Difficulty of Tiers and How They Prepare for T5/T10

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[Subdued]

There's a thread ongoing regarding the difficulty of T9 and a handful of mentions of the steps it takes towards getting a player prepped for the slap in the face that T10 entails for an unprepared player.  I think this issue exists, to a smaller extent, in lower tiers as well.  Here's my feeling on the difficulty of tiers as you progress:

PoTime:  Just right for a fresh 70.  

Terrorantula:  Probably a bit on the tougher side but it's ok.

LDoN:  Just right without higher player buffs.  I think to make this just right for new players, you remove higher tier buffs and let the buff bot give you about 10-15k hp worth of buffs for a small cost (maybe 20k plat)

Qvic:  See LDoN.  Breaking into Qvic without buffs is actually a lot of fun.  Difficult and rewarding.

CT:  Could probably use a 10-20% increase in mob damage and would like to see an emphasis on boss mobs being useful.  Just killing trash for molds makes this zone feel unfinished.

T1/T2:  Both a boring and unchallenging zone.  I don't think just increasing mob damage will help.  A re-working of the overall mechanics would be nice.

T3/T4:  I'm ok with it.  Difficulty is fine.  I'd probably up the outgoing DPS of the boss mobs and add some AE damage to them to encourage players to work on oracle charms and active healing in preparation for T5.  Mob/boss HP are fine, though.

T5:  Just right.  I'm actually ok with T5 overall. The corals are a bit punishing for a first timer.  That's the only part I found very annoying my first time through.

T6:  A well-developed zone.  Difficulty is good.  I'd probably increase boss difficulty a bit (more HP/more outgoing DPS)

T7:  Another good zone.  Shadowmane AOE damage can really hurt a lot which I'm ok with.  I actively worked on heroic resists again to counter it a bit.  The mechanics of chasing bosses all around the zone is fairly awful, though. It needs to be addressed, in my opinion.

T8:  Another zone that has a bit of challenge as it relates to pulling mob packs. Mobs have good amount of health and put out enough damage to be dangerous, particularly late roaming guardians which can crush your DPS from behind.

T9:  See the other thread: way too easy and boring overall zone mechanics.  BP is impossible to spawn unless you deliberately slow down your kill rate and AFK between undead respawns/befallen respawn.  I can spawn BP with 2 full undead clears and 1 befallen undead clear.  If I kill things in between those undead respawns I'll get an HG spawn instead.  Would like to see things hit harder and would like to see armor upgrades in zone be more meaningful to allow you to increase your viability in the zone. As it currently stands, the only meaningful power increase in the zone is level'ing up.

Kathina
78 Warr

[Rent Due]

Good post. $$

[Kruciel]

T7:  Another good zone.  Shadowmane AOE damage can really hurt a lot which I'm ok with.  I actively worked on heroic resists again to counter it a bit.  The mechanics of chasing bosses all around the zone is fairly awful, though. It needs to be addressed, in my opinion.

While I can't touch on the difficulty of the earlier tiers simply because of how long it's been combined with how many changes and catchup mechanics were added in the form of expeditions, this part I feel I can address a bit. Seeing as the boss-chasing doesn't really add any difficulty whatsoever. It does, however, accomplish two things:

1) It makes the zone absolutely awful to farm for essences. This could be fixed by adding the original essence droprate back to the Bloodmoon expedition.
2) It actually does add a difficulty in a way, by forcing you to accommodate how fast you clear the zone and then move around to kill all of the boss chains afterwards. In other words, it pushes you to be efficient and possibly set up a few CoH anchors around the zone. I remember this is the zone that made me buy 4 additional CoH reward items just to make it less hectic on farming.

So, while a change to the boss cycle does rub me the wrong way a bit, maybe we could settle for allowing the first 2 bosses of the chain to spawn directly on top of the 'vampiric bat' and the rest of the chain continue to be a random spawn. Another option is to just remove the shit locations at the dead end parts of the zone, such as the two graveyard spawns and the minotaur cave spawn, maybe the island in the middle of the lake spawn as well.

[Subdued]

My idea was making each boss type spawn very close to each other, that way you could keep them on the same spawn intentionally and round them all up at once.  Worst case you criss-cross the zone 7 or 8 times or whatever, instead of 20-30+.

[Rent Due]

What would be "wrong" with adding a few zone portals? Leave all the spawns as is.

One at the zone in area that takes  you to the lake and back

One at the upper right camp on the zone floor that goes to the graveyard and back

[Blurring]

The zone was originally setup to encourage player cooperation. (Ring a bell with T10 instances?) Originally none of the trash dropped essences at all, you actually had to "beat" the zone to get the essences.

I don't really care how much more ya'll nerf it, just remember the original intent as you all decide how easy things should be.

