THB's List of Suggestions for Fixing the Game!

First of all, I know a lot of these issues boil down to the fact that COH is just old. Given the assumed interest in modernizing the game and competing in a market that isn't just people who already like COH anyways though, here are my top suggestions for improving the gameplay experience.

1.) Cut endurance costs on all powers before level 20 by 50%.

I'm not saying that the endurance costs of the actual powers should be increased that drastically, just that all characters below level 20 should be granted a 50% global endurance cost reduction on every power they use.

There's nothing fun about having to use rest every third or fourth group because your endurance is running out, and with hardly any inspiration slots to speak of at that point, pre-buying blues isn't an option- Not to mention most new players wouldn't even think that far ahead.

2.) Cut the endurance cost in half, and remove the animation penalty from all powers that miss.

There's nothing sillier than watching a low level character use Shadow Maul, have them know that they missed already, and then just keep punching. This is another part of the game that's just frustrating, and not fun or engaging in any way. I can't see it having a positive effect on any new players.

3.) Make the mez and debuff systems more reasonable.

I believe that all mezzes and debuffs should be able to be actively removed- My personal choice would be an intuitive pop up text that states exactly what debuff/mez you are afflicted by, and allows you to press a random key or sequence of keys in order to break the negative effect on your character.

This would mean that there would be no more "perma held" situations- If there's nothing you can do about a mez but click a break free, it's not challenging. It's not fun. It just comes down to a random generator that in no way reflects player skill or character ability.

The same thing applies to massive stacked debuffs- If you're fighting enemies with a lot of -tohit and you don't have Aim, or 20 yellows sitting in your tray, you can't hit your enemies. Forget all the global accuracy slotting you have, forget trying to fight through it. Once the game decides you can't hit your enemies, you just lose. This works in reverse too via defense debuffs.

The point is that this is a very dated and unintelligent aspect of the game. It's not fun or challenging to be told that you can't do anything, better luck next time, you lose. An active mez/debuff removal system is necessary in order to keep the game challenging while rewarding player skill and character strength.

4.) No more unresistable, indefensible damage.

We have exotic damage types for a reason- Toxic and Psionic damage should be doing plenty for Dev's to have options to design challenging content. If you think everything you can think of is too easy, that doesn't give you license to stop being creative and start cheating. It's not fun to build a high end Tank, only to have it trivialized by a type of damage that doesn't even exist in the game for players. This goes for defense too- No more "unpositioned non-existent-because it's-special" attacks.

If I have 45% defense to melee, ranged and AOE attacks, I don't care if the attack is Psionic, Lethal or Gubbly-Gobbly-Marauder-Chugged-A-Beer. I don't expect it to have more than a 5% chance to hit me. It's just illogical, and it goes against everything that we've learned by playing the game. No attack from an NPC should be indefensible. That's not intuitive or challenging, it's just a cheap trick.

When explaining how defense and resistance works to new players, should I be saying, "Building defense is awesome! Until you get attacked 3 times, and all your defense is gone!" Or, "Tanks are really survivable, they can protect their team by being on the front lines! Until a damage type that doesn't exist one shots them!" Or, "This Scrapper will do awesome damage! Until he gets hit with a certain kind of power that makes it so he can't even HIT anything, and then he'll just die!"

None of these things are good. Please fix them.

Unsigned to all. I wouldn't support any of these.

Re: Indefensible/Unresistable Damage

It sounds to me like what you want is a massive nerf to Destiny powers. Because, IMO, were it not for the ability to rather easily hard cap resistance and defense with a few well-timed Barrier applications, NPCs like Marauder and Cole wouldn't need to have such "cheap trick" attacks.

Further, I think it is great that mechanics are included that force combatants in iTrials to actually move. Were one able to shrug off NPC nukes in iTrials, battles would be even more sedentary and boring. Playing a melee AT is easy... having no "gimmics," arguably, would make sure to keep it that way.

There are definitely ways to use unresistable and/or autohit effects that are obnoxious and stupid, but I don't think that completely getting rid of all such effects is a good idea, either. Nova Fist is a textbook fight mechanic - when the boss does this, everyone is supposed to move. Making it resistable, even as an exotic damage type, would dilute that (even further than it is already diluted by the one-shot code and healing powers) and make the fight more boring. Similar for Keyes Disintegration, Apex patches, etc.

I also don't agree about the mez/debuff stuff - when you find yourself in a situation where you cannot possibly win due to debuffs or mez, regardless of your actions, it's IMX almost always because you/your team already passed the Bad Decision Point Of No Return and/or are doing things so difficult that you have forfeited the privilege of complaining about difficulty. When you get yourself into a nasty situation without the tools to deal with it, you are supposed to lose. There are things I don't like about the mez system, but this isn't one of them.

Personally, I'm indifferent on the first two suggestions; what "animation penalty" is the second one referring to? Do you just mean playing the whole animation for the missed attack?

