Ultra_Violence

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In broad terms, only Scrappers and Blasters have the damage outlay per unit endurance and unit time to defeat the current bosses.

For a same-level boss, these are my observations:

Defenders, as a rule, run out of endurance trying to damage the boss while maintaing self-buffs and foe debuffs, even if they have max-slotted attacks for damage. Defenders not heavily slotted for damage and with a means of heavily buffing themselves, badly debuffing the boss or mezzing the boss simply cannot win alone.

Controllers will run out of endurance holding the boss unless they are pet-enabled and can heavily enhance their pet damage output (/Rad and conditional use of /Kinetcs).

Tankers will run out of endurance trying to damage the boss. Barring this, the fight will be very long and boring.

Blasters have a real crapshoot, depending on how "controlly" their primary and secondary are, and how impressive the boss's ranged attacks are. Taking on a boss with ranged mez with no a) anti-mez inspirations or b) the ability to mez the boss are a guaranteed trip to the hospital. (Note that bosses, by design, open up with their mez attack first if they have one.) Blaster primaries that can do well - Electric Blast (bosses with no End are less scary), Energy Blast (bosses on their butt can't kill you), Energy Manipulation Secondary (Total Focus puts a heavy stun even on bosses). In short, if your alpha strike cannot incapacitate the boss you are probaby dead.

Note that certain APPs invalidate these conclusions once the hero hits level 41. My Dark/Dark Defender is able to defeat bosses by virtue of heavy damage slotting, holds, pets with holds and Conserve Power + 6-slotted stamina. (Without CP she ran out of end.) My Ice Blaster got a second hold power from Fire Mastery, so if he can survive the boss's response to the 1st hold he can immediately hold the boss (assuming he doesn't miss with one of the two holds - 2:20 chance).

Please show me where these analyses break down. Until then the statement that any AT can defeat an I3 boss comes across as nothing but hyperbole. Some builds in all ATs can solo bosses. But even then, in my experience, it's not more fun. It's just longer.

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Where do they break down? My 37 Ice/FF Controller regularly does red and purple bosses. I can even do them without the use of a single inspiration although that makes the fight a lot longer. One example: last night I soloed a 40 Death Mage + 40 Guide. Fight was never in question. With proper slotting I can hold boss, do damage, summon pets and keep my toggles up indefinitely.

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Is it any skin off your nose if all you want to do is team, while others like to solo? How does it hurt you in any way if the bosses go back to I2 levels? Bump your difficulty slider all the way up if it's too easy, and take a full team in - the bosses might not be as tough, but they'll be numerous.

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Actually I like to solo and running a low level controller (Ill/Kin) and a higher level one (Ice/FF) I not only solo bosses I have already bumped up the difficulty slider to unyielding. If they go back to I2 levels they will go back to being unchallenging.

The only reason most people can't solo is because they choose not to be able to. If you pick a set like Empathy, powers that don't support solo play or you refuse to learn any strategies for dealing with encounters then you have no place complaining that you can't solo. The tools are there if you don't want to use them don't blame the game.

Blasters have a legitimate gripe since most can't control mobs much but on the other hand being able to 2 shot bosses is ridiculous. Up to the devs to deal with that one.

Game is 10X more interesting since I3.

Perhaps what they really need is some Reduced difficulty levels as well as increased difficulty.

Momma's Boy
Over Easy
Soft Boiled
Hard Boilded

LOL ok maybe the names need work but this is another way to go.

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I'm annoyed that everytime States attempts to up the difficulty just a bit; the legion of "What? I don't want to have to think when playing, I just want to see a group of spawns and push buttons in sequence until they drop. In essence, I WANT my 'perma-god mode'."

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You go dude. I am a casual player and a soloist 80+% of the time and I love the changes. My Ice/FF Controller plays in Unyielding and having a blast. Fighting white/yellow mobs was really starting to become a drag before. Since I3 I am fighting red/purple bosses that actually put up a fight.

As for those who think they should be able to play without strategy, well that is again the problem with the debt system. In games like EQ with the exp loss system you either learned how to play the game (including strategies) or you didn't level. Now we have level 40 people who still haven't figured out that as a Blaster they shouldn't first strike groups of mobs when on a team.

