Onslaught Bugs and Balance/QoL Concerns

carrionbaggage

This thread identifies various bugs and balance/quality-of-life concerns with the Onslaught system. A summary of each issue is presented below. Developers are encouraged to read the complete thread, as many useful details, opinions, and suggestions may not be present in my summaries.

If anyone would like to add more bugs or balance/quality-of-life concerns, please comment below.

carrionbaggage

ONSLAUGHT BUGS
These issues are assumed to not be working as intended. Because precedent cannot be established with brand-new content, looser criteria are used to determine bugs compared to the Known Power Bugs thread.


NEW 11/4 Swag Bag
Old Villain Tokens claimed from a player's overflow bag count toward completing the "Supervillain Attack!" daily mission.

NEW 11/4 Hate-Loss Cleanse
Players using Celestial Cleansing are capable of dropping the Battling Supervillains status.

NEW 11/4 False Alarm
Skarn's Bane is removing the Onslaught Timer on Onslaught Villains. This results in a "VILLAIN ESCAPED!" message when it is used. This does not impact the duration of the device, it simply removes a useful time tracking feature on each OV and can confuse the players and the OV.

NEW 11/4 Always Use Protection
Having Aura of Radiant Protection slotted gives you 25% damage resistance as an OV.

NEW 11/4 Plus Is Minus
Healing Device Plus, activated by a hero, can heal nearby villains.

NEW 11/4 Pro And Icon
The icon showing an Onslaught villain's remaining transformation time frequently malfunctions, displaying 0 minutes for the full transformation duration.

Ready Aura Not
The Seraphim passive will "hit" a nearby villain and flag the player with Battling Supervillains, even if the player is not in active combat (with or without its damage aura advantage).

Plentiful Sentinel
Sentinel Mastery heals transformed villains. Villains can no longer trigger it themselves (Grond's stun will not apply the effect if the player has Sentinel Mastery). However, if a hero places Sentinel Mastery on an NPC or another OV, and an OV hits that target, the OV is still healed.

Skinny Genes
The "Genetic Exhaustion" debuff, meant to penalize players for forcibly deactivating their device, does not actually exist.

Device Manager
Devices that are activated prior to a villain transformation, and have a prolonged effect (either a toggle or time-based effect), will persist during the transformation. Some of these devices have very significant effects, such as Backups and Eruption.

Villainous Ventriloquy
Id Blade Breach (rank 3 only) plays Medusa's voiceover.
Note: Ego Blade Breach (with one blade) does not have this problem. The voiceover only applies when the second blade is added.

The Best De-Fence
Chain-link fences (like the one at the used car lot near Kodiak) break a villain's line-of-sight, preventing them from attacking heroes. However, heroes can still attack villains through them.

Star Wars
After transforming into a villain, a player's number of hero stars impacts the villain's damage.

Healthy Refreshments
When Battling Supervillains is triggered, the effect is refreshed with self-healing for 3 minutes after the trigger. Once that 3 minutes is up, the timer begins counting down normally, and is not refreshed by self-healing. So if you have Sentinel Aura (for example) and leave combat with a villain, you'll have the Battling Supervillains status for 6 minutes.

Friendly Neighborhood Supervillain
If a player levels up while transformed as a villain, that villain becomes Friendly to other players. Heroes who were attacking the villain no longer can. However, a hero can still attack if he/she did not engage prior to the villain's level-up.

Travel Unraveled
When activated before a villain transformation, certain travel powers and crafted travel devices will continue to be active throughout the transformation. Activating the villain's travel power, or being hit by the Nailed to the Ground effect, will cancel the lingering travel power.

Vend 'Til The End
When speaking to the Onslaught Agent, the Onslaught villain devices are counting down in the reward screen. This does not effect the device timer once received, but is likely to cause confusion among players.

Percents And Sensibility
If a hero is injured when he/she transforms into a villain, the villain begins with the same percentage of total health that the hero had.

Achilles' Healer
Healing an UNTIL Defender does not flag a player with the Battling Supervillains status.

Animal Cruelty
Sending pets to attack an Onslaught Villain does not flag a player with the Battling Supervillains status.

carrionbaggage

ONSLAUGHT BALANCE/QUALITY-OF-LIFE CONCERNS
These issues are not clear-cut bugs, but are concerns that can make Onslaught potentially un-fun.
Player suggestions are colored cyan, and are presented as spoilers to avoid clutter.


Turrets Syndrome
HERMES Turrets are largely ineffective at preventing people from misbehaving.A turret does not appear to activate unless attacked, and there are many environmental obstructions that allow an OV to avoid a turret's wrath while still slaughtering freshly-defeated heroes.

