Elite Bosses and Arch-Villains in Dark Astoria
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-03-09 22:13 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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AV-rank critters don't have to have Purple Triangles.|
Originally Posted by Caulderone
One thing to consider that I haven't seen noted here is default AV = purple triangles, even when stepped down to EBs.
Purple triangles are not equally an issue across classes. They are only really annoying for some of two classes (cont,dom). I don't have a wagon in this race, one way or the other, but it may have been a design decision to avoid causing those 2 classes Purple Triangle Blues. |
Most of them do, but it's not inherent to the class. An enemy designed as an EB and scaled up to an AV wouldn't have them unless the designer specifically added them.
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Er, there was a long post by me already on this topic, talking about my example level 44 Mind controller who is soloing +2 AV->EBs who have PToDs in the standard game on very limited build fanciness.
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Originally Posted by Caulderone
One thing to consider that I haven't seen noted here is default AV = purple triangles, even when stepped down to EBs.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Indeed. An example of such AVs is Johnny Sonata's soul.
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Originally Posted by Codewalker
Most of them do, but it's not inherent to the class. An enemy designed as an EB and scaled up to an AV wouldn't have them unless the designer specifically added them.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
Sorry, missed it I guess. Was posting from work at lunch.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
Er, there was a long post by me already on this topic, talking about my example level 44 Mind controller who is soloing +2 AV->EBs who have PToDs in the standard game on very limited build fanciness.
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Hey guys!
We have been reading peoples feedback regarding the EBs in Dark Astoria. Right now, were planning on leaving them the same. The goal of Dark Astoria was to provide challenging content for solo players and small teams; upgrading these EBs to be AVs that scale down, at this point in development, has the risk of causing a number issues that could hamper this experience, which is something we want to avoid. However, we are taking the feedback into consideration for future arcs, so please continue to give us your opinions about this. Thanks!
Dr. Aeon
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Quote:
Like I said before, for future content, rather than seeing EBs (and by extension characters that should be around the same power level as player characters) automagically turn into AVs, I wish you guys could look at other ways to provide a challenge for teams. Like having multiple other EBs show up. Or have them summon a more powerful entity to fight the team. I know that's easier said than done, but I honestly don't feel turning a nobody character into a huge sack of HP and regen is any more compelling than steamrolling over an EB.|
Originally Posted by Dr. Aeon
Hey guys!
We have been reading peoples feedback regarding the EBs in Dark Astoria. Right now, were planning on leaving them the same. The goal of Dark Astoria was to provide challenging content for solo players and small teams; upgrading these EBs to be AVs that scale down, at this point in development, has the risk of causing a number issues that could hamper this experience, which is something we want to avoid. However, we are taking the feedback into consideration for future arcs, so please continue to give us your opinions about this. Thanks! Dr. Aeon |
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I'm compelled to partially agree with J_B on this one, for this reason. The question that is *often* asked about *anything* is "why not." The presumption is that the burden of proof is not on the person asking, but on everyone else to justify why their request should not be satisfied.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
The question would be: why should the ability to also do that in DA be excluded?
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Irrespective of whether it happens in other instances, scaling EBs up has issues. Scaling *upward* always has issues, because things designed to be a particular rank tend to be more intrinsically powerful, separate from the rank scaling. A scaled up EB is weaker than an intrinsically designed AV most of the time. But they award AV-level of rewards. That's not a good idea on its face. Is it worth creating that one problem to solve the alternate problem of the content in DA not scaling to larger or more powerful teams? Not in my opinion because the design intent of DA is to focus on the solo and small team incarnate progress experience. Therefore, solo and small team issues should *always* override teamed ones in essentially all but the most problematic cases. There's no overriding compelling reason to allow the issues associated with scale-up here, so there's no reason to do it. "Because why not" is not a reason, ever, anywhere.
The alternative is to design them to be AVs that scale downward. But that's also problematic because we now have game designers primarily designing the solo and small team path for a completely different target, and then making them scale down hopefully to the right level. And again this violates the design imperative of DA: to serve the solo and small team players and the solo and small team experience.
DA should be the place where the devs focus on one priority: making the best possible solo and small team experience for incarnate progress. Anything else is a distraction from that. If better large team and incarnate power scaling was possible with no cost and no problems then fine, I would be ok with adding it. But if there are *any* issues at all, however small, this is the place where the solo and small team priority should trump everything else. This should be the one place where we do not say "adding the ability to allow larger teams and more powerful characters to better enjoy the content only adds one tiny little problem for the solo and small team players, so they can deal with it.
The burden of proof, I feel, should be 100% with the people asking for scaling beyond the solo/small team target. And that is a burden they must satisfy absolutely. Otherwise the point of DA, which was *not* in my opinion to have a place where solo and small team players could function, but where they were the priority, gets lost.