There is a lot of strategy possible in this game but if they make it too easy there is no point to strategy it just becomes brute force with little point.

Apart from the Hulk brute force doesn't describe mobs comic book heros. Heros are usually at a disadvantage, sometimes a severe one and they have to think their way out. I want to be a hero but "without all that messy thinking" just don't cut it.

One problem I have notice though is that since not all powers are balanced (even within a powerset) some people take powers that sound good but are useless then don't understand why they can't suceed. That is a legitimate problem but dumbing down the content isn't the answer.

Perhaps what is really needed is a Hulk Smash type AT which is flat out stronger than the other ATs and everyone knows it. Let those who don't want to be challenged play that AT. It has the side benefit that those of us who avoid teams currently because of these people can more readily identify and avoid them.

The biggest thing keeping me out of teams is teammates. Getting debt because someone else doesn't know how to play is the least fun aspect of any game IMO. Learning HOW to play the game is the point of learning a game not leveling.

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I stand corrected then. There is at least one person (presumably representative of some kind of group of people) who do enjoy street hunting. Frankly I'm a bit astonished. Nobody I have met in game has said they enjoyed this, but tastes do differ. Enjoy then. At least that is still perfectly doable solo.

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I enjoyed street hunting in Boomtown, Steel Canyon, Skyway, Independence Port, Talos Island, Terra Volta, Dark Astoria, Brickstown, Founder's Falls, and Crey's Folly.

I don't like it as much on Peregrine Island, due to the tendency for things to rise from the street.

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Mainly I prefer missions but sometimes I like to street hunt for a few reasons:

1) Not a lot of time. I can get on for 30 minutes and actually do something as opposed to spending it traveling and trying to complete a mission.
2) Better exp. Depending on your build you CAN get better exp street hunting, even solo. I know at certain levels my Controller and Defender could solo street hunt mobs that gave 1,000 exp each while mobs on mission were giving 2-400. There is added risk but that is part of the fun. Hunting PP Hellions/Skulls in a group can level you very quickly if you don't mind skipping the early game. After all new powers are part of the fun.
3) Nazi's. I love hunting Nazi's. Call it a character flaw. I have hung around SC, FF, Bricks, etc. many times for this. No idea why.
4) Change of pace or practice splitting groups of mobs using different tactics. Some tactics can't be done indoors and can really only be done late at night as they aren't "other people friendly." LOL

For example one way to get rid of that level 41 mob they stick in the level 32 groups in Eden is to sleep group, attack the 41 from max range (assuming by some wild chance that you hit it) and run to police bots. Once the jerk mob is down you can fight the rest. Sure you don't have to fight there but screwing around once is a while is fun. Just don't do this with other people in the zone or they will say unflattering things.

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States, it has been the experience of a great many players (mentioned on other threads) that *multiple* unnamed bosses show up on missions that they entered alone.


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I'll check this!

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This has ONLY happened to me after I took a difficulty rating of Unyielding or higher. And I LIKE it a lot. Leave it alone, other people aren't real anyway. LOL

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There's plenty of room left to grow...

Far future heroes
Spy organizations
Pulp
Magical world
etc.
etc.

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Hey What every happened to Vigilanties? Long ago you made a reference to adding these Punisher type "anti-heros" to the game with different contacts/missions/stores. I always figured that was what all the Military Surplus stores were for.

Only tried difficulty slider so far but I like that a lot. Also noticed the search lights in Brickstown, I don't remember seeing those before.

Its a great game.

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*Posted in Positron's thread about the Difficulty slider*

Here's a random thought (pardons if it has been mentioned):

Is it possible to raise the HP/Exp/Damage of minions on the streets *only* while leaving mobs in missions as they currently are?


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I disagree completely. Street mobs are perfect as they are. If they are too easy for you go to a hazard zone. Street mobs can't just be for teams and power solo builds. Any build should be able to take down smaller street mobs.

Now if you are one of the people going through Steel Canyon with a 6-8 person team, I can understand why you think the mobs are too easy, but that is not how the game is designed to be played. City zones are intended for 1-3 character teams, beyond that you are expected to go to a Hazard zone.

The current system works just fine. If you need harder fights go on a mission with your slider all the way up.

