Thoughts on new alert after Day One?

jonesing4

What do you guys think? Zone seemed to have reached maximum salt when I was on earlier this afternoon, don't know what it got like after that. Lots of you probably had already done it on PTS, some might've been trying it out for the first time today (me). Impressions?

Personally, I like it. It's nemesis-related, so that's an immediate plus. It's very thematic for a western superheroes games. Difficulty seems just about right for now, and the rewards seem spot on (though I'm not sure about the drop rate for costumes; too early to tell, though I imagine they're too low for my liking--oh well). Mechanics haven't seemed annoying to me, though they can probably overwhelm a team of low-level players pretty easily. This is definitely one that can hurt if you're PUG-ing.

I guess that last part's actually a positive, though; I actually hate teaming up, and would do everything in the game solo if I could, but in the spirit of being an MMO, I can grudgingly admit that it's good when content makes you actually play as a team. I'd still like a mix of solo + team stuff going forward, but it's nice to feel like you actually need to get a few people who have their act together to make this thing work well.

All in all, I give it an 8/10 after a day. Great work, dev team. (As an aside, you guys have also been killing it with the recent costumes. Some of the scaling is weird on some of the pieces, and please don't do any pointy-toed boots for a while or ever again, but you've put out some great-looking stuff lately. The May sneakers are low-key tremendous.)

draogn

The new alert is terrible. It has too many annoying mechanics, the endless spawn of minions is a horrible design. Most of the pugs I've been in so far have barely made it past the first room, others haven't made it past the first ramp because as soon as you step into the room the entire thing aggros onto you. It's clear this alert was balanced around people wearing cosmic gear with r9 mods.

The rewards are pitiful considering the difficulty/risk. Three tokens, even the four from the patch notes, is far too low.

spinnytop

It's awesome. I've been running it repeatedly all day because of how fun it is. I don't even care about any of the rewards ( though the recog might come in handy when they add more ). The spawning minions mean constant non-stop action and the alert never gets boring ( tho it does give a breather between phase 1 and 2 which is good ). While it was rocky at first the runs have been getting smoother and smoother all day. I was wrong - people aren't going to have this on farm in a week, they have it on farm today. Even on farm though it retains the fun factor. More like this plz!

The difficulty fits in with other Custom alerts. Most Custom alerts will be difficult if somehow you manage to get all the members at the minimum level requirement - that's why they made that the minimum level, so that it's much more likely you'll get a mix of levels higher than that. Like any of them, a single level 40 guarantees success.

draogn

A single 40 does not guarantee success. Most of the pugs I've been in so far have all been full of 40s. Most of those groups haven't gotten past the first ramp due to how overtuned and poorly designed this alert is.

pantagruel01

draogn wrote: »

A single 40 does not guarantee success. Most of the pugs I've been in so far have all been full of 40s. Most of those groups haven't gotten past the first ramp due to how overtuned and poorly designed this alert is.

I've yet to see a group fail before the nemesis spawns. I'm not sure how you'd even do so, other than giving up.

guyhumual

It's on par with Cybermind with how badly designed it is, but on the plus side it could be much much quicker than cybermind once people learn how to run it effectively. Over all I think it's absolute garbage and not worth running until it's added the vigilance cycle, and even than it's going to be one of those alerts people only queue for to get it over and done with.

I'd give it a 1/10 because we don't have a lot of unskipable cut scenes and no lockout that I've discovered. I hate almost everything else about this mission.

draogn

pantagruel01 wrote: »

draogn wrote: »

A single 40 does not guarantee success. Most of the pugs I've been in so far have all been full of 40s. Most of those groups haven't gotten past the first ramp due to how overtuned and poorly designed this alert is.

I've yet to see a group fail before the nemesis spawns. I'm not sure how you'd even do so, other than giving up.

When a group can't survive long enough to make it past the ramp and one by one they leave group that's a failure. Especially since if you do manage to get some damage on a turret, it resets if everyone dies.

deadman20

Every time something new comes out people complain about it, and every time it only takes a period of trial and error before it is figured out and becomes "GGEZ". This won't be any different. People need to calm down and take it slow, learn the alert with their team and how they think it can best be completed before rushing headlong into battle.

