Level 20 would probably be reasonable minimum level for alerts, seeing as the 'target level' is 30. That would make the adjustement range +10 <-> -10 levels. I don't know how that would work when/if level cap is eventually brought up to level 50.
Perhaps there could be a separate set of alerts for levels 6-20, another for 21-40 and later if the cap goes up, a third one for 41-50. The whole thing could still be deployed with just the 21-40 set implemented, and the level limit adjusted to 20-40 or even 15-40. Lower than that though, I think the difference in diversity of powersets would become just too great.
The only way I could imagine lower level players (6-14) to be reasonably included in current alert system, would be if they were offered some kind of 'powersuit' to use in the alert - basically swapping them into custom made powerset for the duration of alert, similar to how Destroid, Guard and Prisoner powersets work in Resistance. That way the level wouldn't really matter - but I still think it's kind of questionable to throw low level characters into alerts. Let them explore the game for a while first, where's the harm in that?
Let them explore the game for a while first, where's the harm in that?
Agreed.
There has been a lot of work done on the early game experience over the last year. Having alerts be focused on mid to max level characters (20 or 25 + ?) would not be inappropriate IMO.
I have been running alerts with a level 18 tank who is gradually levelling up. I use a combination of might melee, iron cyclone with vortex technique and regeneration as my passive. I am doing amazingly well on alerts, the tank pulls agro and holds it and succeeds at not dying in most situations, though I have been overwhelmed on a couple specific occasions, even managed to out-agro Silverspar once or twice (though Silverspar has managed out out-agro consistently as of the last few alerts I dropped into with the wolf).
Now, I take a level 40 glacier in. I manage but it's rough stuff. I look at the HP values, glacier sked down is far less then a sked up 20ish tank both con specced. I mentioned this before. And before I mused about would this be better with ideal gear (since let's face it, debugger hands out botttom of the line stuff).
Now, considering this, I compared notes with a few people in PTS and we are finding that 40's sked down to 30 in these alerts seem to be dying at random from one-shot spike damage hits from wash critters. IT's very chaotic and deadly if you are not defensively built with high con if you are sidekicked down. Not so rough if yo uare sked up. You might want to look at the HP scaling. I can't speak for the other attributes. But I figure poke the HP first, balance that, and then look for anything else that feels wrong. I will note, these assessments are largely last build. If you had any stealth HP changes this build, then forget what I said.
I will state I am very much in favor of the sidekicking rebalancing that you guys are performing. I just want to make sure it stays evenly balanced. It isn't so fun when I dive into a mission run with a lowbie friend of mine and I end up roflstomping everything before my buddy can lay down any attacks. I'd like some feeling of even footing... Perhaps Later I'll find a friend and we'll poke at level scaling at various levels of sidekicking.
I can say this for certain, current rules, level 18 tank with the proper advantages can hold his or her own wonderfully in an alert. I would not take a char below 15 into an alert lightly, and i DEFINITELY wouldn't even think of taking something below 10.
I'm using silverspar as a yardstick for tanking because that's a tank I see consistently in alerts tanking so It's something I can consistently compare against when I do the same.
I have been running alerts with a level 18 tank who is gradually levelling up. I use a combination of might melee, iron cyclone with vortex technique and regeneration as my passive. I am doing amazingly well on alerts, the tank pulls agro and holds it and succeeds at not dying in most situations, though I have been overwhelmed on a couple specific occasions, even managed to out-agro Silverspar once or twice (though Silverspar has managed out out-agro consistently as of the last few alerts I dropped into with the wolf).
(SNIP)
Well, I would estimate 14 would be the absolute minimum level to it (archetypes get block power), and some of the archetypes seem to get critical powers at level 17 (e.g. grimoire gets their heal at 17). So I guess 17 might work, yes. You're comparing level 18 freeform there to level 40 archetype though - and archetypes are a complitely different breed. Question is, what level can basic (free) archetypes contribute reasonably to the alerts - because that defines the level when characters should be 'ok' for joining.
Jeez, make it start at lvl 25-30 (or lvl when you get your Nem, if its gona be lowered any time soon).