Actually the slider will make the team leader's job a lot harder. Up till now you judged which missions were good for your team by the character's level and the relative level of your team. Usually only taking missions from highest level players. Now if you take a mission from the highest level player if he has slider all the way up your team may not have a chance, but if slider is down all the way it may be too easy.

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4) Missions to defeat 35 of a specific type of mob (like badges) i.e. defeat 25 Behemoths in Faultline. This prevents people from "jackleing" missions - that is sniping weak mobs at the edges of groups to complete missions without ever engaging the group.

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Change it to 'Take down Z xp worth of Y faction'.

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No while that would stop people from hunting greys, what my point was is to make them have to engage whole groups because the boss is the only mob they actually need and splitting a boss from a large group is pretty much not worth even trying. Except maybe Outcast bosses in SC and Prisoners in Brick both of whom almost never stand and fight, they run while the rest of their group fights. This still seems backward to me.

I don't think the problem with Trial zones is that SS doesn't work. It SHOULDN'T work everywhere. Most everone takes Haste then SS so they don't have to "waste" another power and another power pool. They get stealth and the fastest travel power in the game. Then complain when it can't do everything.

Powers should be a trade off. If you take SS be prepared to have trouble in some zones, get a buddy who has port friend or to have to take a second power for vertical zones. That is the trade off. If you could reach everywhere with SS there would be little point to the other travel powers, why take a slower power if the faster one gets you all the same places? Trade offs currently are:

Fly - Slow but the second best utility. No flying mob is ever out of reach.
Super Jump - Fast with veritical movement but not always easy to hit those narrow ledges or get within melee range of flying mobs. Has tendency to occasionally land in groups of VBT (Very Bad Things). Also forces you to take the ever unpopular Jump Kick or Combat Jump which is nice unless you really don't need it.
Teleport - Fast, best utility but sucks down END like drunk on a three day binge. Can be a pain unless you also take Hover.
Super Speed - Fastest power, stealth, prereq is Haste which over half the people take anyway, downside is no vertical movement.

Faultline can be a treasure chest for flier's/jumpers with ranged attacks, if some people don't figure that out well it's their loss.

What I would like to see is to bump up the levels of the Lost in Boomtown. Currently there is a Lost "dead zone" between the ones in the South of Skyway and the ones in Tera Volta. They apparently level straight from 19 to like 25. This wouldn't be a problem except there are missions for them during those levels where you either have to wait to be able to get into TV or go pop greys/greens. Meanwhile in Boomtown are a bunch of Lost there is really no reason to ever hunt due to their level and no bosses at all, you are better off in Skyway.

Personally I don't like "street sweeping" for exp. I can play EQ if I just want to kill the same mobs over and over without any story or logic. What is really needed is some interesting missions for groups in these zones. Sort of Mini-Task force kind of things. Like:

1) Escort a NPC across the zone or to a building with reward only if NPC makes it and your group defeats a minimum number of mobs on the way (to avoid exploiting) or possibly with ambushes along the way that can only be defeated by the group (no one else can effect them in any way and they ignore everyone outside the group and the NPC).

2) Phone missions that trigger ambushes which again must be defeated by members of the group only.

3) Badges for # of defeated in that zone that only include blue (white?) or better mobs. Personally I'l love to see some badges of this type with a lower count but challenging battles. A few hard fights are much more fun than farming a trillion grey monkeys.

4) Missions to defeat 35 of a specific type of mob (like badges) i.e. defeat 25 Behemoths in Faultline. This prevents people from "jackleing" missions - that is sniping weak mobs at the edges of groups to complete missions without ever engaging the group.

Or whatever, Devs have been consistently better at designing the game than me so far so they probably have better ideas.

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That's aided by the fact that COH has the lowest average customer call rate per user I know of in the industry, specially for it's young age.

-jg

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It goes without saying you are good. CoH had the cleanest rollout of a MORP ever. Not that that was saying much at the time based on the piles of offal some companies released but this game was done and worked out of the gate.

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Think about it, in comics heroes are typically somewhat unique. There aren't a bunch of others with the same orgin & powers running around. Even if the hero's entire race has the same powers as him, he's usually the only one hanging around (or one of a very small number). This is done for a very good reason. Superman, Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter are all good examples. Each of them would somehow be lessened if a whole bunch of Kryptonians, Thanagarians, or Martians showed up and all became heroes. That's pretty much why I have no intention of playing one.

