GadgetDon

I hope that they'll look at some increases, but with a more subtle approach than this huge across-the-board increase that is being rolled back. Beyond the question of soloers, this increase caused problems in situations where you can wind up with lots of bosses (respec trial, second wall in eden trial, and to a lesser extent the sewer trial). Going from no buff to full buff at 25 meant those at 25 who are just starting to get a few SOs are being hammered with a change aimed at people with five or six SOs in offense and defense powers. And, while some bosses do need buffs, others clearly don't.

I agree that in the 40+ range most bosses need some increase and in the 30+ range some bosses need some increase, but it needs a lighter touch and more focused changes.

Is there any chance that a future Epic AT can be more solo friendly? For reasons I've stated elsewhere, I solo more than I group, which makes playing a Kheldian a serious problem. When I tried running one solo on the test server, I had to go up two levels to deal with the 3rd level mort and zombie that were the first group in the first mission. That's OK, Kheldians are clearly designed as characters for use in groups, but it would be nice to have some epics that fit your players who solo.

I, for one, am glad to get these glimpses into what is coming. It's interesting. And, it's a lot easier to get your two influence in when something is in the idea stage than when it's existing in code

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Boss Changes

In our game, mob (i.e. villain) spawns depend upon the size of a team. The following is a rough approximation of how spawns are calculated:

A minion is worth 1/3 of a hero

A Lt. is worth ¾ of a hero

A Boss is worth 1.5 heroes

Admittedly, these are approximate. A single hero might spawn anywhere from 2 to 4 minions. Or a Lt. by himself. Or a Lt. and a minion.

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Just realized something about this.

Lieutenant = 3/4 or 9/12 of a hero

Minion = 1/3 or 4/12 of a hero.

Lieutenant + Minion = 13/12 of a hero or > 1 hero. ???

FYI, the boss difficulty roll back has hit the test server so should be soon. (To those who saw the first post which had a completely unrelated link, sorry, thought I had copied this post from when I posted it to the Solo Play/Team Play thread.)

Just FYI, the rollback of boss difficulty just hit the test server, so should be soon.

BTW, Statesman, keep an eye on the data of the deaths facing the new buffed AVs (which I understand aren't being rolled back) and monsters (which are getting a double-buff...they scale up to you and they get the buff) when faced by teams. I was on a team taking on infernal last night...50th level BS/Invulnerable scrapper (me, albeit a bit rusty since Sword is my original character I rarely play), 46th level Tanker, 46th level Controller, and two 17th level Kheldians sidekicked to 49 and 45. Not a perfect team, but hardly underpowered. Not sure about the tanker's power set but it's not fire based so we weren't encountering his fire damage resistance.

Many defeats, lots of debt. Finally, one of the Kheldians gave up and switched to his 50th level blaster, and we took him down after a long fight.

Don't just look at "was the AV defeated", look at what teams were needed, and how many defeats during the fight.

There were AVs who were wimps, Nemesis needed a serious bump. Others were plenty strong to start with (like Infernal, and all the Carnie AVs).

Look at the data. Not just the number of missions where the AV was defeated, but what sort of teams and how many defeats (particularly multiple defeats) was needed along the way. An occassional defeat can be the sign of a fun challenge. Team wipes and players having three or four defeats is not fun. Again, please check the data, see if the results I've seen are common or rare.

For those who haven't read the Solo and Team play thread, boss difficulty IS being rolled back, very soon. They'll be making other changes, and at some point will look to see if some difficulty increase is needed. If they do, I trust it'll be different than the I3 increase (didn't work for soloers OR teams, IMHO).

CuppaJo, maybe this thread needs to be locked.

Boss difficulty has not been rolled back, I'm pretty sure. In the past few days, I've done the sister psyche task force (where there's one mission that have a dozen or so groups of three tank freakshows, all of them 25 and up) and the Moonfire task force (eight people on the task force, so bosses in just about every group). In the sister psyche task force, most of us were under 25, not at the uber level. Moonfire, I think we were all 25 and up, but it was still very tough.

States, thanks for rolling back the boss difficulty. You've said you'll revisit it after soloers can run without bosses and you can give back missions. I think that's a good thing, here are my thoughts, bank them away until then.

