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Update difficulty level scaling
pantagruel01
Posts: 7,091 Arc User
Currently, difficulty level scaling doesn't serve a lot of purpose -- you don't get anything out of running at higher difficulty, and the major effect of higher difficulty is higher tedium, not higher difficulty. So, my thoughts for principles behind a revamp:
- Unique rewards for high difficulty will cause accessibility complaints. Rather than doing that, give extra drop rolls for higher difficulty.
- Durability is not difficulty. If you can tank 800 dps, and a critter does 500 dps, increasing its hit points just makes it take longer. There should be some bump to durability, but smaller than the bump to drop rate.
- Damage, on the other hand, does increase difficulty. High end builds can handle quite a lot more dps than current critters put out, so some bump here is reasonable.
- Self-healing also bumps difficulty. Avoid percentage-based bonuses, though, anything relevant on a henchman will be silly on a legendary. Probably best to heal with a flat rate based on entity class -- x0.25 for H, x0.5 for V, x1 for MV/E, x2 for SV, x5 for L.
- Finally, threat management affects difficulty. Increase aggro radius and perception of critters.
- Avoidance Rating: +25% per level (20%/33%/43%/50% avoidance)
- Crit Probability: +10% per level
- Crit Severity: +10% per level
- Damage: +50% per level
- Damage Resistance: +20% per level
- Dodge Chance: +10% per level
- Healing: 50/sec per level at level 40, scaled for critter category
- Rewards: +100% per level (1 extra roll on drop tables per level)
- Normal: damage x1.025, effective hit points x1.02
- Hard: damage x1.635, effective hit points x1.29, healing 50/sec (effective 65)
- Very Hard: damage x2.35, effective hit points x1.61, healing 100/s (effective 161)
- Elite: damage x3.2, effective hit points x2.00, healing 150/s (effective 300)
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Epic Stronghold
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This is the only thing in your list I think would actually add anything. Otherwise, all your suggestions just narrow the type of builds that can participate, which runs completely counter to the core dynamic of the game.
Keep in mind that higher damage also adds tedium. It draws out the fights just like higher durability would for many people because they would have to be constantly retreating, or worse constantly respawning - often with enemies resetting to full health. There's not much skill a player can show when they're repeatedly being one-shotted. If that higher damage isn't attached to a mechanic that players can skillfully avoid, then you're really just forcing players to pile on more durability.
Elite difficulty should require high skill, not fotm builds or "LF2M need dedicated tank and healer".
You're not the cryptic dev team lead. You don't worry about realistically achievable, not your job.
Worrying about "realistic" or "achievable" or "feasible" or "possible" only leads to boring suggestions. Don't compromise on what you want just because of some myth that the devs can't do anything.
After all, what's the worst that could happen? Your "unreasonable" suggestion gets ignored along with the thousands of other "reasonable" requests that have been made over the years?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Running up walls is perfectly possible in the game as it stands they would just need to go through the whole thing and make walls a runnable surface and include animation for running (and lets face it crawling) on walls as well as new animations for using powers when on walls so running on walls is possible its just not realistically possible as it would mean a massive over hall of the game.
Epic Stronghold
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Epic Stronghold
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It locks people out in a way that is completely contrary to the game's core dynamic: customization.
For some insight into how this ends up working out, see: pvp.
Which is a bad thing, because it only limits participation further.
It's not actually. It's not much of a skill if you can have someone else completely do it for you. That's all that this would encourage by the way: more people copying each others builds just so they can win the content. That's why this sort of thing is always a dead end... eventually everyone just figures out the build they need to use, and then the content is trivialized and people quickly get bored. The major flaw in numbers based "difficulty", which becomes a massive flaw when applied in a game where players are meant to be customizing rather than calculating.
The encounter is meant to be challenging, but the challenge would never actually get a chance to assert itself... because we already have the builds that would be used to overcome it. It's not as if people would be figuring out new builds to do this content... they would just use the top specialized builds we already have since the top ends of min-maxing have already been reached.