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Hate to break it to you but that is exactly what has been done in comics. Superman is the best example, there are well over a dozen Kryptonians/(Kryptonian look alikes like Powergirl) running about (including 3 supergirls and counting at the moment) and a whole city of them in storage, all with the same powers whom they pull out whenever they want for a story. Superman's origin and powers were copied so much that that was one of the reasons they restarted Superman from scratch and then fell into the same lack of creativity. Just as DC destroyed all the alternate Earth's and what is happening next month? The villians from Earth 3 are coming visiting again.

The same goes for Hawkman who is basically just a cop from another planet full of people like him.

What you forget is that one server in CoH has more heros than the entire DC and Marvel Universes put together. I sincerly doubt the RPG you run has that many people in it. With that many people duplication of powers and origins can't be avoided. The fact is that for a MORP CoH has the most individuality of characters of any MORP to date.

To my eye from day one CoH most resembles The City in the first episode of the Tick cartoon with so many heros running around they are swinging into each other from buildings.

Some of the best powers in the game don't exist in comics. Ever see a "Hero" cause Radiation Infection to slow villian down? I mean that is pretty hard core. While there may be villians that do that I don't think there are any heros.

Being true to comics is good but being a good game is the most important thing.

We will see what they are like when released. What I would hope for rather than origin/AT issues is that they actually LOOK different. Everyone knows aliens from the same planet don't always look alike LOL. Having some cool new faces/bodies would be a nice touch.

Actually it now seems it is impossible not to complete them. I did wall mission last night, lost (wasn't my fault really, 3 mobs on machine and 2 patrols decide to walk by during fight one of which with a communications officer, I took out 9 before machine was destroyed) and still got the Defender of the Wall badge. More like Loser of the Wall badge.

I logged a bug on it.

That mission needs some text added for when you lose though. Going in it says the whole war rests on your shoulders, but if you lose it doesn't say anything. It should at least say you held them off long enough for other heros to come in and save the day for you or something...

Why are all the save the lawyer missions in Buildings? Seems to me the better place to find lawyers would be in one of those cave missions where you turn over a rock to get in...

Unbelievable event. I can't believe you went to this much trouble for a Halloween event. Definitely head and shoulders above any event I have seen in a MORP to date.

Plus I got my Banisher badge in a few hours with just a 2 person group since spirit masks never stopped popping!!!!

Anyone who missed out on the Banisher badge I feel sorry for. 72 hours of night won't likely happen again for a while.

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Got to go with Bladewraith here. While I soloed the Rikti boss with my scrapper first time, but I wouldn't even attempt with my Defender.

My defender has run into a few situations where she couldn't split 2 orange bosses and because they some sort of healing power (like Freakshow) couldn't wear one of them down either. So I went outside asked if someone could help me defeat a couple bosses to finish mission (or a couple times to defuse bomb at same time as me) and so far I haven't been disappointed, someone has always agreed to help.

Of course then you need to make the commitment that when you hear someone ask for help finishing a mission, you go help them if at all possible. If everyone is willing to help this kind of thing becomes a non-issue.

Heck as a controller I would put out a request "Controler seeking partner/group to help with missions." What Controlers are missing solo they more than make up for duo or better. You may not get through a mission as fast with a Controler/whatever duo but you are much more likely to get through alive.

IMO Controlers and Empaths are great toons....for someone else in group to be.

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What kind of Defender are you playing? I can solo reds - minions, lieutenants, or bosses - with my Rad/Rad, and have been able to for some time. Currently level 32, should hit 33 in the next couple of days. Granted, I use 'divide and conquer' almost exclusively, and am pretty good at single pulls, but I'd think most Defender builds could duplicate my technique.

Sir Sean the Starknight

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The Rikti purple to me not red. I can solo a red but even then you have to get the "drop" on them, use a bunch of inspirations and get Rad infect, etc off before they 2 shot/stun/hold you. I play a Rad/Psi Defender and there just is no way I am soloing a purple indoors.

With most scrappers all you need to do is put up a few luck and accuracy and wade in with some health inspirations to fall back on. It is a very different situation.

Got to go with Bladewraith here. While I soloed the Rikti boss with my scrapper first time, but I wouldn't even attempt with my Defender.