Its not a question to me of what happens in DA. Its more a question of what the design priority is. And if the devs are sitting around discussing the best way to incorporate higher team scaling in DA and investigating if it can happen in a reasonable way then I think they are already wasting time that should be spent making the solo and small team experience better.
At some point, that design imperative isn't going to hold. They are not likely to focus their attention in DA to solo and small team players indefinitely, and some larger scale stuff will leak through. That's pretty much inevitable. But they should try to hold the line as long as possible, because at the moment this is the only place that sort of thinking is even allowed to happen.
Let the solo and small team players have this small monopoly on the developer's time. Every second spent on DA thinking about anything other than making the solo and small team experience better is stealing time away from them, when historically they haven't been given lots of it when it comes to anything other than the base minimum standard of the game. There will be plenty of time to say ok, devs, you can stop thinking about them now and start thinking about how the rest of us can enjoy the stuff originally built for them. It doesn't have to start happening ten seconds after that content is released. When the Battalion arrives and finally levels Crey's Folly and turns that into a cosmic warzone** we can ask for the kitchen sink to be thrown at us in the zone and every mission in it. The opportunities don't end with DA.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm compelled to partially agree with J_B on this one
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The EBs in the new DA content is something I really don't agree with for two reasons.
The first reason is that this isn't supported by the story. We're constantly being told that the things we're fighting are super pumped up and incarnate level, but they're the same level 50-54 things we can fight in many other areas, and then we come across an EB version of someone who is an AV in other types of content, even though they're supposedly stronger than the time we fought them as an AV
**SPOILER**
Requiem
**SPOILER**
The other reason is mechanical. If I set my options to allow for AVs, then I want to fight AVs. The content being intended for solo and small teams isn't a valid rationale in my mind for two reasons. The first is that there is no reason it cannot also accommodate large teams, and the second is that EBs are a huge anticlimax even for a small team. Even at +4 difficulty with four people on the team and half of them with no incarnate powers, I'm finding the DA EBs to be pathetic speed bumps less challenging than the groups we fought to get to them. So the goal of providing challenging content for small teams is not being met right now.
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Originally Posted by Garent
Even at +4 difficulty with four people on the team and half of them with no incarnate powers, I'm finding the DA EBs to be pathetic speed bumps less challenging than the groups we fought to get to them. So the goal of providing challenging content for small teams is not being met right now.
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My brute can solo AVs. He is just barely an incarnate. I just hit level 50 with him, unlocked Alpha Slot, and in order to get something in it, did an ITF. He ran off ahead, and beat Requiem alone in the third mission. And then when it was over, he used shard drops an an ancient nictus fragment to get an alpha common.
In Dark Astoria, he's had missions where he's gone with one other person, sometimes not level 50, and this was with just an alpha common. The Elite Bosses are not scary enough for a well-built toon. They're just not. And while I could up the difficulty, both the Banished Pantheon and the Knives of Vengeance have bosses that actually ARE scary. I find a serious issue when the random-spawn Bosses are more threatening than the mission-ending big names. Especially the one Garent mentioned.
The big annoyance for me, though, was the end of the Mu's arc, where a known AV fights the bad guy, and loses... And when I did that, and saw that the enemy was an EB, call I could think was "I refuse to believe that (spoiler) lost that battle." And then I tore the EB apart and was profoundly dissapointed.
NPCs: A Single Method to Greatly Expand Bases
Maybe it'd be more flexible to create 2 totally different versions of each boss, rather than apply scaling to one standard version?
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Burden of Proof? You're kidding me. I don't care about the rewards. I really don't. At all. What I care about is the gameplay experience. And at the moment, being EB only is a detriment to the gameplay and how I and my friends want to play the game.
I do not care about the "optimum" way to get XP. I do not care about the "optimum" reward scheme. All I care about is that I have epic, badass fights where my friends on the defenders, controllers, corruptors, etc, matter.
At the moment, they're irrelevant. Because my scrapper just wandered in and tore the EB's arm off without support.
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Is this really such a huge request? I mean really most people that get incarnates get set bonuses and can solo AVs. Just give the people what they want paragon you've been so good about it in the past.
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I for one appreciate the support for the solo and small team play. Considering that the whole point to the DA remod was to give us a place for solo and small team Incarnate play, I'd hate to see that messed up.
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Originally Posted by Dr. Aeon
We have been reading peoples feedback regarding the EBs in Dark Astoria. Right now, were planning on leaving them the same. The goal of Dark Astoria was to provide challenging content for solo players and small teams; upgrading these EBs to be AVs that scale down, at this point in development, has the risk of causing a number issues that could hamper this experience, which is something we want to avoid. However, we are taking the feedback into consideration for future arcs, so please continue to give us your opinions about this. Thanks!
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How would that get messed up to just add the OPTION to have AVs. We are not asking to take the EBs away we just want AVs were they would normally be.
