Discussion: EB's, AV's, and Challenge in Missions

Hey everyone!

I wanted to start a discussion between me, one of your loving mission designers, and you all, the loving people of the forums. The point is to discuss challenge in mission content and how to make things challenging for solo players, small teams, and large teams, without just turning on and off the AV button. That's not to say that we can't still turn on and off the AV button for future content, however. There was an excellent example in a previous thread of how to make things more interesting with a fight, which was that instead of the EB scaling up to an AV, the EB has more EB allies to make things interesting for a full team. I thought this was a great idea, and I’d love to hear more. What we’re basically going for is...

So! Here are the guidelines to that we need to set up for this:

1) No flaming/putting people down; give each other useful feedback on ideas. Let’s keep this polite. Any insulting feedback to your fellows will be handled by Arachnos Laser Drones.
2) Little to no impact on the art team or powers team. The goal here is to come up with ideas that are easily applicable to several scenarios.
3) Stay on the subject!

I’ll be doing my best to reply to this thread, but keep in mind I also have work to do on occasion (when I’m not in the lab striving to make great science).

Is there any kind of tech to scale them up via powers?

That is, let's say Boss X normally has 4 powers. When you taken them on as an EB solo that's their toolbox to wail on you. Now let's throw more people into the mix. at 2+ people they gain another power to use. And again when it moves from EB to AV at.. what 6 people? 4? Whatever that threshhold is.

But would that tech be possible? Seems like an easy way to ratchet the difficulty up a bit by giving them more tools if there are more people involved. As I understand it now, current tech is to just up the numbers isn't it? that is, purely at the EB-> AV conversion, all their numbers go up.

Actually... why not have an EB bring his friends to play? There's already mechanics to show that when someone gets to a certain level of health they call on help (Return of the Reichsman/Dr. Kahn TF).

Do the AVs (Ghost Widow, Scirocco, etc) have EB versions or are those just scaled down AVs?

Regarding "more EBs in larger teams". Internet, correct me if I'm wrong but CityOf already has that. The mission where Westin Phipps sends the player against Civic Squad. There are 2-3 bosses (possibly downscaled to LTs) for a solo player and up to 6 (I think) for a team.
Perhaps this is something to look at, how it was done and can the technique be reused ?

• At 75/50/25% hp the EB regenerates his health completely while increasing X stat too.
• A small number of generic EB covering the main EB is a good idea. Possibly have it that you must defeat the generic ones before you are able to damage the main EB.
• For every member of the team the EB gets X% stat boost.

My humble suggestion was to just have the contact offer two identical missions. One with the baseline EB, and one with the powered up AV.

Differentiate them with something like:

Stop the evil Dr. Aeon
Stop the evil Dr. Aeon (Team Mission)


Futher on, you could have the Team Mission state in red text that that version of the mission would be spawned as an AV and would be a more difficult experience intended for team play.

I dreamed up a game mechanic the other day. It might be totally undoable, but I'll throw it out there anyway. I was thinking about how most of these big battles come down to one or two people doing the lion's share of the work while everyone else pitches in a little bit, but in reality, feel kind of unneeded. So here's what I came up with.

Each archetype should have some kind of "anti-archetype." For example, an anti-tanker has abilities and powers that pick on the weaknesses of a tanker; maybe something like a high regeneration rate and a killer high damage debuff. A anti-defender wouldn't have a lot of hit points (wouldn't need 'em), but would have things like, I dunno, slows, mild mezzes, etc. An anti-controller would have high levels of status protection. Anti-stalkers would have high perception. You get the idea.

Then in a mission, if there are, say, a tanker, a couple of scrappers, a corruptor, and a defender, the final battle would be an AV, an anti-tanker, a couple of anti-scrappers, an anti-corruptor, and an anti-defender. Now is where it gets interesting.

The tanker can only con the anti-tanker. Not the anti-scrappers, anti-defender, anti-corruptor, or the AV. Same with the other players. In other words, each teammate will have to fight their own personal nemesis. Once someone defeats their anti-archetype, they can now randomly con someone else's. Say the corruptor finishes off his anti-corruptor first. Now, he cons one of the anti-scrappers. Together, they make short work of it. Now, the corruptor cons the anti-tanker, and one of the scrappers cons the anti-defender.

Meanwhile while all of this is going on, the AV is untargetable and wreaking havoc on everyone. Maybe not directly through damage, but through debuffs, ally heals, etc. Once all of the anti-archetypes are defeated, the AV is connable by everyone and can be defeated to finish off the mission (or trial, or task force, or whatever).