Long-Distance Relationship
Journeying to an Onslaught Agent for missions and devices often kills the momentum of an Onslaught scuffle.
SUGGESTION

Make the Onslaught Agent a remote contact.

To Kill A Blocking Herd
Villains only receive rewards when they defeat someone, and certain hero builds are practically impossible for a villain to defeat. Blocking tank builds, durable airborne vehicles that quickly retreat, stealth builds with perception debuffs, potent self-healers...it is pointless for a villain to attack such characters, so most of a villain's attention goes to squishy heroes. This diminishes the fun for everyone involved.
SUGGESTION

In addition to kills, allow villains to gain Villain Tokens through other means. Such means could include:

1) gaining a token after dealing a certain amount of total (base) damage
2) gaining a token for every enemy currently engaged with you, triggered every few minutes
3) gaining a token for successfully utilizing your villain's passive (Gravitar gains tokens for detonating Gravity Wells, Grond gains tokens for building Fury, Medusa gains tokens for stacking Mind Spikes)
4) adding destructible-object Onslaught targets throughout the city, and rewarding tokens when a villain destroys those

Assisted Living
Only the villain who delivers a killing blow receives Villain Tokens for a defeated hero, even if another villain does the bulk of the damage. This seems rather un-fun for the villain who works for no reward.
SUGGESTION

Allow villains to gain Villain Tokens for assisting in a hero defeat. Maybe 1 token per assisted kill.

Woe Is Melee
Melee characters are extremely ineffective at attacking villains.

• Gravity Wells keep them out of melee range.
  
• Snares and other movement debuffs do not do much to the villains' base movement speed.
  
• The villains' jump height means that a hop-happy villain stays almost permanently out of melee range.
  SUGGESTION
  Reduce base villain movement speed and jump height to that of heroes. To help chase down escaping heroes, add a second travel power to villains, which grants their current movement speed and jump height. This power could last for 5 seconds, with a 30 second cooldown.
  
  An alternate suggestion for villain mobility is to lower their speeds/jump height to normal but simply make their travel powers last longer and have shorter cooldown.

Paraders Of The Lost Loot
Villain movement speed allows them to easily stay ahead of pursuing heroes, running out their transformation timer while denying the heroes their Guardian Tokens. See also Woe Is Melee

Vehicular Manslaughter
Because vehicles are unaffected by Nailed to the Ground, it can be difficult for Grond and Medusa (who both have several close-range powers) to fight them.
SUGGESTION

Add flight gravity and a snare to Grond's

Falling From Grace
Villains take fall damage when falling from significant heights. Because of their sizable health pools, this is generally a lot of damage.

Unfollowed
The /follow command does not work on transformed villains. With their rapid jump movement, this can make them very difficult to track. It also further compounds melee heroes' problems.

Spawn And Gone
Because Battling Supervillains persists after a defeated hero recovers, a villain can spawn-camp the respawn point and immediately re-defeat the hero. The villains' ranged attacks easily out-range the HERMES Turrets.
SUGGESTION

Upon death, the Battling Supervillains status vanishes and is replaced by Defeated. A player with either (or both) of these statuses receives Guardian Token rewards for injuring villains. Defeated status still persists for its duration to dissuade organized farming.

This would put the onus on the newly defeated heroes to decide whether they continue fighting, and prevent them from immediately dying moments after respawning.

carrionbaggage

ONSLAUGHT BALANCE/QUALITY-OF-LIFE CONCERNS (continued)


Just Dropping In
Because of the villains' jump height, they can surprise-leap into an unsuspecting player's AoE attack, flagging the player with Battling Supervillains.

Shopping At Target
Securing three Onslaught Targets is necessary to complete the Villain Token daily mission. However, the UNTIL Defenders deal extreme amounts of damage to villains, defeating them in mere seconds. If a player fights the Defenders within their attack range, the player is unlikely to finish the 3-target mission requirement before dying. This leads to villains securing the targets by kiting the Defenders to avoid being hit, which doesn't feel like a very fun skirmish.
SUGGESTION

Increase the Defender health, and decrease the damage; enough that a Villain can fight toe-to-toe with them for a while without losing too much health. For added fun, replace some or all of the Defenders with random "patrolling heroes", with varying power sets.

Collection Rejection
Villains cannot collect loot that drops for them.​​ This appears to be an intended mechanic, but it can be frustrating for an economically downtrodden supervillain. A player can also miss nemesis clues because of this.

Animation Domination
Villains are vulnerable to animation effects such as Miniaturization Drive's shrink, Firesnake's arm flail, and Fear's cower. This may be intended, but it can obscure some of the animation tells for the villains' attacks.

