I am extremly annoyed with the insane amount of knockbacks from granades, shotguns and explosions, as a healer it gets impossible to heal sometimes. Some rooms have so many mobs knocking me back I spend the entire time just shielding and healing myself. Sometimes people die in front of me and Im completely helpless, uncapable of healing them because Im being tossed around like ping pong. GRAB alert was already a disaster.. so many munition mobs, this one is a total nightmare.
The last boss damage is super unbalanced, seen some strong players die in a matter of seconds. My entire team wiped in 5 seconds due to flamethrower and flames on the ground, he was only 8K HP left and the entire team died before we could do more than 5K, we failed. People will learn how to play as a team and the final battle will run more smooth in time, but the entire run is a frustrating experiance due to the knockback issue, something needs to be done about this..
Damn it Cryptic, stop listening to the Tryhards and doing things the majority don't find fun. I paid to play the game, not stand outside a stupid laser wall.
How much of a majority ?
Nothing is keeping you from playing the game. If this one mission isn't to your taste...don't do it. Or if its just the lock-out, remember that you have the power to decide to not be so affected.
If you choose to forgo the options provided to overcome the challenge, you have no more room to complain than someone who chooses to take no attack powers and then discovers that they cannot defeat foes.
If we are not talking PVP, then we are talking NPCs.
And other then a few special villain types that run Invulnerability or Defiance everything else has no defense at all. When I hit, I hit them for the full damage of my power. If im already hitting for full damage, what is extra penetration going to do?
They added damage resistance to mobs above henchman level with the On Alert pass.
I didn't find the areas before Warlord being that annoying or difficult. The KB was manageable. Maybe I found it so having been through enough GRAB the money and run alerts to have gotten used to it
One pet peeve of mine (pun intended) is that my land-based pets get blocked by the barriers that Warlord's soldiers use. What's more the pets do get stuck behind them from time to time. I have to keep resummoing them. Commander spec gives me reduced charged time for summons so that mitigates some of the frustration.
As for the lock-out upon defeat while fighting Warlord? It can be a good thing because it prevents the use easy graveyard-rush tactics and challenges the team to stay remain on their toes. Then again when the team setup is weak to begin with as evidenced by their performance in the earlier parts, there's really no point in going through the whole alert.
I'm all for challenge and a good fight, but not when those things are imposed by "fake difficulty". Dying because I'm being shotgun/grenade spammed around, or not being able to avoid the fire patches because I can't leap, fly, or teleport away is just cheesy. How about working on that enemy AI or coming up with enemy builds that don't use cheap tricks to make things harder on the players? Why not give those shadow mercs some interesting builds? We haven't seen particle rifle enemies yet...
And exactly how did Warlord get into the vault in the first place? If he used the door, then why don't we? If he hacked the systems, then I'd like to know why Harmon's systems are so shoddy that we have to blast our way in to fight him. Speaking of which, he's in a big empty room - what was he after anyway? There should have been a weapon or suit on a rack in the middle that Warlord takes and attaches to his suit just as we arrive there.
I like the general layout of the Alert, but the implementation needs work... Devs, you should listen to player feedback and actually tap us for ideas and input!
I'm all for challenge and a good fight, but not when those things are imposed by "fake difficulty". -snipped for brevity-
Wait till they push Gravitar, her one-shot 60k+ killing sphere, her instantaneous cascade spam, and the mandatory lockout...
Epic! Thrilling! Breathtaking action!
(Except if they change it...)
I'm loving this alert, especially on my healers. Sure, it's more difficult than some other things I could be doing, but I love a challenge once in a while (and believe me, pugging this sucker as a healer can be a challenge).
I'm sure it's frustrating for some people, but I've been having a blast with it.
OK Be warned that there are players out there who are using teleport to skip the trash and triggering the bossfight early thus locking everybody out of it before leaving the alert.
Nothing is keeping you from playing the game. If this one mission isn't to your taste...don't do it. Or if its just the lock-out, remember that you have the power to decide to not be so affected.
If you choose to forgo the options provided to overcome the challenge, you have no more room to complain than someone who chooses to take no attack powers and then discovers that they cannot defeat foes.
A majority is still a majority.
And no, it's not keeping me from playing the rest of the game. I still am. However if this sort of nonsense goes unprotested, the Tryhard lobby gets that much closer to ruining the rest of it for everyone but themselves.
As for theLockout.. for one its a shoddy, cheap, utterly lazy design choice, the epitome of fake difficulty.
Let me reiterate.. I may sound like a carebear casual at times strongly opposing any "challenge" -- but that's not true. I enjoy a reasonable challenge, when done well. One of my favorite game series of all times is Castlevania -- a bit of a ball-buster in the old days, then it got rather easier when the landmark 1997 Symphony of the Night came out -- so when, eleven years later Order of Ecclesia hit -- a lot of "old hands" were crying at the difficulty -- but I was loving it because it was pure old-school. Hard, but legitimately hard.
Contrast that with Seth, the final boss from Street Fighter IV.. who is a cheesy, overcranked, move-spamming nightmare. He's not fun, he's frustrating and exceedingly cheap. There's no real sill involved, just dumb luck more often tn not. Or in some RTS games, the CPU gets no smarter, its just given cheter's advantages ike extra resources, no pop limits, faster training times, etc.
Do you see the difference? Tryhards are too damned fast to embrace anything "hard" whether that's legitimate difficulty or due to cheating AI, fake difficulty features, or the like -- and they do it so loudly developers then think appeasing them is a good idea with more of the oft-lazy same.
That's part one of the problem.
Part two is a question of audience. Lockouts are lazy and a crutch and a shoddy mechanic that needs dragged out into the street and shot. But they're slightly more tolerable in end-game Level 40 Lair (and even then if you have a TPK on Therakiel you all go n together again, not "you lose."); we're dealing with Alerts -- PUG central by design and prone to low-level, under-equipped characters by nature, springing Lockout nonsense with no real warning. That Alert could leave a lasting impression on new players -- and the impression likely is "this sucks, I'm going somewhere else." Especially after wasting 20 minutes or more on it.
When outcry over the absurdity of Draconis and Poe was heard, they were rebalanced. Thus why this needs said, because right now this really needs another pass, and one or more elements need tweaked or removed -- reviving someone in the fire patches for example, is just killing them again, and travel-powers off means there's no real way to get out of them before you cook due to the obscene DoT.
Someone has to speak up, but in the meantime I'll just be playing better-balanced content, per your kind suggestion.
-bathes in multiple fire patches- What are ye talking about?
A note on the alert: I don't care much for it. Most of my distaste for it comes from the trash mob fights. There is too much KB spam. I'm running just shy of 400 strength and those mobs send me bouncing around like a ping pong ball. The problem isn't so much that the mobs have KB (although it is excessive) it's that KB res in this game doesn't really do much in thwarting KB. If say having superstatted strength actually stopped KB so it occurred as often as a solar eclipse, then this alert would be higher up on my enjoyable content list. But it doesn't, it doesn't really do much of anything, so I find the first part of this mission a lesson in frustration and how much I despise hard crowd control.
To derail the thread a bit, I agree that KB mitigation in the game has fallen to the wayside post On-Alert. You can't get enough knock resistance even if you build specifically for it. You'll be moved even while blocking. What I'd like to see is knock resistance put back into gear. Up the amount of knock resistance that can be obtained from current sources. Allow player to be virtually unmovable when they turtle up if they build for that sort of thing. But you allow it to be counters with knock crits which will negate a portion (or all) of a player's knock resistance.
That way super strength characters can stand toe to toe with the like of Doctor Destroyer or Grond vs their mightest blows. But the lady luck if fickle, sometimes, you slip on a big of debris are set off balance and Grond catches you with a haymaker and you go flying.