If public groups aren't doing it, then there is ALWAYS the option to gather a group. Ask for what you think is needed and communicate which path of the alert you intend to take. Or if you're unsure of what to do, seek knowledge from your peers. We're a community, not a pack of rabid animals.​​

beezeeze

Out of all the times I tried the alert today...which was probably less than a dozen times, around half of those failed and half of those that failed were because the team gave up. Only a few times did we make it all the way to the boss(always with less than 5 people at this point) and did not beat the alert before the time expired. The rest of the time we won...sometimes after many deaths, but we still pulled it together in the end.

I find the all the complaining in zone chat and the various chat channels in game much more annoying than the alert itself...but I have only myself to blame for reading that.

sterga

I played the alert four times and my opinion didn't improve. Even though in the very first alert, we won, it was still just... disappointing.

Even if the alert is going OK, the high mob density and respawn seems like padding to extend the alert duration in addition to being a slog to get things done. What is the point in having the interact panels to slow down the turret killing process? High mob density is great in face-paced action games, but CO's combat is artificially slowed by target caps, slow attack speed, and cooldowns as it is.

The last phase has a lockout.

deadman20 wrote: »

Every time something new comes out people complain about it, and every time it only takes a period of trial and error before it is figured out and becomes "GGEZ". This won't be any different. People need to calm down and take it slow, learn the alert with their team and how they think it can best be completed before rushing headlong into battle.

Take things slow and not rush into battle? Have you played the alert? Walking into the first hallway gets numerous mobs dropped onto your face. Simply inching into the first room beyond that aggros everything. Teleporting upstairs instantly throws you into combat and can land you right into a knockback that kills you. The alert was designed in a way that forces you not to be able to do either of those things.

This alert created "challenge" by basically throwing content into the game in a way that isn't present anywhere else. Maybe the problem isn't learning how to alert. Maybe it's just not designed well.​​

draogn

deadman20 wrote: »

Every time something new comes out people complain about it, and every time it only takes a period of trial and error before it is figured out and becomes "GGEZ". This won't be any different. People need to calm down and take it slow, learn the alert with their team and how they think it can best be completed before rushing headlong into battle.

If public groups aren't doing it, then there is ALWAYS the option to gather a group. Ask for what you think is needed and communicate which path of the alert you intend to take. Or if you're unsure of what to do, seek knowledge from your peers. We're a community, not a pack of rabid animals.​​

Or enough people stop queuing that players need to beg in zone chat for people to queue. As seen with SC/LI, bursts, ect.

Most groups aren't going to stay beyond three or four team wipes at the ramp. No matter how much you try talking to them. Trying to organize a pug is a lot like herding cats. If they want there to be a public queue and for this mission to be apart of the vigilance mission it needs to be balanced towards pugs not having the perfect team makeup.

beezeeze

After the ambush there is a bit of a pause, also I am pretty sure someone has to open the door in the very first room to trigger the ambush, that allows people a little bit of time to come up with some sort of plan(so far most don't) but after that it is pretty much non stop getting smashed in the face while also scrambling for the objectives... and yeah maybe that is something not present anywhere else in the game but I do not see that as a bad thing.

draogn

If the team doesn't have someone capable of gathering it all up and holding it with out dying or someone capable of killing them all before the group gets overwhelmed, it means the group isn't going to get anywhere. Not everyone, lvl 40 or otherwise, in the game is min maxed or decked out with top end gear and mods.

jaazaniah1

Completed it several times yesterday. Was OK content-wise though I never saw my Nemesis in any of the runs. Pretty straight forward if the party has a tank to drag the mobs out of the way. No idea if a group of all dps can manage it. Not a fan of the anti-grav aspect, but cam manage

kamokami

Was fun but super easy. I pugged it and everyone was fine. This was my first run in the alert. Nobody had the best gear or a min maxed build. Just stuck together, blocked tells, killed stuff as it came at the group.