Players already exhausted the potential for numbers based difficulty years before Cryptic would ever re-implement it.
It's not actually. Sitting around waiting for a tank and a healer isn't a skill. Rejecting people because they wouldn't make a "good team" because they decided to make characters rather than min-max'd builds is neither a skill, nor is it something that belongs in this game.
There are however difficulty levels that don't limit participation of those people engaging in the game's core mechanic.
Viper NPCs are largely recognized as being more challenging than most other groups. However, the way in which they are challenging in no way limits participation of any kind of build. Same with Ao'Qephoth - contrary to widespread speculation, he can be beaten by any group of builds, and a wide range of levels.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I highlighted the part that is an acceptable form of limiting participation in challenging content. Those people are unable to participate because they don't have the skills to beat the fight - in order to beat the fight, they do not have to change their build, they just have to learn to play better, something they can do while still using the customized bit of self expression that is their character.
They can also build to beat the fight. This is in fact the genius behind Ao, he has many different ways that players can become able to beat him, both through build and through skill... despite having so many ways that he can be beaten, he remains challenging for many players.
Challenging content in CO should be built by whoever made Ao'Qephoth.
Whoever made Bursts on the other hand should be switched to making costumes or something, because Bursts are pretty terrible all around - in fact, they exist as a testament to why the suggestion presented in the OP wouldn't work out very well.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
That's how real challenge works.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
If someone deems somethings unlikely to ever be implemented due to how much work they expect is involved, or rather see that work go into other stuff, they are allowed to say so.
Note that aswering a suggesting with "this is to much work, it's likely not going to happen, or has even been confirmed to not going to happen" is not saying, or even implying, you can't make those suggestions. Just like how you're free to make any suggestion you like, other players are free to consider them silly or a waste of dev time for CO (and make replies stating their opinions).
If anything, I'd like to see people stop implying that reasonable replies, without any insults, are unwelcome (I consider that rather rude). And if they really are unwelcome, maybe an open forum is not the best place to post your ideas.
Like "completely remake CO"? It could be so much better than the old CO... maybe.
But with the current dev team it would take years, in which time they'd have no time for maintaining CO. It is not only "can they do it if they want to", but also "is it worth spending the limited dev resources on, or is there something much better", low hanging fruits and all....
Wall running is perfectly doable, adding navmeshes is just a lot of work for little gain. So its unlikely to ever be implemented, which has been said quite often. But that is in no way different from lots of other stuff that takes a ton of work for little gains.
So to get a bit on topic, I agree adjustments to the difficulty buffs on mobs seems like an easy way to add a bit more challenge to CO. If it's doable maybe even add a mob multiplier to them, meaning that for every mob an additional identical mob is spawned.
Some of them, sure. How's that relevant?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Okay let's make a deal. Anyone who wants to make that sort of response can save themselves some time and just use the following form response:
[Insert cynicism].
Gets 100% of the message across, takes a lot less time to type, and nobody will feel the need to respond to it. Also if one person already made that response, nobody else has to. So efficient.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Actually, in this case, because of the sheer amount of content that would be affected by it, many people would be losing something - the chance to participate. And they'd be losing this something on a lot of content.
I'd be fine if they came out with a small number of numeric challenges, because obviously there are some people out there who would want to do them (and some of them might even keep finding excitement in them after having overcome the numbers). However, it'd be a waste to apply this to everything that has difficulty scaling. Realistically, you only actually need one of these number challenges, because ultimately no matter how many different encounters you apply this dynamic to it's always the exact same thing in every case.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Three years ago mobs were relatively hitting much harder, but even back then none was complaining the game was to hard. Also there is a reason there are multiple difficulty levels, changes to difficulty scaling will not break anything for anyone, you get to choose the one you like best.