To derail the thread a bit, I agree that KB mitigation in the game has fallen to the wayside post On-Alert. You can't get enough knock resistance even if you build specifically for it. You'll be moved even while blocking. What I'd like to see is knock resistance put back into gear. Up the amount of knock resistance that can be obtained from current sources. Allow player to be virtually unmovable when they turtle up if they build for that sort of thing. But you allow it to be counters with knock crits which will negate a portion (or all) of a player's knock resistance.
That way super strength characters can stand toe to toe with the like of Doctor Destroyer or Grond vs their mightest blows. But the lady luck if fickle, sometimes, you slip on a big of debris are set off balance and Grond catches you with a haymaker and you go flying.
I just retconned into taking Circle of Primal Dominion at R3 and fought Warlord and the added knock resistance of (allegedly) +480% did absolutely nothing at all. Seriously? +480% knock resistance and it had no effect? I'm starting to think that knock resistance just isn't working at all in this game.
EDIT: Tested with a SG friend who specialises in knocking. Definitely works but then why do I get knocked the same distance by Warlord whether I have the circle out or not?
They don't even provide knock resist on gears, how can you expect them to add it to EGO?
Its meant to stop ranged knock back ...MEANT...but ya it doesnt no matter how much ego I put on ima still bounching offa the walls with those damn shotguns :P
I just retconned into taking Circle of Primal Dominion at R3 and fought Warlord and the added knock resistance of (allegedly) +480% did absolutely nothing at all. Seriously? +480% knock resistance and it had no effect? I'm starting to think that knock resistance just isn't working at all in this game.
EDIT: Tested with a SG friend who specialises in knocking. Definitely works but then why do I get knocked the same distance by Warlord whether I have the circle out or not?
The only time knock resistance has made a significant impact in gameplay for me when i was running about 1000%. Yeah, it's not feasible to run that all that time.
I've tested kb res against players too, and it appears to do next to nothing. KB res needs some addressing, namely it should make you nigh unpuntable if you set your stats to it.
Oh, and mob rank should diminish their chance at KB. Underlevel (weak) status Nephilim minions will send me flying all the damn time. That's stupid.
And no, it's not keeping me from playing the rest of the game. I still am. However if this sort of nonsense goes unprotested, the Tryhard lobby gets that much closer to ruining the rest of it for everyone but themselves.
As for theLockout.. for one its a shoddy, cheap, utterly lazy design choice, the epitome of fake difficulty.
Let me reiterate.. I may sound like a carebear casual at times strongly opposing any "challenge" -- but that's not true. I enjoy a reasonable challenge, when done well. One of my favorite game series of all times is Castlevania -- a bit of a ball-buster in the old days, then it got rather easier when the landmark 1997 Symphony of the Night came out -- so when, eleven years later Order of Ecclesia hit -- a lot of "old hands" were crying at the difficulty -- but I was loving it because it was pure old-school. Hard, but legitimately hard.
Contrast that with Seth, the final boss from Street Fighter IV.. who is a cheesy, overcranked, move-spamming nightmare. He's not fun, he's frustrating and exceedingly cheap. There's no real sill involved, just dumb luck more often tn not. Or in some RTS games, the CPU gets no smarter, its just given cheter's advantages ike extra resources, no pop limits, faster training times, etc.
Do you see the difference? Tryhards are too damned fast to embrace anything "hard" whether that's legitimate difficulty or due to cheating AI, fake difficulty features, or the like -- and they do it so loudly developers then think appeasing them is a good idea with more of the oft-lazy same.
That's part one of the problem.
Part two is a question of audience. Lockouts are lazy and a crutch and a shoddy mechanic that needs dragged out into the street and shot. But they're slightly more tolerable in end-game Level 40 Lair (and even then if you have a TPK on Therakiel you all go n together again, not "you lose."); we're dealing with Alerts -- PUG central by design and prone to low-level, under-equipped characters by nature, springing Lockout nonsense with no real warning. That Alert could leave a lasting impression on new players -- and the impression likely is "this sucks, I'm going somewhere else." Especially after wasting 20 minutes or more on it.
When outcry over the absurdity of Draconis and Poe was heard, they were rebalanced. Thus why this needs said, because right now this really needs another pass, and one or more elements need tweaked or removed -- reviving someone in the fire patches for example, is just killing them again, and travel-powers off means there's no real way to get out of them before you cook due to the obscene DoT.
Someone has to speak up, but in the meantime I'll just be playing better-balanced content, per your kind suggestion.
Sorry, but I really am curious as to how much of a majority you are referring to. Would you be willing to share the data you used to measure what the majority want ?
Personally I dont think that a mechanic that prevents people from being able to death-zerg rush a boss repeatedly until he finally succumbs due to the fact that he is essentially facing an infinite number fo superheroes is fake difficulty. There isnt really anything fake about a hero who has been rendered unconscious (or temporarily dead ) being unable to continue to fight unless an ally is possesses some ability to revive them.
Not having the lockout is more 'fake' ease than having it is fake difficulty. Without the lockout the boss might as well not fight back, or might as well just do zero damage with each hit. If the player character effectively has infinite stun there is no point to attacking him.
That said, I admit that I have always disliked situations where AoE DOT effects make resurrecting an ally impossible.
Diablo 3 locks people out of boss fights and its selling so well hotcakes don't want anything to do with it.
What's the difference in their lockout mechanic? First, it gathers the whole group so no one is left out of the start of the fight. Secondly, it tells you that it'll lock you out so that you stay put and wait for a rez. Finally, and most importantly importantly, everyone can rez.
Its the difference between fun lockouts (ooh I can't mess up!) and stupid seemingly pointless ones (oh wow almost everyone is dead and no one has a rez anyways).
Plus, its not like granting a rez to everyone is a game-breaking thing anyways (barring game-geo exploits related to rezzing, but I'm sure Cryptic is on top of that).
Diablo 3 locks people out of boss fights and its selling so well hotcakes don't want anything to do with it.
What's the difference in their lockout mechanic? First, it gathers the whole group so no one is left out of the start of the fight. Secondly, it tells you that it'll lock you out so that you stay put and wait for a rez. Finally, and most importantly importantly, everyone can rez.
Its the difference between fun lockouts (ooh I can't mess up!) and stupid seemingly pointless ones (oh wow almost everyone is dead and no one has a rez anyways).
Plus, its not like granting a rez to everyone is a game-breaking thing anyways (barring game-geo exploits related to rezzing, but I'm sure Cryptic is on top of that).
Despite all this it's still a horrible mechanic. I remember the first time I 'beat' the end boss. I died and wasn't ressed in the second of three phases, then waited around for 10-15 minutes while my teammate hydra'd him to death.
Sorry, but I really am curious as to how much of a majority you are referring to. Would you be willing to share the data you used to measure what the majority want ?
Personally I dont think that a mechanic that prevents people from being able to death-zerg rush a boss repeatedly until he finally succumbs due to the fact that he is essentially facing an infinite number fo superheroes is fake difficulty. There isnt really anything fake about a hero who has been rendered unconscious (or temporarily dead ) being unable to continue to fight unless an ally is possesses some ability to revive them.
Not having the lockout is more 'fake' ease than having it is fake difficulty. Without the lockout the boss might as well not fight back, or might as well just do zero damage with each hit. If the player character effectively has infinite stun there is no point to attacking him.
That said, I admit that I have always disliked situations where AoE DOT effects make resurrecting an ally impossible.
Listening in on the forums and zone chat, I am hearing at least 2-1 "Lockouts suck! Get rid of it!" versus "Oooh! Make me SUFFER! Harder, please, keep this!"