First, any buff needs to be ramped up, rather than on/off at a specific level. You gave 25 as the level where people start getting SOs. However, at 25 most players won't have enough influence in put SOs in all important slots (unless they've got a rich benefactor in their supergroup or are an alt of a character that got to high level), and there aren't that many slots to put SOs in.

In the current game, bosses fill the roll of being to lieutenants what lieutenants are to minions--a noticeable step up, but still basic thugs. From what you said in this thread, you saw it as something more. But, not only doesn't their difficulty match that, neither does the rest of the design. Why would there be two outcast bosses working together to steal a lady's purse in Steel, which is a regular spawn there. (Not that I'm complaining...I watch for them to work on my outcast badges.) How could you have three freakshow tanks in one room without a fight breaking out? Not only does it cause unholy hell on your players when you've got more bosses than non-squishies, it just doesn't fit your vision.

My recommendations...leave bosses in their current position in the feed chain, as one step above lieutenants in the organizational charts. Some could still have names, as up-and-comers in the organization.

Take a look at all villain types individually...bosses, lieutenants, and minions, and see if any need to be slightly bumped up to keep the difficulty level reasonably consistent. That may require some tweaks based on level too...a 5th column human boss was at a good level of difficulty in the teen levels, but was free xp in the 30s and should be buffed (I'm presuming archons are the same but don't have enough experience to say). OTOH, Master Illusionists are plenty tough.

Meanwhile, for bosses you want to make a cut above, those would be elite bosses. Some should be simply tougher, others should have extra powers. Being unique, the only time you'll see two elite bosses in the same mission is when there are two different gangs interacting (attacking each other or negotiating a truce or similar).

I know you won't work on making decisions until some other things are in place, and I appreciate the changes. Consider it putting my two cents on deposit.

If you still have clues, they are from a past story arc that is still active. (The hollows acts as one big story arc). Only way to clear a story arc is to finish it, so you need to go back to those contacts. Even if you've way outlevelled their missions, they will give you the missions to finish the story arc.

First, again, thanks. Not only for listening to us, but discussing what's in planning. It's obviously a lot easier to make changes while things are under design than when coding.

Here's my suggestion for levels:

Hero: When soloing, all villains in missions below 15 will be at your level (or below), and no bosses at any level. Named bosses become elite lieutenants. Same HP/Damage/XP as a lieutenant, but might have extra powers.

Hard Boiled: The current hard boiled, villains at normal level and with bosses. If you are in a team, Hero and Hard Boiled are the same.

Tenacious and above: As they exist now. But one thought--how hard would it be to make the bad guys harder without actually raising the level? If I'm sidekicked to someone fighting as invincible in a 5 person group, the villains are 4 or 5 levels above the sidekick. In addition to the greater damage and the greater hit points, the reduced purple patch starts kicking in. Just a thought.

Another thought...what's the implication of these to Malta and Nemesis? There are many missions with Zeuses hanging around, even a mission about a titan named Joe, not sure reducing them to Hercs will have the same effect. Reducing a Fake Nemesis or Warhulk (particularly the "worn warhulks") to a lieutenant will be a problem. For myself, I have no problem with making those bosses even on Hero.

Combining missions is good as an option, and if combined, should run at the highest level of the person who has it. It could encourage some very persistant teams, friends who always play together and treat story arcs as task forces.

One last comment...

It's not just squishies. My 24th level regen scrapper did the sister psyche task force last night, seven people in the group. Many groups had three freakshow tanks, either 26th or 27th level.

My regen scrapper was regularly taken down with two shots, and sometimes with one shot. Completely unfun.

Thank you. This is great. This often soloing player and often grouping player is very happy.

A few thoughts. First, instead of changing the low level to have no bosses, why not either create a new level between hero and tenacious where you see bosses, or include bosses in the default level but have a lower level with no bosses and all villains appear at your level (no +1s). At the lower levels, +1 lieutenants and even +1 minions can be tough.

Secondly, the best way to encourage more teaming will be more team content. Maybe mini-task forces. Not as epic in scale as the existing task forces, more in scale like the current story arcs. Maybe all those new hero corps reps could also have tasks available. More flexible than a task force (can add players to the team as you go along, do other missions, see contacts), just connected missions that are designed to be run as a team.

Again, thanks.

One problem with all the functions that run out, particularly functions that then drain you when it runs out (unstoppable, hasten, Foce of nature) is that you have to guess when it will run out. I've never had a character with Rage, but I understand it's similar. I have had that disquieting experience of being in the thick of battle when unstoppable runs out.