The ease of the alert makes it clear that this content is not for me. But I think that's fine. I think the alert is a good bridge in terms of difficulty between bowling pin content and endgame content.

Qs appear very active even late into the night.

guyhumual

My problems with the alert have nothing to do with difficulty BTW, if it was on par with Green Dragon in terms of difficulty I'd still hate this alert.

shadowolf505

I love this new alert, it's different to the others but gives great rewards (better than the others tbh) to players. ​​

draogn

The rewards are pitiful, 3g, a few random r3 mods, and 3 tokens are not worth the difficulty of this terrible alert.

shadowolf505

It's not *that* difficult, the difficulty is in how you want to complete it.​​

flyingfinn

So far 100% success rate.
1 run and 1 nemesis defeated.
Died once because was facing wrong way when the KB bubble grid came and didn't see it. And fell down.
And no costume pieces.
So 1/1/1/0.

spookyspectre

So far the alert seems challenging and fun despite several face-plants on my first attempt. No one in our Pug team knew the mechanics. It reminds me of Cybermind and Cosmic fights, when there was a higher pecentage of folks that didn't know the mechanics yet and some got frustrated. I suspect this one will go through the same learning curve and settle into a similar cadence. Thumbs up so far

visionknight

It fails on the casual level, for sure. You can’t just run a PUG and have a reasonable expectation of success. Most PUG people quit, which is a marker that it’s not even tolerable for them, much less fun. It shares a failing with Kiga in that it almost requires a certain number or mix of ATs. The current Nemesis store stuff (2 weapon skins and 3 costume parts) are not worth the effort. I am glad it’s not required for anything but Vigilance.

ordinaryplayer

Overall very poor first day.

Majority of PUG struggled, many could not get past the first large room (yes it is true). Any slight wipe tended to cause a cascade failure leading to a near impossible ganking, unless you abuse the doorway. (Very cheesy, very exploity)

Nem spawns that are actually very easy in alerts (smash grab) seem resilient and extra damaging. Same characters that can handle a mob (or 2) in smash-grab could just hold on. This could be simply due to excessive numbers and constant respawn, as the HP eventually gave out to the swarm. So scaling and resapwn issue.

Of 1 of the 2 Nems I got to tank (via PUG) one seemed OK [fire], one overly tough [default poison]. I've fought the same default poison via Smash alert and it is no problem at all. So again, scaling issue prevails.

I can see how some players have an easy time pulling a PUG through this [others I'm sure are lairs] as yes even sucky me can pull a PUG through an alert. This observation only identifies the alert too dependent on key roles for PUG play.

Hand made queues were much more favorable, but played with people from Cosmic channels. Even here, this was smooth and deliberate, but never ROFLSTOMP easy. Considering how ROFLSTOMP easy it is playing with these players in other alerts I see nothing but pain and frustration for 50+% of PUG action

As someone will defiantly mention it, yes it will get smoother as time goes on. By learning, and by people just giving up.

SHORT1 : It be comes near impossible too easily.

SHORT 2: If we could fix the Nem aggro swarm, and limit Nem respawns [*] I do think we have an worthy alert. Until this is changed its not suitable as a publicly available mandatory alert for vigilance completion. Not even close.



Edit [*] Starting to think the endless re spawns are a bug, as some times the spawns seemed stopped after the harder off groups got into the room and the alert proceeding as intended.

roughbearmattach

If the minions are CC'ed, do new groups keep spawning?

Can an offtank grab minion aggro and occupy them without more minions spawning?

If so, that would be great, and give yet another job for those two lesser-used team roles.

spinnytop

roughbearmattach wrote: »

If the minions are CC'ed, do new groups keep spawning?

Can an offtank grab minion aggro and occupy them without more minions spawning?

If so, that would be great, and give yet another job for those two lesser-used team roles.

Something to try for sure!

chaosdrgnz43

roughbearmattach wrote: »

If the minions are CC'ed, do new groups keep spawning?

Can an offtank grab minion aggro and occupy them without more minions spawning?

If so, that would be great, and give yet another job for those two lesser-used team roles.