Pardon the strawman, and statistics are a sketchy science at best. But public opinion, to my ears (and listen intently) seems to be at least 2-1 "this sucks".
Warning, TV Tropes! -- but points 3 and 4 both qualify in this particular case.
Its also definable as an artificial, tacked-on element that is not present in regular gameplay, which -- its not -- added to content to make it more challenging externally rather than legitimately.
Well. I'll never try this mission again. If that was the goal of the design, GOOD JOB!
Between the unresistable knockbacks and the requirement to use the power armor to advance the mission, thereby reducing my defenses, and the nearly oneshot attacks of the boss, and the utterly stupid lockout mechanism, this mission is a waste of time.
The evidence just keeps mounting.. every voice raised in protest adds further proof to my point. Also? Look at the Lockout thread here... again, nearly every discussion on the board and elsewhere is showing strong "kill lockout" tendencies.....
I play this game. I enjoy playing this game. I have a medical disability which i've had more than half my life. If content is made with too high a difficulty then i plain won't be able to enjoy it as it will make my symptoms flare up and i will have to go do something else till they go back down. And as for most of the people who play champions with me, most of them are offline friends and family members who are casual gamers not people looking for elite challenges.
This alert does not sound currently like fun, and while i will try it at least once most of the people i usually team with won't!
Now i don't begrudge those who want or need the extra challenges to have their fun. I also don't want to miss out on getting to complete some alerts because they are made solely for the more skilled and not-disabled gamers. But it doesn't need to be an either-or dillema. Because all content can be made with two simple tiers, casual gamers and the elite, or in other words easy mode and difficult mode.
Having some alerts made just for the people wanting to play it in higher amount of difficulty is just mean. And it turns off many casual gamers.
Give the folks who want the extra challenge their challenges by making a higher-difficulty version of all alerts and let those of us who are noobs or casual gamers or less skilled or less physically able or who just don't enjoy extreme difficulty to have the same fun too!
Unless both the casual gamers and the eliters are equally well served then the game will lose players from one or the other and can it really afford loosing many of either? Already some of the people i have played with have stopped playing for a variety of reasons (the last needing to retcon most of their characters was the last straw for one). The extra bit of effort to keep everyone happy is possible, and it's needed.
The evidence just keeps mounting.. every voice raised in protest adds further proof to my point. Also? Look at the Lockout thread here... again, nearly every discussion on the board and elsewhere is showing strong "kill lockout" tendencies.....
And yet noone has has really responded to the argument of player's zerg'ng the bosses to win the fights. If anyone has any better ideas, let's hear 'em.
And yet noone has has really responded to the argument of player's zerg'ng the bosses to win the fights. If anyone has any better ideas, let's hear 'em.
It's not a problem so there doesn't need to be a solution.
Diablo 3 locks people out of boss fights and its selling so well hotcakes don't want anything to do with it.
What's the difference in their lockout mechanic? First, it gathers the whole group so no one is left out of the start of the fight. Secondly, it tells you that it'll lock you out so that you stay put and wait for a rez. Finally, and most importantly importantly, everyone can rez.
Its the difference between fun lockouts (ooh I can't mess up!) and stupid seemingly pointless ones (oh wow almost everyone is dead and no one has a rez anyways).
Plus, its not like granting a rez to everyone is a game-breaking thing anyways (barring game-geo exploits related to rezzing, but I'm sure Cryptic is on top of that).
I like the idea of ditching the rez powers in exchange for anyone being able to rez to some degree. As for the Diablo 3 reference... well... let's just say I ended up hating most of Blizzard's games. But, that's my personal opinions and preferences.
So...you're okay with zero chance at failure? Because I'm not.
You don't need lockout mechanics to fail. Make it sufficiently hard, and believe it's hard enough already, and people will fail simply due to the boss regenning to full every time he wipes the party. Plenty of people are already failing this alert due to people quiting out of frustration. The lockout, by itself at least, wasn't the way to go. If they are going to make heavy use of lockout mechanics, they need to re-work the system, since you aren't even guaranteed a healer, none the less a rezzer on your team.
And yet noone has has really responded to the argument of player's zerg'ng the bosses to win the fights. If anyone has any better ideas, let's hear 'em.
Stick a time limit on the boss fight. That'd do it. Similar penalties to when you lose a team member in a Dockside Dustup, except with a working countdown
So...you're okay with zero chance at failure? Because I'm not.
You know what's worse than zero chance of failure? Anything less than a 90% chance of fun. Fun may or may not be connected to chance of failure, but it's definately always connected to:
* Frustration.
* Steep Learning Curve
* Confusion
* Unclear and/or Inobvious requirements for success
* Unadaptive difficulty set above capabilities of player
Too much of these is a deathknell for fun. And it doesn't take a lot of them to send people elsewhere for their fun. Challenge is a far less important quotiont of fun for most people. For the smaller portion for who it is important then there are higher difficulty levels in missions, alerts just need a varying difficulty system too so you get your higher chances of failure and i get my higher chances of fun. Everyone wins then don't they?
Well, Bats, if you decide to play this Alert, then I recommend:
1) Resign yourself to probably getting aced a few times on the way in. If you haven't opened the way to Warlord yet, it just means you respawn at the front door and have to make your way back to the fight.
2) Use a ranged-damage toon. Run up to the balcony rail when Warlord's room opens, then wait until someone else grabs aggro, and open up on him from the balcony. Note that if you fire before someone else aggroes him, his flamethrower can and will reach the balcony.
I ran this tonight with HandyMan, an Inventor, assuming that his Support Drones would help the other players. I turned Warlord into a pink teddy bear twice!
You know what's worse than zero chance of failure? Anything less than a 90% chance of fun. Fun may or may not be connected to chance of failure, but it's definately always connected to:
* Frustration.
* Steep Learning Curve
* Confusion
* Unclear and/or Inobvious requirements for success
* Unadaptive difficulty set above capabilities of player
Too much of these is a deathknell for fun. And it doesn't take a lot of them to send people elsewhere for their fun. Challenge is a far less important quotiont of fun for most people. For the smaller portion for who it is important then there are higher difficulty levels in missions, alerts just need a varying difficulty system too so you get your higher chances of failure and i get my higher chances of fun. Everyone wins then don't they?
See, I don't find rolling over content fun.
I agree that there are problems with the new alert, and believe that it should give clear warning that there is a lockout, but I'm not against the lockout, it forces players to not barge in, be a little more cautious when taking hits, and consider refining their build if they continue to have problems.
I like steep learning curves. Fights that are learned within moments are dull. The most fun I've had in any game was trying to down a dungeon that was built to be impossible without acquiring gear from that dungeon. It took my group several months of frequent gameplay, build crunching, team makeups, and learning the boss mechanics before we finally beat it. And it was an amazing feeling of accomplishment when we finally did. This was the norm for said dungeon as well, no group beat it until a month or so after it's launch.
I wish upon wishes we had content like that in this game. The Warlord lair is not terrible, it's not difficult, and the learning curve is an absolute minimal. I will fault it for not requesting a player's role for team makeup, as running it without someone who is capable of holding aggro most certainly makes it more difficult. My suggestion there would be to only run it as such a character, or to invest in a premade team if you are dead set on running that one alert.
Champions is starved of difficult content. I'm enjoying that they're creeping up the difficulty with these unique alerts, and hope that they will one day release a full fledged built to be impossible lair that players can work together and device a way to complete.
...
Give the folks who want the extra challenge their challenges by making a higher-difficulty version of all alerts and let those of us who are noobs or casual gamers or less skilled or less physically able or who just don't enjoy extreme difficulty to have the same fun too!...
Everyone would just do 'normal' version and skip 'elite'.
