Elite Bosses and Arch-Villains in Dark Astoria

I won't disagree with that, but communication of intent has always been a hit-or-miss proposition around here. But I also know that there was a huge amount of debate as to the appropriateness of ending the DA arcs with another iTrial, debate which would have been rendered moot if the stated intent had been to create content capable of providing a challenge for full teams of tricked out 50+3s.

Would it have been nice to have the option for carnivores to set difficulty wherever they want? I guess so, but based on what I've seen -- and I'm sure Arcanaville will correct me if I'm mistaken -- it looks like the downgraded EBs are completely different entities from the DA EBs. I don't know if the tech exists for them to completely change entities based on difficulty, as opposed to scaling them up or down, but if it exists it wasn't used. Maybe the next set of content -- which is likely to be almost entirely iTrial oriented, to move the War of the Incarnates toward its conclusion -- will consider such options.

I've expressed my appreciation for what they gave us in DA. You've expressed your disappointment in the same. The devs have noted both our opinions. I'm not sure what more there is to be said about it.

Ok, yeah I see where you're coming from now. I'm sure once I actually get to run the new stuff I'll have a clearer perspective on the whole topic.

It sounds a bit to me like they need some sort of EB+ that is designed to be scaled up.

Say, add extra HP, some small resists, and a small damage buff for each extra person on the team. The EB+ is tougher than a regular EB, but doesn't give AV level rewards. But don't go further than that.

Don't increase debuffs or secondary effects, and don't push the total resistance to anything over 85% or so. You want to increase difficulty, not completely shut a team down.

You *might* increase the mez protection a bit, but probably not more than say +2 total for a full team. Just enough to require a bit of mez stacking.

The difficulty settings could affect this. Higher level difficulty results in a higher level EB+. Extra spawn (x2 to x8) results in an EB+ with the HP and resists and damage for that number of people. "Allow AVs" gives +2 to level, up to a maximum of 4 counting other level increases. But still no AV rewards.

Just thinking out loud here...

I do want to note that I was strongly opposed the way the DA arc initially required one to complete the DD trial. It didn't make sense to me given the awareness that people who quite reasonably could have no level shifts at all would end up channeled into the most level-shifted trial we have had to date. Honestly, that it was like that is even more perplexing in retrospect given Dr. Aeon's clarifying statement of intent for DA's design.

I'm not sure they're completely different, but they definitely wouldn't be identical. The most likely change seems to me that they would end up with the PToD. There may be other considerations I'm not aware of, but that's the one that seems most certain. Even PToD aren't strictly mandatory, but if the AV versions had it, I'm pretty sure the "downgraded" EB versions would have to. I'm not aware of tech that can sub in a completely different entity based on difficulty. I think what it does is basically change their AT mods from the "AV AT" to the "EB AT".

Well said Dr. Aeon. WTG devs for hitting the "sweet spot" for solo and small team incarnate content... just like many of us asked. It feels good actually being an incarnate (as opposed to say getting hit by a rock by some punk civilian and dropping like a stone). Nice to see you recognize that not everyone has a min/max build out of the gate and can go to DA and have fun. I believe you (you guys are the experts and there is no reason not to) that an AV "scale down" could cause problems with my solo play experience this time. Keep up the good work.

Because they are trials.

yeah it was stupid answer when folks claiming that Keyes and the rest shouldn't be reduced in difficulty to promote more team play then and it's stupid answer now.

Amazingly this was the argument used against those who wanted solo and small teams content during the time that we were getting incarnate content for large teams.

I would say insert a troll face image here, but that would be too easy.

My lore pets pretty much handled these guys by themselves.

You know, I take a lot of crap for speaking my mind on these forums, but consider how often something I say sparks an important discussion or dialogue with the devs.

Just sayin'.



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Well...


Unless I missed someone else's post, I was the one to bring up my hatred of the EB to AV mechanic in general in the thread and I made the suggestion about backup EBs. Also, in the past I've made numerous other posts on the topic and even PMs asking for the devs to consider alternatives to the EB to AV mechanic.




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First of all, I really like the new DA zone, and feel that it (and the signature story arc) is some of the best new content I've seen in years. Things are actually *progressing*, and it makes the player feel really powerful.

It is also nice to see Incarnate content that is not exclusively trial-based, and I *really* hope that you'll end up providing more similar content in the future. Solo/small team (and "big team" too for that matter) content is, to me, far more interesting than multi-team trials.