Chain Gang
The more villains there are in one area, the more difficult the fight become for the heroes. A few villains is manageable for a large crowd. But when you get, say, 6 Gronds spamming AoEs, the heroes don't stand much of a chance against the constant chain of attacks.
SUGGESTION

Villains could receive a debuff status for each other villain in the area. They would do more damage to one another, and less to players.

Unhappy Ending
Being disconnected from the server, through no fault of one's own, abruptly ends a villain transformation.

Three Minutes To Win It
The three-minute timer on Battling Supervillains seems excessive. It prevents a player from teaming with non-flagged players after an Onslaught skirmish, and provides a large window for apathetic heroes to reap rewards for doing nothing at all.
SUGGESTION

Reduce the Battling Supervillains timer to one minute.

Justice Is Its Own Reward
Guardian Tokens are only useful for purchasing the ability to play a villain, and there are alternate means of achieving this with Questionite and lockbox drops. This often results in a lack of interest from heroes, and a too-high villain-to-hero ratio.
SUGGESTION

Add some desirable loot to the Onslaught Agent, purchasable with Guardian Tokens. Such goodies could include:
-gear
-mods
-action figures
-costume pieces
-thematic devices, becomes, or vehicles (to help you battle the villains)

carrionbaggage

VILLAIN POWER BUGS AND CONCERNS
Power bugs are in red. Power concerns are in orange.


MEDUSA

• Passive: Mind Spikes
  Mind Spikes' charge-time impediment could use a little toning down. Medusa players can severely diminish the fun of their fellow villains by repeatedly stunning them and gutting their charge times.
  
• TK Flurry
  
• TK Breaker
  
• TK Spear
  To help battle vehicles, TK Spear could also apply flight gravity and a snare. See also Vehicular Manslaughter
  
• TK Shatter
  TK Shatter frequently does not double (or increase at all) Mind Spike stacks.
  
• TK Wave
  
• TK Lunge
  
• TK Eruption
  
• Mind Warp
  Medusa's travel power is significantly slower than the other villains', making it difficult to use as an escape or pursuit ability.
  
• **PLAYER POWER** Lance Rain
  Lance Rain defaults to a full charge, even though the damage appears to scale depending on charge time. See also Villainous Ventriloquy

GRAVITAR
In general, Gravitar has a difficult time killing heroes. Aside from the buggy Cascade Event, her burst damage is predictable and noticeably weaker than the other villains'.

• Passive: Gravity Well
  
• Grav Bolt
  Grav Bolt could have a faster activation time to help her build and detonate Gravity Well stacks more quickly.
  
• Inversion Bolt
  For its startup time, this power's damage is rather weak.
  
• Crushing Field
  This is where Gravitar can find enough damage to kill a reasonably sturdy player. However, because of its limitations (long charge time, split damage against multiple targets), it is often ineffective in practice. Killing an enemy with this attack does not count the detonated Gravity Wells toward Gravitar's energy accumulation, which can sometimes be frustrating.
  
• Reflective Burst
  This power deals rather low damage. Perhaps it could gain bonus damage (but not too much) for additional enemies present in the Gravity Well; sort of the reverse of Crushing Field.
  
• Gravitic Ripple
  
• Singularity
  
• Cascade Event
  This power is very inconsistent. Sometimes it fires after a several-second delay. Other times, it does not fire at all.
  
• Grav Flight
  
• **PLAYER POWER** Gravitic Ripple
  This power deals rather lackluster damage.

GROND
All of the villains have frequent lag on their attack activations, but Grond's is particularly significant.

• Passive: Radiate Fury
  
• Radiating Strike
  
• Nuclear Debris
  Grond doesn't have much chance of scoring a kill until he starts unlocking attacks. While this isn't a huge problem (after all, he was designed to ramp up with Fury), boosting the damage on Nuclear Debris could help a low-Fury Grond score the occasional Villain Token. To help battle vehicles, Nuclear Debris could also apply flight gravity and a snare. See also Vehicular Manslaughter
  
• Roaring Fury
  
• Nuclear Shockwave
  
• Gravitic Ripple
  
• Radiation Ground Pound
  
• Unleashed Nuclear Fury
  By the time Grond unlocks this attack, his damage resistance is so low that his Fury typically resets in a matter of seconds. He can easily miss his opportunity to use his ultimate attack. This attack could either unlock at a lower Fury point, or the Fury meter could linger for a few seconds (instead of immediately resetting) once it hits 100.
  