OK, some/most/all would try elite version at least once. A small number of player would try elite until they win it. But after that, everyone would play normal.
What I have seen in this or any other given MMO game is, that the number of players that want super challenge every single day, 24/7 is practically zero(0).
Everyone would just do 'normal' version and skip 'elite'.
OK, some/most/all would try elite version at least once. A small number of player would try elite until they win it. But after that, everyone would play normal.
What I have seen in this or any other given MMO game is, that the number of players that want super challenge every single day, 24/7 is practically zero(0).
See, I don't find rolling over content fun.
I agree that there are problems with the new alert, and believe that it should give clear warning that there is a lockout, but I'm not against the lockout, it forces players to not barge in, be a little more cautious when taking hits, and consider refining their build if they continue to have problems.
I agree with you here, but I don't agree with finding a steep learning curve fun at all (diversity is the only constant in the world, however, and I don't find this a problem).
Lockouts can be fun. Sometimes, as long as it's done well, 'fake difficulty' (along with a number of other tropes) can be alright. I think the main issue here is the lack of telegraphing that issue in advance. Alerts and other fights that have a lock-out feature should telegraph that fact (in a pop-up at the relevant portion, preferably) when it is in effect, and the content itself should tell you that in it's description while queueing up (if you don't read that stuff, that's your fault; they gave you the info, your ability to disregard it isn't their problem) for that content so you can take the necessary measures (if possible - something as simple as making sure you have a Triumphant Recovery on-hand, and with the level-up boxes handing those out like candy a large amount of characters should be able to stack those up).
Note: While I am for lock-outs in fights, I am also against (in a super-hero setting) hard lockouts where there's nothing to be done about it. I think this (and future alerts) can benefit from a 'soft' lockout (you have to do X or Y thing in order to bust yourself back into the scene). I don't mind this being somewhat prohibitive for certain ATs or builds (though if someone else can come assist in bailing you out, that would be acceptable, but not necessary).
Nothing is more boring then watching other people fight with your nose pressed to the glass. Being able to do something to actively rectify that situation is a lot better, in my personal opinion (even if it includes a 'hard' or 'soft' Enrage timer to go with it to compensate).
EDIT: Best example of what a 'fun' lockout type can be, for me - GW has a boss-fight at the end of Factions where, randomly, he will 'displace' one of your party members. Said party member is teleported to one of a few locations on the map, and a mob (dependent on that character's class) summoned in their place. They then have to fight their way through minions (ignorant of their ability to do so - support classes with little damage potential have the hardest time here) in order to get back to the action, or the party has to kill their 'double' to get them back. Not really a lockout, per-se, but the 'respawned in a specific location and having to fight back' part is easily adaptable.
Or the Mayhem missions from CoH/V where if you're defeated, you get sent to 'jail' and have to bust your way out... and sometimes the mob spawns, for certain team sizes, can make it unwise to break out by yourself for a lot of builds. Doing this eats up valuable time in the mission itself.
I agree with you here, but I don't agree with finding a steep learning curve fun at all (diversity is the only constant in the world, however, and I don't find this a problem).
Lockouts can be fun. Sometimes, as long as it's done well, 'fake difficulty' (along with a number of other tropes) can be alright. I think the main issue here is the lack of telegraphing that issue in advance. Alerts and other fights that have a lock-out feature should telegraph that fact (in a pop-up at the relevant portion, preferably) when it is in effect, and the content itself should tell you that in it's description while queueing up (if you don't read that stuff, that's your fault; they gave you the info, your ability to disregard it isn't their problem) for that content so you can take the necessary measures (if possible - something as simple as making sure you have a Triumphant Recovery on-hand, and with the level-up boxes handing those out like candy a large amount of characters should be able to stack those up).
Note: While I am for lock-outs in fights, I am also against (in a super-hero setting) hard lockouts where there's nothing to be done about it. I think this (and future alerts) can benefit from a 'soft' lockout (you have to do X or Y thing in order to bust yourself back into the scene). I don't mind this being somewhat prohibitive for certain ATs or builds (though if someone else can come assist in bailing you out, that would be acceptable, but not necessary).
Nothing is more boring then watching other people fight with your nose pressed to the glass. Being able to do something to actively rectify that situation is a lot better, in my personal opinion (even if it includes a 'hard' or 'soft' Enrage timer to go with it to compensate).
EDIT: Best example of what a 'fun' lockout type can be, for me - GW has a boss-fight at the end of Factions where, randomly, he will 'displace' one of your party members. Said party member is teleported to one of a few locations on the map, and a mob (dependent on that character's class) summoned in their place. They then have to fight their way through minions (ignorant of their ability to do so - support classes with little damage potential have the hardest time here) in order to get back to the action, or the party has to kill their 'double' to get them back. Not really a lockout, per-se, but the 'respawned in a specific location and having to fight back' part is easily adaptable.
Or the Mayhem missions from CoH/V where if you're defeated, you get sent to 'jail' and have to bust your way out... and sometimes the mob spawns, for certain team sizes, can make it unwise to break out by yourself for a lot of builds. Doing this eats up valuable time in the mission itself.
Well said.
I personally dont consider a lock-out to be fake difficulty, but agree that a soft lockout (such as the one in the Shiro fight that you mention) is more interesting than just watching everyone else fight on without you.
And people have been complaining about how easy CO's content was. Now they're complaining that it's too difficult. You just can't please everyone.
So what is it, do we want the lock-out removed and let Warlord Alert be the generic "clear all mobs + boss" where graveyard-rush tactics win the day even if the team is doing abysmally poor? If you ask me, that's counter-productive to a player properly honing their skills and improving their A-game.
To be fair, if Cryptic had bothered to give an early warning about the lock-out and to get players prepared ahead-of-time without thinking that they can graveyard-rush, the failure rate could have been decreased.
So what is it, do we want the lock-out removed and let Warlord Alert be the generic "clear all mobs + boss" where graveyard-rush tactics win the day even if the team is doing abysmally poor?
Better than having a situation where the poor players do nothing for as long as it takes for the fight to resolve after they die.
EDIT: Best example of what a 'fun' lockout type can be, for me - GW has a boss-fight at the end of Factions where, randomly, he will 'displace' one of your party members. Said party member is teleported to one of a few locations on the map, and a mob (dependent on that character's class) summoned in their place. They then have to fight their way through minions (ignorant of their ability to do so - support classes with little damage potential have the hardest time here) in order to get back to the action, or the party has to kill their 'double' to get them back. Not really a lockout, per-se, but the 'respawned in a specific location and having to fight back' part is easily adaptable.
Ahh, Shiro Tagachi...
Damn it, I've got a nostalgia flash now because of you.
On topic: After failing the Alert on my first two tries (Kaiserin, no offense I find it damn impressive you can stand in the napalm patches, but please consider that not everyone uses the same build as you do; I mostly play ranged squishies for example and being knocked into one of the patches by one of Warlord's stray grenades just means instant death for moi) I'd say it definately is not so bad. Potential for improvement is there though.
One could:
- Warn the players about a lockout. That is the least in my opinion.
- Try the soft lockout approach as mentioned by Yuri. In case of the Warlord Alert, maybe destroying a generator guarded by two villains class Shadow Army soldiers, which allows you (and only you, every player has to destroy another generator) to rejoin the fight.
EDIT: I just realized that the War Machine, Warlord's personal team of enforcers are 5 supervillains. Let each on of them guard a generator. If you are defeated in the battle with Warlord, you have to defeat a randomly chosen member of the War Machine (standard supervillain) and you can rejoin the fight with Warlord himself.