Minions do not keep spawning if they're all CCed. There's a limit to how many are spawned. The alert practically needs heals/tank or survivable builds to make it less of a hassle.

purin1

IDF more or less makes the alert trivial due to most of the damage coming from an extremely large amount of adds. The dodge debuff fix should also help a lot.

Overall I think the alert is fine for PUGs if you have at least 2 competent and well-built characters.

circleofpsi

Every time something new comes out people complain about it, and every time it only takes a period of trial and error before it is figured out and becomes "GGEZ". This won't be any different. People need to calm down and take it slow, learn the alert with their team and how they think it can best be completed

I'll agree with this. I yet to play it but I agree.

I'm getting quite tired of the salt that is being made in Zone-Chat, on DAY 1 of something that just came out, no one has patience and are quick to trash-talk, because "they can't do it" or it's too hard. I've come to the point that I have had enough with people like this, and overall it's just really dumb to read/hear.

I understand, the bugs are annoying and the alert is new and a srupise, so it's hard, but even Warframe and other "Well done games" (Far Cry 5, XCOM 2,Conan Exiles, etc), have if not always Day 1 issues, now keep in mind I still have my own grips with the game (and quite big ones) sure like everyone else, but in the end of the day, people need to stop & think: "They are only human, humans making a game" and if you feel you can do better, you know where to go.

However in light of all this: a common counter-augment is: It's not made to "Solo" and its not made for "a set of builds", it's a team-based alert, that requires thinking and effort, not "Press to win" As someone will definitely mention it, yes it will get smoother as time goes on. By learning.


The only thing I can accept to agree on is the following:


A. It be comes near impossible too easily.

B. If we could fix the Nem aggro swarm, and limit Nem respawns [*] I do think we have an worthy alert. Until this is changed its not suitable as a publicly available mandatory alert for vigilance completion. Not even close.


C. Starting to think the endless re spawns are a bug, as sometimes the spawns seemed stopped after the harder off groups got into the room and the alert proceeding as intended.[/quote]



Now for the people who have played it: What build is best?, cuz I have seen issues where Healers or Tanks getting their behinds kicked. Besides trial and error I don't want it to give a poor-taste of my first time. So any suggestions?

circleofpsi

[Dual Post Ingore}

circleofpsi

{Dual Post Ingore}

flyingfinn

Isn't that Triple Post?

And talking of threes.
Completed it in a team of 3.

bluhman

It needs to convey what you're supposed to/can do better, which I'm hoping is something the cutscenes will attempt to help with. Also not certain why the most vicious mobbing in the alert comes near the beginning in the turret room.

That aside it's good. Works best with AoE characters and forcefield supports, which up to now have been pretty neglected in terms of content where they're useful.

markhawkman

roughbearmattach wrote: »

If the minions are CC'ed, do new groups keep spawning?

Can an offtank grab minion aggro and occupy them without more minions spawning?

If so, that would be great, and give yet another job for those two lesser-used team roles.

This. StE REspawns defeated enemies the same way as the firewall room in Cybermind. IE, it doesn't respawn until the whole enemy group dies. So yeah, simply keeping the mooks distracted is quite viable.

roughbearmattach

Lots of useful powers for dealing with mass groups of mobs. Folks overly focused on single-target DPS might find it tricky, but I can see certain types of support builds making the mob stages quite easy: medical nanites and AoRP. Redirected Force and IDF could be super useful, too, as others have said.

circleofpsi

flyingfinn wrote: »

Isn't that Triple Post?

And talking of threes.
Completed it in a team of 3.

I had to edit the 1st one lol and well done!

deadman20

sterga wrote: »

deadman20 wrote: »

Every time something new comes out people complain about it, and every time it only takes a period of trial and error before it is figured out and becomes "GGEZ". This won't be any different. People need to calm down and take it slow, learn the alert with their team and how they think it can best be completed before rushing headlong into battle.