How hard would it be for click powers to change colors or something when there's 30 seconds left, and start flashing or something when there's 15 seconds left.

As you're looking at changing things, do look at the all-or nothing basis of it. First, there are bosses that needed some buffing, some that didn't (Masters of Illusion, which my 50th level scrapper never managed to solo in his career). Second, the huge step that currently exists between 24th and 25th level bosses.

I'm about to hit 23rd level. When I hit 24th, and there's a chance I'll encounter a boss, it'll either be orange (24th level, old difficulty) or red (25th level). 25th level bosses get the increase, designed to be an effective +1 level increase in difficulty but most people are reporting it's more like a +2 level or more increase. So, the bosses will be effectively bosses of my level, or bosses of my level +3. This could be delayed if there was an option in the difficulty slider that made all villains spawn at my level as was implied we'd have, but that's another issue.

There is an issue that the game does get easier at some point. I'd move that point to somewhere between 30 and 35, because while you can start getting SOs at 25th level (actually, you can buy them at 22nd level), on their own characters start having the influence to use mostly SOs in the 30-35 level range.

Just like the devs looked at the different types of villains and tweaked the xp for them (appreciate the increased xp for sappers), they should look at the individual bosses and tweak their difficulty. 5th column human bosses were underpowered at this level, so I assume that council bosses are too. Dark Mages, if you have status protection (and most do at this point, if nothing else have enough inspiration slots to carry lots of disciplines) were underpowered. Masters of Illusion were NOT underpowered.

And same with Archvillains. Tyrant was underpowered. Nemesis was underpowered. The three Carnie AVs were a challenge for every group I've been in that fought them.

If the problem is the game was too easy, a targetted increase and a bit gentler increase (say, +25% HP and +10% damage for the weakest) would be a better solution.

If the goal is to stop soloing, first I oppose the goal, secondly the way it was done is hurting teams as much as it is hurting soloers.

My current primary character just hit 22nd level. But I bring out my 50th level blaster to offer help to my SuperGroup when they need help. I'll be very reluctant to offer help to an individual who wants help with a 49th and up level Master of Illusion, and I'll be very reluctant to offer help to any group facing a Carnie AV.

Thanks for the update.

Do let us know what's in the works, a "Here's what we're thinking about", not just "Here's what just went up on the test server". For me, and apparently for others, this is the most serious issue regarding City of Heroes.

And thank you very much for this discussion. Regardless of what the final result is, it's clear you're listening to us, and that does mean a lot.

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I thought Statesman made it quite clear what the goal of the boss level bump was. Many here have come up with creative ways that would incentivize teaming as well or perhaps better than what was done. I suspect NONE of those ideas could be done with as little coding or impact to the rest of the game.

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Statesman made it clear what the goal of the increase is. The increase is to make many of the previously soloable missions and soloable street mods unsoloable, so that those who solo now will group.

Many of those posting here, including myself, consider that a bad goal. A terrible idea. One that will remove the fun from many players who are having lots of fun now.

Before Issue 3, you never had to defeat the auto-turret, the auto-turrets went away when its creator was destroyed (just like device blasters' auto-turrets go away when the blaster is defeated). For some reason, under Issue 3, the auto-turrets stay away (but device blasters' auto-turrets still go away).

Maybe the operations engineers union threatened to go on strike because Sappers were so overpowered.

Never heard a good reason for this, it's not like people were saying "Oh boy, Malta missions, this will be easy!"

First, thanks for having this discussion. Others have pointed out the negative effects of these changes to grouping itself. I'm just going to talk about soloing bosses.

City of Heroes is my first MMO, and the primary reason I haven't gotten into any before now is that I understand you had to find people to group with in order to enjoy the meat of the game.

I'd heard that City of Heroes was different, that you could enjoy the meat without grouping. I got into the preorder, enjoyed myself extremely because I could indeed enjoy the meat of the missions by either going solo or by teaming (my choice). And so I paid in advance for a year.

If this post had been made on the beta boards, I wouldn't have bought the release copy.

I'm a coleader of an active SuperGroup, I've taken two characters to 50 by some soloing and some teaming (I've done every task force/trial in the game except for those in the shadow shard, I've fought every AV outside of the shadow shard, all with teams). I've got good friends in the game, I do pickup teams. But, most of the time I do solo.