Am I reading this right? You don't have an issue with the game exploiting natural areas where characters don't usually have protection, but don't like the use of unresistable damage... which would end up accomplishing the same thing?

(Also, it would make no sense thematically for Marauder's attack to do Psi... he doesn't have that power... or Toxic since he has no venom, poison, or biological toxin... or anything corrosive. Before you say it: "But does Marauder have access to a damge type that, essentially, doesn't exist?" Yes, due to his empowerment from the Well (via Cole) he is far more powerful than any single PC... so why should their conventional abilities protect them from him?)

I can see merit with most of your suggestions, but... a QTE anti-mez?

No.

Not only no, but hell no. I play this game to relax, not deal with freaking quicktime events. If I'm playing a squishy without mez protection, I generally wait it out, or I press one button and use a Break Free if I don't think it's safe.

I don't mean to be abrupt, but I really, really don't want to see QTE's in my CoX.

Edited to add: It's not like it's a gamepad with, say 6-10 buttons. We're (in most cases I assume) talking about a QWERTY or full keyboard. How many random buttons could it be, and could you find that one random key in time?

Agreed, Kazz... a lot. Also, there are a lot of people who play this game becaquse it doesn't have twitchy gameplay. I recall several posts by folks with disabilities who love this game: a victim of a stroke, a guy sans one arm, I think there was a person with some type of coordination disorder as well. Let us not forget about those folks.

Will try to be constructive.
I do think though, that a lot of these problems come down to how challenging YOU (us) think they are. I know people who go utterly mad at the blue patches in apex, because for some reason they refuse to adapt to a new challenge, accept that the game can and should evolve, find it hard to move that fast, etc etc.

Idea 1.
100% AGREE with the below 20/50% end red cost. Simply can not say it enough. Maybe a lot of us power though DFB/get farmed to 22 or whatever, but whenever I play those low arcs, even solo, I find myself going dry.
As you say..nothing at all fun here, and for new potential players, even WITH inherent stamina, I think it is a terrible indication for how fun the game can be.

Idea 2.
Like that too. Neat idea. And it makes sense (to me). You load up your big multipunch attack and then..MISS with the first, so you simply..do not go ahead and use the other hits.
Again, new players would like it. I would be careful removing the animation totally from shorter attacks.

Idea 3.
Mmm here..comes back to what we see as a challenge, personally.
The trouble with a key seq to break mez..is that not everyone is a super speeder at the keyboard..or even USES a keyboard. And if they went twitchy, the time taken to 'break' the mez, would most likely get them killed..in just the same way as if they were caught without a brk.
I see what you mean about perma holds..and agree..sorta. I really did not like that in the old pvp. But I saw WHY it did actually work..cause a dom or troller 'should' be able to lockdown something else in pvp, assuming they can stay alive to do it.
I know you are talking about pve but dont forget how the mez changes in new pvp work now. It basically makes them meaningless, apart from a few broken of gimmicky powers, and leaves a 'support' toon with click and stay debuffs at a huge advantage over say..toggle debuffs.

The debuff aspect. Hmmm. I do HATE lowbie cot, and their debuffs...but part of the reason they suck is cause YOU are a lowbie, not the debuffs (as much). Fight cot later on with slotted powers..much less nasty.
I think enemies NEED other ways than 9damage, damage and damage) to actually CHALLENGE us..and debuffs are one of these. Yes, Mask of Vititation is utterly awful..but..do the npc bosses cry when we hit them with Benumb and HeatEx?
The only thing I would change about debuffs, is some of the crazy values AVs have..just because they are AVs. Things like Posi and his -1200% (yes, 1200) % recharge Lingering Rad, etc etc.
Oh, and ADD a resist debuffing resist stat.

Idea 4.
Again..what is a challenge to you. I don't see them as 'bad' but I can understand why others hate them. The unresistable bit I get..an attack may just be TOO powerful not to hurt us. Likewise for teh defence..and we DO have a defence too them (I think) cause they all have a mechanic that allows you too get out of the way.
If a person is too silly to get out the way of huge pink patches (granted, some times you just cant) then how are they gonna remember to input the Konami code every time a sleep hits them?


In regard to the first idea, I posted a similar thread a few days ago. My suggestion, based on how awful end use is pre20, was that we get a 5th Fitness power, selectable, that mimics physical perfection. Or perhaps gave a global end red.
Note to play down your idea, but I think this would be a little more..creative? (maybe not the right word) solution, and not just suddenly award everyone a big end red at no cost as it were.

I'm not really into the key-matching idea.
I didn't really enjoy it that much in the other superhero MMO I played, which did selll itself as more "twitch", or action-oriented, and relied a lot more on realtime response than CoX does. Hammering the Z key wasn't difficult, just annoying, and no fun.