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Originally Posted by Mirai
I for one appreciate the support for the solo and small team play. Considering that the whole point to the DA remod was to give us a place for solo and small team Incarnate play, I'd hate to see that messed up.
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Now this might just be the most accurate, and depressing, statement in the entire thread.
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Originally Posted by Garent
I'm finding the DA EBs to be pathetic speed bumps less challenging than the groups we fought to get to them.
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"The Hollows was a cover up; it was really caused by Blue Steel experimenting with Foot Stomp." - Steelclaw
<-- boy
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No, most people can't. Don't project your mad l77t skilz on the rest of us, please.
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
Is this really such a huge request? I mean really most people that get incarnates get set bonuses and can solo AVs. Just give the people what they want paragon you've been so good about it in the past.
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Thanks I guess :/. You guys are gonna end up with another dead zone on your hands like preatoria don't say I didn't warn ya.
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Originally Posted by Dr. Aeon
Hey guys!
We have been reading peoples feedback regarding the EBs in Dark Astoria. Right now, were planning on leaving them the same. The goal of Dark Astoria was to provide challenging content for solo players and small teams; upgrading these EBs to be AVs that scale down, at this point in development, has the risk of causing a number issues that could hamper this experience, which is something we want to avoid. However, we are taking the feedback into consideration for future arcs, so please continue to give us your opinions about this. Thanks! Dr. Aeon |
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Yes they can.
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Originally Posted by Mirai
No, most people can't. Don't project your mad l77t skilz on the rest of us, please.
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No they can't.
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Originally Posted by Lucky666
Yes they can.
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Sorry maybe you just need to lrn2ply kkthxsbye.
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Originally Posted by Mirai
No they can't.
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Today I took two of my characters through the first part of Max's arc, with the optional, er, "recruiting." Yes, I fought EBs. Do you know what? It was fun, probably the most fun I've had for a while in this game.
I, as a player, know that I was fighting watered down versions of these opponents. I, as a player, look forward to stepping up the challenge in future runs. My characters only knew they were fighting big names, and they won. For a change I didn't have to stand outside the story's window looking in, wishing I had the time and money to create a "halfway decent build" so I could solo AVs. Nor did I have to stand around for 45 minutes while a league is assembled so I can mash buttons for 15 minutes without having the slightest clue what's happening storywise, because I'm just Private Dramatico in the Incarnate Army, and my job is to shut up and follow orders. For a change I got to be a Big Damn Hero in my own story.
And I suspect this is the only solo/small team Incarnate content we will see for a long, long time, because end-game players who aren't league raiders are a minority of the player base. Please let us keep it intact.
On preview: Damn, I'm all out of troll food. Some of you are going to go hungry, I'm afraid.
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Oddly, I too care about the gameplay experience, and that's why I think the EBs are the RIGHT choice.|
Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend
Burden of Proof? You're kidding me. I don't care about the rewards. I really don't. At all. What I care about is the gameplay experience. And at the moment, being EB only is a detriment to the gameplay and how I and my friends want to play the game.
I do not care about the "optimum" way to get XP. I do not care about the "optimum" reward scheme. All I care about is that I have epic, badass fights where my friends on the defenders, controllers, corruptors, etc, matter. At the moment, they're irrelevant. Because my scrapper just wandered in and tore the EB's arm off without support. |
I've been going through the arcs with a non-optomized Controller. Plant/Empathy, and doing it solo. The EBs are very tough but winnable fights for me right now, and I like them. If they were AVs scaled down to EBs, they'd be tougher and I'm not sure I'd be able to win those fights.
Right now, I've been feeling epic as I do those arcs. Make those fights unwinnable to me, and I'll feel far less than epic. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation.
"I do so love taking a nice, well thought out character and putting them through hell. It's like tossing a Faberge Egg onto the stage during a Gallagher concert." - me
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Sounds like it's time to petition NC Soft to dump another several thousand dollars into a Non-Solo, Non-Trial, Team Incarnate zone! That sounds much more reasonable than giving us an AV option!
Ahem, on a little less snarky note. :P
Is it entirely impossible to give two mission choices when accepting one of these EB missions? You have BOLD RED TEXT between the two missions that point out that one version is an EB (As they are now, no change to the purple patches or stats), and the other version is the powered up AV version intended for team play?
"The Hollows was a cover up; it was really caused by Blue Steel experimenting with Foot Stomp." - Steelclaw
<-- boy
Purple triangles are not equally an issue across classes. They are only really annoying for some of two classes (cont,dom).
I don't have a wagon in this race, one way or the other, but it may have been a design decision to avoid causing those 2 classes Purple Triangle Blues.
I had mentioned the AV->EB difference earlier, but I didn't specify the PToD.
The Triangles also have an effect on Blaster sets as some use control for mitigation.