• Massive Leap
  
• **PLAYER POWER** Nuclear Shockwave
  For its charge and activation time, this power is very weak.

xrazamax

I applaud this thread equally for its excellent documentation and the clever bug names.

pantagruel01

I would add to Balance: Hermes turrets and Until targets do ridiculously more damage than anything else in the game, destroying villains in seconds. Despite this, they are largely ineffective at their actual intended role of preventing people from misbehavior such as spawn camping.

carrionbaggage

pantagruel01 said:

I would add to Balance: Hermes turrets and Until targets do ridiculously more damage than anything else in the game, destroying villains in seconds. Despite this, they are largely ineffective at their actual intended role of preventing people from misbehavior such as spawn camping.

Good call. I added a couple more Balance/QoL issues to convey the inadequacy of the turrets, and the over-adequacy of the Defenders.

I also changed a few of the bug names, because I can't help myself.

aiqa

About the gear, the problem is not only superstats. For the ranged dps gear the damage type is physical (and apearantly tech tree damage), so any passives that boost physical damage or tech power damage get much more out of it than other damage types and sets. Also since the damage is a fixed number it works much better on AoE attacks.

A fix would be to inherent the damage types and make the damage a percentage of the "parent power".
Another one would be to completely rework it to a damage and/or crit bonus to targets more than 20 feet away.

carrionbaggage

aiqa said:

About the gear, the problem is not only superstats. For the ranged dps gear the damage type is physical (and apearantly tech tree damage), so any passives that boost physical damage or tech power damage get much more out of it than other damage types and sets. Also since the damage is a fixed number it works much better on AoE attacks.

A fix would be to inherent the damage types and make the damage a percentage of the "parent power".
Another one would be to completely rework it to a damage and/or crit bonus to targets more than 20 feet away.

Another good call. I updated the list.

soniastrumm

I am unable to get the "Playing the Villain" quest. I have been told by some silvers that they have gotten said quest.

aiqa

Looks good

Maybe "weaker powers" could be reworded a bit.
I would not call Lead Tempest a weak power at all, but it's one of the power that works best with the sniper gear inits current form.
Power armor (with multiple toggles active at the same time) is another example of a set that performs well but gets much more out of the current design than most other sets.

zamuelpwe

The Hermes Turret at the Westside police spawn point is inefficient and doesn't do it's job at preventing kills on respawn. It doesn't have the range and its line of sight is blocked by the steps it's next to. I suggest that two changes be made. First, place another turret at /loc 3489 20 -1609. This is right at the corner of that part of the street. It serves as more of a deterent by giving more breathing room and also clearing the Little Italy area from having the objectives killed off. Second, give the turrets damage reflection on hit like Baron Cimitiere's block. This is to neutralize sniping and to further deter AOE splash around safe points.

Due to the path of least resistance, many players activate their Onslaught villains near the Onslaught Vendor. This is problematic in Westside due to the placement of the first quests and respawn point. I suggest that the Onslaught Vendor for Westside be moved to either /loc 3150 46 235 or /loc 2377 41 -997. These are far enough away to not be right near the first quests yet close enough that fights near them will still be easily seen by new players.

magpieuk2014

Villain, Interrupted - The ability to interrupt Villain charged powers is not a bug, nor is it a Balance or QoL concern. Villains can be interrupted in all other areas of the game and they should be interruptable in Onslaught to prevent larger villain groups spamming AoE attacks.

championshewolf

Villains can't collect loot that drops for them.​​

kaiserin

More of an aesthetic issue, but villains should probably not be affected by the shrinking of Miniaturization Device. They should also not animate the Firesnake arm flail or cowering from Fear. Looks a bit off.​​

carrionbaggage

aiqa said:

Maybe "weaker powers" could be reworded a bit.

Good point. I changed "weaker" to "fast-ticking".

magpieuk2014 said:

Villain, Interrupted - The ability to interrupt Villain charged powers is not a bug, nor is it a Balance or QoL concern. Villains can be interrupted in all other areas of the game and they should be interruptable in Onslaught to prevent larger villain groups spamming AoE attacks.

I added a note to reflect the uncertainty of whether this is a bug; I'm hoping I can get a ruling from a developer regarding the intention of interrupts, but I can't guarantee an answer. I assumed it was a bug because this is an exploitable vulnerability, though I don't want to detail the methods here.

soniastrumm said:

I am unable to get the "Playing the Villain" quest. I have been told by some silvers that they have gotten said quest.

I believe that Playing the Villain is available for non-subscription characters created in a Freeform slot.