Why? Because its a, Destroyer Factory, TT (no, the other one, with an egolomaniac perfection junkie with a clone army) and Burial Caves missions around this lvl - first MANDATORY to team missions.
Untill that point you have no forced teaming, and everything is pretty much soloable on any toon.
Unlike adventures and comic series, Alerts are designed to be for 5-men only, just like those missions (aka mobs with "Tough" perk), so IMO - thats how they should work.
Also - pls devs get rid of lvl 30 sidekicking thing. If you already use "scarry" mobs (which already should scale with toon they are fighting) why do we need to sidekick?
And for love of god - lower the health penalty for Sidekicking. 50% HP is way too much for sidekick from 40 to 30.
Jeez, make it start at lvl 25-30 (or lvl when you get your Nem, if its gona be lowered any time soon).
Why? Because its a, Destroyer Factory, TT (no, the other one, with an egolomaniac perfection junkie with a clone army) and Burial Caves missions around this lvl - first MANDATORY to team missions.
This is a good point. Until we see lower level group instances (which supposedly there's supposed to be one for Westside someday?) we really have nothing to compare it to besides these upper level instances.
Also - pls devs get rid of lvl 30 sidekicking thing. If you already use "scarry" mobs (which already should scale with toon they are fighting) why do we need to sidekick?
And for love of god - lower the health penalty for Sidekicking. 50% HP is way too much for sidekick from 40 to 30.
You're suggesting two things here, that we shouldn't sidekick, and that the penalties for sidekicking should be less. While these are conflicting with each other, I can agree with the latter.
We need sidekicking to make alerts fun for all parties. If we remained level 40, or scaled to level 40, then you'll have some people basically hogging all the action while others are kind of just there. The way we sidekick to 30, it makes the experience a bit more entertaining for everyone present, and more teamwork is needed to get the job done, since a level 30 isn't near the capacity a decked out level 40 is. It's an attempt to take the outright imbalance of the freeform system and bring it down to size so that people of most levels and builds can enjoy the content as it's meant to be, a group experience.
While I do agree with the sidekicking to bring everyone to a more reasonable strength, the health penalty does seem a bit much. It's very punishing for squishies and toons who use regen, as I've experienced. Maybe letting us have a little more of our max pool would be nice. The damage output feels about right, but people lose way too much health in the system.
You're suggesting two things here, that we shouldn't sidekick, and that the penalties for sidekicking should be less. While these are conflicting with each other, I can agree with the latter.
WHAT?!
Conflicting?
Its two different issues:
1) Since Allerts already use "Scarry" mobs (ones with Skull instead of lvl) there is no need to sidekick, unles devs screwd how scarry mobs work. In Bloodmoon we all run at our original lvl and everyone is happy because of "Scarry" mobs.
2)Penalty for sidekicking is too high (not only in alerts).
One problem with bringing sidekicking into alerts like this is... the original idea of sidekicking is that you have a friend who's significantly lower level than you - and you still want to play together when you are both around.. so you have the option of matching the levels with your friend. It's voluntary system that lets you play together with specific person you want to, and lets you temporarily set aside your level differences, pun unintended.
Alerts are apparently meant to be a major piece of content in CO, and bringing the sidekick system to them as a mandatory mechanic isn't at all same thing as it's original purpose. While originally it allowed you to play together with specific person, it now actually forces you out of your level progression whenever you are doing alerts.
If everyone is of equal 'level' on doing alerts, then where't the point of gaining levels? You don't feel any more powerful when fighting on alerts, if you always get scaled to same flat level. It's worse still if the scaling is so drastic that lower level players actually appear more powerful (even if it's to compensate their reduced number of powers). It puts the whole thing upside down, and you actually become less powerful as you level up.
Personally I think the scaling should be such that a lower level character, even sidekicked, should always be weaker than a character that actually is of the target level - and higher level character that sidekicks down should always be slightly more powerful than a character at the target level. Sidekicking should 'smooth out' the difference somewhat, but it should not remove it, and it certainly should not reverse it.