The black X are the generators. The light blue walls are forcefields which are active before you start the fight with Warlord himself. You cant get to the members of the War Machine at this point. The dark blue line is the lockout forcefield. Now you are defeated and respawn at the point I marked with entrance (the blasted wall). Now you get a message: 'Defeat Warcry to rejoin the fight!' The forcefield of Warcry goes down, you defeat Warcry, destroy the generator and then you can rejoin the fight with Warlord. Defeating every member of the War Machine and Warlord himself could grant you the 'Warmaster' perk and title.
- Find another approach to put some difficulty in the Alerts, instead of the lockout. This is of course the hardest way, but probably also the most rewarding, both for the Devs and the players.
Well, Bats, if you decide to play this Alert, then I recommend:
1) Resign yourself to probably getting aced a few times on the way in. If you haven't opened the way to Warlord yet, it just means you respawn at the front door and have to make your way back to the fight.
2) Use a ranged-damage toon. Run up to the balcony rail when Warlord's room opens, then wait until someone else grabs aggro, and open up on him from the balcony. Note that if you fire before someone else aggroes him, his flamethrower can and will reach the balcony.
I ran this tonight with HandyMan, an Inventor, assuming that his Support Drones would help the other players. I turned Warlord into a pink teddy bear twice!
Thanks for the advice, tried it twice with my main Dr Cerebellum Sapphobotica who's at level 39 Tempest. First run got through just as you suggested but the second while i wasn't first to attack i pretty quickly was getting flamed up on the balcony and by blocking so much i barely got to attack i was the last to fall nevertheless it was a TPK, total party kill. I don't like my chances of ever getting that new bubble-dome helmet drop
Actually i agree. I started doing alerts because they are fun and when waiting for teammates between missioning together and then i started grinding questionite for the electric flight (nearly halfway there) and as a result i'm nearly maxed out and haven't even started non-crisis monster island. Which is why i started a thread in the suggestions section about allowing us to find missions we've missed and allowing us to sidekick down to the missions level. Others have had similar suggestions i've supported. But i still find too great a difficulty less engaging and far more de-immersing than a cakewalk. An easy time i can still focus on the story and graphics and fun in-character banter over audio with my friends, when too difficult all that is forgotten in the stress and frustration and the focus on the mechanics needed to win and for that i may as well be playing chess or a maths-heavy tabletop wargame.
I'm all for greater difficulty as an option for players wanting more challenges. Thats what difficulty levels are for. Problem is we don't have them in alerts, but we need them.
Everyone would just do 'normal' version and skip 'elite'.
OK, some/most/all would try elite version at least once. A small number of player would try elite until they win it. But after that, everyone would play normal.
What I have seen in this or any other given MMO game is, that the number of players that want super challenge every single day, 24/7 is practically zero(0).
Exception is, if elite mode brings elite loot.
Then they'd have lost any grounds to complain. Their laziness would be no reason for denying others less skilled from being able to enjoy the game, there's no sense in that. Having a choice of more challenge is good, it'd mean everyone has the challenge level approporiate to them and no-one misses out on cool missions and cool rewards. If people want the greater difficulty but not it as an option, if they need others to be denied the ability to finish some missions what are they really asking for?
Better than having a situation where the poor players do nothing for as long as it takes for the fight to resolve after they die.
Then they should make it a point to do their best not to get defeated. The very existence of the lock-out is supposed to be an incentive for that, and not for players to think they can can steam roll everything without consequences or risk.
Or perhaps people don't play games to be challenged any more. Gimme that hack for infinite lives for Super Contra for a super good time.
I've played the Warlord Alert 3 times with my tank alt and have a success rate of 66%.
The one failure was where all the other players had left by the time we go to the prototype room. I cleared the prototype room, blasted a hole to Warlord and proceeded to do some very lively tanking thank you very much.
I was able to get him down to the third life bar when he started laying down the fire patches to where I as a melee toon couldn't get to him. **Heavy Sigh**
Basically this seems like a scenario geared towards heavy tanking.
Or perhaps people don't play games to be challenged any more..
Challenge is fine; what is not challenging is entering the Alert for the first time and when encountering the final boss:
- Having 4 people in a 5 person Alert because one dropped
- Havnig your travel power cancelled out (was there a story reason for this? If so, I missed it, but if not, how about one?)
- Finding yourself standing alone against the boss, wondering why the other heroes are just standing there, doing nothing. Again, where did the forcefield come from? Why wasn't it up in the first place, and only appears after one hero is defeated?
The mechanic of the unexplained forcefield lockout and the unexplained travel power negation are poor subsitution for creative encounter mechanics. And why go to the trouble of explaining what Warlod is doing there, but then NOT explain where the forcefield comes from, or why your travel powers don't work? Really? What happened to storytelling in this game?
I understand not wanting the heroes to be able to zerg Warlord, but then give the forcefield a hefty health bar and allow the fallen heroes to break through it, only to have it reappear 5 seconds later. A temporary lockout that makes the players still feel like heroes by giving them something to do while their allies face the big bad. Explain the forcefield is a much larger version of the energy fields on the new armor that they're testing as a new security measure, and that, while up, it also suppresses meta-movement, to prevent superspeed and teleporting thieves.
Please - the concept for themed Alerts is a good one, but if you're going to start something, follow-through the whole way. Like a lot of other things in this game, this feels like you got 90% of the way in and said, "Eh, well, it's good enough for now".
Then they should make it a point to do their best not to get defeated. The very existence of the lock-out is supposed to be an incentive for that, and not for players to think they can can steam roll everything without consequences or risk.
Or perhaps people don't play games to be challenged any more. Gimme that hack for infinite lives for Super Contra for a super good time.
I'm against the lockout because griefers can lock out the entire mission.
Fix that problem with the lockout and my acceptance for it will increase.
So it's not all black or white here.
One need to take a deep breath and smell the napalm once in a while rather than become some rabid cat with the claws out.
But on that note... If I want challenge I'll play a game specifically made to be challenged. Not one that gets a single challenging mission which throws off the normal dullness somewhat.
The Lockout is the worst part of this alert. Bad players are the second.
Yesterday we had a group of 5 that worked together and got it done. So I got the mission and Queued up for another go. This time from the beginning we had 1 goon, probably his second hero (you know who you are) who sat out the fight up stairs. I suppose one other player (you also know who you are) must have noticed while we were getting knocked all over that the leach wasn't helping so he left, leaving 3 to go on. Something needs to be done about leaches and quiters.
Minimum level requirements so when Team SKd to 30 they at least have the powers? Some sort of penalty or ban for leaches who don't fight?
Then they should make it a point to do their best not to get defeated.
Sound advice. Can you tell me where to buy the asbestos armor for my suit, so that when Warlord turns around and hits me with his accursed flamethrower I don't get one-shotted?
It's hard to "do you best not to get defeated" when defeat arrives literally out of nowhere. It's like advising someone who's just arrived in the Desert at lvl 15 to "do their best not to get beaten up by Grond."
Sound advice. Can you tell me where to buy the asbestos armor for my suit, so that when Warlord turns around and hits me with his accursed flamethrower I don't get one-shotted?
I wonder what Active Defenses are for? His flamethrower attack doesn't come out of the blue either, it can be predicted and neither is it a one-shot. It's a pretty fast DoT I give it that, but certainly doesn't kill you in a single hit, and most certainly not if you're quick enough block it.
It's hard to "do you best not to get defeated" when defeat arrives literally out of nowhere. It's like advising someone who's just arrived in the Desert at lvl 15 to "do their best not to get beaten up by Grond."
Only that it's not entirely impossible to get away from Grond, and that you're not forced to go toe-to-toe with him.
I think a parallel can be drawn from the statement in some way.
Comments
>_> But the thing people should take good note of is DO NOT USE THAT TEMP POWER DEVICE to fight Warlord you will die.