Smarter mobs would be nice, but even new high profile games have pretty dumb combat AI, and CO is not really suited for Bayonetta style difficulty, so I won't expect much out of that.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
If difficulty scaling was changed, I'd prefer those things to drop on lower difficulty settings too.
Epic Stronghold
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This type of content wouldn't be optional for people with non-optimized builds... it would be restricted due to being impossible. Something cannot be restricted and optional.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Projecting a "bit"? Trying to make these kind of arguments about personal traits is getting a bit tiring.
A difficulty setting is content? Certain things dropping only on elite seems really easy to change to me.
You're making a mistake in trying to apply "restricted" and "optional" to the same thing. Setting difficulty to elite is (should be) fully optional but restricts some builds from soloing certain lairs. So people would have the option to lower their difficulty settings so they can solo everything in exactly the same way as they can now.
That is exactly why there is a difficulty setting in the first place. Really now, this stuff is not that complicated.
If it's so tiring, then stop doing that?
Yes, actually. Just like in WoW, where "Heroic Instances" were content.
You mean where I pointed out that something can't be restricted and optional at the same time?
It restricts some builds from even attempting lairs at that difficulty setting even if there's an entire group of them.
Or, people should have the option to try a more challenging experience without having to change their build. In fact, this should always be the goal in a game based around making a custom build.
It's not actually.
And yet you don't seem to understand it at all.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
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I do take care to avoid things like that.
I've never played wow, in CO difficulty settings are not, and the suggestions in the OP wouldn't make it so, and the suggestions that would make it so were not what you responded to.
Yup, those are not about the same thing. If you try to make them and then argue against it, that is a straw man argument.
So? Set the difficulty to something lower....
Challenging is not absolutely tied to difficulty settings, if your build (or player abilities) is not able to handle one setting, set it lower. You can make it exactly as challenging as you like.
Not going to get into a yes no shouting contest.
Sigh... maybe cool down a little?
Doing an update that increases damage and hp would LIMIT the number of builds and toons able to do the content. Which is the exact opposite of what a company wants to do in an MMO.
Yes, and that made them new content. What's your point?
Which is why it's restricted, because failure is dependent on build.
How is that different?
I never claimed it was possible. The claim I made was that the lock out doesn't have to be based on build.
^ this.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Such things have been considered content before. If you want to debate that, go ahead. I'm not going to - I'm just going to keep pointing out that such things have been considered content before.
You're not making sense at all here. Please elaborate exactly which of my statements you're talking about.
At which point you're basically saying the OP's idea should not be implemented because the core of his idea is a restrictive amount of numerical "challenge".
Or rather, you have to set the challenge lower because your choice of build restricts you from being able to choose the higher settings. On the other hand, if you have the right build, you're guaranteed to win at the highest setting. So, effectively, at no point is anyone actually being challenged - they're simply matching builds to "difficulty" settings. The system fails to achieve it's one explicit goal (just like now).
Strange response. I don't remember anyone typing in all caps.
...you want me to turn down the thermostat? I'd rather not, it's pretty cold here already.
^ this.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Why? If there are no things like only getting certain drops on the highest difficulty setting, why must any build be able to solo everything on any setting?
I can give you a reason why not.
With the current build options it is very easy to make a build that has is in no danger of dying in any lair. Any challenge starts with the possibility of failure.
I have never seen any suggestions for lairs that would adequately bridge the gap between the lowest and highest performance builds, and that would similarly challenge those builds on the same difficulty setting.
I don't consider voluntarily tying a hand behind my back a acceptable answer for that. So difficulty levels could be a way to keep things challenging for most builds.
And to clarify, I think the idea itself works like this.
At this time we have 5 difficulty settings, I'll call them 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (higher number means higher difficulty).
So to proposal as I see it is to make that 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.
If you are really of the opinion we also need 2 and 4, it is trivial to keep those, but in my opinion that would not be needed.
And lastly, even if this was changed, who is to say it is absolutely impossible to still solo lairs with any build on any difficulty. That would depend a lot on player skill... Sure it would require more skill than now, but there might be people who are able to pull it off.