Updates:

• Added a few more issues to the lists, and adjusted some wording. Thanks for the reports, everyone!

soniastrumm

carrionbaggage said:

aiqa said:

Maybe "weaker powers" could be reworded a bit.

Good point. I changed "weaker" to "fast-ticking".

magpieuk2014 said:

Villain, Interrupted - The ability to interrupt Villain charged powers is not a bug, nor is it a Balance or QoL concern. Villains can be interrupted in all other areas of the game and they should be interruptable in Onslaught to prevent larger villain groups spamming AoE attacks.

I added a note to reflect the uncertainty of whether this is a bug; I'm hoping I can get a ruling from a developer regarding the intention of interrupts, but I can't guarantee an answer. I assumed it was a bug because this is an exploitable vulnerability, though I don't want to detail the methods here.

soniastrumm said:

I am unable to get the "Playing the Villain" quest. I have been told by some silvers that they have gotten said quest.

I believe that Playing the Villain is available for non-subscription characters created in a Freeform slot.


Updates:

• Added a few more issues to the lists, and adjusted some wording. Thanks for the reports, everyone!

So, silver freeforms, a.k.a, people who most likely are f2p, will never be able to get the quest?

vonqball

Well stated!

I would add that onslaught targets are not appearing correctly on some player's mini-maps. I can only see the closest target to my hero at one time.

carrionbaggage

soniastrumm said:

So, silver freeforms, a.k.a, people who most likely are f2p, will never be able to get the quest?

It's my understanding that a Silver Freeform character should still get the quest. Also keep in my mind that if your mission journal is full, the quest will not be accepted, and you'll have to wait until the following day to receive it.

Does your experience differ?

championshewolf

Two things they need to do;

Reduce distance super villains can move normally, I mean it's quite ridiculous on how easily a super villain can kite, but also in return, need to make it to where super villains cannot be targeted by or affected by vehicle attacks. Sorry, but both of these are lame, and the fact you got several people using vehicles now to pull villains into drones for insta-gib just ruins the fun for everyone. And a villain should not be running circles by jump dodging around everyone like they currently are. Their current jump speed is too fast and too far. People want to fight they should be at risk. And vehciles should only be viable in the content they are designed for.

And block breakers are not the answer, block needs to be changed to having a stamina bar period. People can say that's unfair but the you either have it or you don't idea of block breakers is already broken and can be used to avoid many PvE based mechanics, trivializing the game, let alone making PvP less interesting. This idea was a bandaid until a better idea could come along, a better idea is needed now. It's already a bit annoying with some of the immortal builds out there that have stacked so much defense and healing that they are relatively untouchable (stats really need a go over, badly) but currently block is broken, but block breaking is not the solution and the system needs a redo.​​

pantagruel01

For Gravitar, most of the time Gravity Cascade doesn't do anything at all. When it does work, it's grossly overpowered and instantly kills every hero nearby.

aiqa

I think there should be some changes to the mechanic to balance these fights. The count of nearby foes is a nice start, but I don't think it works very good. I would like that one to be changed to the number player divided by the number of villains. If there are more than 10 players per villain the villain gain damage resistance, and when there are less than 5 players per villain the villain gets a damage resistance penalty, and at less than 2 players per villain the villains get a damage penalty.

As for the vehicles, I don't mind vehicles but the should not be able to escape so easily, if the NTTG powers from the SV's also added a -100% flight that would be a lot better.

sterga

Vehicles have the same advantage that flying in general has with the bonus of not worrying about NttG. Not allowing vehicle participation seems kinda crap. Fixing the NttG and maybe making villains far more resistant to repels would make that option be good, but not "lol, can't touch me".

Silver FFs can get the daily for a free villain; Silver ATs cannot. Or at least the free ones can't. Haven't tried a premium AT, but I'm going to guess they don't get that daily.

Doing the Villain daily for destroying marks is agonizing because moving from target locals is so slow. The marks are too damn far apart, wasting the time you have to be a villain on the most boring thing ever. If there wasn't a daily associated with it for tokens, I wouldn't even bother and just go wack some heroes instead.

aiqa

And about unkillable tanks. So far the only people I really had trouble killing, and that are able to tank more than 2 villains for any extended time while still doing some attacks, are the ones using Ebon Void + Voracious Darkness.

pantagruel01

The control setting "target threatening enemies first", which defaults to true, prioritizes NPCs, probably because PCs don't track threat. Either this shouldn't default to true, or PCs should be classed as 'threatening'.

aiqa

Also I think there should be a bigger incentive to fight the villains. Now that more people have unlocked one, there is starting to be to many villains per hero. And joining a fight where where a few tanks are battling 5 villains is not really very inviting for anyone who is not using a similar tank build.

pantagruel01

aiqa said:

Also I think there should be a bigger incentive to fight the villains. Now that more people have unlocked one, there is starting to be to many villains per hero. And joining a fight where where a few tanks are battling 5 villains is not really very inviting for anyone who is not using a similar tank build.