The last boss damage is super unbalanced, seen some strong players die in a matter of seconds. My entire team wiped in 5 seconds due to flamethrower and flames on the ground, he was only 8K HP left and the entire team died before we could do more than 5K, we failed. People will learn how to play as a team and the final battle will run more smooth in time, but the entire run is a frustrating experiance due to the knockback issue, something needs to be done about this..
How much of a majority ?
Nothing is keeping you from playing the game. If this one mission isn't to your taste...don't do it. Or if its just the lock-out, remember that you have the power to decide to not be so affected.
If you choose to forgo the options provided to overcome the challenge, you have no more room to complain than someone who chooses to take no attack powers and then discovers that they cannot defeat foes.
LOL fixed that for meh...I'll leave the other post up for lols :P
They added damage resistance to mobs above henchman level with the On Alert pass.
One pet peeve of mine (pun intended) is that my land-based pets get blocked by the barriers that Warlord's soldiers use. What's more the pets do get stuck behind them from time to time. I have to keep resummoing them. Commander spec gives me reduced charged time for summons so that mitigates some of the frustration.
As for the lock-out upon defeat while fighting Warlord? It can be a good thing because it prevents the use easy graveyard-rush tactics and challenges the team to stay remain on their toes. Then again when the team setup is weak to begin with as evidenced by their performance in the earlier parts, there's really no point in going through the whole alert.
The lesson I've learned so far is that if you're not paired up with a bunch of idiots, this alert is pretty easy.
Unfortunately, the odds of that happening are staggeringly low...
They don't even provide knock resist on gears, how can you expect them to add it to EGO?
And exactly how did Warlord get into the vault in the first place? If he used the door, then why don't we? If he hacked the systems, then I'd like to know why Harmon's systems are so shoddy that we have to blast our way in to fight him. Speaking of which, he's in a big empty room - what was he after anyway? There should have been a weapon or suit on a rack in the middle that Warlord takes and attaches to his suit just as we arrive there.
I like the general layout of the Alert, but the implementation needs work... Devs, you should listen to player feedback and actually tap us for ideas and input!
Epic! Thrilling! Breathtaking action!
(Except if they change it...)
I'm sure it's frustrating for some people, but I've been having a blast with it.
A majority is still a majority.
And no, it's not keeping me from playing the rest of the game. I still am. However if this sort of nonsense goes unprotested, the Tryhard lobby gets that much closer to ruining the rest of it for everyone but themselves.
As for theLockout.. for one its a shoddy, cheap, utterly lazy design choice, the epitome of fake difficulty.
Let me reiterate.. I may sound like a carebear casual at times strongly opposing any "challenge" -- but that's not true. I enjoy a reasonable challenge, when done well. One of my favorite game series of all times is Castlevania -- a bit of a ball-buster in the old days, then it got rather easier when the landmark 1997 Symphony of the Night came out -- so when, eleven years later Order of Ecclesia hit -- a lot of "old hands" were crying at the difficulty -- but I was loving it because it was pure old-school. Hard, but legitimately hard.
Contrast that with Seth, the final boss from Street Fighter IV.. who is a cheesy, overcranked, move-spamming nightmare. He's not fun, he's frustrating and exceedingly cheap. There's no real sill involved, just dumb luck more often tn not. Or in some RTS games, the CPU gets no smarter, its just given cheter's advantages ike extra resources, no pop limits, faster training times, etc.
Do you see the difference? Tryhards are too damned fast to embrace anything "hard" whether that's legitimate difficulty or due to cheating AI, fake difficulty features, or the like -- and they do it so loudly developers then think appeasing them is a good idea with more of the oft-lazy same.
That's part one of the problem.
Part two is a question of audience. Lockouts are lazy and a crutch and a shoddy mechanic that needs dragged out into the street and shot. But they're slightly more tolerable in end-game Level 40 Lair (and even then if you have a TPK on Therakiel you all go n together again, not "you lose."); we're dealing with Alerts -- PUG central by design and prone to low-level, under-equipped characters by nature, springing Lockout nonsense with no real warning. That Alert could leave a lasting impression on new players -- and the impression likely is "this sucks, I'm going somewhere else." Especially after wasting 20 minutes or more on it.
When outcry over the absurdity of Draconis and Poe was heard, they were rebalanced. Thus why this needs said, because right now this really needs another pass, and one or more elements need tweaked or removed -- reviving someone in the fire patches for example, is just killing them again, and travel-powers off means there's no real way to get out of them before you cook due to the obscene DoT.
Someone has to speak up, but in the meantime I'll just be playing better-balanced content, per your kind suggestion.
To derail the thread a bit, I agree that KB mitigation in the game has fallen to the wayside post On-Alert. You can't get enough knock resistance even if you build specifically for it. You'll be moved even while blocking. What I'd like to see is knock resistance put back into gear. Up the amount of knock resistance that can be obtained from current sources. Allow player to be virtually unmovable when they turtle up if they build for that sort of thing. But you allow it to be counters with knock crits which will negate a portion (or all) of a player's knock resistance.
That way super strength characters can stand toe to toe with the like of Doctor Destroyer or Grond vs their mightest blows. But the lady luck if fickle, sometimes, you slip on a big of debris are set off balance and Grond catches you with a haymaker and you go flying.
I just retconned into taking Circle of Primal Dominion at R3 and fought Warlord and the added knock resistance of (allegedly) +480% did absolutely nothing at all. Seriously? +480% knock resistance and it had no effect? I'm starting to think that knock resistance just isn't working at all in this game.
EDIT: Tested with a SG friend who specialises in knocking. Definitely works but then why do I get knocked the same distance by Warlord whether I have the circle out or not?
Its meant to stop ranged knock back ...MEANT...but ya it doesnt no matter how much ego I put on ima still bounching offa the walls with those damn shotguns :P
*edit*
Ok now im confused >_>
http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Talent:Strength
Seems I was right the first time...Cryptic messes with the damn stats way to much peeps dont know whats what.
The only time knock resistance has made a significant impact in gameplay for me when i was running about 1000%. Yeah, it's not feasible to run that all that time.
I've tested kb res against players too, and it appears to do next to nothing. KB res needs some addressing, namely it should make you nigh unpuntable if you set your stats to it.
Oh, and mob rank should diminish their chance at KB. Underlevel (weak) status Nephilim minions will send me flying all the damn time. That's stupid.
Sorry, but I really am curious as to how much of a majority you are referring to. Would you be willing to share the data you used to measure what the majority want ?
Personally I dont think that a mechanic that prevents people from being able to death-zerg rush a boss repeatedly until he finally succumbs due to the fact that he is essentially facing an infinite number fo superheroes is fake difficulty. There isnt really anything fake about a hero who has been rendered unconscious (or temporarily dead
Not having the lockout is more 'fake' ease than having it is fake difficulty. Without the lockout the boss might as well not fight back, or might as well just do zero damage with each hit. If the player character effectively has infinite stun there is no point to attacking him.
That said, I admit that I have always disliked situations where AoE DOT effects make resurrecting an ally impossible.
What's the difference in their lockout mechanic? First, it gathers the whole group so no one is left out of the start of the fight. Secondly, it tells you that it'll lock you out so that you stay put and wait for a rez. Finally, and most importantly importantly, everyone can rez.
Its the difference between fun lockouts (ooh I can't mess up!) and stupid seemingly pointless ones (oh wow almost everyone is dead and no one has a rez anyways).
Plus, its not like granting a rez to everyone is a game-breaking thing anyways (barring game-geo exploits related to rezzing, but I'm sure Cryptic is on top of that).
