Discussion: Dev Diary on Issue 19 Task Forces on Massively.com

Also I will point out the 'get the squishy healer/buffer/debuffer' only ever happens in the big MMO (Wickedly Online Weirdos) if the Tank doesn't keep their threat up or suddenly goes 'smoosh!', most good Tanks will have a truly MASSIVE threat lead and the DPS classes really have to go all out in order to push past it.

There are I believe two encounters in that MMO where the Aggro is actually designed to be more like the Players (in both cases it is to mirror a PvP team fight but in a PvE enviroment) and even then the crowd control elements are used to lockdown an enemy attacking the healer (traps, stuns etc.)

I honestly can't think of an MMO where in PvE the designated Tanking class can't cause mobs to stick to them like glue and has many tools at their disposal to pull it off.

That's one reason I feel that franchise-less MMOs have more potential than MMOs based on a pre-established ID.

Like, if you buy Franchise Online, you will always do so because you expect to see Franchise Character. This puts us in the situation where, if Franchise Character just stands on the sidelines all the time, we feel cheated out of our money with false promises, and if Franchise Character is a constant spotlight-thief it'll feel like we're just being the side-line characters and who wants to play a game where we're just an accessoir to major Franchise Characters?

And even if it's possible strike a balance, as Galadiman already said, Franchise Owner will love Franchise Character and its Franchise too much to let any random player be greater than Franchise Character. On the other hand, people who don't care for MMOs and don't play Franchise Online will feel cheated if their beloved Franchise Character is bested by PC #295277.

That's why not being tied to a franchise has a bit more potential. We can join this game not knowing who Statesman and Lord Recluse are. When we finally learn they're the big daddies of the game, we can fight them, surpass them, and there won't be any hardcore Statesman and Recluse fanboys who will feel cheated because their most favorite character ever got bested because, more likely than not, they're too busy celebrating their own victory over them.

Alright sure, there were some fights in the 'big gorilla of MMOs that had threat reset moves, you know what happened, they just threw in more tanks to deal with it.

All that requires to void is simple positioning, the healers would often stand at the back with the ranged DPS so that whenever the threat got reset there would be a ton of melee tanks and DPSers inbetween them and the boss and Ranged DPS could and would out-threat healers incredibly quickly. Infact most Ranged and Melee DPS have to throttle their own DPS to make sure the tank remains top of the threat list.

Also quite a few of the DPS classes had a way of dumping threat onto the Main Tank (Misdirection etc.) whereas we have...erm...nothing like that in CoH since it's not built around the entire mechanic of threat!

Face it, the way threat is used in other MMOs is a completely alien way to CoH and trying to shoehorn it in there now just doesn't make sense.

What I took away from that interview was the complete absence of mention of the Lady Grey TF.

Does that TF not count any longer? Surely that's one of the signature TFs for high level toons as things stand.

Is that TF going to be affected by the upcoming I19 and Incarnate changes?

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

As others have pointed out, the Lady Gray TF is the arguably least-unique endgame TF right now. The one thing that sets it apart from the others is the Weakened Hamidon, but that's a fight that actually encourages having the right mix of ATs to finish the TF (your Controller had to leave because she got an urgent phonecall? Good luck beating those green mitos). Meanwhile Doctor Aeon explicitly said in the interview that while he does want to encourage strategy and co-ordination with the two new TFs, he doesn't want that co-ordination to be in the form of needing one AT or the other.

With that in mind, it kinda makes sense the LGTF wasn't really mentioned.

The ITF is a very popular TF because it strikes a good balance between difficulty and fun. The large outdoor maps give players a lot of tactical freedom, the enemies aren't too difficult to wade through but cannot be totally skipped, nothing in the missions is trivial or ultra-hard for an average player and the final boss is tough but not annoyingly so - the standard method for reliably defeating him is quite intuitive plus doesn't require a predefined mix of characters.

The Cuda SF is unpopular because it is generally easier than the ITF but ends with a ridiculously boring fight against a buffed AV who takes forever to wittle down to zero health, while hordes of enemies ambush constantly. Also, certain ATs are essential to counter the AVs' gimmick "uber powers". People just don't generally have the time for it.

The LRSF is alright these days, with people mostly slotted a lot more cometently than they used to be. The final mission remains technically impossible to overcome, in a way that shocks many newbies into being terrified of attempting it a second time, but with either (i) temp powers and cheap tactics, (ii) a mind dom and cheap tactics, (iii) veteran players who know the few key tactics to beating it comfortably; it can be done.

The STF usually just requires perseverance. The final mission has a hospital in it and so long as you bring along someone who can tank a buffed Recluse for more than 10 seconds you are fine. It's like the LRSF, except the players have more control over how hard the overall challenge is.

The LGTF is somehow quite clautrophobic for the first few missions, causing people to grow bored and leave more often than in other TFs. If it wasn't for the cheap methods of skipping some parts, this TF would be a lot less popular than it is.

Kahn, Lady Grey and Cuda, ITF aren't really in the same league as the STF or LRSF.

I hope the new TFs are more like the ITF than the LRSF, except with difficulty increased by forcing players to think more, like when fighting Protean.