Everyone one the team has a purpose. While it's not strictly necessary for everyone to participate in the battle, everyone can without everything just mindlessly being mowed down by the damage dealers. Of course, the bad thing is that it would likely require an overhaul of the whole enemy-or-ally conning system so that targets can dynamically be assigned.

But at least in how I envisioned it, it would be one hellova epic battle, and something clever other than just adding more hit points and/or more damage to an AV.

It makes me think of the mission from Leonard to get the Army of Me badge and how potentially breaking that was for some ATs.

So, before going in headfirst on new "mission tech" I'd be looking over commentary from that mission first.

Good to see there is interest in this, but there was lots of complaining way back in 2005 when CoV came out and many players would get roadblocked because X contact had an AV in it in the 20-30 range. Thus came the AV to EB change.

I don't know if such new tech that you (Dr Aeon) bring up is the best use of game resources.

Making generic EB's available to each enemy group that operate independent of the EB/(AV/Hero) option and giving players a similar choice option for their mission inclusion as the current Boss/No Boss When Soloing option. At all levels.

Automatic inclusion of generic EBs, starting at a certain team size; scaling up for larger teams.

For me it comes down to this:

Levels 1-22 (pre Single Origin): Bosses
Levels 22-35 (reach Tier 9 primary): Bosses and Elite Bosses
Levels 35-50 (Fully slotted): Elite Bosses/Arch-Villans

Task Forces, Trials, group content: Arch-Villains.

We could use less EBs redside, you can't push over a grammy without running into one.

The first thing I would like to see is the use of EB's more often. I think any 'Defeat 'X' Mission' should end with an EB fight when scaled for teams or an option you can turn on or off for solo play. Just having a normal boss at the end of a mission always feel like a bit of a let down to me.

Secondly I would like to see more dynamic attacking from 'Big Boss' types. Like a previous suggestion of adding extra powers I think would be a good idea, build up type powers would be nice, unless they are already in game and I just haven't noticed them. I know people don't like running but I think requiring team balance to win would be a good idea, like, you can only do small amounts of damage unless they are held/immobilized. Or them being able to shake of taunt effects better, I find this game has a culture of tank and spank.

But I definitely think scaling up spawns for final fights would also be a good idea. So if solo or if left switched off you would get a regular EB with Bosses, LTs and Minions. But flick the magic switch or roll in a team and you get an AV backup up by EB's, Bosses and LTs.

I know people dont like gimmicks, but I think they are the only way to make the game more challenging without tearing into the code too much.

Part of the Drowning in Blood Trial could also be used for future Coming Storm content - it appears that the Neo-Shivan leaders have the ability to divide/multiply themselves in a fight, which is either something that their species could always do, or it's been taught to them by the Battalion, who can also do it.
Having a full team run into the final room of a mission and see the single boss then split into 8 would be pretty cool

It is time like this where my ideas reach encounter the practicality barrier. I can come up with all sorts of solutions to these problems, but not all of them are very easy to implement.


Now, I figure the advantage of the team can be gauged in two different but related ways.

#1: The overall mitigation that the team has.
#2: The total damage that the team has.

The mitigation being the multiplication of the percentage of time that enemies are not mezzed, the accuracy of enemy attacks via changes to defense and to-hit, debuffs to damage and recharge rate that the enemy gets, and the resistances of the players that are drawing aggro. This creates a scale of how much damage that an enemy will actually be doing. So, if the group is mezzed 50% of the time, all their attacks have a 5% chance of hitting via softcapped defenses, their recharge rate is cut to 1/4ths their original and the tanker has 80% resistances, this means that the enemy will only do

.5 x .05 x .2 x .25 = 0.00125

Or 1/8th of a percent of their total damage output. More on this later.


The damage is the number of enemy debuffs and accuracy multiplied by the sum of each individual team member's DPS rate after calculating buffs to each member. So if an enemy has -30% resist, defenses debuffed to the point where all attacks have capped accuracy, and the team's cumulative average DPS is 500 per second, then this means the total damage will be

500 x 1.3 x 0.95 = 617.5 DPS

These numbers are drawn out of thin air. How long an enemy survives is their HP divided by the team DPS, though it becomes more complicated than that since there is a difference between AoE and single target damage and how enemies are targeted. This time tells us how much damage an enemy can do before they kiss the floor.


Why my haphazard and probably incorrect math lesson? Well, I figure that if we are going to scale enemy groups, we'll have to do so along those lines of damage mitigation and and damage output. The simplest idea I have is the following:

Enemy mobs receive an HP buff of the following: R + (X-1)(0.333R) = HP

Where R is the original HP, and X is how many team members there are. In non-math speak, each additional team member increases an enemy's HP by 33.3% of it's original. So, by having 4 team mates, you double the HP of enemies in the area. A full team of 8 will do a little more than triple the HP of enemies in the area. What this does is make it so enemies survive longer, which also means they'll spend less time mezzed and ultimately will do more damage. I think that this will help with a few more things, since it is more important to sustain debuffs and defenses against an enemy that poses more of a threat, as well as ST damage.