Despite all this it's still a horrible mechanic. I remember the first time I 'beat' the end boss. I died and wasn't ressed in the second of three phases, then waited around for 10-15 minutes while my teammate hydra'd him to death.
Listening in on the forums and zone chat, I am hearing at least 2-1 "Lockouts suck! Get rid of it!" versus "Oooh! Make me SUFFER! Harder, please, keep this!"
Pardon the strawman, and statistics are a sketchy science at best. But public opinion, to my ears (and listen intently) seems to be at least 2-1 "this sucks".
As for Fake dfficulty, please see link:
Fake Difficulty
Warning, TV Tropes! -- but points 3 and 4 both qualify in this particular case.
Its also definable as an artificial, tacked-on element that is not present in regular gameplay, which -- its not -- added to content to make it more challenging externally rather than legitimately.
The more you know.
Between the unresistable knockbacks and the requirement to use the power armor to advance the mission, thereby reducing my defenses, and the nearly oneshot attacks of the boss, and the utterly stupid lockout mechanism, this mission is a waste of time.
This alert does not sound currently like fun, and while i will try it at least once most of the people i usually team with won't!
Now i don't begrudge those who want or need the extra challenges to have their fun. I also don't want to miss out on getting to complete some alerts because they are made solely for the more skilled and not-disabled gamers. But it doesn't need to be an either-or dillema. Because all content can be made with two simple tiers, casual gamers and the elite, or in other words easy mode and difficult mode.
Having some alerts made just for the people wanting to play it in higher amount of difficulty is just mean. And it turns off many casual gamers.
Give the folks who want the extra challenge their challenges by making a higher-difficulty version of all alerts and let those of us who are noobs or casual gamers or less skilled or less physically able or who just don't enjoy extreme difficulty to have the same fun too!
Unless both the casual gamers and the eliters are equally well served then the game will lose players from one or the other and can it really afford loosing many of either? Already some of the people i have played with have stopped playing for a variety of reasons (the last needing to retcon most of their characters was the last straw for one). The extra bit of effort to keep everyone happy is possible, and it's needed.
And yet noone has has really responded to the argument of player's zerg'ng the bosses to win the fights. If anyone has any better ideas, let's hear 'em.
It's not a problem so there doesn't need to be a solution.
So...you're okay with zero chance at failure? Because I'm not.
I like the idea of ditching the rez powers in exchange for anyone being able to rez to some degree. As for the Diablo 3 reference... well... let's just say I ended up hating most of Blizzard's games. But, that's my personal opinions and preferences.
You don't need lockout mechanics to fail. Make it sufficiently hard, and believe it's hard enough already, and people will fail simply due to the boss regenning to full every time he wipes the party. Plenty of people are already failing this alert due to people quiting out of frustration. The lockout, by itself at least, wasn't the way to go. If they are going to make heavy use of lockout mechanics, they need to re-work the system, since you aren't even guaranteed a healer, none the less a rezzer on your team.
Stick a time limit on the boss fight. That'd do it. Similar penalties to when you lose a team member in a Dockside Dustup, except with a working countdown
You know what's worse than zero chance of failure? Anything less than a 90% chance of fun. Fun may or may not be connected to chance of failure, but it's definately always connected to:
* Frustration.
* Steep Learning Curve
* Confusion
* Unclear and/or Inobvious requirements for success
* Unadaptive difficulty set above capabilities of player
Too much of these is a deathknell for fun. And it doesn't take a lot of them to send people elsewhere for their fun. Challenge is a far less important quotiont of fun for most people. For the smaller portion for who it is important then there are higher difficulty levels in missions, alerts just need a varying difficulty system too so you get your higher chances of failure and i get my higher chances of fun. Everyone wins then don't they?
1) Resign yourself to probably getting aced a few times on the way in. If you haven't opened the way to Warlord yet, it just means you respawn at the front door and have to make your way back to the fight.
2) Use a ranged-damage toon. Run up to the balcony rail when Warlord's room opens, then wait until someone else grabs aggro, and open up on him from the balcony. Note that if you fire before someone else aggroes him, his flamethrower can and will reach the balcony.
I ran this tonight with HandyMan, an Inventor, assuming that his Support Drones would help the other players. I turned Warlord into a pink teddy bear twice!
Being killed is failure enough.
See, I don't find rolling over content fun.
I agree that there are problems with the new alert, and believe that it should give clear warning that there is a lockout, but I'm not against the lockout, it forces players to not barge in, be a little more cautious when taking hits, and consider refining their build if they continue to have problems.
I like steep learning curves. Fights that are learned within moments are dull. The most fun I've had in any game was trying to down a dungeon that was built to be impossible without acquiring gear from that dungeon. It took my group several months of frequent gameplay, build crunching, team makeups, and learning the boss mechanics before we finally beat it. And it was an amazing feeling of accomplishment when we finally did. This was the norm for said dungeon as well, no group beat it until a month or so after it's launch.
I wish upon wishes we had content like that in this game. The Warlord lair is not terrible, it's not difficult, and the learning curve is an absolute minimal. I will fault it for not requesting a player's role for team makeup, as running it without someone who is capable of holding aggro most certainly makes it more difficult. My suggestion there would be to only run it as such a character, or to invest in a premade team if you are dead set on running that one alert.
Champions is starved of difficult content. I'm enjoying that they're creeping up the difficulty with these unique alerts, and hope that they will one day release a full fledged built to be impossible lair that players can work together and device a way to complete.
OK, some/most/all would try elite version at least once. A small number of player would try elite until they win it. But after that, everyone would play normal.
What I have seen in this or any other given MMO game is, that the number of players that want super challenge every single day, 24/7 is practically zero(0).
Exception is, if elite mode brings elite loot.
Afraid that I disagree.
I agree with you here, but I don't agree with finding a steep learning curve fun at all (diversity is the only constant in the world, however, and I don't find this a problem).
Lockouts can be fun. Sometimes, as long as it's done well, 'fake difficulty' (along with a number of other tropes) can be alright. I think the main issue here is the lack of telegraphing that issue in advance. Alerts and other fights that have a lock-out feature should telegraph that fact (in a pop-up at the relevant portion, preferably) when it is in effect, and the content itself should tell you that in it's description while queueing up (if you don't read that stuff, that's your fault; they gave you the info, your ability to disregard it isn't their problem) for that content so you can take the necessary measures (if possible - something as simple as making sure you have a Triumphant Recovery on-hand, and with the level-up boxes handing those out like candy a large amount of characters should be able to stack those up).
Note: While I am for lock-outs in fights, I am also against (in a super-hero setting) hard lockouts where there's nothing to be done about it. I think this (and future alerts) can benefit from a 'soft' lockout (you have to do X or Y thing in order to bust yourself back into the scene). I don't mind this being somewhat prohibitive for certain ATs or builds (though if someone else can come assist in bailing you out, that would be acceptable, but not necessary).
Nothing is more boring then watching other people fight with your nose pressed to the glass. Being able to do something to actively rectify that situation is a lot better, in my personal opinion (even if it includes a 'hard' or 'soft' Enrage timer to go with it to compensate).
EDIT: Best example of what a 'fun' lockout type can be, for me - GW has a boss-fight at the end of Factions where, randomly, he will 'displace' one of your party members. Said party member is teleported to one of a few locations on the map, and a mob (dependent on that character's class) summoned in their place. They then have to fight their way through minions (ignorant of their ability to do so - support classes with little damage potential have the hardest time here) in order to get back to the action, or the party has to kill their 'double' to get them back. Not really a lockout, per-se, but the 'respawned in a specific location and having to fight back' part is easily adaptable.
Or the Mayhem missions from CoH/V where if you're defeated, you get sent to 'jail' and have to bust your way out... and sometimes the mob spawns, for certain team sizes, can make it unwise to break out by yourself for a lot of builds. Doing this eats up valuable time in the mission itself.