Also causes problems for the villains getting tokens. Mostly, what you do is join in and then let the villains beat each other up, since that gets you tokens just fine. Getting rid of buying Onslaught tokens with Q would solve that, though, since the other means requires you to fight supervillains.

zamuelpwe

A bit of visual evidence that the turrets don't work as intended: http://imgur.com/0JMDWhL.jpg

chaosdrgnz43

I just have to say that the animation that affects player by Gravitar's Gravity Well still persists for a couple of seconds after the power was used.

riverocean

Turrets vs. MCPD Protectors:
I think the turrets should be replaced with the Original MCPD Protectors we had on test. While I know some people felt they made MC feel like a "police state", the fact they were mobile made them much more efficient at keeping things under control. My suggestion would be to put them back and dump the turrets. The protectors are agile enough to keep Villains from getting too close to police station and lowbies. Also stick one by the Little Italy area. Villains will steer clear of it, once they realize they'll be blasted.

Melee and PvP
The melee issues we're seeing are pretty much the same issues that poor melee players have in general PvP. There aren't enough tools for melee players to control kiting ranged players. This is exasperated by the Villains faster movement and increased jump heights. But it points to a larger issue in the game that should be addressed.

Silver Vs. Gold
Since Gold players can unlock villains much more easily than silvers, there is some disparity. I'm seeing mosltly low level players and Silvers AT players vs. Villains. Very few Freeform (Gold) players are playing as heroes. Or so it seems. When theres a large group of villains they are usually opposed by a smaller group of mostly AT players. AT's aren't as powerful or as survivable so there's a disparity there. But it points out that AT's are long overdue for some updates. (*Some AT's do well, but most just don't have the tools to survive and fight OV's efficiently).

pantagruel01

riverocean said:

Turrets vs. MCPD Protectors:
I think the turrets should be replaced with the Original MCPD Protectors we had on test.

'Huge DPS punishes you' isn't really the way to deal with troublemakers anyway. They should replace the turrets with force fields that just make heroes invulnerable while inside of them.

chaelk

BUG:if you have your secondary travel power active when you use a villain device, it stays active- if you see someone with a travel power active- use NTTG and it turns it off.

BUG:any creatures summoned before you change stay summoned.powers as well as devices. heals from them, don't work though

BUGattacking a villain before you change, makes you able to continue attacking them after you become a villain. leading to being unable to target heroes due to the larger villains being closer.
also you will be affected by their attacks like gravity well.

UsefulVillains can be dragged with the cow catcher to the turrets, I think only rank 2 or 3.​​

pantagruel01

QoL: there is no particular incentive to play a hero, leading to giant pile-ups of villains with no heroes fighting them.

avianos

BUG: It appears that the Onslaugh Become Devices last 15 Minutes instead of 30

BUG: Getting Disconnected, Logging out or changing MC instances removes complety the Device​​

xrazamax

Villains should probably have their ability to jump extremely high removed and turned into a regular jump. Then make their Travel powers have a much smaller CD time. This would give villains the ability to escape if they needed to, but force them to stand and fight for certain periods of time.

bazodee

(QoL post - from a mostly PvEer)

Too many hoops to jump through - fight as heroes to get guardian tokens to unlock (10,000/1000g+ on AH)) AND play (1,000) a villain, to get villain tokens for Onslaught store purchases - all based on one character. Lots of Onslaught investment required here, but what about the rest of the game? The carrot is too far away man. And on top of it, it's limiting me to one character, I can't even bank the tokens, jump on another toon and play Onslaught and still feel I'm reaching a goal while having the option of variety. Playing the Villain is the best part of this event. Don't put so many hurdles in the way or putting quickest way to cash over player enjoyment.

A lot of people are looking at Onslaught on its own, how its working, what it is like to play, what bugs there are but it's part of a bigger picture.

So if the choice is between Onslaught and the rest of the game where I can maintain the flexibility of play, and enjoy the customization of play CO is known for, then I know where I'm going.

I'm going back to raising my 9 toons (at the moment) still on their way to 40. Now if the villain unlock was account wide, I'd probably morph into Medusa while leveling and throw a villain into the stew, but seeing as I can't that's one less villain to play when the novelty has worn off and we don't have enough OV running around to provide tokens to anyone.

I'll get my powers, but I'll get there when I get there, if not then its my new Lemuria.