These are far from the final numbers. I picked 33% since it seemed like a nice place to start. Each team member added is undoubtedly an asset, however the enemies aren't just rolling over when there is enough of you. It'll be more like a battle than a curb stomp. This probably won't apply to all enemies, either (though it can). Archvillains will almost definitely have a different scaling system, since you aren't "supposed" to be able to solo those at all.


Now, as far as countering mitigation goes, I haven't really decided yet. Mitigation doesn't have something that is as plainly linear as HP increases. I've toyed around with a scaling accuracy buff, but I know that half the forum just raged at that idea. The only other idea I have had is scaling debuff resistance, and that may be the more viable one since accuracy debuffs and their kin accumulate much quicker than damage increases and resist debuff do. So for now, I'll leave my suggestion at scaling enemy HP.

For my money, everything is already there. The enemy groups are hard enough on their own. Just have the big bad spawn with a hard group of 3 bosses and some change.

Blue Steel was a joke. Spawn him with a group of Kheldian Division PPD and it would have been harrowing.

Mother Keres (or however it's spelled) was a joke. Spawn her with a group of Talons of Vengeance and you've got a fight on your hands.

Sentinel was a joke. Spawn him with a group of Banished Pantheon, which were in the room not five seconds before he shows up, and you've got a final fight with bragging about.

Best part is, it scales by itself based on team size and it's already in the game.

If you're on +0/1, you get like two or four minions; that's not going to ruin the game for lower-end players.

Like I said before, I like the idea that if you brought your team to the mission, the enemy EB could summon his.

Captain Mako, for example, always has the option to call on the other Patrons for assistance.
Synapse can always call up a few Phalanxers or Vindicators.

Unaffiliated enemies don't have that luxury, but there's always groups like the Shining Stars and the Civic Squad to help out heroes. Villains have Dr. Graves and company, but really there could stand to be a group of mercs operating out of the isles that act as high quality hired guns for when you need something more than cannon fodder.

Also, and I admit this is getting ambitious, but maybe the CoH universe needs a being along the lines of Mr. Mxyzptlk or Captain Universe' Uni-Power that can power up random heroes and villains to fight teams or summon a giant robot to help them, just for the lulz. IE, if you have to use the EB to AV mechanic, make it a story thing.



.

I'd like to address the other side of the equation -- how do you handle it when an EB is TOO challenging?

After the City of Villains launch, which had you staring down the barrel of an EB in most of the level 6-10 mission arcs, I decided I would never again play an "unsoloable" combo, someone who wasn't strong enough to take out an EB. That meant few Blasters (heavy damage but too fragile) or Controllers (plenty of mez but little damage to overcome the HP tank of an EB). I stuck to power combos I knew would get me through the occasional random EB that the game threw at me when solo and lowbie... which was terrific given Going Rogue's tendency to do this too.

But I'd love to play the less optimized combos going into the future, or not have to worry about nailing the defense cap on every character I play, etc. I want to be able to solo the Mender Ramiel arc without having to rely on buying an unlock instead or hoping some of my friends are available. And that means EBs which don't hit like a truck and take a truckworth of hitting before they go down.

I guess this rolls into the idea of "Pick Yer Own Challenge Level," ala Army of Me. Some folks have ridiculous powerset combos that laugh at EBs. I have a few of those characters, myself. But others struggle against a brick wall when they run into a particularly gruesome EB. How can they be supported while maintaining adequate (likely lowered) rewards, to allow them to progress forward at some rate without hitting a wall?

Something to think about.

I would be interested in seeing the appearance of more of the Rogues Gallery of Villains and Heroes that have been integrated into the Tip Missions. These additional bosses could appear as reinforcements, paid mercenary back-ups, or even rivals seeking to capture a bounty after disposing of your team.

The idea is to provide a randomized challenge (ambushes at 75%, 50%, or 25% of the main target's health), to include some of the lesser seen heroes and villains already scattered throughout the lore (and assigning these ambushes to back-story appropriate spawns), and to avoid the need to create any additional assets.

I'm open to other ideas though.

Thanks for starting this thread!

Well, to start, you guys have already honestly started getting really creative with some of the boss encounters lately. A lot of these new things have helped make them come across as way more challenging/epic than a big bag of hp with high regen. I'm really glad you're moving away from that model.