As for the alerts, I'm not really sure what this means. Probably the level range of alerts should be sufficiently narrow that sidekicking doesn't have to tweak the balance unreasonably - and like pointed above, with scary encounter tech, is there really a reason for sidekicking to begin with?
Edit: Now that I actually think of it, yes.. there's obvious reason to do the sidekicking in alerts. It's not so much in your relation to mobs as it is in relation to other characters in your team. A level 20 will not be as effective a healer as level 30 or 40 for example. The whole thing would fall apart if level 40 threw a bubble on level 6 tank.. 2000 points would last forever if the attacks scaled down to match a level 6 mob when hitting that tank. Overall to be useful when buffing eachother, the characters need to be of vaguelly similar relative power.
What comes to specifics of sidekicking balance, it probably isn't very simple or easy thing. How much difference is there between fully geared level 20, 30 and 40? What now might seem too drastic penalty from 40 to 30, might look different when the character is in full, modded gear. So... it's hard to say.
That said, I personally like scaling to level 30. It allows the devs to balance things for that level (short of the HP issue), verses trying to scale things based on the drastic power level differences of a level 40 (no mods, Rank 9 mods, etc).
That said, I personally like scaling to level 30. It allows the devs to balance things for that level (short of the HP issue), verses trying to scale things based on the drastic power level differences of a level 40 (no mods, Rank 9 mods, etc).
It might come from difference between characters that SS CON and those that don't. If you SS CON (and gear for it) then your health will go up quite a lot as you level. If you don't.. then the difference is much smaller.
Perhaps the sidekick system should focus more on just scaling the superstats, and bonuses from gear. But I guess even that gets tricky when you start dealing with specializations too.
First, I got an ranged dps char out at level 30. They had 3khp roughly.
Then, I got a level 40 ranged DPS char and sidekicked them down to 30. They had 2khp roughly
Then, I got a level 20 ranged DPS char and sidekicked them up to 30. They had 4K hp.
These are all BASE hp figures with minimal con. So....
The level 40 char ends up with less HP then it is possible to have at level 30 normally. 33% less. The level 20 char gets a 33% hp boost.
I also know that my SSed Con character goes from nearly 8000HP to 4000HP during an Alert at level 30. There's no way I only had that when I was that level normally.
The whole thing would fall apart if level 40 threw a bubble on level 6 tank.. 2000 points would last forever if the attacks scaled down to match a level 6 mob when hitting that tank.
What is Perfetcly fine. Since that lvl 6 char wont be just instant dead meat. Jeez, why no one had issue with BLOODMOON doing the very same thing? And when it came to Alerts - we suddenly all need to be the same lvl, and somehow that lvl happens to be 30 (why not 20? Or 34?) and somehow sidekicking down from lvl 40 cuts your HP in half, so now "MORE ANGRY" mobs can rofl-spike you.
I also know that my SSed Con character goes from nearly 8000HP to 4000HP during an Alert at level 30. There's no way I only had that when I was that level normally.
SS reduction would remove about 300 I think. 4000 might be what you'd have at level 30 with SS alone with zero gear, and perhaps innate talent. (So yes, it's totally broken)
What is Perfetcly fine. Since that lvl 6 char wont be just instant dead meat. Jeez, why no one had issue with BLOODMOON doing the very same thing? And when it came to Alerts - we suddenly all need to be the same lvl, and somehow that lvl happens to be 30 (why not 20? Or 34?) and somehow sidekicking down from lvl 40 cuts your HP in half, so now "MORE ANGRY" mobs can rofl-spike you.
What I meant is.. if scary tech lowers the mobs attacks on level 6 player to something like 10-15 damage a shot, then level 40 character slapping a 2000 point forcefield on that character is going to make them immortal. Failing that they can tap a brief heal, and the tank is going to be at full health in half a second. On the same count, if you have level 40 tank getting hammered by scary tech mob, a level 15 healer isn't going to be able to do anything to save them.
It probably isn't big issue in bloodmoon because people can just play solo and be self-sufficient.. and if it becomes a problem, they can voluntarily sidekick. It's more difficult for archetypes, where for example tanks don't really have any self-healing, so they have to depend on healers to provide that - and for that to work out, the healer must be comparable level.
