Faster Shield Regen for Raid Mobs

[Algaron [BTL]]

Here we go again. It appears the developers of this game seem to think that the only way to extend a raid event is by making the Raid Boss or mobs hit for so much damage that half the raid will be incapped and everyone will be spending their time Jump Starting and spamming Hull Patch and Shield Recharge. And while we are at it, let's increase the Raid Boss shields by ten fold into the millions. All very unnecessary. Every mob in this emulation has shields that are 10-20 times that of Live. How do you think they were able to have mobs last half a second in Live with their tiny shields in the first place?

 

I have suggested this before, and so have many others. Instead of going massive shields and one shot damage from mobs, we should be increasing their shield regen rate. When It was possible for a solo JD to take out GoBB, it was suggested then to make his shield regen so fast that one JD could not possibly solo it. Instead they made it so not only could Gobb see cloaked to prevent this, but every other mob in the game as well. There is absolutely no reason to have mobs with shields in the millions. None whatsoever. 

 

If you want to have groups of 3 or 4 take down a raid, and last longer than 15 minutes, make it so the shields on these mobs regen at such a rate, that it would take the combined DPS of 3 or 4 groups to make a dent. The mobs shield didn't stop when hit like players do but kept regenerating constantly.

 

A perfect example of fast shield regen was Nathan Zhao. This mob has a shield cap of 100k That's 100 000, not 10 million. And yet this mob was able to take on an entire server at once. It would fly around the Sol system (his brothers were in Mars and Aragoth)  and one-shot unsuspecting players at will. The only way to stop him was to gather enough people (half of Andromeda at the time) and to keep firing on him until he died. 

 

So Developers, please get off this more damage - more shields fetish you seem to have. Not every mob in this game needs to hit like a truck. Tone down the damage and shield caps and increase the regen rate of the shields.

 

[Terrell [BT]]

I have to agree with that Algaron.  We should keep the Scan skill/See Cloaked to very few mobs in game.  Cloak is one of the Jenquai race's key skill, and along with our much lower base signatures, is there to make up for our poor shields, weak hulls, and short ranged racial weapon. 

 

I do think that the way to go is to further the abilities of mobs, but not making them 1 shot everyone or seeing cloaked.  IMO it can solve two problems.  As mobs can do more, give counters/heals to the Scout, Seeker, and Privateer.  (each heal/counter, being class exclusive, so that they're not interchangeable.)   It makes the raids more challenging, and makes the new classes more useful without hurting the original 6 classes.  Counters/heals for the Scout, JT, and PT can be in the form of new device effects for the JT & Scout, the PT is missing a skill, so that's another place to work with.  Also except for the JE and PE no other class has L135 affiliation skills.  IMO this is the way to go on that. long term.

[GenghisBob]

I am one of those people that think equipment on MOBs should act similar to the same equipment on player characters.

 

Shields do not recharge while taking damage.  Mine don't.  Mobs should not either.

 

Beams and projectiles only fire forward for players and NPCs.

 

Hulls should not regenerate on MOBs either.  Not sure if this is true or not, if I get a MOB to hull, I usually can kill it.

 

Maybe they can nerf all our weapons instead.   Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding.  :-)

[Algaron [BTL]]

Speaking of Nathan Zhao - can we put these mobs back in game?

[Zackman [LDEV]]

It appears the developers of this game seem to think...

 

 

I give you a "D" for the start of an "constructive posting".

 

 

 

Instead of going massive shields and one shot damage from mobs, we should be increasing their shield regen rate.

 

There is no shield recharge at all while taking damage. Changing the shield charge rate = useless.

Algeron, i wonder....you remember being a part of the test we had in march (internal Dev server), testing the new Raid Mechanism we are currently designing? So why this thread now?
I suggest putting this topic completely to a hold until the ongoing work has been finished.

[Hobbs]

There is no shield recharge at all while taking damage. Changing the shield charge rate = useless.

 

Yes, agreed.  And I am putting this on hold as you wish.

 

There are however a few devices, usually for a PS, that are worthless since there is no shield recharge until 6 seconds after the last damage you take, as it is now, unlike it was in Live, when your shield (and the mobs) did not react the same way. 

 

This, I believe, is their point.  Back then you could regen shields faster than your mob could damage you, in some cases.  Mobs then also had this ability.  As it is now your L150 PW with a CFB can sit next to a low level mob that can do 1 damage to you every 5 seconds or less, and eventually that mob will kill you, unlike Live.