Some of my favorites have been:

Boss gains levels as you fight them, making them progressively more dangerous/harder to damage. Tub-Ci does this in one of the DA missions (neat effect attached to it too). Some Redcaps also kind of do this.

Boss cannot be harmed until X obstacle is overcome (destroy a blinky or defeat their guards, for example). This is also Tub-Ci in DA, and a Vhaz Eidolon in the new Atlas Park stories.

Bosses that regain full hp at certain points along their hp scale. This keeps them from having to need huge resistances while still making them feel challenging and dynamic. Not like a heal power, just restored to full. Night Widow Nocturne has this in a morality mission.

Bosses that teleport/disappear and come back healed or even with different powers in the same fight. The 'Tik-tok' man does this in the Mercedes Sheldon arc as well as Captain Castillo in the Medi-porter arc.

Boss that has a set number of of inturruptable high regen points. Anti-Matter in the Keyes arc has this. Makes for a very dynamic and pro-active fight.

The things I like the least:

Big bags of Hit Points. Feels like slogging through mud. Unlike the 'heal to full' mentioned above, progress seems slow and frustrating. Far less dynamic.

High Regen one has to be able to do enough damage to overcome. Makes it impossible and frustrating for some characters (and even teams!) who would otherwise be able to defeat them. This is the worst at the end of a TF and the like, where if you can't do it, you just cant' do it- no inviting more folks to help or changing out characters to get more damage.

Unstoppable/Elude/Moment of Glory. I HATE this. At best it's a power that tells me to ignore them and let them beat on me 'til it wears off while I fight other things. At worst it's an excersise in futility on my part that just gives them two minutes or so of free reign to try and kill me.

High damage for the sake of being 'dangrous'. Anything that can one-shot a character, or unless something is done will absolutely kill the character (like Anti-Matter's Disintegration) I'm still torqued that Spectral Daemon Lords, as lt's, get a high damage tier-9 attack power (Midnight Grasp) starting at level 14 or so, in addition to the massive debuffs they have. Doesn't one-shot most things, but comes close.

Things I'd like to see:

'Evolving' Bosses. Like the Council/5th Column bosses that turn into Warwolves before you defeat them. This is a highly underused mechanic. I can see a boss having as many as 3-4 transformation stages, and have it be awesome! I was kind of hoping the "Avatar of Mot" was going to do something like that after seeing Tub-Ci draw souls to get more powerful.

'Staged' Bosses. Defeating a particular boss type that takes place in stages. Kind of like Anti-Matter's healing cycle in the Keyes, but this could include having to face down waves of guards, or having to destroy the mechanisms that are keeping the Boss from being damaged/attacked at various points.

'Gimmicked' Bosses. What if Countess Crey, for example, had waves of guards you had to fight while she gloated, and was protected by an impenetrable force field whose generators you'd have to destroy while facing down said squads of guards? All the while she's tossing psy attacks and confuse through the force field if you get too close to her. You defeat all the guards and destroy the generators... The fight ends, and she surrenders before you get to land a punch knowing her lawyers will get her free eventually. They never fight her directly, but if it's done right, the players would feel they really had an amazing boss fight.

'Destructive' Bosses. Quick! A monster's loose in the city, take it down before it destroys everything in the city! The reverse of a Mayhem, the goal isn't to "fight" the boss, but to stop it before it destroys everything. Mindlessly rampaging, It never takes a swing at you (except for those few AoE's you might get caught in ). Needless to say debuffs, holds, and immobilizes would be just as valuable as damage for these bosses. This one could easily get overused quickly, or very frustrating to players if it's not balanced well, but I think having one or two such encounters in the game would be fun.

Thanks again for giving us a chance for constructive feedback!

I do think the idea of having a major villain having some... let's call them Henchmen EBs guarding them. They're the Oddjobs, the Right Hand Mans who play bodyguard for the AV. Some are on buff duty, some fighters, some tank even (heck, give them some taunts!). They're fairly generic though, maybe faceless or wearing masks, whatever. But you can scale them up or down with the difficulty desired by the players. A more powerful player or team may get more EB (or even weakened AVs or very strong Bosses) "bodyguards", while a less confident team gets less or none.

It'd be like fighting the Center. You don't fight the Center, really. You and all his inner circle tear up his office throwing each other around.

Another option is giving EBs powers that seriously boost their raw durability just to keep them upright. Don't be afraid to give something like The Sentinel, say... 75% resistance to stuff, or a power that boosts their HP. It's still an EB in terms of damage, but it's sheer durability make it feel tougher. It won't really change the outcome of the fight, just make it a bit longer and more time to use their flashier powers. Also, this high durability makes an EB better suited for a small team.