Now, of course this could all depend on voluntary sidekicking, but then again, you don't really have time to organize that the way alerts are planned.. and taking 5 minutes to try and get sidekicking organized before every 2 minute alert wouldn't make much sense either.
Sidekicking is currently broken - yes.. but that's kind of separate issue. It needs to be fixed, alerts or not (but then you already said that).
I just had another shot at Draconis and my word he is a very hard target..
My toon was the Dex/End/Ego Electric crit build made even nastier with some recently modified gear - these Draysha enforcers just melt.
The mission was Pyramid power and I was in a team with a bunch of hi DPS types - I'm not sure what exactly was going on on the team buffing front coz I swear I had a few damage tics that were in excess of 8k with my Lightning Arc. That is a lot of mojo but even so every time we got the dratted forcefield down the darn thing regenned and we had to start again.
I would speculate that Doctor Ka or someone gave us a bit of a buffing and also that Drac got some kinda buff from the pyramid.
There were no slouches in the team (that I'm aware of) but I am sure glad that mish is not on a timer. Maybe he's a bit easier on other missions but if Pyramid power is anything to go by I seriously doubt any team could take Drac in a timed instance.
I just had another shot at Draconis and my word he is a very hard target..
My toon was the Dex/End/Ego Electric crit build made even nastier with some recently modified gear - these Draysha enforcers just melt.
The mission was Pyramid power and I was in a team with a bunch of hi DPS types - I'm not sure what exactly was going on on the team buffing front coz I swear I had a few damage tics that were in excess of 8k with my Lightning Arc. That is a lot of mojo but even so every time we got the dratted forcefield down the darn thing regenned and we had to start again.
I would speculate that Doctor Ka or someone gave us a bit of a buffing and also that Drac got some kinda buff from the pyramid.
There were no slouches in the team (that I'm aware of) but I am sure glad that mish is not on a timer. Maybe he's a bit easier on other missions but if Pyramid power is anything to go by I seriously doubt any team could take Drac in a timed instance.
You must have had a slouch or two because he went down easily enough with all the teams I was on, but I think I was doing somewhere around 30k a hit on an EGO/DEX/STR build.
Comments
Perhaps there could be a separate set of alerts for levels 6-20, another for 21-40 and later if the cap goes up, a third one for 41-50. The whole thing could still be deployed with just the 21-40 set implemented, and the level limit adjusted to 20-40 or even 15-40. Lower than that though, I think the difference in diversity of powersets would become just too great.
The only way I could imagine lower level players (6-14) to be reasonably included in current alert system, would be if they were offered some kind of 'powersuit' to use in the alert - basically swapping them into custom made powerset for the duration of alert, similar to how Destroid, Guard and Prisoner powersets work in Resistance. That way the level wouldn't really matter - but I still think it's kind of questionable to throw low level characters into alerts. Let them explore the game for a while first, where's the harm in that?
Agreed.
There has been a lot of work done on the early game experience over the last year. Having alerts be focused on mid to max level characters (20 or 25 + ?) would not be inappropriate IMO.
Now, I take a level 40 glacier in. I manage but it's rough stuff. I look at the HP values, glacier sked down is far less then a sked up 20ish tank both con specced. I mentioned this before. And before I mused about would this be better with ideal gear (since let's face it, debugger hands out botttom of the line stuff).
Now, considering this, I compared notes with a few people in PTS and we are finding that 40's sked down to 30 in these alerts seem to be dying at random from one-shot spike damage hits from wash critters. IT's very chaotic and deadly if you are not defensively built with high con if you are sidekicked down. Not so rough if yo uare sked up. You might want to look at the HP scaling. I can't speak for the other attributes. But I figure poke the HP first, balance that, and then look for anything else that feels wrong. I will note, these assessments are largely last build. If you had any stealth HP changes this build, then forget what I said.