Like it or not, THB, one of CoX 's appeals for many players is the lack of fast reaction time involved. This could be because of the player, or their computer, or their connection. Its still present, sure, you need to be on your toes to play most characters at a moderate challenge level. But its not a core requirement, the games more build-strategy RPG and resource management (eg insps)

1. cut endurance for <20 characters
While I can see the reason for this suggestion and I appreciate the argument that having to rest isnt fun I dotn agree that the endurance costs need to be cut. Especialyl because once a player hits level 21 their endurance consumption is suddenly 200% what it was up to then, which means requiring a re-jig of the character make-up either active toggles, or enhancement slotting or even not using certian powers together anymore. So the character would hit 20 and then drop in power?

an alternative could be:
leave it as is and let players learn as they go. <--my preferred solution

introduce two new modes, "conservative" and "overburn": conservative mode lets a character save endurance by reducing the effect their powers have (lower durations, less damage, lower mag/duration secondaries) and the opposite for overburn.

2. cut end costs in half and remove animations for powers that miss:
I dont understand the reasoning behind this. The endurance cost is paid up front. its how you decide if its worth using a power or not. sure, an end discount would be a bonus but that wouldnt be offset by the disappointment of missing

removing animations....how about the notification of hit or miss is delayed until the animation finishes? I do agree though, it is frustrating to miss and then have to sit through the motions of sands of mu / shadow maul but before I click the power I know that its a lengthy animation and I know it'll cost endurance and so, I choose to take that risk.

3. Guitar-hero mez break
ehhhh...no. Mez is mez. Why should my character be held longer than your equally built character just because I cant type as fast or I dotn want to risk knocking something over...

If you're perma mezzed and you find it happens enough to wish there was a magical de-mez key, then its your lucky day, there is! power choice and slotting can help reduce mez durations and increase defenses. If you *choose* to not slot with mez mitigation in mind and instead opt to do more damage or reduce endurance costs then thats your choice and you have to live with it, or find a team with a helpful defender

I do think it shoud be easier for defenders to remove or reduce mez effects on team mates but thats a different kettle of monkeys.

also, how are the random keys delivered? I'm pretty sure someone could writ e a macro to detect character status effects and listen for Mezzes then listen for the key sequence and input them instantly thus making that character immune to all mez effects! A lot of trouble to go to? yes, but to some it would be worth it and it only takes one person to come up with the macro and share it for the damage to become widescale.

4. no more unresistable / indefensible damage types
have to agree with your points on this. If you build a character thats designed to be the perfect martial artist that doesnt get hit because of his incredible reflexes then you should not get your build completely bypassed because of a game mechanic that does not make sense. All damage has a type (except for Dev damage).

so take away non-typed damage and compensate the AV/GM in some other , non-immersion-breaking way like:

Big robot loses untyped energy canon attack. Gains, targetting laser that buffs to-hit + cannon does more than one type of damage and/or built in analyse weakness power based on teh fact htat they've been gathering data on your character as the missions have progressed allowing them to test your defenses and arm themselves with appropriate firepower to counteract your strengths. Web grenades to remove your super mobility followed by poinonous darts that cause slow + toxic DoT (unresisted because while your toon may have high defense thats just been negated by the web granade, he doesnt have high resistance to internal toxins that have already hit him).

Imho: just doing away with untyped damage is not good enough as it would make the game too easy. More intelligent enemies would balance things up nicely

I like CoH becauseof its PvE non-twitch based mechanics. I also like the battlefield series because of its twitch based PvP mechanics. That doesnt make me inept at CoH, it just means different strokes for different foks (I would like to see some form of hybrid of the standard CoH and the twitch-based PvP game mechanic used for PvP in City of heroes but I've posted on that before and it didnt get a warm welcome from the community so I'll keep quiet on that one ).

Endurance
I would argue that instead of fiddling with the numbers and possibly confusing some people after they ding 20 by the suddenly increased endurance drain, that they should change the power [Rest] to have zero recharge, and make it instantly start to work*. The way it is now seems to be designed for a slower paced game than what we currently have, and it should be updated to reflect the nature of the game. As for the pointless animation on a miss....it is what it is. It looks dumb, but I doubt it will be changed.

*They can keep the debuffs on it though, for all I care.

Mezzes
I don't like the way they went willy nilly with mezzes, but instead of adding some kind of gimmick to lose it, I'd rather they just take a long look at the enemy types, and cut back on some of them. I think they went overboard on it for some balancing reasons, and they should probably start looking at that to see if the reasoning still applies.

Special Damage
It's going to happen more and more on incarnate content, because frankly the Dev's are limited to either tacking on a +1 or giving the boss unresistable damage and/or gimmick attacks to artificially pump up the difficulty. The alternative is that we get battles that require more team coordination as the difficulty barrier, like the Abandoned Sewer trial.