Aggro in STE: how is this supposed to work?

hasukurobi

As Spinny has pointed out on the patch notes before and is still the case it seems like Aggro in the Turret Section of Save The Earth can go one of two ways.

1) You move into the room and the Goons near whatever turret you approach Aggro and Attack you. Fairly soon after a few weaker Goons spawn in the corner of the room closest to you and Aggro and Attack you. This is fairly normal and is like all the other content in the game.

2) You move into the room and the Goons from all across the ENTIRE room Aggro and Attack you and immediately weaker Goons spawn in all the corners and immediately join in Aggro and Attacking you. This is unlike anything else in the game. This would be like doing the Bank Robbery Grab but instead of each group of Goons Aggroing you individually only when you attack them instead all of the Goons in the entire bank would Aggro you the moment you enter the building and rush over to the entrance to kill you all at once.

So which way is this supposed to actually go? I would hope it is the first way and the second way is a mistake that will be corrected. I say this because the second way tends to just end in wipe after wipe after wipe of the entire group unless you have a premade of level 40's who are geared out for handling serious content. This is extremely discouraging for people to run into and I have run into recently some folks who were signing up just to kick the rock and get those Perks because they believed you could not survive the Turret room because the three previous times they tried the mission they ran into Aggro pattern 2 there. So they would leave as soon as the mission actually started and had no intention of really playing it.

I talked one of them into joining a two person group of mine and we did it successfully and they could not understand why it was so different but it was Aggro Pattern 1 that time.

pr0fp0tts

I'll just add to this that I found out the hard way that you can't get a stabilization belt from the box if your toon already has one anywhere. I entered this alert with a toon who had an old stabilization belt from the Mechanon space station mission stashed in the bank, not even in inventory, and couldn't pick up a new one in the alert - and sliding around all over the show when you're trying to pick up your junk from the reward circle is in no way a fun experience!

CC powers can also help with the mobs... as long as your teammates aren't just blasting anything that moves with their usual psychotic abandon, of course...

spinnytop

pr0fp0tts wrote: »

and sliding around all over the show when you're trying to pick up your junk from the reward circle is in no way a fun experience!

This was already addressed as the inertia effect is reduced in the immediate vicinity of the reward circle.

pr0fp0tts wrote: »

CC powers can also help with the mobs... as long as your teammates aren't just blasting anything that moves with their usual psychotic abandon, of course...

CC powers can help even if your team is blasting the mobs - stuns are great for that, and paralyzes too if your CCer is strong

markhawkman

hasukurobi wrote: »

2) You move into the room and the Goons from all across the ENTIRE room Aggro and Attack you and immediately weaker Goons spawn in all the corners and immediately join in Aggro and Attacking you. This is unlike anything else in the game. This would be like doing the Bank Robbery Grab but instead of each group of Goons Aggroing you individually only when you attack them instead all of the Goons in the entire bank would Aggro you the moment you enter the building and rush over to the entrance to kill you all at once.

Ran into this several times this week so I decided to make a video of it since I'm not sure if it's a bug or not.
https://youtu.be/-J87F35g3c4
It's a tidalwave of so many goons you can't even walk down the ramp! It takes a hardcore tank to not get flattened immediately. Most runs where this happened we had to give up because we got wiped every time we set foot in the room.

spinnytop

OH IS STE IN THE ROTATION AGAIN?! *somehow trips over a desk rushing to log in*

markhawkman wrote: »

It's a tidalwave of so many goons you can't even walk down the ramp! It takes a hardcore tank to not get flattened immediately. Most runs where this happened we had to give up because we got wiped every time we set foot in the room.

This seems to happen when people are running through the entrance to the room very often. In other words, this is a sign that your group was already losing badly, and the minions have simply decided to drive the point home. I've been in groups where we did manage to make a comeback from this though, somehow...and boy does that feel good! Most groups who end up like this should just quit out and queue again though. This might be a bug, or it might be a secret sadistic way of communicating to a group that they're not going to survive later phases.


EDIT - oh it's not in the queue u3u back to Tekken.​​

lezard21

Some power's debuffs/DoT do not immediately reset upon the owner dieing (latency might have something to do with this). If you are too clickety and recover before said debuff/DoT expires, you'll get thrown back into the aggro table right away upon rezzing. This can happen anywhere in game. In some places where mobs do not have a leash range, like in StE, it becomes more obvious.

Best thing to do in this cases is for everyone to wipe and then wait 10 seconds before recovering.

A good dev sided fix would be to force the mob groups to despawn upon everyone dieing

spinnytop

lezard21 wrote: »

A good dev sided fix would be to force the mob groups to despawn upon everyone dieing

That doesn't solve the revolving door situation though where not everyone dies and people are just rushing back in. On the other hand, if every time someone is defeated the lockout mechanism turns on for 10 seconds that would solve both the dot issue, and the revolving door issue since people dying rapidly would then naturally force them to regroup and all go in together.​​

theravenforce

Urgh, I'm glad you managed to catch that on vid.

It is so frustrating when it happens. It seems to ALWAYS happen when I'm on a support of any kind. It's actually discouraged me from running STE.

I've had some excellent runs in STE but they haven't outweighed the bad runs sadly.

I feel like it should be decently puggable, and maybe it is? I just haven't experienced that yet.

markhawkman

If not for this issue, I think it would still be a bit over tuned in terms of mook damage. Add the two together though? ugh... Especially since this isn't an end-game dungeon. But, the only quick and easy runs I've had were 5-man teams of Cosmic Hunters.

spinnytop

theravenforce wrote: »

I've had some excellent runs in STE but they haven't outweighed the bad runs sadly.

markhawkman wrote: »

But, the only quick and easy runs I've had were 5-man teams of Cosmic Hunters.