Now we have huge calls for vehicle nerfs, updates on devices, because they don't play fair. Remember Onslaught is part of a bigger game so though those same things people want out because of Onslaught, will no longer work or be helpful on other parts of the game.

Onslaught specific from play so far.
1) Surrounding FX obscures the vision of the villain. Not so easy to see when you are being dragged to the turrets so you can jump away on time. And they try! With the roaming Bots this will become even more an issue since heroes won't have to try to be so specific. As a hero, bots are better. Good luck figuring that one out
2) Tab targeting both as hero and villain is hit or miss. As villain I've targeted backups, purple mobs, dinos. To get to player quickly I've had to depend on mouse click or wait for AoE is active again. Not intuitive at all.
3) The villain become countdown starts on pickup so if left in inventory, times still ticks away. Need to inform player how this works or only start countdown from activation. To avoid stacking of villains as this is how CO seems to want it, check for villain item already in inventory before giving another one.
4) Make villain unlock account wide, for reasoning, read tl;dr in white above.
5) "Unkillable tanks" - highly annoying. I focused on one hero for some time just checking to see if I can penetrate his defenses and the life of this hero just budged. I've made the player decision to spend my OV time on half dead heroes in the area
6) My target kills did not register. 3 targets dead, 5 tokens, should be 15. I was with another villain, but I damaged the target as well.

theravenforce

I'm really quite confused as to the claims that the Onslaught Devices are only lasting 15 minutes...are people not activating them as soon as they gain them from vendor or something?

pantagruel01 said:

For Gravitar, most of the time Gravity Cascade doesn't do anything at all. When it does work, it's grossly overpowered and instantly kills every hero nearby.

^ This. This occurs because for some reason her powers can cancel each other out, not too sure on how, I spend most of my time on Medusa, who also has a few issues of her own.

Although, the mechanics of Cascade Event (her final power) benefits greatly from having multiple Gravitar's around OR from calculated stacking. Using the latter I have wiped out 50 players in one Cascade Event, was shocking.

aiqa

Suggestion for the turrets: Give them a visible AoE range (but only for the villains), similar in size to the big AoE from Grond.

rtma

I've noticed something with Force Cascade, sometimes, I'm not sure what conditions, assuming someone is playing Gravitar when you use the power, starts playing Audio Ques on any player, I was in Red Winter and heard a player upon using Force Cascade, heard Audio ques of Gravitar. so yeah, there you go.

riverocean

bazodee said:

(QoL post - from a mostly PvEer)

2) Tab targeting both as hero and villain is hit or miss. As villain I've targeted backups, purple mobs, dinos. To get to player quickly I've had to depend on mouse click or wait for AoE is active again. Not intuitive at all.

There's a keybind you can use to make that much, much easier:

This is what I use: /bind v "target_enemy_player_near"

This will only target Enemy Players (i.e. OV's) and ignore pets and npcs.

pantagruel01

theravenforce said:

I'm really quite confused as to the claims that the Onslaught Devices are only lasting 15 minutes...are people not activating them as soon as they gain them from vendor or something?

Nothign confusing about it. The become effect only has a duration of 900s (the device lasts 30m).

pantagruel01

gradii said:

the defeated flag should just be removed entirely and the timer on the fighting villains flag reduced.

Without the defeated flag you can gain 1000+ villain points per transform with a single ally willing to help you exploit.

bazodee

riverocean said:

bazodee said:

(QoL post - from a mostly PvEer)

2) Tab targeting both as hero and villain is hit or miss. As villain I've targeted backups, purple mobs, dinos. To get to player quickly I've had to depend on mouse click or wait for AoE is active again. Not intuitive at all.

There's a keybind you can use to make that much, much easier:

This is what I use: /bind v "target_enemy_player_near"

This will only target Enemy Players (i.e. OV's) and ignore pets and npcs.

thanks for this, will do!

magpieuk2014

QoL: there is no particular incentive to play a hero, leading to giant pile-ups of villains with no heroes fighting them.

There should be. My suggestion would be that every hero with the Guardian mission should receive a 30 minute, once daily, Become Until Defender - a power armour, with flight, a bit like the one you receive in Harmon Labs. That would help melee toons be involved in the event (gives them range/travel powers) and maybe might stop people from feeling quite so bad about Villain powers spam killing their favourite characters (that hurts, admit it). Achieving enough Guardian tokens should eventually enable a permanent tradeable version on the same basis as the permanent villain Becomes.

Onslaught targets should be made a game of "Capture the Flag" - Villains receive extra tokens for capturing and holding the area (i.e remaining within 100ft), Heroes for defeating villains and reclaiming the targets.

