experience.

Hugs

Stormfront

So I ran a new character from 1-10 yesterday in Preatoria, and stuck either solo or with really small teams. I also did Loyalist as opposed to Resistance, and I have to say, TOTALLY different experience than I'd had before.

Yesterday the enemies were less painful (much more melee/smashing/lethal attacks) and the smaller mobs only occassionally were +1, and I didn't have to face any destroyers. :-)
I was on an Ice tanker who only had his HP boost/heal and his initial smash/lethal armor for most of the time, and was only dying occassionally. It felt "balanced." I was teamed up, occassionally, with a dark miasma sonic corr and a fire/kin tanker. The fire kin was having a much harder time than I was. Regardless...

This leads to wonder 2 things: first, am I on to something when I say that the real problem with preatoria comes when you're teaming with 4+ people, since the benefits you get at that level don't balance well with the disadvantages of the increased mob sizes spamming attacks which most lowbies are ill equipped to deal with, and second, is your experience in preatoria highly dependent on what kind of powersets you have (even more so than the regular game)?

From today's patch:

That's great, but the mission that finally made me give up on Praetoria, where I died 4 times to the same mob before defeating them, was against Resistance. Suppose they'll be no easier after the patch. Ugh.

EDIT: Make that 5 times now.

I think Praetoria's difficulty stems from two things...

1) Unfamiliarity. Clockwork, Ghouls, PPD, et cetera all kicked my butt pretty easily until I figured out how they worked. It's a bit of a surprise the first time a Ghoul dies and heals his friends, breaking the sleeps you had on them. By the tenth time you know either to spread them out so that death heal hits less or none or to time your mez so it resleeps right after they wake.


2) Ambushes. Praetoria's would be perfectly fine against my higher level toons who would simply cackle in glee and go to town against the 9+ chained ambushes all coming en masse at once. Lowbies though... entirely different story. I don't mind ambushes in general, but in 1-20 they kind of need to be timed farther apart. Sometimes I could barely clear an ambush wave before the next said hello. Then there were times when the next ambush popped up before I could even do that. I'm not even going to mention the time my team of five had a third ambush show up before we finished the first.


But, aside from a few specific missions, most of Praetoria was fine. Granted, I was playing a Mind/Fire Dom and was pretty liberal about mezzing everyone around me and could sleep most bosses in one shot, so maybe I just had an advantage there?