 

I am not complaining, or asking for a change, and you are probably aware of this and working on it, or have it on a list.

 

/pressing the hold button ^_^

[Zackman [LDEV]]

uuuhhmm.....you say in live shields where recharging while(!) taking damage?

Can anyone confirm this as i remember this different (for 99%) - i remember it took 10s after last damage, before recharge started again.

[SiSL]

uuuhhmm.....you say in live shields where recharging while(!) taking damage?

Can anyone confirm this as i remember this different (for 99%) - i remember it took 10s after last damage, before recharge started again.

 

I remember it same as it is now Emu as well... Can't say I remember duration, but there was always always a pause... 

 

People always giving low level mobs examples, which they forget, they fire slower and because of CL difference they miss a lot therefor letting shield recharge always... I forgot my ship in middile of Luna aggressives today and still alive after 5 hours of sleep... It is not because shield was recharging... 

Edited April 8, 2013 by SiSL

[Algaron [BTL]]

I just pointed out that they did in fact recharge while taking damage, Nathan Zhao never stopped recharging his shields with 100k shield cap he would be dead rather quickly if he didnt have high resistances and a fast regen. Not all mobs need to keep regening shields while taking damage but as surely as I am Jenquai, you can bypass the code where raid bosses stop regening shields? Of course right now there is no shield recharge while taking damage. That's my whole point. Make it so end game mobs CAN regen while taking damage and increase the recharge rate so that it take more groups - more DPS to take it down. Raid bosses don't need to be like players - they are raid bosses for pete's sake. 

 

This would lengthen the raid encounter, you could get rid of the dumb things like see cloak for every mob, so there would be no whining about how jenquai can solo end game content like GoBB. BTW faster regen was suggested for GoBB long before it was decided to make all raid bosses see cloak to stop JD's from soloing it.  And now we want to increase the damage output of even more end game mobs that never did 1/10th the damage they ever did in Live?? 

[Klyde]

I sense a bit of frustration in your posts. Step back, have a drink or a smoke and chill a bit. :)

 

Catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

 

I kinda remember the raid mobs having smaller shields and being harder to take down in old live. But then again, I was usually busy healing the group and didn't have time to watch the mobs too much.

[Algaron [BTL]]

Nah I am not frustrated. And as always it is only a suggestion, and one I think I have said all I wanted to say.

[dgvol]

I do recall needing to swap ammo types mid raid.. just can't recall if that was because bosses were different resistances or if they buffed themselves..

[Stanig[IS]]

Mobs had different resistances.  Controller was notorious for it (some drones were weak to chem, others to plasma). 

 

The raid rebalancing is still a work in progress, we just sent out the first wave of changes a week or two ago (ArenZael the master in the fishbowl).  There may (will) be more to come, just takes time man.

[karu [WDL]]

I dont remember mobs shields regenerating either. One good example is the Voltoi boss. One of the group memebers kept firing him when other took care of minions so that shields would not regen.

Shield regen might of been enabled on some mobs (like Nathan Zao who I never met), but it sure was not enabled for all mobs/bosses.

I'm all for it tho. Like the saying goes... be careful what you wish for. Can be fun ;-)

[efialtis]

I have said this in a couple of other threads but i'll repeat here.

Mobs AND players would constantly recharge their shields regardless of damage taken.

That was the great strength of Progen Sentinels and the slew of shield recharge related devices that are in game but its use is forgotten now. Even the recharge of shields buff on the Intent engine would make a terran as tough as nails to kill like a progen warrior up to a point.

That was the way that one little mob couldn't match or overcome your shield recharge so it would be able to kill you.

That was the way to have more players or groups tackle a raid boss and bring it down as only a couple of toons wouldnt outdamage its shield recharge.

Now even pictures can not confirm this element from old Live but i hope enough players that remember this will see the topic and verify.

I would love to see this back but i also understand the redisign/rebalancing that has to take place before this can happen.

[karu [WDL]]

I have said this in a couple of other threads but i'll repeat here.
Mobs AND players would constantly recharge their shields regardless of damage taken.

Good try, but no. Shield recharge was there so you shields would recharge when you took break from damage. For progen sentinels that was powerdown, for every other class (except TT duh), that was warp away. That was solo play.
 