My defender has run into a few situations where she couldn't split 2 orange bosses and because they some sort of healing power (like Freakshow) couldn't wear one of them down either. So I went outside asked if someone could help me defeat a couple bosses to finish mission (or a couple times to defuse bomb at same time as me) and so far I haven't been disappointed, someone has always agreed to help.

Of course then you need to make the commitment that when you hear someone ask for help finishing a mission, you go help them if at all possible. If everyone is willing to help this kind of thing becomes a non-issue.

Heck as a controller I would put out a request "Controler seeking partner/group to help with missions." What Controlers are missing solo they more than make up for duo or better. You may not get through a mission as fast with a Controler/whatever duo but you are much more likely to get through alive.

IMO Controlers and Empaths are great toons....for someone else in group to be.

What I would like to see for Update 3 would be a complete lack of posts saying "When are you going to put it in live", "What are you waiting for install it in live". And a few more posts in the Test Server section so we don't have rollout problems.

Everyone who complained about Issue 2, did you do any testing or post for them to hurry up?

As to content I believe they already revealed it would include non-human builds (cat faces etc I would assume), they also admitted to already be working on bows.

Personal preference would be an ability to copy/steal powers from others. Works as either a power pool or as a full power set for what would be a very fexible AT. As long as you are prevented from taking powers that are higher level than you and there is a limit to how long they last/how often you can do it, it should be reasonably balanced. Using augs would be interesting however.

Imagine it they add a new power pool with great stuff in it! Everyone with 4 pools would be respecing like crazy and the bitchin about not getting a 5th pool would go on non-stop. LOL

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until I got to the Boss (+1 RED) who cast stuns and holds in chains.

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Don't see the problem, I have run into red bosses in the occasional mission since the game started. And at 18 they start using stuns and holds because many ATs are immune to them at that point. I have run into the problem of a boss I can't solo more than once, I just go out and ask if someone will help me kill the boss. Since it is only one mob even 1 high level player who can just go in and smack him is fine. Never had trouble finding someone to help/do it for me.

While I like to solo, and love to try and do things meant for a group (I actually love the +1 spawns -guess you can't make everyone happy), I also accept that it is a multiplayer game and, like real life, sometimes you need to get help. Usually lots of friendly people out there to help and I try and do the same for others.

Hard to admit that it is true but, damn it is fun to take my scrapper out and take down 12 yellow minions in one fight solo. It DOES make me feel more powerful. Personally I would like to see them keep a bit of this, just not as much as they have now. I high level character taking down more minions is just immediate gratification and an absolute feeling of being more powerful.

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Ah - and as for the argument that mission XP "sucks." Yes, you do reap less XP/minute if you simply travel from your contact immediately to your mission door (which tends to be player behavior). However, if you fight some spawns on the way - and finish the mission with the new XP rewards - I think you'll find that missions are much, much more competitive XP wise.

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Only time I have a problem with this statement is when at level 18 I am sent to Steel Canyone to get CoTs who are all very grey to me at 18. I got this mission 3 times at that level. There is no exp smacking small fries and no exp on the way there (at best one mob in a group will be green).

Normally I like the default X mobs missions because they let YOU determine the difficulty of the missions. If you go to a zone or a part of the zone where mobs are orange and red you get better fight and a lot more exp than someone who just fights greys and greens because they know where they are. There ARE times however when they game forces you to hunt greys in zones where everything is grey or hold onto the mission until you can get into a zone with exp mobs (i.e. until you meet hazard zone requirements). Those missions are worthless but when you are getting down on missions and contact only gives you one choice you have to do them to get to the next one which hopefully will suck less.

Speaking of which the game desperately needs more level 18-19 hunting areas. Solo there is only Skyway by Faultline, no where else has a decent supply of white-red mobs. With a group you can go deep into a hazard zone and find decent mobs, assuming you can find a group that wants to go deep into a hazard zone. This is complicated by the fact that contacts start drying up at 18 a bad combination.

I mainly solo but really had no problem with occasional mission that require a group, even in a story arc. Why? Because everyone else who is soloing is going to hit the same wall and be looking for a group to get them past it. So you probably won't have nearly as much trouble getting a group to do your door mission, as opposed to now where many groups don't want to do missions unless they are a TF.