The secondary gear rewards should also be changed so that there's some for both sides. Moddable secondaries would be nice, but I'd like some upgraded examples of the Armadillo/Cyber/Samurai Q sets. Villain tokens could go towards a +25% all damage set, with the usual stat boosts, and Guardian tokens towards a +25% all DR set. Those should be Bind to Account, so they can be handed down to alts for levelling purposes. That way there's be an incentive to play both sides.

ladygadfly

Loving these bug names. Thank you for documenting them!

As for supervillains being weak to interrupts, it seems like this is happening too much so I'm going to revisit this with the team tomorrow.

theravenforce

I posted this back on the PTS thread during early testing but here is it again.

Suggestion:

Onslaught Bosses can still be interrupted, however being interrupted by one of the following powers:

*Power Gauntlet
*Ice Cage's Subzero Cellblock advantage
*Backhand Chop

Triggers a status effect on Onslaught bosses called [Interrupt Lockout] - This target can no longer be interrupted for 2 minutes. In addition to this, being interrupted halves the cooldown on the interrupted ability if it is a charge ability.

Reason: Still makes some form of Crowd Control useful in this content, even if it is limited to three interrupt powers, but to stop it from getting out of hand, Interrupt Lockout controls for it's effects.

--

Suggestion #2: Onslaught bosses gain stealth sight and can automatically see any stealthed opponent within 30ft.

Reason: This is to combat players who use stealth and can currently use it to attack onslaught bosses without remaining as threatening/visible targets consistently. However, this should be tempered so that stealth is still a valid form of escape for players.

--

Suggestion #3: Review the strength of Gravitar's Gravity Well, in terms of how strongly it disrupts player movement. For some it is causing their game to lag and for others it is incredibly nauseating. Lower the spinning/movement disruption on players by 50%.

Reason: Currently more than one Gravitar using Gravity Well mechanics is vomit inducing for all parties involved.

--

Suggestion #4: Onslaught Villains now have Repel Immunity. As a tradeoff, the jump height of super villains is reduced by 50%.

Reason: Players are abusing and griefing other players by dragging them into turrets for quick kills and tokens.

--

Suggestion #5: HERMES TURRETS: Instead of dealing severe damage, HERMES Turrets are now outfitted with powerful kinetic rebuffers. These apply a special AoE knock to an Onslaught Villain instantly repelling/knocking them and any other nearby Onslaught Villains 500ft backwards. Alternatively Turrets are now fitted with teleportal devices which instantly teleport Onslaught Villains 200ft away on the map (perhaps instant transportation to outside Westside Prison or something.) Turrets now also have a permanent Crushing Field-esque dome around them which indicates their range. Their range should be 150ft.

Reason: There's no need to cut short someone's enjoyment like this, the devices are on a timer, that's enough of a limitation. Currently accidentally straying too close to a particular area can ruin the fun.

kallethen

From a balance viewpoint, one of Medusa's attacks seems to activate too soon. The charge bar that appears isn't even filled when the attack hits, and by the time you see the bubble appear at the start it's too late to hit the block button to try to stay alive. Every time I try to block it, I'm dead.​​

theravenforce

kallethen said:

From a balance viewpoint, one of Medusa's attacks seems to activate too soon. The charge bar that appears isn't even filled when the attack hits, and by the time you see the bubble appear at the start it's too late to hit the block button to try to stay alive. Every time I try to block it, I'm dead.​​

Gonna be honest, I've noticed that with Medusa, both fighting and playing as her. My general rule is that if I see Blue, Green or Light Pink Bubbles, I block like there's no tomorrow, doesn't matter what I think I might be doing.

Her final attack deals increased damage to players per stack of Mind Spikes so it may be that you have too many stacks on you at the time, but that attack does have a good tell and lengthy charge up to be fair.

The other attack, TK Wave is quicker and has a shorter charge bar BUT the charge bar it uses has the same animation/length as her TK Eruption, so it looks like it activates too soon.

aiqa

It is intended people die from those big attacks, you need to kill 2000 players for 1 of the new powers. And if they ever decide to add gear that is worth using another 1000 player kills per piece of gear. And then 600 more for the AF's.

It seems most people are trying very hard not to be defeated, using very survivable tank builds that hardly do any damage or block all the time, and running away with the villains when their health gets low.
But that is not how these fights are intended, as a hero you are meant to be defeated a few times and then you are meant to defeat the villains. And as a villain you don't get any bonus for surviving for the entire duration of the transformation when your health gets to low you might as well just accept defeat so the heroes at least get their tokens.