[Taluna6]

Dunno if Player shields recharged but i think i remmeber a case where a couple of ppl managed to spawn scooter after hours and werent able to kill him (i think of the recharge vs DMG output ) i remmeber my guild leader gathered a strong group of us (1 JE 1TT 4 PW) we buffed like hell with toons and some guild members alts and went directly into the scooter raid.. and what can i say we got the kill and even the credits. so it could really been that some raid bosses had rechargin shields like Efialtis said.

[Algaron [BTL]]

Ok I just want to make a point perfectly clear for the Devs and anyone else concerning Raid mechanics. Zack I understand about the new mechanics, but comparing those new mechanics and shield regeneration are apples and oranges, a horse of different colour, three of these things are not like the other...etc.  ^_^ I wasn't really talking about adding new game mechanics to raid bosses, with more fire power, new abilities or skills, or anything like that.  So I am unsure where you are coming from really. All I suggested was that high end mobs, (again not every mob in the game) would continuously recharge their shields at a faster rate,  so that it would take more than one toon or a multiboxer to take it out. Once again I point back to GoBB of old where 1 Solo JD could take him out because of cloak. The new raid mechanics with Aren'Zael really have nothing to do with my suggestion. It just seems like a lot of work to add skills, increase fire power etc, when a simple solution would be to just increase the regen rate and extend the event that way. 

 

Pardon me if I say this but it seems to me that developers are stuck on the notion of new skills, more massive damage, and other mechanics to make raids either last longer or to make it harder to complete, and don't get me wrong, I am all for that. However, that seems like a lot of extra work and tweaking to make it work right, whereas increasing the regen rate of it shields would be simple enough, compared to the 5 or 6 things one would need to do to add the new raid mechanics you speak of. Again not every end game boss needs to have a Super strike or do massive damage attack every few seconds. Some raid boss like Zenrei Tempest are just fine the way they are, and do NOT need to have massive damage like some devs would want to do.

 

 BTW Tempest had her shields at 700k originally, spawned with 6 44+ Manes in the first wave and 6 Oni's that healed her constantly in the second wave. As well there were 2 Zenrei Tempest Guardians L50 , both transparent blue that played summon ping pong with groups. They were eye candy and dropped no loot. To make this event last longer than the 5 mins it does take, lets make it so her shields regen faster so that it would take much more DPS to take her down. She doesn't need to wipe out half the raid in the process. Being incapped never makes for a fun raid. (I can source this info from Live if asked)

 

Oh and for the purists who say that mobs and players should be the same in respect to shield regen, like when players get hit, their shields stop regening - so should mobs, well no thats not the case for raid mobs. If we were the same I would expect to have my Super Strike available to me every 60 seconds as well. 

 

At any rate people, it's only a suggestion to extend the raids a little longer, without the need for even more mechanics to be added, tweaked, broken, with even more and more damaged applied, etc. Sorry if you read anything else into what I posted.

[Algaron [BTL]]

Just to add: I sure would like to see Nathan Zhao and his brothers added into the game.  :)

[GenghisBob]

I really don't remember if shields regenerated under fire in Original Live or not.  I thought they did but that was long ago....

 

I don't mind if they do or don't in the EMU, as long as it's consistent.  They do for everyone or they don't. 

 

Being a 'boss' shouldn't mean the game mechanics change.  Their beams and projectiles shouldn't fire backward like missiles, their hulls shouldn't regenerate, etc.

 

Now, it everyone's shields regenerated at their normal rate, the 'bosses' normal rate could be much higher than the players.  That would not seem inappropriate.  Just don't know if the re-balancing would be too difficult.

[Terrell [BT]]

I do think that the mobs should get new skills, debuffs etc over the course of the game.  I think that will help the Scout, Seeker, and Privateer, find their place in the universe, by taking counters to the new abilities in mobs, and dividing them up among the new classes.   IMO it's an improvement to the game, compared to the original, & helps the new classes, without hurting the original classes.

[Darkdronen]

Well i can see how increasing shield regen rate makes the raid longer, but could it be possible that Devs look at the devices in game and cater the bosses to them such as stop reactor recharge or stop shield regen? there is plenty of devices in the database that have no use right now. Also using devices in raids are always fun, it just gives us more things to do during the raid encounter.