Sadly these multi-person mission probably won't get used much except for people with regular groups who like doing missions. Everyone else will avoid because they are afraid of filling a mission slot with a mission they won't be able to do, whether they are primarily soloers OR groupers.

I also just have to point out again reading this thread that it amazes me that the people who rant and call people idiots are all people who think they are better socially adjusted because they like to group. I have yet to see a single post by a soloer who says anyone who groups is an idiot. But then I suppose the hypocrisy is lost on them.

Just because you solo doesn't mean you are anti-social. I solo but if I see a request for help with a mission or someone having trouble learning the game I always offer. I solo because I don't like spending time LFG, I love the story lines and want to read not only the mission briefing but all the clues (and I don't want to hold everyone up or get left behind while doing so), I much prefer missions to street sweeping (personally my favorite is to street sweep everything in my path between mission areas) and my playing time is erratic. I hate joining a group and having to leave soon after, I feel like I am screwing people over. Hardly anti-social reasons.

And yes sometimes I avoid groups because I occasionally get teamed with jerks or "needy" people who add me to their friend list, then spam me every time they log on. I don't mind adding jerks to ignore list but I can't bring myself to do it to people for being too friendly. IMHO /ignore = /you are an a**hole. Please keep that in mind if I ignore you.

"Properly socially ajusted people" who feel the need to force their preferences on others should be very happy playing 5th column in CoV.

Yeah I should qualify my post too. Once you finally get the higher level attacks PL isn't as uber. But up to 16 I find it hard to beat. Even with to-hit debuffed stupid abominations hit way too often and hard. I found picking them off much simpler and safer. With Haste and/or recharge it doesn't take long to come back up again either.

One thing I haven't tried is the interrupt reduction augs. But I suppose PL would be the power to use them on. Normally I just Radiation Infect group and since no one can hit me I just use it as a normal attack, but occasionally get interrupted.

Even if you don't snipe PL + Scream will kill most white mobs at this point so why not start with that so one mob is down already?

IMHO immobalization is bad for you/your group as often as it is good so I don't want it on a standard attack. Many mobs do a lot worse damage at range than they do in melee, the 5th column come to mind immediately. So while it is very nice to have a special use attack that immobalizes I don't want all the time. Of course this may reflect my primary set of Radiation. I want all the mobs staying together in my little RI zone. Way too many sets to have played them all to a decent level. lol

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I really don't get it... Why do you all hate subdue and love psychic lance? Ok, yeah subdue is a bit pricey in end for the damage (though on test it's much better, only 10 end). But, it takes no time at all to get off a subdue. Psionic does twice the damage, drinks twice the end, and takes 5 seconds to get off. Not that psionic lance doesn't have its uses, though, I just don't see why you hate one but love the other.

Subdue will probably be a part of my attack chain permanently. It's quick enough to throw in between the two heavy single targets without interfering with them. It lets me snipe people at maximum range without fear of retaliation. What more do you need?

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Answer is simple. You get PL at level 4 at that point and for a long time PL + another attack can often drop a white-green mob before they can even attack. Some Green and most grey mobs drop in one shot. PL has a large accuracy bonus so you don't need to add a lot of Acc Augs which means it does even more damage because you have more damage augs on it. PL works from extreme range so you can shoot at mobs that can't even reach you, split them off groups and retreat if group follows or retreat and stay out of their range till it is up again. PL on a Abomination means NEVER getting hit by acid (if you don't want to) since at max range an abomination will stop closing and forget about you before it ever gets within it's attack range and a second PL will kill it. In a backhanded sort of way PL actually has a lower END cost because of it's long animation you get back a lot of END. I rarely have any END problems if I am using PL.

In short PL allows you to put big damage where you need it in one shot and at long range if necessary. Subdue can't do any of these things.

Also I prefer runners to immobalization. I can hit a runner with PL an drop him with no risk to myself. If I immobalize him he will start shooting at me while I get off next attack. I prefer not to get shot at at all.

If you like subdue, good for you. Nothing better than having something you like. But post is about people's opinions based on their experiences and most people didn't have your good experiences with subdue. If there is some special tactic you use it for that we are missing please post it. You opinion is just as valid as anyone else's.