However...
I'm not sure I agree with you here.

If you *only* upgrade these EBs to AVs without changing any of their powers, what would the possible issues that you mention be? If the difficulty is set to scale down AVs to EBs, teams up to 6(?) members would still fight them as EBs, and with the same powers as before.

Do 6-member teams qualify as "small" (i.e. are those what you're targetting)? Maybe more importantly, how many teams of 6+ would have issues with these AVs, especially if some of those team members would be partially Incarnated?

If the *only* impact of a change would be on teams of 6 and larger, it would seem to me that the benefit of giving other players the *option* of facing tougher opposition would be worth it. I know that I would have liked things to be a bit tougher when soloing, and I believe that many "small teams" would have also liked that option.


Also, it should be kept in mind that these 6+ member teams are *already* hitting brick walls in these arcs. There are a few bosses that already *are* AVs that scale down, so they would already be facing them as AVs. (has that presented any issues so far?). Notably, Diabolique is one of these AVs, and with her constant phasing/running, she's actually one of the tougher AVs to beat. If 6+ member teams are already supposed to be able to handle an AV Diabolique with phasing and PTODs, isn't it reasonable that they would also be able to handle say an AV Requiem *without* PTODs and special AV debuff resistances?

There seems to be a bit of a double standard there.



So...
Love what you've done with the place, but I'd like some more options.
Also: More content like this please.

If people can solo AVs or not isn't really relevant though.
The more interesting question is: Can you and 5 of your friends handle an AV?

Fortunately they wouldn't need to be. There are already AVs without PTODs and special AV debuff resistances.

There are lots of people who prefer a diet with both meat *and* vegetables. Such people would not be catered to by either the pure-meat feast or the all-vegetable meal. They could eat from both meals, but would not be satisfied by either.

However, if the all-vegetable meal had the added *option* of being served a hamburger (or if you could get some salad with the pure-meat feast), those people would be able to get something that they enjoyed, while people could still eat pure-meat or all-vegetable if they so prefer.


The question is really this: Would giving the option of hamburgers spoil things for the vegetarians (other than on a "But eating meat is eeeeevil!"-basis)?

This seems a bit weird to me too.

No, but the topic under discussion was the challenge level of the DA content and why it should or should not be changed to add bacon. I'm absolutely in favor of balanced nutrition (although my personal diet may be evidence to the contrary), but I'm not in favor of changing what we've been given right now.

Hopefully I'll see you in the officially designated thread for this discussion.

Well, not only that, but we actually did have trials already, and they aren't really like the iTrials in difficulty except in having overall time limits. Even granting that some have special team-focused division-of-labor tasks, like the Sewer Trial, they still aren't equipped with things like foes hardcoded to be level 54 (before level shifts).

I mean, for goodness' sake, the hero respecs are trials.

Yeah, in future arcs, I would not mind at all if there were AVs that scale down to EBs. When I'm taking on EBs with or without Purple Triangles of Doom, I don't really notice that much of a difference. Not to mention that there is a definite demographic that likes soloing AVs. These people should be allowed to have their cake and eat it too.

So yeah, if in a future arc where you're supposed to fight someone who is very large and in charge, having him as an AV that scales down to EB would feel just right. As I said, some of us barely notice the Purple Triangles.

That its detrimental is not particularly relevant. If the point of DA and its content is that its explicitly intended to serve a specific purpose, and that specific purpose is to provide an avenue for solo and small team players to have an incarnate content environment explicitly targeted at them, them its irrelevant if its not hard enough for some people. What's relevant is whether the content servers its intended target well first. Everything else should be a distant second. To the extent that the devs have decided to target a lower level of difficulty as part of that design, I think any suggestion claiming that increasing that difficulty better serves other people is irrelevant, and any suggestion claiming that increasing that difficulty would have no impact on the target audience should not be taken seriously without an extremely persuasive argument to back it up. In the absence of that, I don't see the point in taking the risk in this specific case.

You don't have to prove that changing it will have no impact on its intended target audience. But that doesn't alter the fact that my statement to the devs is in the absence of such proof, they should err on the side of not taking the risk.

No, its not. As proof, suggest something to the devs and see if the burden of proof is on them to prove your suggestion should not be done. QED.