[Subdued]

Not asking for T7, or anything else, to be easier.  If anything, I'm asking for most places to be harder.

Asking for a mechanic that causes unnecessary frustration to be altered.  If you want to slightly reduce the drop rate of LP essences to compensate for the ease of traveling the zone, go for it.  Having to run around the zone doesn't make it harder in any way.  There's nothing challenging about it in its current state.  I generally alt-tab to chrome as I run across the zone, or look at the internet on my phone.  Whatever the original intention is, it doesn't work anymore because nobody is cooperating in the zone. 

I'm all for you guys honoring Hunter but I think it goes a bit overboard sometimes.  Hunter wouldn't have wanted outdated mechanics to stay in place.  I think by keeping something unchanged that could make the server better, you're dishonoring him, instead.  Food for thought.

To reiterate:  I want nothing to be made easier.  Make every tier more challenging and I'd find that an improvement.  I hate trivial snorefests.

[Blurring]

I just feel like we're mistaking "unnecessary frustration" with a reluctance to innovate and overcome challenges. I know I'm being a jerk but honestly every time I read these threads (keep in mind the server has become exponentially easier over the years with the addition of spells and every other thing), I just feel like you could cut to the chase and replace EZ with http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/

[Rent Due]

While that link provided no entertainment, I now see your point.

As a player, T7 encouraged me to donate to the server to get CoH items, it also encouraged me to have 3 mages.

Yes, if players played with another player in the zone it wouldn't be as frustrating to run for bosses, but it would still be a facepalm.

Making the run across the zone or not making the run only affects time. It doesn't make the boss mob any harder or easier.

The only thing it affects is the amount of time you have to clear before respawn. So I guess you can say the zone is harder if you have to run to each boss because you may run out of time before respawn happens. Which does teach you to be faster, or at least encourages you to speed up.

So, on the other hand, if there was a zone function that allowed you to cut that time in half it would take you less time to kill the bosses and therefore you get the zone cleared before respawn.

Either way, once the zone is cleared it is repopped.

The argument here is, make the zone bosses able to be cleared faster or not. Faster = easier? Slower = harder?

What if a zone function was put into place (transports) and the bosses received an upgrade in power to compensate? Meaning you get your "frustrating" run cut in half, but the bosses you have to kill become harder. Everything has a compromise. And making one thing "easier" needs to be offset.

Thoughts?

[Subdued]

I'm not looking for LP farming to be easier, just less irritating.  If you added the porters and reduced the trash mob drop rate of LPs by 50%, I think the zone would be more enjoyable and the rate of LPs would be around the same as it is now.

[Rent Due]

No one wants less essences to drop, just FYI.

bad trade off lol

[Raygan]

I like the idea of making mobs harder if you use teleports....how about making them T10 hard?!  That way people in zone can still have the option to do it "the old fashioned way' and it challenges those people who are farming t10!

[Subdued]

No, you'd gain more LPs by killing bosses faster and offset that with less LPs from trash mobs is what I'm saying. Trying to keep the overall rate the same.

[Raygan]

Of course I still think that level restricting buffs is a sure fire way to make content more challenging and not steam rolling it.

T10 buffs should only be able to be used on t9-t10 toons.

t9 buffs on t8-t10.

t8 on t7-t10.

t7 on t6-t10.

t6 on t5-t10.

t5 on t4-t10.

etc, etc.


I see too many people asking "buffs available any time soon" far too much.  The reason being it allows people to run in and cold smoke the content!  Then they hit later tiers and are like OMG this is actually challenging!

[Kruciel]

The server has seen many changes, both good and bad. For instance, when expeditions were first put in, the essence droprate was way too high for the type of essences offered in them. I literally knocked out 200+ dminors, dmajors, gminors, gmajors, and LP essences within 3 months or so just from doing Dranik and Bloodmoon every day. Gmajors and LP essences are absolute shit to farm normally, so I was more than happy to truck thru the expeditions every reset.

Anyhow, point remains the same. LP farming blows ass. There's no reason to cherish "running around" as some form of difficulty or say "ya well I did it the old way, fuck changing things quit crying noobs" I mean, as an older player I understand the gut reaction to go along that line, but seriously out of all 10 tiers, t7's merry-go-round is the one thing that makes me glad I was around when Bloodmoon dropped LP essences. Maybe it's just me feeling guilty of  basically speeding thru two full Ult Weapons just for being around at the right time.

I do kind of like the idea of adding a set of portals, maybe to go from the graveyard area to the lake / theater. I think as long as it's a single set of portals, it won't be over the top and it'll still leave plenty of room to encourage having a few CoH anchors in other spots in the zone.

Quality of Life changes aren't usually over the top nerfs in my opinion. The current state of UC1 via Prismatic Charms is probably the biggest nerf to the original grind more than anything else.

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