I will state I am very much in favor of the sidekicking rebalancing that you guys are performing. I just want to make sure it stays evenly balanced. It isn't so fun when I dive into a mission run with a lowbie friend of mine and I end up roflstomping everything before my buddy can lay down any attacks. I'd like some feeling of even footing... Perhaps Later I'll find a friend and we'll poke at level scaling at various levels of sidekicking.
I can say this for certain, current rules, level 18 tank with the proper advantages can hold his or her own wonderfully in an alert. I would not take a char below 15 into an alert lightly, and i DEFINITELY wouldn't even think of taking something below 10.
I'm using silverspar as a yardstick for tanking because that's a tank I see consistently in alerts tanking so It's something I can consistently compare against when I do the same.
Well, I would estimate 14 would be the absolute minimum level to it (archetypes get block power), and some of the archetypes seem to get critical powers at level 17 (e.g. grimoire gets their heal at 17). So I guess 17 might work, yes. You're comparing level 18 freeform there to level 40 archetype though - and archetypes are a complitely different breed. Question is, what level can basic (free) archetypes contribute reasonably to the alerts - because that defines the level when characters should be 'ok' for joining.
Why? Because its a, Destroyer Factory, TT (no, the other one, with an egolomaniac perfection junkie with a clone army) and Burial Caves missions around this lvl - first MANDATORY to team missions.
Untill that point you have no forced teaming, and everything is pretty much soloable on any toon.
Unlike adventures and comic series, Alerts are designed to be for 5-men only, just like those missions (aka mobs with "Tough" perk), so IMO - thats how they should work.
Also - pls devs get rid of lvl 30 sidekicking thing. If you already use "scarry" mobs (which already should scale with toon they are fighting) why do we need to sidekick?
And for love of god - lower the health penalty for Sidekicking. 50% HP is way too much for sidekick from 40 to 30.
This is a good point. Until we see lower level group instances (which supposedly there's supposed to be one for Westside someday?) we really have nothing to compare it to besides these upper level instances.
You're suggesting two things here, that we shouldn't sidekick, and that the penalties for sidekicking should be less. While these are conflicting with each other, I can agree with the latter.
We need sidekicking to make alerts fun for all parties. If we remained level 40, or scaled to level 40, then you'll have some people basically hogging all the action while others are kind of just there. The way we sidekick to 30, it makes the experience a bit more entertaining for everyone present, and more teamwork is needed to get the job done, since a level 30 isn't near the capacity a decked out level 40 is. It's an attempt to take the outright imbalance of the freeform system and bring it down to size so that people of most levels and builds can enjoy the content as it's meant to be, a group experience.
While I do agree with the sidekicking to bring everyone to a more reasonable strength, the health penalty does seem a bit much. It's very punishing for squishies and toons who use regen, as I've experienced. Maybe letting us have a little more of our max pool would be nice. The damage output feels about right, but people lose way too much health in the system.
WHAT?!
Conflicting?
Its two different issues:
1) Since Allerts already use "Scarry" mobs (ones with Skull instead of lvl) there is no need to sidekick, unles devs screwd how scarry mobs work. In Bloodmoon we all run at our original lvl and everyone is happy because of "Scarry" mobs.
2)Penalty for sidekicking is too high (not only in alerts).
Where is conflict?
Perhaps I misread you then. My apologies.
Alerts are apparently meant to be a major piece of content in CO, and bringing the sidekick system to them as a mandatory mechanic isn't at all same thing as it's original purpose. While originally it allowed you to play together with specific person, it now actually forces you out of your level progression whenever you are doing alerts.
If everyone is of equal 'level' on doing alerts, then where't the point of gaining levels? You don't feel any more powerful when fighting on alerts, if you always get scaled to same flat level. It's worse still if the scaling is so drastic that lower level players actually appear more powerful (even if it's to compensate their reduced number of powers). It puts the whole thing upside down, and you actually become less powerful as you level up.
Personally I think the scaling should be such that a lower level character, even sidekicked, should always be weaker than a character that actually is of the target level - and higher level character that sidekicks down should always be slightly more powerful than a character at the target level. Sidekicking should 'smooth out' the difference somewhat, but it should not remove it, and it certainly should not reverse it.