Take things slow and not rush into battle? Have you played the alert? Walking into the first hallway gets numerous mobs dropped onto your face. Simply inching into the first room beyond that aggros everything. Teleporting upstairs instantly throws you into combat and can land you right into a knockback that kills you. The alert was designed in a way that forces you not to be able to do either of those things.

You aren't timed for most of the alert. Scrambling at the beginning is more or less a self-applied urgency. Nobody has to run around like headless chickens during the alert at all since there isn't a failure condition until after you break down the first force field on the upper level. While at these stages, there's all the time in the world to observe the environment and plan around it, even in combat.

Once the ambush is cleared out, they don't respawn. This is a good time to breathe and look into the next room before screaming like a headless kamikaze and rushing in.

When moving on to the upper level it is possible to watch the repulsor activate from below, giving the player an opportunity to decide when to best teleport up and avoid being knocked back.

Most importantly, move as a team. If you wander off without backup, you're going to find yourself aggroing extra mobs.​​

spinnytop

Pro-Tip: Toggle your block on before teleporting up, it stays toggled on while you activate the teleporter.

riverocean

Ran it last night a few times with PUG's and it was a complete mess. No one knew what to do and just ran around aggroing and creating more mobs. Tried it again this afternoon and it went much better. The players seemed to know what was going on and I just followed them and followed instructions.

My only pet peeve... the anti-gravity made it impossible for me to grab the reward circle. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong but I kept drifting past it. The timer ran out and I got nothing. I even toggled off my flight travel power and I still just kept drifting crazily around the room. Not sure if that's a bug or what.

visionknight

You can get a Stabilization Belt from the glowie box in the entrance room. Heal gadgets are for sale there too.

markhawkman

Stabilization belts are the dumbest device ever. As far as I can tell the only good time to use them is if you're trying to move quickly and need to stop quickly, the rest of the time there's no point.

Why can't we just turn the gravity back on at the end?

Anyways, apparently the daily doesn't complete if you fail the alert. Which is dumb. I just had a run where the lockout got us. Two of the team got KOed and respawned.... as far as I can tell that was the only reason we failed.

magpieuk2014

Now for the people who have played it: What build is best?, cuz I have seen issues where Healers or Tanks getting their behinds kicked. Besides trial and error I don't want it to give a poor-taste of my first time. So any suggestions?

I was using my Q Zone character, who runs ranged TK powers with Invuln and some generous self-heals from Ego Sprites. No problems there - the Nemesis Minions aren't those darn Elder Worms and you only die if you miss one of the knocks or those OP laser turrets.

DPS type characters probably need to be focused on AoE and Quick Charge powers. I tried my Force DPS character but the power cooldown is too long for the rate at which the Mobs spawn.

Overall... it's OK. I think a tweak to the second and third room mob spawn rates is needed as you don't really get much of a sense of what it is you're supposed to be doing before you get surrounded. It would be good if they occasionally spawned slightly fewer, tougher groups - that would give some opportunities for kiting and stealthy play, which could be good.

As it stands I think PUGs are a tough ask - groups of Average 40s will be too concerned about survival to figure out the mechanics.

The second room lasers do too much straight damage, btw; what is a scratch for a tank is deadly for a DPS. Make them apply some debuffs so that you get punished for repeated mistakes (3 stacks causes a Plasma Burn-style explosion).

The mission objectives need to be more visible. I honestly did not see the third stage Forcefield thingys until about five minutes into that phase and if it wasn't for reading the objectives in the mission pane I would never have worked it out by plain old observation. I also missed the reward circle completely....

The Nemesis' arrival is underwhelming - I hope there's a cutscene coming as I like the reveal of the player designed villains. The Nemesis fight itself is a bit dull, too - just a villain with lots of HP. A few more mechanics here would be fun - I'd expect the Nemesis to h ave a final ace to play....

markhawkman

you're not supposed to take the damage from the lasers. The point there is that you need to avoid the red bubbles.

I do think the mobs at that part are a bit overwhelming still. I've had times where I'm LITERALLY surrounded.

The forcefield breaking part is weird because.... why are we hitting all four sides of it separately?

magpieuk2014

you're not supposed to take the damage from the lasers. The point there is that you need to avoid the red bubbles.