Well said.
I personally dont consider a lock-out to be fake difficulty, but agree that a soft lockout (such as the one in the Shiro fight that you mention) is more interesting than just watching everyone else fight on without you.
So what is it, do we want the lock-out removed and let Warlord Alert be the generic "clear all mobs + boss" where graveyard-rush tactics win the day even if the team is doing abysmally poor? If you ask me, that's counter-productive to a player properly honing their skills and improving their A-game.
To be fair, if Cryptic had bothered to give an early warning about the lock-out and to get players prepared ahead-of-time without thinking that they can graveyard-rush, the failure rate could have been decreased.
Better than having a situation where the poor players do nothing for as long as it takes for the fight to resolve after they die.
Ahh, Shiro Tagachi...
Damn it, I've got a nostalgia flash now because of you.
On topic: After failing the Alert on my first two tries (Kaiserin, no offense I find it damn impressive you can stand in the napalm patches, but please consider that not everyone uses the same build as you do; I mostly play ranged squishies for example and being knocked into one of the patches by one of Warlord's stray grenades just means instant death for moi) I'd say it definately is not so bad. Potential for improvement is there though.
One could:
- Warn the players about a lockout. That is the least in my opinion.
- Try the soft lockout approach as mentioned by Yuri. In case of the Warlord Alert, maybe destroying a generator guarded by two villains class Shadow Army soldiers, which allows you (and only you, every player has to destroy another generator) to rejoin the fight.
EDIT: I just realized that the War Machine, Warlord's personal team of enforcers are 5 supervillains. Let each on of them guard a generator. If you are defeated in the battle with Warlord, you have to defeat a randomly chosen member of the War Machine (standard supervillain) and you can rejoin the fight with Warlord himself.
Here. (Forgive the sketchiness.)
The black X are the generators. The light blue walls are forcefields which are active before you start the fight with Warlord himself. You cant get to the members of the War Machine at this point. The dark blue line is the lockout forcefield. Now you are defeated and respawn at the point I marked with entrance (the blasted wall). Now you get a message: 'Defeat Warcry to rejoin the fight!' The forcefield of Warcry goes down, you defeat Warcry, destroy the generator and then you can rejoin the fight with Warlord. Defeating every member of the War Machine and Warlord himself could grant you the 'Warmaster' perk and title.
- Find another approach to put some difficulty in the Alerts, instead of the lockout. This is of course the hardest way, but probably also the most rewarding, both for the Devs and the players.
Thanks for the advice, tried it twice with my main Dr Cerebellum Sapphobotica who's at level 39 Tempest. First run got through just as you suggested but the second while i wasn't first to attack i pretty quickly was getting flamed up on the balcony and by blocking so much i barely got to attack i was the last to fall nevertheless it was a TPK, total party kill. I don't like my chances of ever getting that new bubble-dome helmet drop
*snip*
Actually i agree. I started doing alerts because they are fun and when waiting for teammates between missioning together and then i started grinding questionite for the electric flight (nearly halfway there) and as a result i'm nearly maxed out and haven't even started non-crisis monster island. Which is why i started a thread in the suggestions section about allowing us to find missions we've missed and allowing us to sidekick down to the missions level. Others have had similar suggestions i've supported. But i still find too great a difficulty less engaging and far more de-immersing than a cakewalk. An easy time i can still focus on the story and graphics and fun in-character banter over audio with my friends, when too difficult all that is forgotten in the stress and frustration and the focus on the mechanics needed to win and for that i may as well be playing chess or a maths-heavy tabletop wargame.
I'm all for greater difficulty as an option for players wanting more challenges. Thats what difficulty levels are for. Problem is we don't have them in alerts, but we need them.
Then they'd have lost any grounds to complain. Their laziness would be no reason for denying others less skilled from being able to enjoy the game, there's no sense in that. Having a choice of more challenge is good, it'd mean everyone has the challenge level approporiate to them and no-one misses out on cool missions and cool rewards. If people want the greater difficulty but not it as an option, if they need others to be denied the ability to finish some missions what are they really asking for?
Then they should make it a point to do their best not to get defeated. The very existence of the lock-out is supposed to be an incentive for that, and not for players to think they can can steam roll everything without consequences or risk.
Or perhaps people don't play games to be challenged any more. Gimme that hack for infinite lives for Super Contra for a super good time.
The one failure was where all the other players had left by the time we go to the prototype room. I cleared the prototype room, blasted a hole to Warlord and proceeded to do some very lively tanking thank you very much.
I was able to get him down to the third life bar when he started laying down the fire patches to where I as a melee toon couldn't get to him. **Heavy Sigh**
Basically this seems like a scenario geared towards heavy tanking.
Challenge is fine; what is not challenging is entering the Alert for the first time and when encountering the final boss:
- Having 4 people in a 5 person Alert because one dropped
- Havnig your travel power cancelled out (was there a story reason for this? If so, I missed it, but if not, how about one?)
- Finding yourself standing alone against the boss, wondering why the other heroes are just standing there, doing nothing. Again, where did the forcefield come from? Why wasn't it up in the first place, and only appears after one hero is defeated?
The mechanic of the unexplained forcefield lockout and the unexplained travel power negation are poor subsitution for creative encounter mechanics. And why go to the trouble of explaining what Warlod is doing there, but then NOT explain where the forcefield comes from, or why your travel powers don't work? Really? What happened to storytelling in this game?
I understand not wanting the heroes to be able to zerg Warlord, but then give the forcefield a hefty health bar and allow the fallen heroes to break through it, only to have it reappear 5 seconds later. A temporary lockout that makes the players still feel like heroes by giving them something to do while their allies face the big bad. Explain the forcefield is a much larger version of the energy fields on the new armor that they're testing as a new security measure, and that, while up, it also suppresses meta-movement, to prevent superspeed and teleporting thieves.
Please - the concept for themed Alerts is a good one, but if you're going to start something, follow-through the whole way. Like a lot of other things in this game, this feels like you got 90% of the way in and said, "Eh, well, it's good enough for now".
Fix that problem with the lockout and my acceptance for it will increase.
So it's not all black or white here.
One need to take a deep breath and smell the napalm once in a while rather than become some rabid cat with the claws out.
But on that note... If I want challenge I'll play a game specifically made to be challenged. Not one that gets a single challenging mission which throws off the normal dullness somewhat.
*sigh* at the Cryptic screen: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, then Start
I hope you appreciate this, I'm gonna be facing a forum ban for posting exploits.
I just remembered most keyboards these days have a start key...oh boy
Yesterday we had a group of 5 that worked together and got it done. So I got the mission and Queued up for another go. This time from the beginning we had 1 goon, probably his second hero (you know who you are) who sat out the fight up stairs. I suppose one other player (you also know who you are) must have noticed while we were getting knocked all over that the leach wasn't helping so he left, leaving 3 to go on. Something needs to be done about leaches and quiters.
Minimum level requirements so when Team SKd to 30 they at least have the powers? Some sort of penalty or ban for leaches who don't fight?
It's hard to "do you best not to get defeated" when defeat arrives literally out of nowhere. It's like advising someone who's just arrived in the Desert at lvl 15 to "do their best not to get beaten up by Grond."
I wonder what Active Defenses are for? His flamethrower attack doesn't come out of the blue either, it can be predicted and neither is it a one-shot. It's a pretty fast DoT I give it that, but certainly doesn't kill you in a single hit, and most certainly not if you're quick enough block it.
Only that it's not entirely impossible to get away from Grond, and that you're not forced to go toe-to-toe with him.
I think a parallel can be drawn from the statement in some way.