That's cause I didn't log in at all for this round of STE. Don't worry, I'll make sure not to miss the next round.​​

sannia1

I've got a theory.

I'm trying to make a DPS toon that can alt-tank, and I opted for Medical Nanites as the alt passive, because my theme was to go for a gun slinging regenerator (like Deadpool.)

The reason I went for Medical Nanites, even though it's a support passive, when my intention is to mob tank, is that the healing aura generates aggro. And I tell you what, for the purposes of getting the aggro of every mob in the StE room, it's super effective.

I think the aggro from healing aura ticks such as Sentinal Aura is what catches the attention of all the mobs in the room and creates 'scenario 2'.

theravenforce

spinnytop wrote: »

That's cause I didn't log in at all for this round of STE. Don't worry, I'll make sure not to miss the next round.​​

Thanks

pantagruel01

Honestly, it's probably about as puggable as Cybermind, it's just that people aren't as used to it.

markhawkman

the mooks are the same quality as those in Cybermind, but there's more of them and you can't wipe them.... StE's laser turret room is like if you had to do the firewalls while 10 endlessly respawning guys tried beating you to death(instead of 2).

pwestolemyname

hasukurobi wrote: »

2) You move into the room and the Goons from all across the ENTIRE room Aggro and Attack you and immediately weaker Goons spawn in all the corners and immediately join in Aggro and Attacking you. This is unlike anything else in the game. This would be like doing the Bank Robbery Grab but instead of each group of Goons Aggroing you individually only when you attack them instead all of the Goons in the entire bank would Aggro you the moment you enter the building and rush over to the entrance to kill you all at once.

My understanding (from what a few people have told me in game) is that if anyone dawdles on the entry platform, the whole room aggros. This is true even on respawns. I have only been able to do limited testing on this, but it does seem to indicate this is true-ish.

Also, it seems to be important to stick together. If someone goes off in the other direction, that can easily pull more mobs. I kind of think there is also an aggro circle around each turret and/or keyboard, so even if you do not get too close to the mobs, they will aggro when you get close to the turret/keyboard.

markhawkman

My experience is that when scenario 2 triggers the enemies usually target the same player. Thus even if you do go in together they'll pick you off one at a time. Also the sheer numbers are overwhelming.

iamrune

I'm fairly sure this is almost always heal aura agro, such as sentinel aura.

Anyone with a heal area constantly ticking, essentially gets automatic heal agro on every mob in the alert, until someone else applies direct damage to a particular mob over the heal agro, they go after the support characters.

All it takes is for any particular team to have at least one character with an area heal effect ticking and that character auto agroes everything in the room constantly, and this needs to be addressed.

markhawkman

I see it happen no matter what build I'm using. If it was a heal aura doing it wouldn't that only apply threat to the player with the aura?

sannia1

Now that this alert has cycled back, I've done some testing. I have a build with Shadow Warrior and Medical Nanites, so I have a healing aura I can turn off and on.

So, I pugged until finding a run where it didn't insta-aggro in the main chamber, then turned on my healing aura. That did not trigger the mobs.

It has to be something that happens in the opening room or the hallway. Maybe the training dummy or the rock does it. Maybe that group of mobs that initially ambush you do it. I haven't ruled out the healing aura at that stage either

deadman20

Click here for a 100% guaranteed solution* for ALL of your in-game problems!

* = Warning: This may or may not be true depending on the user's playstyle and attitude.​​

spinnytop

deadman20 wrote: »

* = Warning: This may or may not be true depending on the user's playstyle and attitude.

Yeah I can guarantee you "everyone use the same build" isn't a solution u3u especially not that build, ew.

sannia1 wrote: »

It has to be something that happens in the opening room or the hallway.

I think it has something to do with people hanging around that doorway and the first raised platform. Everytime I've seen this occur it was because people were either respawning rapidly, or because they meandered by the entrance at the start instead of going in.​​

heartstringsk3

So I feel like every time this alert comes around we should make a bunch of threads about it until they fix the darn thing, but odds are they'd just delete them all, so I'll post here, heh.

Besides the ridiculous spawn rates and aggro range that are mentioned, I feel like they've added a new fun little problem where you can't pull the nemesis away from that top level. So the only way I've ever been able to get it done - pulling the nemesis to a corner, away from the endless ridiculous horde of hard-hitting minions - rarely seems to work now because the nemesis will not leave. It mostly seems to effect ranged powersets on the nemesis, of course, but even when you float out of their range, even if you're their target they'll just sit there. Melee nemeses do seem to still follow at least some of the time, thankfully!

spinnytop

heartstringsk3 wrote: »

SSo the only way I've ever been able to get it done - pulling the nemesis to a corner, away from the endless ridiculous horde of hard-hitting minions - rarely seems to work now because the nemesis will not leave. It mostly seems to effect ranged powersets on the nemesis, of course, but even when you float out of their range, even if you're their target they'll just sit there. Melee nemeses do seem to still follow at least some of the time, thankfully!

It is the ranged nemesis, and they've always been like that ever since STE first launched. You can still get them down there so long as you stay in their line of sight. It might take them a minute tho cause AI in this game is kinda dumb about moving. A better solution imo is to just fight them up there and aoe like crazy to keep the adds under control.

jenniferlogan

Not being able to drag the Nemesis down to the floor below may also be due to there being another PC in view of the Nemesis. They will then immediately switch to them instead of following the puller. It can save quite a bit of hassle to ask the team to head down to the bottom floor immediately after the force fields go down.