And many of my friends in the game are the same way. We solo a lot, and we team a lot.

There already is content in the game that encourages team play. There are epic adventures that require teams to accomplish (trials and task forces). There are extraordinarily difficult villains that require more than one hero to take down (AVs, monsters, masters of Illusion). And teaming is fun.

And, there's social interaction other than grouping. Discussions that start in broadcast (and I suspect that may be tweaked with global chat channels). Talking on the supergroup channel (as we describe the cool new stuff we're seeing in our missions under issue 3).

What was there in your data that said we had to be pushed into grouping more? That's what you're doing, you're taking people who are having fun in your game doing missions solo, and saying "You'll have to play THIS way from now on". What is in your data to justify annoying many of your players this way?

I group, and I solo. I solo because of my odd hours. I solo because I love the stories in the story arcs, and if I'm in a group it's unfair to say "No, we'll do just my missions so we can follow the arc all the way through". My enjoyment of City of Heroes will be decimated if I am no longer able to solo, just as it would be decimated if I was no longer able to group.

I started a new character for Issue 3, just like I started a new character for Issue 2. I've done a scrapper and a blaster, was considering a controller for my next character. But from what I'm hearing, soloing as a controller went from difficult to impossible. So, I started a scrapper (MA/Regen). Here's what worries me. As people complain about being unable to solo, others are saying "There's no problem soloing these new bosses". If your data shows that scrappers are consistently able to solo these new buffed bosses, will scrappers be debuffed or bosses buffed again to make sure that nobody can solo these?

The game that has been so popular, Statesman, has been one where people can solo missions, even missions with bosses, or can group to make it easier and more fun. There's even special content only available to groups only. You can feel like a hero accomplishing great things solo or grouped.

The game you have in your vision will limit soloing to street sweeping and some cookiecutter missions here and there that are done and then forgotten. The great stories in your game, the Ubelman Arc, the Wheel of Destruction, the Mind of the Clockwork King, all of these are locked away from someone who wants to solo.

If so many people liked the game you had created, why change it when so many people are expressing displeasure with it.

There's a lot of cool stuff in Issue 3. I'm willing to compromise and run a scrapper to enjoy it. (Dr. Vahz's lab is great, Tyrant's throneroom is cool, the new ship tileset is fun, Striga Isle is a work of art.) But, if the ability to solo with a scrapper is a temporary abberation that will be "fixed" let me know now, please.

And one more...

I think that City of Heroes is a magnificant accomplishment

I agree with most of what you say, here are some more

I think that when there are things that the players think are wrong, they should say it. Whether it's a specific change to a specific power, or part of Jack Emmit's vision that they disagree with. It should be done without rancor, understanding that we all just want a great game, understanding that others will have different view, and understanding that in the end the developers will make the decision.

I believe that the Devs do a good job in general of communicating but it could be better. The release of Issue 3 was a surprise to many players, and an unpleasant one to those unhappy with many of the changes. Hearing "We've looked at your feedback but have decided to go another way", paired with the reason why, will at least make people feel better about the time they've spent testing.

I believe that discussions on the "Big Picture" are particularly useful. Statesman's discussions on the role of bosses help explain the change to bosses, agree or disagree.

If these bugs were fixed, why NOT wait? Where was the great groundswelling saying "give it now"? When you make decisions like this, you balance the reasons to go and the reasons to wait.

I write software for a living as well, and yes, some bugs are inevitable. I've even shipped with bugs that I knew could be resolved with another week's worth of work, because I knew that people were having problems with the prior version that were solved in the new version.

But I just don't see the reason for pushing it through now, when you knew that significan issues (the free respec, global chat, the bugs on the known issues list) weren't quite there yet.

It's not like you'd said "We'll be posting it the first week in January", most who talked about it agreed that you probably wouldn't.

Why the rush? You took the time to get the regen scrapper issues right, and kudos on that. You took the time to get the burn tanker issues right, and kudos on that (some need respec because of the shuffling of protections that was done, but the things that were broken got fixed). Why rush these through?

Mission objectives make no sound--in old-style cave missions or in orenbega, that can cause hours of searching time to find the last glowie

Touch of Fear buffs instead of debuffs--disasterous to use in a tight fight

That's just two of them.

Just FYI...you should get a free respec soon to help ease the pain and adjust to the changes.