I got that. I missed them in the crush.

Also, major points off for the Nem battle lockout. Lockouts are always junk ideas.

theravenforce

I tested it on PTS and it seemed a lot nicer on PTS than LIVE, despite the fact that part of the alert wipes out PFF during a crucial interaction phase, however, it was explained that this effect is intended.

Having run it a few times on LIVE:

I PUG'd the alert on Mentella and despite numerous deaths, we managed to win, even when two people dropped and it was just tank, Melee DPS and I.

I am definitely not a fan of mob spam, I would be if I had something which acted like Epidemic or if I was built for clearing rooms and surviving.

I am interested in trying to complete the alert using the consoles after the nemesis is released...but after deactivating all of them, I just got told that the shields were critical and then the alert completed (team killed nem)...

Any ideas?

beezeeze

I feel like getting a pug to do anything other than smash the nem might be asking a bit too much, it would be best to make a team and discuss how you want to finish the alert before hand if you plan on doing one of the other methods. At the very least it needs to be something the group has discussed and agreed on before entering the main room of the alert.

pantagruel01

magpieuk2014 wrote: »

Now for the people who have played it: What build is best?

Depends on who else is there. If your goal is to drag an arbitrary pug through it, probably some sort of defensive passive hybrid with good AoE spam.

spinnytop

theravenforce wrote: »

I am interested in trying to complete the alert using the consoles after the nemesis is released...but after deactivating all of them, I just got told that the shields were critical and then the alert completed (team killed nem)...

Any ideas?

First you have to turn off all four of the color-coded consoles at the same time. Then you have to simultaneously turn off the two gray consoles. Not something you can do solo, so it does require communication.

Once you have the group on board with the console method, it's the easiest and fastest way to complete the alert.

sterga

deadman20 wrote: »

You aren't timed for most of the alert. Scrambling at the beginning is more or less a self-applied urgency. Nobody has to run around like headless chickens during the alert at all since there isn't a failure condition until after you break down the first force field on the upper level. While at these stages, there's all the time in the world to observe the environment and plan around it, even in combat.

... You don't have to run around with your head cut off. The first hallway has NOTHING in it when you first enter. You open the door and see NOTHING inside. Walking inside dumps a ton of mobs onto your face. You cannot pause the game. The next room had a door to open. You cannot run around like crazy if you are stopping to open doors. The encounter is slowed down because someone has to open the doors. The first room after the hallway will aggro everything in the entire room all at once as soon as you go through the doorway. Either the door itself has a trigger for all of the mobs or the mobs have a massive aggro radius. Neither one of those things is anywhere else in the game. Looking at the room from the doorway doesn't even give you a good picture of the room especially if the other four people are also trying to look.

It's not "self-applied" urgency, it's the encounter is designed to throw a ton of crap at you without giving players time to assess the situation. You cannot know the developers changed the rules unless someone tells you ahead of time or you go in and see for yourself that things do not work as expected based on how the entire rest of the game is created.

It's sad that people are so quick to say how stupid most of the players are instead of looking at the design flaws in this alert that can cause problems. The developers certainly are not being helped to create better content when everything is always dismissed as players being the dumbest people on earth. (Except, of course, the players saying how stupid and hopeless everyone else is.)​​

spinnytop

I agree, there is no need to slow down, charging in and getting on the offensive is the best strategy. It's the one I use after all.

beezeeze

sterga wrote: »

It's sad that people are so quick to say how stupid most of the players are instead of looking at the design flaws in this alert that can cause problems. The developers certainly are not being helped to create better content when everything is always dismissed as players being the dumbest people on earth. (Except, of course, the players saying how stupid and hopeless everyone else is.)​​

Few if anyone here on the forums are flat out calling other people stupid for not knowing what to do, if anything it is the people who dislike this alert who are coming across as the most hostile... what with the name calling I have seen going on in other threads. Maybe it's just my imagination.

sigmaseven0

Its my favorite alert.
Its an efficient use of COs limited resources and its (imo) fun.