As for the alerts, I'm not really sure what this means. Probably the level range of alerts should be sufficiently narrow that sidekicking doesn't have to tweak the balance unreasonably - and like pointed above, with scary encounter tech, is there really a reason for sidekicking to begin with?
Edit: Now that I actually think of it, yes.. there's obvious reason to do the sidekicking in alerts. It's not so much in your relation to mobs as it is in relation to other characters in your team. A level 20 will not be as effective a healer as level 30 or 40 for example. The whole thing would fall apart if level 40 threw a bubble on level 6 tank.. 2000 points would last forever if the attacks scaled down to match a level 6 mob when hitting that tank. Overall to be useful when buffing eachother, the characters need to be of vaguelly similar relative power.
What comes to specifics of sidekicking balance, it probably isn't very simple or easy thing. How much difference is there between fully geared level 20, 30 and 40? What now might seem too drastic penalty from 40 to 30, might look different when the character is in full, modded gear. So... it's hard to say.
http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=145106
That said, I personally like scaling to level 30. It allows the devs to balance things for that level (short of the HP issue), verses trying to scale things based on the drastic power level differences of a level 40 (no mods, Rank 9 mods, etc).
It might come from difference between characters that SS CON and those that don't. If you SS CON (and gear for it) then your health will go up quite a lot as you level. If you don't.. then the difference is much smaller.
Perhaps the sidekick system should focus more on just scaling the superstats, and bonuses from gear. But I guess even that gets tricky when you start dealing with specializations too.
I also know that my SSed Con character goes from nearly 8000HP to 4000HP during an Alert at level 30. There's no way I only had that when I was that level normally.
What is Perfetcly fine. Since that lvl 6 char wont be just instant dead meat. Jeez, why no one had issue with BLOODMOON doing the very same thing? And when it came to Alerts - we suddenly all need to be the same lvl, and somehow that lvl happens to be 30 (why not 20? Or 34?) and somehow sidekicking down from lvl 40 cuts your HP in half, so now "MORE ANGRY" mobs can rofl-spike you.
SS reduction would remove about 300 I think. 4000 might be what you'd have at level 30 with SS alone with zero gear, and perhaps innate talent. (So yes, it's totally broken)
What I meant is.. if scary tech lowers the mobs attacks on level 6 player to something like 10-15 damage a shot, then level 40 character slapping a 2000 point forcefield on that character is going to make them immortal. Failing that they can tap a brief heal, and the tank is going to be at full health in half a second. On the same count, if you have level 40 tank getting hammered by scary tech mob, a level 15 healer isn't going to be able to do anything to save them.
It probably isn't big issue in bloodmoon because people can just play solo and be self-sufficient.. and if it becomes a problem, they can voluntarily sidekick. It's more difficult for archetypes, where for example tanks don't really have any self-healing, so they have to depend on healers to provide that - and for that to work out, the healer must be comparable level.
Now, of course this could all depend on voluntary sidekicking, but then again, you don't really have time to organize that the way alerts are planned.. and taking 5 minutes to try and get sidekicking organized before every 2 minute alert wouldn't make much sense either.
Sidekicking is currently broken - yes.. but that's kind of separate issue. It needs to be fixed, alerts or not (but then you already said that).
My toon was the Dex/End/Ego Electric crit build made even nastier with some recently modified gear - these Draysha enforcers just melt.
The mission was Pyramid power and I was in a team with a bunch of hi DPS types - I'm not sure what exactly was going on on the team buffing front coz I swear I had a few damage tics that were in excess of 8k with my Lightning Arc. That is a lot of mojo but even so every time we got the dratted forcefield down the darn thing regenned and we had to start again.
I would speculate that Doctor Ka or someone gave us a bit of a buffing and also that Drac got some kinda buff from the pyramid.
There were no slouches in the team (that I'm aware of) but I am sure glad that mish is not on a timer. Maybe he's a bit easier on other missions but if Pyramid power is anything to go by I seriously doubt any team could take Drac in a timed instance.
You must have had a slouch or two because he went down easily enough with all the teams I was on, but I think I was doing somewhere around 30k a hit on an EGO/DEX/STR build.