06.11.06
Arch-Villian Petition
Normally I never participate in forums threads or make much noise in any other way when it comes to MMOs. I think the community is loud enough. But this Arch-Villian change wasn’t just a disapointing nerf, like the Leadership. Those make me breifly sad and then I move on. This Arch-Villian problem is an actual wall that prevents the entire SG from making any progress at all. Here is a record of my petition to CoH support. I doubt it will be very long and will be full of canned responses, but I wanted to let the SG see the progress, or lack thereof.
Original Petition, short and to the point. Not a lot of room in that box:
“Just spent the entire day trying to kill AVs. With a full group of 8 on Herioc difficulty we couldn’t even get the HP bar to move. Even with radiation and holds the regen was faster then we could do damage.”
Support Reply:
Hello Eric,
Thank you for contacting PlayNC Support.
With the release of Issue 7, Arch Villains/Heroes and Giant Monsters have been adjusted and now ignore threat level damage multipliers for different Archetypes. They have also had their health and regeneration rates increased, as well as the damage they deal.
For more information regarding the changes made in Issue 7, please visit the Patch Notes section listed below:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/patch_notes.htmlPlease let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
Regards,
GM Marc
Soa’s Reply:
Well aware of the changes, that was the point of the petition. Here is more details on our experience. First AV we fought we fought was “Neuron” or “Neutron”, not too great with that name. Anyway, we had a full group of 8. 50 Fire / Ice Tanker, 50 Broadsword / Regen Scrapper, 50 Gravity / Bubble Controller, 49 Fire / Ice Tanker, 49 Empathy / Dark Defender, 48 Spines / Regen Scrapper, 48 Illusion / Bubble Controller, 47 Blaster (not sure exactly the type). We beat on him for 30 minutes without moving his bar, well it did move down a sliver, but then right back up to full again. We realized the reputation was on Invincible and changed it to Heroic. Same results. Lots of time and debt later and he was sitting pretty at full health. We were able to finally defeat him after playing musical characters. Had to sacrifice our only healer for a Radiation / Ice Controller. With the Radiation and occasional holds we were able to slowly beat him down, but not after he fully regenerated a few times.
Next AV was Infernal. We were not so lucky to have that full group of 8. We lost the 47 Blaster and 49 Fire / Ice Tank. Nothing else in the group changed. We kept the mission at Heroic and on top of that the AV was only level 48. After over 30 minutes of hammering on him he wasn’t even scratched.
Many of the players in the group mentioned that had at one time soloed this AV, which I’m guessing is one of the reasons you increased their difficulty. I don’t think somebody should be able to solo an AV, but I think what you have done is balanced with a sledge hammer and taken it to the other extreme. I don’t think it is horribly wrong for a small group of even two or three to be able to take an AV on Heroic. Especially since a good number of missions in the upper 40s have Avs. But now only a full, perfect group can even stand a chance at killing an AV. That goes against what CoH is about.
CoH has never been a game that only appealed to the “hardcore”. It was the only MMO that I have been able to hit the level cap by just playing with a few friends. It didn’t require, until now that is, that you were always in a full, perfect group. Seemed it was the only MMO that realized games were about just having a good time.
06/ 12/06 Reply:
Hello,
Thank you for writing back with your concerns over the recent changes with Issue 7. There will be some more upcoming changes made to the Archvillains and Giant Monsters difficulty, mostly thanks to the player feedback that has been posted on the forums.
Here is what Positron and _Castle_, two of the Cryptic Development Teams top designers, had to say on the forums in response to player feedback:
Please keep an eye on the forums and patch notes for further updates on this issue.
Thank you and Best Regards,
GM Kagasumi
PlayNC Support
Snippet from Positron thread:
Upon further review of the change, and your empassioned pleas, we are going to scale back the regen rate buff of the Archvillains and Giant Monsters by 80%.
Basically they will be tougher than they were before, but in comparison to how tough we made them in Issue 7, they will be only 20% tougher. (Example: if prior to I7, an AV had a regen rate of “100 points per second”, and afterwards it was “1100 points per second” we are making it “300 points per second”.)
I want to thank you all for your constructive posts. We used many as examples and tested those exact scenarios here in the office. Giving us solid data to compare against like “we went up against Positron who was Level 41, and we were a Fire/Energy Dom, Energy/Energy Brute, etc.” goes a long way.
Thanks again.
Sounds like they are going to fix it. That is fan-fucking-tastic. Hopefully it by next weekend. Would be nice to play our high level toons again. Running out of non-AV missions.