That not anyone can, well... If the requirements becomes "solo, any build, any difficulty, any lair (which you can get in to alone), for any player" they'll probably need to make a game a lot easier than it is now.
But again, this is not excluding anyone, it is just that some people would set the difficulty a notch lower and still get similar rewards.
Difficulty settings in CO are not content.
That is in another game, which I have never played.
If in wow difficulty settings work the same as in CO, I wouldn't consider it content either.
And reading things like "Heroic mode changed the drop tables and changed critter mechanics", critter mechanics changes was in no way part of the OP. With sufficient changes like this it might be called content, though I still find it a bit dubious.
"Something cannot be restricted and optional."
You could argue it is not possible for X to be restricted and optional at the same time.
But in this argument X (difficulty setting) is optional since it would not add anything more than a few higher numbers to mobs. But Y (being able to complete a lair with such and such build and player skill, etc) is restrictive. They are related, but not the same, so nothing is claimed to be both restrictive and optional.
And besides I am not convinced something can't be restrictive and optional. For me some of the grindy sidequests in the latest dragon age game surely were.
Nope, you're making the same mistake again. Even though related, the restrictive and optional things are not the same.
That would only be true if CO was a fully mathematical game for players, which it is not.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Why is that so bad? So far you've claimed it's bad like it something that is universally accepted, but to me it isn't. Different difficulty settings for builds that perform differently seems like a pretty good idea, since tightly balancing the performance of all builds is not going to happen (even though it could be a lot better than it's now). And how is it not optional, hard becomes what elite is now (more or less), and elite gets harder (maybe even requiring a team), so.. play on hard when you play solo, what would stop you?
At this point it looks like it's to stroke your ego for being able to solo things on elite, which I don't think it a good reason to say it's a bad idea. If not, please give a reason why what we have now, is better then what is proposed in the OP.
Epic Stronghold
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Please explain in what way PVE would turn into the new PVP?
You're not losing if you play on a lower difficulty setting.
I agree rewards should not be skewed strongly towards playing on higher difficulty setting. Some more globals per kill (partly since it takes longer to kill mobs) and that's pretty much it.
But "objecting to different rewards" sounds hugely different than "objecting against any numerical difficulty changes". So that is really not a very good explanation for your position.
Tighter balance leads to more viable builds all by itself, build performance is only relative, nothing is absolute there... Before making difficulty changes I'd like to see much tighter balance overall, that is the only things that will reduce the limited FOTM choices, and also a requirement for me to figure out how much difficulty settings need changing.
Limiting them from playing at the highest difficulty level yes, we are agreed on that. But again that argument assumes the limitation is bad, I disagree and gave a reason why. But again, so far I have not seen any consistent reasoning (or clear explanation what it is you don't like) to support why it's bad.
And I do think it would be fun to see my tank builds be challenged a bit.
FWIW, nothing in my proposal buffs crowd control resistance, so CC would be far more useful than it is normally. You should like that...
Epic Stronghold
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The fact that the two -usual- naysayers referred to PvP shows alot about them, and how "suboptimal" builds they make which they "skillfully" use to solo content.
Elite difficulty is a joke atm. An inferno AT with green gear can solo pretty much everything. That shouldn't happen. This is a MMO, so teaming should be highly required in 50% of its content.
Pantagruel, I completely agree with your suggestions. Perhaps this would be a great way of inserting r6-7 mods in the loot tables of lair bosses on elite.
In one word as to why? FAIRNESS.
And if your build makes things easy, it should stay easy instead of being made harder on everyone else.
- Normal Test Dummy: 11,420 raw damage to kill
- Elite Test Dummy: 15,691 raw damage to kill (+40%)
- Normal Qularr (2 drone, 2 firebug): 63 dps (after mitigation)
- Elite Qularr: 95 dps (+50%)
So yeah, about where I was suggesting for Hard.Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained